My college history professor was originally from Scotland and told his American students in the seventies about being in Britain during the 1945 campaign. He said that British subjects crowded the routes traveled by Churchill and cheered their war hero till they were hoarse-and then voted against him anyway. He described a middle-aged woman who applauded and cheered as Churchill passed, and then paused. She said, "Oh, dear. He looks so tired. He really needs a long rest." Then she thrust her fist into the air and said, "And we're going to see that he gets it!"
@@MJHdesproj it's good to be skeptical about things on the internet...but come on, weirder things have been done and said than this! just chalk this up to "plausible", else you stop being a skeptic and instead look like a sheltered twat.
Fun fact: Joseph Stalin was informed about the existence of the atomic bomb during the same meeting that Churchill announced he'd been voted out of office. The soviet leader was unphased by news of the bomb (he already knew through spies) but was utterly appalled that Churchill could simply be "voted out" of office.
Supposedly, Churchill’s wife suggested that as the defeat meant that he could take it easy for while, it might be a blessing in disguise. “If so,” Winston sighed, “it is very effectively disguised.”
@@jmwh9654 I have read so many brilliant, inspiring Churchill quotes, and he was generally very well read and articulate that I find that hard to believe. Why do you say such a thing? That is, what is your basis in fact for your comment. You realize that you cannot libel the dead so that once a public figure passes, a plethora of books full of nonsense are printed. My favorite of his quotes is “Never ever, ever, ever, ever give up.” It is the one that I live by, and I am certain that he said.
@@nanny287 Nobody is denying he was a witty man who publicly uttered many a catchy pun or joke. But his spin doctors & supporters also invented many more and added them to history. Just as Churchill re-wrote history to favour himself, so did his staff and fans.
I heard a BBC radio documentary about this years ago. They interviewed a veteran. He said, & I am paraphrasing, "When we faced defeat early in the war we were all equal". "As the war progressed & it became obvious that the Axis would lose, the privileges of the upper class returned". "I was wounded at Alamein & was standing in line with a cane at a movie theater". "A young son of a Lord, who probably never wore a uniform in his life, got to go to the front of the line". "That's when I decided I would vote Labor". Thanks again for an interesting documentary
@@deezboyeed6764 I think he was referring to how there was one rule for the common people and another rule for the governing upper class. During the pandemic, the common British public were practically locked in their homes, while the Tories in government partied in defiance of lockdown.
@Nicky L You're probably correct but it sounded to me like he was a teenager. (probably never been in uniform) All I know is that he had been wounded, standing in the drizzle supporting himself with a cane & the youg guy was allowed to go to the front of the line. I suspect that it wasn't the policy of #10. It was probably the movie doorman sucking up to some Lord.
I think one of the most important factors for Churchill's loss was that he was the Tory Party at that point. The Tory party was comprised of older men who weren't politically relevent since the coalition formed and Labour was filled with relatively younger men that, as stated in the video, were the ones running the country, they held most of the important ministerial positions and Atlee was affectively in charge when Churchill wasn't in the UK.
@Jack Wrath Youre a horrible person when you act like this; become a better person. I recommend findin somethin like the vlogbrothers to teach you how to do such
Yup, the conservatives were doomed but assumed he would be enough to save them He was the best individual out of the options, but the Labour Party was the best party out of the options. And the Party is more significant than one individual
Interesting fact, when Churchill became PM it was labour MPs who cheered him not Tory MPs as they didn’t trust him because he was constantly swapping parties.
@@dikshantkandwal5815 King James I of the house of Bissonette, by the grace of God King of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland
I don't know, but this was a pretty major historical event all things considered. The post-war consensus of the strong socialistic welfare state was really created by Attlee. Churchill might not have gone for it in '45.
My grandmother was from Scotland and the only election she ever voted in was 1945. She was a Homeguard volunteer the entire war and like everyone was fond of Churchill. The reason she voted against him was because before the war the government never seemed to have any money to spend but once war was on, all of a sudden money was available for any project. From her perspective Labour deserved a chance to form government after the war because they had promised to spend money on helping people in the UK.
@@silverreverence6176 not really considering that there’s no spending money when it comes to government all government spending comes from the citizenry
Your grandmother didn't vote Churchill out. She couldn't vote for or against him! Only the people of Woodford could. I don't know if your miss remembering the story or she didn't understand how the UK political system works. But Churchill did NOT loose the 1945 election. He was returned to parliament!
@@AdamMGTF I understand what you're saying but from this American perspective and maybe from a general election perspective once your government loses the party the technically you are out as that government caretaker. Not sure you'll return to the opposition but who even remembers a opposition leader? No one
@@attiepollard7847 but that's not the point. The point is our system is miss represented in the video and this is shown by the ops comment... Very worrying as this is supposed to be an educational channel/video. Churchill WON his election. That's the historical truth.
Also, the general consensus was that the 1920s and 30s were a pretty bad period of time for Britain and from 1918-1945, the Tories had a majority (even if the PM wasn't a Tory) except for 3 years of Labour-Liberal coalitions, and Churchill didn't represent the party establishment as, when he was warning about Nazi Germany, he never had a cabinet position.
@@thecondesce3904 Yes, but the general population wouldn't have associated him with the Baldwin/Chamberlain wing of the Tories, and they had ruled Britain almost uninterrupted from 1923-1939. I'd imagine when people went to vote 1945, they were thinking of Baldwin's Tory party, not Churchill's.
That's a pretty good point. I'd say that while Churchill was popular, he wasn't really seen as the average party politician. So people might have liked him, but not the rest of his party.
You got some good facts there about the conservative party's relation to Churchill. There is also one massive fact is the future of Britain, Churchill wanted to keep the empire together no matter what as his foreign policy, this scared the rest of the conservatives because the upcoming superpowers were deeply anti-colonial, the US might've isolated Britain while the USSR would fund rebels in the colonials. The establishment saw the writing on the walls and capitulated very easy to Atlee's policy of freeing the colonies.
@@shade270 Yeah, Churchill got dragged down by his own party even though he'd been against appeasement to Hitler in the late 1930's and warned everyone of the threat that the Nazis posed.
@@mantea3481 USSR was funeling funds for colonies before and after decolonisation anyway, UK fucked it up to guarantee stable governments and simply left. Now imagine almost every country in Africa acting like Botswana without warlords and fanatic socialists at the helm.
My great-grandma always said: "I didn't vote against churchill because he was bad, I voted against him because he wanted to make an alliance with the french" (She really said this btw) Then again, she also said that she couldn't understand people "from the north", and my dad always thought she meant scotland, turns out she meant people from north of the thames, so it seems in character
At the time Britain/England and France had been passionate enemies for most of the past thousand years. Most of Britain's national heroes, like Nelson, Wellington, Marlborough, Henry V became heroes by defeating the French. You can't just change an ancestral enemy into a friend overnight.
@@Dave_Sisson Britain and France have been allies in WW1 and the "Free French" led by de Gaulle were also allies in WW2. They also fought together against Russia in the 19th century Crimean War. I think the greatgrandmother was more scared that allying with the just liberated French meant that Britain had a higher chance of getting involved in another war again.
@@dodec8449 I disagree, the French were not "seen" as reliable allies. I've been reading about the First Australian Corps, Ski School which trained Australian and British ski troops to fight the French in Lebanon in the Second World War. So we were fighting the French just a couple of years before that election. No wonder D Burton's great grandmother was wary of the French as allies.
Always enjoy these videos.On this one, the labour campaign had a great slogan "cheer Churchill, vote labour". Labour didnt attack Churchill during the campaign, instead focusing on the Conservative party and the failures that led to WWII. This tactic helped win the labour majority. One thing that was missed though was that Churchill returned as PM in 1951. Maybe its being saved for another video :)
It WOULD be worth a video. Atlee's career completely fell apart due to the Korean War and other factors. It reminds me so much of Truman's downfall here in the US.
Churchill lost again in 1950 and he lost the popular vote in 1951 and tried to get Clement Davies's (non-National) Liberals on side to bolster numbers. He was actually a very crummy peacetime politician just like his fan Boris.
The election of the new prime minister Attlee took place during the Potsdam conference in which Post-war Europe and Germany were organized. You might know the famous picture with Stalin, Truman and Churchill sitting together in wicker chairs. Churchill attended the first 9 days of the conference. Because of the election of the new prime minister the conference had to be interrupted for 2 days, then it was resumed and went on for another 4 days. The closing documents have the signature of Clement Attlee but not Churchill's. It is odd to consider that some the leaders we associate the most with the second world war, Roosevelt and Churchill, were not in office anymore when the war ended. So the final documents don't even bear their names. Except for Stalin of course, because you know... he was Stalin after all.
@@justsomeguy1695 Sure, but he was in office until April 1945 and is much more associated with being the president during the second world war than Truman is.
Just learned that about Atlee, already knew that about Truman (I am American, though). Harry Truman was a very important but lesser known president, it was him after all who authorized the use of nukes on Japan. After leaving office, he was so less known he drove his car back to Missouri with his wife and was pulled over on the Pennsylvania Turnpike (he had no security detail or even an entourage) and it took a second for the state trooper to recognize him. He was let go (the trooper said he would have ticketed some presidents, but not Truman) and continued on his road trip. Hard to believe that happened to the guy who signed the agreements ending WW2.
Stalin’s USSR defeated 80% of the nazi war machine. Furthermore, Japan didn’t surrender because of the atomic bombs. The USSR entered the war against Japan a couple of weeks before Japan’s surrender, steamrolling 1+ million Japanese troops in occupied mainland Asia & taking Japan’s vital resource colony of “Manchukuo” (where much of the Japanese military’s food and metal came from), devastating Japan’s hopes for continuing to wage war and dispelling their hope that the (until then) neutral USSR would help them get a good peace deal with the Allies. Also, the USSR threatened to invade the Japanese islands, where they would have killed and imprisoned the capitalist ruling class of Japan’s dictatorship and replaced their capitalist corporations with a socialist system. These were the main reasons why Japan surrendered to the USA when they did.
The 1945 election has always felt like a really ideal example of how an electorate should act. There was a leader for war that was well-respected, but then the war ended, and the voters wanted someone else for a peacetime government.
One thing that should be noted about Churchill: His present-day reputation was mostly built after the end of his political career. In his time, Churchill was beyond controversial and a lot of his political goals were diametrically opposed to what the majority of the british public wanted (he opposed women's right to vote, the expansion of labor rights for workers, unionization, the expansion of social services and welfare, etc.) and he was also responsible for serious policy failures. Gallipoli wasn't an isolated incident and arguably not even his worst mistake: When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, his decision to return to the gold standard devastated the british economy and was one of the major causes of Britain's loss of competitive advantages, mainly against the US. Finally, though we tend to see Churchill as the sole leader of the United Kingdom during the war, this was not true. Churchill's government was a unity government and Attlee, the leader of the labor party, also held an important leadership position, having far more responsibilities over the home front, the economy, etc. This is why his attack against him in the 1945 election, comparing his party to the gestapo, was seen as a massive betrayal and an unforgivable insult: He was attacking one of the leaders of the unity government, one of his own colleagues, comparing him to Britain's main enemy. In short, contrary to Churchill's present-day polished image, in his own times he was a controversial figure, one that held several unpopular, even backwards positions, one responsible for several major policy failures, one that wasn't seen as the sole political leader responsible for Britain's victory and was heavily criticized for his insult against his main political allies during the war. *THAT'S* why the british public voted him out of office.
THIS. RIGHT. HERE!!! The video makes it seem like "the conservative party at the time was just stupid and Churchill was good at war so people thought he'd suck at peace" The reality is that Churchill was terrible at wagging a war, he ruined the economy, and he acted like a pompous A-hole while strutting around drunk. I'm not gonna say he was this God awful guy who doomed Britain or anything. But this image of some great man who single handedly defeated Germany is a joke. Without the U.S.A and U.S.S.R Britain would have been destroyed.
I feel split about Churchill. Some of his actions were horrendous (Bengal famine comes to mind), but I'd be equally alarmed if people around me supported Stalin, a mass murdering and ruthless despot who decimated his country's food production, and murdered millions of his own people (even children). So I don't blame Churchill for condemning Stalin. On a less morbid note, what you mentioned about Churchill's treachery makes perfect sense. If people found out about that, I wouldn't blame them for voting Churchill out.
