Book Review: Churchill and Australia

From the Boer War to the Opening of the Cold War

Apr 10, 2009

Winston Churchill's relationship with Australia was a troubled one from 1909, as a junior minister, to bitter disputes regarding Australian troops during World War II.

“Australia seemed to bring out the worst in Winston Churchill. Often enough to form a discernible pattern, Australia found itself on the wrong side of the very qualities—his strength of will, singleness of purpose, his refusal to ‘give way, in things great or small, large or petty’, the power of his imagination to set grim reality of defiance, his mastery of the English language—that made Winston Churchill, as the philosopher Isaiah Berlin described him, “’the saviour of his country, the largest human being of his time’.”

Graham Freudenberg examines the tumultuous relationship between Winston Churchill and Australian prime ministers from Alfred Deakin to John Curtin. Conflicts arose over Churchill’s concept of Empire and Australia’s place within it.

On the other hand, the Australians complained of lack of consultation in Anglo-Australian relations, especially when Churchill was involved.

Freudenberg also addresses Churchill’s one-sided accounts in his war memoirs (Volumes III and IV).

From Colony To Nation

No other British leader was involved with Australia like Churchill was. He influenced every stage of Australia’s transition from a dependant colony after Federation to full nationhood and the United States’ dependent ally.

Churchill’s primary interest was Australia’s capacity to provide troops to aid British military strength. (Some described our troops as “cannon-fodder”.)

He did not take Robert Menzies’ fears of a Japanese invasion seriously so no reinforcements were sent to Singapore. Menzies objected when Australian troops were sent to Greece instead. Churchill refused Curtin’s numerous requests to send the Australian Imperial Force [AIF] home, especially after the Bombing of Darwin.

However, Churchill reacted angrily when Australia was forced to look to the United States for help when Britain failed to provide assistance when the Japanese attacked.

Churchill and Australia also gives new insight into other major historical events including Tobruk, El Alamein, the fall of Singapore and the battle for Australia during World War II.

The first part of Churchill and Australia is his belief in Empire as proof of Britain’s greatness. The second deals with Churchill obliged to accept the Empires decline, if not its fall, as the price for defeating Hitler’s Germany.

Graham Freudenberg

Freudenberg provides an insider’s knowledge of the political world and draws on previously neglected sources and documents. He was speechwriter to Prime Ministers Gough Whitlam and Robert Hawke, and NSW Premiers Neville Wran, Barrie Unsworth and Bob Carr. (He declares his “long association with the Australian Labor Party” in the Author’s Preface!)

He grew up in Brisbane during World War II. Freudenberg belongs to the last Australian generation who grew up on the Empire as a going concern and the focus for allegiance.

The copyright of the article Book Review: Churchill and Australia in Australian History is owned by Carolyn M Cash. Permission to republish Book Review: Churchill and Australia in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

May 2, 2009 2:03 AM

Lisa Sanderson :

Hello Carolyn,

You may remember me from a writing group that we used to belong to. Thank you very much for this excellent review of this book. I haven't read it yet but I am interested in this subject so it's certainly on my TBR list!