‘‘Keep cool, men!” shouted Winston Churchill as Mauser bullets whizzed uncomfortably past him and violently struck the ground around him. It was Nov. 15, 1899, and the future cigar-smoking British prime minister was in the thick of a vicious firefight with a Boer commando. Churchill thrived on adventure and danger, and he appeared to witnesses on that fateful day to be in his element as he barked out orders to British soldiers.
The armored train in which Churchill had been riding had become victim of a well-executed Boer ambush, and the soldiers manning the train were now paying the heavy price of military incompetence. Many who survived the attack certainly had Churchill to thank for their lives. Yet this exciting incident was only the start of his escapades in Southern Africa.
By the time of the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, Churchill had already left his military career behind him. He had earlier entered Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on his third attempt in September 1893. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars in February 1895, having passed out twentieth of 130.
Characteristically, Churchill had managed to embroil himself in a public controversy during his final term at Sandhurst. Mrs. Ormiston Chant, an eminent moral reformer of the day, had been actively campaigning for what she viewed as immoral women to be banned from the bar at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in Leicester Square, London. As a compromise, screens had been erected to separate these “fallen women” from normal theatregoers, which Churchill, while inciting several of his fellow cadets to join him, pulled down in wild protest. This boisterous little riot prompted Churchill to spontaneously exclaim, “Ladies of the Empire, I stand for Liberty!”
Churchill’s first experience of shots fired in anger did not, as one might expect, come as newspaper to get shot at. It was on Nov. 30, 1895—his 21st birthday—that Churchill heard these first shots while accompanying Spanish forces attempting to put down a rebellion. Afterwards, Churchill said, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as being shot at without result!” It is said that during his time in Cuba, Churchill acquired his two lifelong habits of smoking fat cigars and taking afternoon siestas.
