Darkest Hour

by Anthony McCarten

  MONDAY, 27 MAY 1940

  WORD REACHES CHURCHILL THAT THE KING OF BELGIUM IS CONTEMPLATING SURRENDERING TO GERMANY

  LORD HALIFAX CONSIDERS PEACE DEAL WITH GERMANY AND HAS COMPLETED HIS MEMORANDUM ENTITLED ‘SUGGESTED APPROACH TO ITALY’

  SS TROOPS CAPTURE AND MURDER NINETY-SEVEN BRITISH SOLDIERS NEAR LE PARADIS, FRANCE

  9. Cabinet Crisis and Leadership

  Having issued the order for Operation Dynamo to begin the previous evening, the first message that reached Churchill at 7.15 a.m. on 27 May did not bode well. The naval garrison in Dover informed him that ‘a bad situation is developing between Calais and Dunkirk. The enemy have mounted 40 guns as far as Gravelines [the small town between Calais and Dunkirk] and are shelling shipping approaching Dunkirk . . . ’ If the ships could not even make it into the harbour to collect the soldiers, the British troops would soon be completely surrounded, with no means of escape.

  The previous evening, Lord Halifax, now deep in his contemplation of peace deals, had been visited by the Counsellor of the Belgian Embassy in London to inform him that ‘the King of the Belgians appeared to imply that he considered that the war was lost and was contemplating a separate peace with Germany’. King George VI’s cousin, King Leopold III, had remained with his troops when his government had ‘transferred themselves to foreign soil [France] to continue the struggle’. Halifax relayed this news to the 11.30 a.m. War Cabinet, who ‘considered that the action of the King was tantamount to dividing the nation and delivering it into Herr Hitler’s protection’. Churchill immediately telegraphed Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, liaison officer to King Leopold III, to request that he ‘impress on him [Leopold] the disastrous consequences on the Allies and to Belgium of his present choice’. The Belgian Army was mostly concentrated in the north of France, fighting alongside the BEF, but it had not yet been informed of the decision to evacuate. Churchill understood the magnitude of what he was asking of the Belgians, but he also knew that their surrender at this moment would leave the Allied left flank completely exposed and endanger the British withdrawal to the coast. In a separate message to Lord Gort, the BEF’s Commander-in-Chief, the Prime Minister, admitted, ‘[W]e are asking them to sacrifice themselves for us.’

  With the prospect of further Allied surrenders, thoughts turned once more to the United States. The British Ambassador to Washington had telegrammed Halifax to suggest that ‘we should cede some of our possessions in the New World to the United States in part payment of our war debt’, because ‘an offer of this kind made by us would make a deep impression in the United States and add to our security’. Halifax believed that this was another interesting alternative that should be explored, but Churchill was again opposed, remarking, ‘The United States had given us practically no help in the war, and now that they saw how great was the danger, their attitude was that they wanted to keep everything which would help us for their own defence.’ These continued suggestions of deals were wearing the Prime Minister down, and he concluded the War Cabinet meeting by saying he would ‘issue a general injunction to Ministers to use confident language. He was convinced that the bulk of the people of the country would refuse to accept the possibility of defeat.’ Churchill then asked Ismay to have the Chiefs of Staff once more examine ‘what are the prospects of our continuing the war alone against Germany and probably Italy’ in advance of their next meeting.

  When members of the War Cabinet took their seats, it was not the usual twenty attendees discussing endless points of order. The 4.30 p.m. meeting on 27 May consisted of Churchill, Halifax, Chamberlain, Clement Attlee, Arthur Greenwood, Sir Alexander Cadogan, Sir Archibald Sinclair and Sir Edward Bridges. There was just one topic to discuss: the suggested approach to Mussolini.

  Churchill’s inclusion in the line-up of the Liberal Party leader, Sinclair – a long-time critic of appeasement and an old friend – was in defiance of protocol and clearly an attempt to strengthen a hand weakened by the facts on the battlefield.

  The ensuing discussion would finally pitch Halifax and those who supported him – a large proportion of the ruling Conservative Party – full force against one of their own: Winston, whose stubborn will to fight on alone seemed, to Halifax, impervious to reason and hard evidence and against the country’s best interests.

  Following Paul Reynaud’s suggestion the previous day that the governments of Britain and France should make a direct approach to Signor Mussolini and attempt to keep Italy out of the war, Lord Halifax had, prior to the meeting, circulated a memorandum discussing the possible options:

  If Signor Mussolini will co-operate with us in securing a settlement . . . we will undertake at once to discuss, with the desire to find solutions, the matters in which Signor Mussolini is primarily interested. We understand that he desires the solution of certain Mediterranean questions: and if he will state in secrecy what these are, France and Great Britain will at once do their best to meet these wishes.

  The War Cabinet was now informed by Halifax that ‘President Roosevelt had made an approach on the lines set out in the Memorandum.’ This was what the British had requested some time ago, believing it would have had a positive outcome then, but now, with the French on the brink of collapse, Chamberlain was convinced it was too late, and that Italy already had her eyes on the spoils of a German victory and was waiting for France to fall before jumping in with her greedy demands.

