Winston’s audience for his speech in Bath, western England, belonged to the Primrose League which had been co-founded by his father Lord Randolph Churchill in 1883.
Liberal Tory democracy
To their astonishment and dismay, these deep-dyed Conservatives listened to Winston’s explanation of Tory democracy, a liberal version of Conservatism in which he praised recent moves by the Tory government to pay compensation to men injured while working in dangerous trades.
Winston even suggested that one day, it might be possible for workmen to become shareholders in the business for which they worked. This was the last thing League members expected to hear from a representative of the aristocratic ruling class like Winston Churchill.
Late 19th century Britain was intensely class-conscious. In this scheme of things, the working classes were generally meant to submit to their lowly place in life, not expect their high-born masters to demonstrate a duty of care towards them.
Winston’s speech was the first, but by no means the last, time a British audience would see him as the protector of a class less fortunate than himself, but several years would pass before he could make a practical contribution to politics in this new guise.
Return to India
For the moment, though, Winston had to return to his regiment in India and he was back in Bangalore within three weeks. Nevertheless, he had not forgotten his literary or journalistic ambitions and it was not long before he embarked on a novel, entitled Savrola, a romance with a political slant set in an imaginary republic.
Soon afterward, Winston received a letter from Sir Bindon Blood, commander of a field force recently formed to quash a revolt among Pathan tribesmen on India’s northwest frontier. Sir Bindon, a friend of Winston’s aunt, the Duchess Lily, had promised to include Winston in any frontier campaign he might lead in future. Now, in August of 1897, Winston’s chance for action had finally arrived and he was elated.
On the Northwest Frontier
Winston departed Bangalore for the frontier, more than 2,175 miles distant, on August 29. His mother Jennie had already persuaded the Daily Telegraph newspaper to print his reports from the front, and Churchill himself arranged to send a daily telegram to the Allahabad Pioneer journal in India.
This represented Winston’s greatest journalistic coup so far, but, as always, his political prospects were uppermost in his mind. He wrote to Jennie: “I feel that the fact of having seen service with British troops while still a young man must give me more weight politically ... and may perhaps improve my prospects of gaining popularity with the country.”
In early September 1897, Winston reached Malakand on the northwest frontier. This mountainous region was British-Indian territory, but the Afghan and Afridi tribesmen who lived along the border were fiercely independent and deeply resented British attempts to control their lives.
These ferocious warriors, who were known to cut to pieces any wounded men left on the battlefield, were engaged in bloody warfare against the British Army, which included regiments of Indian sepoys, such as the Punjab Irregulars.
The Malakand Field Force
When Winston arrived to take part in the Malakand campaign, some fifty thousand of these British and Indian troops faced the tribesmen from across the border. The dangers, however, did not inhibit
Winston’s reckless bravery. Ordered by Sir Bindon to join the second brigade of the Malakand Field Force, Winston put himself in the thick of the fighting.
He deliberately took up dangerously exposed positions within range of Afridi rifle fire and when the British troops withdrew, he was the last to leave the scene. In the confusion, Winston fired at almost point blank range to kill an Afridi who was about to slice up a wounded British officer, and afterward rescued an injured Sikh from the same fate.
Winston remained in action with the Malakand Field Force for the next month. He spent hours under fire and was often involved in violent close-quarter fighting. When it was over, he emerged unscathed, though shocked by the barbarities he had witnessed on both sides. The Afridis, he wrote “kill and mutilate everyone they catch and we do not hesitate to finish off their wounded.”
Back in Bangalore in the third week of October 1897, he wrote that his time on the northwest frontier had been “the most glorious and delightful that my life has yet contained.” He was delighted to receive a campaign medal and, for his prowess, a mention in dispatches.
Political ambitions
“I am more ambitious for a reputation for personal courage than anything else in the world” he wrote to his mother ‘... I feel I took every chance and displayed myself with ostentation wherever there was danger.” Malakand, Winston concluded “was quite a foundation for political life.”
Winston’s first published book The Story of the Malakand Field Force: an Episode of Frontier War, appeared in London in March 1898 and was reprinted the following year. It was a popular success and marked Winston out as a promising young writer. The book also provided a solution to the pressing problem of his finances, which had been rapidly depleted by Jennie’s extravagant spending.
The Malakand campaign proved to be a lucrative experience for Winston: he earned around $652 from his book and his newspaper reports, representing some $32,600 or more in today’s money.
Nevertheless, financial problems were so dire that by 1898, only three years after Lord Randolph’s death, Winston had to warn his mother that her spending on clothes, entertaining and travel had cost one quarter of “our entire fortune in the world.”
Unfortunately, Winston’s writing did little for his popularity in the fourth Hussars. His fellow officers resented his opportunism and his profits. In the military ethos of the time, Winston’s interest in self-promotion, medal-hunting and moneymaking was considered vulgar.
Please See Also: The Life and Politics of Winston Churchill: Battle of Omdurman
Sources
Churchill, Winston: The Story of the Malakand Field Force (Dover Books on Military History) (London, UK: Dover Publications, 2010)by
ISBN-10: 0486474747/ISBN-13: 978-0486474748
Churchill, Winston: Savrola: A Tale Of The Revolution In Laurania (1899) (Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing LLC, 2010) ISBN-10: 1166189929/ISBN-13: 978-1166189921
Churchill, soldier and journalist
Brenda Ralph Lewis - My interest in history dates from childhood. I am presently the author of 120 books and hundreds of articles, all on historical ...
