Oblivion or Glory

by David Stafford

  Meanwhile, Churchill was doing his best to ensure mainstream Tory support for the government. A week later, when he was staying with the Montagus at Breccles for the Guy Fawkes celebrations, he argued vociferously against abolishing the British protectorate and granting internal self-government to Egypt. It was a stance that had already put him at odds with Curzon, who bitterly complained that ‘Winston [wants] to concede nothing and to stamp out rebellion in Egypt by Fire and Sword.’ But Duff Cooper detected something more calculating at work. The only reason Churchill was taking such an intransigent line, he believed, was that he hoped to make the Irish settlement ‘more palatable to the Tories’. Churchill told Cooper and the other guests that the chances of an agreement were ‘7 to 2 on’.13

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  In Ireland, violence continued despite the truce and the IRA continued to smuggle in guns. In Dublin, de Valera kept a tight and suspicious rein on the London delegates. During the first week of November, Lloyd George grew so frustrated that he threatened to resign, but Churchill strongly urged him against it. Not only would it be an abdication of responsibility, it would precipitate ‘a very great public disaster’ by pitting a hard-line Conservative Party against Labour. The prime minister stayed on. Talks continued, now mainly conducted on the British side by just him, Birkenhead, and Chamberlain. Before the end of the month it appeared as though a breakthrough was close and Lloyd George summoned Griffith to Chequers.

  He arrived shortly before ten o’clock in the evening of Saturday 26 November and was ushered into the Long Gallery, a room packed with mementos of English history. Above the mantelpiece hung the sword of Oliver Cromwell, and displayed elsewhere was the letter the Roundhead general wrote after his victory over Royalist forces at the battle at Marston Moor: ‘The Lord made them as stubble in our hands.’ What Cromwell meant for Irish Catholics and Anglo-Irish relations was best explained later by Churchill himself in his History of the English-Speaking Peoples: ‘Cromwell’s record was a lasting bane. By an uncompleted process of terror, by an iniquitous land settlement, by the virtual proscription of the Catholic religion . . . he cut new gulfs between the nations and the creeds . . . Upon all of us there still lies “the curse of Cromwell”. ’ What effect all the Chequers memorabilia might have had on Griffith is unclear. But when Lloyd George returned to London shortly before midnight, he declared that things were ‘better’. The next day a draft treaty was handed to the Sinn Fein delegates. It offered them an Irish Free State with a place within the British Empire akin to that of Canada, but with a guarantee of continued use by the Royal Navy, in both peace and war, of certain defined ports and dockyards. If Northern Ireland chose not to enter a united Ireland, then a Boundary Commission would determine the final border between the two countries.

  The Irish delegates took the draft to Dublin to confer with de Valera and returned divided between themselves on how to respond. Collins by now was ‘fed up’ with the muddle and next day refused to meet with Lloyd George. At this point, according to Sir John Lavery, the Irishman turned up at Cromwell Place in a foul mood and only after hours of persuasion by Hazel did he agree to see the prime minister. ‘Take what you can now and get the rest later,’ she urged him. Then she drove him to Downing Street in her car. Clementine Churchill repeated this story later, adding that Hazel had done so dressed in her favourite opera cloak. She and Hazel were certainly close enough to have shared confidences. ‘That bright, gay, beautiful affectionate [sic] who brought so much pleasure & animation wherever she went,’ Clementine said of her when she died sadly young just over a decade later.14

  True or not, the climax to the talks came on Monday 5 December. Newspaper headlines revealed extremes of opinion about the likely outcome. For the Daily Chronicle there was ‘Little Hope of Settlement’, while Beaverbrook’s Daily Express announced boldly ‘Irish Conference Fails’. But for The Times the negotiators ‘have not yet given up the task’, and the Late Night Special edition of the Evening Standard announced that ‘Both the Government and the Sinn Fein leaders are undesirous of breaking the truce.’ Indeed, at three o’clock that afternoon, Lloyd George, Churchill, Austen Chamberlain and Birkenhead met with Collins, Griffith, and another of the Sinn Fein delegates, Robert Barton, at 10 Downing Street. Here, Lloyd George gave them an ultimatum. Either they signed that night, or talks would end and both sides would be free to resume war. For the Irish delegation decision time had come. Griffith said he would sign even if the others refused. By contrast, in Churchill’s words, Collins glowered as if he were going to shoot someone, ‘preferably himself’.

