Churchill's Darkest Moment

The Vision of Death

Anthony Eden served as Foreign Secretary under Sir Winston Churchill during the war years.  He and Churchill were a kind of dynamic duo, pretty much of one mind.

Prior to the commencement of hostilities and the opening of the Second World War, Eden was serving as Foreign Secretary in the Chamberlain government.  Churchill was not part of the government at that time.  But in the end, the differences of view and opinion between Eden and the rest of the Chamberlain Cabinet led to his resignation in February, 1938.

In his memoirs on the War, Churchill penned this interesting historical and personal note:

In the night of February 20 a telephone message reached me as I sat in my old room at Chartwell (as I often sit now) that Eden had resigned.  I must confess that my heart sank, and for a while the dark waters of despair overwhelmed me.  In a long life I have had many ups and downs.  During all the war soon to come and in its darkest times I never had any trouble in sleeping.

In the crisis of 1940, when so much responsibility lay upon me, and also at many very anxious, awkward moments in the following five years, I could always flop into bed and go to sleep after the day's work was done--subject of course to any emergency call.  I slept sound and awoke refreshed, and had no feelings except appetite to grapple with whatever the morning's boxes might bring.  But now on this night of February 20, 1938, and on this occasion only, sleep deserted me.  From midnight till dawn I lay in my bed consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear.

There seemed one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender, of wrong measurements and feeble impulses.  My conduct of affairs would have been different from his in various ways; but he seemed to me at this moment to embody the life-hope of the British nation, the grand old British race that had done so much for men, and had yet some more to give.  Now he was gone.  I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death. [Winston Churchill, The Second World War (London: The Reprint Society, 1950).  Volume I: The Gathering Storm,  p.217.]

As the old adage has it, "cometh the hour, cometh the man".

Postscript:

One reader e-mailed with the following comment:

Great piece this morning on Churchill

I recall reading that part and was very impressed…and also with

1/his ability to express in writing so accurately his thoughts..what a gift..and

2/ despite what must have been many concerns on his mind he slept soundly, and ate regularly

Maybe he had a better supply of whiskey then I have