Darkest Hour

by Anthony McCarten

  As early as April 1933 Churchill made a long and impressive speech to the Commons regarding the nature of the threat. He said he believed that ‘Germany got off lightly after the Great War’ and the Allies had been promised ‘that she [Germany] would be a democracy with Parliamentary institutions’, but:

  all that has been swept away. You have a dictatorship – most grim dictatorship. You have militarism and appeals to every form of fighting spirit, from the reintroduction of duelling in the colleges to the Minister of Education advising the plentiful use of the cane in elementary schools. You have these martial or pugnacious manifestations, and also this persecution of the Jews, of which so many hon. Members have spoken and which appeals to everyone who feels that men and women have a right to live in the world where they are born, and have a right to pursue a livelihood which has hitherto been guaranteed them under public laws of the land of their birth . . .

  Churchill continued to issue warnings such as this in Parliament, in newspaper articles, in the numerous letters to colleagues, but only once on BBC radio, where its founder, John Reith, saw Churchill as an extremist. Reith effectively banned Winston from speaking publicly on the matter. By 1935, however, the British Government had conceded that Germany had the right to begin rearmament and rebuild its Navy to a maximum of 35 per cent of Britain’s under the Anglo-German Naval Treaty.

  When the Labour Party Ramsay MacDonald stepped down as Prime Minister in June 1935 due to ill-health, Churchill’s old friend Stanley Baldwin succeeded him, but he too was a strong supporter of appeasement and the policies of his predecessor. The press were now reporting on the atrocities being carried out under the new Nazi regime, casting confusion into the minds of many in Britain who felt Germany had paid dearly for its loss of the First World War. However, fears of a Soviet threat still ran high, and as Martin Gilbert writes in The Roots of Appeasement, ‘Hitler himself claimed to be acting as the principal guardian of Europe against the spread of communism’, so the English upper classes in particular were loath to condemn him as dangerous.

  Hitler’s military ambitions continued, and in March 1936 German troops marched into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland in defiance of the post-war treaties of Versailles and Locarno. The British were largely distracted by the crisis caused by the abdication of Edward VIII following his declared wish to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson – a matter that had once more placed Churchill – a supporter of the romantic union – on the opposite side to the Government. Aversion to the sheer idea of another war in any case meant the public found little issue with Germany taking back territories of German-speaking peoples.

  Britain’s Government had begun a process of rearmament in recent years, but the country was in no position to consider any kind of military sanctions in response to Hitler’s latest move. Churchill warned that if Germany remained unchallenged it was only a matter of time before she would turn her gaze towards Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania, and advised that Britain should rapidly increase its rearmament. Public support for him was beginning to grow, but he was still largely discredited and labelled a warmonger by the Baldwin Government. When Neville Chamberlain replaced Baldwin as Prime Minister in May 1937, Churchill remained outside the Cabinet largely because the pair had clashed constantly over the course of their political careers, most recently over relations with Germany and the Abdication crisis.

  Though Chamberlain began taking an active interest in foreign policy, his policies towards Germany were no different from Baldwin’s. The Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, however, shared Winston’s view. Eden was already wary of Germany, and believed that both Chamberlain’s policies towards Germany and his being soft on the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini (following the Italian fascist’s invasion of Abyssinia), were big mistakes. This distanced Eden from the new administration and that distance was only furthered when the Lord President of the Council, Lord Halifax, was encouraged by Chamberlain to have a stronger involvement in foreign affairs. In October 1937, the Prime Minister persuaded Halifax to accept an invitation to meet Hitler while he was visiting Germany for a hunting expedition.

  Eden had been strongly against the proposed meeting and felt undermined by the new PM. He issued strict instructions to Halifax that he should take a hard line on the issue of Hitler’s intentions towards Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. But since coming to power, Hitler had shown an exceptional ability to seduce British politicians – and Halifax was no different. He returned from his meeting in Germany singing the praises of the Führer and, contrary to Eden’s advice, informed the Cabinet that he had taken the chance to confirm to Hitler that Britain would be very amenable to discussions regarding German accession of territories in Central Europe and the restoration of the former colonies that had been stripped from Germany by the post-war peace treaties. Halifax’s assurances that he truly believed Hitler had no intention of starting a war held no weight with Eden, and marked the beginning of the end of Eden’s position as Foreign Secretary.

  Eden tendered his resignation on 20 February 1938, and Neville Chamberlain appointed Lord Halifax as his successor. Churchill was devastated and later recalled in his memoirs:

  My heart sank, and for a while the dark waters of despair overwhelmed me . . . I have never had any trouble in sleeping . . . but now on this night of February 20, 1938, and on this occasion only, sleep deserted me. From midnight till dawn I lay in my bed consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear. There seemed one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawing tides of drift and surrender, of wrong measurements and feeble impulses. My conduct of affairs would have been different from his [Eden] in various ways but he seemed to me at this moment to embody the life-hope of the British nation, the grand old British race that had done so much for men, and had yet some more to give. Now he was gone. I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death.