Churchill was actually fairly supportive of labour unions. He saw them as “the antithesis to socialism” and thought they would be useful as independent institutions that would fight against government control. So he didn’t support them for any noble reasons, but he was okay with them existing, at least.
Pretty much, Churchill was an Aristocrat, and a War-monger, he just so happened to be a War-monger in one of the very few wars with a clear bad guy. In any other Era, Churchill would likely be hated like a male version of Margret Thatcher. He was a poor military leader, poor strategic thinker, a drunk, an arch conservative/ reactionary. You know, being born into wealth, gotta keep those filthy peasants poor, and subservient. He gets so much good PR nowadays, like Stalin used to, before you know, it became common knowledge that he was a paranoid crook, that killed millions of his own people.
I like how back then the people had trouble choosing between two good choices while in most of today's elections the people have trouble choosing which one is slightly less horrible between two abysmally bad choices. Edit: My point was that back then both Churchill and his opponent seemed relatively popular, while today there is often no popular candidate in elections. I did NOT want to say that I agree with his policies.
This was before being a politician was a career. You couldn't just spout shite and get paid for it on taxpayer money, hell people would have literally rioted after partygate in the 70s nevermind in the late 40s 😂
Churchill was a racist who wanted to maintain the British Empire against the wishes of 90% of it's subjects which would have inevitably led to the deaths of millions of people in rebellions in which the British wouldn't have the support of the USA or USSR. Even with Churchill out of the picture they still had the Mau Mau uprisings and near genocidal response by the British forces, with a hardcore imperialist at the head of the government the same thing would have happened all over the world.
Another reason as I understand it is that the Tories had been widely perceived as having failed the veterans of the First World War when they governed in the years after, and there was a great desire not to see those mistakes repeated. The vote from servicemen was especially heavy for Labour for this reason
This video is only needed because many people don’t understand how a parliamentary system of government (which the UK has) works. Churchill was NOT voted out, his party was. Since they no longer held a majority of seats, the party that did chose a new prime minister.
I actually learned this in high school. In a nutshell, the simple reason why they didn't keep Winston Churchill was because they didn't need him anymore. Why would you need a guy who loves war during peacetime?
These days, being an aggressive trouble-maker is seen as a sign of strength and greatness to most voters. Rather than a mere smokescreen pandering to the most dull and simplistic minds in order to win power so you can siphon the nation's wealth into your billionaire buddie's foreign tax haven bank accounts. Anyone who questions this must be a "snowflake libtard commie" or whatever other buzz words you've been fed.
@@luisandrade2254 He loved war, thats why his second ministry is thought of as generally subpar compared to his first ministry during WW2, he wasn’t well equipped for normal governing, and he was definitely not good at the strategic aspect of war, his role in keeping the UK together was more do with his energy keeping the British solid through adversity, which is really only important during wartime, as seen with his post war below average performance as PM.
The British public seemed to have been mostly unaware of all the horrible things Stalin did prior or even during the German invasion. Famous Author George Orwell was actually going to publicly publish books on the various atrocities that Stalin has done, but the British government disallowed it since they were now allies with the Soviets and last thing they need is the public having doubts on there only major European ally at the time. This action lead to him eventually creating and publishing Animal Farm, which was a very clear allegory to the Soviet Union and Stalins reign with Barn Animals.
Although Animal Party was less "Communism Bad" and more "Revolution Makes Tyrants." Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) was an unironic "real communism hasn't been tried" type.
Also not to excuse the thousands the soviets killed in their ruthless pursuit to Berlin, but sometimes you have to say they were in a war… Not much we can do especially in the moment its easier now because decades have passed but during the war it is much different… Winners never pay for their war crimes ever in history simple as that
@@ObadiahtheSlim perhaps just my personal interpretation, but I always took it as "communism is easily usurped by tyrants" Probably not exactly what Orwell or the CIA intended
@@georgeprchal3924 Wait you're right, I forgot he was re-elected after serving the rest of FDR's term. In any case, Dewey's mustache was lacking in terms of charisma.
As a guy living in Québec, I can also add that in a British parliamentary system, there is no way to specifically select the PM, only to vote in the general election for a certain candidate attached to a specific party and hope for the best, unlike, for example, the US or France where you can vote for the president, where the legislative and executive powers are clearly separated.
@@AnaIvanovic4ever Quebec, and by extension Canada use the Westminster system. As for who they're explaining to, from personal experience a lot of people, mostly americans don't actually understand how the westminster system works, and the fact that they choose the party, not the prime minister
I feel stupid for just now realising that the newspapers in the video have actual "articles" about other world events of the period and that they're as hilarious as the video itself. Great hidden content!
Churchill was despicable, racist, war criminal. Some will argue his “sins” are expiated for his actions during the second world war. It is nothing but nonsense to suggest Churchill went out to fight fascism. He lauded Mussolini as a “roman genius”, donated to Nazi war criminal Erich Von Manstien’s criminal defence and sought to desperatly cling on to the British Empire from which Hitler himself took inspiration for his Reich. What we have to remember is Churchill was not a uniquely villianous British Prime Minister. He was not out of ordinary but in fact a true representation of Britain.
1:43 Considering that Labour had also opposed rearmament for years before 1939 on the grounds that the Tories wouldn’t use it against Germany as they claimed but to expand the Empire overseas, it is an insanely hilarious irony of history that they got to claim credit for not being part of that when they were just as opposed to rearmament as Chamberlain, if not moreso, especially after Munich.
It's also a cautionary tale that manybconservative parties suffer... being too much like the left wing party, and vice versa. If your policies are too alike, you risk alienating your base.
When the war did begin though they overwhelming were against Germany and were key supporters of Churchill as opposed to many conservatives who didn't like Churchill and by 1940 wanted to surrender to the Germans
And then what happened? The UK quite famously took longer to recover from the war than did relatively free-market(in itself an anomaly - how was this allowed to happen?) Germany.
Ever since I watched The Darkest Hour, I’ve always wondered why Churchill lost office soon after leading his country to victory in WWII. It was glossed over very quickly at the end of the movie as an afterthought. This video cleared things up very much so thank you!
@@Big.Stepper. The Darkest hour? It's full of propaganda. It's if someone made a movie of Hitler showing only his good deeds & leaving out the other stuff from the movie.
@@nhandinh7404 Not really. A film cannot go into the level of detail a book can. A film is usually restricted to 3 hours at most while books can take far longer to read and therefore contain more content. Films usually focus on specific aspects of a story whereas books have far a greater scope. Films can often fall short of properly explaining certain nuances resulting in oversimplification while a book can take the time to explain nuances. Finally, movies are meant to be for entertainment not education so they often exaggerate things for dramatic effect and ignore vital things to cut down the run time. If you are interesting in learning history, movies are an alright introduction to historical events but they should always be taken with a grain of salt and further research should be done (you can always start with the "Historical Accuracy" section that usually appears on Wikipedia pages for historical films).
Video ideas: Why was the Great Leap Forward such a disaster? Why did Greece join the Entente despite having a German king? Why did Romania join the Entente despite having a German king? Post WW2 Hungary (highest hyperinflation in history / Communist takeover)
Why did the Great Leap Forward fail? Mao wasn't a good conveniencer to those who didn't already flow him. Thus, seeing how China didn't have a Siberia to exile those who weren't loyal, he calmly told them that he would listen and change his plan, oh wait, he just had them shot.
#3 much of the educated and ruling class were educated in France and were pro-French, plus there was the obvious desire to take transylvania from the Austro-Hungarians, so allying them would have been quite an unpopular decision
My late father was in active service WW2, I remember him telling me that he and his comrades absolutely hated Churchill and voted against him en masse. They felt that he was far too enamoured of war and they resented his bellicose posturing.
Except he was _right._ If the West had destroyed Russia, we wouldn't have had the Cold War or the rape of Ukraine. If you let medium-sized problems lie, they grow into world-ending dragons. Churchill could've prevented that; could've prevented the *end of the world.*
Churchill also betrayed all 120,000 RAF Bomber Command servicemen after the war. The veterans (including the 55573 KIA) were completely forgotten about and denied any form of medal or memorial until 2012 because of the controversial nature of RAF bombing, even though it was total war and the Germans were doing the exact same thing to the UK. Edit: the bomber boys still dont have a campaign medal. Most of them are dead by now though.
Oddly my grandad said his comrades admired Churchill. If course it's important to remember this video is very misleading as Churchill actually won his 45 election. His party lost the majority and so a labour government was formed. The difference between your father and my grandfather shows that you can't take a small sample size when it comes to history.
@@Warspite-1915 that isn't technically true. Your right that bomber command didn't get the recognition it deserved. It's still wrong to this day. But this wasn't something that was the fault of Churchill or the war time government. Such decisions were made by the Atlee government. I don't think it helped much that Harris wasn't a very popular person by 1945. I agree with max Hastings, he was a good leader to have in 1942. But really showed he wasn't the right man once D-day rolled around. His nature didn't help matters when it came to recognition for the bomber boys. Too his credit, he did turn down a peerage out of discust that his crews didn't get the medal they deserved. But yes. My point is this wasn't Churchill's fault. Sadly I can't see this travesty changing now given modern sensitivity to the reality of ww2. Lest we forget!
But that's the way with most western democracies. Despite being better for the economy and the social welfare of the people, Labour governments have only been in power about 30% of the time. It's just so difficult to compete with oligarchy.
@@corneliusmaze-eye2459 its down to a vicious cycle the conservatives use to their advantage. Conservstives get in and fuck everyone over so that when labours in they have to make hard decision but that will later benefit the nation. Unfortunately most of the gwneral population is too stupid to fsthom planning more then a year in advance. Which is the biggest fucking issue i have democracy, governments have the ability to plan decades ahead, to lay foundations that will later benifit the entire nation. But no we would rather spend every four years arguing
@@corneliusmaze-eye2459 The opposite occurred with Blair and Major. John Major won the most votes in British history (14m) but only got a tiny majority of MPs. Blair won the next election with fewer votes but had a super majority of MPs. In the last few elections on average conservatives needed 2000 more votes per MP because the constituency borders favour Labour.
@@jgw9990 It is actually the opposite, the constituency borders favour the tories: In 2019 labour had around 1000 more votes per seat. In 2017 labour had 6000 votes more per seat. In 2015 labour again had 6000 votes more per seat.
Great video. When working 20 years ago on the till in a charity shop, I rang up a book sale. Book was The BWP (The British Way and Purpose). The older buyer told me his dad had a copy of it, and his commanding officer plus regimental padre during the war held frequent discussion groups on what did people want if they won the war? I got a copy cheap on the internet. Fascinating social history for us, and worth a read. I can see why Churchill lost.
See below for an excellent book on the social history of the ordinary British soldier, which has a chapter on the discussion groups attendended by the rank-and-file. (My father, conscripted into the army in WW2, loved these discussion groups.) Title: "Browned off and bloody-minded" Sub-title: "The British soldier goes to war 1939-1945" Author: Alan Allport Publisher: Yale University Press, London, 2017.
If there isn't already I'd like to see more vids about how the British Empire transitioned into the British Commonwealth and how that affected countries like Canada where I'm from.
With Canada, it led to successive Liberal governments, beginning in the late 1940s, to start de-Anglicizing Canada, with Lester Pearson having a hand in it.
@@terrorgaming459 It's, inevitalble I mean, it has already happened since her father, King George. Unless you count Afghanistan and Egypt, and probably Ireland and South Africa, which happened much earlier than him (1910's-1920's)
Such a huge fan of your channel. I love coming home to a new upload of yours. It's amazing how well you condense information in such a short time frame. Keep it up!
This was a blessing for Churchill and his legacy. A perfect lesson in not overstaying your success. You did the impossible, now ride off into the sunset or get assassinated (always foolproof). Also, people don’t like debbie downers after winning a war…even if true.
The Conservatives didn't really embrace "The Beveridge Report" as much as Labour. Labour was supportive of it in its entirety and also called for full employment and widespread nationalization of industry (most notably steel). Conservatives said they liked some of the ideas but didn't think they could be paid for and mostly wanted things to somewhat go back to how it was prewar
And then the Labour Party effed it all up, destroying British industry. No ship building, their automotive companies are owned by foreign ones. Labour didn't help the working people keep their jobs. What better way to push through welfare programs but to expand the number of unemployed to ensure the need for welfare is as big as possible?
