To Churchill there was “no doubt that the temper of the House was for war. I even deemed it more resolute and united than in the similar scene on August 2, 1914, in which I had also taken part.” As the prime minister rose another MP felt that “most [members of the House] were ready to show their intense relief that suspense was ended by cheering wildly.”187
“But as we listened,” Spears wrote, “amazement turned to stupefaction, and stupefaction into exasperation.” Chamberlain was speaking, not of Nazi crimes, nor of suffering Poland, nor Britain’s honor, but of “further negotiations,” or rather of their possibility, since the German government had rejected HMG’s last such proposal. But, the prime minister said to the staring, straining, immobile House, that was not necessarily a reason for discouragement. The Führer of the Reich was a very busy man. It was not impossible that he was pondering the Italian government’s suggestion for a conference. Chamberlain affirmed HMG’s demand that German troops leave Poland but—despite the unanimous vote of his own cabinet, and his pledge to report it here—he mentioned no deadline for their departure. “If the German Government should agree to withdraw their forces, then His Majesty’s Government would be willing to regard the position as being the same as it was before the German forces crossed the Polish frontier.” Then, he said triumphantly, “the way would be open to discussion” between Poland and the Reich, in which case Britain would be willing “to be associated with such talks.”188
He sat down. No one cheered. Instead, Hugh Dalton heard what he called “a terrific buzz.” Margesson signaled his whips to brace themselves for physical violence, and with reason. Duff Cooper and Amery, Dalton saw, were “red-faced and almost speechless with fury.” Cooper himself had “never felt so moved.” Spears saw the House “oozing hostility.” Two MPs actually vomited. Churchill, for once understating the hostility to Chamberlain merely noted that “the Prime Minister’s temporising statement was ill-received by the House,” but Amery wrote that Parliament “was aghast. For two whole days the wretched Poles had been bombed and massacred,” and here was the prime minister of Great Britain discussing how “Hitler should be invited to tell us whether he felt like relinquishing his prey! And then there were all these sheer irrelevancies about the terms of a hypothetical agreement between Germany and Poland.” Amery wondered whether Chamberlain’s “havering” was “the prelude to another Munich.” On that occasion, Parliament had given the prime minister a standing ovation, but “this time any similar announcement would have been met by a universal howl of execration.” When Arthur Greenwood rose to reply for the Opposition, Amery, fearing a “purely partisan speech” shouted, “Speak for England!” Greenwood, not known for his eloquence, stammered and said of Chamberlain, “I must put this point to him. Every minute’s delay now means the loss of life, imperilling of our national interest—” He hesitated, and Boothby called: “Honour.” Greenwood said: “Let me finish my sentence. I was about to say imperilling the very foundations of our national honour.”189
Parliament adjourned, Amery wrote, in “confusion and dismay.” In the prime minister’s private room behind the Speaker’s chair, Greenwood angrily told him that unless “the inevitable decision for war” had been announced before they gathered for tomorrow’s session, “it will be impossible to hold the House.” According to Ivone Kirkpatrick, Margesson, following on Greenwood’s heels, confirmed him, “warning him,” in the strongest possible language, that “unless we act tomorrow,” Parliament would “revolt,” and Spears wrote that Chamberlain could now entertain no doubts that “the House would accept no further procrastination.” Chamberlain knew it. Back at No. 10 he phoned Halifax, who had been preoccupied with telegrams from his ambassadors. The prime minister said his statement “had gone very badly.” Halifax hurried across the street and found him distraught. Later he wrote that he had “never known Chamberlain so disturbed.” The P.M., insisting that he stay for dinner, said Parliament had been “infuriated”; if they were unable to “clear the position” by tomorrow, he doubted that his government would be able “to maintain itself.”190
The foreign secretary was sympathetic. Yet even as Chamberlain recoiled from the House’s hostility, Halifax had been pursuing the squalid policy which had led them to this dead end. Among the cables to reach his desk late that afternoon had been a report, from Ambassador Kennard in Warsaw, that Polish forces were severely handicapped by the Luftwaffe’s mastery of the air. Beck had “very discreetly” suggested “some diversion as soon as possible in the west,” hoping that the RAF would “draw off a considerable proportion of the German aircraft” at the eastern front. Kennard, endorsing this, thought that “every effort ought to be made to show activity on the western front.” But there was no western front, and could be none until Britain and France, now neutral, became belligerents. The ambassador knew that. He ended: “I trust I may be informed at the earliest possible moment of our declaration of war.”191
Halifax had ignored the telegram. Instead, he had instructed Henderson “immediately” to hand the text of the prime minister’s statement in Parliament—the same statement which now threatened to split Chamberlain’s government—“to certain quarters,” among them Dahlerus and Göring. And now, despite the uproar in the House, and the abundant evidence to support the contrary position, Britain’s foreign secretary returned to his office believing that the Nazi juggernaut could be halted and thrown into reverse gear by the prospect of conversations.
