Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions That Changed the World, 1940-1941 Read online

  By the time the War Cabinet resumed its deliberations on a possible approach to Mussolini on the afternoon of the following day, 28 May, therefore, the British ministers knew of the rejection of Roosevelt’s intercession and were confronted with the sombre news of the Belgian capitulation, which had taken place in the early hours. This had left British troops retreating to Dunkirk dangerously exposed, as Chamberlain had recognized. It was now a desperate struggle to hold off the Germans so as to allow the retreat to continue. ‘Prospects of the B.E.F. look blacker than ever,’ Cadogan noted. ‘Awful days!’109 All day, as Churchill later recalled, ‘the escape of the British Army hung in the balance’. For many of the French troops also trying to reach Dunkirk it was too late. Cut off and encircled west of Lille, they were forced to surrender.110

  The members of the War Cabinet now had to consider a request from Paris for a new Anglo-French approach to Mussolini. At Daladier’s suggestion, the French Council of Ministers, reacting in a somewhat panicky late-night session to the news of Belgium’s surrender, had agreed to make concrete, and unilateral, proposals to Rome in a desperate attempt to keep Italy out of the war. The French government then thought better of a unilateral proposal and postponed an approach until London had been consulted.111 This was the proposal now facing the British War Cabinet, prompting what Chamberlain described as a ‘rather sharp discussion’.112

  The alternatives sharply voiced by Churchill and Halifax the previous day remained in the foreground.113 Halifax had learned, he reported, that he had made no progress in his meeting with Bastianini three days earlier, ‘and that the position was hopeless’. However, Sir Robert Vansittart, whose initiative had led to that meeting, had subsequently discovered that the Italian embassy had had in mind ‘a clear indication that we should like to see mediation by Italy’. Churchill immediately retorted that ‘the French were trying to get us on to the slippery slope’ of having Mussolini act as an intermediary between Britain and Hitler, and ‘he was determined not to get into this position’. The situation would be entirely different, he added, once Germany had made an unsuccessful attempt to invade Britain.

  Chamberlain was veering closer to Churchill’s position, though, unlike the Prime Minister, he viewed the continuation of the war not as the path to ultimate victory, but as the basis to attain a better compromise peace.114 Privately regarding the French proposal as ‘derisory in itself and inopportune’,115 he pointed out to his Cabinet colleagues that any concessions made to Italy, such as Malta and Gibraltar, could only form part of a general settlement with Germany. Concessions to Italy which left Germany in the war would have no value to Britain. Greenwood and Sinclair concurred in Chamberlain’s scepticism about acceptable terms coming from any mediation by Mussolini. Halifax did not disagree, and indeed remarked in his diary on the futility of any further approach to the Italian dictator.116 But, even if the ‘hypothesis was a most unlikely one’, he repeated to the War Cabinet his suggestion of the previous day, that if Mussolini ‘wished to play the part of mediator, and that he could produce terms which would not affect our independence, he thought that we ought to be prepared to consider such terms’. He went on to suggest that Britain ‘might get better terms before France went out of the war and our aircraft factories were bombed, than we might get in three months’ time’.

  At this juncture, Churchill read out a draft reply to Reynaud, expressing his own views.117 It was clear to him that Reynaud wanted to use Mussolini’s mediation ‘to get us to the Conference-table with Herr Hitler’. But if Britain once began negotiations, ‘we should then find that the terms offered us touched our independence and integrity. When, at this point, we got up to leave the Conference-table, we should find that all the forces of resolution which were now at our disposal would have vanished.’ Chamberlain, increasingly in harmony with the Prime Minister, spoke in agreement with Churchill’s draft, though he suggested some wording amendments to make it more acceptable to the French. The main thrust of his suggestion was, nevertheless, along the lines that Churchill had proposed: that Britain felt she could hold out, and, if so, would obtain better terms than if she became involved in negotiations with Mussolini from a position of weakness.

