Lothian, as Ambassador to the USA, reported directly to Halifax, who asked him to discover what terms Hitler had in mind. Churchill, learning of this, intervened and forbade further contact – an injunction with which Lothian did not immediately comply.26 But this was far from the only contact. The capitals of Europe, and indeed Washington, were awash with rumours of meetings and deals, with Madrid, the Vatican, Berne and Stockholm variously mentioned as centres of negotiation. And although Halifax was accused of plotting against Churchill, never was there any good evidence to suggest that he was ever anything but a loyal member of the government. Insofar as he was seen to be entertaining Nazi peace offers, he – like his minister in Switzerland, Sir David Kelly – may have been playing for time, running a skilled disinformation operation which fooled that Nazis into thinking that a peace deal was a possibility.27
What was then equally important is that, on this very day, the German Naval Staff was to set in motion a process which was to give the British the very time they needed. Recorded in the Naval War Diary were its reservations on Sealion, which were to lead to a delay in the planned implementation of the operation and then contribute to its postponement and cancellation.
Specifically, the Staff thought the task allocated to the Navy was out of all proportion to its strength and bore no relation to the tasks set for the Army and Air Force. Troops had to be carried from extensively damaged harbour installations and adjacent inland waterways, which were of limited capacity. Transport routes lay in a sea area in which weather, fog, current, tides and the state of the sea could present the greatest difficulties, not only at the first crossing but also on reaching the enemy coast and during resupply.28
The first wave would have to be landed on open beaches. “This imposes severe limitations in tonnage and draught of the selected ships”, the Staff said. Landing barges had to be adapted “by means of specially constructed ramps” to put troops ashore. The construction programme was under way, but only minimal alterations could be made in the time. The great navigational difficulties, the Staff added, were “obvious”, noting also the absence of information on the position on mines. An adequate safety margin as regard mines would not be obtainable, it said, in spite of the use of all resources. Furthermore, the British were in a position, at short notice and at the last moment, to lay minefields to protect the beaches.29
These were no trifling points. Collectively, they showed that the Staff understood completely that the invasion would be very dangerous, with very small chance of success, even without bringing in the small matter of air superiority.
4.
War and peace
Either the invasion will take place and be defeated or else it will be indefinitely postponed. In either case there will be a reaction of opinion and people will begin to ask themselves the question “What next?”
Duff Cooper, memorandum to the War Cabinet, 20 July 19401
After Hitler’s “peace offer”, there followed a short period when there were two conflicting initiatives. One was devoted to exploring the possibility of immediate peace. The other, rejecting any peace deal, focused on developing “war aims” to motivate the people and engage them fully in fighting the war, and thereby help them resist Hitler’s blandishments.
DAY 11 – SATURDAY 20 JULY 1940
Hitler, according to Ciano, was genuinely disappointed by the reaction to his speech. The Italian Foreign Minister recorded him being concerned that war with the English would be “hard and bloody”, and that people everywhere today were “averse to bloodshed”. He might have been more disappointed by the reaction of Duff Cooper. He had submitted a memorandum to the War Cabinet entitled, “Propaganda for the future”. The title was misleading – perhaps deliberately so – but he had anticipated the peace offer, setting out ideas for a new political order in post-war Europe. This, heavily disguised, was the Nicolson “war aims” proposal. Cooper started with an upbeat message:
The morale of the people of Great Britain at the present time is excellent. Their mood is one of expectancy and confidence. They are awaiting an invasion and have no doubts as to their ability to repel it. But no moods endure indefinitely, and from the point of view of propaganda it is important that we should prepare for what is to come.
The invasion would take place and be defeated or else it would be indefinitely postponed, he said. He had no doubts. The prospect of defeat did not merit discussion. His concern was that a peace “offensive” from Germany “would be more dangerous than any invasion”. It would have a very wide appeal and to those suffering from war-weariness and lack of vision would seem eminently fair and reasonable.
Nazism and Fascism appealed to millions of young people in Europe, said Cooper, but while Britain was fighting for survival, they would not infect “our people”. When the menace to the island had been withdrawn, though, something else had to be put in its place “to stimulate the temper of the nation”. If the fighting was merely to restore the Europe of Versailles and the England of the last two decades, people would not be convinced of the justice of their cause. Since Hitler was introducing his new order and uniting Europe. Britain had to do the same, offering a Europe “united by goodwill and in friendship, not by force and in terrors”. It would be a Europe based upon some federal system. Armaments would be pooled and trade barriers broken down. Each nation would be allowed to conduct its own affairs in its own way with the same kind of freedom as each state in the American Union.
This was a template for a federal Europe, one which was to dominate the political debate after the war and still raise the temperature seventy years later. It was remarkable that, with the dictator across the water threatening annihilation, the British propaganda chief was calmly considering the shape of post-war Europe.