@Nicky L "The French government have limited prices increases for french consumers" and the consumers pay those increases via income tax, vat, or more expensive products (because companies will charge more if the government tries to raise the money via corporate tax). price caps are there to fool the people that are too stupid to understand that the government cannot give anything that it does not previously takes from someone.
“Mr. Atlee is an honourable and gallant gentleman, and a faithful colleague who served his country well at the time of her greatest need. I should be obliged if you would make it clear whenever an occasion arises that I would never make such a remark about him, and that I strongly disapprove of anybody who does.”
"For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself." - Winston Churchill
It's worth pointing out that Churchill actually managed to overturn the Labour landslide and got back into Downing Street in 1951, he won on the back of dissatisfaction of Attlee's economic polices which hadn't fixed unemployment issues despite the policy of full employment. It's also unique that Churchill is probably the only UK party leader to suffer two election defeats (1945 and 1950 one being a landslide which is normally be a death nail to leadership ambitions) and still comeback as PM.
If I remember correctly it was due to a declaration of a bread ration. I even read a post about it and how it might had affected the election. Just in case I better check again later on today glad someone else mention this.
@@raptorfromthe6ix833 No, Nixon lost in 1960 by a small margin, won in 1968 by a slightly larger margin, and then was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides in the history of the United States in 1972
Both my grandads fought in the British army throughout the war, and they both hated Churchill. That generation also remembered the things that Churchill had done before the war, like ordering troops to open fire on striking miners, and sending thousands of Anzacs to certain death at Gallipoli.
Not going to sugar coat it, Winston was a terrible person. He won a well deserved hate from many. But he did *one* thing that sets him apart from all others: he walked away from power peacefully. And he had a LOT of power when wwii ended. That, in itself, is not enough to like the man, or to wash away his many mistakes. But is rare enough to be notable. Respectfully.
But now, if you say any of that, people say “he was a man of his time” even though many people at the time thought him as a racist man that didn’t understand the struggles of the working class
Im sure he had no small part of Canada's Gallipoli....Dieppe. You could perhaps see how we arent too keen to put Charles The Tampon on our money either.
1:56 bottom right text, thank you for including that horrific event in Croatian history, the Bleiburg march, very few non croatian people actually know of that
Certainly not something that they teach in Germany about the aftermath of WWII. Our benevolent "liberators" were all saints and beyond worldly criticism.
Yeah especially after all the promises during world war 1 that were not fulfilled. I guess after over a million people dead after two wars, millions more injured and displaced people decided they wanted the promises fulfilled this time and their sacrifice honoured.
@@truthseeker327 The UK couldn't afford it, the country was quite literally broke and would be in an economic mess for decades to come. Churchill wouldn't of been able to stop the inevitable.
Hey History matters, I have a suggestion for the next video, would you like to do a compare and contrast between a peasant, indentured servant, serf, and a slave? Because I think it is important to the distinction between these classes, especially in cases such as India, Russia, USA, etc.
Peasant is free, indentured servitude is intended to be temporary, serfs are an inherited social status attached to land (not quite slaves but unfree, think like an extreme tenant farmer) and slaves are property. What this meant for your status as a slave meant different things in different places at different times. The race-based chattel slavery of the New World was unique and colors our perception of slavery throughout time. We assume that’s how all slaves everywhere throughout history were like, which isn’t the case. In Ancient Rome, urban slaves could make money and were more like a caste. Some slaves were teachers, especially Greek ones. Norse thralls had rights and could earn the 10th century equivalent of full citizenship. In Sparta, the helots were a whole class of people who did everything while the upper classes fought. It’s best to classify all those things you listed as a scale of unfree labor, which ranges from unpaid internship one one end and chattel slavery on the other.
@@ferretyluv I appreciate that, but I wanted History Matters to cover it, that's why I have that topic as a suggestion just for him to do a video on it. So, that's why, but thank you.
I mean... that's a complicated topic. The lives and rights of ANY of these vastly changes between regions and years. Still, I agree that it should be covered.
@@sarcasticguy4311 Modern day slavery also comes in many forms. Corvee labor still exists in places like Kazakhstan, where students have to spend their summers farming, to child soldiers, to human trafficking, to indentured servitude. There are so many different kinds of unfree labor in the modern day, like tenant farming. Modern day slavery is a topic all on its own. It works very differently than today because it’s illegal. Labor trafficking and sex trafficking are but two types of modern day slavery. But the days of an internationally recognized state-sponsored chattel slave trade are behind us. Modern day slavery looks very different and hides behind a veneer of legitimacy since the slavery we’re all familiar with was outlawed decades ago (Except Mauritania, which only criminalized it in the 80s and is rarely enforced).
@@johkupohkuxd1697 Neville Chamberlain was PM at the beginning of the war but resigned so the foreign secretary at the time Winston Churchill became PM until the end of the war or the next General elelction
As churchill said, "he has been a good prime minister for peace time, but not so much for war time" The same could be said about Churchill during "peace time" and how he's a better PM for "war time". Edit: Made this comment before 1:33. God, I feel super smart now.
I am late but another issues as shown in the film Darkest Hour was that before he became PM, his name was associated with military disasters such as Gallipoli and the more recent Norwegian campaign.
Anthony Burgess gives pretty good information about the conscripts' state of mind at the time of the election, in his books 1985 and Little Wilson and Big God. Burgess voted tory pretty much all his life, except in 1945.
The thing I remember best about him are his quotes. He was definitely respected, and I always thought he was a bit hurt by being thrown out on his ear.
Make these videos next! 1. Why did the revolutions of 1848 fail in Germany in Spain? 2. Why do people drive on different sides of the road in different parts of the world?
#2 is just because when cars started becoming prominent, globalisation wasn't really a thing, so each place arbitrarily picked one side and once that became an issue it was too much trouble to fix
#2: because the countries that drive on the left hand side (UK, Australia, NZ, India, etc..) were for the most part of the British commonwealth, and that’s what side the brits drove on
Except that this the same Labour Party that sold the Nene engine to Stalin. The man himself didn’t believe anyone would be a big enough fool to do that but they were those fools. The result, the MiG-15 and significant problems to the UN forces in Korea.
@@emberfist8347 What is wrong selling military hardware to a wartime ally? You do realise that people during WWII and shortly post war don't really view the Soviet Union as the evil empire?
@@cecaloather8701 The war was over and even back then, nobody trusted Stalin as far as we could throw him. And the engine was pretty advanced hence why Stalin’s quote was about selling their secrets as jet engines were made under the upmost secrecy by everyone during the war. For reference the first jet fighter adopted by the US was the P-80 Shooting Star. Only 5 men in the 130 men team knew what they were building and the police detained the British engineer who came to deliver the De Havilland Goblin engine since the company couldn’t vouch for him. This is between the US and Britain who have a much warmer relationship than the Soviet Union and UK. And there were many people in the UK. The same Labour Party who gave Stalin the Nene engine previously prosecuted a Communist which caused scandal leading to the party’s resignation. Churchill famously said that if Hitler invaded Hell, he would put in a good word for the devil in reference to the alliance with Stalin and British Intelligence was comparing notes with the freaking Gestapo as late as 1937 to track down potential communists. So I doubt the war led to a seriously drastic 180.
@@emberfist8347 You make a lot of references to how the political elite thought about the Soviet Union then, not those who did not manage to get into the corridors of power and the common people. I suppose you are still scratching your head on why Churchill was voted out of power even though the video explained why and thought the pro-Soviet people even during the height of the Cold War were just brainwashed sheeple. Thing is, the Soviet Union was portrayed and actually was a great ally who did the heavy lifting against fighting Germany. You'd think that would influence a lot of the British population then to be pro-Soviet. People thought differently back then.
Yeah yeah no because the people “electing” “different people” that just so happen to be from the same party is totally a dictatorship. I’m not even British and yet that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.
Don't worry. Just like the conservatives/public blamed labour for the financial crash, everyone will blame the tories for the coming great recession, the current stagflation and the great crash.
I mean given that this guy came up with the brilliant idea of "operation unthinkable" immediately after the end of the - by far - most brutal war in history, you kinda get where the impression came from that Churchill is not the guy for peace
@@vercot7000 Quite the contrary in fact. The Soviet army was suffering from shortages starting in 1944, and towards VE day in 1945, their army was dangerously close to collapse due to a shortage of manpower. They paid quite heavily in bodycount for every mile they earned in Germany. The Soviet army had massive numbers in 1942, but by 1945 not so much. They didn't have an infinite supply of men after all. After VE day the Soviet army was very vulnerable because of this. Had Britain pressed the attack and gotten the United States to join in, they could have steamrolled through Russia relatively easily. Alas, the people in Europe and America alike were both sick of war at this point and would be very hesitant to fight against a former ally when all they wanted was to have their sons come back home and enjoy peacetime after six years of brutal war.
@@captainkuijt contrary to your response,shortages started when soviets entered to western poland where their logistical lines were way too extended. Also no,soviets had more than 8 million man by end of european campgain. If operation unthinkable happened,western goverments would get toppled because approval for soviets at end of war From US and UK were overwhelmingly high and no one wanted to attack former ally who were a vital part of destroying germany as US since they bodied 80 percent of german military. Overall operation unthinkable would be way too unpopular and cost in topplement of allied goverments and more destruction for already exhaushed soviet people who wanted nothing but peace.
Both my parents were 23 in 1945 (meaning because ot the war it this was their first chance to vote) and both voted Labour. They saw Churchill as a great wartime leader but who previously had been an hopeless Home Secretary and disasterous Chancellor of the Exchequer, not the man you wanted to be PM in peacetime.
I heard it mentioned somewhere that a major reason was increased British sympathy for communism. This was caused by nothing else than the government propaganda itself since it presented USSR as friends. The video did mention this more positive attitude towards communism, but my point is that the UK government might have had a nonnegligible part in causing it.
Coming from NewZealand. Churchill is not a popular man and its not what we were taught in school, it's through our grandparents and great grandparents. People who knew how Churchill treated the Anzac troops and would treat them as cannon fodder. Even the Australian war time priminster Curtian didn't trust or like Winston. Trying to block Australian troops coming home to protect their own country. And perhead of population the Anzacs sent more troops than any other countries. Winston Churchill was very responsible for globally and the huge loss of Anzac life there being forced to charge into death .Winston Churchill murdered more Anzac troops than any man to ever live
@@gilbert8162 it has been. He took massive bribes from bankers and arm manufacturers to bring britain to war and he was a massive drunk throughout his life. Facts very often omitted when describing him.
Churchill is probably the single most over rated man in British history. I say that as an American. I've seen Brits claim he was more important than Napoleon, Alexander the great, and was once even told that I, as an American, have been affected more by Churchill than George Washington himself. He isn't even the most important man in BRITISH history. Let alone the entire friggin world.
Correction: He wasn't voted out after WW2, he was voted out during WW2 because it occurred in July 1945, and the Japanese Empire Surrenders in late August 1945.
Important to note he came back and won in the very next election and was PM from 1951-1955 so he lead the UK through The Korean War as well I feel like quite a lot of Americans at least forget about that
Forget about it? I never even knew or learned about the British participated in the K War and I consider myself knowing a bit more than most Americans.
2:10 Tsar Nicholas II looking mildly annoyed before and after his execution is peak development in the series, given that his role in this series was being fearfully executed on the spot by the Bolsheviks.
I remember, years ago, reading an interview with Margaret Thatcher, in which she talked about the 1945 election. She said that when Churchill made the "Socialist Gestapo" comment, her reaction was "He's gone too far this time".
Churchill wasn't even in Britain when he found out he was voted out of office. He was attending the Potsdam-Conference where Stalin had an office decorated to his taste (and another office for Truman). The election happened before the conference but the result became known after it started. Churchill left and Atlee joined the conference. Stalin did not bother to have the office redecorated (it is to this day decorated like it was for Churchill). Many believe, that having 2 inexperienced heads of states at the conference allowed Stalin to get much of what he wanted - including moving the polish borders with the USSR and those with Germany west.
