Churchill - First Season

Winston Churchill, a giant of history,

famous for his inspiring leadership.

Advance, Britannia. Long live the cause of freedom.

But behind the legend lies a complicated character.

People tend to see Churchill the icon, Churchill the bulldog

warrior and, of course, that's not the whole story.

He was an aristocrat and a man of the people...

It says a lot for his charisma and his humility

that he was accepted and liked.

..a trailblazer who also had questionable beliefs.

He is an old-school imperialist.

He calls Indian people the dusky nation.

This is the story of the man behind the myth,

using rarely seen footage,

personal photographs and told by those who knew him well.

When my grandfather was at home, everything revolved around him.

It seemed to be a natural way of life.

This is the real Churchill.

This time, it's the roller-coaster ride of Churchill's early career.

As a young MP, his rise through the ranks is meteoric.

But when he's blamed for one of the biggest disasters in British

history, it all comes crashing down.

When he says, I am finished, he is not being melodramatic.

But Churchill fights back and hope returns.

This is the moment where he starts to think, you know what?

My dream isn't dead.

The First World War has been raging for less than six months.

Winston Churchill, having suffered initial setbacks,

is now enjoying an impressive rise.

Only 40 years old,

he's now Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty.

He's in charge of the largest naval force in the world.

He believed the Navy would play a very important part in winning

the war for Britain and the British Empire.

He relishes the fact that he's going to play a central role

in winning the war.

So Churchill really loved being First Lord of the Admiralty.

Churchill's wife, Clementine, tells him he should be "swelling"

"with pride at being First Lord of the Admiralty during the greatest"

"war since the beginning of the world."

She said, you're destined for greatness.

I believe in your star.

She knew that, I can't be a politician myself.

Women don't do that kind of thing.

But the next best thing is to marry someone and do everything

in my power to advance his career.

Churchill's job comes with an office and a luxurious flat here

in the heart of London...

..and the ceremonial uniform that he wears in this photo.

Here he is, First Lord of the Admiralty,

a young gun, smooth, baby-faced,

extraordinary to think how much he achieved how quickly.

And look at all his medals - he almost looks intolerably

pleased with himself.

In Churchill's defence, it would be fair to say, Churchill

felt probably he was the right man in the right place.

My grandfather hated war but, if there was going to be a war,

he wanted to be able to play his part.

And he felt usually that he had a good idea

of what should be done.

Churchill's confidence comes from his privileged upbringing.

His late father, Lord Randolph Churchill,

had also risen fast, and there's his more distant ancestors...

..whose portraits lined the walls of Blenheim Palace, his family home.

He is descended from the first Duke of Marlborough,

a military hero, one of these great men of history,

and he has a real belief that he,

too, as an individual, can one day make history.

He is someone who feels that greatness awaits him

by definition and he is going to change the course of history.

One thing he did have was a belief in his own destiny.

He said, I don't believe so potent a being

would have been placed on this Earth

without some reason, and I feel I'm here for a purpose.

Churchill is someone for whom the war is a great adventure and as

someone who had followed the career of his great ancestor,

the Duke of Marlborough, for whom war had been the thing

which made them as a family.

So he saw war as a chance to win glory, to win fame

and something which he was born to lead in.

Everything seems to be going according to plan.

As well as overseeing the Navy, Churchill is on the Prime Minister's

five-man War Council.

He's at least ten years younger than the other members

of this inner circle of power.

He becomes the War Council's ideas man.

He has the sort of mind that is always casting around

for possible new solutions to existing challenges.

Sometimes, he would drive his admirals, generals

and subordinates mad by bombarding them with suggestions, telegrams,

minutes and so on.

The war desperately needs a fresh approach.

By 1915, Britain and its main ally, France, have suffered nearly

a million casualties.

The death toll in the misery of the trenches shows no sign

of letting up.

Everyone, including Churchill, everybody's kind of stuck

as to what to do.

The Germans have invaded.

They're not losing the war if they just sit still and do nothing.

It's up to the Allies to push them out.

The Allies need to stop the carnage and defeat the Germans.

So Churchill puts forward a plan.

