Alone, 1932-1940

  Writing his sister of the Duce’s Albanian adventure, Chamberlain complained, not of Italian aggression, but of duplicity: “What I had hoped when I went away on Thursday was that Musso would so present his coup as to make it look like an agreed arrangement & thus raise as little as possible questions of European significance.” In a strange admission—coming so late, after so many broken promises in Rome and Berlin—he wrote: “Such faith as I ever had in the assurances of dictators is rapidly being whittled away.”125

  Before Parliament’s Albania debate, on April 13, the P.M. sent for Winston “in the hope of keeping the House as united as possible.” In the debate Churchill did endorse Chamberlain’s guarantee to Rumania and Greece and said he anticipated “even more effective arrangements with Turkey.” If a “great design” of binding alliances were achieved, he said, “even now, at the eleventh hour,” the world could be spared “the worst of its agonies.” At the same time, however, he wondered how His Majesty’s Government could make such wide-ranging commitments when Britain’s defenses were so weak—how they could speak so loudly when carrying so small a stick. At the very least, he argued, Parliament should be asked to approve the conscription of British youth. He could not understand why the government had remained silent on this pressing issue. He asked: “How can we bear to continue to lead our comfortable, easy lives here at home, unwilling even to pronounce the word ‘compulsion,’ unwilling even to take the necessary measure by which the armies that we have promised can alone be recruited and equipped?”126

  He then raised an issue which MPs had discussed among themselves in the smoking room or lobby, but never in the chamber itself. It was the unique position of Sir Horace Wilson, known to insiders for his influence on Chamberlain, his sympathies for the Third Reich, and his unscrupulous intervention between the prime minister and other government advisers, including senior members of the cabinet. Without naming names, Churchill wondered how anyone on the Treasury Bench could indulge in “sunshine talk,” predicting “the dawn of a Golden Age” only five days before Hitler raped what was left of Czechoslovakia. Yet it was now obvious that “something of a very exceptional character, the consequences of which could not be measured, was imminent.” Why, then, was the government unprepared? “After twenty-five years’ experience in peace and war, I believe the British Intelligence Service to be the finest of its kind in the world. Yet we have seen, both in the case of the subjugation of Bohemia and on the occasion of the invasion of Albania, that Ministers of the Crown had apparently no inkling, or at any rate no conviction, of what was coming. I cannot believe that this is the fault of the British Secret Service.”

  Churchill knew “very well,” he continued, “the patriotism and sincere desire to act in a manner of perfect rectitude which animates Ministers of the Crown, but I wonder whether there is not some hand which intervenes and filters down or withholds intelligence from Ministers.” More than once “the facts were not allowed to reach high Ministers of the Crown until they had been so modified that they did not present an alarming proposition.”127

  Chamberlain was vexed. April was turning into the cruelest month of his prime ministry. He had expected an altogether different sequel to Munich: growing friendship with Germany and Italy, trade agreements reviving British industries still sunk in the Depression, and, once Hitler and the Duce realized that the British could be trusted, worldwide disarmament. Instead, he had seen his diplomatic strategy collapse with the Nazi conquest of Czechoslovakia, the Italian invasion of Albania, threats to the Balkans, intrusions into Europe’s affairs by Russia, and, most alarming of all, Nazi pressure on Poland, England’s one hostage in eastern Europe—pressure suspiciously like Hitler’s modus operandi in the opening moves of the Anschluss and the Czech crisis.

  Moreover, Roosevelt had interceded. The American president’s concern over Europe’s murky future had been crystallized by the Italian landings in Albania. The week after the invasion the president had sent a personal message to Mussolini and Hitler, asking them to pledge not to undertake further aggression for ten “or even twenty-five years, if we are to look that far ahead.” Both dictators ridiculed it. The Duce called it “a result of infantile paralysis.” Göring suggested that Roosevelt was “im Anfangsstadium einer Geisteskrankheit” (“in the early stages of a mental disease”), and on April 28 Hitler cruelly mocked the president before the Reichstag—and then renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 and the German-Polish agreement of 1934, charging that Poland and Britain were conspiring to encircle the Reich.128

