Shoot Out at Sidney Street

Indian politician Shashi Tharoor has made it a habit to attack Churchill’s legacy. The thrust of his critique is that Churchill was a bloodthirsty tyrant. Same old, same old. There is a lot that can be said about the errors Tharoor makes (and I plan on saying a lot about them). For now, I’d like to focus on one of Tharoor's stranger criticisms of Churchill. Of the Sidney Street siege, Tharoor writes:

“As home secretary, he [Churchill] enjoyed personally directing military repression, even assuming operational command of the police during a siege of armed Latvian anarchists in Stepney, where he took the decision to allow them to be burned to death in a house where they were trapped”

This is an extremely bizarre characterization of the events, and of Churchill’s role in them. As an example of military repression, Tharoor is really scraping the barrel for examples here.

Churchill observing the Siege of Sidney Street.

Background

Tharoor doesn’t go into the background to the siege. This might be due to reasons of space. However, it’s possible that he figured that if he did, then the siege wouldn’t look like an instance of military repression to any fair-minded reader. Or maybe he just didn’t care about accuracy and is throwing any old complaint at Churchill, hoping something sticks. Who knows what goes through his mind? 

The crucial point that must be borne in mind when discussing the siege of Sidney Street is that the anarchists involved were violent and extremely dangerous criminals.

On 16th December 1910, a gang broke into a jewelry shop on 11 Exchange Buildings by digging through the wall from a neighbouring building. A resident heard strange noises and reported it to a Police Constable on his nearby beat. The constable gathered other policemen – seven uniformed and two plain-clothed – from nearby. These policemen were unarmed, apart from wooden truncheons. When Sergeants Bentley, Tucker, and Constable Woodham, entered the building they were shot at by the gang. All three were seriously injured. Bentley was shot in the shoulder and the neck, Bryant was hit in the arm and the chest, and Woodham was hit in the leg. As the gang made an escape from the property, other policemen intervened and were shot at. Sergeant Tucker was killed instantly. Constable Choate wrestled with one of the gang members for their pistol, but the other gang members shot him repeatedly.  The gangsters escaped, although one of them, George Gardstein, would succumb to wounds he sustained in fighting Constable Choate. Sergeants Tucker and Bentley also succumbed to their injuries. The latter retained consciousness for long enough to have a final conversation with his pregnant wife before he died. 

The murdered policemen.

The killing of three policemen in one incident shocked the nation. It is not common for cops to be killed in mainland Britain. A memorial service for the murdered men was held at St Paul’s Cathedral on the 23rd of December 1910. As the men were taken to their final resting place, three-quarters of a million Londoners lined the streets to pay their respects.

In January 1911 two members of the gang – Svaars and Sokoloff – were tracked down to an address on Sidney Street, in Stepney. After spending much of the morning evacuating other residents of the address, at 07:30 the police banged on the door. There was no reply. As you might expect, the anarchists were not early risers. So, the police threw a brick through a window. The gangsters replied by shooting at the police. Sergeant Leeson was hit in the chest. Thankfully he recovered (Rumbelow, The Houndsditch Murders, p.130). 

Thus began the siege of Sidney Street, and it is worth pointing out that Tharoor’s alleged victims of Churchillian “military repression” were in fact the instigators of the gunfight. They fired the first shot. The police, in fact, was forbidden by the law at the time to fire the first shot (Rumbelow, The Houndsditch Murders, p.129). Had the gangsters surrendered to the police, the siege would have never taken place. 

The police were outgunned by the gangsters. The latter were armed with automatic Mauser pistols, while the former were armed with inferior revolvers and Morris Tube rifles. An hour into the gunfight the police on the scene telephoned Scotland Yard and requested from the Assistant Commissioner, Major Wodehouse, that troops be brought in to reinforce the police (Rumbelow, The Houndsditch Murders, p.132). Such a request required the approval of the Home Secretary – Winston Churchill. He was not at the Home Office at the time (he had received news about the gunfight when he was at his home and was still commuting to work), but officials approved the despatch of twenty Scots Guards from the Tower of London anyway. Churchill retrospectively approved the despatch when he arrived at the Home Office (Gilbert, A Life, p.223).

As there were no further details of the situation, Churchill decided to head to Sidney Street to see the events for himself (Gilbert, A Life, p.223). But Tharoor is wrong to claim that Churchill “took operational command”. He did not, and numerous writers attest to that:

Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer, writes that “at no point did Churchill direct the siege” (Gilbert, A Life, p.224). 

Gilbert himself quotes Sydney Holland, a director of the Underground Railway (who was with Churchill during the siege) as saying:

The only possible excuse for anyone saying [Churchill] gave orders is that [he] did once and very rightly go forward and wave back the crowd at the end of the road (quoted in Gilbert, A Life, p.224).

Donald Rumbelow, a former curator of the City of London’s Police Museum, wrote that:

[Churchill] had no wish to take personal control but his position of authority inevitably attracted to itself direct responsibility. He saw that he would have done much better to have remained in his office but it was impossible to get into his car and drive away while matters were so uncertain and – he wrote later – so ‘extremely interesting’. (Rumbelow, The Houndsditch Murders, p.136)

According to Roy Jenkins:

There is some uncertainty as to whether Churchill attempted to give operational commands. To the police he almost certainly did not, although the officer in charge of a fraught operation, in which yet another policeman was killed and two wounded, must have found it more inhibiting than encouraging to have to perform in the presence of such an elevated superior. (Jenkins, A Biography, p.195)

Basil Thomson wrote that:

I confess that we were both astounded by the news that the newly appointed Home Secretary, Mr. Winston Churchill, had himself started in one of the police cars for the scene of the siege - it was erroneously believed to take command of the operations....But he never overstepped official correctitude (Thomson, The Story of Scotland Yard, p.195)

It may be the practice in modern India for politicians to take personal command of police operations, but that was not what Churchill did. 

Tharoor then attacks Churchill for taking “the decision to allow them [the gangsters] to be burned to death in a house where they were trapped”. As with so many criticisms of Churchill, there is a grain of truth mixed with complete falsehoods. The house the gangsters were in caught fire. That is true. According to Philip Gibbs, a journalist who witnessed the whole affair from the top of the nearby The Rising Sun pub, the criminals set the fire themselves and spread it around the house using paraffin (Gibbs, Adventures in Journalism, p.67).

The owner of this pub charged journalists to view the event from his roof

The fire brigade arrived, and they were instructed by police not to attack the fire. A junior firefighter, called Cyril Morris, went to Churchill asking him to overrule the police and let them put out the blaze. He refused to do so and instead told them to wait. 

Cyril Morris, pictured in 1936

Why would Churchill do this? Was it cruel? Was Churchill giving into his bloodthirsty and brutal nature? Not really.

Firstly, the part about the anarchists being “trapped” in the building is just made-up completely as far as I can tell. There was nothing stopping them from surrendering at any time. Of course, since they had attempted to murder an unknown number of policemen that day and had previously been involved in the actual killing of three policemen, it is likely they would have spent the rest of their lives (likely not too long since Britain had capital punishment back then) in gaol had they done so. Therefore, they decided to fight on. According to one policeman's report on the events:

It will be borne in mind that it was open to these men at any time to leave the burning house and surrender by coming into the street without their weapons and putting their hands up in the usual manner (quoted in Rogers, The Battle of Stepney, p.115).

Secondly, Tharoor leaves out that the gunmen continued to shoot at the police and army while the building was enveloped in flames!

