Appeasement

Nick Lloyd, King’s College London

Churchill travelled to the US many times throughout his life, for personal and political reasons. In 1900, during his mid-twenties, he travelled to America to deliver a comprehensive lecture tour across the Eastern United States and Canada. However, this trip was not as lucrative as he had hoped. The American audiences had not responded enthusiastically, and some had been hostile towards him. Still, he was introduced to many elite members of American society during this period, including the current President of the US, William McKinley, and the next future president, Theodore Roosevelt.

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Britain, Churchill and Spain in WWII

David A. Messenger, University of South Alabama

Following his defeat in government in 1929, Churchill again crossed the Atlantic to lecture and promote his book, The Aftermath. Although this was not a political trip, he did make efforts to promote Anglo-US cooperation during this period, which included a brief visit to the White House to see President Herbert Hoover. He also experienced Prohibition first-hand – and was unimpressed – and witnessed the Wall Street Crash when he visited New York. Just two years later Churchill visited New York again but suffered a nearly catastrophic brush with death when he stepped into a road and was hit by a taxi driving around 30mph.

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Churchill and China in the Second World War

Mark J Crowley, University of Utah

This introduction follows the relationship between Britain and China throughout the Second World War and the key role that Churchill played in fostering that connection. Revealing the strategic importance of China in safeguarding British imperial interests and holding back Japanese advances, Mark Crowley describes the turbulent nature of the Sino-British war relations between 1939 and 1945. The documents include examples of correspondence between Winston Churchill and the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, as well as Churchill's personal exchanges with the Duke of Windsor and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the topic of China's role in the Second World War.

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Churchill and Elections

James Thompson, University of Bristol, UK

One of the less well-known provisions of the Representation of the People Act 1918 was its institution of one uniform polling day for all constituencies. This was a change Churchill bemoaned, looking back at when ‘our wise and prudent law spread a general election over six weeks’. He claimed that ‘instead of all the electors voting blindly on one day’ there was ‘a rough but earnest and searching national discussion’. His downbeat assessment reflected his response to the altered world of interwar political culture, with a much larger electorate now including women, the growth of and changes in the press and the emergence of the Labour party as a national force.

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Churchill and Gandhi

Shabnum Tejani, SOAS University of London

Churchill’s disdain for, and deep suspicion of, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is well known. This introduction uses documents from the Churchill Archive to trace Churchill’s response to Gandhi’s actions such as the salt satyagraha, the round table conference in London, his ‘fast unto death’ and the Quit India campaign. Through press clippings, house of commons speeches, personal telegrams and correspondence we can better understand why and how Churchill so distrusted this figure of Indian Independence. Through these documents we can gain an insight into the relationship between two powerful characters with diametrically opposed views and ambitions.

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Churchill and ireland

Robert McNamara, Senior Lecturer in International History, Ulster University

While Winston Churchill’s interest in Ireland waxed and waned throughout his political career, it would not be inaccurate to view him as a crucial figure in the shaping of the island's politics in the twentieth century. Consequently, the Churchill papers are, in this observer’s view, the single most important collection of private papers for twentieth century Ireland held in Britain.

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Churchill and South Africa

Peter Limb, University of the Free State/Michigan State University

Churchill’s life intersected with South Africa in diverse, at times intense ways well captured in the Churchill Archive. From his early journalistic interest in the country when he visited as a press correspondent, to his role as First Lord of the Admiralty in WWI when he liaised with South Africa on naval operations, and his friendship with Jan Smuts, South African influences were replete throughout his life. This piece explores these influences to understand the relationship between Churchill and South Africa and highlights the rich variety of materials on this subject available in the Churchill Archive.

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Class and Politics

Martin Pugh, formerly Newcastle University

During the first half the twentieth century, the political and social landscape of Britain underwent a significant transformation. The all-encompassing effects of the First and Second World Wars brought about a change in Britain’s electorate, in range and as well as in priority. From the Liberal reforms of the early twentieth century, to the shock victory of the Attlee Labour government in 1945, class had begun to dominate British party politics like never before.

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Disarmament

Gaynor Johnson, University of Kent

In the decade or so before coming Prime Minister, known as his ‘wilderness years’, Churchill was not in office and had little political support. His lack of support was exacerbated by the British government’s increasing commitment to a policy of reconciliation and accommodation towards Germany during the 1920s and early 1930s. Churchill believed that such a strategy, which was eventually extended to include Italy and the Soviet Union, and often referred to as the policy of appeasement, was fundamentally wrong-headed. The Churchill Archive offers a number of documents relating to this topic and period which shed light on Churchill’s ‘wilderness years’ and the origins of the Second World War.

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Empire and Imperialism

Richard Toye, University of Exeter

Focussing on Empire and Imperialism, we’ve gathered together here relevant material within the Archive. The overview summarises the distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ types of Empire and also discusses the concept of ‘neo-imperialism’. It outlines some key aspects of Churchill’s involvement in the British Empire, ranging from his participation in minor colonial wars as a soldier and journalist, to his campaign against reform in India in the 1930s, to his policies as both Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition in the 1940s and 1950s, before highlighting materials in the Churchill Archive collection that are pertinent to the topic.

