According to Candice Millard's non-fiction work Hero of the Empire (#733), Winston Churchill always knew he was destined for great things. The question in his early life was how to make the rest of the world (or the British Empire, which amounted to the same thing for him) take notice.
When daring military escapades in India and the Sudan didn't do the trick, he helped whip up enthusiasm in England for war against the Boers in South Africa. He found his own way to the theater of war via journalism. He would be in today's terms "embedded" (and highly paid!) with British troops near the front lines. When a military train he was on was attacked, he was taken prisoner by the Boers. He considered this time in his life the very worst, and so he was determined to escape. His trek alone across more than three hundred miles of enemy territory are the stuff of legend.
Since the British had suffered a series of humiliating defeats (which will put the American reader in mind of how the Patriots won the Revolutionary War in terms of their tactics) morale was at a very low point in the Empire at that time. Churchill's escape came at the perfect moment for boosting morale and providing a turning point for the war. He did, in fact, become a "Hero of the Empire".
Millard's narrative is as compelling as any thriller, even though the reader already knows the outcome of Winston's story. Who knew that the British defined the modern day concept of the concentration camp during the Boer War when they rounded up women and children (with separate camps for black and colored Africans)? Or that Gandhi, like Churchill, participated in the Boer War as a non-combatant? This book is a fascinating look at a brief period of Winston Churchill's life that helped define him.
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