Winston's War

by Michael Dobbs

  (The Times, Monday, March 6, 1939)

  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL'S “INSURRECTION”

  A CONSTITUENT'S PROTEST

  Mr. C. N. Thornton-Kemsley, chairman of Chigwell Unionist Association, speaking at a dinner of the Nazeing (Essex) Unionist Association on Saturday night, said:

  “Mr. Churchill's post-Munich insurrection was shocking. His castigation of the National Government, which we returned him to support, would in any other party but the Conservative Party have earned him immediate expulsion.

  “Loyal Conservatives in the Epping Division have been placed in an intolerable position. I feel that unless Mr. Churchill is prepared to work for the National Government and the Prime Minister he ought no longer to shelter under the goodwill and name of such a great party. Most of us in the Epping Division agree that Mr. Churchill has overstepped the line.”

  In the gardens of Buckingham Palace it was undeniably spring. Snowdrops were handing over tenancy of the lawns to daffodils and crocuses while cherry blossom and early willow buds had begun their annual dance across a stage of bare bark. Life—and hope—seemed to be reclaiming the land after a winter that had seemed endless, bringing with it a mood of infectious youth that had revived even the Prime Minister.

  “The dawn of a golden age, sir,” he reported. “I used precisely that description with the press lobby this morning. A golden age.”

  “You did?” his Monarch replied. It wasn't really meant as a question, it was simply that all his life the tongue-tangled “Bertie” had found it easier to participate in conversations by peppering them with questions, no matter how pointless, thus relieving himself of the need to offer comments of either length or substance.

  “Yes, sir,” Chamberlain responded, recognizing the game. “Sir Joseph had summoned them to St. Stephen's Club for a briefing.”

  “St. Stephen's? Don't know it myself.”

  “And neither should you,” Chamberlain continued, laughing gaily. “A gentlemen's club frequented by many politicians. A place of ne'er-do-wells within the shadow of Big Ben. And ideal for its purpose, I must say. A fine leather chair for myself, a fire-place on which Sir Joseph can lean and survey the scene, and far too few seats for the gentlemen of the press. Most of them have to stand. Keeps them alert, of course—and in their place.”

  “I never c-cease to admire your success in that respect.”

  “Ball is indefatigable. I didn't know the meaning of terror until I saw him set about a cub reporter who'd arrived for an interview with neither his pencil nor a copy of my latest speech. Dealing with the lobby's like training a pack of dogs, he tells me—split them up, train them one by one, and if they still won't respond, put 'em down!”

  “B-bravo.”

  “Most of the proprietors, of course, can be counted either as personal friends or at least sensible businessmen. Every time they produce a headline that suggests war and chaos are lurking around the corner, their advertising revenues melt like butter in a bread oven. Seems to focus their thinking, I find.”

  They passed beneath the spreading limbs of a graceful willow whose arms bent low with fresh leaf—a graceful contrast to the squat palace with its heavy Germanic overtones that stood behind them. Chamberlain had never cared for the place as a piece of architecture, he found it unimaginative and excessively formal and had been delighted at the suggestion of the King that they should conduct their weekly audience on the hoof. Yet he found these meetings increasingly tiresome, the Monarch and his First Minister, each beholden to the other, bound by ties that were not only invisible but which also made little sense. To be consulted, to encourage, to warn, those were the rights of a King, so the conventions said—yet at times he stumbled about in the constitutional undergrowth like a lost boy. Chamberlain sighed to himself—he was impatient, intolerant even, and increasingly so. He recognized the fault, of course, but so often the fault seemed more evident in others.

  “And Dawson at The Times is a brick, a constant delight,” Chamberlain continued, returning to his theme. “I think it might soon be time to express our thanks to him in the usual manner—with your gracious permission, sir.”

  “Sir Geoffrey? Why not, indeed? Halifax is always singing his praises. They hunt together, I understand.”

  “And a knighthood for Dawson would act as a clear marker to the others. They've a choice. Friend or foe, elevation—or exile.”

  The King nodded his approval and lit his second cigarette in as many minutes, tossing the finished butt carelessly onto the lawn.

  “To my mind it's a moral choice. Either you are for peace—or for war. There's no middle ground any more.” Chamberlain was smacking his fist into the palm of the other hand as they walked—the King had rarely seen him so animated. “The truth is that the future of Europe will be settled by three men—Hitler, Mussolini, and myself. That's why I went to Rome, to do everything within my power to deliver one unambiguous message. That we are for peace. And if that overriding purpose makes life difficult for the whiners and the warmongers…” He left the thought unfinished. Royal ears were constitutionally delicate.

  “I hear that Mr. Churchill may be in a spot of trouble.”

  “A large splash of it. But better an outbreak of hostilities in Epping than across the whole of Europe.”

  “Like a spinning top, he is. Tremendous energy, of course, dashing off in all directions. But sometimes so”—the stammer grabbed at his tongue—“irritating.”

  They had reached the lake. Two mallards flew overhead before crashing into the water. Chamberlain decided it was time to take the risk he had long pondered of bringing the Monarch into his confidence.

  “You see, sir, we have to make every effort we can to ensure that the right message reaches Berlin. I'm sure you agree.”