  With the tide in the War Cabinet now flowing strongly in his favour, Churchill returned forcefully to the essence of his argument. ‘Signor Mussolini,’ he said, ‘if he came in as mediator, would take his whack out of us. It was impossible to imagine that Herr Hitler would be so foolish as to let us continue our re-armament. In effect, his terms would put us completely at his mercy. We should get no worse terms if we went on fighting, even if we were beaten, than were open to us now.’

  It was a powerful point. Halifax intervened, somewhat weakly, to say ‘that he still did not see what there was in the French suggestion of trying out the possibilities of mediation which the Prime Minister felt was so wrong’. Chamberlain, for his part, did not see what there was to lose by openly stating that Britain would fight to the end to preserve her independence, but ‘would be ready to consider decent terms if such were offered to us’. He pointed out, however, ‘that the alternative to fighting on nevertheless involved a considerable gamble’. Churchill declared, with more feeling than reason, ‘that the nations which went down fighting rose again, but those which surrendered tamely were finished’, and said ‘that the chances of decent terms being offered to us at the present time were a thousand to one against’. Chamberlain, again cautiously and somewhat ambivalently, agreed with Halifax’s basic assertion on obtaining terms, but added that an offer of decent terms was so unlikely that Britain should not follow Reynaud’s suggestion of an approach to Mussolini. He was keen, however, not to reject the French proposal outright, since he did not want France to give up the struggle, and thought there was a possibility of circumstances changing, even within a short time, that might alter the British stance. After more than two hours of discussion, the meeting adjourned at 6.15 p.m. for three-quarters of an hour.

  It was an important interval. Churchill took the opportunity to address the ministers who were not members of the War Cabinet. He referred to the meeting in his memoirs. He had seen little of his colleagues outside the War Cabinet since the formation of his government, and now thought it proper to give them an account of the course of events and state of the conflict. Whether, beyond this, he had arranged the meeting to outflank the opposition in the War Cabinet and gain wider support for the uncompromising position he had adopted on the question of an approach to Mussolini is not clear. But that is, in the event, what he attained. After the difficult discussions in the War Cabinet he was now able to advance, unfettered and in full rhetorical flourish, his own convictions, and in front of an audience already at least in part predisposed to accept them.118

  Twenty-five or so ministers of varying political persuasion, by no means all fervent or long-standing supporters of the Prime Minister, crowded around the table in Churchill’s room in the House of Commons. Even if they lacked detailed information, all were aware of the depth of the crisis unfolding across the Channel. They sensed what was at stake. The tension was palpable. Churchill lost no opportunity of exploiting the heightened atmosphere. One of those present, the Minister for Economic Warfare and senior Labour figure, Hugh Dalton, thought Churchill ‘magnificent’ at the meeting: ‘the man, and the only man we have, for this hour.’ It was a splendid, morale-boosting speech, even though Churchill still reckoned with bringing back only around 50,000 soldiers from Dunkirk and thought the rescue of 100,000 would be ‘a magnificent performance’. Dalton recalled a key point made by Churchill, one he would make in the War Cabinet: ‘It was idle to think that, if we tried to make peace now, we should get better terms from Germany than if we went on and fought it out. The Germans would demand our fleet–that would be called "disarmament’’–our naval bases, and much else. We should become a slave state, though a British government which would be Hitler’s puppet would be set up–"under Mosley or some such person’’.’119

  T
owards the end of his address, Churchill declared: ‘Of course, whatever happens at Dunkirk, we shall fight on.’ He knew how bleak the news still was from Dunkirk. By the end of that day, 28 May, a mere 17,000 troops had been rescued. (Only in the following days did the numbers swell to over 50,000 a day.) But his resilience appealed to his attentive audience. He was taken by surprise by the reaction of the experienced parliamentarians from different points on the political spectrum.