  As for the French, who had requested permission under the Anglo-French pact to make their own approach to Italy, Churchill felt that ‘nothing would come of the approach, but that it was worth doing [allowing them to make it] to sweeten [our] relations with a failing ally’.

  The ministers then took it in turn to voice their opinions. Sir Archibald Sinclair – Winston’s secret weapon at the table – now played his part, saying he felt strongly that any approach to Italy in which Britain was involved would show a weakness that ‘would encourage the Germans and the Italians’, but that Britain should do all it could to ‘strengthen the hands of the French’. Both Labour ministers were strongly against sending the Italian letter, with Clement Attlee stating that ‘the suggested approach would be of no practical effect and would be very damaging to us. In effect, the approach suggested would inevitably lead to our asking Signor Mussolini to intercede [between Germany and Britain] to obtain peace-terms for us.’

  Attlee saw correctly that the ultimate subject under discussion was whether Britain should enter into peace talks with Berlin.

  Arthur Greenwood, seeing the same thing, took up the point: ‘If it got out that we had sued for [peace] terms at the cost of ceding British territory, the consequences would be terrible . . . The Prime Minister and M. Reynaud had already made approaches to Italy which had not been well received. It would be heading for disaster to go any further with those approaches.’

  Sensing that the tide had been turned in his favour, Churchill responded strongly. It is clear from this that what had originally started as a request from Reynaud for Britain and France to make an approach to Italy to keep her from joining the war had very quickly evolved into a discussion about negotiated peace and about Halifax’s ‘European Settlement’ with Hitler.

  The secretary’s précis records Churchill’s response:

  He was increasingly oppressed with the futility of the suggested approach to Signor Mussolini, which the latter would certainly regard with contempt. Such an approach would do M. Reynaud far less good than if he made a firm stand. Further, the approach would ruin the integrity of our fighting position in this country . . . Personally he doubted whether France was so willing to give up the struggle as M. Reynaud had represented. Anyway, let us not be dragged down with France. If the French were not prepared to go on with the struggle, let them give up, though he doubted whether they would do so. If this country was beaten, France became a vassal State; but if we won, we might save them. The best help we could give to M. Reynaud was to let him feel that, whatever happened to France, we were going to fight it out to the e
nd.

  At the moment our prestige in Europe was very low. The only way we could get it back was by showing the world that Germany had not beaten us. If, after two or three months, we could show that we were still unbeaten, our prestige would return. Even if we were beaten, we should be no worse off than we should be if we were now to abandon the struggle. Let us therefore avoid being dragged down the slippery slope with France. The whole of this manoeuvre was intended to get us so deeply involved in negotiations that we should be unable to turn back. We had gone a long way already in our approach to Italy, but let us not allow M. Reynaud to get us involved in a confused situation. The approach proposed was not only futile, but involved us in a deadly danger . . . If the worst came to the worst, it would not be a bad thing for this country to go down fighting for other countries which had been overcome by the Nazi tyranny.

  Such an emotional argument caused a sudden rift in the room. The old strategic and ideological battle lines that had separated Winston from the appeasers since the mid-1930s were once again starkly exposed.

  Neville Chamberlain, rallying behind the suddenly isolated Halifax, rowed back on his original objections to the proposed approach and came to the Foreign Secretary’s defence, suggesting that ‘while he agreed that the proposed approach would not serve any useful purpose, he thought that we ought to go a little further with it, in order to keep the French in a good temper. He thought that our reply should not be a complete refusal.’

  The Cabinet Secretary, Bridges, noted that a discussion then ensued. He did not document precisely what was said, only that ‘it was generally agreed that a reasoned reply on these lines was the best course to take’.

  Halifax, despite this interjection from Chamberlain, had reached the limit of his appetite for Churchillian rhetoric, and wrote in his diary of this meeting that ‘it does drive one to despair when he [Churchill] works himself up into a passion of emotion when he ought to make his brain think and reason’.

  Churchill’s remark that it was better to ‘go down fighting for other countries which had been overcome by the Nazi tyranny’ was a step too far for Halifax, especially as he truly believed that a potential solution of peace existed and Britain could avoid sacrificing so many young lives. Besides, Churchill had just performed a massive about-face. Only the day before, he had calmly approved the drafting of this memorandum and said he would be ‘thankful’ if peace talks offered a way out of this crisis. Now he was describing the proposed letter, and Halifax’s very position, and perhaps even Halifax himself, as a ‘deadly danger’.

  Halifax knew he was being hung out to dry for all in the room to see, and he didn’t like it. It was this very inconsistency of mood and opinion that he and the other appeasers had feared when Churchill was given power. Now they were seeing it in action. Clearly angered that what he believed was his quite reasonable and patriotic proposal was being misrepresented as terrifying and unpatriotic, Halifax sought to make clear his ‘profound differences of points of view’, and to have them documented for all time. He would leave no one in any doubt that he was ready to fight for his ideas, for their good sense, and for their morality, saying that:

  He could not recognise any resemblance between the action which he proposed, and the suggestion that we were suing for terms and following a line that would lead us to disaster.

