There had already begun an intense, unceasing struggle between the Fuehrer and his expert advisers. The crisis seemed to provide all the circumstances which the German generals dreaded. Between thirty and forty Czech divisions were deploying upon Germany’s eastern frontiers, and the weight of the French Army, at odds of nearly eight to one, began to lie heavy on the Western Wall. A hostile Russia might operate from Czech airfields, and Soviet armies might wend their way forward through Poland or Roumania. Some of them made a plot to arrest Hitler and “immunize Germany from this madman”. Others declared that the low morale of the German population was incapable of sustaining a European war, and the German armed forces were not yet ready for it. Admiral Raeder, Chief of the German Admiralty, made a vehement appeal to the Fuehrer which was emphasised a few hours later by the news that the British Fleet was being mobilised. And Hitler wavered. At 2 a.m. the German radio broadcast an official denial that Germany intended to mobilise on the 29th, and at 11.45 a.m. the same morning a similar statement of the German official news agency was given to the British Press. The strain upon this one man and upon his astounding will-power must at this moment have been most severe. Evidently he had brought himself to the brink of a general war. Could he take the plunge in the face of an unfavourable public opinion and of the solemn warning of the chiefs of his Army, Navy, and Air Force? Could he, on the other hand, afford to retreat after living so long upon prestige?
But Mr. Chamberlain was also active, and he was now in complete control of Britain’s foreign policy. Lord Halifax, in spite of increasing doubts derived from the atmosphere of his department, followed the guidance of his chief. The Cabinet was deeply perturbed, but obeyed. The Government majority in the House of Commons was skilfully handled by the Whips. One man and one man only conducted our affairs. He did not shrink either from the responsibility which he incurred or from the personal exertions required. On September 14 he had telegraphed to Hitler on his own initiative proposing to come to see him. Three times in all the British Prime Minister flew to Germany, both he and Lord Runciman being convinced that only the cession of the Sudeten areas would dissuade Hitler from invading Czechoslovakia. The last occasion was at Munich, M. Daladier, Premier of France, and Mussolini being present. No invitation was extended to Russia. Nor were the Czechs themselves allowed to be present at the meetings. The Czech Government were informed in bald terms on the evening of the 28th that a conference of the representatives of the four European Powers would take place the following day. Agreement was reached between “the Big Four” with speed. The conversations began at noon and lasted till two o’clock the next morning. A memorandum was drawn up and signed at 2 a.m. on September 30. It was in essentials the acceptance of the German demands. The Sudeten-land was to be evacuated in five stages beginning on October 1, and to be completed within ten days. An International Commission was to determine the final frontiers.
The document was placed before the Czech delegates. They bowed to the decisions. “They wished,” they said, “to register their protest before the world against a decision in which they had no part.” President Beneš resigned because “he might now prove a hindrance to the developments to which our new State must adapt itself”. He departed from Czechoslovakia and found shelter in England. The dismemberment of Czechoslovakia proceeded. The Germans were not the only vultures upon the carcase. The Polish Government sent a twenty-four-hour ultimatum to the Czechs demanding the immediate handing over of the frontier district of Teschen. There was no means of resisting this harsh demand. The Hungarians also arrived with their claims.
While the four statesmen were waiting for the experts to draft the final document the Prime Minister asked Hitler whether he would care for a private talk. Hitler “jumped at the idea.” The two leaders met in Hitler’s Munich flat on the morning of September 30, and were alone except for the interpreter. Chamberlain produced a draft declaration which he had prepared, proclaiming that “the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for the two countries and for Europe,” and that “We regard the Agreement signed last night, and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.”
Hitler read it and signed it without demur.
Chamberlain returned to England. At Heston, where he landed, he waved the joint declaration which he had got Hitler to sign, and read it to the crowd of notables and others who welcomed him. As his car drove through cheering crowds from the airport, he said to Halifax, sitting beside him, “All this will be over in three months”; but from the windows of Downing Street he waved his piece of paper again and used these words, “This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.”*
Hitler’s judgment had been once more decisively vindicated. The German General Staff was utterly abashed. Once again the Fuehrer had been right after all. He with his genius and intuition alone had truly measured all the circumstances, military and political. Once again, as in the Rhineland, the Fuehrer’s leadership had triumphed over the obstruction of the German military chiefs. All these generals were patriotic men. They longed to see the Fatherland regain its position in the world. They were devoting themselves night and day to every process that could strengthen the German forces. They therefore felt smitten in their hearts at having been found so much below the level of the event, and in many cases their dislike and their distrust of Hitler were overpowered by admiration for his commanding gifts and miraculous luck. Surely here was a star to follow, surely here was a guide to obey. Thus did Hitler finally become the undisputed master of Germany, and the path was clear for the great design. The conspirators lay low, and were not betrayed by their military comrades.