  Quite a number seemed to jump up from the table and come running to my chair, shouting and patting me on the back. There is no doubt that had I at this juncture faltered at all in the leading of the nation I should have been hurled out of office. I was sure that every Minister was ready to be killed quite soon, and have all his family and possessions destroyed, rather than give in. In this they represented the House of Commons and almost all the people.120

  Within the hour, he was reporting back to the War Cabinet on the reaction. His colleagues, he said, had ‘expressed the greatest satisfaction when he had told them that there was no chance of our giving up the struggle’. He did not recall, he said, ‘having ever before heard a gathering of persons occupying high places in political life express themselves so emphatically’. While Halifax and Chamberlain had been preparing the new draft reply to Reynaud, Churchill had been garnering support for his stance. He had now won the day. There was no further opposition from Halifax. Churchill expressed himself content with the draft reply to Reynaud which Chamberlain read out. But when Halifax raised the question of an appeal to President Roosevelt, which Reynaud had also wanted the Allies to make, Churchill was firm. He thought an appeal to the United States at the present time would be ‘altogether premature’. Once more, his political reasoning followed psychological instinct. ‘A bold stand against Germany’ would command the admiration and respect of the United States; ‘but a grovelling appeal, if made now, would have the worst possible effect.’121

  Later that evening the reply went off to Reynaud. The wording had been redrafted by Chamberlain and Halifax, and agreed by all the War Cabinet.122 Its sentiments were, however, those of Churchill himself. As Chamberlain had advocated, the reply did not rule out the possibility of an approach to Mussolini ‘at some time’, though it explicitly did so in the current situation.123 It saw improvement coming only through continuing the struggle, which would ‘at once strengthen our hands in negotiations and draw admiration and perhaps the material help of the U.S.A.’ If Britain and France continued to hold out, it concluded, ‘we may yet save ourselves from the fate of Denmark and Poland’.124

  In fact, despite the British rejection of an approach to Mussolini, the French government decided to make their own, unilateral offer. It was treated with outright contempt in Rome.125 Mussolini was set on war, not peaceful negotiation. France was on the verge of defeat, at the hands of Germany. Mussolini wanted the easiest and cheapest route to his share of the glory and the spoils. He duly declared war on France on 10 June (a decision that will be explored fully in Chapter 4 below). The French ambassador in Rome, M. François-Poncet, aptly described it, when being given the news by the Italian Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, as ‘a dagger-blow at a man who has already fallen’.126 A week later, France capitulated.

  The British government had reckoned since the middle of May with the prospect of having to continue the fight in the face of French defeat, in the hope of holding out until the United States might decide to help (of which there was no guarantee at all). But what it had not expected was ‘the miracle of Dunkirk’. The loss of almost all the British Expeditionary Force had been taken into every calculation in late May. It was under this presumption that the crucial political decision, whose making we have followed, was taken. Only once that decision had been arrived at did it gradually become clear, over the following days, that the armada of small boats–hundreds of them–which had shuttled backwards and forwards across the English Channel had succeeded beyond anyone’s hopes in what had seemed an impossible mission. Despite their exposure for days to relentless bombing, practically the whole of the British army (and many Allied soldiers) that had served in northern France had been rescued from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk–by 4 June 224,301 British and 111,172 French and Belgian troops.127 That day Churchill was able to tell the House of Commons of the ‘miracle of deliverance’ at Dunkirk in a stirring speech, reaching its rhetorical climax in his famous, ringing declaration: ‘We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…’128 The warmth and enthusiasm with which his patriotic address was received, in the wake of a colossal military calamity that the ‘deliverance of Dunkirk’ had managed to turn into even a sort of triumph, was an important moment in the elevation of Churchill’s public standing, and the regard for his qualities as an indomitable wartime leader.

  The Churchill who emerged from the Dunkirk crisis now stood head and shoulders above his colleagues in the War Cabinet. On 6 June he could tell them with unchallengeable authority that ‘in no circumstances whatsoever would the British Government participate in any negotiations for armistice or peace’.129 This had not been the case during the political crisis to determine Britain’s war strategy during the very days when the fortunes of the army stranded at Dunkirk seemed at their darkest.

  V

  In one sense, the outcome of the vital, intense and occasionally heated deliberations of those few days from 25 to 28 May was to alter nothing. Britain was already at war with Hitler’s Germany, and now simply continued to stay in the fight. It was a choice, nonetheless: indeed, a most crucial choice to reject an alternative, that of a pathway to negotiations with Hitler which would have taken Britain out of the war with untold but profound consequences.

