Winston's War

by Michael Dobbs

  “Thank you.” Tea, sipped with care. “Which particular masterstroke did you have in mind, Horace?”

  “Tempting Winston with the fruits of office. You know, we couldn't keep him quiet throughout the spring. Up and down like a jack-in-the-box with a loose catch. But then a couple of rumors dribbled across the right bars and he hasn't made a single speech in the House all summer. Not one. Not even…”

  “About the German loan.”

  Wilson turns for tea. “Not even that. Like a fish mesmerized by one of your flies.”

  A moment spent studying the outline of leaves against the sky. “It can't last, Horace.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because very soon he'll realize there is no fly. That it's a mirage. A deception. He'll know I have no intention of giving him a job.”

  “So…what do we do?”

  “Keep him quiet by other means.”

  “Other means?”

  “We'll send him away. Send them all away. Get them out from under our feet.”

  “A parliamentary recess?”

  “Busy their giddy minds with foreign travel. Preferably on yachts.”

  “At a time like this? They'll kick up a fuss.”

  “Oh, but not much of one. The attractions of the Côte d'Azur far outweigh those of Poland. Most of them have ambitions to join up with the bucket-and-spade brigade, nothing more.”

  “Digging sandcastles rather than trenches.”

  “Precisely.”

  More tea.

  “Winston, too?”

  “Maybe not him. Awkward squad. But at least the summer holidays will deprive him of an audience.”

  “True.”

  Another pause. An adjustment of the tie, almost a fidget. “And we should deprive him of other things, perhaps.”

  “Such as?”

  “You are aware of the new Home Office security recommendations?”

  “About the IRA? Of course. Banning suitcases on buses—closing the public gallery in the Commons.”

  “And increasing protection for prominent persons who may be at risk.”

  “Giving them armed detectives, you mean.”

  “More tea, Horace?”

  “Thank you.”

  A very English pause.

  “It's a very long list of names. For protection.”

  “Inevitably.”

  “Too long.”

  “You think so?”

  “Needs trimming.”

  “How?”

  “Winston's name is on the list.”

  “I know.”

  “I want him off.”

  “Taken off? But that means…”

  “Precisely. We'll leave Winston's fate in God's hands, for the moment, shall we?”

  The second of August. A Wednesday. The House had a stale, masculine atmosphere that left tempers frayed and caused rings of sweat to gather around the collars. Time to leave. Already millions of ordinary Britons were on holiday, their thoughts distracted from the threats that hovered over them, and now MPs were to be sent to join them. In normal circumstances such an announcement would be greeted with an outpouring of ill-concealed rejoicing, but the days of August 1939 were not normal times.

  Only the previous week when rumors of the recess had begun to circulate, Churchill had risen to demand that the House should not be sent away to be lost in the mists of autumn, and Chamberlain had responded that such a suggestion was “hypothetical.” Now hypothesis turned to hardened fact and the Prime Minister rose to inform MPs that they were to be banished until October.

  It was a simple and straightforward parliamentary procedure, a motion for the Adjournment of the House, which would normally raise no more concerns than the spillage of tea into the saucer. But this was August 1939. MPs rose to offer their views—almost all were concerned, many hostile. What signal would it give to the dictators if the democracies shut up their stall and ran away to build sand-castles? Was Hitler going to take a holiday, too?

  Churchill spoke in opposition—the first time he had engaged in a debate in the House in many weeks. It was not an onslaught—perhaps he was still held back by the enticements of office, but clearly nothing on that front could happen now until October, if it ever did. So his speech was at times jocular, but the wit was often biting. He spoke of “the danger months in Europe, when the harvests have been gathered and when the powers of evil are at their strongest.” He talked of the two million men already under arms in Germany, and the five hundred thousand who had been called up in recent days and would be added to that number before the end of August, massing along the Polish frontiers from Danzig to Cracow. He said their public buildings were being cleared out on a massive scale—and why? To become makeshift hospitals and reception centers for the wounded.