Churchill: "After everything I've done for you guys, your kicking me out?!" 😡🤬😡🤬 British People: "We don't trust you to keep the peace." 😒 Churchill: 😢
there is something you missed, Churchill not only lost the 1945 but he also lost the 1950 election as well, but he won the 1951 election because the Labour Party although having the majority of the parliament, was a slim majority just about 2 over, Labour wanted more seats and called for an early election due to the polls at the time showing they are gaining seats, but in the end the people were mad of this early election and voted Churchill in to spite the labors for calling an early election. Basically, Labour pulled a Theresa May and failed miserably like she did
actually the king asked labour to call the election, he was meant to be going on a major international trip and was concerned that the government might fall. They lost (despite gaining votes) because liberal voters shifted to the tories, not because labour called an early election.
The whole Wartime leader isnt a good Peacetime Leader thing makes sense tbh (conquering a country is different from ruling it) but seeing as a new cold war emerged not long after it's weird to see a big reason for churchills defeat being the love for communism by the british people.
That would happen starting in 1947, with relations with the URSS getting cold, and the realisation that all countries "liberated" by the Russians were not free to choose their government and instead forced to remain under Russian domination. But in 1945, that was not at all obvious: The USSR was the country that played the biggest role in defeating Germany (no disrespect to the American and British, but it's the soviet army who faced, and destroyed, the majority of the Wehrmacht). Therefore, the USSR was very popular in The UK at the time of the election, and understandably so. The strategy of Churchill "fear the Russians, re-elect me" was poorly timed.
It wasn't love, it was lack of hatred towards the left, as people realized that communism doesn't have to be a regime but just a handful of reforms to give more freedom to the lower classes.
@@ImperiumMagistrate he actually lost the popular vote. Atlee got a majority of the votes, but because of britains FPTP system, Churchill got a majority of the seats
Partially because of the FPTP system, partially because Labour was split into two factions, mostly because Attlee's government had been too slow to lift wartime rationing and price controls.
I watched a show on PBS about Gallipoli and that it was Churchill's plan. I found it telling that he continued with his idea even when the soldiers were losing. I also noticed that there was an obvious flaw that even I saw when the map of the terrain and placements of the enemy forces were shown.
Plus, Churchill wasn't all that popular among hardline Labour voters and unionists. This was the man who ordered strikers in Wales and England fired upon with both guns AND ship cannons (I'm from Liverpool where the latter happened). Plus, there was the whole Bengal Famine and Black and Tans thing, but I don't know how many people outside the Indian and Irish communities spoke out about it at the time.
Nobody fired cannons at liverpool ....There were gunboats in the Mersey , but nobody fired cannons. The Black and Tans were formed about 25 years before he was PM . And as for Bengal...the reason for that was Britain was being starved itself by German Uboats and not really in any position to offer famine relief ...Hence why it eventually came from the Commonweath .......As a Scouser myself , this naive lefty view of history is scary . Talk about teaching the kids complete fiction
@@zapre2284 in the 1931 census there were 7000 South Asians in England. Not an insignificant amount, definitely not nothing even if it's nowhere near as much as today
When informed that Franklin Roosevelt had died, Churchill was silent for a few moments, the said "To die. At the height of one's power. Well loved and well respected. There are worse fates." I always wondered if he thought about that when he was voted out of office. It's true what he said. Given the fact we all have to die eventually, the best time to go is when you're at the very top of your game. Side note: What is not mentioned in the presentation is Churchill served a second term when the Conservatives won a majority of seats in 1951. He served until 1955, when he resigned due to health reasons. It's true what they say - you can't keep a good man down!
Apparently Lady Bonham-Carter, who famously said 'The Tory party might be wrong but they are wrong at the right moment!' told Churchill, 'Never mind Winston! It may be a blessing in disguise!' To which Churchill retorted, 'At the moment it is Very Well disgused!!'
@@christopheraliaga-kelly6254 LOL, yep, that's Churchill for you. He always had a clever retort, no matter what the situation. One time, he was at a party drinking brandy - which he loved to do. In attendance was the Lady Astor, who in addition to being Churchill's political enemy, was also a stuck-up snob. She attempted to take Churchill to task saying "Mister Prime Minister, you are quite drunk." To which Churchill replied: "You're right, my lady. I am quite drunk. But on the other hand, you are quite ugly, and tomorrow I will be indisputably sober!"
Attlee saved Britain from the brink after the war. He oversaw the reconstruction of Britain and thanks to him a lot of Britons had public housing and the NHS. Majority of his accomplishments was dismantled by Thatcher though so younger Brits will not know how great of a PM he is. If he has one flaw, that is the botched decolonization process in Asia and Africa.
I can totally understand, that prospective since Churchill was very vocal in maintaining the British empire particularly India not the best way to ensure peace.
The Tories did actually promise Dominion Status for India in the election, albeit with written safeguards for British citizens and business, they did however fear that Churchill would oppose this, as his opinion on further autonomy at the time was varied. Much of the general population at least according to the opinion polls I’ve seen showed public expectations that the retreat from India (to Dominion status, full independence was seen as a bit of a humiliation) should be unhurried, orderly and that troops should stay until a constitution was established. This however with Labour’s victory and other events led to this never happening and instead caused the hurried Indian Independence bill which was passed a mere 6 weeks after its announcement, in stark contrast with the Government of India act of 1935, which took 6 years to finalise. That is not to say the Tories didn’t want to hold onto India, some did, it’s just that they realised it wasn’t practical and thus never made a strong attempt, in parliament and with the people, to stop the Independence bill from passing.
@@joemcg3420 that hurried independence had some serious consequences in the subcontinent. The guy who drew our borders had never set foot into the subcontinent before and he had 1 month or so to actually decide/draw the borders
@@joemcg3420 also not sure how the "dominionship for India" offer was received in Britain, but Indians knew that it was bull. After Jallianwala Bagh, WW2 and then the Bengal famine, Gandhi and his cohort advocated for Purna Swaraj a.k.a "Complete Independence" And it also didn't help that Britain before/during the Great War had made vague statements/offers of Dominionship for India after ww1, and then failed to enforce it. Nobody trusted or wanted them in India by that point.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
My college history professor was originally from Scotland and told his American students in the seventies about being in Britain during the 1945 campaign. He said that British subjects crowded the routes traveled by Churchill and cheered their war hero till they were hoarse-and then voted against him anyway. He described a middle-aged woman who applauded and cheered as Churchill passed, and then paused. She said, "Oh, dear. He looks so tired. He really needs a long rest." Then she thrust her fist into the air and said, "And we're going to see that he gets it!"
Are you making the professor up, or did someone else actually author that fantasy?
@@MJHdesproj it's good to be skeptical about things on the internet...but come on, weirder things have been done and said than this! just chalk this up to "plausible", else you stop being a skeptic and instead look like a sheltered twat.
@@MJHdesproj why would it be false?
@@vercot7000 huh?
@@MJHdesproj I get being skeptical of things you hear on the internet but not every single story is made up.
Fun fact: Joseph Stalin was informed about the existence of the atomic bomb during the same meeting that Churchill announced he'd been voted out of office. The soviet leader was unphased by news of the bomb (he already knew through spies) but was utterly appalled that Churchill could simply be "voted out" of office.
The last part isn't true since Stalin could also be voted out of office
@@blueciffer1653 With a bullet, yes. But with mere lines of ink on paper, preposterous.
@@blueciffer1653 by who????
@@cshaffrey3438 god.
@@Noam_.Menashe
And God did just that
Supposedly, Churchill’s wife suggested that as the defeat meant that he could take it easy for while, it might be a blessing in disguise. “If so,” Winston sighed, “it is very effectively disguised.”
HE HAD SUCH DRY WIT, BUT OF COURSE, SHE WAS RIGHT , CHURCHILL WAS BACK IN 1951, I REMEMBER THE CARS WITH LOUDSPEAKERS TOURING OUR DISTRICT
His pithy, witty retorts are unmatched. God bless you, sir.
@@nanny287 in fairness a lot of them aren't real and made up
@@jmwh9654 I have read so many brilliant, inspiring Churchill quotes, and he was generally very well read and articulate that I find that hard to believe. Why do you say such a thing? That is, what is your basis in fact for your comment. You realize that you cannot libel the dead so that once a public figure passes, a plethora of books full of nonsense are printed. My favorite of his quotes is “Never ever, ever, ever, ever give up.” It is the one that I live by, and I am certain that he said.
@@nanny287 Nobody is denying he was a witty man who publicly uttered many a catchy pun or joke. But his spin doctors & supporters also invented many more and added them to history. Just as Churchill re-wrote history to favour himself, so did his staff and fans.
I heard a BBC radio documentary about this years ago. They interviewed a veteran. He said, & I am paraphrasing, "When we faced defeat early in the war we were all equal". "As the war progressed & it became obvious that the Axis would lose, the privileges of the upper class returned". "I was wounded at Alamein & was standing in line with a cane at a movie theater". "A young son of a Lord, who probably never wore a uniform in his life, got to go to the front of the line". "That's when I decided I would vote Labor". Thanks again for an interesting documentary
@Paul Gauthier what
@@salimz1376 he is not a smart man dont expect qn answer
@@salimz1376 He said that he didin't want to return back to the old ways
@@deezboyeed6764 I think he was referring to how there was one rule for the common people and another rule for the governing upper class. During the pandemic, the common British public were practically locked in their homes, while the Tories in government partied in defiance of lockdown.
@Nicky L You're probably correct but it sounded to me like he was a teenager. (probably never been in uniform) All I know is that he had been wounded, standing in the drizzle supporting himself with a cane & the youg guy was allowed to go to the front of the line. I suspect that it wasn't the policy of #10. It was probably the movie doorman sucking up to some Lord.
I think one of the most important factors for Churchill's loss was that he was the Tory Party at that point.
The Tory party was comprised of older men who weren't politically relevent since the coalition formed and Labour was filled with relatively younger men that, as stated in the video, were the ones running the country, they held most of the important ministerial positions and Atlee was affectively in charge when Churchill wasn't in the UK.
@Jack Wrath Go find a father figure
@Jack Wrath Youre a horrible person when you act like this; become a better person. I recommend findin somethin like the vlogbrothers to teach you how to do such
Yup, the conservatives were doomed but assumed he would be enough to save them
He was the best individual out of the options, but the Labour Party was the best party out of the options. And the Party is more significant than one individual
affectively? effectively!
he was a conservative through and through, that was who he was.
Interesting fact, when Churchill became PM it was labour MPs who cheered him not Tory MPs as they didn’t trust him because he was constantly swapping parties.
Interesting, and ironic, too!
Most Tories supported Neville C and wanted him to stay on.
@@kurtvanderbogarde8402🤮
Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin all used their parties as vehicles of their own agendas
Neville Chamberlain was well respected and was only carrying out the wishes of the nation, despite his modern reputation.
Because James Bissonette felt the UK needed a change.
Edit: Obligitory OMG THANK YOU FOR 6K LIKES!!!
James Bissonette for the King of UK!!
I like to believe James Bissonette is an immortal being that has been guiding humanity through the times.
@@dikshantkandwal5815 King James I of the house of Bissonette, by the grace of God King of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland
Nah
James Bussinonette was leader of Labour and felt threatened by Churchill's popularity.
When we need answers to questions we didn’t ask, this man is always here to satisfy us
Couldn’t have said it any better lmao
Agreed 100%
I don't know, but this was a pretty major historical event all things considered. The post-war consensus of the strong socialistic welfare state was really created by Attlee. Churchill might not have gone for it in '45.
Maybe else where in the world but as a Brit this is definitely a question I've asked.
I asked this question, but I just finished watching Darkest Hour at the time.
My grandmother was from Scotland and the only election she ever voted in was 1945. She was a Homeguard volunteer the entire war and like everyone was fond of Churchill. The reason she voted against him was because before the war the government never seemed to have any money to spend but once war was on, all of a sudden money was available for any project. From her perspective Labour deserved a chance to form government after the war because they had promised to spend money on helping people in the UK.
A fair reason
@@silverreverence6176 not really considering that there’s no spending money when it comes to government all government spending comes from the citizenry
Your grandmother didn't vote Churchill out. She couldn't vote for or against him! Only the people of Woodford could.
I don't know if your miss remembering the story or she didn't understand how the UK political system works. But Churchill did NOT loose the 1945 election. He was returned to parliament!
@@AdamMGTF I understand what you're saying but from this American perspective and maybe from a general election perspective once your government loses the party the technically you are out as that government caretaker. Not sure you'll return to the opposition but who even remembers a opposition leader? No one
@@attiepollard7847 but that's not the point. The point is our system is miss represented in the video and this is shown by the ops comment...
