The Last Lion

by William Manchester

  Churchill, enthused by the Eighth Army’s gallant stand, but impatient as always, pestered Brooke for an early offensive stroke by Montgomery. Churchill, Brooke told his diary, “started all his worst arguments about generals only thinking about themselves and their reputations and never attacking until matters were a certainty.” Monty, not yet prepared to go on the offensive, stood his ground, against both Rommel and Churchill. And so Churchill, too, learned what Rommel had gleaned at Alam-el Halfa.314

  Early October brought messages from Stalin that worrisomely implied a deteriorating Red Army position. The Luftwaffe had established a two-to-one air superiority in Russia. Stalin requested five hundred fighter planes per month—more than 10 percent of American production—to remedy the situation. Implicit in the Luftwaffe’s air superiority was verification of Stalin’s argument that RAF bombing of Western Europe had done nothing to take the pressure off Russia. In fact, the Americans had yet to drop a single bomb on Germany, whereas the Luftwaffe by early October had destroyed most of Stalingrad.

  Paulus’s Sixth Army had been fighting within the city limits for a month and had destroyed the Red October and Tractor factories. All that remained for Hitler to secure his victory was for Paulus to reach the banks of the Volga and hold his ground. The possibility of Stalin negotiating a separate peace with Germany once again dominated Churchill’s thoughts. Montgomery, meanwhile, was not yet ready to attack in the desert. The tanks he needed had been sent to Russia, but not enough to placate Stalin, who asked for eight thousand more per month, far more than America produced. In the Atlantic, the U-boats were still sending more tonnage to the bottom than the Allies could replace. With the need to deploy all available destroyers out to protect the Torch fleet, which was then readying to sail from America and Britain, no further convoys to Russia could be contemplated. Stalin, in need of 500,000 tons of supplies per month (about seventy shiploads), accused the British again, as he had in the summer, of stealing food, weapons, and matériel that the Red Army needed. As if to validate Stalin’s paranoia, the British and Americans canceled the October convoy to Murmansk, this after Stalin pleaded for more help. The situation in the Mediterranean was no better. Malta was down to less than two weeks’ supply of food, leading Brooke to lament to his diary, “God knows how we shall keep Malta alive.” Churchill, meanwhile, prodded Brooke to prod Alexander and Montgomery into launching their attack, well before they were ready, in Brooke’s estimation. To his diary, Brooke offered, “It is a regular disease he [Churchill] suffers from, this frightful impatience to get an attack launched.”315

  As Churchill waited for the curtain to go up in Egypt, Eleanor Roosevelt arrived in London for a three-week visit. Like Harriman, she came bearing a Virginia ham. During her stay she and Clementine conducted exhaustive (and exhausting) tours of wrecked neighborhoods, RAF bases, and air-raid shelters. When she met with a contingent of black American troops, she “liked it when their officer, white, insisted that his men were the best in the army.” The First Lady, a political activist, was the sort of woman men of Churchill’s generation usually beheld from afar, other than when the suffragettes had pushed their way into manly venues where they did not belong. Churchill understood Mrs. Roosevelt to be politically significant, and not merely because she was the wife of the president. A Gallup poll had found that for every two Americans who thought the First Lady talked too much, three “approved of her courage and ability to speak out.” Eleanor Roosevelt regularly and with passion advised her husband on matters of policy, including the matter of blacks serving alongside whites in the U.S. military. Her prodding in that regard had brought results. George Marshall pledged to Roosevelt that blacks would make up 10 percent of the troops sent to Britain.316

