The Art of Manliness - #240： The Making of Winston Churchill

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so when we hear

00:00:18.820 the name winston churchill images of the cigar chomping overweight elderly aristocrat who led

00:00:24.100 england through their finest hour probably come to mind what few people realize however is that

00:00:29.560 as a young man churchill lived a life of romantic adventure and daring by fighting at the battlefront

00:00:35.000 in three different wars before he's 23 years old and he capped off his military career by serving as

00:00:40.540 a 24 year old war correspondent in the boer war in southern africa where he was taken prisoner

00:00:45.880 made an audacious escape and returned home to england as a national hero my guest today on the

00:00:51.760 podcast has just published a detailed account of churchill's capture and escape during the boer war

00:00:56.020 and how it launched his career as the statesman we remember today her name is candace millard you

00:01:00.840 probably read her previous book the river of doubt about theodore roosevelt's exploration of the amazon

00:01:05.400 her latest book is called hero of the empire the boer war a daring escape and the making of

00:01:11.040 winston churchill on today's show candace and i discussed supreme confidence churchill had as a

00:01:16.240 young man that he was destined for greatness and how he intentionally sought after dangerous

00:01:20.580 military missions that would catapult him to fame we also discussed the compelling leadership and

00:01:25.340 persuasion ability churchill displayed during the boer war that would later propel his political career

00:01:29.440 as well as the similarities between churchill and teddy roosevelt stay tuned for a fascinating podcast

00:01:35.380 one of history's most fascinating figures after the show check out the show notes at aom.is

00:01:40.480 slash millard that's spelled m-i-l-l-a-r-d

00:01:44.320 all right candace millard welcome to the show thank you for having me uh so i've long been a fan of your

00:01:54.480 work uh i loved your book river of doubt about teddy roosevelt's adventure down an uncharted

00:01:59.200 uh part of the amazon river and you got a new book out hero of the empire the boer war daring

00:02:06.260 escape and the making of winston churchill um a lot's been written about churchill he's one of

00:02:12.360 those figures that gets biographers love to write about but it's often about the later parts of his

00:02:18.040 life um what drew you to writing about a younger churchill's capture and escape as a prisoner of war

00:02:24.560 in the boer war well as you say we all um know winston churchill i think there's something like

00:02:31.080 12 000 books about him but a lot of it obviously focuses on his time in world war ii and his role

00:02:39.000 in it and um and the fact that he was such an extraordinary leader um but what interested me is what

00:02:45.320 made the winston churchill we all know where did he come from how did he have this incredible ability

00:02:51.340 and confidence and how was he able to project it to his people and to entire nations and and the answer

00:02:59.600 is south africa you know if you if you look at it it this war not only propelled him to the political

00:03:07.000 stage he he became a national hero during this war because of his escape and he had run for parliament

00:03:13.440 before and lost he ran again and on the strength of his popularity he himself says um coming out of

00:03:19.580 the south african war um won the second time and it launched his political career but more than that

00:03:26.400 you can see him so clearly at this young age um with all the qualities we think of him having later in

00:03:35.560 life with the his his audacity his determination his grit his agility and ingenuity they all come

00:03:44.280 into play in south africa so yeah you're right when most people think of churchill they usually imagine

00:03:49.640 the cigar chomping overweight aristocratic statement leading great britain in their finest hour but

00:03:55.880 as a young man and he was 24 25 uh during the boer war um churchill lived a life of romantic

00:04:04.460 daring that culminated in the boer wars and even before the boer wars he had some military escapades

00:04:10.860 uh can you tell us a little bit about that and and what drove him to put himself in harm's way like

00:04:15.740 that so he had always loved war and been fascinated by it even as a child he had 1500 toy soldiers that

00:04:25.060 he played with and he also was a direct descendant of the first duke of marlborough john churchill who

00:04:30.680 is considered to be one of uh england's greatest generals and so he was very much aware of that

00:04:38.380 legacy and you know he he was born into the highest ranks of the british aristocracy at the height

00:04:44.560 of the british empire so he had a lot of wars to choose from you know the the british empire ruled over

00:04:51.100 450 million people at that point and so they were constantly putting down revolts from egypt to ireland

00:04:59.000 and um and so churchill thought of war as sort of his vehicle to fame and then political power

00:05:07.240 he called it the glittering gateway to distinction and so you're right so by the time he goes

00:05:12.700 to south africa he's 24 years old but this is his fourth war on three different continents you know he