Very worrying as this is supposed to be an educational channel/video.
Churchill WON his election. That's the historical truth.
Also, the general consensus was that the 1920s and 30s were a pretty bad period of time for Britain and from 1918-1945, the Tories had a majority (even if the PM wasn't a Tory) except for 3 years of Labour-Liberal coalitions, and Churchill didn't represent the party establishment as, when he was warning about Nazi Germany, he never had a cabinet position.
@@thecondesce3904 Yes, but the general population wouldn't have associated him with the Baldwin/Chamberlain wing of the Tories, and they had ruled Britain almost uninterrupted from 1923-1939. I'd imagine when people went to vote 1945, they were thinking of Baldwin's Tory party, not Churchill's.
That's a pretty good point. I'd say that while Churchill was popular, he wasn't really seen as the average party politician. So people might have liked him, but not the rest of his party.
You got some good facts there about the conservative party's relation to Churchill. There is also one massive fact is the future of Britain, Churchill wanted to keep the empire together no matter what as his foreign policy, this scared the rest of the conservatives because the upcoming superpowers were deeply anti-colonial, the US might've isolated Britain while the USSR would fund rebels in the colonials. The establishment saw the writing on the walls and capitulated very easy to Atlee's policy of freeing the colonies.
@@shade270 Yeah, Churchill got dragged down by his own party even though he'd been against appeasement to Hitler in the late 1930's and warned everyone of the threat that the Nazis posed.
@@mantea3481 USSR was funeling funds for colonies before and after decolonisation anyway, UK fucked it up to guarantee stable governments and simply left. Now imagine almost every country in Africa acting like Botswana without warlords and fanatic socialists at the helm.
My great-grandma always said:
"I didn't vote against churchill because he was bad, I voted against him because he wanted to make an alliance with the french"
(She really said this btw)
Then again, she also said that she couldn't understand people "from the north", and my dad always thought she meant scotland, turns out she meant people from north of the thames, so it seems in character
Ah, the percularities of the older generation.
Also the only thing worse than north of the thames is "north as in up the road"
At the time Britain/England and France had been passionate enemies for most of the past thousand years. Most of Britain's national heroes, like Nelson, Wellington, Marlborough, Henry V became heroes by defeating the French. You can't just change an ancestral enemy into a friend overnight.
@@Dave_Sisson Britain and France have been allies in WW1 and the "Free French" led by de Gaulle were also allies in WW2. They also fought together against Russia in the 19th century Crimean War.
I think the greatgrandmother was more scared that allying with the just liberated French meant that Britain had a higher chance of getting involved in another war again.
@@dodec8449 I disagree, the French were not "seen" as reliable allies. I've been reading about the First Australian Corps, Ski School which trained Australian and British ski troops to fight the French in Lebanon in the Second World War. So we were fighting the French just a couple of years before that election. No wonder D Burton's great grandmother was wary of the French as allies.
@@Dave_Sisson i don't know, I assume the greatgrandmother cares more about her and her children's safety than a distant war in Lebanon.
Always enjoy these videos.On this one, the labour campaign had a great slogan "cheer Churchill, vote labour". Labour didnt attack Churchill during the campaign, instead focusing on the Conservative party and the failures that led to WWII. This tactic helped win the labour majority. One thing that was missed though was that Churchill returned as PM in 1951. Maybe its being saved for another video :)
There's a little nod to the 1951 election in one of the newspaper articles ;)
It WOULD be worth a video. Atlee's career completely fell apart due to the Korean War and other factors. It reminds me so much of Truman's downfall here in the US.
@@hawkeyeten2450 I dont know much about Trumans downfall, im going to have to look it up now :) Thanks for the comment
Churchill lost again in 1950 and he lost the popular vote in 1951 and tried to get Clement Davies's (non-National) Liberals on side to bolster numbers. He was actually a very crummy peacetime politician just like his fan Boris.
Although I would say Churchill lost the popular vote when he won the 1951 election
The election of the new prime minister Attlee took place during the Potsdam conference in which Post-war Europe and Germany were organized. You might know the famous picture with Stalin, Truman and Churchill sitting together in wicker chairs. Churchill attended the first 9 days of the conference. Because of the election of the new prime minister the conference had to be interrupted for 2 days, then it was resumed and went on for another 4 days. The closing documents have the signature of Clement Attlee but not Churchill's.
It is odd to consider that some the leaders we associate the most with the second world war, Roosevelt and Churchill, were not in office anymore when the war ended. So the final documents don't even bear their names. Except for Stalin of course, because you know... he was Stalin after all.
Well to be fair though Roosevelt might have been there if only he didn’t suffer from a tiny case of death
@@justsomeguy1695 Sure, but he was in office until April 1945 and is much more associated with being the president during the second world war than Truman is.
Just learned that about Atlee, already knew that about Truman (I am American, though). Harry Truman was a very important but lesser known president, it was him after all who authorized the use of nukes on Japan. After leaving office, he was so less known he drove his car back to Missouri with his wife and was pulled over on the Pennsylvania Turnpike (he had no security detail or even an entourage) and it took a second for the state trooper to recognize him. He was let go (the trooper said he would have ticketed some presidents, but not Truman) and continued on his road trip. Hard to believe that happened to the guy who signed the agreements ending WW2.
Stalin’s USSR defeated 80% of the nazi war machine.
Furthermore, Japan didn’t surrender because of the atomic bombs. The USSR entered the war against Japan a couple of weeks before Japan’s surrender, steamrolling 1+ million Japanese troops in occupied mainland Asia & taking Japan’s vital resource colony of “Manchukuo” (where much of the Japanese military’s food and metal came from), devastating Japan’s hopes for continuing to wage war and dispelling their hope that the (until then) neutral USSR would help them get a good peace deal with the Allies. Also, the USSR threatened to invade the Japanese islands, where they would have killed and imprisoned the capitalist ruling class of Japan’s dictatorship and replaced their capitalist corporations with a socialist system. These were the main reasons why Japan surrendered to the USA when they did.
Most Americans associate President Truman with the atomic bombs and the end of WW2.
The 1945 election has always felt like a really ideal example of how an electorate should act. There was a leader for war that was well-respected, but then the war ended, and the voters wanted someone else for a peacetime government.
Except Atwater began to ruin the UK. He was the FDR of the UK
@Jack Wrath How many subsribers did this get you? I don’t think many
It feels similar to George Bush (the father) vs. Bill Clinton in 1992 after the Gulf War.
I disagree. Voting in Labour was a mistake, the Empire fell because of them.
Yep. A strong-handed leader is good for crisis times but in peace time they tend to clash with the opposition and be very authoritarian in result.
One thing that should be noted about Churchill: His present-day reputation was mostly built after the end of his political career. In his time, Churchill was beyond controversial and a lot of his political goals were diametrically opposed to what the majority of the british public wanted (he opposed women's right to vote, the expansion of labor rights for workers, unionization, the expansion of social services and welfare, etc.) and he was also responsible for serious policy failures. Gallipoli wasn't an isolated incident and arguably not even his worst mistake: When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, his decision to return to the gold standard devastated the british economy and was one of the major causes of Britain's loss of competitive advantages, mainly against the US. Finally, though we tend to see Churchill as the sole leader of the United Kingdom during the war, this was not true. Churchill's government was a unity government and Attlee, the leader of the labor party, also held an important leadership position, having far more responsibilities over the home front, the economy, etc. This is why his attack against him in the 1945 election, comparing his party to the gestapo, was seen as a massive betrayal and an unforgivable insult: He was attacking one of the leaders of the unity government, one of his own colleagues, comparing him to Britain's main enemy.
In short, contrary to Churchill's present-day polished image, in his own times he was a controversial figure, one that held several unpopular, even backwards positions, one responsible for several major policy failures, one that wasn't seen as the sole political leader responsible for Britain's victory and was heavily criticized for his insult against his main political allies during the war. *THAT'S* why the british public voted him out of office.
THIS. RIGHT. HERE!!!
The video makes it seem like "the conservative party at the time was just stupid and Churchill was good at war so people thought he'd suck at peace"
The reality is that Churchill was terrible at wagging a war, he ruined the economy, and he acted like a pompous A-hole while strutting around drunk.
I'm not gonna say he was this God awful guy who doomed Britain or anything. But this image of some great man who single handedly defeated Germany is a joke. Without the U.S.A and U.S.S.R Britain would have been destroyed.
I feel split about Churchill. Some of his actions were horrendous (Bengal famine comes to mind), but I'd be equally alarmed if people around me supported Stalin, a mass murdering and ruthless despot who decimated his country's food production, and murdered millions of his own people (even children). So I don't blame Churchill for condemning Stalin.
On a less morbid note, what you mentioned about Churchill's treachery makes perfect sense. If people found out about that, I wouldn't blame them for voting Churchill out.
Churchill was actually fairly supportive of labour unions. He saw them as “the antithesis to socialism” and thought they would be useful as independent institutions that would fight against government control. So he didn’t support them for any noble reasons, but he was okay with them existing, at least.
@SaxonBlue You're pretty on point, actually. I do remember the miner strikes, and how Churchill brutally suppressed them.
Pretty much, Churchill was an Aristocrat, and a War-monger, he just so happened to be a War-monger in one of the very few wars with a clear bad guy. In any other Era, Churchill would likely be hated like a male version of Margret Thatcher.
He was a poor military leader, poor strategic thinker, a drunk, an arch conservative/ reactionary. You know, being born into wealth, gotta keep those filthy peasants poor, and subservient.
He gets so much good PR nowadays, like Stalin used to, before you know, it became common knowledge that he was a paranoid crook, that killed millions of his own people.
I like how back then the people had trouble choosing between two good choices while in most of today's elections the people have trouble choosing which one is slightly less horrible between two abysmally bad choices.
Edit: My point was that back then both Churchill and his opponent seemed relatively popular, while today there is often no popular candidate in elections. I did NOT want to say that I agree with his policies.
That’s because republicans are racist
This was before being a politician was a career. You couldn't just spout shite and get paid for it on taxpayer money, hell people would have literally rioted after partygate in the 70s nevermind in the late 40s 😂
@@user-lv8dn8gw9z
They would've gotten the noose in the 40s
TBH politicians should get the noose even today, would keep the traitors somewhat in line
Churchill was a racist who wanted to maintain the British Empire against the wishes of 90% of it's subjects which would have inevitably led to the deaths of millions of people in rebellions in which the British wouldn't have the support of the USA or USSR. Even with Churchill out of the picture they still had the Mau Mau uprisings and near genocidal response by the British forces, with a hardcore imperialist at the head of the government the same thing would have happened all over the world.
@@user-lv8dn8gw9z being a politician was a career long before this, what are you talking about
Another reason as I understand it is that the Tories had been widely perceived as having failed the veterans of the First World War when they governed in the years after, and there was a great desire not to see those mistakes repeated. The vote from servicemen was especially heavy for Labour for this reason
This video is only needed because many people don’t understand how a parliamentary system of government (which the UK has) works. Churchill was NOT voted out, his party was. Since they no longer held a majority of seats, the party that did chose a new prime minister.
I actually learned this in high school. In a nutshell, the simple reason why they didn't keep Winston Churchill was because they didn't need him anymore. Why would you need a guy who loves war during peacetime?
These days, being an aggressive trouble-maker is seen as a sign of strength and greatness to most voters. Rather than a mere smokescreen pandering to the most dull and simplistic minds in order to win power so you can siphon the nation's wealth into your billionaire buddie's foreign tax haven bank accounts. Anyone who questions this must be a "snowflake libtard commie" or whatever other buzz words you've been fed.
*Japanese samurai caste group glare intensifies*
I wouldn’t say Churchill loved war he was simply more equipped to deal with it
@@luisandrade2254 He loved war, thats why his second ministry is thought of as generally subpar compared to his first ministry during WW2, he wasn’t well equipped for normal governing, and he was definitely not good at the strategic aspect of war, his role in keeping the UK together was more do with his energy keeping the British solid through adversity, which is really only important during wartime, as seen with his post war below average performance as PM.