  After then referencing the PM’s comments of the previous day – in which Churchill had both said he’d be ‘prepared’ to discuss peace terms, and even be ‘thankful’ to find a peaceful way to settle things by territorial trades with Germany – Halifax went on:

  On the present occasion, however, the Prime Minister seemed to suggest that under no conditions would we contemplate any course except fighting to a finish. The issue was probably academic, since we were unlikely to receive any offer which would not come up against the fundamental conditions which were essential to us. If, however, it was possible to obtain a settlement which did not impair those conditions, he, for his part, doubted if he would be able to accept the view now put forward by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister had said that two or three months would show whether we were able to stand up against the air risk. This meant that the future of the country turned on whether the enemy’s bombs happened to hit our aircraft factories. He was prepared to take that risk if our independence was at stake; but if it was not at stake he would think it right to accept an offer which would save the country from avoidable disaster.

  The crucial conversations of the previous day, in which the Prime Minister had said ‘he would be thankful to get out of our present difficulties’, are not documented in any of the minutes, so it would seem that this is what was discussed in the fifteen minutes before Bridges arrived at the ‘Informal Meeting of War Cabinet Ministers’.

  Neville Chamberlain’s diary also confirms that ‘WC [Churchill] said we would try and find some formula on which Musso [Mussolini] would be approached but we must have time to think. With this R [Reynaud] had to be content . . . ’ In addition, he records Churchill’s clear position on giving up Malta and Gibraltar and some African colonies.

  Jump at a peace offer from Hitler?

  It seems we can be confident that this had been Churchill’s mood and position the previous day. Certainly, this would explain Halifax’s anger that Churchill’s position, seemingly so open, so welcoming, so enthusiastic, had in one day closed shut.

  What was Churchill playing at? Were his earlier remarks just an attempt to buy time, or had he been sincere about peace talks during these dark days?

  Despite everything he had fought for since 1933, after all the speeches and all the rhetoric about victory, we see that at the 26 May meeting Winston too considered a deal with Hitler possible, even welcome. Just look at the pressures urging such a deal. Dynamo had begun, but the outlook was grim. The destruction of virtually the entire British Army looked likely. In that moment Winston had agreed it was worth exploring a possible negotiated settlement, provided Britain maintained her sovereignty. Now, Halifax’s frustration that Winston was reneging on this less than twenty-four hours later is clear. As Halifax’s biographer Andrew Roberts notes:

  Wars fought for ideas, in which nations exhausted themselves and risked their own extinction in pursuit of the enemy’s annihilation, were completely alien to Halifax’s nature. Hitler had clearly won the first round in what could be a decade-long struggle, and it seemed only common sense to Halifax to attempt to obtain at least a breathing-space along the lines of the Treaty of Amiens [which had suspended the Napoleonic Wars for fourteen months]. If this could save the British Expeditionary Force and much of France, so much the better.

  It was Churchill’s turn to reply.

  Halifax’s passion had clearly dented the PM’s swagger, as had Chamberlain’s loyal solidarity with Halifax. Perhaps Winston hesitated before speaking, aware that history’s pen – currently in the fist of Bridges – would record his words, words that would represent another major shift in position, both from the view he had only just finished expressing and from our general understanding of him. He began:

  If Herr Hitler was prepared to make peace on the terms of the restoration of German colonies and the overlordship of Central Europe, that was one thing . . .

  Let us press the pause button there for one second.

  This was some admission. Winston, here, is willing to say, on record, that he can live not only with a situation that saw Britain in a peace arrangement with a continentally victorious Nazi Germany, but also one that would concede to Hitler overlordship of Central Europe. When one then injects his words from the previous day – along with ‘thankful’ and the either verbatim or paraphrased ‘jump at it’ – this more or less scuppers the long-held position of historians that Winston never wavered, never took seriously the notion of peace talks, and never took any real steps to advance them.

  In typical Churchillian fashion, however, he followed this major concession to history and to Halifax with a caveat: that ‘it was quite unlikely th
at he would make any such offer’. But Halifax was determined to stop Churchill right there, stop him again wriggling out of commitments he had made to peace the previous day, and to link for ever the Italian letter to an overall Europe-wide peace strategy. Cabinet minutes indicate that Halifax then stated for the record:

  The Foreign Secretary said he would like to put the following question. Suppose the French Army collapsed and Herr Hitler made an offer of peace terms. Suppose the French Government said ‘We are unable to deal with an offer made to France alone and you must deal with the Allies together.’ Suppose Herr Hitler, being anxious to end the war through knowledge of his own internal weaknesses, offered terms to France and England, would the Prime Minister be prepared to discuss them?

  This is a strikingly confrontational challenge from Lord Halifax, especially given that his words have been filtered through the pen of Bridges. In fact, Halifax wrote in his diary: ‘I thought Winston talked the most frightful rot, also Greenwood, and after bearing it for some time I said exactly what I thought of them, adding that if that was really their view, and if it came to the point, our ways would separate.’

  Had Bridges been a more faithful servant of history, what dialogue might we now have been bequeathed?

  In its absence, we can speculate on how the exchange might have run:

  WINSTON: Viscount Halifax, as I said yesterday, the approach you propose is not only futile, but involves us in a deadly danger.