  Two days later, with the German annexation of Austria underway and the possible loss of Czechoslovakia on the horizon, Churchill issued to the House a stark warning about the cost of appeasement: ‘I predict that the day will come when at some point or another on some issue or other you will have to make a stand, and I pray God that when that day comes we may not find that through an unwise policy we are left to make that stand alone.’

  There could be no uncertainty about Hitler’s intentions now, and Churchill’s fears were confirmed when, in September 1938, Neville Chamberlain travelled to Germany to present an Anglo-French proposal on the issue of the Sudetenland that both the Czech and Sudeten leaders had approved in principle. The plan backfired and, as Gilbert writes, ‘Hitler, angry that the Sudetens were willing to accept autonomy inside Czechoslovakia, incited them to demand more. When they proved reluctant . . . Hitler publicly and violently denounced the proposal.’

  With Churchill’s predictions coming true, the Government finally welcomed him back into the fold – in a manner of speaking. Although not a member of the Cabinet, during the weeks that followed Chamberlain’s unsuccessful meeting with Hitler, Churchill attended many meetings with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, but his parliamentary colleagues were still reluctant to accept his advice and concede that appeasement had failed.

  Chamberlain pressed for further negotiations with Hitler, and travelled to Munich to attempt to settle the issues. Churchill pleaded with Chamberlain to ‘tell Germany that if she set foot in Czechoslovakia we should at once be at war with her’. His pleas fell on deaf ears. When, on 30 September, Chamberlain returned after little more than a day of negotiations, a crowd of supporters was waiting at the airfield. He descended the steps of the plane, waving the signed piece of paper known as the Munich Agreement, and jubilantly announced to the waiting press that the agreement was ‘symbolic of the desire of our two people never to go to war again’. Many felt that he had in fact acquiesced to all of Hitler’s demands, and when the House of Commons met to debate the issue over four d
ays, Churchill waited for the moment of greatest impact – at 5.10 p.m. on the third day of the proceedings – to deliver a crushing forty-five-minute speech on events five days earlier:

  I will . . . begin by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing. I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat . . . The utmost he [Chamberlain] has been able to gain for Czechoslovakia and in the matters which were in dispute has been that the German dictator, instead of snatching his victuals from the table, has been content to have them served to him course by course . . . All is over. Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness . . . What I find unendurable is the sense of our country falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany, and of our existence becoming dependent upon their good will or pleasure . . . We do not want to be led upon the high road to becoming a satellite of the German Nazi system of European domination. In a very few years, perhaps in a very few months, we shall be confronted with demands with which we shall no doubt be invited to comply. Those demands may affect the surrender of territory or the surrender of liberty . . . I do not grudge our loyal, brave people, who were ready to do their duty no matter what the cost . . . but they should know the truth. They should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defences; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against Western democracies: ‘Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.’ And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

  Less than a year later, after Germany had invaded Czechoslovakia and Poland, Britain declared war.

  Churchill’s chilling words cannot have failed to echo through the minds of the architects of appeasement as the events of May 1940 unfolded, but few could have known on that day in October 1938 that this one intransigent man would be the saving of Britain.

  FRIDAY, 10 MAY 1940

  GERMANY INITIATES OPERATION ‘FALL GELB’

  MOVES 4 MILLION TROOPS INTO POSITIONS ON BORDERS WITH HOLLAND, BELGIUM AND FRANCE

  SCRAMBLES ITS ONE-MILLION-STRONG AIR FORCE TO ENACT BLITZKRIEG

  CHAMBERLAIN GOVERNMENT FALLS

  3. A Leader Falls

  As the evening of 9 May 1940 drew to a close, Churchill was readying himself for the colossal task of leading the nation, confiding to his son Randolph, who had telephoned the Admiralty, ‘I think I shall be Prime Minister tomorrow.’ At sunrise the next day, all thoughts of a smooth transition to leadership disappeared when – exactly one month after the embarrassment of Churchill’s ‘ramshackle’ Norway campaign – Hitler once again launched a devastating attack in Europe.

  A little after half-past five, it was not the arrival of his usual breakfast tray – with its glass of scotch and soda between the rack of toast and plate of eggs – that woke Churchill but the shattering news that Germany had invaded Holland. ‘Boxes with telegrams poured in from the Admiralty, the War Office and the Foreign Office,’ he recalled, and at 6 a.m. he telephoned the French Ambassador to discuss deploying troops into neighbouring Belgium. It swiftly became clear that Belgium, too, had been invaded, though both countries had declared neutrality when the war broke out. Churchill finished his call with the French and took a meeting with the Secretaries of State for Air and War, Sir Samuel Hoare and Oliver Stanley, to discuss Britain’s possible response. Hoare recalled that Churchill’s ‘spirit, so far from being shaken by failure or disaster, gathered strength in a crisis, [and he] was ready as always with his confident advice’. He added, ‘It was six o’clock in the morning, after a fierce House of Commons debate and a late sitting. Yet there he was, smoking his large cigar and eating fried eggs and bacon, as if he had just returned from an early morning ride.’