  His wit dug deep into the flesh of his Prime Minister. How could it be, Churchill demanded, that in such awesome circumstances Chamberlain could say to the House: “Begone! Run off and play! Take your gas masks with you! Do not worry about public affairs.” After all, this Government had such a splendid record in predicting the outcome of public affairs…

  The smile at the corner of the old man's mouth did little to take the sting from the lash as he laid it across his leader's back. Chamberlain sat, and smarted, and sulked, even more so as others rose to their feet to call on him to be more flexible, to compromise, to bring the House back earlier. To be prepared.

  Less than two hours after Churchill had resumed his seat, Chamberlain was forced to rise once more. The mood of defiance was spreading through the House like a toxin, but this was his House, dammit. He led the party that had an overwhelming majority in this place. Time to use it. So he made it clear to the House that the vote which lay ahead of them was to be regarded as a vote of confidence in his leadership. This wasn't just a vote for their holidays, this was a vote for him, for Neville Chamberlain, their Prime Minister, their best damned leader and their only damned leader—and they'd better not forget it! In the language of Parliament, it was a declaration of war. Anyone in his own party who failed to support him would be taking their political lives in their hands, and with an election due in months, those lives would be short. He'd make sure of that. He had suffered the lash for the last few hours, now he turned it with all his force on his colleagues.

  There are many turning points in history. Some arise by chance, and perhaps this was one of them. Or maybe it was bound to happen sooner or later. The claim of a political leader to infallibility was scarcely new, but rarely had it been pushed with such ill grace. Even in pre-war days, politicians liked a little enthusiasm while they were being screwed. Yet here was a man willing to declare war on his own colleagues at a moment's notice when he'd spent months ducking the issue with the Hun. The message was clear—Chamberlain's holidays were of considerably greater value than Czechoslovakia.

  It was all too much for one young Member. Ronald Cartland was no typical Tory of his time. He hadn't had enough money to go to university, so he'd begun to work as a research assistant in Conservative Central Office for the stomach-tightening sum of three pounds a week. Tough times which bred independence. He had warned the selection committee in his Birmingham constituency that he would be no mindless weather vane, ready to swing whichever way the wind happened to be blowing, but they liked his fresh looks and selected him anyway.

  When Cartland got to his feet in the Commons, he found his audience less than captivated. They were hot, distracted, and largely indifferent, having already feasted on a diet of Churchills and Chamberlains. In truth, many Members barely recognized him, although none were to forget him.

  “I'm sorry to detain the House for a few moments, but I would like to say a few words as a backbencher of the Prime Minister's own party,” he began, almost in apology. The House rustled with distractions as many Members headed in search of refreshment. They stopped when they heard him continue: “I am profoundly disturbed by the speech of the Prime Minister.”

  Those who had already passed beyond the
Speaker's Chair in the direction of the Smoking Room turned and retraced their footsteps. Had they heard right? The sharp smack of disloyalty?

  “We're going to separate until the third of October,” Cartland went on, “and I suppose the majority of us will be going down to our constituencies, out in the country, to make speeches. But a fantastic and ludicrous impression exists in this country. That the Prime Minister has ideas…of dictatorship.” Oh, God, he'd started, set out, and now there could be no turning back. Suddenly bodies were squeezing back onto the crowded leather benches.

  “It's a ludicrous impression, of course, and everybody here on both sides of the House knows it is ludicrous, but…”—that awesome little conjunction, but—“it does exist in the country.”

  “Hell, Dickie, who is this little idiot?”

  “Buggered if I know, Ian. Digging himself one hell of a hole. Dictatorship be damned. Neville'll have his balls on toast for this one.”

  From his place towards the rear of the House, Cartland could see the back of the Prime Minister's head three rows in front of him. Not a muscle moved, not a hair twitched, but it was the very immobility that told its story.