The problem is it's a highly risky one.

He wants the Navy to attack Turkey, one of Germany's most valuable

allies, and knock it out of the war.

It's not a stupid idea. In one swoop, you can deprive Germany

of a very valuable ally.

In a series of tense War Council meetings during January and February

1915, Churchill tries to convince his colleagues that Britain

should take on Turkey.

It is, he claims, the surest and shortest route to victory.

Once Churchill has the bit between his teeth, once he backs

a plan, he throws everything into promoting

that and supporting that.

Steam-rollered by Churchill, the War Council approves the plan

to attack Turkey.

Churchill tells a friend, "By God, this is living history."

"Everything we are doing is thrilling. It will be read"

"by a thousand generations."

It's great, extraordinary, visionary stuff.

This would be our great moment.

There was a sort of almost vulgarity in his ambition.

It's only three months since Churchill first put forward the idea

of attacking Turkey.

At 10:45am on a quiet spring morning, his great plan begins.

The British and French begin to shell the Turkish defences.

But by 6:00 that evening, three Allied ships have been sunk

and three more severely damaged. The Allied fleet is forced

to turn back.

Churchill's grand plan to win the war is in tatters.

Churchill has basically wholly underestimated how difficult

this is going to be.

There's some of that institutional British racism about how the Turks

are regarded cos the Turks are far better than he gives

them credit for.

Back in his office at the Admiralty, Churchill faces humiliation,

but he refuses to give up.

Instead, he doubles down.

As well as the Navy, the plan is now to send in ground troops.

Five weeks after the failed naval attacks, an invasion force of 30,000

men heads for the Turkish coast.

They'll land on beaches on the strategically

critical Gallipoli Peninsula.

If you've been to Gallipoli and you've seen these... I say beaches,

but in some cases you're looking at a patch of shingle.

You see what's being asked of these men,

and you're just flabbergasted.

Still in London, Churchill has never seen Gallipoli.

He writes to his younger brother, Jack, who will be among those taking

part in the landings, "This is the hour for a fine feat of arms."

"I wish I were with you."

"It would be easier than waiting here."

The Gallipoli landings are an absolute mess.

The objectives asked way too much of the troops.

And it fails.

Back in London, Churchill receives a letter from his brother describing

"blood and bandages all over the beach".

Thousands have been killed, whole regiments wiped out.

You can't blame Churchill for everything that transpires.

There's other people advocating for it, not just Churchill,

but Churchill must bear responsibility for Gallipoli to some

extent, and he does.

The entire War Cabinet supported the disastrous Gallipoli landings.

But when journalists start asking how this catastrophe

happened, his colleagues say it's all Churchill's fault.

This was a disaster personally, politically, nationally,

and the importance of a scapegoat in politics and especially in war

is vital if you want to keep the press onside.

One newspaper at the time is brutal about Churchill, saying he "seeks

"to grasp power, which should not pass into his unguided hands".

The press absolutely hammer him.

They call him a shouting amateur.

After reading the press reports attacking him,

Churchill tells a friend, "I am finished."

When he says, I am finished, he is not being melodramatic -

he is at that point being blamed for a huge loss of life.

He has few supporters at that time, and he is the individual most

closely associated with a disastrous military campaign.

Within days of the insults in the press, Churchill is sacked

as First Lord of the Admiralty.

For cartoonists, his fall is a joke but, for Churchill,

it's a personal tragedy.

When that power and authority is taken away from him, when he's no

longer able to influence events, when he's forced to watch them

from the sideline, that is something that he really struggles with.

This portrait of him was painted soon after he was sacked

from the job he loved.

This is someone who looks like they've suffered

through or been through a crisis, and I think you can see the sort

of depression and sense of defeat in his head, this is someone

who looks rather melancholic.

Though no longer running the Navy, Churchill clings

on as a member of the War Cabinet.

But as the terrible scale of the Gallipoli defeat becomes clear,

he's forced to resign from that too.

Now that his political career seems well and truly over, his wife,

Clementine, says she fears he'll die of grief.

She knew two things about him - A, that he was genuinely horrified

at the casualties, the death, the destruction that had happened...