Alone, 1932-1940
Page 93
How much of this information was in Churchill’s hands is unknown, but over a month earlier he had warned Britain: “More than a million German soldiers, including all their active divisions and armored divisions, are drawn up ready to attack, at a few hours’ notice, along the frontiers of Luxembourg, of Belgium, and of Holland. At any moment these neutral countries may be subjected to an avalanche of steel and fire.” Ten days later he had written Admiral Forbes: “It seems to me very likely that the great land battle in the West will soon begin.”193
On the French side of the Franco-Belgian border a brief argument enlivened the Sedan sector. General Charles Huntziger, responsible for it, was so convinced that the enemy would not strike there that he ordered the demolition of antitank obstacles which had been erected on the initiative of a major. Pierre Taittinger and another deputy, both members of the Chamber of Deputies’ Army Committee, inspected the position and were shocked at its vulnerability to enemy attack. In their report they wrote that the high command gave “une importance exagérée” to “the natural obstacles of the Ardennes forest and the Meuse river.” They “trembled” they wrote, at the thought of what a German attack could do to this strategic position and recommended urgent measures to strengthen it. Huntziger replied: “I believe that there are no urgent measures to take for the reinforcement of the Sedan sector.”194
On May 4 Hitler postponed Fall Gelb to May 7 and Premier Reynaud took the first steps toward dismissing General Gamelin from all his commands. Gamelin, though supreme commander of all Allied troops, had been completely ineffectual in the Norwegian campaign. Asked by the British how many troops he could send for the assault on Trondheim, he had replied, “One division per month.” Reynaud exploded. He said: “It would be a crime to leave this gutless man [cet homme sans nerfs] as head of the French army.”195
In parliamentary crises—one of which was shaping up in Westminster, though the prime minister didn’t seem to realize it—precedents are worthless. A real political donnybrook bears less resemblance to Robert’s Rules of Order than to a typhoon, in which water piles up behind a ship’s keel, baffling the screws and forcing the helmsman to violate every principle of seamanship to avoid broaching to. Winston had never been a shrewd manipulator of votes. If he ever held a serious conversation with David Margesson, the chief Tory whip, one wonders what they could have discussed. At 11:00 P.M. on Saturday, April 27, he sent for Bill Deakin. Over the last several months he had done this often. Conscious of his contract with Cassell & Company and his obligation to finish his History of the English-speaking Peoples if possible, he had, according to Deakin, asked him “to spend an hour or so in the afternoon or in the early morning hours completing his chapters on the Norman Conquest and mediaeval England.”196
This, surely, was unique in the history of statesmanship. That Saturday evening the Admiralty was sending ships to rescue the survivors of the ill-starred Trondheim expedition—“ramshackle” was Winston’s word for it—while reinforcing the British force besieging Narvik. His Majesty’s cruiser Glasgow was headed for Molde to evacuate King Haakon, his government, and Norway’s gold reserves. The U-boats had sunk 101 merchant ships, and new corvette escort vessels intended to cut the German score—Winston’s “cheap and nasties,” nasty if not cheap—were doing the job, though the first lord was pondering, and would soon approve, closing the Mediterranean to normal British shipping. In the private office, Deakin recalls,
Naval signals awaited attention, admirals tapped impatiently on the door of the First Lord’s room, while on one occasion talk inside ranged round the spreading shadows of the Norman invasion and the figure of Edward the Confessor who, as Churchill wrote, “comes down to us faint, misty, frail.” I can still see the map on the wall, with the dispositions of the British Fleet off Norway, and hear the voice of the First Lord as he grasped with his usual insight the strategic position in 1066. But this was no lack of attention to current business. It was the measure of the man with the supreme historical eye. The distant episodes were as close and real as the mighty events on hand.197