00:05:19.800 he went to cuba um uh right before the beginning uh sort of the beginning skirmishes of the spanish

00:05:25.780 american war he went to british india and fought in malacan he um and he went to the sudan and fought

00:05:32.940 in the famous battle of omdurman so he was a very experienced seasoned um soldier by the time he goes

00:05:40.560 to south africa and i imagine there was something about the culture of victorian england that compelled

00:05:45.960 him to put himself at the battlefront right to england at that time it wasn't you don't they didn't

00:05:53.540 think really about war they thought about gallantry and they spent a lot more time sort of working on

00:06:00.080 parades and pressing their uniforms and shining their medals than they did actually thinking about

00:06:06.340 the realities of war even though they had been in so many of them but many of them were um colonial wars

00:06:13.740 where they you know or they had far better um weapons and more men and could easily overwhelm

00:06:22.740 their enemies um but that turned out to be a serious problem for them from for them in south africa

00:06:29.900 because they were facing a completely different kind of enemy there yeah and we'll talk about that

00:06:35.260 in a bit it seems like the boer war really ushered in modern warfare yeah it did absolutely there's no 0.78

00:06:43.020 question it was some of the earliest guerrilla fighting they even called it the khaki war because

00:06:47.740 it was one of the first times that the british army was sort of resentfully convinced to stop wearing

00:06:55.640 their dashing red coats they hated the khakis they said it made them look like bus drivers but they were

00:07:01.460 still fighting in these perfect precise lines sort of set up for the slaughter um it was also some of the

00:07:07.800 first concentration camps and you know changing of um modernization of weapons and um and it really

00:07:16.540 prepared the british army for world war one so we've written a lot about churchill and i've read a lot

00:07:22.640 about him and one thing about him is he is an egoist and he's a self-described egoist he will he will cop to

00:07:29.880 that uh accusation um and you talk about this right from the get-go in your book that from a young age

00:07:35.500 he felt he was destined for greatness where did this feeling of certainty that he would be a great man

00:07:43.400 one day come from i think you're born with it you know but i think what's different about

00:07:48.420 churchill is that um he he not only believed it and i think a lot of young people certainly a lot of

00:07:56.320 young men believe that they're destined for greatness that they're special that they're different 1.00

00:08:00.500 they're going to do something extraordinary but he didn't sit around waiting for something to happen

00:08:05.680 to him he went out and he found his opportunities again and again and again and he threw himself not

00:08:11.780 only into war but into the most brutal battles he could find and he would do these extreme things

00:08:19.220 just to get attention so he would get medals and then he thought you know he can turn this into

00:08:24.700 to fame and to power you know he he for instance rode a white pony on the battlefield and malik and

00:08:32.380 to the horror of the people around him just to get noticed but as you say he said he had faith in his

00:08:39.060 star and i remember one of my favorite things he wrote to his mother um when he was in the middle of

00:08:44.840 a war and he had seen his friends not just killed but slaughtered but he said he didn't think the gods

00:08:50.660 would create so potent a being as himself for so prosaic and ending so he just didn't think it was

00:08:58.040 going to happen to him because he had this larger life ahead of him right and i guess one thing he did

00:09:05.000 that was very unbridged like he shared with others his premonitions about his greatness he did and you

00:09:12.220 know other people around him believed it too but the funny thing is again and again and again when i was

00:09:18.380 doing research people would say you know i can't stand that kid winston churchley drives me crazy

00:09:23.880 he's going to be prime minister one day but i just can't stand him and his he he was openly ambitious

00:09:30.620 and that just wasn't done in the british military and the and the british society in which he had been

00:09:38.000 born and so i think of it kind of as the american in him actually the kind of brash pusher and his

00:09:45.960 mother was american right and i mean but one thing i remember from reading about churchill like he was

00:09:51.680 sort of a sensitive boy and like he was kind of overweight um you know kind of soft he was very

00:09:56.700 like he like even as an old older man he liked to wear silk pajamas and he really pampered himself

00:10:01.860 so i mean i can imagine people looking at this sort of aristocrat guy who has kind of a lisp uh not

00:10:08.420 super athletic thinking yeah he's saying he's destined for greatness but i i don't know if that's true

00:10:13.960 did was how did churchill how was he able to transform himself well i think that um it's

00:10:22.080 interesting to me his his early life when he was a child because um especially because he ends up