Soon there was another shout: ‘The second floor is alight! They must surrender or suffocate’. Gradually the smoke became thicker. Slowly it funnelled through the shattered windows and rolled in billowing clouds out through the front and back of the house and gathered over the roof like an angry storm cloud….[A] reporter could see a gas jet burning steadily in the first-floor room and guessed that the men had deliberately set fire to the house before attempting to escape. The most likely route was through the back of the house where earlier the waiting detectives had seen two men come to an upstairs window. One of them was carrying two pistols which he fired simultaneously through the window… (Rumbelow, The Houndsditch Murders, pp.136-137)

Churchill’s stated rationale was to protect the firefighters. To quote Martin Gilbert:

Returning from this reconnaissance, Churchill found that the house had caught fire. At that moment a junior fire brigade officer came up to him and said that the fire brigade had arrived. He understood he was not to put out the fire at present.

‘Was that right?’ the officer asked.

‘Quite right,’ Churchill replied. ‘I accept full responsibility. 

From what he saw at that moment, Churchill later told the Coroner, 'it would have meant loss of life and limb to any fire brigade officer who had gone within effective range of the building'. In agreeing that the fire brigade should stand back, he was acting 'as a covering authority' for the police in charge, in what was clearly a situation of 'unusual' difficulty. 'I thought it better to let the house burn down,' he explained to Asquith” (Gilbert, A Life, p.224).

Melville Mcnaughten,  Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, confirmed that this was the reason for holding back the firefighters in his memoirs:

What has caused the fire ? Some are of opinion that the desperadoes themselves have done it. Personally I incline to the belief that one of the many hundreds of bullets pumped into the house pierced a gaspipe. But, after all, it matters little how it came about. It is sufficient that the house is burning — let it burn ! A fire engine comes up, but the police do not permit it to approach within one hundred and fifty yards of the burning premises. Shots are still being exchanged, and the lives of our gallant firemen are far too valuable to be sacrificed on the funeral pyre of alien miscreants (Mcnaghten, Days of My Years, p.261) [emphasis added].

Incidentally - and it’s a pedantic point but if I can’t be pedantic on my own blog where can I be? - only one of the gangsters was killed by the fire. The other was shot in the head during the firefight (Rumbelow, The Houndsditch Murders, p.137; Gilbert, A Life, p.224). 

Conclusion

One has to ask, what on earth Churchill should have done differently? What would Tharoor have done had he been in Churchill’s position? Perhaps he thinks Churchill should he have cancelled the despatch of troops and sent a note to the police saying:

No troops. The criminals should have the advantage in their gunfight with you. Best of luck, W.S.C

For the sake of the Indian police, I hope Tharoor isn’t tendering advice along these lines to Modi!

Was Churchill wrong to hold back the firefighters? Firefighters are used to risking their lives to save members of the public, but normally they don’t have to contend with a hail of bullets to rescue some murderers. Had Churchill told them to attack the fire and a number of them were shot, would we be praising Churchill for sending them in or would he be open to criticism for recklessly risking their lives? Something tells me that for Tharoor, Churchill could never have done anything right.

Finally, there is an amusing irony in the complaint. On the one hand, Churchill is attacked because of the (false) impression that he took over operational command of the siege. However, at the same time, Tharoor attacks him for refusing to overrule the police’s statement that the firefighters stand down until further notice. So which one is it? Is Churchill wrong for taking over control from the police, or wrong for going along with what the police say?

Bibliography

Gibbs, Philip, Adventures in Journalism (Harper & Brothers, 1923)

Gilbert, Martin, Churchill: A Life (Pimlico, 2000)

Jenkins, Roy, Churchill: A Biography (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001)

Mcnaghten, Melville, Days of My Years (Edward Arnold, 1914)

Rogers, Colin, The Battle of Stepney: The Sidney Street Siege: Its Causes and Consequences (Robert Hale, 1981)

Rumbelow, Donald, The Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street (The History Press, 2009)

Thomson, Basil, The Story of Scotland Yard (Doubleday, Doran & Co, 1936)

In the Trenches

Otto English (né Andrew Scott) is a journalist who has recently published a book on historical myths. He devotes one whole chapter to what he regards as the myth that Churchill was Britain’s greatest Prime Minister. His book has not been well received by historians, with one describing it as among the “worst books about history I have ever read”. In spite of this though, his book is a bestseller on Amazon, ranking in the top ten in the category of “World History”.

Judging by the reviews, many of his readers are accepting Otto English’s arguments hook, line and sinker. “Well written, balanced, and fair””, says one. “Interesting, informative and irreverent" says another. “[A] brilliant exposure of the lies we are exposed to daily about our past” says another. Laypeople are taking Otto English seriously. So, despite his work not being proper history but merely political polemic (as some of his defenders suggest) it is worth responding to.

Mr. English clearly thinks he is a brave defender of the “truth” (no joke, he actually believes this). For him, the idea that Churchill was a great Prime Minister is propaganda being used by Brexiteers and Tories. He seems particularly irked by the current UK Prime Minister’s biography of Churchill. In fact, English’s guiding principle when writing his own book seems to have been “if the Prime Minister says X, then X never happened”. 

Now, for the record, I have not read Boris Johnson’s biography of Churchill. I likely never will. English is so blinded by his dislike of him though that he makes some egregious errors. In fact, he goes further than that. A close examination reveals that Otto English is deliberately misleading his readers by presenting half-truths and lying by omission. I will demonstrate this by reviewing his treatment of Winston Churchill’s time on the Western Front during the First World War.

Otto English on Churchill in the Trenches

For years people accepted that Churchill’s service in the army in 1915 and 1916 was to his credit. But we’ve been misled, according to English. He writes that Churchill was never really in any danger as he was posted to a quiet part of the front, miles away from the “actual war”. It is highly unlikely he ever ventured into No Man’s Land. He spent his time strutting around in an Adrian helmet, making his men practice marching (badly), writing letters, and painting watercolour. He dismisses as a “complete fabrication” the idea that Churchill was in danger. As a commander of troops Churchill proved incompetent so it was probably a good thing for the men that they were miles away from the front line with Churchill.

Anyone even remotely familiar with Churchill’s time on the Western Front will recognize this as downright wrong. It’s so wrong a reader might think I am strawmanning him. I am not. 

English goes on to say that after a few months Churchill got “bored stiff” of being a soldier and decided to leave the war after a few months.

But if Otto English’s characterization of Johnson’s description of Churchill’s time at the front is anything to go by, Johnson produced a more careful and accurate book than Otto English’s Fake History. (Lest anyone take this as an endorsement of Johnson, please see this review by Richard Evans.)

What Otto English Gets Correct

Otto English isn’t completely wrong. A few things he writes are correct. However, this is highly revealing as to his methodology. For example, Churchill did, on one occasion, erroneously give a cavalry command to the infantry, causing them confusion. The late military historian, Carlo D’Este, described it thus:

The 6^th Fusiliers were assembled on a slope when Churchill appeared riding his black charger and began barking out commands: ‘Royal Scots Fusiliers! Fix Bayonets!’ The whole scene was farcical: ‘The command could not possibly be carried out from the slope position. A couple of the chaps put their rifles on the ground and pulled out their bayonets; the rest were merely mystified. Eventually [Captain] Gibb persuaded Churchill to call “Order Arms” and to fix their bayonets in the normal way. Winston then inspected the men. Having done so, he gave a cavalry order: “Sections Right!” This meant nothing to the Jocks [Scots], who had the sense to stand still and do nothing.’ (D’Este, Warlord, p.313)

Oops. Pretty embarrassing, still no real harm done. Churchill himself was a cavalryman originally, and since took place on his first day with Fusiliers we can probably cut him a little slack.

