At 3.40 p.m. on 4 June 1940, the time for practice was over. The evacuation of Dunkirk was complete, and 330,000 troops had been brought miraculously to safety.
In a packed House of Commons, the Prime Minister stood up. He took four paces to the despatch box.
In all he would speak for thirty-four minutes, beginning with a detailed account of the situation in France over the past weeks and moving on to the evacuation of Dunkirk. There was no softening of the truth now, and his language was frank, vivid and shocking. The power of the Nazis was outlined in detail, as were the brave exploits of those who had lost their lives defending the port. He called the evacuation campaign ‘[a] miracle of deliverance, achieved by valour, by perseverance, by perfect discipline, by faultless service, by resource, by skill, by unconquered fidelity’, but stressed: ‘Wars are not won by evacuations.’
As Churchill began to warm up, he ratcheted ever higher the techniques of rhetoric he knew so well. He started with a question to his audience: ‘Could there have been an objective of greater military importance and significance for the whole purpose of the war than this?’ And he followed it with another: ‘May it not also be that the cause of civilisation itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen?’ He juxtaposed vivid accounts of the conflict with poetic history:
There had never been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the prosaic past . . . these young men, going forth every morn to guard their native land and all that we stand for . . . of whom it may be said that ‘When every morning brought a noble chance . . . And every chance brought out a noble knight.’
He spoke of Hitler’s plans to invade, but reminded the people that throughout the centuries Napoleon and other ‘Continental tyrants’ had planned similarly but never succeeded, before finally moving into the peroration he had been working on intensely:
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government – every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
The speech was a direct hit. Its power was undeniable and the response rapturous; several Labour MPs were in tears. Churchill later said of the great task that had fallen upon him, namely to give voice to the people of Britain, that it was they ‘who had the lion heart’ and he merely ‘had the luck to be called upon to give the roar’. At this moment, in their darkest hour, the roar had never been louder.
The defining phrase, ‘fight them on the beaches’, was actually a homage to his friend, the former French leader Georges Clemenceau. Having written several essays on the great man and spent time with him at the Paris Peace Conference, Churchill had adapted a line from a November 1918 speech in which Clemenceau said, ‘I will fight in front of Paris; I will fight in Paris; I will fight behind Paris.’ It is a short hop of invention indeed to arrive at Winston’s own ‘we shall fight . . . ’ Again, as he did in his ‘Blood, toil, tears and sweat’ speech, he powerfully employed repetition at the beginning of successive sentences. By saying ‘we shall fight’, he emphasized that he would be with the people, at their side, every step of the way.
In his essay ‘The Scaffolding of Rhetoric’, Churchill stated that ‘the orator is the embodiment of the passions of the multitude’ and at this hour he was speaking loudly, confident that the people of Britain would fight on with him to the end. The historian David Cannadine writes that Churchill chose his language because it ‘vividly and directly reflected the kind of person he himself actually was . . . a character at once simple, ardent, innocent and incapable of deception or intrigue, yet also a character larger than life, romantic, chivalrous, heroic, great-hearted and highly coloured’. All of these qualities shine through in this speech. It is filled with emotion and courage, but most of all it is filled with hope. He is offering the people his hand to guide them through the troubles ahead.
Churchill had been Prime Minister for just twenty-five days. He had faced the indomitable pressures of war, as well as the distrust of his own Cabinet, but most of all he had faced his own fears and doubts, and moved forward into a more broad and sunlit upland of confidence and leadership.
Forty-two years earlier, at the age of twenty-three, Churchill had written:
Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory. He who enjoys it wields a power more durable than that of a great king. He is an independent force in the world. Abandoned by his party, betrayed by his friends, stripped of his offices, whoever can command this power is still formidable. Many have watched its effects. A meeting of grave citizens, protected by all the cynicism of these prosaic days, is unable to resist its influence. From unresponsive silence they advance to grudging approval and thence to complete agreement with the speaker. The cheers become louder and more frequent; the enthusiasm momentarily increases, until they are convulsed by emotions they are unable to control and shaken by passions of which they have resigned the direction.
With this speech Winston met these conditions – became an ‘independent force in the world’, formidable, with power greater than a king – and in so doing set the direction for the passions of his people.