00:10:28.220 becoming a writer right an extraordinary writer that's how he that's how he supported himself for

00:10:34.120 most of his life and that's actually how he got to south africa as a correspondent and so not only

00:10:39.860 is he sort of you know not strong physically but he thinks and is seen as not strong intellectually

00:10:47.400 which seems incredible to us now but because he um wasn't a great student they didn't put him into

00:10:55.280 you know the greek and latin classes which were for just set aside for the um the more capable students

00:11:01.840 and they just kind of stuck him in the regular english class but he had this extraordinary teacher

00:11:06.840 and he came to know the english language inside and out and so he had this power actually over

00:11:13.520 other people which as you know translated to incredible power i mean the the power of words

00:11:19.900 later on is an incredible weapon and a credible tool to inspire other people and so he had that

00:11:27.300 throughout his life and you know as he became a young man he was more fit and because he had thrown

00:11:34.320 himself into these situations again and again um and he was always very very confident so he believed

00:11:40.440 that he would do fine on the battlefield and he did yeah he did um so you mentioned his mother

00:11:47.480 uh his mother was american churchill had a really interesting family life as a boy and young man i'm

00:11:53.200 sure it had a huge influence on his ambitions um can you tell us a bit about his about his family and

00:12:00.700 his relationship with his parents and how it affected him throughout the rest of his life

00:12:04.460 so his father was lord randolph churchill who had been the chancellor of the exchequer and had been

00:12:12.440 leader of the house of commons so a very famous and powerful man who um was actually very very hard

00:12:18.780 on his son and didn't spend much time with him and it was i think one of the great regrets of

00:12:23.820 churchill's life you know he he later said that he he wished he had been you know a shopkeeper's son

00:12:29.660 um because he would have had a chance to get to know his father which would have been a joy to him

00:12:34.520 but as it was his parents you know sent him off to boarding school when he was seven years old

00:12:39.420 and he they just never made time for him his father was very very busy with his political career

00:12:45.320 and his mother was very busy with her her social life she was um as you say she was this

00:12:51.480 incredibly beautiful american socialite born jenny jerome and um and she when she came to england

00:12:59.160 she became the star the sort of the glittering center of course there are people who resented her

00:13:04.860 um you know because of who she was because she was american for one thing but she just didn't care 1.00

00:13:10.320 you know she loved life she loved being the center of attention and um and she was really too busy for

00:13:16.400 him often and it's um i'm a mother myself and i actually found it really heartbreaking to read his

00:13:23.320 letters um home to his parents from boarding school begging them to visit him and they just never did

00:13:29.920 they again and again he would even like figure out you know what trains they could take and what the

00:13:34.980 schedule would be and how they could then quickly get back to london um and then they just didn't take

00:13:39.920 the time um but then churchill's father died when he was just 45 years old um he died a very um public

00:13:48.500 and tragic death and um and then churchill himself became interesting actually to his mother he um became

00:13:56.980 a young man of consequence and she had all these um relationships she had all this power with very

00:14:04.420 powerful men um all this influence and he told her he said look this is a pushing age we must push with

00:14:12.040 the best and i want you to get me these military appointments because i want to be able to go

00:14:17.660 anywhere in the world where the most interesting fighting is going on and she helped him again and

00:14:23.000 again and again yeah that was interesting his mother was like very influential in helping his political

00:14:27.960 career and even she tried to pull strings while he was a prisoner of war as well um and you're right

00:14:34.380 the letters i've read those letters that churchill wrote when he was in boarding school and it just

00:14:37.880 it breaks your heart i mean it's super sad um absolutely so when churchill was a young man he's

00:14:44.160 i guess he's about 24 he begins his foray into politics by running for a member of parliament in

00:14:50.120 oldham in 1899 um he loses how did someone with with so much unbridled ambition like churchill respond to

00:14:58.440 that defeat well he was completely deflated you know and um and he felt like you know he had all

00:15:07.020 this promise and he believed strongly in himself but it was a different thing to try to convince

00:15:12.640 everybody else and um and it was difficult to get there so nothing kind of had worked he had tried you

00:15:20.180 know war and he had tried politics and he he you know here he was he had no income his you know he had

00:15:28.000 been born in blenheim palace um with all this you know incredible opulence around him but they didn't

00:15:34.600 have any money you know even um the people who he didn't inherit the title of the palace but even

00:15:40.500 those who did i mean they were desperately sort of selling off the gems and the library and the