It is also true that Churchill wore a French helmet, an Adrian helmet. He also found a little time to do some painting. However, there is much more to the story. The fact that Mr. English gets these details right suggests that he has done some research on this aspect of Churchill’s life. This also makes sit inexcusable that he only discusses these aspects. English is clearly trying to spin a narrative and in doing so is deceiving his readers.

English is right to describe how Churchill’s experience at the front as a Member of Parliament was not unique. Churchill was not the only MP to see combat in World War One. A number of MPs were killed in action. But, did anyone ever claim otherwise? Not as far as I know. English is tilting at windmills here. I am not sure that Churchill and other MPs are on a reputational seesaw. It doesn’t take anything away from Churchill that other people saw more combat during the First World War than Churchill did.

Why Churchill Left for the Front

In May 1915, Churchill resigned as First Lord of the Admiralty, scapegoated for the failures of the Dardanelles campaign. In November the same year, he resigned from the Cabinet. Churchill was left with two options – either do nothing and retire or re-enlist in the army and serve his country on the battlefield. In fact, there is reason to believe that Churchill had always intended on re-joining the army eventually. In 1914 he wrote to his brother Jack that:

As soon as the decisive battle has been fought at sea – I shall try to come out to; if there is any use for me (quoted in Russell, Soldier, p.359).

After Gallipoli, when he was no longer able to influence the grand strategy in London, he likely decided that he was of best use to his country in the army. As he put it in a letter to Curzon:

I did not go [to the front] because I wished to disinterest myself in the great situation or because I feared the burden or the blow: but because I was and am sure that for the time being my usefulness was exhausted & that I cd only recover it b a definite & perhaps prolonged withdrawal (quoted in Russell, Soldier, p.376)

Churchill's Experience at the Front

Otto English is wrong to suggest that Churchill spent barely any time at the front. Deducting time spent on leave and in the rear, historian Paul Addison estimated that Churchill spent roughly one hundred days on the front line (Addison, Unexpected Hero, p. 84)

On November 18^th Churchill arrived in France. He was immediately (and unexpectedly) taken to see General Sir John French, C-in-C of the British Expeditionary Force. The General thought very highly of Churchill and offered him a promotion to Brigadier General and command of an infantry brigade. Churchill accepted, but suggested that before he assume command, he should spend time at the battalion level so he might be educated in the ways of trench warfare. The General agreed and Churchill was to train for the next few weeks with the Grenadier Guards. The troops rotated between 48 hours in the front line then 48 hours in support for 12 days followed by six days in divisional reserve (Russell, Soldier, p.362).

Douglas S. Russell describes Churchill’s time at the front line with the Grenadier Guards as a time when he faced “constant danger” (Russell, Soldier, p.362). Churchill didn’t face the occasional “stray bullet” or “rogue shell”. He faced daily rifle, machine gun, and artillery fire. According to Russell, it was quite normal for several soldiers to be killed or wounded each day. On the 25^th of November 1915, Churchill experienced a near-miss when a dugout he had been in was destroyed by German artillery fire minutes after he had exited it (Russell, Soldier, p.363; D’Este, Warlord, p.305-306).

In January 1916 Churchill was assigned to the IX (Scottish) Division and given command of the Sixth Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. His battalion spent the first few weeks of January at a French village called Moolenacker. There Churchill was responsible for drilling and training the men. Contrary to the impression English gives, Churchill did not prove “rusty” as a commander. This period is actually very well documented as the officers who served under him wrote about it too. One of them, Andrew Dewar Gibb – who would later go on to found the Scottish National Party – wrote a memoir of his time at the front with Churchill. According to Gibb:

From day to day [Churchill] introduced particular little innovations which he liked and by the end of ten days he had produced a manifest smartening up on every side… it is only just to admit he improved us greatly (Gibb, With Winston on the Front, p.24).

Carlo D’Este writes that Churchill:

Immersed himself in every aspect of [the soldiers] daily lives. Changes were made, improvements initiated, and constant, almost incessant lectures delivered on a variety of subjects. There did not seem to be a single topic with which Churchill was not conversant. The men smartened up, and a sense of order and purpose emanated from the confidence displayed by their leader (D’Este, Warlord, p.314).

On January 26^th the battalion took over a section of the trenches near the town of Ploegsteert. While it is true that this was a comparatively quiet section of the front, it is completely misleading to describe this as being miles away from the “actual war”. The 6^th Royal Scots Fusiliers suffered a twenty percent casualty rate during the following half-a-year (Russell, Soldier, p.374). On the Western Front, it didn’t require a big battle for men to be killed or wounded. Churchill’s battalion would spend six days in the frontline trenches (less than 100 yards from the German trenches) and then six days in the support trenches and rotate back. German artillery fire was a constant risk and Churchill himself was nearly killed on a number of occasions. Russell mentions near-misses on the 3^rd of February (when artillery shells exploded in the next room while Churchill was at the battalion HQ), on the 12^th of February (while watching an artillery barrage against the German trenches and he was caught in a counter barrage), and on the 16^th of February (again while Churchill was in HQ) (Russell, Soldier, p.371-372). This is not a definitive list by any means.

Despite what Mr. English thinks, Churchill also led patrols into No Man’s Land (which he was not obliged to do) (Russell, Soldier, p.373, D’Este, Warlord, pp.319-320). His bravery was remarked upon by the men who served with him. Gibb wrote that “there was no such thing as fear in [Churchill]” (Gibb, With Churchill at the Front, p.68). Lt. Hakewell Smith said:

He would often go into no man’s land. It was a nerve wracking experience to go with him…. He never fell when a shell went off; he never ducked when a bullet went past with its loud crack. He used to say after watching me duck: ‘it’s no damned use ducking; the bullet has gone long past you by now (quoted in Russell, Soldier, p.374).

The exact number of times Churchill did this I am unsure of. Andrew Roberts, says it was more than thirty times (Roberts, Churchill, p.239).

English is correct that Churchill was popular with the men but wrong to suggest this was due to lax discipline. To be generous, there is a kernel of truth in what he says. Other officers, such as Captain Gibb, did think that Churchill was a bit too soft on the men. In March 1916 Churchill actually received a reprimand for “undue leniency” in administering punishments. But what does that actually mean? Unit cohesion never was threatened while Churchill was in charge (Russell, Soldier, p.371). These days we tend to think that First World War discipline was too strict. Maybe Otto English would have been satisfied if Churchill had sent a few shell-shocked teenagers to face a firing squad. But it was not this leniency that won over the men to him. It was mainly his consideration for their needs. Carlo D’Este notes on revealing incident:

[A] company runner, a private named Reginald Hurt, encountered Churchill. After saluting… the soldier was asked why he was limping. ‘I explained that my feet were sore because of the bad condition of my boots and that when I had applied for new pair [sic] the quartermaster said they would last another three months. The OC [Churchill] took a letter from his tunic pocket, detached the envelope and rote on it, “Quartermaster Sgt. B. Company, supply bearer with one pair of boots immediately” and signed it’. For Churchill it was small but important gestures like this that won the confidence of his men (emphasis in original; D’Este, Warlord, p.316).

While Otto English sneers that Churchill taught the men “singsongs”, this was actually an important morale booster and shows Churchill’s concern for the men under his command. As far as I know, Otto English has no military experience so perhaps he doesn’t appreciate the importance of songs and music.

Why Churchill Left the Front

Otto English’s explanation for why Churchill returned to politics is perhaps the least charitable one imaginable. He simply got bored. That’s not what happened. Churchill actually found his time on the front rather fulfilling. He was dismayed at what he saw as the incompetence of those in charge of Britain’s war effort and came to believe that he could do more for the war effort in Parliament. As he put it to his wife “there I can help the movements of events” (quoted in Russell, Soldier, p.375).

