Churchill’s Final Moments (Part 1)
Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) is considered by many to be the greatest Briton to have ever lived. Few led a life as varied and eventful, and as replete with accomplishments and failures, as he did. He is best known for his leadership during WWII, particularly during the stretch when Britain stood alone and defiant against the Nazi juggernaut. But even before that supreme moment, Churchill had led a full life that would have exhausted most. His father was a British lord and prominent Conservative Party politician, and his mother was a wealthy American heiress. Neither had time to see him as often as Churchill would have liked. Sent to a boarding school, he did poorly, and showed little of the brilliance that would mark his later life. So his father, sent him to the army, whose officer ranks back then were a dumping ground for the dimmer scions of Britain’s aristocracy.
It took Churchill three tries to pass the entrance exams into Sandhurst (Britain’s West Point) in 1893, and enroll as an officer cadet. Once in, however, he took to military life and began to blossom. Commissioned a cavalry officer in 1895, he took a side job as a war reporter, and filed his first stories from Cuba. The following year he accompanied his regiment to India, and in 1898 participated in the Nile campaign that conquered the Sudan, and the twin capacities of a soldier and reporter. During the climactic battle of that campaign, Churchill took part in the last cavalry charge in British Army history. A year later, he was in South Africa, as a war correspondent to cover the Boer War. Captured and imprisoned by the Boers, he made a dramatic escape, eluded a massive manhunt, and made it back to British lines.