00:15:46.400 and the art collection just to try to stay afloat and his father had left him very little money

00:15:51.380 um his mother had spent most of it and um so he needed to um find another way and he believed that

00:16:00.540 he needed another war he needed another opportunity to prove himself and so when he heard these the

00:16:08.420 rumblings of war happening in south africa he saw that as his opportunity okay so let's go there so 1.00

00:16:15.680 before we talk about churchill's involvement in the boer war let's talk a bit about the background of the

00:16:20.880 work for those who aren't familiar with it so it took place in south africa um who were the british

00:16:26.540 fighting exactly during the boer war so the boers were this um group of largely dutch huguenot and

00:16:35.860 german immigrants who had been living in south africa for centuries they were very religious they were

00:16:44.440 unabashedly racist and they were stubbornly independent so most of all they just wanted

00:16:51.260 to be left alone and um they were trying to get away from the british empire by um moving into the

00:16:58.080 interior of africa so in 1835 just two years after the british empire had um abolished slavery um which

00:17:06.780 was sort of the final straw for the boers they um they took what they called the great track which was

00:17:12.700 moving hundreds of miles from the cape into the african interior and they established three different

00:17:18.000 republics at that time um but unfortunately for them they found gold and diamonds um especially in

00:17:26.500 an area called the transvaal or the south african republic one of their three republics and um paul kruger

00:17:34.180 who would become president of the transvaal said that this gold will cause our country to be soaked in

00:17:39.660 blood and he was right so just a few years later in 1880 the first boer war took place between the

00:17:47.100 british and the boers and um to the british shock they actually lost it was a very short war but they

00:17:54.300 lost and the boers had sort of temporarily had their independence but i think they both knew that the

00:18:01.380 british weren't going to forget about it i mean it was a the area itself was very interesting the british

00:18:05.960 anyway because obviously they had to get around the cape to get to india but then with the gold and

00:18:10.840 diamonds they just weren't going to let go and so it just became more and more tense between the two

00:18:16.660 groups okay and i mean i thought it was interesting what's interesting about the boer war it was

00:18:20.100 europeans fighting europeans in africa um i think some people i mean and that's some people have called it

00:18:26.840 like the american revolution in africa and with a lot of americans sympathized with the boers

00:18:32.520 right um right absolutely so churchill goes to south africa but he goes not as a soldier but as a

00:18:40.620 war reporter um for a guy who loved and romanticized battle why did why not go as an officer in the

00:18:47.420 military because he had already left the military and he knew again he's trying to make money and he

00:18:56.420 this was his ticket to south africa and um and he had written while so he had done this unusual thing

00:19:03.280 when he was um taking part in these other wars earlier on he had been both um a combatant and a

00:19:10.780 correspondent and in fact because um he had so openly criticized those who are in command especially

00:19:18.960 kitchener um they had had to make a rule that you couldn't be both you couldn't both write about the

00:19:25.580 war and fight in it um and so he um he very quickly got offers from all of these newspaper publishers

00:19:33.800 asking him to write for for them because he was an incredibly skilled reporter i mean not only um was

00:19:41.720 he incredibly ambitious and intrepid so he would get wherever something was happening he was the first

00:19:47.480 person there um but he was also obviously brilliant and his analysis was incredibly insightful um and

00:19:55.400 but most of all his prose was absolutely beautiful i mean you know i read a lot a lot a lot of

00:20:02.960 newspaper articles um from that time covering this war and without question winston churchill's

00:20:09.700 writing is head and shoulders above everybody else and then he was smart and so he has all these

00:20:15.740 offers and so he takes it to different people and he's like look this this um newspaper is going to

00:20:20.560 give me this what will you give me and in the end he ends up becoming the highest paid correspondent

00:20:27.460 that england had ever had that's crazy how much was he paid in today's dollars he's paid a huge amount

00:20:35.480 i can't remember to be honest it was something like close to a hundred thousand dollars um to cover the

00:20:41.080 war and he also had um a huge stipend so he they would cover you know all of his expenses while he was

00:20:47.420 there and he as you were saying earlier i mean he um he was willing to risk his life and throw

00:20:54.260 himself into these dangerous situations but he didn't see the point in being uncomfortable or

00:20:58.440 uncivilized while he was there so he brought with him his valet and he also bought all of this alcohol

00:21:05.180 to take with him so you know a very nice selection of wines and he put something like 18 bottles of 10