  “There is the ludicrous impression in this country,” Cartland repeated, “that the Prime Minister has these dictatorship ideas. And the speech he has made this afternoon, along with his absolute refusal to accept any of the proposals put forward by Members on both sides of the House, will make it much more difficult”—these words delivered more slowly—“to dispel that idea.”

  “Bloody nonsense,” a Tory colleague grumbled loudly from nearby, but there were many more words of encouragement from across the Chamber and a large number of Tory heads that had simply turned to look at him and were nodding. It was like watching the eddies of a rock pool as the tide tumbled in upon it.

  “Call yourself a Tory,” the colleague remonstrated once more. “I call you a disgrace.”

  “No, no. I received a letter this morning.” Cartland waved a piece of paper in the direction of the complaint. “From a constituent of mine. Posted in King's Norton and signed simply: 'Conservative.' She has been a Conservative all her life, and she writes to me now to say that she is very upset”—he read—“because so many people think the Prime Minister is a friend of Hitler.”

  “Sit down, you bloody fool!"…"He's drunk, must be."…"Reading your suicide note, are you?"…"God, what sort of people have we let into this place?” Warnings began to be shouted at him from all along his own benches. One Member tried to pluck at the tail of his jacket to force him to sit down but Cartland wrenched himself free, determined to go on—and why not? There was nowhere he could go back to.

  “We are in a situation”—the words were all but drowned by the clamor around him—“we are in a situation that within a month we may be going to fight. And we may be going to die!” They tried to mock him, howl him down, to prevent his words ever being heard for the record, waving their Order Papers like toreadors tormenting a bull, but his chin was up and his voice carried over the tumult.

  “It's all very well for Honorable Gentlemen who are about to take their leave for two entire months to say 'Oh' and to protest. But there are thousands of young men at the moment in training camps, who in the nation's interest have given up their holidays.” He gazed in contempt at those who barracked him, yet amongst them, like islands in an ocean, he also found faces of concern and support. His heaving chest grew still, his voice suddenly softer. Now they had to strain to hear him, but strain they did.

  “I can't imagine why the Prime Minister couldn't have made a great gesture in the interests of national unity. Surely it's much more important to get the whole country behind you, but…” Cartland shook his head in despair and for a moment he seemed unable to continue. Chamberlain, who had been sitting immobile and unmoved throughout the speech, half turned his head to catch sight of his accuser—a glimpse, a glint of cold and undying enmity in his eye, an old man mocking the young—before once more turning his back. The insult seemed to revive Cartland, who sucked in the stale air of a place he had come so to despise, then launched himself onward.

  “It is so very much more important to get the country behind you,” he repeated, his voice rising as the tumult around him returned to do battle—“than to make jeering, pettifogging speeches which divide the nation. Why can't the Prime Minister ask for real confidence in himself—as Prime Minister—as the leader of the country rather than just leader of the party? I say frankly…”—they were baying at him, like hounds, wanting to rip out his throat—“I say frankly that I despair when I listen to speeches like that which I have listened to this afternoon.”

  Cries of treachery erupted all around while from across the House the Opposition roared for more. The Speaker called in vain for order, but Cartland had sat down, the only man seeming unmoved in an ocean of storms. Within minutes the speech had been described by his party colleagues and now-former friends as “poisonous,” but there were others who said it was “a speech of a kind that will live long in the memory of this House.” It divided, because it had exposed the image of Government unity for what it was—an image.

  On one thing they were all agreed. It had been a speech of irredeemable self-sacrifice. As the tumult began slowly to die, the Prime Minister's head bent to whisper briefly into the ear of his Chief Whip. Every one of them knew what was taking place.

  Cartland was being condemned. He would not be a Conservative candidate at the next election.

  Chamberlain would get his wish, for this was to prove the speech of a lifetime for Cartland. Within a month we may be going to fight, and we may be going to die, he had predicted. And so it was to be.

  On May 30, 1940, Major Ronald Cartland, aged thirty-three, was shot through the head and killed during the retreat to Dunkirk, and so became the first Member of Parliament to die on active service.

