by Erik Larson
Churchill settled himself in the garden for an afternoon’s work, to take advantage of the warmth of the day as he went through the top-secret papers in his yellow box. Colville sat nearby.
Now and then Churchill glanced at him with a look of suspicion, “in the belief that I was trying to read the contents of his special buff boxes.”
* * *
—
ERIC TOOK MARY ASIDE in the White Parlor.
“This evening Eric proposed to me,” Mary wrote in her diary. “I’m in a daze—I think I’ve said ‘yes’—but O dear God I’m in a muddle.”
* * *
—
CHURCHILL WORKED LATE INTO the night. Colville and the Prof—pale, quiet, looming—joined him in his room, where Churchill climbed into bed and began making his way through the day’s accumulation of reports and minutes. The Prof sat nearby while Colville stood at the foot of the bed to collect materials as Churchill went through them. This continued until after two in the morning.
Colville returned to London the next day, Monday, May 5, “in a state of exhaustion.”
CHAPTER 92
Le Coeur Dit
MARY, MONDAY, MAY 5:
“I’ve struggled all day within myself.
“Mummie came back again—Nana came.
“I must keep calm. Long walks in the garden—finally succumbed to tears—but happy.”
CHAPTER 93
Of Panzers and Pansies
THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE ON Churchill’s handling of the war opened on Tuesday, May 6, with a lackluster speech by Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who began by saying, “There is much that I would like to tell which, perforce, I am unable to tell at the present time.” He then proceeded to say little and to say it badly. “He sat down amidst complete silence,” wrote Chips Channon, Eden’s parliamentary private secretary. “I have never heard an important speech so badly delivered.” A succession of short speeches followed, delivered by members from throughout the realm. One persistent theme was dismay at the fact that Churchill had made this a vote of confidence when all the House had asked for was a debate on the war. “Why should my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister challenge us with this Motion?” said one member. “Does he regard criticism as unseemly?”
A socialist member from Glasgow, John McGovern, delivered the most pointed attack of the day, going so far as to criticize Churchill’s practice of visiting bombed cities. He said, “When we have got to the stage when the Prime Minister has to parade himself through every bombed area in the country, and has to sit on the back of a wagonette waving his hat on a stick like a ‘Doodles’ at the circus—well, it has come to a very sad state of affairs when representatives of the Government are not so sure of the opinions of the people of the country.” McGovern professed to have no confidence in the war or the government, adding, “And, while I have a tremendous admiration for the oratorical powers of the Prime Minister, who can almost make you believe that black is white, I have no faith in his achieving anything of lasting benefit to humanity.”
Most speakers, however, were careful to leaven their criticism with praise for the prime minister, which at times veered toward the mawkish. “In my lifetime,” said one, “I cannot remember any Minister who has inspired such confidence and enthusiasm as our present Prime Minister.” Another member, Major Maurice Petherick, avowing that all he wanted was for the government to be “a bit stronger and more powerful,” offered one of the more memorable statements of the debate: “We want a panzer and not a pansy Government.”
The main criticism throughout the two-day debate was the government’s apparent failure to wage war effectively. “It is of but momentary utility to have striking power if you cannot hold what you conquer,” said Leslie Hore-Belisha, who had headed Chamberlain’s War Office. He also criticized Churchill’s growing dependence on America. “Are we relying on winning this war by our own efforts,” he asked, “or are we putting off anything that can be done in the belief that the United States will supply the defects? If so we are misguided. We ought to thank God for President Roosevelt every day, but it is unfair to him and to his country to overstate what is possible.”
Though Churchill had asked for the vote of confidence, it galled him to have to listen to speech after speech carping on the alleged failings of his government. He was thick-skinned, but only to a point. Even Averell Harriman’s daughter Kathy recognized this, after spending a later weekend at Chequers. “He hates criticism,” she wrote. “It hurts him as it would a child being unjustly spanked by a mother.” On one occasion he told his great friend Violet Bonham Carter, “I feel very biteful & spiteful when people attack me.”
The most wounding speech, however, did not come until later.
MARY, TUESDAY, MAY 6:
“Feel calmer today—
“I really can’t write all I think and feel.
“I only know I am most seriously & deeply looking at every aspect of it.
“The trouble is I have so little to judge by.
“And yet I do love Eric—I know I do.
“The family have been quite wonderful. So helpful & understanding.
“I wish I could write about all that has happened in detail—but somehow—it all seems too unreal & strange. And too important & pent up to write down calmly.”
* * *
—
THE ATTACK CAME ON the second day of debate, Wednesday, May 7, and it came from David Lloyd George, of all people. One year earlier he had been instrumental in helping Churchill become prime minister. The war, he said now, had entered “one of its most difficult and discouraging phases.” This in itself was not a surprise, he noted; setbacks were to be expected. “But we have had our third, our fourth great defeat and retreat. We have trouble now in Iraq and Libya. We have the German seizure of the islands”—the Channel Islands, of which Guernsey and Jersey were the largest. “We have tremendous havoc among our shipping, not merely in losses but in what has not been taken enough into account, in damage.” He called for “an end of the kind of blunders which have discredited and weakened us.”