  Chamberlain’s response to Roosevelt’s initiative was to denounce “Yankee meddling.” He was sympathetic toward Berlin, indifferent or hostile to Washington; he believed Hitler, not Roosevelt. As Sidney Herbert had written Churchill: “One of the things which the Prime Minister appears consistently to ignore is American public opinion.” He also tried to disregard British opinion, but his choices were narrowing. Events were in the saddle, riding Neville Chamberlain and driving him toward the one measure he had vowed he would never take: conscription.129

  Churchill had been accused of living in the past. Actually that was what HMG was doing; in dodging the draft the appeasers were ignoring Britain’s altered status as a world power. For generations the Continent had listened to British prime ministers with respect and had given their advice great weight because behind them ranged the great British Empire, ready to spring to arms—as in 1914—when the sovereign, on instructions and without consulting his dominions, committed his vast realm to global war. Victoria had spoken of those dwelling in imperial possessions as “my people.” But her great-grandson’s relationship with their great-grandchildren had been altered by parliamentary statute. Although the Dominions would probably declare war if England did, they couldn’t be counted on.

  This massive fact, together with the neglect of the island’s armed forces by MacDonald, Baldwin, and Chamberlain, meant that Britain could no longer expect the Continent to catch cold when the prime minister sneezed. Chamberlain had treated the Czechs as pawns. In reality their military presence—forty trained, well-equipped divisions—had dwarfed Britain’s. As of this moment, Europe’s great standing armies were the French and Italians, each with about one hundred divisions; the Germans, with over two hundred; and the Red Army—which Chamberlain slurred—with three hundred. Britain’s potential might was great, and had the front bench responded to Churchill’s appeals over the past six years the country might have had a strong force-in-being. He had been ignored. If asked to field an expeditionary force now, the chief of the Imperial General Staff could have sent two regular divisions right away, another two later, and four divisions of territorials.

  Even Chamberlain had to recognize the discrepancy. In late March he took a half step toward conscription, increasing the territorials by 210,000 (unequipped) and therefore, theoretically, doubling the army reserve. No one was deceived. Now, on April 24, after introducing the new Ministry of Supply, he renounced his past pledges and proposed a draft. The pressures of an aroused country, the press, his own party, and even the King had played roles in turning him around; but the main force goading him was the persistence of Hore-Belisha, who “took his political life in his hands,” Winston later wrote. “Several of his interviews with his chief were of a formidable character. I saw something of him in this ordeal, and he was never sure that each day in office would not be his last.”130

  Churchill, the Daily Telegraph reported, “was in his most striking and effective form” during the conscription debate. “To hear him, Members hurried in, filling the Chamber and side galleries.” He not only approved of the draft; he said it should have been introduced immediately after Munich. Pacifists had denounced the measure as “peacetime conscription.” His eyes sweeping the benches, he asked, “Is this peace?” and answered his own rhetorical question: “We have had three disastrous campaigns and the battles, the actions of the war have gone not only against us but against the principles of law and freedom, aga
inst the interests of the peaceful and progressive democracies. Those battles already make a long catalogue—the Rhineland, Abyssinia, Austria, Munich, Prague and Albania [Hon Members ‘And Spain’]…. We are all, then, agreed that circumstances are analogous to war actually prevailing.”131

  But now he saw “a common cause in this House,” and, indeed, throughout Western Europe: “The impulse, the main impulse, to resist the Nazi principles comes from the mass of the people.” Doubtless many members voting for the bill would feel a wrench inside. He, too, had reservations, but his were different. He thought the measure inadequate. It provided for the induction of 200,000 twenty-year-old youths, but they would be issued neither equipment nor supplies until the Ministry of Supply persuaded British manufacturers to turn them out. It was the story of the reserves all over again; young Englishmen were to surrender their liberty and later, perhaps, their lives, but the production schedules of English factories still had priority. In effect this bill was a gesture, Churchill said, and “a gesture is not sufficient; we want an army and we may want it soon.” He said he believed that “everyone is baffled by the now rapid changes of policy upon fundamental issues” in the government, switches which suggested that decisions were being made, “not after mature planning, but in a hurry, not from design, conviction, or forethought,” but in response to initiatives in Berlin and Rome. This was consistent with the theme he had been sounding for years, but Chamberlain now suspected malice in all Churchill’s criticism of him. He had heard, he wrote his sister, that Winston “thought I was going to offer him the Ministry of Supply & he was therefore smarting under a sense of disappointment, only kept in check by his unwillingness to do anything which might prevent his yet receiving an offer to join the Govt.”132