  To be sure, not even Lord Halifax, the main spokesman for exploring the possibilities of Italian mediation towards a peace settlement, contemplated Britain’s capitulation, or a settlement on terms which would have been harmful to the country’s independence. Halifax was as adamant as Churchill, whatever their differences, that Britain’s freedom must be preserved. This objective was shared by all members of the War Cabinet. How to attain that end was what divided the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary.

  Nor was it a matter of patriotic defiance and Churchillian ‘bulldog spirit’ prevailing over weakness and defeatism. Halifax was no less a patriot. And he was prepared to fight on, if that was the only way. But his reasoned position was that fighting on, with the unquestionably high sacrifices that would entail, did not necessarily amount to the only course of action available to Britain. He was, therefore, impatient with Churchill’s talk of going down fighting when alternatives had not been explored. For all that Churchill spoke with passion and emotion, however, and in ways that irritated the more coldly rational Halifax, his case was nevertheless underpinned by reason and logic. The other members of the War Cabinet, most notably Chamberlain, were ultimately brought behind the Prime Minister’s position, rather than that of Halifax, because Churchill had the better arguments.130

  Halifax wanted to test the waters, to see whether Italian mediation might pave the way for a general settlement. He thought it unlikely; but he did not wish to see the possibility left untried. Any attempt would in reality have been significantly to overestimate Mussolini’s influence on Hitler. This had waned greatly since his intervention had paved the way for the Munich Agreement in 1938. Churchill himself would apparently not have been opposed, as he indicated during the sessions of the War Cabinet, to an attempt to buy off Italy at the cost of some British possessions in the Mediterranean, or even, so he said at one point, to settle for German supremacy in central and eastern Europe if it would get Britain ‘out of the mess’.131 But especially once Roosevelt’s overture on behalf of the Allies had been so contemptuously rebuffed, he thought any approach to Mussolini was futile. Worse than that, it would leave Britain on ‘a slippery slope’. Chamberlain, as the crisis wore on the k
ey figure in the divide between the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary,132 accepted this, as did Attlee and Greenwood. Once an opening to negotiations–meaning not just with Mussolini, but also with Hitler–had been made, it had consequences, for Britain’s international standing, and for morale at home. Hitler’s position, given the mighty inroads his army had made in France, was extremely strong. He would make demands, almost certainly stretching beyond the return of former German colonies, which would leave Britain seriously weakened and her independence as a power threatened.

  Halifax’s view was that, in such an eventuality, Britain could withdraw from negotiations. Churchill, backed increasingly by the other members of the War Cabinet, pointed to the irreparable damage that would already have been done, even by the readiness to contemplate the inevitable concessions which entry into negotiations meant. It would be as good as impossible to resuscitate fighting morale among the population when it had been realized that the government had been prepared to entertain terms. And the concessions, as Churchill pointed out, would not merely be confined to a few pieces of territory, though satisfying Mussolini’s demands alone would have severely weakened Britain’s position in the Mediterranean and Middle East. A puppet government would be set up within the country. Britain’s effective disarmament would unquestionably also be a condition. The navy would probably have to be given up, or placed under German tutelage.133 There would be no possibility of rebuilding defences in the air or on land. Britain would consequently, even retaining nominal independence, be at Germany’s mercy; subordinated without putting up a fight. Even if the navy were to be spirited away to Canada, and the royal family and government into exile, the likelihood of the United States rushing to Britain’s aid would have been much diminished, and the focus of the Empire’s resistance to Hitler removed. Churchill could persuasively argue, therefore, that no terms which Hitler was likely to offer Britain would be acceptable. They would not be worse if Britain had fought and lost than if she had not fought at all. Hence, he could reach the conclusion that to fight courageously and be defeated had few, if any, disadvantages, and the distinct advantage that it would provide moral encouragement to Britain’s friends in the world, in the Empire and Dominions, and in the United States, to continue the fight.