He singled out what he saw as the government’s failure to provide adequate information about events. “We are not an infantile nation,” he said, “and it is not necessary to withhold unpleasant facts from us, so as not to frighten us.” And he accused Churchill of failing to install an effective War Cabinet. “There is no doubt about his brilliant qualities,” Lloyd George said, “but for that very reason, if he will allow me to say so, he wants a few more ordinary persons.” Lloyd George spoke for an hour, “weak at times,” wrote Chips Channon, “at others sly and shrewd, and often vindictive as he attacked the Government.” Churchill, Channon wrote, “was obviously shaken, for he shook, twitched, and his hands were never still.”
But now, at just after four o’clock, it was his turn to speak. He exuded energy and confidence, as well as pugnacious good cheer. He held the House “from the very first moment,” wrote Harold Nicolson in his diary: “very amusing…very frank.”
He was also merciless. He directed his opening salvo at Lloyd George. “If there were any speech which I felt was not particularly exhilarating,” he said, “it was the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs.” Churchill condemned it as being unhelpful during a time that Lloyd George himself had described as discouraging and disheartening. “It was not the sort of speech which one would have expected from the great war leader of former days, who was accustomed to brush aside despondency and alarm, and push on irresistibly towards the final goal,” Churchill said. “It was the sort of speech with which, I imagine, the illustrious and venerable Marshal Pétain might well have enlivened the closing days of M. Reynaud’s Cabinet.”
He defended his decision to ask for a vote of confidence, “because after our reverses and disappointments in the field, His Majesty’s Government have a
right to know where they stand with the House of Commons, and where the House of Commons stands with the country.” In a clear allusion to the United States, he said, “Still more is this knowledge important for the sake of foreign nations, especially nations which are balancing their policy at the present time and who ought to be left in no doubt about the stability or otherwise of this resolved and obstinate war Government.”
As he neared his close, he reprised the speech he had made one year earlier in his first address to the House as prime minister. “I ask you to witness, Mr. Speaker, that I have never promised anything or offered anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat, to which I will now add our fair share of mistakes, shortcomings and disappointments and also that this may go on for a very long time, at the end of which I firmly believe—though it is not a promise or a guarantee, only a profession of faith—that there will be complete, absolute and final victory.”
Acknowledging that one year, “almost to a day,” had passed since his appointment as prime minister, he invited his audience to consider all that had occurred during that time. “When I look back on the perils which have been overcome, upon the great mountain waves in which the gallant ship has driven, when I remember all that has gone wrong, and remember also all that has gone right, I feel sure we have no need to fear the tempest. Let it roar, and let it rage. We shall come through.”
As Churchill made his exit, the House erupted in cheers, which continued outside the chamber, in the Members’ Lobby.
And then came the vote.
* * *
—
THAT DAY HARRIMAN COMPOSED a letter to Roosevelt, to convey some of his impressions about Churchill and Britain’s ability to endure the war. Harriman had no illusions as to why Churchill held him so close and took him along on so many inspections of bombed cities. “He thinks it of value to have an American around for the morale of the people,” Harriman told Roosevelt. But Harriman understood that this was only a secondary consideration. “He also wants me to report to you from time to time.”
By now, what had long been clear to Churchill was also clear to Harriman: that Britain had no hope of winning the war without the direct intervention of the United States. Harriman understood that it was his own role to serve as a lens through which Roosevelt could see beyond censorship and propaganda into the heart of Britain’s war-making architecture. He knew aircraft totals, production rates, food reserves, and the disposition of warships; and, thanks to the many visits to bombed cities, he knew the scent of cordite and decomposing bodies. Just as important, he understood the interplay of personalities around Churchill.
He knew, for example, that Max Beaverbrook, Churchill’s newly designated minister of state, was now charged with doing for tanks what he had done for fighters when he was minister of aircraft production. Britain had neglected the matter of tanks and was paying the price in the Middle East. “The Libyan campaign in both directions was a rude shock to many and there will be great pressure for increased production both in England and America,” Harriman wrote. More and better tanks were also needed for England’s defense against invasion, if its home forces were to be able to resist incursions by Hitler’s armored units. “Those in charge of tanks tell me it is rather ironic that Beaverbrook is now to help them as he has been the worst offender in stealing things they have needed”—meaning materials and tools. “Beaverbrook is not personally liked but people know he is the only man who can really cut the red tape and he is welcomed as an ally.”
Now, however, Beaverbrook’s health was becoming a factor. “He is none too well, suffering from asthma and an eye affliction,” Harriman told Roosevelt. Nevertheless, Harriman expected that Beaverbrook would stay on and would succeed. “I gather from conversations with both the Prime Minister and Beaverbrook that he will end by being the number one trouble shooter.”