  The King nodded, uncertain of what he was agreeing to.

  “So for some months now, Sir Horace has been holding private talks with certain German emissaries. No fuss, no public fanfare. In the strictest confidence, you understand, sir.” Somehow Chamberlain made it sound like a rebuke aimed directly at the Monarch, which was not far from the effect he intended. “We've offered them a loan.”

  “What? With financial crisis on our own doorstep?”

  “Allow me to explain, sir,” Chamberlain insisted. “Germany is spending every mark it can find on weapons. It can't go on like that, not without bankrupting their entire system. So it will eventually be faced with only two choices. Either they can march the Wehrmacht into neighboring countries in order to steal the resources they need—which is what we've been desperately trying to avoid…”

  “Yes, I think I grasped that,” muttered the King, a trifle acidly. He resented being kept in the dark. For months, Chamberlain had said, they'd been talking to the Germans for months. Why hadn't he been consulted earlier? Simply because he'd never had a head for examinations didn't mean he was a featherbrain.

  “Or we can provide generous loans—to encourage them to switch from arms to everyday industry.”

  “Sort of…butter before bullets?”

  “Yes. Very well put, sir. I want to tie them in, you see, bring their economy alongside ours.”

  “By offering them a generous loan.”

  “Precisely.”

  “How generous—precisely?”

  “Perhaps a billion pounds sterling.”

  Suddenly the King started to splutter, overwhelmed by surprise and an inadvertent intake of nicotine. “My God, so much?” he gasped.

  “A small price to pay for saving the peace.”

  “Yes, b-but…”

  “And saving the Empire, sir.”

  The Monarchy, too, of course—although Chamberlain was far too delicate to mention the fact. There was little need. George was all too aware that the last war had resulted in the disappearance of Kaisers and Kings in so many corners of Europe, and a new war might beat a path all the way to Windsor. “I quite agree, war is unthinkable, b-but…”

  “But, sir?”

  “
There's one bit of this I don't understand. What's to stop them spending all the money we give them on their air force?”

  Chamberlain counseled himself to be patient. Sometimes it seemed he had so little time left, and so very much still to do. But better a King like George who had to be led every step of the way by the hand, than one like his brother, Edward, who couldn't be restrained, no matter how many hands were laid upon him.

  “Why on earth should Herr Hitler go to war when he can achieve everything he reasonably wants without it? That was the message I left him at Munich, after all. I've given him half of Czechoslovakia and he didn't have to fire a single shot. Now I want to go another step further and bind him in economically, with all Germans reunited and with Britain at the very heart of Europe.”

  George was striding slowly forward, measuring his pace, nodding his understanding and approval. “I see you are still a businessman to your roots, Mr. Chamberlain.”

  “And I can do business with Herr Hitler.”

  They had come full circle. The sweeping steps that led up to the palace lay before them. They started to climb.

  “I hope to make more progress on the matter over Easter.”

  “And after that?”

  “With your permission—an election, perhaps.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “One has to come soon. A chance for the people to decide—a golden age of peace and prosperity.”

  “Or Winston and war.”

  “That's one way of looking at it. In fact, that's an excellent way of looking at it.” As they strode into the palace, for the first time in days Chamberlain's face bore a smile.

  There are moments when a man's life seems little more than a plaything for the gods, something to be kicked back and forth until they tire of the game and leave him to fall where he may.

  They toyed with Churchill during that early spring of 1939, abusing him, piling favors upon others. On all fronts, from the continent to his own constituency, his opponents were gaining strength. Another few weeks of the game and it might all have been too late for him, and for all that was to follow, yet the gods are nothing if not capricious. Churchill was to be saved by two outrageous pieces of good fortune, unwittingly manufactured by his most bitter enemies.

  The first was one of his leading constituents, Colin Thornton-Kemsley, a thirty-six-year-old chartered surveyor whom Joseph Ball had nominated to lead the opposition to Churchill's reselection in Epping. He was an effective organizer, intriguing, and ambitious, yet his talents proved to be all too effective, for on the day after the Prime Minister had briefed the press about the dawn of a new golden age, Thornton-Kemsley was selected as the Conservative candidate for the forthcoming by-election in the distant Scottish constituency of Kincardine and West Aberdeenshire. From that moment on his presence was usually to be found on the overnight sleeper headed north and his attentions lay about as far away from Epping as it was possible to get.

  Three days later, a second man came forward to save Churchill's neck. History is a refuse heap of ironies and coincidences, all manner of tangled loops that would leave any editor of romantic fiction writhing in embarrassment, yet the man who stepped out to rescue Churchill was none other than Adolf Hitler. He didn't mean to, of course, it was entirely inadvertent; his objective was not Epping but a location nearly seven hundred miles further east.

  Prague, to be exact. The capital of what remained of dismembered and independent Czechoslovakia that had been left over after Munich. A state that was on the point of ceasing to exist.

  On March 14 the Czech President, Hacha, was summoned to Berlin. He was kept waiting while Hitler watched a film. At last, in the early hours of the morning, Hacha was marched into the room and told that in a few hours' time the Wehrmacht was going to invade his country. He was told that if Czech troops showed the slightest sign of resistance, the Czech capital would be razed to the ground.