I think Churchill knew that he wouldn't last long after WWII, which probably influenced his plan of Operation unthinkable and declare war on the USSR
The British public seemed to have been mostly unaware of all the horrible things Stalin did prior or even during the German invasion. Famous Author George Orwell was actually going to publicly publish books on the various atrocities that Stalin has done, but the British government disallowed it since they were now allies with the Soviets and last thing they need is the public having doubts on there only major European ally at the time. This action lead to him eventually creating and publishing Animal Farm, which was a very clear allegory to the Soviet Union and Stalins reign with Barn Animals.
Which the 1953 animated movie was the first to be fully made in the UK. Which was funded by the CIA. Which explains the ending to the movie.
George orwell was still a socialist tho
Although Animal Party was less "Communism Bad" and more "Revolution Makes Tyrants." Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) was an unironic "real communism hasn't been tried" type.
Also not to excuse the thousands the soviets killed in their ruthless pursuit to Berlin, but sometimes you have to say they were in a war… Not much we can do especially in the moment its easier now because decades have passed but during the war it is much different… Winners never pay for their war crimes ever in history simple as that
@@ObadiahtheSlim perhaps just my personal interpretation, but I always took it as "communism is easily usurped by tyrants"
Probably not exactly what Orwell or the CIA intended
I've watched dozens of your productions and enjoyed them all but for some reason found this the most interesting to me. Thank you
Obviously Churchill lost because he didn’t have a charismatic mustache like so many other leaders at the time had.
The only correct answer
Truman didn't either and he did just fine.
@@georgeprchal3924
Truman wasn’t elected tho
@@bruhbruh-us6gl tell that to Dewey.
@@georgeprchal3924
Wait you're right, I forgot he was re-elected after serving the rest of FDR's term. In any case, Dewey's mustache was lacking in terms of charisma.
As a guy living in Québec, I can also add that in a British parliamentary system, there is no way to specifically select the PM, only to vote in the general election for a certain candidate attached to a specific party and hope for the best, unlike, for example, the US or France where you can vote for the president, where the legislative and executive powers are clearly separated.
As a guy living in a presidential republic (Brazil), I'd gladly trade it for Westminster Parliamentarism anytime.
@@ehchagas Obrigado, you just got me interested in Brazilian politics. But I understand that your current president is not an inspiration.
Why is you living in Quebec relevant? Who are you explaining obvious facts about parliamentarianism to?
Well isn’t that basically how a parliamentary republic works? You vote for your MP whose party if in majority forms government
@@AnaIvanovic4ever Quebec, and by extension Canada use the Westminster system. As for who they're explaining to, from personal experience a lot of people, mostly americans don't actually understand how the westminster system works, and the fact that they choose the party, not the prime minister
I feel stupid for just now realising that the newspapers in the video have actual "articles" about other world events of the period and that they're as hilarious as the video itself. Great hidden content!
Churchill: Attlee is basically Stalin.
Brits: Yay Stalin!
basically
Based brits of the 1950s
Based brits based queen elizabeth ii
Fun fact: Britain under Clement Attlee's government co-founded NATO in 1949. Not many people think about that.
@@anupamtiwari5587
Better dead than Red!
I love the Churchill quote in the news paper. It's so emotional and inspiring.
0:13
The Matters of History channel knows all the memes.
What about the freaking news articles, lol
"It's no good that we've got Labour in power now"
I don't get it, it's easy to read
Churchill was despicable, racist, war criminal. Some will argue his “sins” are expiated for his actions during the second world war. It is nothing but nonsense to suggest Churchill went out to fight fascism. He lauded Mussolini as a “roman genius”, donated to Nazi war criminal Erich Von Manstien’s criminal defence and sought to desperatly cling on to the British Empire from which Hitler himself took inspiration for his Reich. What we have to remember is Churchill was not a uniquely villianous British Prime Minister. He was not out of ordinary but in fact a true representation of Britain.
I never get tired of seeing these caricatures skipping across the screen. It warms my cold dead heart
0:14 "Churchill was said to be endrunkended by the news"
I love this channel.
1:43
Considering that Labour had also opposed rearmament for years before 1939 on the grounds that the Tories wouldn’t use it against Germany as they claimed but to expand the Empire overseas, it is an insanely hilarious irony of history that they got to claim credit for not being part of that when they were just as opposed to rearmament as Chamberlain, if not moreso, especially after Munich.
Labour winning that election was disastrous.
It's also a cautionary tale that manybconservative parties suffer... being too much like the left wing party, and vice versa. If your policies are too alike, you risk alienating your base.
When the war did begin though they overwhelming were against Germany and were key supporters of Churchill as opposed to many conservatives who didn't like Churchill and by 1940 wanted to surrender to the Germans
*Labour moment*
@@lesthodson2802 Labour winning any election is a disaster. And I'm not even British...yet.
Churchill: My opponents are Communist
Everyone in Britain: GOOD
and that was when they learned they'd made a terrible mistake and never did it again.
And then what happened? The UK quite famously took longer to recover from the war than did relatively free-market(in itself an anomaly - how was this allowed to happen?) Germany.
Look how that sentiment turned out for the nation. Womp-womp.
Ever since I watched The Darkest Hour, I’ve always wondered why Churchill lost office soon after leading his country to victory in WWII. It was glossed over very quickly at the end of the movie as an afterthought. This video cleared things up very much so thank you!
Don’t get your history from movies.
@@danieleyre8913 Why not? It's just as good as any book.
@@Big.Stepper. The Darkest hour? It's full of propaganda. It's if someone made a movie of Hitler showing only his good deeds & leaving out the other stuff from the movie.
@@danieleyre8913 movies done right can be as good as the books
@@nhandinh7404 Not really. A film cannot go into the level of detail a book can. A film is usually restricted to 3 hours at most while books can take far longer to read and therefore contain more content. Films usually focus on specific aspects of a story whereas books have far a greater scope. Films can often fall short of properly explaining certain nuances resulting in oversimplification while a book can take the time to explain nuances. Finally, movies are meant to be for entertainment not education so they often exaggerate things for dramatic effect and ignore vital things to cut down the run time.
If you are interesting in learning history, movies are an alright introduction to historical events but they should always be taken with a grain of salt and further research should be done (you can always start with the "Historical Accuracy" section that usually appears on Wikipedia pages for historical films).
Video ideas:
Why was the Great Leap Forward such a disaster?
Why did Greece join the Entente despite having a German king?
Why did Romania join the Entente despite having a German king?
Post WW2 Hungary (highest hyperinflation in history / Communist takeover)
#2's bit about a German monarch means nothing when the same also applied to Britain and a few other countries
The Greek King was Danish
That’s like asking why the US joined the Entente despite having a lot of Germans
Why did the Great Leap Forward fail? Mao wasn't a good conveniencer to those who didn't already flow him. Thus, seeing how China didn't have a Siberia to exile those who weren't loyal, he calmly told them that he would listen and change his plan, oh wait, he just had them shot.
#3 much of the educated and ruling class were educated in France and were pro-French, plus there was the obvious desire to take transylvania from the Austro-Hungarians, so allying them would have been quite an unpopular decision
My late father was in active service WW2, I remember him telling me that he and his comrades absolutely hated Churchill and voted against him en masse. They felt that he was far too enamoured of war and they resented his bellicose posturing.
I can see why. Churchill wanted to start WW3 immediately with the Soviets but not even the nosy US was having it.
Except he was _right._ If the West had destroyed Russia, we wouldn't have had the Cold War or the rape of Ukraine.
If you let medium-sized problems lie, they grow into world-ending dragons. Churchill could've prevented that; could've prevented the *end of the world.*
Churchill also betrayed all 120,000 RAF Bomber Command servicemen after the war. The veterans (including the 55573 KIA) were completely forgotten about and denied any form of medal or memorial until 2012 because of the controversial nature of RAF bombing, even though it was total war and the Germans were doing the exact same thing to the UK.
Edit: the bomber boys still dont have a campaign medal. Most of them are dead by now though.
Oddly my grandad said his comrades admired Churchill. If course it's important to remember this video is very misleading as Churchill actually won his 45 election. His party lost the majority and so a labour government was formed.
The difference between your father and my grandfather shows that you can't take a small sample size when it comes to history.
@@Warspite-1915 that isn't technically true.
Your right that bomber command didn't get the recognition it deserved. It's still wrong to this day. But this wasn't something that was the fault of Churchill or the war time government. Such decisions were made by the Atlee government.
I don't think it helped much that Harris wasn't a very popular person by 1945. I agree with max Hastings, he was a good leader to have in 1942. But really showed he wasn't the right man once D-day rolled around.
His nature didn't help matters when it came to recognition for the bomber boys.
Too his credit, he did turn down a peerage out of discust that his crews didn't get the medal they deserved.
But yes. My point is this wasn't Churchill's fault.
Sadly I can't see this travesty changing now given modern sensitivity to the reality of ww2. Lest we forget!
One very important detail forgotten is that Churchill DID return to PM in the election of 1951, although ironically with fewer votes than Labour
But that's the way with most western democracies. Despite being better for the economy and the social welfare of the people, Labour governments have only been in power about 30% of the time. It's just so difficult to compete with oligarchy.
@@corneliusmaze-eye2459 its down to a vicious cycle the conservatives use to their advantage. Conservstives get in and fuck everyone over so that when labours in they have to make hard decision but that will later benefit the nation. Unfortunately most of the gwneral population is too stupid to fsthom planning more then a year in advance.
Which is the biggest fucking issue i have democracy, governments have the ability to plan decades ahead, to lay foundations that will later benifit the entire nation. But no we would rather spend every four years arguing
@@corneliusmaze-eye2459 The opposite occurred with Blair and Major. John Major won the most votes in British history (14m) but only got a tiny majority of MPs. Blair won the next election with fewer votes but had a super majority of MPs. In the last few elections on average conservatives needed 2000 more votes per MP because the constituency borders favour Labour.
@@jgw9990 It is actually the opposite, the constituency borders favour the tories:
In 2019 labour had around 1000 more votes per seat.
In 2017 labour had 6000 votes more per seat.
In 2015 labour again had 6000 votes more per seat.
Basically Churchill in 1951 was like Dubya in 2000 and Flump in 2016. And that was his third and final attempt.
Great video. When working 20 years ago on the till in a charity shop, I rang up a book sale. Book was The BWP (The British Way and Purpose). The older buyer told me his dad had a copy of it, and his commanding officer plus regimental padre during the war held frequent discussion groups on what did people want if they won the war? I got a copy cheap on the internet. Fascinating social history for us, and worth a read. I can see why Churchill lost.
See below for an excellent book on the social history of the ordinary British soldier, which has a chapter on the discussion groups attendended by the rank-and-file. (My father, conscripted into the army in WW2, loved these discussion groups.)
Title: "Browned off and bloody-minded"
Sub-title: "The British soldier goes to war 1939-1945"
Author: Alan Allport
Publisher: Yale University Press, London, 2017.
on point as always
If there isn't already I'd like to see more vids about how the British Empire transitioned into the British Commonwealth and how that affected countries like Canada where I'm from.
With Canada, it led to successive Liberal governments, beginning in the late 1940s, to start de-Anglicizing Canada, with Lester Pearson having a hand in it.
Queen elizabeth is so based she decolonised
The colonies better look out, Charles the third is on the throne now and he's looking to make a name for himself.
@@terrorgaming459 It's, inevitalble
I mean, it has already happened since her father, King George. Unless you count Afghanistan and Egypt, and probably Ireland and South Africa, which happened much earlier than him (1910's-1920's)
Such a huge fan of your channel. I love coming home to a new upload of yours. It's amazing how well you condense information in such a short time frame. Keep it up!
This was a blessing for Churchill and his legacy. A perfect lesson in not overstaying your success. You did the impossible, now ride off into the sunset or get assassinated (always foolproof).
Also, people don’t like debbie downers after winning a war…even if true.
The Conservatives didn't really embrace "The Beveridge Report" as much as Labour. Labour was supportive of it in its entirety and also called for full employment and widespread nationalization of industry (most notably steel). Conservatives said they liked some of the ideas but didn't think they could be paid for and mostly wanted things to somewhat go back to how it was prewar
And thus continues the Conservatives to this day.....
And then the Labour Party effed it all up, destroying British industry. No ship building, their automotive companies are owned by foreign ones. Labour didn't help the working people keep their jobs. What better way to push through welfare programs but to expand the number of unemployed to ensure the need for welfare is as big as possible?