The Last Words

For all his claims about being a defender of “the truth”, from my point of view, the truth is that Otto English is deliberately misleading his readers. There is no way he could have done enough research to include those piquant details that made Churchill look bad, without realizing that Churchill did face danger at the front, was a competent commander, and was held in high regard by his men. I’ll finish this post by quoting some of the men who served in the trenches with Churchill. I don’t think they’d share Mr. English’s position:

Captain Jock McDavid:

After a very brief period he had accelerated the morale of the officers and men to an almost unbelievable degree. It was sheer personality. We laughed at lots of things he did, but there were other things we did not laugh at for we knew they were sound. He had a unique approach which did wonders to us. He let everyone under his command see that he was responsible, from the very moment he arrived, that they understood not only what they were supposed to do, but why they had to do it…

No detail of our daily life was too small for him to ignore. He overlooked nothing… Instead of a quick glance at what was being done he would stop and talk with everyone and probe to the bottom of every activity. I have never known an officer take such pains to inspire confidence or to gain confidence; indeed he inspired confidence in gaining it (quoted in Russell, Soldier, p.377).

Captain Gibb:

I am firmly convinced that no more popular officer ever commanded troops. As a soldier he was hard working, persevering, and thorough… He was out to work hard at tiresome but indispensable detail and make his unit efficient in the very highest possible degree… We came to realise, to realise at first hand, his transcendent ability… And much more, he became our friend. He is a man who is apparently always to have enemies. He made none in his old regiment, but left behind him, there  men who will always be his partisans and admirers, and who are proud of having served in the Great War under the leadership of one who is beyond question a great man (quoted in Russell, Soldier, p.377).

Colonel Seely:

The one vital essential quality in any great commander of men in real war… That quality is cool courage and unimpaired judgment under fire… seeing his men, being seen by them [and inspiring them] with his own will for victory. Churchill had this quality in high degree. Real danger unnerves most men; it nerved him (quoted in D’Este, Warlord, p.327).

Brigadier General Croft:

[T]he Service lost a good soldier when Winston took to politics (William Denman Croft, Three Years with the 9^th (Scottish) Division, p.27)

Bibliography

Addison, Paul, Churchill: The Unexpected Hero (Oxford University Press, 2006)

Croft, William Denman, Three Years with the 9^th (Scottish) Division (John Murray, 1919)

D’Este, Carlo, Warlord: A Life of Churchill at War 1874  - 1945 (Allen Lane, 2009)

Gibb, Andrew Dewar, With Winston Churchill at the Front: Winston in the Trenches 1916 (Frontline Books, 2016)

Roberts, Andrew, Churchill: Walking with Destiny (Penguin, 2019)

Russell, Douglas S., Winston Churchill, Soldier: The Military Life of a Gentleman at War (Conway, 2005)

 

Greek Tragedy

 In 2014 The Observer published an article headlined “Athens 1944: Britain’s dirty secret”. The authors alleged that in December 1944 British troops shot and killed unarmed civilian demonstrators on the streets of Athens, Greece. The subtitle of the article states:

When 28 civilians were killed in Athens, it wasn’t the Nazis who were to blame, it was the British. Ed Vulliamy and Helena Smith reveal how Churchill’s shameful decision to turn on the partisans who had fought on our side in the war sowed the seeds for the rise of the far right in Greece today

And the caption under one of the photographs says:

A day that changed history: the bodies of unarmed protestors shot by the police and the British army in Athens

A few paragraphs into their article the authors write:

This was the day [3rd of December 1944], those 70 years ago this week, when the British army, still at war with Germany, opened fire upon – and gave locals who had collaborated with the Nazis the guns to fire upon – a civilian crowd demonstrating in support of the partisans with whom Britain had been allied for three years.

Thus, was born another element of the Churchillian Black Legend – Winston Churchill's massacre of innocent Greek civilians. 

Contrary to what The Observer says, these people were not killed by British soldiers.

The article appeared, on the surface, to be credible. It was written by two distinguished journalists: Ed Vulliamy, a notable war reporter, and Helena Smith, the Guardian’s correspondent for Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus.  They cite several experts on Greek history and also interviewed eyewitnesses of the event. Therefore, it isn’t surprising that their article has been very influential. Indian politician and writer Shashi Tharoor wrote in the Washington Post that:

This week’s Oscar rewards yet another hagiography of this odious man [Churchill]. To the Iraqis whom Churchill advocated gassing, the Greek protesters on the streets of Athens who were mowed down on Churchill’s orders in 1944, sundry Pashtuns and Irish, as well as to Indians like myself, it will always be a mystery why a few bombastic speeches have been enough to wash the bloodstains off Churchill’s racist hands (emphasis added).

 The reference to “Greek protestors” links to the article by Vulliamy and Smith. 

The Indian news channel WION (World is One News) summarised the events thus:

In the year 1949 [sic], Churchill ordered the British army to fire on the anti-Nazi protestors in Greece...

If you google “Churchill Athens”, Vulliamy and Smith’s essay is the top suggestion out of 4,280,000 results. 

There is one problem with the allegation – it is completely untrue.

Fake News

Almost four months after that Vulliamy and Smith’s article was published, Stephen Pritchard was compelled to write a follow-up. This later article proves that the lurid account of British troops gunning down protestors was false. According to Pritchard, after Vulliamy and Smith’s article was published:

Seven Greek historians protested. They said the British had not fired on the crowd, but that Greek police certainly had, and that to present the December confrontation as one fought between the British alongside supporters of the Nazis against the partisans was “a gross misrepresentation” (emphasis added).

This isn’t a controversial point. No one before Vulliamy and Smith had ever claimed that the British Army shot at a civilian crowd on the 3rd of December 1944. Greek police certainly did, but there was no British involvement in that massacre. It frankly boggles the mind that this accusation passed even the most basic fact-check review. 

What followed after this protest by historians is quite revealing as to Weltanschauung of The Observer:

The following week, I ran a clarification, noting the protest by the seven and pointing out that Greek police were also likely to be among those who shot the 28 protesters. I recognise now that it was plainly inadequate in addressing concerns about the article (emphasis added).

So, after being told that they were flat out wrong about British troops killing Greek protestors, The Observer doubled down, merely suggesting that it was “likely” that Greek police were also involved in the shootings. This crosses the line from being reckless with the facts to being deliberately dishonest. The Observer was so keen to portray British troops in a negative light that they just assumed their involvement in the shooting. The slander was allowed to remain in the article despite numerous experts correcting the paper.

The blame for this misinformation shouldn’t fall on the elderly eyewitnesses quoted by Vulliamy and Smith. There were understandable reasons why they misremembered who was responsible for the shooting.

He [historian André Gerolymatos] wrote: “Did the British open fire on the demonstrators on 3 December 1944? The answer is no, but that reality is filtered through perceptions clouded by a day filled with violence and considerable confusion.

“The British did make an effort to peacefully disperse part of the crowd. One explanation is that some protesters easily mistook the use of tracer shells by British armoured units, fired over the heads of the demonstrators, as being directed at them. Another issue that further complicated matters was that the Greek soldiers wore British battledress, as did the Greek gendarmerie. Furthermore, there were American and British soldiers on the roof of the Grand Bretagne Hotel, observing the spectacle. For those on the ground it could have appeared that the gunfire from the police could have been mistaken as originating from the soldiers on the roof of the hotel. Although the police wore grey, they were in concealed positions on the balcony, roof, windows, and behind a wall in front of the police headquarters, making it difficult for the demonstrators to identify whether they were police or soldiers.”

