'This was their tightest hour'!

There is a play coming out in the next few days called Three Days in May by a new playwright to me called Ben Brown.  I hope and pray that it will do justice to its subject which is concerned with perhaps the most momentous decision ever taken inside No. 10 Downing Street.  On May 7th 1940, the House of Commons began a 2-day debate on a vote of censure tabled by the opposition Labour party against the government led by Neville Chamberlain.  He was already 'walking wounded' because of the self-inflicted damage caused by what his critics saw as his years of feeble appeasement in the face of Hitler's aggression.  Interestingly, given the leech-like characteristics of today's politicians who cling to office on the slenderest of majorities, Chamberlain won with a majority of 81 votes, although a united Tory party would have given him 213 vote majority.  Churchill, despite his pre-war years of lonely and vociferously critical opposition to Chamberlain, had been invited into the new war cabinet as First Lord and he now found himself in the exceedingly delicate position of defending a prime minister whom he had attacked non-stop in the last few years.  He did so with enormous vigor and whilst his detractors might point to what they see as his slippery past behavior - which Churchill, himself, described as 'ratting not once but twice' when alluding to his two previous changes of political party allegiance - they cannot fault him on this occasion when his loyalty to Chamberlain was punctilious.  However, the damage was done and Chamberlain, despite the majority, knew he had to go and on May 9th he invited Churchill and Lord Halifax to Downing Street and the stage was set for what I believe was the most critically important decision ever taken inside that historic building since it was first used as the prime minister's residence and place of business.

The situation was perilous with British troops engaged in a futile operation in Norway and ominous indications that Germany was poised to deliver the long awaited blow in the west against France and Britain.  Churchill, whose prognostications over previous years had been proven all too accurate, was an obvious successor, but there was another man with a well-founded claim to the leadership of Britain at this dangerous moment - Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary.  It is all too easy to paint him as yet another appeaser, and indeed, he was at first very supportive of Chamberlain's efforts to placate Hitler.  But, after he succeeded Anthony Eden as Foreign Secretary, when Eden resigned in disgust at Chamberlain's policies, Halifax soon toughened his stance.  He it was who offered Poland a guarantee which, in the circumstances, was tantamount to a declaration of war with Germany.  Even so, his perceived links with the shameful Munich agreement - of which at the time most of the British people approved! - plus the lack of support for him in large parts of the Tory party made the possibility of his premiership very difficult.

During the meeting between Chamberlain, Churchill and Halifax, the prime minister admitted that he no longer enjoyed sufficient support to lead the country.  He then asked the other two, in general terms, "whom he should advise the King to send for after his own resignation had been accepted?"  At that point an extraordinary occurrence took place - Churchill, perhaps the most loquacious and certainly the most eloquent man in British politics, stood silent and uttered not a single word.  The silence lengthened and lengthened until the tension must have been unbearable.  Finally, it was Halifax who spoke and admitted that his position as a member of the House of Lords would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to lead the country at this moment of great peril.  And so Churchill it was!

However, the appeasement streak in Halifax remained and resurfaced later in the month when the disaster in France was becoming all too apparent.  He suggested, and was supported by Chamberlain, that an approach should be made to Hitler via Mussolini to explore ways and means of reaching a peace agreement.  And it is at that precise point that one of the very greatest 'what ifs' of history arises.  Regular readers of this blog will know of my adherence to a strict policy of real-politik.  In May 1940, the reality for Britain was the imminence of an unmitigated military defeat.  France was visibly crumbling and our own army was racing to the beaches in hope of rescue.  Italy was poised to join in on the Axis side in order, hyena-like, to pick up the scraps and their entry to the war would make our position in the Mediterranean, the fast route to the east, extremely difficult.  Meanwhile Japan remained inscrutable but ominous!  By any measure of real-politik, Halifax was surely correct in his analysis.  Cut a deal with Hitler and hope that his obvious antipathy to the communist Soviets would lead him into eastern adventures - as indeed it did - whilst we continued with our re-armament as fast as possible.  I am ashamed to say that had I been somewhat older than my one year at the time, I suspect I might have been very sympathetic to the Halifax policy.  But, as we now know, at the time we were led by one of the greatest romantics of our history.  Winston Churchill forever allowed his heart to rule his head, or to be more exact, he followed his well-tuned instincts and relied on his deep knowledge of history to guide our affairs.  Above all, he had an extraordinary belief in us, the British people.  We didn't deserve it!  Our support for appeasement before the war and our extreme reluctance to re-arm in face of an obvious threat was simply an early example of the sort of pusillanimity which has now become commonplace in our feeble national character.

The bitter truth is, we did not deserve Winston Churchill!

Comments

[JK]

I've a question David. The reason I ask is because I don't recall the name of the port - except that it was on Africa's northern coast and the French fleet was at anchor. Churchill (I seem to recall) gave the order to - more or less - have the English fleet destroy [or at least keep it out of the Hun's hands] the French fleet.

How much time elapsed between the decision you describe and the action in North Africa?

[David Duff]

Mers el Kabir, about 2 months after Churchill was in the job:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K%C3%A9bir

Now that was real 'real-politik'!

[JK]

Now I suppose I should admit an ulterior motive for the question - though I could not with full honesty recall the complete details when I earlier "proclaimed" an explanation for my remark about the Japanese facing "a single foe" where the Australians and the New Zealanders were concerned. Those brave men were "land forces" which does not detract from the ultimate.