  The three men then moved to the Upper War Room at the Admiralty where a Military Coordination Committee meeting was about to begin at seven o’clock. Situation updates were delivered in rapid succession, revealing the terrifying speed, scale and success of the German advance, which had begun at 3 a.m. GMT. The Luftwaffe was raining down bombs and parachuting in thousands of German soldiers across key targets in Holland, Belgium and now also Luxembourg. An order had been given by the Military Coordination Committee which saw the French and British Armies begin their march into Belgium. In the chaos of the moment, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Edmund Ironside, recalled that when he entered another room he ‘could not get out again. All the night watchmen were away and the day’s men not there. Doors double and treble locked. [He] walked up to one of the windows and opened it and climbed out. So much for security.’

  As Ironside was climbing through a window, the British people were making what they could of the 7 a.m. bulletin from the BBC Home Service. It had got wind of the invasion and announced: ‘It is reported, but not yet officially confirmed, that the Germans have invaded Holland.’

  Randolph Churchill, who was serving with his father’s old regiment, the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars, was at his barracks in Hull and telephoned his father at 7.30 a.m. to try to find out what was happening. Winston informed him that ‘the German hordes are pouring into the Low Countries but the British and French armies are advancing to meet them and in a day or two there will be a head-on collision’. Randolph replied, ‘What about what you told me last night about you becoming Prime Minister today?’ His father was unequivocal: ‘Oh I don’t know about that. Nothing matters now except beating the enemy.’

  But what indeed was going to happen regarding the question that had been burning for the past three days? Who would be Prime Minister? Chamberlain had said he would wait for Labour’s decision before committing himself to resigning. If Labour would serve in a government led by him, then he would happily stay. As if unaware of the Blitzkrieg sweeping across Western Europe, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood made the 11.34 a.m. train from Waterloo to Bournemouth and then went to the Labour conference. Chamberlain, it seemed, would get his answer that day, but not just yet.

  Meantime, shortly before 8 a.m. Churchill walked his familiar route from the Admiralty across Horse Guards Parade, his jaunty pace matched by Stanley and Hoare as they made for No. 10 Downing Street, where the War Cabinet was convening the first of many meetings that day. Taking their seats around the mahogany table, the twenty ministers, military leaders and Cabinet secretaries reviewed the current situation. In the absence of official confirmation that he would become top dog, Winston decided simply to act like one. Neville Chamberlain was seated ‘in the chair’, but it was Churchill who commanded the room, confirming that ‘the whole plan for the advance of the Allied forces into the Low Countries had been set in motion. The troops were not at the highest state of readiness, but would certainly be on the move quickly.’

  In less than three hours Winston was running the war. You would think that Chamberlain, having witnessed such an assertive performance, would now accept the previous day’s conclusion that Churchill should replace him as PM. You’d be wrong. Samuel Hoare and Churchill both noted that, after this meeting, Chamberlain confided to Sir Samuel Hoare that he believed he should ‘withhold his resignation until the French battle was finished’. It was a staggering assertion, given that he uttered nothing worth minuting in the 8 a.m. War Cabinet meeting. Moreover, the British public had awoken to see the previous day’s events splashed across the front pages:

  CHAMBERLAIN TO RESIGN: CHURCHILL EXPECTED

  TO BE NEW PREMIER

  P.M.’S LAST BID FAI
LS: LABOUR ‘NO’

  PREMIER: LAST EFFORT. RESIGNATION

  TO-DAY IF MOVE FOR ALL-PARTY GOVERNMENT

  FAILS

  SOCIALISTS AT NO. 10 LAST NIGHT

  How could Chamberlain renege on everything he had agreed to? But then again, how could he let go? If Churchill succeeded him now, it would overturn everything he’d worked for, not just during the last three years as Prime Minister but throughout his dogged campaign of appeasement. It would prove him wrong. Wrong about everything. Wrong to ignore Churchill’s six years of warnings. ‘Peace in our time’ – the four words Chamberlain spoke as he stepped off the plane from Munich on 30 September 1938 – now seemed so ridiculous. The flimsy piece of paper he clutched in his hand: ridiculous. It all looked ridiculous.

  All except for one thing: Churchill. He alone had understood the threat; unlike members of the Royal Family and various aristocrats and gentry of England, he had not been seduced by Nazi charms; and he had refused to be silenced despite the slurs thrown at him. His reward? He was cast out from the political society he had helped shape and was labelled a warmonger. Yet he had stuck steadfastly to his principles: that one cannot negotiate with dictators.

  One can only imagine what Chamberlain must have thought when he first heard the news that German tanks were sweeping across Western Europe – what it meant. What he now had to face. His last-ditch attempts to cling to power were the actions of a man humiliated. Chamberlain’s actions and legacy have in recent years been viewed with less opprobrium than in the decades immediately after the war, but the next few months of his life must have been the hardest to take. After the first War Cabinet concluded, he approached the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Kingsley Wood, with the idea of remaining in power.