The responsibility for the error lies with Vulliamy and Smith, who apparently did not bother to check this claim to see if it was correct. The Observer is at fault as well. They did not fact-check the article before publication, and they kept it online without removing the allegations. Unless a reader spots the link to Pritchard's article (which they euphemistically call a “column by the readers’ editor”) they will have a completely wrongheaded view of the events of the 3rd of December 1944. As this “readers’ editor” column has been shared a mere 59 times while the original essay has been shared 31,073 times, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of readers have been misled by the article. 

The Observer added a correction at the bottom of Vulliamy and Smith's article, but even that is misleading. It implies that it was possible that Greek police also fired on the protestors along with British troops, instead of saying that no British troops were involved:

A group of Greek historians writes concerning this article. It was reported that British troops opened fire on the Greek demonstrators from the Grande Bretagne hotel in Athens on December 3 1944. The hotel was British military headquarters, but the fire from it could also have come from Greek police.

What Actually Happened in Athens

On the morning of the 3rd of December 1944, a large demonstration took place in Athens. This demonstration was mainly left-wing, consisting of ‘communists, socialists, republicans, and antimonarchists’. According to the late André Gerolymatos, a Professor of Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University, some people were coerced into attending. The National Liberation Front (EAM) had previously announced that anyone who stayed away would be regarded as an “enemy of the people and dealt with accordingly (Gerolymatos, International Civil War, pp.100-101).

Greek police had cordoned the entrances to the city centre but a number of protestors broke through and advanced to the police station located near the Grande Bretagne Hotel. This was the headquarters of the Allies, i.e., the British. Gerolymatos actually is fairly understanding of the police and makes it clear that this incident wasn’t just an example of far-right Nazi collaborators butchering innocent left-wing protestors:

The policemen had every reason to fear for their lives: as they had served under the jurisdiction of the occupation authorities, the majority of Athenians had, rightly or wrongly, labeled them collaborators. Although many Greek police officials had covertly assisted the resistance and the allies, not enough time had passed since liberation to permit a clear distinction between absolute traitor and patriot. Indeed, some had had to wear the mask of the former in order to assist the latter.

Making matters worse, the Greek government failed to purge the security establishments and civil service of collaborators, whose continued presence now tainted every state official. The government had argued that time was required to conduct a meticulous and judicious purge, but such reasoning was lost on the crowds advancing toward the center of the city in the morning of 3 December 1944. To the half-starved population of Greece, symbols truly mattered, and the gray uniforms of the police invoked the fear and agony of the occupation

The handful of policemen positioned a few yards beyond their station were aware of this reality, and for the previous several hours they had witnessed dozens of wounded fellow officers being carried off on stretchers into the station following clashes with groups of demonstrators. As the crowd got closer and closer, the policemen’s fears turned to panic, and some began to replace their blank rounds with live ammunition.

When the crowd advanced to less than one hundred yards from the police cordon, suddenly a man in military uniform ran out of the station and shouted, “Shoot the bastards!” He then dropped to one knee and began firing his gun. A few seconds later the panic-stricken policemen followed suit.

They did not fire in unison like a disciplined unit, but discharged their weapons sporadically. Some of the officers hesitated for a few seconds; others had remained transfixed by the spectacle before them, but one after another they began to return fire. The first ranks of the crowd fell forward; the fortunate ones found protection behind trees or nearby walls, but most simply lay flat on the ground.

The shooting continued for approximately half an hour, and when it was over twenty-two of the demonstrators remained still, twelve of them dead (Gerolymatos, International Civil War, pp.104-105).

Gerolymatos is one of the experts cited by Vulliamy and Smith, and he is unequivocal that it was Greek policemen who shot demonstrators on the 3rd of December, not British soldiers. 

Mark Mazower, Professor of History at Columbia University and another expert cited by Vulliamy and Smith, also wrote that it was Greek police, not the British Army, who fired on protestors:

Shortly before 11 a.m., as thousands of EAM demonstrators entered Constitution Square, several policemen panicked and fired directly into the crowd from the police station which stood at one corner of the square. People fled, but it was discovered later that at least ten had been killed and over fifty injured. The initial reaction of the British 23rd Armoured Brigade, whose men moved in and cleared the square, was that the Greek police had lost their nerve: they had 'dealt rather wildly with the demonstration' and had 'fired unnecessarily' (Mazower, Inside Hitler’s Greece, p.352).

The shooting outraged left-wingers in Athens. Gerolymatos notes:

By noon, a second wave of demonstrators broke through the police cordons and was soon joined by thousands more, until the square was jammed with almost 60,000 people.11 The police retreated to their station and locked themselves inside. Over the next thirty minutes, the remaining police barricades disintegrated as most of the officers discreetly left the scene and sought refuge in nearby private homes or managed to reach the safety of the police headquarters. A few police stragglers near the square, however, were not as fortunate. They were seized by dozens of hands, punched, kicked. and spat upon. Their protestations of innocence were drowned out by a torrent of verbal abuse. The lucky ones were dragged off to the nearest lamppost and lynched; some, however, could not be pried away from the clutches of the mob, which, intoxicated by raw animal savagery, tore the men literally from limb to limb (Gerolymatos, International Civil War, p.105)

You know things are bad when being lynched makes you one of the lucky ones!

The next day shooting took place throughout the city between ELAS – EAM’s Paramilitary wing - and the police, and between ELAS and their political opponents.  By mid-afternoon ELAS had captured most of the police stations in Athens. Usually, police officers who surrendered were summarily executed by ELAS insurgents, either by being shot or hanged. Gerolymatos mentions one particularly gruesome incident:

In Piraeus, a British unit attempted to interpose itself between a police station and ELAS, but faced overwhelming opposition. After a tense verbal exchange, the guerrillas dragged out several of their prisoners and in front of the British soldiers proceeded to gouge out the eyes of these hapless prisoners. The British soldiers gawked, transfixed by the horror unfolding before them and disgusted by their impotency to interfere. The screams of the policemen reverberated along the empty streets, and were quickly reduced to low guttural moans, but the ordeal was far from over. For a few minutes, the ELAS executioners just grinned while savoring the spectacle of torment and the vulnerability of the British. Then, they took out butcher’s cleavers and began to hack off the forearms of the blind policemen and continued slashing until the bodies resembled heaps of human pulp. The agony, for victims and spectators, ended when the policemen were put out of their misery by bullets to their brains. The tormentors exploited such sadistic brutality on several levels—by exercising of their total superiority over their victims, and by forcing the British to observe the atrocity they made them de facto participants (Gerolymatos, International Civil War, p.108).

Churchill received updates on the situation in Athens throughout the 4th of December. That night he telegraphed the commander of British forces in Greece, Lt Gen Ronald Scobie: 

Do not hesitate to fire at any armed male in Athens who assails the British authority or Greek authority with which we are working….Do not hesitate to act as if you were in a conquered city where a local rebellion is in progress….It would be a great thing for you to succeed in this without bloodshed if possible, but also with bloodshed if necessary (quoted in Gilbert, Churchill, p.807; emphasis added).

Churchill was not in favour of shooting at civilian protesters. He was ordering the British Army to put down a communist insurgency. The telegram to Lt Gen Ronald Scobie was inadvertently shared with the US authorities (one of Churchill's Assistant Private Secretaries, Jock Colville, neglected to write the codeword ‘Guard’ on it which would have prevented it from being shared). The Americans leaked it to the press which led to a political storm for Churchill (Roberts, Churchill, p.850).

