Darkest Hour

by Anthony McCarten

  It would be foolish, however, to disguise the gravity of the hour. It would be still more foolish to lose heart and courage or to suppose that well-trained, well-equipped armies numbering three or four millions of men can be overcome in the space of a few weeks, or even months, by a scoop, or raid of mechanized vehicles, however formidable. We may look with confidence to the stabilization of the Front in France, and to the general engagement of the masses, which will enable the qualities of the French and British soldiers to be matched squarely against those of their adversaries. For myself, I have invincible confidence in the French Army and its leaders. Only a very small part of that splendid Army has yet been heavily engaged; and only a very small part of France has yet been invaded. There is a good evidence to show that practically the whole of the specialized and mechanized forces of the enemy have been already thrown into the battle; and we know that very heavy losses have been inflicted upon them. No officer or man, no brigade or division, which grapples at close quarters with the enemy, wherever encountered, can fail to make a worthy contribution to the general result. The Armies must cast away the idea of resisting behind concrete lines or natural obstacles, and must realize that mastery can only be regained by furious and unrelenting assault. And this spirit must not only animate the High Command, but must inspire every fighting man.

  In the air – often at serious odds, often at odds hitherto thought overwhelming – we have been clawing down three or four to one of our enemies; and the relative balance of the British and German Air Forces is now considerably more favourable to us than at the beginning of the battle. In cutting down the German bombers, we are fighting our own battle as well as that of France. My confidence in our ability to fight it out to the finish with the German Air Force has been strengthened by the fierce encounters which have taken place and are taking place. At the same time, our heavy bombers are striking nightly at the tap-root of German mechanized power, and have already inflicted serious damage upon the oil refineries on which the Nazi effort to dominate the world directly depends.

  We must expect that as soon as stability is reached on the Western Front, the bulk of that hideous apparatus of aggression which gashed Holland into ruin and slavery in a few days will be turned upon us. I am sure I speak for all when I say we are ready to face it; to endure it; and to retaliate against it – to any extent that the unwritten laws of war permit. There will be many men and many women in the Island who when the ordeal comes upon them, as come it will, will feel comfort, and even a pride, that they are sharing the perils of our lads at the Front – soldiers, sailors and airmen, God bless them – and are drawing away from them a part at least of the onslaught they have to bear. Is not this the appointed time for all to make the utmost exertions in their power? If the battle is to be won, we must provide our men with ever-increasing quantities of the weapons and ammunition they need. We must have, and have quickly, more aeroplanes, more tanks, more shells, more guns. There is imperious need for these vital munitions. They increase our strength against the powerfully armed enemy. They replace the wastage of the obstinate struggle; and the knowledge that wastage will speedily be replaced enables us to draw more readily upon our reserves and throw them in now that everything counts so much.

  Our task is not only to win the battle – but to win the war. After this battle in France abates its force, there will come the battle for our Island – for all that Britain is, and all that Britain means. That will be the struggle. In that supreme emergency we shall not hesitate to take every step, even the most drastic, to call forth from our people the last ounce and the last inch of effort of which they are capable. The interests of property, the hours of labour, are nothing compared with the struggle for life and honour, for right and freedom, to which we have vowed ourselves.

  I have received from the Chiefs of the French Republic, and in particular from its indomitable Prime Minister, M. Reynaud, the most sacred pledges that whatever happens they will fight to the end, be it bitter or be it glorious. Nay, if we fight to the end, it can only be glorious.

  Having received His Majesty’s commission, I have formed an Administration of men and women of every Party and of almost every point of view. We have differed and quarrelled in the past; but now one bond unites us all – to wage war until victory is won, and never to surrender ourselves to servitude and shame, whatever the cost and the agony may be. This is one of the most awe-striking periods in the long history of France and Britain. It is also beyond doubt the most sublime. Side by side, unaided except by their kith and kin in the great Dominions and by the wide empires which rest beneath their shield – side by side, the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue not only Europe but mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them – behind us – behind the Armies and Fleets of Britain and France – gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians – upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.

  Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: ‘Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.’

  As he had done six days earlier, Churchill proved himself a master of rhetoric, capable of rousing people to his cause at the most crucial of moments.

  The response from fellow politicians this time was overwhelmingly positive. Anthony Eden wrote to him that evening to tell him, ‘You have never done anything as good or as great. Thank you, & thank God for you.’ As Captain Claude Berkley, a member of the War Cabinet Secretariat, noted in his diary, ‘The PM gave a magnificent broadcast address last night, which has at last put the true position before the people. He is being “sublime” at every stage and after narrowly averting a serious collapse in Paris four days ago has been galvanising everybody here.’ The former Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, wrote to Churchill to say, ‘I listened to your well known voice last night and I should have liked to have shaken your hand for a brief moment and to tell you that from the bottom of my heart I wish you all that is good – health and strength of mind and body – for the intolerable burden that now lies on you.’

  Churchill would need these words of support more than he knew, for the first German tanks had reached the French coast at Abbeville and their crews were looking across the Channel, just fifty miles to England.