Epilogue: If the Truth be Told
What Winston Churchill did, what he said, and what he eventually decided in the terrifying days of May 1940 changed the fate of Britain and of Europe, as well as his own place in world history. But how he made the right decision – after a period of fiery argument, of doubt and soul searching, of fear, despair and vacillation – and how he soon after found the perfect words to explain his thinking and beliefs and feelings to the nation, has never, to my mind, been satisfactorily told. In setting out to tell this story, my aim was to show a bigger, more precarious, more psychologically tenable, and altogether more human story than has previously been allowed.
My own research, conducted while preparing the film Darkest Hour, and for this book, has convinced me that Winston Churchill seriously entertained the prospect of a peace deal with Hitler in May 1940, as utterly repugnant as that idea might now seem.
I am aware that this is an unpopular view, and one that puts me at odds with almost all the historians, commentators and academics far more immersed in this period of history than I can claim to be.
But in concluding this book I would like to lay out the bare facts of the case as I see them, and also to put the prevailing rival argument of those who tell us that Churchill never seriously considered the path of negotiated peace.
First, the generally accepted argument. It essentially holds that Churchill didn’t mean it when he said, on record, that he’d be ‘thankfu
l’ to receive a peace offer, or when he agreed to ‘consider’ one. He was only stalling for time, playing a sophisticated game, wasn’t serious, never wavered or wobbled. If he seemed to his War Cabinet colleagues to be serious – so this prevailing wisdom runs – it was only to cleverly dupe Halifax, keep him onside at a crucial moment when Halifax’s resignation would probably have brought down the Government. It was also a gambit that had to be convincingly played to persuade such shrewd and wily men as Halifax and Chamberlain.
But there are several weaknesses to this reading.
The first is that there is no evidence for it, other than scholarly surmise. As Christopher Hitchens observed, what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
Winston never disclosed that he was playing a grand game of deception. He neither did so then, nor after the war, when there was ample time to do so, with much to be gained in reputation. The idea that Winston modestly hid from history so crucial an event as a brilliant outmanoeuvring of his rival Halifax strains our understanding of his personality, which, by any definition, rates rather high on the narcissistic spectrum. Rather than damage his mythic image by revealing such a story, it would enhance it. And if we doubt his desire to curate his legacy, remember, as he once quipped: ‘It will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history.’
The second argument against the stalling scenario is that it ignores a proper consideration of the pressures – personal and political and military – that Churchill was under during that supreme crisis: how close invasion was believed to be (a matter of some days, his military advisers thought); how unprotected the British people were; how vastly outnumbered was their army in France (ten to one if the troops could be rescued in full at Dunkirk, and a hundred to one if it could not); how catastrophically rapid the collapse of Europe had been under the German assault; and how rational, moral and sane the arguments advanced by Halifax, supported by Chamberlain and others, were.
On top of all this was Halifax’s threat to resign, which can only have given Winston pause to rethink his own position. A man like Halifax would never have threatened to bring down the new Government unless he was absolutely sure he was right and that Winston was wrong; and one did not easily dismiss the convictions of such a man.
Under this mass of such unholy pressures, and with so few choices, what sane person would not seriously consider peace talks in preference to almost certain annihilation?
It strikes me that any opponent of the ‘waver’ or ‘wobble’ argument, if we can call it that, must posit a near-unhinged Churchill, a man utterly immune to the terrifying facts on the ground and amnesiac about his own tragic miscalculations at Gallipoli or, a mere few weeks previously, Norway. The dark lessons Winston learned about himself from Gallipoli never left him (though he did try to airbrush them away, denying he felt any guilt, and later saying he ‘gloried’ in the bravery of the men who died there).
But history has many authors, and one afternoon in August 1915, while painting a picture of a landscape, his defences down, he told the poet and diplomat Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: ‘There is more blood than paint upon these hands.’ It was a rare glimpse of psychological frailty, and an even rarer insight into his own scarred humanity. The inevitable child of guilt is self-doubt, and self-doubt surely took a grip on Churchill in late May 1940. When you have been so badly wrong in the past, you cannot be quite so confident, under similar circumstances, again.
As previously noted, the historian David Cannadine said of Churchill’s character that he was ‘at once simple, ardent, innocent and incapable of deception or intrigue’. If so, then why foist upon him days and days of deception and intrigue when there is no record, either before or after this event, of his being so deceptive or intriguing?
The general impulse here seems to be to deny the great man his normal due of self-doubt. But it is no sin to suffer doubts. Rather, I would argue that the ability to have doubts, and then to be able to move on from them to synthesize opposing ideas, before reaching a balanced decision, forms the very definition of a real leader and of true leadership.