  That ratio engendered resentment among many of the 90 percent of American troops who served alongside blacks. Eden tried to persuade Eisenhower to cease the influx of black soldiers, not because HMG or Britons harbored racist beliefs but because white Americans were regularly beating the hell out of black Americans on the streets of London. And the need to find separate quarters for black and white Americans placed a further burden on the atrophied stocks of housing. Eisenhower was only obeying a directive from the Adjutant General’s Office that ordered “wherever possible separate sleeping accommodations be provided for Negro soldiers” but in all other regards they be treated as the equals of white soldiers. In fact, they were not. American dining facilities were segregated; black American women were brought over to staff the roving Red Cross canteens that served blacks. The British people, for the most part, accepted blacks in their midst more readily than did the Americans, especially American officers, all of whom were white and many of whom refused to dine in restaurants that served blacks. British villagers were especially welcoming of the blacks. One pub owner, disgusted by the behavior of white Americans, placed a sign in his window: “For the use of the British and coloured Americans only.” But in London, to placate white Yanks (who were flush with dollars), many restaurants banned black Americans, and by doing so inadvertently closed the doors on British citizens. When a black official from the Colonial Office was refused service at his favorite restaurant after American officers complained to the proprietor, the repercussions reached all the way to the cabinet, where, after pondering the incident, Churchill commented, “That’s all right, if he brings a banjo they’ll think he’s one of the band.”317

  Something other than precise analysis affected Churchill’s opinions of all peoples other than English-speaking. He shared with the Western press and much of the English-speaking world a condescending attitude toward people who were of other than Anglo-Saxon ancestry. Churchill’s memos, his dinner-table asides, even his public addresses, are rife with references to Japs, Wops, Frogs, and Huns, often modified with such choice adjectives as “foul,” “filthy,” “wretched,” and “nasty.” His friends, family, and colleagues expressed themselves likewise: Sir Alexander Cadogan’s diary entries are xenophobic romps, peppered with demeaning references to just about everybody of any nationality other than English—this from the permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, responsible during the war for vetting the legal niceties of Britain’s foreign affairs, including the wording of the Atlantic Charter, parent document to the United Nations. Cadogan considered the Slavs to be “poor dears,” the Iraqis “filthy,” and the Japanese “monkeys.” The usually polite and progressive Harold Nicolson referred to “the Japanese” when he contemplated Japan in his diary, until, that is, Japan began trouncing the British in Asia, after which Nicolson wrote of the “monkey men.” Lord Cherwell despised Jews. Even Clementine could demean with the best of them. In a late 1941 letter to Winston, who at the time was America-bound on board the Duke of York, Clementine wrote words of encouragement: “Well my beloved Winston—May God keep you and inspire you to make good plans with the president. It’s a horrible World at present, Europe over-run by the Nazi hogs, & the Far East by yellow Japanese lice…. Tender Love & thoughts, Clemmie.” Such were the times.318

  Churchill called peoples of African ancestry “blackamoors,” and he didn’t much like them. Once, late in life, he asked his physician, Lord Moran, what happened when blacks got measles; could the rash be spotted? When Moran replied that blacks suffered a high mortality rate from measles, Churchill offered, “Well there are plenty left. They’ve got a high rate of production.” When, during his second premiership, his cabinet debated the adoption of new laws limiting West Indian immigration, Churchill proposed his suggestion for a national motto: “Keep England White.”319

  The First Lady therefore arrived in England during a difficult period for race relations. Normally, she would have spoken her mind. But to the relief of Secretary of War Stimson, her behavior in Britain was “very temperate.” She was there to improve morale, not to reform the armed forces. Speaking her mind to Churchill was another matter. When, during a dinner at No. 10, the First Lady took him to task for first backing Franco and then, after Franco showed his Fascist s
tripes, not backing the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War, Churchill growled that had the Loyalists won, the first heads to roll would belong to people such as herself and her husband. Mrs. Roosevelt responded by saying she didn’t care whether she lost her head. “Well,” Churchill snarled, “I don’t want to lose mine.” Clementine did not help matters when she offered that Mrs. Roosevelt was correct. As Churchill fumed, Clementine separated the combatants, announcing that it was time for the ladies to adjourn to the sitting room and leave the men alone with their brandies and cigars. Of her dining experiences with Churchill, Mrs. Roosevelt later wrote, “I found the P.M. not easy to talk to.”320