  During these critical hours Churchill also seemed in a belligerent mood. On the one hand, he had some fruitful discussions with the political philosopher Harold Laski, an old acquaintance from Manchester days, about constructive ways of satisfying Sinn Fein over the terms of an oath of allegiance to the Crown. Yet, as Laski told friends, he simultaneously uttered threats ‘of John Bull laying about [Ireland] with a big stick’. Just half an hour before the critical meeting at Downing Street, Churchill summoned the bellicose Ulsterman and Chief of the Imperial General Staff Sir Henry Wilson to his office in the Colonial Office to consult him about Royal Navy bases in Ireland. War, he told him, seemed likely. At Downing Street itself, Erskine Childers noted Churchill’s body language. ‘My chief recollection of these inexplicably miserable hours,’ he recorded in his diary, ‘was that of Churchill in evening dress moving up and down the lobby with his loping stoop and long strides & a huge cigar like a bowsprit.’ The Sinn Fein delegates then returned to Hans Place to argue bitterly between themselves about what to do.15

  In the evening Lloyd George and the others waited in Austen Chamberlain’s room in the House of Commons to receive their reply. Churchill was still in a bullish mood. If they hadn’t received an answer by 10 p.m., he declared, the Irish should be left in no doubt ‘as to what we are going to do’. He was ignored, and the deadline passed. So did midnight. Then, in the early hours of 6 December the Irish delegation returned and Griffith announced they were prepared to accept the treaty – so long as some ‘points of drafting’ could be cleared up. This took until almost three o’clock. When the Sinn Fein members finally rose to leave, the British ministers walked round the table and for the first time shook hands.

  The treaty gave Ireland practically the same status within the Empire as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. This meant full self-government and financial autonomy, the withdrawal of all British officials, armed forces and police, and an independent Parliament. In return, it would have a Governor-General and grant the Royal Navy certain permanent harbour facilities along with others to be given in the event of Britain going to war. The six counties of the North had a month after ratification of the agreement either to become part of a united Ireland or remain separate as part of the United Kingdom. If they chose the latter, a Boundary Commission would be set up to decide the proper extent of this territory.

  So far as Collins was concerned, the terms of the treaty gave ‘freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it’. He also knew that it would bitterly divide Sinn Fein against itself and that his enemies would use it to destroy him. That same day he wrote to one of his oldest friends, ‘I tell you this – early this morning I signed my death warrant.’ The next day the Cabinet discussed what should happen to Sinn Feiners who had been convicted of murder, and accepted Churchill’s view that the Irish should be told privately that the death penalty would not be imposed. Meanwhile Collins and his colleagues returned to Dublin to make their case for the treaty. De Valera was bitterly opposed to Dominion status. But the majority of his Cabinet supported the deal and the treaty was duly sent to the Dail, or National Assembly, for debate. It was now up to it and to the Irish people to decide their fate.16

  EIGHTEEN

  FLEETING SHADOWS

  The year had begun with music-hall songs at Lympne. But when Churchill motored down to Chequers the week before Chris
tmas it was to find Lloyd George surrounded by Free Church ministers and a choir solemnly singing Welsh hymns. This was no surprise. Yet for the man accompanying him to the prime minister’s English country-house retreat, it was a startling and novel experience.1