00:21:11.980 year old scotch whiskey to take along and the newspaper paid for it all it's crazy and i mean what's

00:21:16.680 amazing to us keep keep i think people need to keep in mind he was only 24 when he was when this

00:21:21.800 happened um so he's right and he's and he's this is not only his fourth war he's already written three

00:21:27.540 books and run for parliament so he's a little ambitious right it makes me feel like a slacker

00:21:32.920 a complete slacker um keep up with this guy right um so how did he become captured as a pow because i mean 0.51

00:21:41.100 if he was a journalist um you would think that well okay he's not really a uh combatant so the

00:21:47.260 laws of war would say you're not you can't hold him as a prisoner of war why did the boars treat him

00:21:51.700 like a combatant because he acted like a combatant because he's winston churchill and he couldn't help

00:21:57.360 himself so he he gets to this little town called escort which is as close as you can get to the front

00:22:03.380 the front was then ladysmith which is just south of pretoria and um ladysmith is completely surrounded

00:22:09.940 by the boars it's under siege you can't get in or out and the only thing that they have in this camp

00:22:15.740 is they have this armored train that goes out for reconnaissance and every person in the camp all

00:22:21.900 these soldiers all these officers hate this armored train because you know it seems like oh that's a

00:22:27.000 great idea it would be protective but it's just a sitting duck you know it's an obvious easy target

00:22:33.020 for the boars they know where it's going they know it has to come back on the same tracks and um so the

00:22:38.800 men hated it they called it a death trap um but a friend of churchill's almer holden um who was in

00:22:46.000 charge of a of a regiment and escort was ordered to take the armored train out for reconnaissance

00:22:51.680 and he invited churchill to go with him and both of them knew that it was just a disastrous decision

00:22:58.120 to take the train out especially that day they had just spotted the boars

00:23:02.780 just outside of escort just the day before and um but holden didn't have a choice

00:23:07.900 churchill had a choice but he was restless he was frustrated and he would later say that he was

00:23:15.040 eager for trouble so he didn't hesitate for a minute when holden invited him along and um and he gets on the

00:23:22.640 train and um the boars of course are watching and as soon as it goes past them they go to the bottom

00:23:30.340 of a hill and they pile rocks on the tracks then they go to the top of that hill they wait for the

00:23:37.360 train to come back as they knew it would and as soon as it gets to the top of the hill they

00:23:41.840 just have this hailstorm of shells and bullets and the train does exactly what they want it to do it

00:23:49.160 goes down the hill as fast as it can to try to get away from the attack and it crashes into these rocks

00:23:55.540 to the bottom of the hill the first two cars are catapulted off the tracks and um several men are

00:24:02.800 killed many are horribly wounded and winston churchill who's one of the few civilians on the

00:24:09.500 train and again it's only 24 years old he jumps out and immediately takes charge of the defense i mean

00:24:16.500 he's running back and forth shouting orders organizing a way for the train to to get away and what's even

00:24:24.340 more extraordinary is that everyone listens to him you know that i mean there were plenty of

00:24:30.020 legitimate uniformed soldiers on that train halden who was in charge he is too he's also listening to

00:24:39.200 churchill he's taking command and he he lets him have at it and they and churchill succeeds that the

00:24:45.840 train finally um gets it has to shove one of the cars off the tracks he figures out a way to do that

00:24:52.300 and it gets away and every man who survives and gets out alive without being killed or captured

00:24:58.220 credits saving his life credits the saving of his life to winston churchill yeah that's crazy and so

00:25:07.140 the boar's captured he's acting as a combatant but i guess you also mentioned the book that they were

00:25:10.500 keen on keeping him because i guess his father had kind of rubbed them in the wrong way and they wanted

00:25:16.620 to like i don't know they hold on to this guy because he's the son of the guy that kind of did us

00:25:21.540 wrong right they they are thrilled to have winston churchill because yeah one he's a he's the son of a

00:25:28.360 lord um who represents everything that they hate about the british their arrogance and their aristocracy

00:25:34.420 and um and also as you say randolph churchill had been there just a few years earlier and had um written

00:25:41.740 letters home that were published in british newspapers excoriating the boars um for their

00:25:47.380 backwardness for not being educated but mostly uh for their treatment of of native africans which was 0.89

00:25:54.100 absolutely true um but it didn't make them hate him any less so he got captured a prisoner but the way

00:26:00.840 you described it doesn't seem like it was that terribly bad the conditions were that bad it seemed