A paratrooper takes cover during fighting in Athens, Dec 1944

Fighting with communist insurgents was, at that time, controversial given the role communist partisans played in the fight against the Germans. It even led to a vote of no confidence in Churchill on the 8th of December, although Churchill won it comfortably at 279-30. 
Churchill's statements show that his motivation was the defence of democracy in Greece, not thwarting democracy. 

Democracy, I say, is not based on violence or terrorism, but on reason, on fair play, on freedom, on respecting other people's rights as well as their ambitions. Democracy is no harlot to be picked up in the street by a man with a tommy gun. I trust the people, the mass of the people, in almost any country, but I like to make sure that it is the people and not a gang of bandits from the mountains or from the countryside who think that by violence they can overturn constituted authority, in some cases ancient Parliaments, Governments and States. That is my general description of the foundation upon which we should approach the various special instances on which I am going to dwell. During the war, of course, we have had to arm anyone who could shoot a Hun. Apart from their character, political convictions, past records and so if they were out to shoot a Hun we accepted them as friends and tried to enable them to fulfil their healthy instincts

This wasn’t the end of the matter for Churchill. The fighting in Athens continued throughout December and so he decided to go there to facilitate discussions between all Greek parties, including the communists, that could bring the conflict to an end (Gilbert, Churchill, pp.808-810). This was an extremely risky trip for him, and at several moments he was nearly killed by stray - or deliberate - gunfire. On Boxing Day (26th of December) the communists attended a conference with the other Greek parties. Churchill stayed in Athens until the 28th of December when he left for Naples. Unfortunately, the Greek parties failed to come to an agreement that would stop the fighting and the conflagration continued into January 1945.

The conference on Boxing Day

The Road to Civil War

Vulliamy and Smith repeat a common far-left allegation that Churchill's orders to defeat ELAS amounted to a betrayal of a British ally and inaugurated a devastating civil war in Greece, costing thousands of lives. Churchill's motivation is presumed to have been to reimpose an unpopular monarchy on the Greeks. The problems with this thesis are as follows: (1)  it oversimplifies Churchill's attitude to the Greek monarchy, (2) it ignores the events that preceded the December 1944 insurgency, and (3) it whitewashes communist atrocities.

Churchill and the Greek Monarchy

It is true that, during the Second World War, the monarchy was not popular with the Greek people. It is also true that Churchill was committed to reinstalling the monarch when Axis troops could be ejected from the country. However, Churchill accepted that the Greeks were within their rights to become a republic after the war. As he told the British ambassador to the Greeks, Rex Leeper:

The King is the servant of his people. He makes no claim to rule them. He submits himself freely to the judgement of the people as soon as normal conditions are restored. He places himself and his Royal House entirely at the disposition of the Greek nation. Once the German invader has been driven out, Greece can be a republic or a monarchy, entirely as the people wish (quoted in Gerolymatos, International Civil War,  pp.51-52).

The British government did not wish to reimpose the pre-war dictatorship on the Greek people. King George II of Greece was pressured to terminate it and restore the 1911 constitution, which he did in February 1942 (Gerolymatos, International Civil War,  p.47).

Communist Shenanigans

The Greek Civil War did not begin with the events of the 3rd of December 1944. In October 1943 ELAS started fighting with other resistance groups, notably the pro-monarchy EDES. ELAS’s offensives were quite successful although it was unable to fully eradicate the other groups (Gerolymatos,International Civil War, pp. 86-87). While the fighting between Greek resistance groups ended in February 1944 with the Plaka Agreement, the political disagreements between the different organisations were not resolved. The conflict was merely frozen.

In March 1944 EAM set up the Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA). This organisation represented an alternate government to the Government in Exile. Shortly afterwards PEEA sympathisers in the Greek forces in the Middle East mutinied. Churchill blamed the communists for this, and it soured his attitude toward them (Gerolymatos, International Civil War, p.90). In May 1944 the Greek Premier, George Papandreou chaired an all-party conference in Lebanon aimed at establishing a government of national unity, bringing EAM into the fold. The resulting charter was accepted by EAM, ELAS and PEEA delegates, as well as the King. However, EAM and ELAS soon changed their minds and refused to join the government. It took the intervention of the Soviets, who were concerned that EAM and ELAS were undermining Allied unity, for them to eventually agree to join the government (Gerolymatos, International Civil War, pp.92&96)

By this point, Churchill, and other British officials, assumed that the communists would attempt to seize control of Greece when the Germans withdrew. As British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, said on the 9th of August 1944:

Were the Greek Communist forces, who were strongly armed, to seize power, a massacre might follow. This would be very injurious to our prestige, and might even add Greece to the post-war Balklan Slav block which now showed signs of forming under Russian influence, and from which we were anxious to keep Greece detached” (quoted in Gerolymatos, International Civil War, p.98). 

Whitewashing Red Terror

Vulliamy and Smith gloss over atrocities by ELAS and the role they played in bringing about the Greek Civil War. ELAS was brutal, and not just to Germans or to Greek collaborators. Political scientist Stathis N. Kalyvas has written the following on the actions of ELAS from the autumn of 1943 onwards:

Although some of the victims, particularly in the towns, had been working for the German occupation authorities, the great majority had not. Indeed, they were described by EAM cadres as “reactionaries” rather than “traitors”. They were typically notables: mayors, doctors, merchants, petty officers, that is, individuals who were seen as both potentially disloyal to the EAM cause and able to influence many villagers. Their potential disloyalty was connected to what were rather trivial issues: traveling to a (German-occupied) town too often, hiding or refusing to hand in a gun, refusing to pay a tax or perform some duty requested by EAM, criticizing EAM or even poking fun at a local EAM member in the coffee shop, and so on (Kalyvas, 'Red Terror', p.148).

The predictable result of such violence was that people either joined or gave support to the collaborationist Security Battalions. To quote Kalyvas:

The role of the kin of EAM’s victims is central in understanding the wave of terror launched by the Security Battalions. As soon as they realized that the Security Battalions were willing to help them overthrow EAM in their villages, the victims’ kin lobbied the SB to organize raids and supplied the Battalions with crucial information about the EAM organization of their villages. More than sixty years later, many among these people have no qualms about their actions, which they view as either just retribution for the distress suffered under EAM rule or as the inevitable result of the only defense that was available to them. For instance, a man whose parents had both been killed by EAM before he joined the Security Battalions, told me: “I went to the Germans. What should I have done since there was no one else to turn to?” (Kalyvas, 'Red Terror', p.151).

Gerolymatos writes about the activities of one ELAS commander called Veloukhiotis:

ELAS was also beginning to lose popularity because of the hardships endured by the mountain villages. Veloukhiotis, in particular, exacted terrible vengeance upon any villager suspected of aiding the enemies of ELAS—not just the Germans. Often, he even forced members of the AMM to watch helplessly as he tortured a simple peasant for some minor offense. In the village of Mavrolithary, ELAS arrested fourteen men simply because they belonged to a rival band. The punishments, designed to set an example for all the local inhabitants, usually took place in the village square and set the pattern of death and degradation that continued until 1949. On this occasion, Veloukhiotis’ henchmen grabbed the first prisoner and stripped him of his clothes. Then in front of the villagers, they tied the man to a table, spread eagle. The victim quickly realized what was in store and vainly pleaded for mercy. In a few minutes, his shrill cries reverberated in the village square as the executioner, splattered with blood, slowly proceeded to hack away at the man’s body, pausing enough for each blow to take effect and prolong the process for as long as possible. The savagery went on until a British officer present pulled out his revolver and terminated the man’s agony. Veloukhiotis, shaking with anger, had to be restrained from killing the officer (Gerolymatos, International Civil War, pp.88-90)

 

Conclusion

The claim that Churchill ordered British troops to fire on an unarmed protest in Athens on the 3rd of December 1944 is baseless. Greek police, not British soldiers, shot at a demonstration that day. They did so for their own reasons, and not because they were following Churchill's orders. After the massacre, there was widespread fighting throughout Athens and Churchill ordered the British Army to put down the insurgents. Churchill was not attempting to crush democracy, but to save it from what appeared to him to be a communist coup d'état.  