At ten o’clock that night he received the Polish ambassador, who told him that since noon the Luftwaffe had been bombing the center of Warsaw. “The position of Poland,” Raczyński said, was “getting bad with the delay.” What deadline, he asked, had Britain given the Germans? The noble lord replied that he was “not in a position” to divulge that information. The Pole was dumbfounded. If the Anglo-Polish alliance meant anything, the Poles were entitled to this vital information. He could not imagine why it was being withheld, never dreaming that a deadline could not be revealed because it did not exist. Yet Halifax knew the price of this last-ditch stand under the banner of appeasement, now stained with the blood of Austrians, Czechs, and Poles. To a fellow diplomat he acknowledged that “the moral effect of this delay on Poland [is] devastating.”192
The Germans were fully aware of the situation—and of their thin line of field gray facing France. Saturday evening two of Dirksen’s diplomats had approached Horace Wilson, asking what England’s attitude would be if the Wehrmacht pulled back; specifically, whether Britain would approve of a German road across the Polish Corridor and the incorporation of Danzig into the Reich. Glossing over the situation in Poland, where, after forty-two hours of enemy assault, Polish casualties were approaching 100,000, Chamberlain’s creature answered that once the Wehrmacht was back where it belonged, “the British Government would be prepared to let bygones be bygones.” His visitors had told him that the question was not asked lightly. It was a formal “proposal” from the Wilhelmstrasse.193
It wasn’t, nor could it have been; had Ribbentrop approved such a suggestion, and had Hitler heard of it, the Reich’s ambassador to the Court of St. James would have been repudiated, recalled, and sent to a Konzentrationslager. Why did Wilson not only listen to such tripe, but pass it along to the Foreign Office with an endorsement from No. 10? There is only one possible answer. It was still HMG’s policy to believe anything the Germans said and disregard reports critical of them. Göring denied that his Luftwaffe was bombing cities, thereby killing or maiming civilians. Kennard, His Majesty’s envoy in Warsaw, said it was happening all over Poland; he could see it from his embassy window. Halifax was doubtful. He asked for fuller accounts, adding: “In the meantime it is accepted Germans are attacking only military objectives.”194
Among the deeply troubled men in London that Saturday evening was Duff Cooper, formerly first lord of the Admiralty and now, by choice, a private member. After Parliament broke up, Cooper and his wife—the striking Lady Diana, a public figure in her
own right and much admired by Churchill—had walked along the Embankment to the Savoy. Cooper had dined here with Churchill the previous evening, and he was still fuming over an ugly exchange with the Duke of Westminster after they had parted. For over thirty years Winston and Bendor had been friends; but Westminster’s virulent anti-Semitism and his admiration for Hitler had ruptured their friendship. Cooper had encountered him while leaving the Savoy, and in his diary he recorded that the Duke began by “abusing the Jewish race” and “rejoicing that we were not yet at war,” adding “Hitler knew after all that we were his best friends.” Infuriated, Cooper had replied: “I hope that by tomorrow he will know we are his most implacable and ruthless enemies.”195
But this was tomorrow, and Duff Cooper’s hope had been dashed. He lacked appetite. As he stared morosely at his plate two junior members of the government, Harold Balfour, the under secretary for air, and Euan Wallace, the minister of transport, passed the table. Cooper asked Balfour whether he was still in office; the answer was a gesture “of shame and despair.” Wallace said nothing—later he explained that he was afraid that Cooper would cut him if he spoke—but he sent him word, via a waiter. The prime minister’s statement, he said, had taken “the whole Cabinet by surprise,” and they were demanding another meeting before midnight. Cooper was startled. The whole cabinet? Surely Wallace was exaggerating. Of course, there must have been some dissenters on the front bench, but it hardly seemed possible that the King’s first minister would abrogate a commitment to another nation in defiance of a unified cabinet. Duff Cooper, like Eden, knew the strength of Neville Chamberlain’s will, but Chamberlain was no Hitler. Wallace’s implication didn’t seem possible, Cooper thought, deciding that it wasn’t. Shortly after 10:00 P.M. a messenger brought him another note: Conservative MPs distressed by the afternoon’s events were meeting in Winston Churchill’s flat opposite Westminster Cathedral; Churchill would like him to join them. Asking Diana to excuse him, Duff Cooper hurried to the turnaround in front of the Savoy and hopped into a cab: “Number eleven Morpeth Mansions.”196