  Churchill’s behavior could be forgiven given the events unfolding in the Atlantic and in the desert, although in truth he had treated Mrs. Roosevelt no differently than any guest. Of dining with Churchill, Harold Nicolson wrote, “Winston is bad at putting people at ease…. There is a mask of boredom and another mask or film of obstinacy, as if he were saying, ‘These people bore me and I shall refuse to be polite.’ ” Yet, suddenly Churchill would “cease thinking of something else, and the film will part and the sun comes out.” The First Lady saw the sun come out at Chequers, when she was treated to the spectacle of Churchill playing with his two-year-old grandson, little Winston. “They sat on the floor,” she later wrote, “and played a game and the resemblance was ridiculous.” The scene reminded her of the story of the lady who, catching sight of Churchill and little Winston, remarked to Churchill on the resemblance. Churchill looked up and replied, “You are quite wrong, I resemble every baby.” He also showed the First Lady a room that he intended to have redecorated in order to accommodate the special needs of her husband, who, Churchill hoped, would soon visit England.321

  Late on the moonlit night of October 23, almost a thousand pieces of British heavy artillery commenced firing along the El Alamein front. The barrage, which continued into the early hours of the twenty-fourth, served notice to Erwin Rommel that Bernard Montgomery was on his way. At first light, the Highlanders screamed their ancient battle cry, Caberfeidh,* as the skirl of their bagpipes rent the silence. They attacked through the blowing grit of a dry desert dawn. By daylight, the Eighth Army—190,000 men, 1,400 anti-tank guns, and almost 1,000 tanks—smashed into Rommel’s lines across a six-mile front. The tanks soon stopped while sappers cleared narrow paths—just wide enough to accommodate tank treads—through the half million landmines Rommel had buried at his front. It soon became apparent that the British possessed too few sappers and too few mine detectors. But overall, numbers were with the British. On the northern, coastal end of the German lines (Montgomery’s real objective), the XV Panzer Corps was outnumbered at least six to one, in both tanks and men. Panzer Army Africa, more than half of which was made up of Italians, was outmanned and outgunned by almost two to one. To make matters worse for the Germans, Rommel had taken a sick leave weeks earlier and was at that moment resting in a hospital bed in Semmering, a lovely town perched on the pine-forested slopes of the southern Austrian Alps, as far removed from the war as any hamlet in Europe. At about noon, Hitler telephoned Rommel personally with the news from North Africa. “The situation looks very black,” the Führer offered. “Would you be willing to go back?”322

  Rommel’s replacement in the field, General Georg Stumme, had assumed the British would attack the southern end of his lines, thirty miles from the sea, in part because the terrain was more favorable and in part because Montgomery had positioned three dummy regiments in the south and had begun construction of a dummy waterline to the dummy forces. Stumme, in turn, lacked the gasoline to move his tanks about at will, north to south and back. He would have to stand and fight where he was. By late morning, under the onslaught of RAF fighters and Montgomery’s massed artillery, Stumme found himself completely cut off from almost all of his forces and commanders, north and south. By day’s end, Stumme was dead, felled by a massive coronary. Montgomery’s field guns raked the German panzer deployments, to horrific effect. Artillery, as Churchill had urged a year earlier, had finally found its place on the desert battlefield. Rommel, returning on October 25 to find a rout in progress, stanched his ruptured lines enough to blunt Montgomery’s initial thrusts. Rommel placed his Italian infantry between German mechanized units, in part to protect the Italians, in part to ensure that they remained on the battlefield. Yet unless he was resupplied, his diminishing numbers of men, tanks, aircraft, and artillery could only add up to retreat. He needed gasoline most of all. He radioed his status to Hitler—a message that the Bletchley crowd soon deciphered and Montgomery soon read.323

  In London, Churchill, desperate for the latest news, badgered his generals without respite. For the first two days, Churchill simply asked Brooke how Montgomery was doing. When Montgomery’s progress stalled, Churchill’s tone changed. He prepared a stinging telegram for Alexander in which he sought answers to the apparent collapse of the offensive—a conclusion he reached after chatting with Eden over whisky rather than consulting with his military advisers over maps. Brooke recalled the unpleasantness in his memoirs: “What, he [Churchill] asked, is my Monty doing now, allowing the battle to peter out. (Monty was always my Monty when he was out of favor.)” Why, asked Churchill, had Montgomery “told us he would be through in seven days if all he intended to do was fight a half-hearted battle?” For Churchill, more than a line in the desert was at stake. A by-election weeks earlier had gone against the government by a margin of 66 to 34 percent, a stunning yet symbolic rebuke. Churchill had convinced Cripps, who was threatening resignation, to stay on as Speaker until the battle in the desert was finished, win or lose. A defeat in the desert would very likely result in Churchill being known henceforth as the former prime minister.324