Churchill knew the government was in trouble and might fall. His wisest course would have been to play the lonely role which had been his lot for so long, behaving correctly but keeping his distance from a prime minister who might be on his way out. He couldn’t do it. Even when those in trouble were adversaries—for example, Hoare when his deal with Laval was exposed—Winston consoled them and, if it was in his power, helped them. He sensed that Chamberlain was in trouble. Plainly, the prime minister was overworked. When Chatfield resigned as minister for the coordination of defense his office was abolished; Churchill, at the prime minister’s request, took up part of the burden, and since early April had presided over the War Cabinet’s Military Coordination Committee. A Daily Mail headline on April 4 read: “MR CHURCHILL BECOMES SUPER WAR CHIEF,” and a columnist wrote that Winston had become “in effect, Britain’s Supreme Defence Minister.” Berlin radio broadcast on April 3 that Winston had been “elevated from warmonger to grand warmonger.” One of Churchill’s oldest friends wrote him: “You have indeed great responsibility now, you are practically at the top of the tree.” However, he went on: “What a terrible job you have Winston. Your helpmates do not strike me as being very good.” Another friend, suspicious, wrote that he couldn’t help “wondering whether it isn’t deliberately calculated… so as to load you with work as to make things impossible.”198
Separate forces were rallying round the prime minister and round his first lord, and there was very little either could do short of renouncing the premiership, which would have been absurd, since each felt himself the better man. One side whispered, Gallipoli; the other, Munich. On May 1 Harold Nicolson noted: “The Tapers and Tadpoles”—Taper and Tadpole were party hacks in Disraeli’s novel Coningsby—“are putting it around that the whole Norwegian episode is due to Winston. There is a theory going round that Lloyd George may head a Coalition Cabinet. What worries people is that everybody asks, ‘But whom could you put in Chamberlain’s place?’ ” Clearly it would require someone who would take a sacred oath never to say that Hitler had “missed the bus.” That slight remark rankled all England. Clementine called it “a monument to ignorance and obstinacy,” and the rage it sparked seems to us now to be all out of proportion to the offense. The P.M. was simply a victim of very poor timing, over which he had no control.199
But the anger was there; a Gallup poll early in May, after the defeat in Norway, shocked No. 10. Chamberlain’s supporters were vanishing. Only 32 percent of those polled backed him; 58 percent were vehement in their opposition. Nicolson went “to Arlington Street for the Watching Committee” and found “a glum crowd,” he wrote on April 30. “The general impression is that we may lose the war. The tanks position is appalling and we hear facts about that. We part in gloom. Black Week in the Boer War can hardly have been more depressing.”200
Henry Channon, a Tory MP loyal to Chamberlain, noted in the April 30 entry in his diary that he had heard “more talk of a cabal against poor Neville.” Then, turning caustic: “ ‘They’ are saying that it is 1915 all over again, that Winston should be Prime Minister as he has more vigour and the country behind him.” On May 3 Ironside wrote in his diary: “I hear there is a first-class row commencing in the House, and that there is a strong movement to get rid of the PM.” He added a backhanded endorsement of Churchill: “Naturally the only man who can succeed is Winston and he is too unstable, though he has the genius to bring the war to an end.” This much was certain: Churchill’s steadfast stand against Hitler was all that kept his candidacy alive—in Clementine’s words, “Had it not been for your years of exile & repeated warnings re. the German peril, Norway might well have ruined you.” Typically, a Liberal peer wrote him May 2: “You, I believe, are the only person in the Cabinet who is not responsible for this War. You are not tarred with the Munich brush. Your advice to re-arm went unheeded. You did not let down the small nations or throw our friends to the wolves.”201<
br />
Later Winston wrote: “Failure at Trondheim! Stalemate at Narvik! Such in the first week of May were the only results we could show to the British nation, to our Allies, and to the neutral world, friendly or hostile. Considering the prominent part I played in these events… it was a marvel that I survived.” Like Clemmie and others, he attributed his durability to “the fact that for six or seven years I had predicted with truth the course of events, and had given ceaseless warnings, then unheeded but now remembered.”202