  On hearing this, Hacha collapsed, clutching his chest. He'd suffered a heart attack. A doctor was summoned and gave him an injection. The old man revived sufficiently to be able to sign his country's death warrant. Hours later, the Wehrmacht marched into Prague.

  Chamberlain's golden age had lasted less than four days.

  The old man was up to his thighs in the crystal water that ran off the Grampians and was having difficulty maintaining his footing on the slippery stones. It wouldn't have happened a year ago. He was tired—and aging, although he refused to admit it. He had escaped for a couple of days' fishing to recharge the batteries, but after dinner the previous night he'd complained of acute stomach pain and had grown gray, refusing a nightcap and taking early to his bed. Nowadays his face could age in a moment, his skin growing thin beneath the scars of strain. Yet his spirit was indomitable and this morning he was dressed in heavy waders and a tweed jacket with flies pinned to the lapels, his hat pulled rakishly over his eyes, casting towards the purple and peaty pool that spread beneath the far bank.

  “You know,” Chamberlain muttered as he cast yet again, his words carrying effortlessly in the light Scottish air, “the skills of fishing are a lot like those of diplomacy.” There was a swish of line as it snaked towards the far bank. “Patience. Tenacity. Understanding what it is they want. Making sure you have the right bait, the right fly, the right hook. Tempting them. Then more patience. Until they bite!”

  His companion, Joseph Ball, offered no reply. His reticence had nothing to do with the logic of the argument, simply that at that precise moment he found himself incapable of speech. His tongue felt as though it had swollen and was likely to make him choke. He was sitting on the bank, clutching the note that had just been brought to him by cycle messenger from the lodge. A note that spelled disaster. That told him Hitler was in Prague, telegraphing to the whole world that he didn't give a bowl of spit for appeasement or agreements and least of all for Mr. Neville Bloody Chamberlain. Czechoslovakia gone. Extinguished, without a shot being fired.

  Ball lay back on the bank, praying that the ground would open up and swallow him. It didn't, so although it was only ten in the morning he reached for his hip flask.

  How to present it? How to ensure that this calamity did less damage than otherwise it might? How to prevent it from destroying not only the Government in Prague but Chamberlain's Government, too? Chamberlain had given his word to defend the independence of castrated little Czechoslovakia, had insisted that the world should trust the word of Hitler, and now it had all fallen apart. Stripped the Prime Minister naked, left his balls dangling for target practice—and in Scotland, miles away from the editors and proprietors who might otherwise help to throw up some sort of smokescreen. They had to rush back to London, of course, but rush back to what? To their execution, perhaps.

  The policy of appeasement, Chamberlain's policy, his “golden age,” lay smashed beyond repair at the border posts around Prague. The Ides of March. They should've been on their guard.

  “Bite, my dears, bite,” the old man was saying. He looked thin, wasted beneath his tweed, almost pathetic. For a fleeting moment Ball wondered whether he should leave him there, stuck in the water, rush to London and declare his loyalty to Halifax or Eden, the two most likely successors, but the panic lasted only for a moment. There was no way out; he and the Prime Minister were grafted together and they must get through this. Somehow. Appeasement was dead, of course. They would have to embrace rearmament, the policy of the critics, and make it their own. A few telephone calls before they began the long train journey south—to Dawson and Beaverbrook, then James Kemsley with his control of the Sunday Times, the Daily Sketch, and a forest of regional titles. Give them an angle. Emphasize Chamberlain's experience, that his policies had put Hitler clearly in the wrong and handed Britain the moral high ground. Bit like the mouse squeaking as the cat trod on its tail, but the more noise they could create the more confused the public might become as to whose fault this whole mess was.

  Then there was also the tiniest, meanest little problem in that only last Septembe
r Chamberlain had guaranteed the independence of what remained of Czechoslovakia. How the hell did they handle that? The hip flask reappeared. A swig, a moment's thought as in his mind he rode the avalanche, never knowing where it might stop or how long he had before he was buried beyond hope. Then it settled. Of course, they'd argue that Czechoslovakia had signed away its own independence and so no longer existed. They couldn't guarantee something that had ceased to exist now, could they? That would be stupid. Almost suicide.

  And there would be more. Get the Whips busy amongst the back-benches. Most politicians were no better than a shoal of sardines, chasing the current, open-mouthed, constantly shifting their position, their whole life torn between hunger and touches of transporting fear.

  “Got him!” the Prime Minister cried, reeling in something slippery.

  Yes, fear would do it. The fear that grips a politician when he regards a looming election. The fear that haunts an editor when he thinks he might be denied the knighthood he's been promised. The fear infecting bankers and businessmen that if Chamberlain fell they would be cut off from their points of influence. The fear of any decent Englishman that the hordes of Socialism might soon be kicking down their doors and carrying off their daughters. Fear—the motivator of the masses. Ball put away the whiskey. There was still all to play for—and much to do.

  The Prime Minister was struggling with his catch. The fish was proving obstinate, and the old man's footing was still unsteady. Ball stretched a hand into the clear, chill water, and splashed his face.