  For seven days Monty fought, and for seven days he had nothing to show but almost eight thousand wounded and two thousand killed, including the son of Churchill’s first true love of almost five decades earlier, Pamela Plowden. The Eighth Army could not punch through the minefield, which had become a no-man’s-land. Montgomery threw British and Australian tanks into the minefield with results that evoked the slaughter of the Great War. His divisional commanders advised he quit the battle and regroup. Having none of it, he threatened to sack those who lacked the appropriate aggressive spirit and replace them with fighters. He understood that if he could not win by fast and bold strokes, he would win though attrition. He could afford to trade tank for tank and man for man until he carried the day. And so he continued to feed his men and tanks into the maw. The next few days would mark a turning point, one way or another, for Churchill, for Britain, for the future conduct of the war.

  If Montgomery failed, Torch could not succeed, at least according to plan, not with the British Eighth Army tied down in Egypt, 1,600 miles from the Allied invasion force. In that case, Hitler, on his Russian front, would gain invaluable weeks, if not months, to drive farther into the Caucasus and to pour forces into Stalingrad with no need to watch his back. If Montgomery failed or if Stalingrad fell, Europe-first might become Europe-maybe for the Americans. Stalemate or defeat at El Alamein would exact a heavy political as well as a military price. Churchill informed Brooke that the office of prime minister would go to somebody else if Rommel held his desert position. In that case, Sir Stafford Cripps—who in private regularly deprecated Churchill’s war record, but as leader of the House was forced to explain the defeats to Parliament—might start serving vegetarian dinners in a new residence, No. 10 Downing Street. All depended upon Montgomery. Churchill was “finding the suspense almost unbearable,” Bracken told Dr. Wilson as the world waited for news from the desert.325

  On October 30, thanks to Ultra decrypts and on the advice of his lieutenants, Montgomery shifted his main thrust from the coast about ten miles to the south. It was the sort of improvisation Montgomery disliked, but it worked. Rommel, by shifting his armor to the far north, to counter Montgomery’s initial strike, had weakened his southern sector. By then, the Desert Fox had fewer than fou
r dozen tanks remaining fit for battle, and they were almost out of fuel. Two ships carrying gasoline to Rommel were sunk as they approached Tobruk, again thanks to Ultra. Montgomery pressed on. His New Zealanders broke Rommel’s lines on November 2. Rommel counterattacked in a furious two-hour tank assault, but realizing he was waging a battle of attrition he could only lose, he called off the attack. Early the next day, he left behind a rearguard and turned west. Hopes ran high, Churchill later wrote, that the moment had arrived for the “annihilation” of Rommel’s army. Rommel, too, expected as much, as he raced for Tripoli. But the late autumn rains had arrived. Rather than compete with foul weather and washed-out desert tracks, Monty, after a desultory twenty-hour chase, called for a one-day halt. British fighter pilots who were tracking the Germans and calling in the enemy’s positions were dumbfounded. Where was the final, fatal strike? Where was the Eighth Army?326

  Just after he began his retreat, Rommel received a direct order from Hitler: “Stand fast, yield not a yard of room.” Sheer will could prevail, the Führer believed, and not for the first time in history, and “as to your troops, you can show them no other road than to victory or death [Sieg oder Tod].” Mussolini, completely misreading the situation, sent a telegraph congratulating Rommel on “the successful counter-attack.” Rommel’s lieutenant, General Ritter von Thoma, called Hitler’s directive “a piece of unparalleled madness.” Rommel paused for twenty hours in order to adhere to the spirit if not the letter of the order. Then the Desert Fox and his few dozen tanks—soon to be pursued by ten times as many—ran for Libya. Left behind in the flinty scrabble were almost six thousand dead Germans and Italians, their corpses already blackening in the desert heat. British intelligence officers wandered among the bodies and yanked from pockets postcards and love letters from home, written in German and Italian, to sons and lovers and husbands: “We are so glad you are now in beautiful Egypt”; “May Saint Dominic protect you.” As night fell the discarded letters scudded across the desert on the breezes, as if following the survivors to sanctuary.327