My greater point was that it took a former,er, 'Naval Person' which Churchill obviously had some familiarity with - to determine the degree of imperatives.

That singular meeting David - I think - has more significance than any of us are able to fully even in hindsight appreciate.

Good post.

[dearieme]

In the nature of things we shall never know whether Churchill was right or wrong. Suppose the UK strikes a deal with Hitler, Hitler careers east, the two monstrous regimes have a ten years war, Britain doesn't hand all its early scoping work on the A-bomb to the Yanks but develops it itself, succeeds, and ends up in a very powerful position, instead of as a ruined heap. But on the other hand, if the ten years war takes only two years......

[David Duff]

As I said, DM, one of the greatest 'what ifs' of history. I suspect that a Soviet-German war in your scenario would have lasted very much less than 2 years. The kerfuffle in the Balkans, instigated by British manipulations, would not have happened and thus the German attack would not have been delayed and they would have reached Moscow before the rains and snow bogged them down. Had Moscow fallen, how long would Stalin have lasted?

If I am right, Germany would have had total control of the European land mass and then he would have turned once again towards Britain, but this time with the Atlantic ports (and the French fleet, as JK mentions above) under his control and he could have slowly strangled us into submission. And that, in essence, was why Churchill was right to fight on, and why Grey was equally right in 1914. On the whole I prefer our gentle decline into a second or even third rate status via historical memories of great and honourable achievements rather than shame-inducing surrenders.

[JK]

Too David, though few - despite the loss of the viewable surface ships - there are those English SSBNs. Perhaps smacking that French one awhile back was something Churchill imagined "might" occur.

On the whole, I'm kind of glad the fellow chose to be part American. But I do wish "Hank" would weigh in.

[David Duff]

Sorry, JK, the meaning of your elliptical first paragraph eludes me - again! SSBNs - eh?

[JK]

Subsurface ship [submarine] ballistic - nuclear.

A submarine equipped with nuclear-warhead missiles - nuclear powered. Your's are normally based in or around Scotland.

[Andra]

And my SSBN's aren't based anywhere because we cleverly bought a whole bunch of Collins class submarines from some used-car salesman somewhere and I don't think any of them have ever worked for one minute.
I could be wrong but maybe not by much.

[Andra]

Excellent post Duff.
You've earned your payola today.

[David Duff]

Thank you, Andra, and rest assured I was not the used car salesman who sold you the subs!

Yes, JK, I know what an SSBN is, but what is the connection to the post?

[dearieme]

Hm, on second thoughts I'm not sure that Churchill did play the odds. Once it was clear that the French were not going to put up a dogged performance to match that of their previous round against the Boche, it's not obvious how on earth Britain could get out of its pickle. If it really needed Hitler to decide to attack the USSR before knocking off Britain - simultaneously a year or two too early and a few weeks too late - and later to declare war on the USA, it was a long, long shot. Anything else would have been a long shot too. The prospects were unutterably grim.

[JK]

That the French would continue to be fickle without an occasional bump. Of course bumping two nuke subs in the southern reaches of the Channel is probably kinda iffy.

[David Duff]

I don't think Churchill ever "played the odds", DM, he just followed his instincts. By comparison, Halifax did try and work out the odds and given how grim they were he decided it was a better bet to cut a deal with Hitler. Remember, it was not just the fall of France that had the government worried but the fall of Britain because an invasion was considered to be a serious and imminenet risk. From a realist's point of view Halifax was surely right - although the terms of any peace deal with Hitler would probably have been onerous. Churchill went for the idealistic, or perhaps 'romantic', view and, as we now know, fortune favoured the brave!

[ortega]

'I suspect I might have been very sympathetic to the Halifax policy'

How often that happens when one looks back! And how very few times we recognize it! Good for you.

Another what if. Had Churchill and Hitler both died in 1938, the second would have probably been remembered as the greatest german statesman ever and Churchill as the Alcibiades of the First WW. Agree?

[Hank]

David

I suspect that if Brittan and Germany reached a peace and Germany attacked the Soviet Union it would be optimistic to call it a ten year war.

As you noted the German Army would probably have captured Moscow. Then what?

That is one big country. Their political apparatus did not depend on being in an historical location, the political center would have gone east. There was much industry East of there. Where it would have hurt is that Moscow was, and pretty much still is , the transportation hub of the country.* The shortest way to send anything is through Moscow.

The Soviets would have had enough cohesion, economy, etc to avoid defeat, and would be too spread out to be defeated, the campaign would have stalemated for years. At least until the Soviets built a new railroad well to east of Moscow to concentrate units at a key location.

Politically neither side could afford to surrender and would not have had the strength to force a victory. But yours and ours could have pumped up our economies selling both sides war supplies.

* While it is hard to see looking at a map that does not show railroads and paved roads, the Soviets had what is called the “advantage of interior lines” as long as they held Moscow. They could easily move things from one part of the line another where the Germans often had to go back to Poland.

[David Duff]

Indeed, in the Soviet empire 'all roads, and rails, led to Moscow'. If that had fallen they would have been in a shambles and their C3 would have been minimal. I suspect that their leadership would have fallen out like rats in a sack and if the Germans had had a better policy towards the 'liberated'(!) Russians and given them a 'Vichy'-style government in Moscow then it might have ended up with Russian against Russian.

Ah, the ifs, the buts and the maybes of history!