While the massacre of the demonstrators was appalling, it is misleading to describe it as marking the beginning of the Greek Civil War. The first phase of the civil war began over a year earlier when the communist resistance group ELAS attempted to destroy other resistance organisations. ELAS acted with such savagery that it drove many people into the arms of the German occupiers. Between that, and EAM's shenanigans throughout 1944 to oust the Greek government-in-exile, it is hard to take seriously the claim that Churchill stabbed an ally in the back in December 1944. 

Churchill deserves credit though for travelling to Athens - at great personal risk - to facilitate a conference that would bring the warring parties together. It might have ended the fighting, and so Churchill was willing to risk his own life to secure peace. Unfortunately, while the conference took place, the Greek factions could not come to an agreement and so the war continued. 

Bibliography

Gerolymatos, André, An International Civil War: Greece, 1943 – 1949 (Yale University Press, 2016)

Gilbert, Martin, Churchill: A Life (Pimlico, 2000)

Kalyvas, Stathis N., 'Red Terror: Leftist Violence during the Occupation' in Mark Mazower (ed.), After the War Was Over: Reconstructing the Family, Nation and State in Greece, 1943 - 1960 (Princeton University Press, 2016), pp.142-183

Mazower, Mark, Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941 – 44 (Yale University Press, 1993)

Roberts, Andrew, Churchill: Walking with Destiny (Penguin, 2019)

Tartan Tiananmen Square

Introduction

A central plank in the Churchillian Black Legend - and particularly in left-wing criticisms of Churchill - is Churchill's alleged hostility to the working class in general and trade unions in particular. This hostility is apparently demonstrated in his willingness to use state violence to suppress industrial actions. We’ll cover Churchill’s attitudes to the working class more generally another time. For now, I wish to discuss a specific example commonly cited to support that critical view of Churchill. The allegation that in early 1919 Churchill dispatched the army to the city of Glasgow in Scotland to put down a strike.

This complaint is not recent. Unsurprisingly it originated with the strikers themselves. In their daily newspaper, Strike Bulletin, the strikers claimed that:

Apparently, if the workers do not accept what the employers give them, it is to be rammed down their throats at the point of the bayonet (quoted in Barclay, "Churchill Rolled the Tanks", p.38).

The claim that Churchill personally ordered the troops into Glasgow didn't emerge until 1973. That year the former strike leader Emanuel ‘Manny’ Shinwell published a memoir in which he accused Churchill of convincing the Cabinet to send in soldiers and tanks into Glasgow to combat the strike. Shinwell, however, didn’t provide any supporting evidence for his accusation. Curiously, in his 1981 memoir, entitled Lead with the Left, Shinwell blamed David Lloyd George rather than Winston Churchill.

Shinwell's earlier allegation against Churchill is commonly repeated these days on social media. The way some people describe the events makes it sound like Churchill carried out a Scottish version of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. There are endless examples of this on Twitter. As Abraham Lincoln warned us, one shouldn’t believe everything one reads on the internet.

Much more concerning, however, is that these tales have been given credence by the Scottish government. Education Scotland included the following account on their website:

In an event unique in British history, Winston Churchill dispatched English troops and tanks against a large demonstration in George Square on 31st January 1919. The event became known as the Battle of George Square. Scottish troops already present in Glasgow were locked in Maryhill Barracks for fear that they might join the demonstrators and precipitate a major revolution. Thousands of English troops remained in Scotland for many months (quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.263).

A textbook used in Scottish history classes for National Curriculum 4 and 5 makes a similar point:

In response the government rushed 12,000 English troops to Glasgow in case a revolution broke out (Quoted in Barclay, "Churchill Rolled the Tanks", p.34).

Thankfully a researcher called Gordon J. Barclay has recently gone over the Government’s reaction to the Glaswegian strike and riot in early 1919 in forensic detail. He published his findings in two journal articles. Dr. Barclay is unequivocal in his conclusions that the anti-Churchill arguments are untrue.

From this evidence it is clear that neither the government nor Churchill ‘sent the troops in’; they had no legal power to do so, without martial law being declared. They were requested by the Sheriff. The troops were not ‘sent to crush the strikers’ or, indeed, an incipient revolt; they were invited by the Sheriff to ensure the maintenance of societal and economic order and to protect the power supplies. The soldiers were not all ‘English’, neither were they all ‘raw recruits’ and there is no evidence that any troops might have joined the strikers. The demonstrators did not face troops, machine-guns or tanks in George Square; they all arrived hours or days later; consequently, no-one was injured or killed by the military. Martial law was not declared. It was not an ‘English government’ that made the troops available; the majority of decision-makers and civilian contributors to the key discussions were Scots (Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.291).

What Actually Happened?

By January 1919 the mean Glaswegian working week was 54 hours long. The Clyde Workers’ Committee and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers jointly agreed to strike for a fourteen-hour reduction in the working week. This became known as the Forty-Hour Strike. There was some disagreement among the leaders as to what the true purpose of the strike was. One of the leaders, Willie Gallacher, was open about the political aims of the strike:

Let this be the class war started at last. Too long have we been groping about in the dark. Now at last we begin to see the light, and come what may we must sustain the fight until we emerge into the full, bright day of the Socialist Republic! (Quoted in Read, The World On Fire, p.86)

On the other hand, another strike leader, Manny Shinwell, wrote:

This movement…is not revolutionary in character, nor is it inspired by the legitimate demand for more leisure. It is attributable solely and entirely to the fear of possible unemployment in the near future and the desire of the workers generally to make room for demobilised servicemen (Quoted in Read, The World On Fire, p.86).

 

Sir James Watson Stewart

The Forty-Hour strike began on the 27th of January 1919. On the 29th of January, a deputation from the strikers met with the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir James Watson Stewart. The deputation wanted him to contact the Prime Minister and ask him to impose a forty-hour working week. Furthermore, they threatened to go beyond constitutional methods should the government not meet their demands, although they promised to hold off taking any action until Friday 31st of January (Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.267).


How the strike leaders planned to escalate was hinted at in a speech Shinwell and Gallacher gave to supporters, in which they threatened to “stop every tramcar, shut off every light and generally paralyse the business of the city”(quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.268).

The Cabinet discussed the matter on the 30th of January. They agreed that the Scottish Office would send a senior official, John Lamb, to Glasgow to keep the government informed of events, but they refused to intervene in the dispute between employees and employers. This refusal to meet the strikers’ demands was reported in the 31st of January edition of the Glasgow Herald newspaper (Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", pp.274-5).

On the morning of the 31st of January, the deputation returned to the City Chambers in George Square for a follow-up meeting with the Lord Provost. While they were there, the Police baton-charged the crowd of striking workers that had gathered outside. This was poorly judged and provoked the crowd to riot. Seeing the violence unfold from the windows of the City Chambers, two magistrates went outside to try and “quieten” the mob but were unsuccessful. The crowd by this point had armed themselves with bottles and had started pelting the police and civic authorities who exited the City Chambers. The Sheriff of Lanarkshire decided to read the Riot Act, thereby making the assembly unlawful. As he read it he was hit by glass bottles and, to add insult to injury, his copy of the legislation was stolen by a member of the crowd. One member of the deputation, David Kirkwood, ran outside the City Chambers and was beaten unconscious by a policeman. Gallacher punched the Chief Constable in the face and was also beaten up by policemen. Eventually, Shinwell, Kirkwood, and Gallacher were arrested (Read, World on Fire, pp.87-88; Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", pp.275-7).