It was obvious to Harriman that Churchill dearly hoped America would intervene in the war, but that he and others in the government were being careful not to push too hard. “It is natural that they hope for a belligerent status,” he told Roosevelt, “but I am surprised how understanding all are of the psychology of the situation at home.”
MARY, WEDNESDAY, MAY 7:
“Had made up my mind.
“Eric rang up in P.M.”
* * *
—
STILL DETERMINED TO ESCAPE 10 Downing, John Colville sought to further improve his odds by again asking Churchill’s fixer, Brendan Bracken, to intercede on his behalf, but again Bracken failed. Churchill simply would not let him go.
No one seemed willing to support him. Opposition by the Foreign Office grew more stern, now that Eric Seal, Churchill’s lead private secretary, was being dispatched to America on a special mission, leaving an absence in the secretariat that had to be filled. Even Colville’s two older brothers, David and Philip, both with military commissions, gave him no encouragement. David, a navy man, seemed especially hostile to the idea. “He is violently opposed to my joining the RAF,” Colville wrote in his diary. “His reasons were many of them offensive (such as my practical incapacity in which he and Philip firmly, but wrongly believe) but I did not mind as I knew they were in reality based on nothing but affection and the fear that I should be killed.”
Colville’s resolve only grew. His goal now was to become a fighter pilot, “if humanly possible.” The first step was to begin the process of getting fitted for contact lenses, an arduous venture. The lenses were made of plastic but were still “scleral” lenses that covered most of the eye and were notoriously uncomfortable. The whole affair—the fitting, the endless shaping and reshaping of the lenses, and the slow process of growing acclimated to discomfort and irritation—required stamina. Colville deemed it worthwhile.
And now that he was actually taking concrete steps toward entering the RAF, he found himself getting caught up in the romance of it all, as if his commission were already a certainty. He told his diary, “My head is full of plans for a new life in the RAF and, of course, of improbable day-dreams on the subject.”
From the time of his first fitting to when he could at last wear his completed lenses would take two months.
* * *
—
IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, the members lined up in the lobby. The tellers took their positions. Only three members voted no; even Lloyd George supported Churchill’s proposed resolution. The tally in the end was 447 to 3.
“Pretty good,” Harold Nicolson quipped.
That night, according to Colville, Churchill went to bed “elated.”
CHAPTER 94
Le Coeur Encore
THURSDAY, MAY 8:
“Rushed up to London.
“Eric to dinner—felt v. happy
“Mummie anxious for wedding to be put off for 6 months—clearly she is not v. taken with Eric.
“Went to bed feeling perplexed—doubtful—sleepy.”
FRIDAY, MAY 9:
“Felt miserable—uncertain.
“Had hair done.
“Eric came & we walked round St. James’ Park—lovely day. ‘Sweet lovers love the Spring’! Once with him—somehow all fears & doubts seemed to go. Returned to lunch happy—confident—decided.
“Lord & Lady Bessborough to lunch—
“Families confer—
“Engagement is to be announced following Wednesday. Joy—”
CHAPTER 95
Moonrise
IN BERLIN, JOSEPH GOEBBELS DISMISSED Churchill’s speech in the House of Commons as being full of “excuses” and devoid of information. “But no sign of weakness,” he acknowledged in his diary on Friday, May 9, adding: “England’s will to resist is still intact. We shall therefore have to continue attacking and chipping away at her power position.”
Goebbels confessed in his diary to feeling a new respect for Churchill. “This man is a strange mixture of heroism
and cunning,” he wrote. “If he had come to power in 1933, we would not be where we are today. And I believe that he will give us a few more problems yet. But we can and will solve them. Nevertheless, he is not to be taken as lightly as we usually take him.”
For Goebbels, it had been a long and trying week, and he settled in with his diary to take stock. There had been personnel issues to deal with. One of his key men wanted to quit and join the army. “Everyone wants to go to the front,” Goebbels wrote, “but who is going to do the work here?”
The war against British shipping was going well, as was Rommel’s campaign in North Africa, and the Soviet Union appeared unaware that the German invasion was imminent. But two nights earlier, the RAF had launched a series of heavy raids against Hamburg, Bremen, and other cities, killing one hundred in Hamburg alone. “We shall have our hands full dealing with it,” he wrote. He expected the Luftwaffe to launch a punishing reprisal.
He noted also that British newspapers were publishing “strong” criticism of Churchill, but he doubted this had any real significance. As best he could tell, Churchill remained firmly in power.
“How good that a difficult week ends today,” Goebbels wrote. “I am tired and battle-weary.
“One can never escape from the din of it all.
“Meanwhile, the weather has turned gloriously fine.
“Full moon!
“Ideal for air raids.”
* * *