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Fascism

Kenneth L. Campbell, Monmouth University

The rise of fascism in Italy in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, and its related variant of National Socialism in Germany, posed a major threat to the ideals of liberal democracy that had grown in Europe prior to 1914. The strength of fascism in Europe during the interwar years derived from the ability of its leaders to preach an extreme version of nationalism as a solution to the postwar economic and political woes.

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International Organizations and Institutions

Maartje Abbenhuis, University of Auckland

The rise of fascism in Italy in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, and its related variant of National Socialism in Germany, posed a major threat to the ideals of liberal democracy that had grown in Europe prior to 1914. The strength of fascism in Europe during the interwar years derived from the ability of its leaders to preach an extreme version of nationalism as a solution to the postwar economic and political woes.

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Post-war Europe

Christopher Knowles, King’s College London

On VE Day, 8 May 1945, much of Europe was in ruins. Millions of people had been killed or were severely injured. Many countries suffered twice. First they were defeated and occupied by the German armies and their economies geared to support the German war effort. They were then damaged again as the Allies advanced on the Eastern and Western fronts and the German armies retreated. There were severe shortages of food and raw materials and a risk of starvation and epidemics of disease. Explore post-war Europe in this Introduction by Christopher Knowles.

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Science and Technology

Graham Farmelo, Churchill College, University of Cambridge

The rate of scientific development in the twentieth century was remarkable. Not only were scientists utilising the energy from the atom less than fifty years after its discovery, but the science of genetics began, along with quantum theory and relativity. Scientists were gaining an increasingly deep understanding of their world, and what could be achieved. These vast technological and scientific advances enabled giant leaps in industry and warfare, including the creation of the most destructive weapons the world had ever seen.

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The Century of the 'Special Relationship': Britain and America in the Age of Churchill

David Woolner, Roosevelt Institute

For much of the twentieth century, Great Britain and the United States enjoyed what came to be known as “the special relationship”— a unique bond of trust and cooperation on the world stage made manifest through the two countries battle against fascism in the 1940s, close cooperation in the decades-long struggle of the Cold War, and in more recent years by the two nation’s joint struggle against international terrorism. Such was not always the case.

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The Cold War and Nuclear Weapons

Kevin Ruane, Canterbury Christ Church University

Here we have gathered together some of the resources that the Churchill Archive offers to students and historians of the Second World War, the Cold War and the origins of the East-West nuclear arms race. The career of Winston Churchill, as both war leader and Cold Warrior, binds the resources together, but the documents we have picked out are not only of great interest in their own right but shed important light on some of the key episodes in twentieth century international history.

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The Origins of the First World War

William Mulligan, UCD Centre for War Studies

In the years before the outbreak of the First World War, Churchill came to play an increasingly important role in shaping British foreign and naval policy. Appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in October 1911, Churchill was primarily concerned with the Anglo-German naval race. The archive documents his efforts to improve Anglo-German relations, his belief in deterrence, and his role in the July crisis.

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The Origins of the Second World War

Cat Wilson, independent researcher

Looking at the origins of the Second World War, here we have gathered a number of documents from the Churchill Archive that go some way to explain how this monumental event in human history came to be. Churchill recounted how the war’s origins, from a British perspective, spanned the period 1919 to 1939 as the world lurched from ‘war to war’. This overview summarises the key factors which are almost universally accepted and points towards relevant materials in the Archive; The Treaty of Versailles, the impotence of the League of Nations, unresolved tensions across Europe, and the financial and psychological scars of the First World War which had led to bitterness and resentment amongst the leading protagonists.

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The Royal Navy and East Asia

Matthew Heaslip, University of Portsmouth

Between the late 19th century and the middle of the Second World War, Britain’s Royal Navy had the capacity to project sea power around the world to an extent largely unmatched by the other major powers. The core of its fleet was concentrated around the British Isles and the Mediterranean Sea, but the Royal Navy’s China Station in East Asia was Britain’s third largest fleet. It was tasked with guarding the furthermost reaches of Britain’s imperial chain and was based out of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Weihaiwei. For most of Winston Churchill’s adult life, the China Station was therefore a key cog in Britain’s imperial machinery, defining its relationship with East Asia, and attempting to hold together its overstretched Empire. Moreover, it was a period in which Churchill and the China Station witnessed the rise of Japan and the Imperial Japanese Navy as potential rivals.

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Women and Social Change

Lucy Noakes, University of Brighton

Here we focus on some of the resources that the Churchill Archive offers to social historians, particularly those interested in women, gender roles and social change in the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning with a brief overview of some of the major social changes of this period, we highlight some areas of the collection that are particularly relevant. These include ‘Women and Education’, ‘Women in the Workforce’ and ‘Women and the Military’. Unsurprisingly, the collection has particular strengths for the researcher interested in women’s changing roles in wartime, and for material relating to Women’s Suffrage, which Churchill first supported and then opposed.

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