新GRE写作名人素材库：丘吉尔_GRE写作

新GRE写作名人素材库：丘吉尔

　　Churchill s military career began almost immediately upon his graduation with honors from Sandhurst, the West Point of Great Britain. In March 1895, he was appointed to the Fourth Hussars as a sub-lieutenant, assigned to duty at the Aldershop camp in Hampshire. After attachment as an observer to an anti-insurrectionary Spanish force in Cuba, he served in Bangalore, India. His next assignments included the Tirah Expeditionary Force in 1898 and the Nile Expeditionary Force, where he participated in the famous cavalry charge at Omdurman.

　　Churchill also saw battle as a journalist. In 1897, as a war correspondent for The London Daily Telegraph, he joined General Sir Benden Blood s expedition against the Pathams in the area of the Malakand Pass. In a similar capacity for The London Morning Post, he went to South Africa after the outbreak of the Boer War. There, on November 15, 1899, he was taken prisoner by Louis Botha, who later became the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa and a close friend of Sir Winston s.

　　Churchill followed his escape from Botha with a lecture tour of the United States, and thus helped finance the start of his political career. It began with an unsuccessful stand as a Conservative in a by-election in Oldham, Lancashire, in 1898; he ran again for the position, successfully, in 1900. Over the next three years, however, he found himself in disagreement with his party, particularly over the high tariff policy of Joseph Chamberlain. Therefore, in 1904 he crossed the aisle in the House of Commons and affiliated himself with the free-trade Liberals. Cabinet positions followed, first under-secretary for the colonies, then privy councillor. Upon the rise of Herbert Henry Asquith to prime minister in 1908, Churchill became president of the board of trade and home secretary. In these last two positions Churchill sponsored such progressive legislation as the establishment of the British Labor Exchanges, old age pensions, and health and unemployment insurance.