As for Hitler’s speech, the media played down the “peace offer”. It did not go so far as to consider what the terms might be. The Express presented it as a blustering threat. The Mirror bluntly headlined: “Hitler says submit”. Britain had been given an ultimatum: “Talk peace or I destroy you. Hitler piled threat on threat and called it his final appeal to reason”. Reuters suggested that nobody believed that Britain would entertain a peace offer. The New York Times recorded British officials taking the speech as an indication that the long anticipated and long delayed Battle for Britain may not be far off. Harold Nicolson, expecting an imminent invasion, wrote of “a sort of exhilaration in the air”, expressing pride in being “the people who will not give way”.
Home Intelligence found public opinion largely following the newspapers. But rather than the invasion threat, the “most serious cause of tension”, it reported, “are (sic) the prosecutions for spreading rumours”. There was alarm at the coincidence of measures which appear to be aimed at the freedom of the civilian. One respondent complained: “It’s the Gestapo over here”, adding a rebellious note: “They can prevent us talking but they can’t prevent us thinking”.
The latest to be prosecuted was Victor Muff, reigning Bradford billiards champion. He was fined £10 by Huddersfield magistrates for making a whole list of allegations: we could not possibly win the war; old-age pensioners would receive more under Hitler; Churchill had caused miners to be shot; that he had caused many lives to be lost at Gallipoli; and the government, had they any sense, would accept any terms Hitler offered. Considering how much more others had been fined – for saying considerably less – Muff seems to have got his money’s worth.2
After the Defiant losses of the previous day, the Air Ministry was in “damage limitation” mode. It talked of victory and sneered at German propaganda. Taking its cue from the Ministry, the Guardian reported the German habit of exaggeration “is its own undoing”. Only later did the Ministry come clean on its own misfortune.
With a peace deal in prospect, the Luftwaffe restricted its incursions inland, although it mounted coastal raids all over Britain, from Scotland to Dorset. The area off Dover was now being called “Hellfire Corner”, so intense was the activity. Keepi
ng up the pressure, the Luftwaffe attacked a convoy code-named “Bosom”. A number of Stukas were shot down and more were severely damaged, but the SS Pulborough was sunk and the destroyer HMS Brazen had her back broken by several near misses. After another attack put a bomb directly into her engine room, she sunk in 100 ft of water. Destroyer HMS Acheron was damaged by near misses, ten miles off the Isle of Wight.
The result of the air fighting appeared to be a victory for the British. As well as the Stukas, five Me 109s were downed with the loss of four German pilots – the highest number lost in one day so far – bringing the total to fourteen Luftwaffe aircraft lost on the day. But Fighter Command lost nine aircraft overall, eight in combat, with seven pilots lost. Since the start of the battle, Fighter Command had lost thirty pilots, as against seven Me 109 pilots lost. On this day, two had successfully baled out over the sea but had drowned. Ironically, one of those had been shot down by a German He 59 rescue seaplane. Bomber Command lost nine aircraft bringing total RAF losses for the day to eighteen, compared with the Luftwaffe’s fourteen.
DAY 12 – SUNDAY 21 JULY 1940
Setting the tone for the treatment of the air war, the Sunday Express ran a front-page headline announcing: “12 German raiders shot down off our coasts”. This time, the figures were not exaggerated, although the same could not be said of the narrative. The fight over the convoy had been “one of the most thrilling sky battles of the war”, and though the bombers had attempted to press home their attacks with “great recklessness”, the ships were unharmed. The Observer was more direct: “Nazi air raid on harbour fails”, it reported.
The second story in the Express was Hitler’s peace offer, with the paper reporting: “Hitler down with a bump”. No one was interested. But in Berlin, there was a major debate about how long Britain should be given to respond, with Göring apparently against a rapid move. Meanwhile, German radio transmitters were pouring out a barrage of propaganda in English, attacking Britain’s “ruling clique”, “British warmongers”, “the rotten Westminster plutocrats” and “the arch-plotter Winston Churchill”. And putting the activity in context, the Swiss newspaper, Basler Nachrichten, wrote that the “appeal to reason” was not directed at Churchill but to a “defeatist opposition” which was believed to be strong in Britain.
A key issue for Express columnist John Gordon was the “Silent column” campaign. Men and women of that obnoxious type who love to pry and poke their noses into their neighbour’s affairs are slinking up and down the streets with their ears flapping, he wrote, hoping to hear an incautious word of conversation so that they may run off and tell the police. As a result of this pernicious crusade, men and women are being hauled into police courts, charged with passing remarks much the same as those you can hear round any dinner table in London. Most of these people are decent, harmless citizens. Not pulling his punches, he went on to condemn “our magistrates, who can always be relied on to be stampeded into stupidities by every wave of passion”. They are, he said, “inflicting sentences on these people that are nothing short of revolting cruelty”.3
Hitler this day summoned his commanders to a conference. But his immediate priority was not the invasion of England. He was thinking of Russia. He asked von Brauchitsch, his Army chief, to advise on the possibility of an autumn invasion, only a couple of months hence. The Army chief managed to head him away from the idea, but told General Erich Marcks, Chief of Staff of the 18th Army, to look at the problem. Seconded to the planning staff OKH, he was given until 4 August to come up with a plan.
