Dominic Sandbrook

Yes.

And of course, for Churchill, the great disappointment of the war.

is that he is the first Lord of the Admiralty, but the German fleet, by and large, stays in port.

So he doesn't get the great naval showdown that he's hoping for.

Even so, Churchill seizes every opportunity to put himself at the centre of this stage.

So only a couple of months into the war, in October 1914, he sends what's basically a sort of private army that is cobbled together.

of naval reservists, the Royal Naval Division, to Antwerp, which is still under siege by the Germans.

He says, my Royal Naval Division will save Antwerp.

And he actually goes himself to Antwerp and he offers Asquith his resignation and says, I would like to take personal charge.

Of the defense of Antwerp.

This is refused.

Antwerp promptly falls.

And everybody back home says Churchill made an absolute fool of himself at Antwerp.

He sent the Royal Naval Division for no reason.

The press, the Morning Post, for example, Tory paper slams him as an erratic amateur.

The Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener, says it was a piratical adventure.

Even Asquith, the Prime Minister, says it was wicked folly to have sent so many men to Antwerp and to have made such a hullabaloo about it when it was obvious it was going to fall.

But the point about Churchill, Churchill loves Antwerp.

a gimmick.

He loves a wheeze, a stunt.