Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, from the magazine The Great War, Part 1.

The Right Hon. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty.

When war was declared, our Navy was ready for anything.

As Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill was a member of the Asquith cabinet. In July 1914, the British Royal Navy was on maneuvers in the North Sea. Churchill's keeping it there, and his movement of a great part of the Fleet from Portsmouth to Scapa Flow in Scotland, helped assure Britain controlled the North Sea.

When Belgium was overrun by the German forces, and its government and army had fallen back to the fortress city of Antwerp, Churchill was instrumental in the failed effort to save the city, a valuable continental port. Churchill reinforced the Belgians on October 3 with British marines and recently volunteered sailors and shortly after, on October 5, with an army division, a cavalry division, and Churchill himself.

An Easterner, Churchill persuasively argued for opening another front against the Central Powers, and was a leading advocate for the naval attempt to force the Dardanelles and, on its abandonment, the Gallipoli invasion. Although he wrote that the plan originated with Lord Kitchener and the French Government, Churchill was blamed as the failure in Gallipoli became increasingly apparent.

When Asquith formed a coalition with the Conservatives in May 1915, he forced Churchill out of the cabinet.

Churchill subsequently served on the Western Front.

National Affiliation: Great Britain