Only two days after his speech in Berlin, the possibility of a peace deal with Britain was discussed at some length. The Naval Staff war diary recorded speculation about a “strong and influential group in England who would like to know details of the peace conditions”. There were rumours of “a telegram from the Duke of Windsor to the King, advising a Cabinet reshuffle, and of an audience which Lloyd George had with the King”.4
Turning to the invasion, Hitler stressed the need to “strive with every means to end the war in a short time and to exploit our favourable military and political situation as quickly as possible”. Operation Sealion could be considered as “the most effective means to this end”. He described it as an “exceptionally bold and daring undertaking”. Even if the way was short, this was “not just a river crossing, but the crossing of a sea which is dominated by the enemy”. This was not a case of a single crossing operation as in Norway; operational surprise could not be expected. Hitler did, therefore, accept that the naval difficulties were formidable and appreciated that “the most difficult part will be the continued reinforcement of equipment and stores”. The operation was therefore to be undertaken “only if no other means are left for settling with Britain”.
“The time of year is an important factor, since the weather in the North Sea and in the Channel is very bad during the second half of September and the fogs begin in the middle of October”, Hitler said. The decisive need for the participation of the Luftwaffe required the main operation to be completed by 15 September. He asked Räder for a full report on how far the Navy could safeguard the crossing and when their preparations would be completed. If it was not certain that they would be ready by the beginning of September, other plans would have to be considered; and Räder’s report would show whether the invasion would be carried out that autumn or postponed to the following spring. About the beginning of August he would also decide whether air and naval warfare would be intensified.5
Back in England, ties with the Commonwealth in 1940 were still very strong. South African, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian nationals in particular were playing an active part in the war. Of the Commonwealth leaders, South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts was a respected figure. Not only was he one of Churchill’s closest personal allies, at the end of the First World War, it was his study and report which had led to the formation of an independent RAF. This day, he broadcast to the people of Great Britain and the USA.
Smuts spoke of the Allied cause being “very far from lost”. It would not be until Britain itself was taken. And Britain would prove to be an “impregnable fortress” against which German might would be launched in vain. “If that attack fails, Hitler is lost and all Europe, aye the whole world, is saved”, Smuts declared. Even if Hitler “did not venture to attack Britain”, he was equally lost. Then, said Smuts, the same combination of sea power and air power which had baulked him at Dunkirk, and which would have saved Britain from invasion, would then be turned in a victorious offensive against Hitler. That offensive in the end “would throttle and strangle and bring down in ruins his vast land empire in Europe. For in a war of endurance,” Smuts concluded, “the time factor must prove fatal to Hitler’s plans”.6
A few hours after that broadcast, J. B. Priestley took to the airwaves. His theme was to contrast himself with an “official”, a “conceited, ungenerous, sterile kind of a chap”. This, in the inimical Priestley style, quickly led to a wider appraisal of the war. There were two ways of looking at it, he said, the first being the “official” way, as a “terrible interruption”:
As soon as we can decently do it, we must return to what is called peace, so let’s make all the munitions we can, and be ready to do some hard fighting, and then we can have done with Hitler and his Nazis and go back to where we started from, the day before war was declared.
Arguing that this “official” way was wrong, Priestley lodged the idea that we had to get rid of the “intolerable nuisances” of “Nazists and Fascists” but not so that we could go back to anything. “There’s nothing that really worked that we can go back to”, he said. We had to go forward “and really plan and build up a nobler world … in which ordinary, decent folk can not only find justice and security but beauty and delight”. But, said Priestley, we could not go forward and build up this new world order, and “this is our real war aim, unless we begin to think differently”.7
As to the shooting war, after the frenetic activity of the previo
us day, fighting was “on a reduced scale”. Raids were plotted off the Scottish, east and south coasts, apparently searching for shipping. An attack was made off Dundee. Trawlers were attacked off Beachy Head and a convoy about ten miles off the Needles was attacked by a large German formation, including Me 110s used as bombers – a tactic never seen before. Fighter Command flew 571 sorties, losing only two aircraft, with total RAF losses standing at six. Ten Luftwaffe aircraft were lost. For once, the British had ended up ahead. From the small scale of the fighting, though, even if it was partly imposed by the weather, one thing was clear – Hitler was staying his hand.8
DAY 13 – MONDAY 22 JULY 1940
Mussolini expressed an opinion on Hitler’s speech. The Duce wanted war and damned it as “too cunning”, fearing that the English “might find in it a pretext to begin negotiations”.9 Over the weekend, Churchill had been under considerable pressure to respond, especially as there had been diplomatic representations through Sweden and the Vatican.10 Churchill’s first thought had been to hold “a solemn and formal debate” in both Houses of Parliament, an idea he raised in the War Cabinet. His colleagues counselled that this would be making too much of the matter, “upon which we were all of one mind”. The AP reported that hopes of British acceptance were “dwindling fast” and it appeared that the scene was being set for total war. Sources close to the Axis set 27 July as the most probable “zero hour” for an assault. But diplomatic activity continued.
Many Not the Few: The Stolen History of the Battle of Britain Page 9