  Boris Savinkov had erupted back into Churchill’s life a few days earlier, a reminder that while the Middle East and Ireland had dominated most of his year the future of Russia under the Bolsheviks still ranked high on his personal if not official agenda. The chain-smoking anti-Bolshevik conspirator had spent most of the year in Warsaw plotting guerrilla uprisings in Russia. Known as the ‘Greens’ to distinguish them from the Reds and the Whites, they blew up trains, assassinated Bolsheviks, and ambushed Red Army patrols. Russia was still in chaos after the Civil War, mired in famine and misery which Churchill sensed could yet stoke the overthrow of Lenin. Still captivated by Savinkov’s charisma, he compared the Greens positively to Sinn Fein and described them as waging ‘a sort of Robin Hood warfare’. Thanks to pressure from Moscow, Savinkov had been expelled from Warsaw in September and had eventually taken refuge in Paris.

  Meanwhile Churchill had met privately in London with Sidney Reilly to discuss Savinkov’s schemes. While SIS had now severed its official links with the ‘Ace of Spies’, Desmond Morton had kept in touch with him. ‘There is no doubt that Reilly is a political intriguer of no mean class,’ he told a colleague, ‘. . . he is at the moment Boris Savinkoff’s right-hand man. In fact, some people might almost say he is Boris Savinkoff.’ In a lengthy report written for Churchill, Reilly described the guerrilla leader as ‘a man of courage, commanding personality, resolution, optimism, [and] shrewd and patient’, and rated as high the chances of a general uprising that would produce a more moderate government in Moscow. Early in November, Edward Spears, now one of Reilly’s business partners, met privately with Archie Sinclair to discuss his plans.2

  Savinkov liked to dramatize and yearned to play the great leader. By this time he had convinced himself that Lenin’s New Economic Policy meant that the Bolsheviks were desperate to widen their basis of support. Perhaps, as Reilly had suggested, they might make concessions to opponents of the regime – possibly with a place in the leadership for Savinkov himself. With this in mind, Reilly planned to meet in London with Leonid Krassin, with whom he had briefly worked during the Social Revolutionary terrorist campaign against the Tsar and who was one of the few top Bolsheviks that he respected.

  But there was a problem. The Foreign Office was firmly opposed to Savinkov’s visit. Since the signing of the Anglo-Soviet trade treaty that spring, it was standing firm on a policy of non-interference in Soviet affairs while it pondered the longer-term issue of establishing formal diplomatic relations with Moscow. Savinkov with his guerrilla forces was a disruptive factor in these calculations. Besides, as the senior Foreign Office official Sir Eyre Crowe noted scathingly, Savinkov was ‘most unreliable and crooked’. So he was refused a visa.

  Churchill, however, was setting great store on meeting him in person. The journalist Herbert Sidebotham astutely described Churchill at this time as ‘not so much a member of the Government as an independent principality’. He might also have added that he often took an almost schoolboyish delight in playing cloak and dagger. ‘In the high ranges of Secret Service work,’ Churchill once wrote, ‘the actual facts in many cases were in every respect equal to the most fantastic inventions of romance and melodrama.’ Not for the first time he ignored the Foreign Office, pulled his personal intelligence strings, and was able to get Savinkov a visa issued by the Passport Control Office in Paris.3

  Once in London, Savinkov stayed at Reilly’s flat and met privately with Krassin over dinner at a private home. Ever the conspirator, he never revealed his host’s name but the most likely candidate was Edward Spears. What was agreed remains uncertain. Savinkov subsequently claimed that an eager Krassin had offered him a post in the Soviet government and that he agreed to take it, but only on three conditions: the abolition of the Cheka; the recognition of individual property rights; and free elections. Hardly was the meeting over than Churchill sent Archie Sinclair to discover what had happened and breakfast was arranged for the next morning. When Savinkov arrived at Sinclair’s home it was to find Churchill already seated at the table, hungry for the details. After listening carefully to his account of the meeting with Krassin, he said that the conditions would be quite acceptable to the British government but expressed his doubt that the Bolsheviks would ever agree. The next day, this time over tea at Sussex Square, Savinkov also met Birkenhead who agreed that any recognition of the Soviets had to be wholly conditional on their acceptance of Savinkov’s three points.4

  These discreet private meetings over, Lloyd George had to be brought into the picture, so Churchill and Savinkov motored down together to see him at Chequers and found him with his Welsh choir. For a while they listened politely before the Russian put his case to him. Any official dealings with Moscow, he pleaded, should be on the stringent political conditions agreed by him, Birkenhead, and Churchill.