Churchill was trying desperately to salvage something from the wretched campaign in Norway, to depart with dignity and a small victory—something to justify the casualties, the anxieties, the expenses, and the hopes of England. He could not mourn Trondheim. He had been against it from the start. All he had ever wanted was Narvik. But although Winston was farsighted, his vision did not extend into the Arctic Circle, where Admiral of the Fleet Lord Cork and Orrery was trying to reconcile his own aggressive instincts, Churchill’s prods, the lethargic general commanding the Tommies, and the fact that some of the general’s reasons for his immobility were quite sound. Major General Pierse Joseph Mackesy had drawn up a battle plan which he considered flawless. He would wait until the snow melted and then attack. According to his calculations, that would happen sometime in the summer. Cork didn’t believe that at this latitude the earth was ever entirely free of snow, though certainly it was too deep now. And it was growing deeper; more snow fell almost every day. It was “exasperating,” he wrote Winston, “not being able to get on, & I quite understand your wondering why we do not, but I assure you that it is not from want of desire to do so.”203
Taking Narvik became a matter of face, though after the major German offensive erupted across the Channel on May 10, no one in His Majesty’s Government seriously considered trying to hold the town. On May 24 the cabinet voted to abandon it as soon as it was in Allied hands. That happened four days later, when it fell to British, French, and Polish troops. On Tuesday, June 4, the evacuation began; by Saturday the last Allied soldier had left. England scarcely noticed. Interest in Norway had dropped sharply; attention was riveted upon the Low Countries and northern France. In 1914, Churchill had written, the cabinet had been preoccupied by the Irish question when “a strange light began immediately, but by perceptible gradations, to fall and grow upon the map of Europe.” Now that light had reappeared.204
In Berlin it was impossible to forget that one was in the capital of a nation at war. Bands blared “Heil Hitler Dir,” headlines preached rage, enormous banners displaying the hakenkreuz streamed down tall buildings from roofs to the street, and posters demanded “Deutschland Erwache!”, “Die Fahne Hoch!”, and “Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz!” (“The Common Interest before Self-interest!”). On Saturday, May 4—the day Hitler again postponed Fall Gelb—Shirer noted in his diary: “The German papers are full of accusations that Britain now intends to ‘spread the war’ in the Mediterranean or Balkans or somewhere else, by which I take it they mean Holland.” May 5 was a Sunday, “and as the week began to unfold,” Shirer later recalled, “it became pretty clear to all of us in Berlin that the blow in the West would fall within a few days.”205
That same Saturday His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition asked for a debate on the war situation. It was scheduled for May 7. The prime minister wasn’t concerned or even particularly interested; on Saturday, May 4, he noted: “I don’t think my enemies will get me this time.” By “enemies” he meant his critics in the House of Commons, not Nazis, though a state of war had existed between Great Britain and the German Reich for eight months, and he himself had declared it. But in London it was easy to forget. Here there were no parading bands, no marching soldiers, no banners, and no posters. In the first weeks of the war people had talked of little else; now, except among those complaining about the blackout, it was scarcely mentioned.206
Winston in the cabinet was Winston gagged, so even politics was a bore. There was the usual maneuvering behind the scenes. The Watching Committee to which Nicolson had referred was led by Lord Salisbury, son of the turn-of-the-century prime minister. Now seventy-eight, the frock-coated marquess had been lord privy seal and the leader of the House under Baldwin. He was a man of convictions—his denunciation of Munich had been so savage that one of Chamberlain’s supporters had physically assaulted him.
On May 5 the noble lord wrote: “The Sunday papers are excited, as I knew they would be, about Norway and the reconstruction of the Government. A good deal of this inspired by personal prejudice against the P.M. I fancy the movement for including Labour will grow, but whether they will serve under him [Chamberlain] or not remains to be seen.” Actually, it was the other way round; the prime minister was not interested in leading a cabinet with Labour ministers. But Chamberlain’s popularity had dropped so far and so fast that even Conservatives were speculating about his successor. Halifax was no speculator, not even in his diary, because his name was the one mentioned most often as the next prime minister. Geoffrey Dawson had been promoting him since March. And on Monday, May 6, the Evening Standard observed that “an all-party group of critics” wanted some ministers dropped and replaced by Liberals and Socialists. “If Mr Chamberlain refuses to make the changes,” the Standard declared, “they say there should be a new Prime Minister. And the man they select is Lord Halifax.” Halifax’s only comment in his diary that evening was: “Considerable political clamour, but I doubt whether this, at present in all events, will amount to much.”207
The following day was Tuesday, May 7, 1940.
