For Churchill, it was a fate almost worse than death. Although he became dramatically involved in the army’s travails, he, along with around 60 officers and soldiers, was taken prisoner. He meant to travel in comfort: along with his personal valet, he brought wine, spirits, liqueur, and luxurious accessories from London’s finest shops. In October 1899, Churchill’s wish was realized: Britain was at war, and he was off to battle, this time as a journalist. As the author demonstrates, even as a child, Churchill shared his countrymen’s idea that war “was about romance and gallantry.” “There is no ambition I cherish so keenly,” he said, “as to gain a reputation for personal courage.” At 24, he passionately urged Joseph Chamberlain to recover Britain’s prestige in South Africa by avenging a humiliating defeat in an electrifying speech, he whipped up fervor for war.
“I do not believe the Gods would create so potent a being as myself for so prosaic an ending,” Churchill wrote to his mother from the bloody battlefield of Malakand. It is the story of a man unfailingly convinced of his destiny to lead, undaunted by setbacks, and supremely confident of success. A history of the danger-seeking young Winston Churchill during the Boer War, which “had turned out to be far more difficult and more devastating than the amusing colonial war the British had expected.”Īlthough Churchill’s life has been amply documented by himself and many others, Millard ( Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President, 2011, etc.) ably weaves a seamless and gripping narrative of the future statesman’s early career and involvement in the Boer War (1899-1902).
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