Conservative viceroy of India and foreign secretary who gave his name to the Curzon Line and led the Allies at Lausanne
Born into an aristocratic Derbyshire family and educated at Eton and Oxford, he entered Parliament in 1885 and wrote travel books warning of a Russian threat to India. As Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905 he pursued administrative reform, but his 1905 partition of Bengal was criticised as an attempt to divide Bengali nationalism, and a major famine coincided with his tenure. In the First World War he served in Lloyd George’s war cabinet; appointed Foreign Secretary in October 1919, he gave his name to the proposed Soviet-Polish boundary, the Curzon Line. He designed the Treaty of Sèvres and, as chief Allied negotiator at Lausanne in 1922, settled the borders of Turkey. Passed over for prime minister in 1923, he died in 1925.
Career timeline
- 1885Member of Parliament
- 1899–1905Viceroy of India
- 1916War cabinet; Leader of the House of Lords
- 1919–1924Foreign Secretary
- 1922–1923Chief Allied negotiator at Lausanne
British press baron Lord Rothermere, who became a hero in Hungary by demanding revision of the Trianon borders in the Daily Mail
With his elder brother Alfred, later Viscount Northcliffe, he founded the Daily Mail in 1896 and the Daily Mirror in 1903, and on his brother’s death in 1922 acquired his controlling interest in Associated Newspapers. Made Baron Rothermere in 1914 and Viscount Rothermere in 1919, he served for a time during the First World War as President of the Air Council. His Daily Mail editorial “Hungary’s Place in the Sun” of 21 June 1927 called for the return to Hungary of large territories lost under the Treaty of Trianon; he became a national hero in Hungary, and over 1.2 million Hungarians signed a letter of thanks. In the 1930s he praised Hitler and in 1934 backed the British Union of Fascists. He died in Bermuda in 1940.
Career timeline
- 1896Co-founds the Daily Mail
- 1903Launches the Daily Mirror
- 1919Viscount Rothermere
- 1922Takes control of Associated Newspapers
- 1927“Hungary’s Place in the Sun”
- 1934Backs the British Union of Fascists
Britain's wartime prime minister who divided Europe with Stalin on a half-sheet of paper
Churchill's memoir account of the October 1944 Moscow meeting: 'I wrote on a half-sheet: Romania, Russia 90%… I pushed this across to Stalin. He took his blue pencil, made a large tick, and passed it back.' Soviet authorities denied in 1958 that Stalin accepted such a proposal.
A British statesman, army officer and writer, Churchill was born in 1874 at Blenheim Palace into the wealthy aristocratic Spencer family, of mixed English and American parentage. After army service in India, Sudan and the Boer War he entered Parliament in 1900. As a Liberal minister he was President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, and First Lord of the Admiralty, where he oversaw the failed Gallipoli campaign; in 1924–1929 he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Prime minister from May 1940, he led Britain through the Second World War, warned in 1946 of an 'iron curtain', and held office again in 1951–1955. An imperialist, anti-communist and opponent of Indian self-government, he remains a contested figure; he died in 1965.
Career timeline
- 1940–1945Prime Minister (first term, coalition)
- 1951–1955Prime Minister (second term)
- 1945–1951Leader of the Opposition
- 1939–1940First Lord of the Admiralty
- 1924–1929Chancellor of the Exchequer
- 1911–1915First Lord of the Admiralty
- 1910–1911Home Secretary
- 1908–1910President of the Board of Trade
- 1921–1922Secretary of State for the Colonies
- 1919–1921Secretary of State for War and Air
- 1917–1919Minister of Munitions
The laconic reformer who replaced Churchill mid-Potsdam and built Britain's postwar welfare state
After winning the 1945 election, Attlee stood in silence with George VI at Buckingham Palace before volunteering, "I've won the election." The King replied, "I know. I heard it on the Six O'Clock News."
Clement Attlee was the man who replaced Winston Churchill as British prime minister in the middle of the Potsdam Conference, after Labour's landslide victory in July 1945. He had served loyally as Churchill's deputy in the wartime coalition, but voters chose the unassuming reformer over the war hero and his promise of a welfare state. His government created the National Health Service, nationalised major industries, and began dismantling the British Empire by granting independence to India and Pakistan. Abroad, he championed the Marshall Plan and NATO, aligning Britain firmly with the United States as the Cold War took shape.
Career timeline
- 1935–1955Leader of the Labour Party
- 1940–1942Lord Privy Seal (wartime coalition)
- 1942–1945Deputy Prime Minister (wartime coalition)
- 1945–1951Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- 1951–1955Leader of the Opposition