It is not easy in these latter days, when we have all passed through years of intense moral and physical stress and exertion, to portray for another generation the passions which raged in Britain about the Munich Agreement. Among the Conservatives families and friends in intimate contact were divided to a degree the like of which I have never seen. Men and women, long bound together by party ties, social amenities, and family connections, glared upon one another in scorn and anger. The issue was not one to be settled by the cheering crowds which had welcomed Mr. Chamberlain back from the airport or blocked Downing Street and its approaches, nor by the redoubtable exertions of the Ministerial Whips and partisans. We who were in a minority at the moment cared nothing for the jokes or scowls of the Government supporters. The Cabinet was shaken to its foundations, but the event had happened and they held together. One Minister alone stood forth. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Duff Cooper, resigned his great office, which he had dignified by the mobilisation of the Fleet. At the moment of Mr. Chamberlain’s overwhelming mastery of public opinion he thrust his way through the exulting throng to declare his total disagreement with its leader.
At the opening of the three days’ debate on Munich he made his resignation speech. This was a vivid incident in our Parliamentary life. Speaking with ease and without a note, for forty minutes he held the hostile majority of his party under his spell. It was easy for Labour men and Liberals in hot opposition to the Government of the day to applaud him. This was a rending quarrel within the Tory Party.
The debate which took place was not unworthy of the emotions aroused and the issues at stake. I well remember that when I said “We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat” the storm which met me made it necessary to pause for a while before resuming. There was widespread and sincere admiration for Mr. Chamberlain’s persevering and unflinching efforts to maintain peace, and for the personal exertions which he had made. It is impossible in this account to avoid marking the long series of miscalculations, and misjudgments of men and facts, on which he based himself; but the motives which inspired him have never been impugned, and the course he followed required the highest degree of moral courage. To this I paid tribute two years later in my s
peech after his death.
There was also a serious and practical line of argument, albeit not to their credit, on which the Government could rest themselves. No one could deny that we were hideously unprepared for war. Who had been more forward in proving this than I and my friends? Great Britain had allowed herself to be far surpassed by the strength of the German Air Force. All our vulnerable points were unprotected. Barely a hundred anti-aircraft guns could be found for the defence of the largest city and centre of population in the world; and these were largely in the hands of untrained men. If Hitler was honest and lasting peace had in fact been achieved, Chamberlain was right. If, unhappily, he had been deceived, at least we should gain a breathing-space to repair the worst of our neglects. These considerations, and the general relief and rejoicing that the horrors of war had been temporarily averted, commanded the loyal assent of the mass of Government supporters. The House approved the policy of His Majesty’s Government “by which war was averted in the recent crisis” by 366 to 144. The thirty or forty dissentient Conservatives could do no more than register their disapproval by abstention. This we did as a formal and united act.
On November 1 a nonentity, Dr. Hacha, was elected to the vacant Presidency of the remnants of Czechoslovakia. A new Government took office in Prague. “Conditions in Europe and the world in general,” said the Foreign Minister of this forlorn Administration, “are not such that we should hope for a period of calm in the near future.” Hitler thought so too. A formal division of the spoils was made by Germany at the beginning of November. Poland was not disturbed in her occupation of Teschen. The Slovaks, who had been used as a pawn by Germany, obtained a precarious autonomy. Hungary received a piece of flesh at the expense of Slovakia. When these consequences of Munich were raised in the House of Commons Mr. Chamberlain explained that the French and British offer of an international guarantee to Czechoslovakia which had been given after the Munich Pact did not affect the existing frontiers of that State, but referred only to the hypothetical question of unprovoked aggression. “What we are doing now.” he said, with much detachment, “is witnessing the readjustment of frontiers laid down in the Treaty of Versailles. I do not know whether the people who were responsible for those frontiers thought they would remain permanently as they were laid down. I doubt very much whether they did. They probably expected that from time to time the frontiers would have to be adjusted.… I think I have said enough about Czechoslovakia.…” There was, however, to be a later occasion.
The question has been debated whether Hitler or the Allies gained the more in strength in the year that followed Munich. Many persons in Britain who knew our nakedness felt a sense of relief as each month our Air Force developed and the Hurricane and Spitfire types approached issue. The number of formed squadrons grew and the antiaircraft guns multiplied. Also the general pressure of industrial preparation for war continued to quicken. But these improvements, invaluable though they seemed, were petty compared with the mighty advance in German armaments. As has been explained, munitions production on a nation-wide plan is a four years’ task. The first year yields nothing, the second very little, the third a lot, and the fourth a flood. Hitler’s Germany in this period was already in the third or fourth year of intense preparation under conditions of grip and drive which were almost the same as those of war. Britain, on the other hand, had only been moving on a non-emergency basis, with a weaker impulse and on a far smaller scale. In 1938–39 British military expenditure of all kinds reached £304 millions,* and German was at least £1,500 millions. It is probable that in this last year before the outbreak Germany manufactured at least double, and possibly treble, the munitions of Britain and France put together, and also that her great plants for tank production reached full capacity. They were therefore getting weapons at a far higher rate than we.