  Lloyd George had his own plans in mind for Russia and believed that the quickest route to post-war recovery was through the rapid economic and political reintegration of Russia into Europe. ‘The way to help Russia and Europe and Britain is by trade,’ he flatly declared. He was now planning a major European conference for the spring to which the Bolsheviks would be invited. But for this he needed support from France, and he had invited its prime minister, Aristide Briand, for talks in London the next day. Privately, Lloyd George dismissed Churchill’s favourite Russian as a ‘seductive nihilist’. But the views that Savinkov expressed at Chequers, at least as the prime minister presented them, proved tactically highly convenient in persuading a deeply reluctant Briand to enter into talks with Moscow. Many counter-revolutionaries predicted that Bolshevism was on the verge of collapse, Lloyd George said. But those who ‘waited for dead men’s shoes were apt to find themselves down at heel’, and none of them were men of action who could be relied on. By contrast, he told Briand, at Chequers Savinkov had revealed himself as the only one of any strength. ‘The rest were sheep,’ he pronounced, whereas Savinkov ‘had blown up half a dozen governments and killed a Prime Minister. He was a man of action and great determination, which was plain from his personal appearance.’ This made it all the more significant that he had now urged the Allies to talk to Lenin and Trotsky on the grounds that they had become ‘anti-revolutionary and were fighting their own extremist wing’. It was even Savinkov’s view that it would be possible to put an end to the Bolsheviks. ‘If Lenin and Trotsky knew that they had Western Europe behind them,’ Savinkov had told him, ‘they would defy the extremists.’

  As he explained them to Briand, Lloyd George’s interpretation of Savinkov’s views accorded conveniently with his own, which even included seeing Krassin ‘as a kind of Sir Eric Geddes, a businessman not a politician’. This was consistent with what he also told Savinkov at Chequers: that people had been predicting the collapse of Bolshevism for years but that revolutions, like diseases, ran their course. The Bolsheviks would either grow more responsible or fall out amongst themselves, as in the French Revolution, and thus open the way for more moderate leaders. Lloyd George’s arguments for talking with the Bolsheviks clearly had some effect on Briand, and they agreed to meet for further talks in Cannes early in the New Year.

  Only after the Chequers meeting did Churchill bother to inform Curzon about the Russian’s visit. In a ‘Secret and Personal’ letter he wrote to the Foreign Secretary on Christmas Eve, he told him that he had ‘been informed in great secrecy’ that Krassin had approached Savinkov and they had met in London. This was disingenuous to say the least. Not only did he omit his own role in events, but by presenting Krassin as the instigator he suggested that Moscow was more eager for talks than in reality it was. Churchill’s main goal was to ensure that in any official discussions about aid to Russia, or even the diplomatic recognition to which he remained firmly opposed, the har
dest possible bargain should be struck. Aid without the strings as being demanded by Savinkov would be both wrong and foolish. ‘Yet that is what I am afraid we may be led into doing if we slide helplessly into a reconstruction policy for Russia without making a good bargain for its unfortunate people,’ he told the Foreign Secretary. ‘If I may repeat a homely simile I have used before . . . “we want to nourish the dog and not the tapeworm that is killing the dog”.’ Somewhat cheekily, he added a PS: ‘I presume you know of Savinkoff’s lunch at Chequers & how well he got on with the P.M?’