Kirkwood lies unconscious after being assaulted by police.

The riotous crowd disappeared down the various streets connected to George Square, smashing windows and looting businesses as they went. They continued to pelt bottles at the police and overturned over two dozen city trams. This riot became known as the Battle of George Square.

The situation panicked the Scottish Secretary, who at a Cabinet meeting that same day gave his opinion that “it was a misnomer to call the situation in Glasgow a strike- it was a Bolshevist rising” (quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.278).

About 10,000 soldiers were sent to Glasgow but they did not arrive until the violence had largely dissipated. Contrary to the myth, the soldiers did not put down the riot. Gordon J. Barclay quotes several contemporary accounts supporting this claim, including the Daily Record on the 1st of February:

The disturbances were all at an end for the day when the first detachment of the troops arrived. The soldiers reached Queen Street station shortly after ten o’clock, and from that hour until the early morning there was a constant stream of men fully equipped for all emergencies (Quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.280).

Far from fighting with strikers and demonstrators, or even cracking the skulls of looters, there isn’t any record of a civilian being assaulted, let alone killed, by any soldier. What the troops did was recorded in The Observer on Sunday the 2nd of February:

The military is now in full possession of the more important points of the city, such as City Chambers, the Post Office, the railway stations, river bridges and electric power stations. The City Chambers is like an armed camp. The quadrangle is full of troops and equipment, including machine guns, as also are the corridors upstairs (Quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.281).

Tanks didn’t arrive until the 3rd of February and they stayed in their depot in the Cattle Market (quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.284).

The soldiers were not in Glasgow to suppress the strike. This is demonstrated by the fact that it continued for almost two weeks after the soldiers arrived in Glasgow, ending on the 12th of February (Barclay, "Churchill Rolled the Tanks", p.38).

Historian Iain McLean has highlighted that blaming the military occupation for the failure of the strike was a convenient way for those leading the strike to explain its defeat. In fact, the reasons for its demise lay elsewhere:

It may be argued that the Government's firm stand in 1919 prevented any resurgence of revolutionary, anti-official militancy. But that is to forget the structural weakness of the strike. It would certainly have collapsed, and discredited unofficial action, without any help from the Government. Indeed, the net effect of the tanks in the Cattle Market was probably the same as that of the police misbehaviour in George Square: it gave the strike a romantic history which successfully concealed an otherwise ignominious failure (McLean, Legend of Red Clydeside, p.138).

What was Winston Churchill’s Role and Responsibility?

Contrary to the suggestion that Churchill despised trade unionism and was chomping at the bit to send in the military to deal with the strikers, he was in fact one of the more moderate voices in the Cabinet. Before the strike began, Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey wrote that:

The ministers…seem to have the ‘wind-up’ to the most extraordinary extent about the industrial situation. C.I.G.S [Chief of the Imperial General Staff Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson] also is positively in a state of dreadful nerves on the subject. Churchill is the only one who is sane on this subject (quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.267).

At the Cabinet meeting on the 30th of January, Churchill cautioned that “we should not exaggerate the seriousness of this disturbance’. He regarded the "disaffected" as a minority. While Churchill did think that a conflict would be needed to “clear the air” he added that “strong measures” would require “plenty of provocation”. The time to use troops “had not yet arrived”, in his opinion. According to Gordon J. Barclay, Churchill stressed that the Government “should not act in advance of public opinion" (Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.271).

At the Cabinet meeting the following day, after the Battle of George Square had taken place, Churchill made no substantial contribution to the discussion. He only commented on the authority required before the strike leaders could be arrested. Unlike the Secretary of State for Scotland, Churchill did not describe the situation as a Bolshevik or communist revolt (Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.278).

Neither Churchill nor the Cabinet sent the troops to Glasgow. Under the King's Regulations and Orders for the Army, the military could not send troops to support law and order without a written request from the appropriate civil authority. In the case of Scotland, this was the local county Sheriff. It was up to the army commanders to determine what and how many troops they would send but they could not be sent without being first invited by the appropriate local authority (Barclay, "Churchill Rolled the Tanks", pp.37-8).

This is what happened in Glasgow. After reading the Riot Act, after being pelted by bottles, and after seeing the riot unfold, the Sheriff decided to request military assistance. The Sheriff admitted this in his testimony at the trial of the strike leaders:

Q: After reviewing all that you had seen and taken part in that day, did you have a consultation with the Lord Provost and the Chief Constable?

A: Yes, I spoke to both of them.

Q: And did you tell them you had come to the conclusion that the resources of the Civic Authorities were insufficient for securing the maintenance of order in the City at that time?

A: Yes, we were all agreed. We had heard other things of more disorder.

Q: You had heard of disorder in the Trongate and elsewhere?

A: Yes

Q: And did you in consequence make up your mind that the necessity had arisen for appealing to the Military Authorities?

A: Yes (quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.277-8).

In fact, when the Cabinet convened on the 31st of January they were informed that orders had already been set to Scotland for the deployment of troops to Glasgow. To quote Iain McLean:

[T]he Cabinet was not called upon to take new decisions, since the moves to send troops to Scotland had already been put into effect (McLean, Legend of Red Clydeside, p.125).

It is also worth pointing out two things. Firstly, Scottish affairs, let alone Scottish labour affairs, were not within Churchill’s purview as Secretary of State for War. At the Cabinet meeting on the 30th of January the Deputy Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law, said that the “first responsibility in the whole matter must be by the Secretary of Scotland” (quoted in Barclay, "Duties in Aid of the Civil Power", p.269).

Secondly, Churchill actually admired one of the leaders of the strike, David Kirkwood. He even went so far as to write a foreword for Kirkwood’s 1935 autobiography My Life in Revolt.

Note the foreword by Churchill

Conclusion

The Forty-Hour Strike and the Battle of George Square are surrounded by mythology. For people who are politically left-wing, it provides an example of Churchill’s alleged ruthlessness in dealing with the working class. Scottish nationalists take the events as an instance of Churchill oppressing the Scots. However, the mythology is just flat-out untrue.

Churchill did not send troops to Glasgow to suppress a strike. The local authorities in Glasgow requested military aid. They did so not because there was a strike, but because a riot had broken out and they were not sure that the forces they had at their disposal would suffice to maintain law and order. Churchill’s department was not responsible for the situation. The Scotland Office was. Churchill was not antagonistic towards the strikers and was in fact a moderate voice in the Cabinet. When they did arrive in Glasgow, the troops guarded important infrastructure in the city but there is no record of them hurting or even killing anyone. Their presence did not end the strike, which continued for almost two weeks after their arrival.

Bibliography

Barclay, Gordon J., "'Churchill Rolled the Tanks into the Crowd': Mythology and Reality in the Military Deployment to Glasgow in 1919", Scottish Affairs, Vol. 28, Issue 1, pp.32-62 (2019)

Barclay, Gordon J., "'Duties in Aid of the Civil Power': The Deployment of the Army to Glasgow, 31 January to 17 February 1919", Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, Vol. 38, Issue 2, pp.261-92 (2018)

McLean, Iain, The Legend of Red Clydeside (John Donald Publishers Ltd, 1983)

Read, Anthony, The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism (Pimlico, 2009)