00:26:05.000 like churchill was able to wander the streets i mean he was able to buy stuff hats clothing liquor and

00:26:11.080 he made friends with i guess the minister of war for the boars or something like that what were the

00:26:16.320 conditions like yeah he wasn't able to leave but they were and you know incredibly um comfortable he 0.85

00:26:26.220 the the boars really hated the thought that the british thought that they were these backward buffoons

00:26:33.340 and so they went out of their way to show that they were very civilized and so this was a prison just

00:26:40.020 for officers and as you say yeah he i mean he was able to have a a barber come in and cut his hair

00:26:46.920 he was able to order a tweed suit he they got they got the newspapers in um when it was hot they let them

00:26:54.060 sleep in the hallways instead of in their rooms um and so they had sort of this comfortable life but

00:27:01.980 for churchill it was absolutely unbearable and from the minute he was captured he was determined

00:27:09.880 to win his release whether it was so arguing he wasn't a combatant they weren't listening to that

00:27:15.860 because they obviously had seen it and they had read the newspaper accounts um from the other men

00:27:20.340 who'd been on the train praising churchill or through escape you know and he he would write about it he

00:27:27.060 would remember how it felt to be a prisoner for the rest of his life and he would say that his

00:27:33.060 captivity he hated more than he had ever hated any period in his whole life and um and he would

00:27:41.160 remember you know when he later on in life um when he came to power when he was a home secretary

00:27:46.100 he made a point of making sure that prisoners um had access to books had access to the outdoors and to

00:27:55.280 exercise um because he remembered that as just being this unbearable situation all right so

00:28:01.660 churchill had to get out of there he started making plans when um his his um channels of trying

00:28:07.720 to talk his way out didn't didn't come to fruition um his original plans and in typical

00:28:13.140 churchillian fashion he came with this like really grandiose and complicated plan um and people were

00:28:19.760 like yeah let's do that but then when he got there's a certain point they're like no that's

00:28:23.540 actually not a good idea um can you talk a little about churchill's original plan to escape

00:28:28.780 right so again this is winston churchill so he's not going to just you know have some quiet little

00:28:34.720 plan or just he can escape no he wants to take over the entire prison and then take over the prison

00:28:40.960 where the soldiers are kept and then take over pretoria and kidnap the president and end the war

00:28:47.000 so this is really really elaborate grandiose plan and um and you know everybody's like that's not

00:28:54.900 going to work that's ridiculous um and they kind of um shoo him away um but he overhears his friend

00:29:01.380 almer holden um who's the guy who had invited him to go on the train um at the beginning and this other

00:29:07.800 guy adam brocky who's a really interesting guy who had been in south africa for quite a while

00:29:12.440 knew the train really well and actually spoke zulu and afrikaans and he overhears them talking about a

00:29:20.680 plan of their own and he wants in so yeah they they decided to make this plan and all they all

00:29:25.480 three of them were going to escape together but it didn't work out that way uh churchill ended up

00:29:29.000 being alone and he had to get back to i forgot where it was he had to travel you know a couple

00:29:34.600 hundred miles to get to safety and it was the area was teeming with boars um so how did he make that

00:29:42.920 escape i mean was it just primarily luck or was there some skill and savvy involved

00:29:47.640 so he um as you say he's able so the their plan is just um you know there's this six and a half

00:29:54.680 foot tall fence surrounding the prison yard and there there are armed guards everywhere but they

00:30:01.560 see that at night when the electric lights have these new electric lights when they come on there's

00:30:06.320 one corner of the yard that's still dark and they think that you know if a guard's turned at just the

00:30:12.180 right moment they can quickly get over and um and they um brocky and holden had tried and were kind

00:30:20.040 of giving up for the night churchill gave it one more try and got over um and holden and brocky

00:30:24.700 couldn't join him um the problem was that they had all the provisions churchill found himself on the

00:30:32.020 other side he couldn't get back in he'd be shot but he's on the other side of the fence with no map

00:30:37.860 no compass no food no weapon he doesn't speak the language and um and the boars when they find out

00:30:46.900 are humiliated and enraged that anyone would escape but especially that it would be winston

00:30:53.500 churchill and they are determined to catch him and he has ahead of him almost 300 miles of enemy

00:31:01.280 territory he's trying to get to um what's now mozambique was in portuguese east africa

00:31:06.800 and um and a lot of it is luck i mean it's it you know he he and he fluctuates between