@@MichaelGGarry still fucking up this nation beyond belief
@@MichaelGGarry nationalization is never a good thing
@Nicky L "The French government have limited prices increases for french consumers"
and the consumers pay those increases via income tax, vat, or more expensive products (because companies will charge more if the government tries to raise the money via corporate tax).
price caps are there to fool the people that are too stupid to understand that the government cannot give anything that it does not previously takes from someone.
“A modest man, with much to be modest about.”
Winston Churchill on Clemont Atlee before losing to him.
“Mr. Atlee is an honourable and gallant gentleman, and a faithful colleague who served his country well at the time of her greatest need. I should be obliged if you would make it clear whenever an occasion arises that I would never make such a remark about him, and that I strongly disapprove of anybody who does.”
@@aperson22222 I wonder if he spent hours thinking about those roasts and then being completely humiliated that he lost anyway.
"For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself." - Winston Churchill
It's worth pointing out that Churchill actually managed to overturn the Labour landslide and got back into Downing Street in 1951, he won on the back of dissatisfaction of Attlee's economic polices which hadn't fixed unemployment issues despite the policy of full employment. It's also unique that Churchill is probably the only UK party leader to suffer two election defeats (1945 and 1950 one being a landslide which is normally be a death nail to leadership ambitions) and still comeback as PM.
didnt nixon also do it
Interestingly he actually lost the popular vote in 1951. In terms of the public vote it was Attlee 3, Churchill 0.
If I remember correctly it was due to a declaration of a bread ration. I even read a post about it and how it might had affected the election. Just in case I better check again later on today glad someone else mention this.
@@raptorfromthe6ix833 No, Nixon lost in 1960 by a small margin, won in 1968 by a slightly larger margin, and then was re-elected in one of the biggest landslides in the history of the United States in 1972
@@raptorfromthe6ix833Nixon isn't British?
Churchill: *leads Britain and the Allies through WWII*
British Government: “I hereby title you with Sir Unemployed.”
Didn't the King offered Churchill a Dukedom afterwards?
@@AureliusLaurentius1099 ...probably.
Both my grandads fought in the British army throughout the war, and they both hated Churchill.
That generation also remembered the things that Churchill had done before the war, like ordering troops to open fire on striking miners, and sending thousands of Anzacs to certain death at Gallipoli.
Not going to sugar coat it, Winston was a terrible person. He won a well deserved hate from many.
But he did *one* thing that sets him apart from all others: he walked away from power peacefully. And he had a LOT of power when wwii ended.
That, in itself, is not enough to like the man, or to wash away his many mistakes. But is rare enough to be notable.
Respectfully.
But now, if you say any of that, people say “he was a man of his time” even though many people at the time thought him as a racist man that didn’t understand the struggles of the working class
Was it only ANZACs that fought at Gallipoli?
@@sfooter1692 no, more british troops actually died there than ANZACS
Im sure he had no small part of Canada's Gallipoli....Dieppe.
You could perhaps see how we arent too keen to put Charles The Tampon on our money either.
I aplaud your language skills seeing how you've managed to spam the word " however " like every other youtuber does these days. Hat's off !
1:56 bottom right text, thank you for including that horrific event in Croatian history, the Bleiburg march, very few non croatian people actually know of that
Certainly not something that they teach in Germany about the aftermath of WWII. Our benevolent "liberators" were all saints and beyond worldly criticism.
im sure the British where very nice and made sure that the Croats were safe and sound in Austria :)
@@karlik4861 Of course they were nice. They sent the Croatians back to their home country of Yugoslavia :)
Boo boo. Nazis sympythizers weren't treated well.
As a history graduate may I commend you on this video. It achieves more than entire series I have seen on the topic.
I love that you go over all the little things that have ever come through my mind while listening or another things and never had time to follow up on
Because after 2 world wars, people had kinda had enough of world wars.
India got Independence after Churchill lost office otherwise decolonization would never have happened.
Yeah especially after all the promises during world war 1 that were not fulfilled. I guess after over a million people dead after two wars, millions more injured and displaced people decided they wanted the promises fulfilled this time and their sacrifice honoured.
@@truthseeker327 The UK couldn't afford it, the country was quite literally broke and would be in an economic mess for decades to come. Churchill wouldn't of been able to stop the inevitable.
Hey History matters, I have a suggestion for the next video, would you like to do a compare and contrast between a peasant, indentured servant, serf, and a slave? Because I think it is important to the distinction between these classes, especially in cases such as India, Russia, USA, etc.
Peasant is free, indentured servitude is intended to be temporary, serfs are an inherited social status attached to land (not quite slaves but unfree, think like an extreme tenant farmer) and slaves are property. What this meant for your status as a slave meant different things in different places at different times. The race-based chattel slavery of the New World was unique and colors our perception of slavery throughout time. We assume that’s how all slaves everywhere throughout history were like, which isn’t the case. In Ancient Rome, urban slaves could make money and were more like a caste. Some slaves were teachers, especially Greek ones. Norse thralls had rights and could earn the 10th century equivalent of full citizenship. In Sparta, the helots were a whole class of people who did everything while the upper classes fought. It’s best to classify all those things you listed as a scale of unfree labor, which ranges from unpaid internship one one end and chattel slavery on the other.
@@ferretyluv I appreciate that, but I wanted History Matters to cover it, that's why I have that topic as a suggestion just for him to do a video on it. So, that's why, but thank you.
I mean... that's a complicated topic. The lives and rights of ANY of these vastly changes between regions and years. Still, I agree that it should be covered.
@@ferretyluv How do you explain modern day slavery?
@@sarcasticguy4311 Modern day slavery also comes in many forms. Corvee labor still exists in places like Kazakhstan, where students have to spend their summers farming, to child soldiers, to human trafficking, to indentured servitude. There are so many different kinds of unfree labor in the modern day, like tenant farming. Modern day slavery is a topic all on its own. It works very differently than today because it’s illegal. Labor trafficking and sex trafficking are but two types of modern day slavery. But the days of an internationally recognized state-sponsored chattel slave trade are behind us. Modern day slavery looks very different and hides behind a veneer of legitimacy since the slavery we’re all familiar with was outlawed decades ago (Except Mauritania, which only criminalized it in the 80s and is rarely enforced).
Thankyou James for keeping my favorite youtube channel alive
Ah, the good old days when new Prime Ministers took office after an election.
Churchill's predecessor, Chamberlain, became PM without an election.
Yes, everyone remembers the election of 1940, that’s definitely how Churchill came to power.
What? Churchill didn't become PM by election either.
@@johkupohkuxd1697 people often see the past through the lenses of the present unfortunately.
@@johkupohkuxd1697 Neville Chamberlain was PM at the beginning of the war but resigned so the foreign secretary at the time Winston Churchill became PM until the end of the war or the next General elelction
As churchill said, "he has been a good prime minister for peace time, but not so much for war time" The same could be said about Churchill during "peace time" and how he's a better PM for "war time". Edit: Made this comment before 1:33. God, I feel super smart now.
I am late but another issues as shown in the film Darkest Hour was that before he became PM, his name was associated with military disasters such as Gallipoli and the more recent Norwegian campaign.
Anthony Burgess gives pretty good information about the conscripts' state of mind at the time of the election, in his books 1985 and Little Wilson and Big God. Burgess voted tory pretty much all his life, except in 1945.
@Jack Wrath shut up, Jesus Christ…
I didn't that about the author of A Clockwork Orange
I literally love these videos
Thanks so much for this. Most popular history about this period begins and ends with the war!
The thing I remember best about him are his quotes. He was definitely respected, and I always thought he was a bit hurt by being thrown out on his ear.
search for his quotes on Indians and India, he was definitely not respected by everyone everywhere.
dude was a hardline imperialist while the labor party was more focused on domestic affairs rather than the whole empire
''Underidoderidoderiododeriodoo'' - Winston Churchill. Love this one.
@@hakimshah8397 I didn't say by everyone everywhere... he was definitely an Imperialist.
@@miroBGgsi "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put."---Winston Churchill. That one is my non-military favorite.
Make these videos next!
1. Why did the revolutions of 1848 fail in Germany in Spain?
2. Why do people drive on different sides of the road in different parts of the world?
#2 is just because when cars started becoming prominent, globalisation wasn't really a thing, so each place arbitrarily picked one side and once that became an issue it was too much trouble to fix
#2: because the countries that drive on the left hand side (UK, Australia, NZ, India, etc..) were for the most part of the British commonwealth, and that’s what side the brits drove on
@@user-zz3sn8ky7z globalisation was there, but wasn't very prominent.
The ability to differentiate between a wartime and peacetime leader really speaks on how educated voters used to be
yeah but labours were not peacetime leaders they were not leaders they were unable to govern
Except that this the same Labour Party that sold the Nene engine to Stalin. The man himself didn’t believe anyone would be a big enough fool to do that but they were those fools. The result, the MiG-15 and significant problems to the UN forces in Korea.
@@emberfist8347 What is wrong selling military hardware to a wartime ally? You do realise that people during WWII and shortly post war don't really view the Soviet Union as the evil empire?
@@cecaloather8701 The war was over and even back then, nobody trusted Stalin as far as we could throw him. And the engine was pretty advanced hence why Stalin’s quote was about selling their secrets as jet engines were made under the upmost secrecy by everyone during the war. For reference the first jet fighter adopted by the US was the P-80 Shooting Star. Only 5 men in the 130 men team knew what they were building and the police detained the British engineer who came to deliver the De Havilland Goblin engine since the company couldn’t vouch for him. This is between the US and Britain who have a much warmer relationship than the Soviet Union and UK. And there were many people in the UK. The same Labour Party who gave Stalin the Nene engine previously prosecuted a Communist which caused scandal leading to the party’s resignation. Churchill famously said that if Hitler invaded Hell, he would put in a good word for the devil in reference to the alliance with Stalin and British Intelligence was comparing notes with the freaking Gestapo as late as 1937 to track down potential communists. So I doubt the war led to a seriously drastic 180.
@@emberfist8347 You make a lot of references to how the political elite thought about the Soviet Union then, not those who did not manage to get into the corridors of power and the common people. I suppose you are still scratching your head on why Churchill was voted out of power even though the video explained why and thought the pro-Soviet people even during the height of the Cold War were just brainwashed sheeple.
Thing is, the Soviet Union was portrayed and actually was a great ally who did the heavy lifting against fighting Germany. You'd think that would influence a lot of the British population then to be pro-Soviet.
People thought differently back then.
Labour has to win one every now and again or people would think we're a dictatorship
Yeah yeah no because the people “electing” “different people” that just so happen to be from the same party is totally a dictatorship.
I’m not even British and yet that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.
Eh....
@@CosmicCreeper99 Singapore isn't exactly seen well because the same party always win even if there are fair elections with an opposition
Don't worry. Just like the conservatives/public blamed labour for the financial crash, everyone will blame the tories for the coming great recession, the current stagflation and the great crash.
Gotta preserve the myth that your political system has a left and a right party, rather than just left and lefter.
History Matters continues the trend of answering questions I've always wondered the answer to but were never important enough to Google. love it
"Uncle Jo" had me on stitches! Great job!
It's nice to remember a time where you can both love and respect a leader and also vote for a change from his policies. That seems impossible anymore.
that has never been the case in the US
I wish people could be more detached and pragmatic like that.
Not only wonderfully informative but also hilarious.
Labour party rep seen prancing outside and Truman's warning about nevada slayed me 😂
Thank you for video sir
I mean given that this guy came up with the brilliant idea of "operation unthinkable" immediately after the end of the - by far - most brutal war in history, you kinda get where the impression came from that Churchill is not the guy for peace
The world dodge a bullet when they remove Churchill from power, world war 3 was averted. But unfortunately delayed the independence of Poland.
TBF, Churchill was kinda right at hindsight
@@AureliusLaurentius1099 He was right but it literally means nothing lol. The soviets were untouchable then
@@vercot7000 Quite the contrary in fact. The Soviet army was suffering from shortages starting in 1944, and towards VE day in 1945, their army was dangerously close to collapse due to a shortage of manpower. They paid quite heavily in bodycount for every mile they earned in Germany. The Soviet army had massive numbers in 1942, but by 1945 not so much. They didn't have an infinite supply of men after all.