This book therefore argues for a greater and more complex portrait of Churchill, not a lesser one.
Let us assume, then, that Winston actually meant what he said when debating these critical issues, when he knew full well that every word was being recorded in the minutes, without irony and for posterity.
The records of those War Cabinet meetings of late May leave me in no doubt that for a time, when it was looking like Britain might lose 90 per cent of its soldiers, Winston was gradually persuaded that, so long as British independence was assured, it made sense to seriously explore peace with Nazi Germany, as unwelcome as that prospect seemed. He knew Hitler’s demands would be terrible: the surrender of Central Europe and France to Nazi rule in perpetuity; in addition, the return of certain German colonies taken after the First World War. It was a monstrous price tag, but a negotiated peace clearly began to seem an option more favourable than a Nazi invasion and possible occupation that would see the Swastika flying over Buckingham Palace and Westminster.
Any close reading of the words that Winston reportedly used during these May debates presents a vivid picture of the steady fragmentation of his previous fight-at-all-costs position, and a warming towards the idea of peace talks. Recall that in those days he went on record saying, variously, that he would ‘consider’ a peace deal; was happy to ‘discuss’ one; would be ‘thankful’ to get out of the current mess by way of talks if essential conditions were met, even at ‘the cost of some cession of [British] territory [Malta and some African colonies]’, and (as he told the War Cabinet) even if it meant granting Hitler ‘Overlordship of Central Europe’. Indeed (as he advised the Defence Committee), he told France to ‘accept’ a peace deal should one be offered it, so long as France was not used as a staging post for an attack on Britain. Chamberlain’s diary recounts, in language surely more colourful and realistic than the Cabinet Secretary’s dry, tone-deaf minute book, that Churchill was ready to ‘jump at’ a deal if conditions were met. To prove that he was ready to ‘jump’, he permitted a secret Anglo-Italian meeting to take place in London between Halifax and Ambassador Bastianini on 25 May, provided it was not made public – a meeting that made explicit the matter of a peace deal with Hitler, with Mussolini acting as the intermediary in the negotiation. Subsequent to this meeting, Churchill granted Halifax formal permission to draft a memorandum to the Italian Ambassador to discuss further the terms of a peace deal that might involve both Britain and France.
These are considerable concessions from someone who never seriously thought peace talks an option.
I contend that by 27 May the essential disagreement was not if a deal should be sought, but when. Winston’s belief was that his government could get the best terms after a Nazi invasion of Britain had been successfully repelled; Halifax and Chamberlain thought there was no better moment than the present, while Britain still possessed an army. For a few agonizing and uncertain hours, it was upon this dispute that the fate of the world hung.
All leaders need luck – and the luck they need is this: times commensurate with their talents.
Winston had no aptitude for peace. His was a gift for crisis and its expression, for courage and its evocation, often for risk and its underestimation. Where more reasonable men rightly feared the consequences of their decisions, he had no great feeling for the contemplation of negative outcomes – he had been this way his entire life – and he did not readily understand it in others. Audacity is a quality found in many great leaders, but it is as likely to result in ignominy as distinction. What makes the difference, finally, is whether the leader is right.
Churchill, in late May, after a great deal of vacillating, of hemming and hawing, of all-night pacing, of mental disorderliness, saying one thing and then the other, of an infuriating overuse of the volte face, of soul-searching, of heedfulness, of listening
, of reconsideration, of option-weighing, of reckoning, of black-dog speechlessness, was able to confront the nation and offer words toughened in the fires of an intense doubt, and come down on the right side of history.
He got it right.
The events of May 1940 proved to be the making of the man. In these first fragile weeks of his premiership – when he was tested as few new leaders have been – he essentially found within himself the undiscovered lineaments of leadership that would serve him for the rest of the war, ensuring him a permanent seat in the pavilion of the truly great.
That May, Winston Churchill became Winston Churchill.
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my father, who fought in the Second World War, in both the Pacific and Italian theatres. He was always a deep fan of Churchill, though as a child I never fully understood why. I hope he would approve of this book.
The Churchill Estate has been most generous in lending its blessing to this project, especially the Churchill family. The Churchill Archives have helped hugely by making available to me their extraordinary collection.
My steadfast and loyal first editor, Jane Parkin, cracked her grammatical whip and helped polish the prose to ensure clarity and order, as did this book’s fine phalanx of editors: Joel Rickett and Daniel Crewe at Viking, and Jonathan Jao and Roger Labrie at HarperCollins.
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