  MONDAY, 20 MAY 1940

  THE COLLAPSE OF THE ENTIRE FRENCH NINTH ARMY HAS CRUSHED ALL HOPE OF A COUNTER-ATTACK

  THE BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO ATTEMPT A FIGHTING RETREAT TO THE COASTAL PORTS . . . ESPECIALLY DUNKIRK

  CHURCHILL HAS THE IDEA TO ORDER THE ADMIRALTY TO PREPARE A LARGE FLEET OF CIVILIAN VESSELS TO SAIL TO FRENCH PORTS IN CASE OF AN EVACUATION

  8. Fear, Doubts and Pressures from Within

  What had been unthinkable when the Germans invaded the Low Countries ten days before – the fall of France – was now becoming a reality, and Churchill’s frustration with the distinct lack of solid intelligence was beginning to show. General Ismay recalled:

  It is always difficult to get accurate information about a fast-moving battle, and for those who have to wait far from the scene, there is nothing for it but to exercise patience, and to remember that the commander in the field is preoccupied with the conduct of the engagement, and often has neither the time nor the knowledge to report details of its progress. This truism was never fully accepted by my impetuous chief; nor did he always make sufficient allowance for the fact that, in the fog of war, the commander himself does not know from hour to hour what is happening at every point on an enormous front.

  Churchill despatched General Ironside to France
, hoping that he, as the Chief of Imperial General Staff, might shed some light on the precise situation faced by the French, Belgian and British armies. Meanwhile, the War Cabinet met at 11.30 a.m. on 20 May to discuss once more the options for military support of Britain’s Allies.

  Sensing that a Nazi invasion of Britain might well be imminent, Churchill agreed with the War Cabinet that Britain had ‘already reached the absolute limit of the air assistance that we can afford to France, if we are to have any chance of protecting the United Kingdom, the Fleet, our sea-borne trade, our aircraft industry, and all the vital centres throughout the country on which we must depend for our ability to continue the war.’ This was of course a reasonable conclusion, but it also presented the very real prospect that, without further support over the next few days, the French Army ‘may give up the struggle’.

  French surrender might be staved off if the United States would agree to supply the planes the British had requested. Churchill had the previous evening sent ‘a telegram for those bloody Yankees’, and was waiting for the President’s reply, but time for an eleventh-hour rescue was running out and the Prime Minister abandoned his usual ‘soothing words’, and advised Roosevelt:

  In no conceivable circumstances will we consent to surrender. If members of the present Administration were finished and others came in to parley amid the ruins, you must not be blind to the fact that the sole remaining bargaining counter with Germany would be the Fleet, and, if this country was left by the United States to its fate, no one would have the right to blame those responsible if they made the best terms they could for the surviving inhabitant. Excuse me, Mr. President, putting this nightmare bluntly. Evidently I could not answer for my successors, who in utter despair and helplessness might well have to accommodate themselves to the German will.

  General Ironside returned from France on the morning of 21 May, having narrowly escaped with his life when a German bomb had hit his hotel in Calais, and came straight to the 11.30 a.m. War Cabinet to update his colleagues. There was only bad news to report. He had found the French High Command ‘in a state of indecision’, struggling to make sense of events due to poor communications. Ironside wrote in his diary that he ‘lost his temper and shook Billotte [French Commander in Chief of the armies in the north] by the button of his tunic. This man is completely beaten.’

  He reported that the roads were heavily congested with ‘hundreds of thousands of refugees from Belgium and the northern French towns’, who greatly slowed the movement of Allied troops. The German thrust to the coastal town of Boulogne now meant that the British and Belgian forces positioned in the north of France had been all but completely cut off from the French Army and the bases holding all of their supplies. Without either the means or leadership, any possibility of reconnecting the fighting Allied forces looked less likely by the minute.

  The whole situation was chaos.

  Churchill decided there was nothing for it but to return to Paris early the next morning, 22 May, to meet with Weygand and Reynaud, and to attempt to shake them into some form of order. He was deeply infuriated by the lack of information. ‘In all the history of war, I have never seen such mismanagement,’ he told Jock Colville, who noted in his diary that he had ‘not seen Winston so depressed’, and to make matters worse, as he was retiring to bed at 1.30 a.m. that night, Churchill was informed that General Billotte had been involved in a high-speed car accident, plunging the French Command into further disarray.

  The British Expeditionary Force’s position was now worse than it had ever been and the proposed withdrawal to the Channel ports would have to be attempted without the necessary supplies of munitions and food. If and when the force did eventually reach the coast, there remained the problem of how to evacuate 300,000 men and their considerable stock of armaments. The Luftwaffe controlled the skies, and a beach was no safe haven.

  When Churchill arrived in Paris on 22 May, he was relieved to find a new lease of energy from the new French Supreme Commander, General Weygand, seventy-three years old, who ‘in spite of his physical exertions and a night of travel . . . was brisk, buoyant, and incisive. He made an excellent impression upon all’, and proceeded to unfold ‘his plan of war’.