Eden, Sandys, Bracken, and Boothby were already there. Duff Cooper joined them “in a state of bewildered rage.” Churchill himself afterward wrote that “all expressed deep anxiety lest we should fail in our obligations to Poland,” but his account omits a basic disagreement over the course they should follow. If Churchill turned against the prime minister, Chamberlain’s government would fall, and that was what his guests wanted. Boothby, Duff Cooper recorded in his diary, thought the prime minister had “lost the Conservative Party forever”; it was, he said, “in Winston’s power to go to the House of Commons tomorrow and break him and take his place.” If Winston failed to act, that would save Chamberlain, which was unthinkable; Churchill would be given office, but at an exorbitant price: “In no circumstances now should Winston consent to serve under him.”197
The difficulty was that he already had, or thought he had. It was a nice point. The prime minister had offered him a place and he had accepted it. However, the place was to be in a War Cabinet. If there was no war there would be no office for Winston to hold; therefore he could not be part of the government and need not muffle his thunder. But Churchill, always sensitive about honor, believed that he must keep his word, even when, as in this case, it seemed unreasonable. His position was unmitigated by the fact that since their talk Chamberlain’s behavior had been anything but gentlemanly. Drawing Duff Cooper aside, he told him, according to Cooper’s diary, that he “considered that he had been very ill-treated, as he had agreed the night before to join the War Cabinet but throughout the day he had not heard a word from the Prime Minister.” He said he had “wished to speak” to the House that afternoon, but “feeling himself already almost a member of the Government had refrained from doing so.” Churchill’s grievance was real. Nevertheless, he refused to split the country. The public images of political leaders were often volatile. Chamberlain was down now, but until recently he had been a national hero. He represented peace, and it was hard to quarrel with that; if overthrown now he would be martyred, and a divided England would be no match for Hitler.198
Outside, an electrical storm was rising. Distant thunder became less distant; suddenly, the cars parked outside were wrapped in sheets of heavy rain, and a servant hurried around closing windows. To the others Churchill seemed “very undecided,” and Duff Cooper wrote that he “said that he had no wish to be Prime Minister, doubted his fitness for the position.” This has a hollow ring. Churchill had never doubted his aptitude for Parliament’s highest office and had been longing for it since the first decade of the century. It is, of course, very common for men confronted by the imminence of great responsibility to cloak themselves in humility. Winston, however, was not such a man. Perhaps Duff Cooper misunderstood him. It doesn’t fit. It is a riddle without solution, but then, it had been a day of riddles, the greatest being the prime minister’s behavior in the Commons.199
The men in Morpeth Mansions had many contacts, and they took turns phoning them. All cabinet ministers appeared to be unavailable. Churchill phoned the French embassy and “was told,” one of his guests wrote, “that all was well—that we should see the situation from quite a different angle tomorrow which sounded very ominous to us.” Whom Churchill had spoken to was unknown, but his source proved unreliable; at that hour no Frenchman, in the embassy or in France, knew what would happen in the morning. Other calls were made to senior civil servants. These yielded little. Eden, perplexed and disappointed, learned that he was scheduled to be Dominions secretary and excluded from the War Cabinet. According to Duff Cooper, “We all argued that Winston should refuse to serve unless Anthony was included in the War Cabinet as otherwise he would be a minority of one. Brendan pressed that he should also insist on my inclusion.” At length Churchill left them all and withdrew into another room. He told them he was going to write Chamberlain. Before sending the letter to No. 10, he would read it to them.200