00:31:13.740 sort of this easy confidence and and despair and um and it's really just an extraordinary

00:31:21.920 extraordinary story of survival and um it really is incredible that that he did come out alive

00:31:29.400 right and we won't get in the details of his lucky breaks that he got but uh save that for the book but

00:31:34.300 yeah churchill indeed had a had a star uh shining upon him so he he he returns uh to england and

00:31:42.360 he's a hero a national hero so i mean if there wasn't a boar war and there wasn't an escape from

00:31:49.260 this prison would there have been a churchill that led britain during their finest hour

00:31:53.240 absolutely i think that he would have found a way no matter what you know he just he just he never gave

00:32:01.220 up he never stopped and that's what made him so valuable during world war ii and that is what was

00:32:06.520 going to propel him to the forefront of the national stage um no matter what now this was a faster and a

00:32:14.600 more um exciting way to get there um and it's a and it's a it makes for a a really incredible

00:32:22.440 story and it was a pivot point in his life you know he would later say you know this misfortune his

00:32:28.280 capture had i known it was to lay the foundations for my for my later life and it and it absolutely

00:32:34.560 did but there's no question in my mind at least that he would have found a way there somehow somehow

00:32:41.740 all right we mentioned earlier candace that your previous book was about theodore roosevelt

00:32:45.880 um his adventure down the river of doubt in the amazon um and churchill and roosevelt lived in

00:32:52.680 about the same time period some of that same era as you were writing about churchill did you find

00:32:58.760 similarities that existed between him and roosevelt constantly i was constantly stunned by how much

00:33:05.980 they were alike you know they're both um such incredibly ambitious and arrogant men they were

00:33:12.940 both incredibly well read they were both extraordinary writers um they were both born leaders you know they

00:33:20.560 i i think it's interesting to study people like this because i i really believe that to be a great

00:33:28.680 leader you have to be born a great leader and i think you know like any other skill you can learn it to

00:33:35.200 some limited extent but um but i don't think that you can be a winston churchill or a theodore

00:33:41.840 roosevelt if you're not just born that way and it was really interesting to me just to quickly go

00:33:47.060 back to the attack on the armored train as he's giving orders there comes a moment when um the

00:33:54.080 the train driver jumps out of his cab and he's been hit by a fragment of a shell and he's bleeding

00:34:00.020 and he's furious and he looks at churchill and he says look they don't pay me enough for this i'm not

00:34:05.400 a member of the military and he's going to make a run for it and churchill realizes that if he does

00:34:10.460 then they have no hope because nobody else can can um drive the train and so he immediately

00:34:17.300 gives him this sort of you know mini saint crispin's day speech you know look this isn't a terrible

00:34:23.560 thing this has happened to you this on the contrary this is an extraordinary and rare opportunity

00:34:28.600 and you can prove your gallantry you can prove your bravery and your devotion to your country if you get

00:34:34.480 back in that cab and if you do i will make sure that you're acknowledged for it and the guy looks at

00:34:39.880 him and says okay and he does and he turns around and he gets back in the cab and he does everything

00:34:45.700 churchill says and churchill's 24 and churchill's not even a member of the military so he just he not

00:34:51.160 only was he himself deeply confident but it was something that was contagious he could he could

00:34:57.660 he could transfer that to whomever he was talking to or entire nations you know if if he believed in

00:35:04.680 you if he believed that you were brave that you're resourceful that you're extraordinary and you could do

00:35:09.440 extraordinary things you believed it too and you were capable of it well candace this has been a

00:35:14.260 great conversation where can people learn more about your book oh thank you very much so they can

00:35:19.060 go to my website candice millard.com or um they can just pick up a book anywhere awesome well candice

00:35:24.480 millard thanks so much time it's been a pleasure i really enjoyed it thank you my guest today was

00:35:28.720 candice millard she's the author of the book hero of the empire it's available on amazon.com and bookstores

00:35:33.460 everywhere you can find out more information about her work at candice millard.com and also check out

00:35:38.320 the show notes at aom.is slash millard that's m-i-l-l-a-r-d 0.90

00:35:42.580 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:35:56.920 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com our show is edited

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00:36:13.880 or stitcher helps us out a lot as always thank you for your continued support until next time this is

00:36:18.280 brett mckay telling you to stay manly

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The Art of Manliness - October 05, 2016

#240： The Making of Winston Churchill

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