  Britain had already despatched the maximum active Army units to the continent, reserving only what was required for the defence of the nation. They had landed at Boulogne that day and were now taking measures to protect the French ports of Calais and Dunkirk to the north. Weygand assured Churchill during the meeting that ‘there were at Calais three French infantry battalions and that the command at Dunkerque [sic] was in the hands of a particularly vigorous Admiral, who had sufficient forces at his disposal to protect the town’, and having assessed the front in person, he [Weygand] concluded that ‘there could be no question of asking the Anglo-Franco-Belgian forces in the North, consisting of over forty divisions, simply to retreat Southwards in an attempt to join up with the main French Army. Such a movement would be found to fail and the forces would be condemned to certain disaster.’ Churchill agreed but explained to the French Prime Minister and General Weygand that he understood relations between General Billotte and Lord Gort to be ‘not entirely satisfactory’, so work needed to be done to restore these essential lines of communication between Allied forces to the north and south of the German advance.

  After just over an hour, the Supreme War Council meeting concluded, as Ismay recalled, ‘on a note of restrained optimism’, and he departed with Churchill for London.

  Ironside noted in his diary, with some surprise, that during the 7.30 p.m. War Cabinet meeting the Prime Minister was ‘almost in buoyant spirits, having been impressed by Weygand’. Others in the room did not share his upbeat mood. It was already clear that the BEF had ‘lost a chance of extricating itself and [was] very short of food and ammunition’. Moreover, General Ismay, who was in possession of battlefield intelligence, rather than French predictions, saw more closely the writing on the wall, and informed Jock Colville that he was ‘really worried’ and could foresee the moment when France might give up the struggle. Colville, borrowing some of Winston’s optimism, thought Ismay was being ‘unduly alarmist, because I cannot see the French shaming themselves quite to that extent’.

  The War Cabinet were informed that the Supreme War Council in France had agreed on a joint offensive to begin the following day, 23 May, with British and French armies attacking to the south-west, and the French Army Group attacking northwards. But Ironside ‘observed that, so far as was known, no preparations had been made for these attacks at noon that day’; he thought the attacks ‘would take some time to mount’. Anthony Eden also expressed concern, having received a telephone call at five o’clock that afternoon relaying a message from Lord Gort that the French ‘were not prepared to fight, nor did they show any sign of doing so’. In his diary Eden later noted that it ‘seemed to me a deadly commentary on the increasing confusion which we had neither the authority nor the reserves to mend. The only hope was a joint offensive from the north and south, if there were the will and the means to mount it.’

  But when the War Cabinet met again the following morning at 11.30, residual optimism quickly evaporated. A skeletal report had finally come in from the front. Churchill informed his colleagues that ‘very much larger German forces had succeeded in getting through the gap than had at first been supposed’. General Ironside had been instructed to remain at the War Office rather than attend the meeting because the situation had ‘become so critical’.

  Again, a lack of information as well as the lack of a credible response by the French was destroying the Allied hope of survival. The Prime Minister explained that ‘the whole success of the plan agreed with the French depended on the French forces taking the offensive. At present they showed no signs of doing so.’

  Boulogne was now under heavy German bombardment and the enemy forces were perilously close to surrounding the town, cutting off the Allies completely. Calais was in no better shape and was described to the W
ar Cabinet as a ‘seething mass of French troops and refugees, all of whom seemed completely demoralised’. Supply ships had been sent to the Channel ports of Calais, Dunkirk and Boulogne, but the Luftwaffe was making it impossible to unload.

  Neville Chamberlain had remained relatively quiet over the past few days’ meetings but now, with many looking to him for a seasoned opinion, he voiced his concerns that Britain, rather than counter-attacking, would do better to execute a speedy retreat. Britain, he feared, would be left completely defenceless if it missed the opportunity to evacuate the BEF safely. Britain was, he said, ‘in danger of falling between two stools and that neither the plan agreed with General Weygand would be effectively carried out, nor would we use our forces to the best advantage in retaining our hold on the Channel Ports’.

  Lord Halifax, as ever falling in line with Chamberlain, further supported these concerns when he read out a telegram to the War Cabinet from the British Ambassador in Rome, outlining suspicions that ‘Signor Mussolini was only awaiting the establishment of the Germans in the Channel Ports to declare war.’ Halifax, it was becoming clear, saw Italy as having a key role in what happened next to Western Europe. Rather than view Italy as an enemy-in-waiting, he wished to exploit the small window of opportunity that existed before Mussolini entered the war and bend it to a different purpose: towards peace.

  Churchill, in the meantime, needed officially to update the House of Commons. The severity of a defenceless British Army in full retreat, the collapse of France and a new enemy in Italy demanded it.

  Speaking at 3 p.m., the Prime Minister informed his fellow MPs that Abbeville was now in enemy hands and Boulogne would soon follow. When asked by a fellow Conservative MP, Mr Gurney Braithwaite, if the Government ‘renews and reiterates its predecessor that no peace will be concluded with the enemy except in agreement and co-operation with the Government of the French Republic’, Churchill answered simply, ‘Yes, Sir.’