Throughout that time ChurchillÆs political career suffered ups and downs and a series of exiles and rebirths. In 1915, as First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill was forced to resign after the failure at Gallipoli. His return to politics was followed by another resignation in 1931 when, serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer, his failed policies sent him into retirement in what ôappeared to be a terminal political declineö (Keegan 2003, 3).
During the 1930s, Britain experience a peace movement and was led by the largely pacifist Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister. WWI had caused enormous devastation in terms of casualties and economics for Great Britain. Thus it was little surprise that as GermanyÆs Adolph Hitler began his military rise to power in Europe, Chamberlain and most of Britain was content to appease rather than confront. Such was not the case with Winston Churchill. As early as 1930 ChurchillÆs political mastery and historical insight made him understand Hitler as a force that must not be appeased but purposefully challenged. As he noted in October 1930, if Hitler came to power then England should respond accordingly, ôIf a dog makes a dash for my trousers, I shoot him down before he can biteö.
The period from 1939 to 1941 remains a period of triumph for Great Britain under Winston Churchill, the man considered its greatest military leader in history. Churchill brooked all manner of criticism and opposition in Parliament, from Chamberlain and European leaders in his insistence that Adolph Hitler was not a man to be appeased but instead attacked with all the might and fury the British could muster. ChamberlainÆs policy of appeasing Hitler was based on his belief that Hitler told the truth and would end his territorial conquest after gaining the Sudentenland. Churchil
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