Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill[a] (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (during the Second World War) and again from 1951 to 1955.

[57] In January 1900, Churchill briefly rejoined the army as a lieutenant in the South African Light Horse regiment, joining Redvers Buller's fight to relieve the Siege of Ladysmith and take Pretoria.

[114] To ensure funding for their reforms, Lloyd George and Churchill denounced Reginald McKenna's policy of naval expansion,[115] refusing to believe war with Germany was inevitable.

[187] Back in the House of Commons, Churchill spoke out on war issues, calling for conscription to be extended to the Irish, greater recognition of soldiers' bravery, and for the introduction of steel helmets.

[257][258] Armed with data provided clandestinely by senior civil servants, Desmond Morton and Ralph Wigram, Churchill was able to speak with authority about what was happening in Germany, especially the development of the Luftwaffe.

[261] While Churchill regarded Mussolini's regime as a bulwark against the threat of communist revolution, he opposed the Italian invasion of Ethiopia,[262] despite describing the country as a primitive, uncivilised nation.

[274][275] Following the Anschluss, Churchill spoke in the House of Commons: A country like ours, possessed of immense territory and wealth, whose defence has been neglected, cannot avoid war by dilating upon its horrors, or even by a continuous display of pacific qualities, or by ignoring the fate of the victims of aggression elsewhere.

War will be avoided, in present circumstances, only by the accumulation of deterrents against the aggressor.He began calling for a mutual defence pact among European states threatened by German expansionism, arguing this was the only way to halt Hitler.

[284] On 16 February 1940, Churchill ordered Captain Philip Vian of the destroyer HMS Cossack to board the German supply ship Altmark in Norwegian waters freeing 299 British merchant seamen who had been captured by the Admiral Graf Spee.

[302] At the end of May, with the British Expeditionary Force in retreat to Dunkirk and the Fall of France imminent, Halifax proposed the government should explore a peace settlement using the still-neutral Mussolini as an intermediary.

[307] Churchill made it plain to the nation that a long road lay ahead and that victory was the final goal:[308][309] I would say to the House... that I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

We shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.Germany initiated Fall Rot, in France, the following day, and Italy entered the war on the 10th.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will still say: "This was their finest hour".Churchill ordered the commencement of the Western Desert campaign on 11 June, a response to the Italian declaration of war.

Hitler sent the Afrika Korps to Tripoli under Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel, who arrived not long after Churchill had halted Compass so he could reassign forces to Greece where the Balkans campaign was entering a critical phase.

The night before the attack, already intending to address the nation, Churchill alluded to his hitherto anti-communist views by saying to Colville: "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil".

[333] On 26 December, Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress but, that night, suffered a heart attack diagnosed by his physician, Sir Charles Wilson, as a coronary deficiency needing several weeks' bed rest.

[336] While he was away, the Eighth Army, having relieved the Siege of Tobruk, had pursued Operation Crusader against Rommel's forces in Libya, successfully driving them back to a defensive position at El Agheila in Cyrenaica.

A combination of factors, including the curtailment of essential rice imports from Burma, poor administration, wartime inflation and large-scale natural disasters such as flooding and crop disease led to the Bengal famine of 1943,[341] in which an estimated 2.1–3.8 million people died.

[342] From December 1942, food shortages had prompted senior officials to ask London for grain imports, although the colonial authorities failed to recognise the seriousness of the famine and responded ineptly.

[363] On their way back, Churchill and Roosevelt held a Second Cairo Conference with Turkish president İsmet İnönü, but were unable to gain commitment from Turkey to join the Allies.

[365] In the autumn of 1942, after Churchill's meeting with Stalin, he was approached by Eisenhower, commanding the North African Theater of Operations, US Army (NATOUSA), and his aides on the subject of where the Western Allies should launch their first strike in Europe.

[371] The difficulties in Italy caused Churchill to change heart about strategy; when the Anzio stalemate developed after his return to England from North Africa, he threw himself into the planning of Overlord and set up meetings with SHAEF and the British Chiefs of Staff.

[390] Churchill came to regret the bombing because initial reports suggested an excessive number of civilian casualties close to the end of the war, though an independent commission in 2010 confirmed a death toll of about 24,000.

[407][408] It backfired and Attlee made political capital by saying in his reply broadcast next day: "The voice we heard last night was that of Mr Churchill, but the mind was that of Lord Beaverbrook".

[420] Speaking on 5 March 1946 in the company of President Truman at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Churchill declared:[421] From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.

Despite losing the popular vote, the Conservatives won a majority of 17 seats in the October 1951 general election and Churchill became prime minister, remaining in office until his resignation on 5 April 1955.

[432] By December 1951, George VI had become concerned about Churchill's decline and intended asking him to stand down in favour of Eden, but the King had his own health issues and died on 6 February 1952.

[458] Although publicly supportive, Churchill was privately scathing about Eden's handling of the Suez Crisis and Clementine believed that many of his visits to the US in the following years were attempts to repair Anglo-American relations.

[516] Addison makes the point that Churchill opposed anti-Semitism (as in 1904, when he was critical of the proposed Aliens Bill) and argues he would never have tried "to stoke up racial animosity against immigrants, or to persecute minorities".

During his second term as prime minister, he was seen as a moderating influence on Britain's suppression of armed insurgencies in Malaya and Kenya; he argued that ruthless policies contradicted British values and international opinion.