ary. Three days before the 1922 election campaign began, Churchill had to have his appendix removed. He was able to campaign only briefly, and lost the election. He said he found himself "without office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix." In 1924, Churchill was returned to Parliament from Epping after he rejoined the Conservative Party. He was later named chancellor of the exchequer under Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. Churchill's father had held this office almost 40 years earlier. The Conservatives lost the 1929 election, and Churchill left office. He did not hold a Cabinet position again until 1939. He kept his seat in Parliament throughout this period. During the years between World Wars I and II, Churchill spent much of his spare time painting and writing. He did not begin painting until in his 40's, and surprised critics with his talent. He liked to use bold, brilliant colors. Many of Churchill's paintings have hung in the Royal Academy of Arts. Painting provided relaxation and pleasure, but Churchill considered writing his chief occupation after politics. In his four-volume World Crisis (1923-1929), he brilliantly recorded the history of World War I. In Marlborough, His Life and Times (1933-1938), he wrote a monumental six-volume study of his ancestor. In speaking and in writing after 1932, Churchill tried to rouse his nation and the world to the danger of Nazi Germany. The build-up of the German armed forces alarmed him, and he pleaded for a powerful British air force. But he was called a warmonger. Wartime prime ministerWorld War II begins. German troops marched into Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. The war that Churchill had so clearly foreseen had begun. On September 3, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at once named Churchill first lord of the admiralty, the same post he had held in World War I. The British fleet was notified with a simple message: "Win...