  The relationship between the Duce and the Führer was warmer. Within a month of the conscription debate, Mussolini yielded to Hitler’s cajoling and agreed to join Germany in a military alliance. On May 22, 1939, the two dictators signed their Pact of Steel, agreeing to use force in acquiring “living space” for their peoples. If one of the two went to war, the other would “immediately come to its assistance as an ally and support it with all its military forces on land, at sea, and in the air.” In the event of war neither nation would conclude a separate armistice or peace. General Ironside told Churchill that England and France were “in for a bad time.”133

  What the prime minister failed to grasp was that with all Europe rushing headlong into a maelstrom, the readings on traditional political barometers were meaningless. Normally, crises in public life peaked and passed, the issues quickly forgotten. Instead, all spring and throughout the summer Churchill and Chamberlain moved in elegant counterpoint, as though cast in one of those skillfully plotted Wilkie Collins novels in which the narrative moves among several sets of characters, some evil, some benign, with the reader unaware of which will win, or how. But among the British public in 1939 there was little doubt about which of the duelists aroused the greater enthusiasm. All over England, on posters, billboards, and cartoons, the theme echoed: Winston must come back.

  The prime minister’s manner toward Churchill was unchanged—civility masking hostility. This disturbed Churchill. It was not in the parliamentary tradition; Winston’s differences with Neville’s father had been many and had cut deep, yet outside the House chamber they had been on good terms, and had frequently dined together. The prime minister’s coldness toward him derived in part from the reversal of their standing in the public opinion polls. Winston’s popularity was rising; one letter to The Times, which even Dawson hadn’t dared suppress, was signed by 375 professors, faculty members of every British university, “strongly urging” Churchill’s appointment to an important cabinet post.

  It is impossible to say precisely when the yearning for Churchill first took hold, but even before Prague the turning toward him had begun. His foreign policy views had been set forth in the February 25, 1939, issue of Picture Post, which predicted that “the greatest moment of his life is still to come.” A second piece trumpeting him had appeared in the March 4 Picture Post, and in a third, on March 11, Churchill answered thirteen questions put to him by the magazine’s editor, calling for a new government and cabinet seats for Labour. Newspapers ran letters or even editorials calling him “The Only Man”; an Evening Advertiser cartoon had depicted him camping outside No. 10, awaiting appointment as minister of supply.

  By April demands that he be brought into the government were being published almost daily. On Friday, April 21, the Daily Telegraph ran an especially poignant one from an Oxford don whose father had been killed at Gallipoli. Saturday’s Evening News called for his appointment “as soon as possible,” and the day after that the Sunday Pictorial devoted its first two pages to Churchill, telling readers: “The jealousy and suspicion of others compel him to stand idly aside.” On Tuesday the editor wired Chartwell: “Huge mail has reached me this morning following my Churchill article Sunday. Letters are overwhelmingly in your favour.” Wednesday he sent word that he had received 2,400 responses from subscribers, 97 percent agreeing that Winston must return to office. Of the majority, he wrote: “I have never known such an unqualified response.” They came from all classes: ex-soldiers, men still in uniform, and especially the young. Typical comments, he said, were “No more boot-licking to Hitler,” and “We want a strong man who is not afraid.” The editor ended: “Your name on our street placards aroused tremendous interest, and there is not the slightest doubt of the overwhelming view of the country on this issue.”134