After VE day the Soviet army was very vulnerable because of this. Had Britain pressed the attack and gotten the United States to join in, they could have steamrolled through Russia relatively easily. Alas, the people in Europe and America alike were both sick of war at this point and would be very hesitant to fight against a former ally when all they wanted was to have their sons come back home and enjoy peacetime after six years of brutal war.
@@captainkuijt contrary to your response,shortages started when soviets entered to western poland where their logistical lines were way too extended. Also no,soviets had more than 8 million man by end of european campgain. If operation unthinkable happened,western goverments would get toppled because approval for soviets at end of war From US and UK were overwhelmingly high and no one wanted to attack former ally who were a vital part of destroying germany as US since they bodied 80 percent of german military. Overall operation unthinkable would be way too unpopular and cost in topplement of allied goverments and more destruction for already exhaushed soviet people who wanted nothing but peace.
Both my parents were 23 in 1945 (meaning because ot the war it this was their first chance to vote) and both voted Labour. They saw Churchill as a great wartime leader but who previously had been an hopeless Home Secretary and disasterous Chancellor of the Exchequer, not the man you wanted to be PM in peacetime.
Thanks I always wondered this. And video was simple enough for my tiny brain to understand.
I heard it mentioned somewhere that a major reason was increased British sympathy for communism. This was caused by nothing else than the government propaganda itself since it presented USSR as friends. The video did mention this more positive attitude towards communism, but my point is that the UK government might have had a nonnegligible part in causing it.
well yeah the officers and army trainers basically had to promise radical change for morale to hold up at all.
Coming from NewZealand. Churchill is not a popular man and its not what we were taught in school, it's through our grandparents and great grandparents. People who knew how Churchill treated the Anzac troops and would treat them as cannon fodder. Even the Australian war time priminster Curtian didn't trust or like Winston. Trying to block Australian troops coming home to protect their own country. And perhead of population the Anzacs sent more troops than any other countries. Winston Churchill was very responsible for globally and the huge loss of Anzac life there being forced to charge into death .Winston Churchill murdered more Anzac troops than any man to ever live
And as a man who’s grandparents came from India to America we know Churchill as the guy who starved 3 million Indians in bengal he was a monster
thank you for the wonderful informative videos
''History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.'' Winston Churchill
Yeah about that. I have some bad news my friend.
1945 General Election: Hold my Tea.
Which he did and that’s why we see Churchill as this great genius. He was the first one to write it down.
@@gilbert8162 it has been. He took massive bribes from bankers and arm manufacturers to bring britain to war and he was a massive drunk throughout his life. Facts very often omitted when describing him.
Churchill is probably the single most over rated man in British history. I say that as an American. I've seen Brits claim he was more important than Napoleon, Alexander the great, and was once even told that I, as an American, have been affected more by Churchill than George Washington himself.
He isn't even the most important man in BRITISH history. Let alone the entire friggin world.
The Tories failed in many of their promises after WW1 regarding veterans, so there was less reason to trust them again after WW2
It was David Lloyd George, the Liberal, that made the promise wasn’t it?
Correction about the first newspaper, the “bright flash” was in New Mexico. Nevada wasn’t used for nuclear weapons tests until 1951.
Correction: He wasn't voted out after WW2, he was voted out during WW2 because it occurred in July 1945, and the Japanese Empire Surrenders in late August 1945.
0:23 - 'Call it a draw?'
🤣🤣
☮
That was the best episode of Mr Benn I've ever seen.
Important to note he came back and won in the very next election and was PM from 1951-1955 so he lead the UK through The Korean War as well
I feel like quite a lot of Americans at least forget about that
Forget about it? I never even knew or learned about the British participated in the K War and I consider myself knowing a bit more than most Americans.
@@CaseNumber00 really? The Korean was the North Koreans/Chinese vs the UN technically, so quite a few countries from around the world participated
2 elections later. There was an election in 1950.
Which also incidentally made him the sitting PM when Elizabeth II took the throne.
Actually, Churchill lost in the 1950 election.
2:10 Tsar Nicholas II looking mildly annoyed before and after his execution is peak development in the series, given that his role in this series was being fearfully executed on the spot by the Bolsheviks.
Superb video! A great way to do history.
2:28 Does this look familiar?
I remember, years ago, reading an interview with Margaret Thatcher, in which she talked about the 1945 election.
She said that when Churchill made the "Socialist Gestapo" comment, her reaction was "He's gone too far this time".
Churchill wasn't even in Britain when he found out he was voted out of office. He was attending the Potsdam-Conference where Stalin had an office decorated to his taste (and another office for Truman). The election happened before the conference but the result became known after it started. Churchill left and Atlee joined the conference. Stalin did not bother to have the office redecorated (it is to this day decorated like it was for Churchill).
Many believe, that having 2 inexperienced heads of states at the conference allowed Stalin to get much of what he wanted - including moving the polish borders with the USSR and those with Germany west.
Churchill: "After everything I've done for you guys, your kicking me out?!" 😡🤬😡🤬
British People: "We don't trust you to keep the peace." 😒
Churchill: 😢
Then he came back again in 1951
this is so cringe
See, "Operation Unthinkable" for how said British People might just have been onto something.
@Jack Wrath dies of cringe
there is something you missed, Churchill not only lost the 1945 but he also lost the 1950 election as well, but he won the 1951 election because the Labour Party although having the majority of the parliament, was a slim majority just about 2 over, Labour wanted more seats and called for an early election due to the polls at the time showing they are gaining seats, but in the end the people were mad of this early election and voted Churchill in to spite the labors for calling an early election. Basically, Labour pulled a Theresa May and failed miserably like she did
actually the king asked labour to call the election, he was meant to be going on a major international trip and was concerned that the government might fall. They lost (despite gaining votes) because liberal voters shifted to the tories, not because labour called an early election.
Your little block men bring me comfort, thank you
The whole Wartime leader isnt a good Peacetime Leader thing makes sense tbh (conquering a country is different from ruling it) but seeing as a new cold war emerged not long after it's weird to see a big reason for churchills defeat being the love for communism by the british people.
That would happen starting in 1947, with relations with the URSS getting cold, and the realisation that all countries "liberated" by the Russians were not free to choose their government and instead forced to remain under Russian domination. But in 1945, that was not at all obvious: The USSR was the country that played the biggest role in defeating Germany (no disrespect to the American and British, but it's the soviet army who faced, and destroyed, the majority of the Wehrmacht). Therefore, the USSR was very popular in The UK at the time of the election, and understandably so. The strategy of Churchill "fear the Russians, re-elect me" was poorly timed.
It wasn't love, it was lack of hatred towards the left, as people realized that communism doesn't have to be a regime but just a handful of reforms to give more freedom to the lower classes.
The labour party was never communist though?
@@christianwhittall5889 yes they are and were
@@GlorpLorp If you think labour was ever communist then I have a bridge to sell you.
2:23 huh that's familiar today
Phenomenal as always!
Okay, then this raises the next question.
Why was he re-elected later?
Atlee got a majority of the votes, but because of Britain’s FPTP system, Churchill got a majority of the seats
But the real question is why did Churchill elected in 1951?
Because it was the Cold War and he again projected an image of being a strong leader
@@ImperiumMagistrate he actually lost the popular vote. Atlee got a majority of the votes, but because of britains FPTP system, Churchill got a majority of the seats
@@personperson.7744 Labour got like .8 percent more votes than Tory.
@@ImperiumMagistrate oh yes, you are right, sorry. Either way, he still had less votes than Atlee
Partially because of the FPTP system, partially because Labour was split into two factions, mostly because Attlee's government had been too slow to lift wartime rationing and price controls.
I watched a show on PBS about Gallipoli and that it was Churchill's plan. I found it telling that he continued with his idea even when the soldiers were losing. I also noticed that there was an obvious flaw that even I saw when the map of the terrain and placements of the enemy forces were shown.
Now you've raised the question: how did he win re-election?
Plus, Churchill wasn't all that popular among hardline Labour voters and unionists. This was the man who ordered strikers in Wales and England fired upon with both guns AND ship cannons (I'm from Liverpool where the latter happened). Plus, there was the whole Bengal Famine and Black and Tans thing, but I don't know how many people outside the Indian and Irish communities spoke out about it at the time.
Nobody fired cannons at liverpool ....There were gunboats in the Mersey , but nobody fired cannons. The Black and Tans were formed about 25 years before he was PM . And as for Bengal...the reason for that was Britain was being starved itself by German Uboats and not really in any position to offer famine relief ...Hence why it eventually came from the Commonweath .......As a Scouser myself , this naive lefty view of history is scary . Talk about teaching the kids complete fiction
PS.... We didn't have ' Indian communities ' at the time .....That came in the 1950s . ( What is academia pumping into kids heads )
@@zapre2284 I was talking about people living in India, but go off, I guess.
@@zapre2284 in the 1931 census there were 7000 South Asians in England. Not an insignificant amount, definitely not nothing even if it's nowhere near as much as today
Well done, can’t believe that was only 2.5 minutes
Churchill should have tried spinning three plates.
When informed that Franklin Roosevelt had died, Churchill was silent for a few moments, the said "To die. At the height of one's power. Well loved and well respected. There are worse fates."
I always wondered if he thought about that when he was voted out of office. It's true what he said. Given the fact we all have to die eventually, the best time to go is when you're at the very top of your game.
Side note: What is not mentioned in the presentation is Churchill served a second term when the Conservatives won a majority of seats in 1951. He served until 1955, when he resigned due to health reasons. It's true what they say - you can't keep a good man down!
Apparently Lady Bonham-Carter, who famously said 'The Tory party might be wrong but they are wrong at the right moment!' told Churchill, 'Never mind Winston! It may be a blessing in disguise!'
To which Churchill retorted, 'At the moment it is Very Well disgused!!'
@@christopheraliaga-kelly6254 LOL, yep, that's Churchill for you. He always had a clever retort, no matter what the situation. One time, he was at a party drinking brandy - which he loved to do. In attendance was the Lady Astor, who in addition to being Churchill's political enemy, was also a stuck-up snob. She attempted to take Churchill to task saying "Mister Prime Minister, you are quite drunk." To which Churchill replied: "You're right, my lady. I am quite drunk. But on the other hand, you are quite ugly, and tomorrow I will be indisputably sober!"
@@cjmarshall0221 whatever your viewpoint on him, you can't deny he had a brilliant wit.
Attlee saved Britain from the brink after the war. He oversaw the reconstruction of Britain and thanks to him a lot of Britons had public housing and the NHS. Majority of his accomplishments was dismantled by Thatcher though so younger Brits will not know how great of a PM he is. If he has one flaw, that is the botched decolonization process in Asia and Africa.
It's rather funny how all the good things done by Labour been forgotten yet Thatcher who ruined a lot is remembered as second best PM after Churchil.
By the time he was finished, 40% of people living in the U.K were in council-owned flats with no property rights of their own.
I can totally understand, that prospective since Churchill was very vocal in maintaining the British empire particularly India not the best way to ensure peace.
He was basically a racist
The Tories did actually promise Dominion Status for India in the election, albeit with written safeguards for British citizens and business, they did however fear that Churchill would oppose this, as his opinion on further autonomy at the time was varied. Much of the general population at least according to the opinion polls I’ve seen showed public expectations that the retreat from India (to Dominion status, full independence was seen as a bit of a humiliation) should be unhurried, orderly and that troops should stay until a constitution was established. This however with Labour’s victory and other events led to this never happening and instead caused the hurried Indian Independence bill which was passed a mere 6 weeks after its announcement, in stark contrast with the Government of India act of 1935, which took 6 years to finalise. That is not to say the Tories didn’t want to hold onto India, some did, it’s just that they realised it wasn’t practical and thus never made a strong attempt, in parliament and with the people, to stop the Independence bill from passing.
@@joemcg3420 that hurried independence had some serious consequences in the subcontinent. The guy who drew our borders had never set foot into the subcontinent before and he had 1 month or so to actually decide/draw the borders
@@joemcg3420 also not sure how the "dominionship for India" offer was received in Britain, but Indians knew that it was bull. After Jallianwala Bagh, WW2 and then the Bengal famine, Gandhi and his cohort advocated for Purna Swaraj a.k.a "Complete Independence"
And it also didn't help that Britain before/during the Great War had made vague statements/offers of Dominionship for India after ww1, and then failed to enforce it. Nobody trusted or wanted them in India by that point.