The letter began with a subtle reproach: “I have not heard anything from you since our talks on Friday, when I understood that I was to serve as your colleague, and when you told me that this would be announced speedily.” In offering him office, he recalled, Chamberlain had said that war was inevitable. The recollection puzzled him: “I really do not know what has happened during the course of this agitated day; though it seems to me that entirely different ideas have ruled from those which you expressed to me when you said ‘the die was cast.’ ” He realized that “with this tremendous European situation changes in method may become necessary,” but felt “entitled to ask you to let me know how we stand, both publicly and privately, before the debate opens at noon.” This was neither an ultimatum nor even a warning, but the steel beneath the velvet was unmistakable, and so was the time limit. Chamberlain might give Hitler forever to respond; Churchill was giving Chamberlain till lunch. He went on to offer advice. With both Labour and the Liberals “estranged,” forming an effective war government would be “difficult.” The only solution, it seemed to Winston, was to reconcile the other two parties by offering to share power with them.201
That brought him to the uproar in Parliament. There was a “feeling… in the House,” he wrote, “that injury had been done to the spirit of national unity by the apparent weakening of our resolve.” Winston did not “underrate the difficulties you have with the French”—this was a shrewd guess—but England must reach her decision “independently, and thus give our French friends any lead that may be necessary.” To do that “we shall need the strongest and most integral combination” possible. Then came the final thrust: “I therefore ask that there should be no announcement of the composition of the War Cabinet until we have had our talk.” On Friday he had accepted Chamberlain’s offer without comment, but only after the prime minister had told him that Britain was going to war. Now the situation had changed, and Churchill was commenting, making conditions. He would enter the cabinet only if assured—before the deadline—that Chamberlain’s po
licy toward Nazi Germany was consistent with Churchillian principles. He added a final sentence: “As I wrote to you yesterday morning, I hold myself entirely at your disposal, with every desire to aid you in your task.” Then he signed his name and rejoined his guests.202
Unknown and unsuspected by any of the men in Churchill’s flat—including Duff Cooper, despite Wallace’s hint at the Savoy—Chamberlain’s cabinet was in a state of mutiny. To them his volte-face, coming only three hours after he had accepted their unanimous decision, was a gross betrayal. Everyone was in it, including Simon and Hoare. With the exception of Halifax, who had been absent during the afternoon meeting, they were the two most powerful men in the cabinet and the closest to the prime minister. As chancellor of the Exchequer, Simon, like Chamberlain, had a private room in Parliament. That was the mutineers’ headquarters, and there they chose Simon as their leader. “The Cabinet,” writes Robert Rhodes James, “was now in a state of acute tension.” The prime minister’s statement had left it, as one minister later recalled, “completely aghast.” Hore-Belisha told them: “We are weakening on our undertaking to Poland and the French are ratting.” The rebellious ministers intended to approach Chamberlain, but not to bargain with him; at No. 10 they had voted for an ultimatum to Germany, and they wanted it handed to Ribbentrop in Berlin now. Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, minister of agriculture, later recalled that they voted to march on Downing Street and deliver “a plain Diktat.”203
Simon was on the phone, trying to get through to No. 10. He couldn’t manage it. The house had been inhabited by prime ministers for over two hundred years, but now, it seemed, no one was home. The chancellor’s room was crowded; in Dorman-Smith’s words, “we got scruffier and sweatier,” but “my colleagues… had decided they would not leave that room until such time as war had been declared. As we sat there and waited by the phone and nothing happened, I felt like a disembodied spirit. It didn’t seem real; we were ‘on strike’—like those poor little miners down there, you know.” The dinner hour came and passed; there was no food, and the only water arrived in little cardboard cups borne by secretaries. At 9:00 P.M. Simon, Hore-Belisha, and two other ministers “sent PM a letter,” as Hore-Belisha put it, “rehearsing our points.” Eventually Simon was connected with Chamberlain, however, and they were all invited to No. 10. Outside it was raining, hard. Some had cars, some found cabs, some actually hitchhiked. “By now,” Dorman-Smith remembered, “all of us [were] actually scruffy and smelly, and it rather shook us to find Halifax, who had been dining with the PM, and Cadogan in evening clothes.”204