  Ignoring the warnings that had been cast at it by Cartland and Churchill and others, Parliament rose for its summer holidays at the end of the week, on Friday the fourth of August.

  It was twenty-five years to the day since the first shots had been fired in the First World War. It wasn't known as that, of course, not then. They had called it the Great War. The Last War. The war to end all wars.

  (Daily Express, Bank Holiday Monday, August 7, 1939)

  Daily Express holds canvass of its reporters in

  Europe, and ten out of twelve say—

  NO WAR THIS YEAR

  BERLIN EMPHATIC: HITLER IS NOT READY

  Daily Express reporters in Europe believe that there will be no war this year.

  That is the result of a canvass conducted in the principal capitals of the Continent last week. Our reporters were asked to give their views to the prospects of peace or war in 1939…It is significant that the three reporters in Berlin are the most confident of peace. None of these men believe that Hitler is ready to wage a major campaign…

  Chamberlain left London on Bank Holiday Monday for his holiday fishing for salmon on the River Naver in Sutherland. Four days later his envoy—Admiral the Honorable Sir Reginald Ranfurly etc., etc., etc.—arrived in Moscow after a long sea voyage to begin talks with the Russians about an alliance.

  All the while, and with every passing day, the news from the Polish frontier glowed like a river of molten metal. The Poles were accused of terrorism, of torture, of murder. Every troop movement they made to guard their frontier was described in Germany as a preparation for war. Goebbels, who clearly hadn't read the Daily Express, made it sound as if the Poles were about to launch an armed offensive on Berlin itself.

  Meanwhile Chamberlain waited, and fished, and prayed that Sir Reggie might prove a persuasive suitor, even though he had been sent to Moscow empty-handed and impotent. But others were more active and began to make preparations for what they feared was to come. City firms began to move documents and staff to the country, so that they could continue their work in the event that London was razed to the ground by the Luftwaffe. The price
less medieval stained-glass windows of Canterbury Cathedral were taken down and placed in storage. Art treasures from museums around London began to be crated and shipped out, and plans were made to kill the poisonous reptiles in the zoo. London became a city of sandbags—mountains of them everywhere. Where they ran out of sand, they filled the bags with old books and election manifestos.

  Joe Kennedy cut short his foray in the South of France and flew back to London. The young aircraft captain saluted as the Ambassador clambered down the steps. “You think there will be war, sir?”

  “You can bet on it. I have.”

  “What are our chances?”

  Kennedy looked at the young pilot with astonishment. “About as much as Joan of Arc praying for rain,” he growled, before moving on.

  The Ambassador was accompanied by Mrs. Kennedy and his niece, Anna. Mademoiselle Marie-Noëlle Rey arrived on the flight immediately behind.

  The trial of a full national blackout was planned, and then postponed because of bad weather. Searchlights and barrage balloons began to fill the parks of London. Traffic lights were dimmed almost to extinction, curbs were painted white to make them visible in the dark, and demonstrations were given of how to convert buses into makeshift ambulances. Even the advertisements changed. Some bright marketing spark grabbed hold of the growing mood of crisis and started to advertise the Terry's Anglepoise as “the only practical blackout lamp.”

  But hope—futile, senseless, barren hope—still sprang eternal. The Illustrated London News printed photographs of the Polish cavalry at the charge above a caption which announced: “Poland's impressive horse cavalry—probably the best in Europe and equipped with sword, lance, and machine guns. An arm which has been extensively developed and has far greater mobility in difficult terrain than mechanized forces, besides being able to live off the country.”

  They would die magnificently.

  In Bournemouth, Sue Graham's wedding plans were made, then postponed. She and Jerry were agreed; there would be war and there was work to be done. So they would wait. Sue had already ordered the material for her wedding dress, several yards of pure white satin. She wrapped the material in tissue paper and placed it in a box, and on top of the cascade of white she placed Jerry's dried rose.