  “WE NEED CHURCHILL” cried a page-one headline in Time and Tide on May 6. Four days later the News Chronicle published the results of a straw vote reporting that 56 percent of those polled wanted Winston in the cabinet, 26 percent were opposed, and 18 percent expressed no opinion. Horace Wilson destroyed No. 10’s copy of this edition before it reached the prime minister’s desk. It was a futile gesture; there was no way to keep Chamberlain ignorant of the massive shift in Fleet Street’s coverage of Churchill. After Munich speeches praising him had frequently gone unreported; all were covered now, and often published on front pages. On July 1 Archibald Sinclair told an enthusiastic audience that the prime minister should bring Churchill and Eden into his “inner counsels.” The Yorkshire Post carried a full account of the meeting. The Star assumed Winston’s appointment to office—“Mr Chamberlain will shortly strengthen his Cabinet. It is expected that he will invite Mr Churchill to join the Government”—and reported that Margesson, taking “soundings” among Tory backbenchers, had found that “in nearly every case the Chief Whip was told that the appointment of Mr Churchill to one of the key posts in the Cabinet would create fresh confidence.” The Sunday Graphic on July 2 predicted that Churchill would be named first lord of the Admiralty.135

  Editorials became bolder. The Observer thought it incredible that Churchill, with “so firm a grasp of European politics,” should be excluded from office, adding that the phenomenon “must be as bewildering to foreigners as it is regrettable to most of his own countrymen.” On July 3 the Manchester Guardian urged the prime minister to put patriotism above personal rancor and use Winston’s gifts “in any capacity,” because England needed “Ministers of vision and power as well as administrators.” The Daily Telegraph agreed. That same week calls for Churchill’s return to office appeared in the Daily Mirror, the Evening News, the News Chronicle, and even the Daily Worker, on the ground that Churchill had been “the outstanding opponent of the ‘Munich policy.’ ” The Mirror described Winston as “the most trusted statesman in Britain… the watchdog of Britain’s safety. For years he warned us of dangers which have now become terrible realities. For years he pressed for the policy of STRENGTH, which the whole nation now supports.” The following day the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard joined the recruits; so, on July 7, did the Spectator, declaring that giving Churchill and Eden seats at the cabinet table would constitute “a decisive contribution to our cause” and might persuade Hitler to pause before
sending his troops into yet another country.136

  “Oh Winston dear,” Maxine Elliott wrote from the Riviera, “was there ever such a triumph for a public man! Press and public alike hotly demanding its one man who has told them the frightening truth all these years and now they run to him to try and pull their burning chestnuts out of the fire.” Leo Amery wrote him that he hoped the newspaper push “will result in your being brought in to the Government,” and Stafford Cripps asked: “Could you not make a public statement… stating your preparedness to give your services to the country…. I feel it would make a tremendous impact just now on the country and would intensify enormously the demand that is growing everywhere for your inclusion in the Government.”137

  But Churchill replied that he was “quite sure that any such demarche would weaken me in any discussion I might have to have with the gentleman in question.” And he was right. In Hoare’s words, Chamberlain “resented outside pressure. The more, therefore, the Press clamoured for Churchill’s inclusion, the less likely he was to take any action.” Colin Coote at The Times—Winston called him his “friend in the enemy’s camp”—wrote Boothby that the “agitation” favoring Churchill would fail: “I will offer you a small bet that the other Mr. C. won’t listen to it for a moment; for his motto is still peace at any price except loss of office, and he is rightly sure that the inclusion of Winston means his own proximate exclusion.”138

  Probably nothing would have stopped Hitler at this point. By the first anniversary of Munich he would have 7,188,000 Germans in Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe uniforms. Orders for the destruction of Poland had been cut, and although rebel generals were still scheming against him, five years would pass before they made their move. But Winston was the last Englishman the Führer wanted in office. In the early summer of 1939 the Foreign Office received an account of a conversation between James Marshall-Cornwall, a British general, and Count Schwerin von Krosigk, Reich finance minister and a member of the German cabinet. Krosigk had told the general that Chamberlain should “take Winston Churchill into the Cabinet. Churchill is the only Englishman Hitler is afraid of.” Marshall-Cornwall added that Krosigk had said that Hitler “does not take the PM and Lord Halifax seriously, but he places Churchill in the same category as Roosevelt. The mere fact of giving him a leading ministerial post would convince Hitler that you really mean to stand up to him.”139