The subjugation of Czechoslovakia robbed the Allies of the Czech Army of twenty-one regular divisions, fifteen or sixteen second-line divisions already mobilised, and also their mountain fortress line, which in the days of Munich had required the deployment of thirty German divisions, or the main strength of the mobile and fully-trained German Army. According to Generals Halder and Jodl, there were but thirteen German divisions, of which only five were composed of first-line troops, left in the West at the time of the Munich arrangement. We certainly suffered a loss through the fall of Czechoslovakia equivalent to some thirty-five divisions. Besides this the Skoda works, the second most important arsenal in Central Europe, the production of which between August 1938 and September 1939 was in itself nearly equal to the actual output of British arms factories in that period, was made to change sides adversely. While all Germany was working under intense and almost war pressure, French labour had achieved as early as 1936 the long-desired forty-hours week.
Even more disastrous was the alteration in the relative strength of the French and German Armies. With every month that passed, from 1938 onwards, the German Army not only increased in numbers and formations and in the accumulation of reserves, but in quality and maturity. The advance in training and general proficiency kept pace with the ever-augmenting equipment. No similar improvement or expansion was open to the French Army. It was being overtaken along every path. In 1935 France, unaided by her previous allies, could have invaded and reoccupied Germany almost without serious fighting. In 1936 there could still be no doubt of her overwhelmingly superior strength. We now know, from the German revelations, that this continued in 1938, and it was the knowledge of their weakness which led the German High Command to do their utmost to restrain Hitler from every one of the successful strokes by which his fame was enhanced. In the year after Munich, which we are now examining, the German Army, though still weaker in trained reserves than the French, approached its full efficiency. As it was based upon a population double as large as that of France, it was only a question of time when it would become by every test the stronger. In morale also the Germans had the advantage. The desertion of an ally, especially from fear of war, saps the spirit of any army. The sense of being forced to yield depresses both officers and men. While on the German side confidence, success, and the sense of growing power inflamed the martial instincts of the race, the admission of weakness discouraged the French soldiers of every rank.
There was however one vital sphere in which we began to overtake Germany and improve our own position. In 1938 the process of replacing British biplane fighters, like the Gladiators, by the then modern types of Hurricanes and later Spitfires had only just begun. In September of 1938 we had but five squadrons remounted on Hurricanes. Moreover, reserves and spares for the older aircraft had been allowed to drop, since they were going out of use. The Germans were well ahead of us in remounting with modern fighter types. They already had good numbers of the Me.109, against which our old aircraft would have fared very ill. Throughout 1939 our position improved as more squadrons were remounted. In July of that year we had twenty-six squadrons of modern eight-gun fighters, though there had been little time to build up a full scale of reserves and spares. By July 1940, at the time of the Battle of Britain, we had on the average forty-seven squadrons of modern fighters available.
The Germans on their side had in fact done most of their air expansion both in quantity and quality before the war began. Our effort was later than theirs by nearly two years. Between 1939 and 1940 they made a 20 per cent. increase only, whereas our increase in modern fighter aircraft was 80 per cent. The year 1938 in fact found us sadly deficient in quality, and although by 1939 we had gone some way towards meeting the disparity we were still relatively worse off than in 1940, when the test came.
We might in 1938 have had air raids on London, for which we were lamentably unprepared. There was however no possibility of a decisive Air Battle of Britain until the Germans had occupied France and the Low Countries, and thus obtained the necessary bases in close striking distance of our shores. Without these bases they could not have escorted their bombers with the fighter aircraft of those days. The German a
rmies were not capable of defeating the French in 1938 or 1939.
The vast tank production with which they broke the French front did not come into existence till 1940, and, in the face of the French superiority in the West and an unconquered Poland in the East, they could certainly not have concentrated the whole of their air-power against England as they were able to do when France had been forced to surrender. This takes no account either of the attitude of Russia or of whatever resistance Czechoslovakia might have made. For all the above reasons, the year’s breathing-space said to be “gained” by Munich left Britain and France in a much worse position compared with Hitler’s Germany than they had been at the Munich crisis.
Finally there is this staggering fact that in the single year 1938 Hitler had annexed to the Reich and brought under his absolute rule 6,750,000 Austrians and 3,500,000 Sudetens, a total of over ten millions of subjects, toilers, and soldiers. Indeed the dread balance had turned in his favour.
CHAPTER XV
PRAGUE, ALBANIA, AND THE POLISH GUARANTEE
AFTER the sense of relief springing from the Munich agreement had worn off Mr. Chamberlain and his Government found themselves confronted by a sharp dilemma. The Prime Minister had said, “I believe it is peace for our time.” But the majority of his colleagues wished to utilise “our time” to rearm as rapidly as possible. Here a division arose in the Cabinet. The sensations of alarm which the Munich crisis had aroused, the flagrant exposure of our deficiencies, especially in antiaircraft guns, dictated vehement rearmament. And this of course was criticised by the German Government and its inspired Press. However, there was no doubt of the opinion of the British nation. While rejoicing at being delivered from war by the Prime Minister and cheering peace slogans to the echo, they felt the need of weapons acutely. All the Service departments put in their claims and referred to the alarming shortages which the crisis had exposed. The Cabinet reached an agreeable compromise on the basis of all possible preparations without disturbing the trade of the country or irritating the Germans and Italians by large-scale measures.
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