The debate which opened that day was to be one of the most memorable in British history, but no one planned it so, or even expected it. Like a runaway grand jury, it was moved by forces deep within the House of Commons, views vehemently held by individual MPs who had been unaware, till now, that so many fellow members shared them and felt just as strongly. They were to address the formal motion, “That this House do now adjourn,” though in fact they would be debating the prosecution of the war. Chamberlain had chosen to open for the Conservatives; Churchill would close the following day. Labour had wanted Winston first—“We took the view that the First Lord was the Prime Minister’s principal witness,” Herbert Morrison said—but the prime minister knew Churchill was his most effective speaker and could draw all the government’s arguments together as no other minister could.208
The government’s most ineffective speaker was Chamberlain himself. “The House is crowded,” Nicolson wrote, “and when Chamberlain comes in, he is greeted with shouts of ‘Missed the bus!’ He makes a very feeble speech and is only applauded by the Yes-men. He makes some reference to the complacency of the country, at which the whole House cheers vociferously and ironically, inducing him to make a little, rather feminine, gesture of irritation.” As always Neville was coldly logical, but he seemed to lack his usual easy control of the House; his heart wasn’t in it. Norway was no Gallipoli, he said—a comparison Winston may have wished he had found unnecessary, though the P.M. defended his first lord by dismissing as “unworthy and unfounded” the suggestion that one minister was more responsible than his colleagues for what had happened. Plainly, he was off his form. It may have been at this point that he realized for the first time that a shadow lay over his government.209
Attlee also made “a feeble speech” in Nicolson’s opinion, but “Archie Sinclair a good one.” Sinclair said the Norwegian operation had failed because “there had been no foresight in the political direction of the war and in the instructions given to the Staffs.” He added: “In the first major effort of this war… we have had to creep back to our lairs, which is against the spirit of the men who are over the waters.” Such damaging words were rarely heard in the Commons, but the pyrotechnics had only started. Another slashing speech followed, and yet another by the Labour MP Josiah Wedgwood, which was very odd. Nicolson wrote that he said “everything that he ought not to have said” and gave “the impression of being a little off his head. At one moment he suggests that the Brit
ish Navy have gone to Alexandria since they are frightened of being bombed.”210
This led to the first sign that a real tempest loomed. As Wedgwood wound up, Roger Keyes entered the chamber. At Duff Cooper’s suggestion Keyes was in full uniform, gold braid up to his elbows and six rows of ribbons, topped by the Grand Cross of the Order of Bath, glittering on his chest. Here was a genuine naval hero, the man who had led the gallant raid against the German U-boat pens at Zeebrugge and Ostend in 1918. Nicolson handed him a note quoting Wedgwood’s remark about the navy. The old admiral immediately rose, went straight to the Speaker’s chair, was recognized at once, and began by calling the previous speaker’s remark “a damned insult”—unparliamentary language, but the Speaker did not call him on it, and the House, noted Nicolson, “roars with laughter, especially Lloyd George who rocks backwards and forwards in boyish delight with his mouth wide open.”211
But Keyes had not come to amuse Parliament. He had brought a speech. His appalling delivery was known to everyone in the chamber, so at Harold Macmillan’s suggestion he had written everything out. It was a devastating attack on the naval conduct at Narvik; the chamber was completely silent when he declared that a naval assault at Trondheim would have succeeded but had been canceled because of lack of nerve at the Admiralty. This was a blow at Churchill, doubly so because he and the admiral were old friends. It was probably unjustified; nevertheless, when Keyes sat down Chamberlain knew he was in real trouble. Nicolson described the reaction: “There is a great gasp of astonishment. It is by far the most dramatic speech I have ever heard, and when Keyes sits down there is thunderous applause.”212
Now it was Leo Amery’s turn. The Speaker called him during the dinner hour, and the House was no longer crowded, but Clement Davies, a Liberal MP and the unofficial whip of the dissident factions, toured the dining room, lobbies, and smoking room, drumming up an audience for him. They found him worth it. Amery was a senior parliamentarian; he had been an admirer of old Joe Chamberlain’s and a friend of both Joe’s sons. With great skill he moved the target of the government’s critics away from the navy—and by implication, Churchill—and toward Chamberlain and the conduct of the war. “Somehow or other,” he said, “we must get into the Government men who can match our enemies in fighting spirit, in daring, in resolution and in thirst for victory.” Approaching the end he said: “Some 300 years ago, when this House found that its troops were being beaten again and again by the dash and daring of the Cavaliers, by Prince Rupert’s cavalry, Oliver Cromwell spoke to John Hampden. In one of his speeches he recounted what he had said. It was this: ‘I said to him, “Your troops are most of them old, decayed serving men and tapsters and such kind of fellows.” You must get men of a spirit that are likely to go as far as they will go, or you will be beaten still.’ ”