If you are cut from all communication with us, and all evacuation from Dunkirk and beaches had in your judgement been finally prevented, after every attempt to re-open it had failed, you would become the sole judge of when it was impossible to inflict further damage upon the enemy. His Majesty’s Government are sure that the repute of the British Army is safe in your hands.
That night, Churchill dined with General Ironside and Clementine at Admiralty House and was described as being ‘in great form’. The evacuation of the BEF was proceeding at a good rate, and Jock Colville’s diary noted that ‘Winston’s ceaseless industry is impressive.’ After dinner, at 11.45 p.m. Churchill telegrammed Reynaud, repeating that he wished ‘French troops to share in evacuation’ as much as they could, and that ‘as soon as we have reorganised our evacuated troops, and prepared forces necessary to safeguard our life against threatened and perhaps imminent invasion we shall build up a new BEF’. He also informed the French leader that the British were removing army equipment from France but that ‘this is only to get into order and meet impending shock, and we shall shortly send you a new scheme for reinforcement of our troops in France’; he added that he was sending this information ‘in all comradeship’ and ‘do not hesitate to speak frankly to me’.
As Churchill was retiring to bed, an officer on duty in the War Cabinet took the opportunity to request four days’ leave so he could go and help with the Dunkirk evacuations, to which the Prime Minister replied, ‘God bless you; I wish I were going with you myself.’
Mist and bad weather on the morning of 30 May brought a respite from the Luftwaffe’s campaign of maximum effort, but the harbour at Dunkirk was now near-impassable for anything but tiny craft. Two messengers were despatched to London to inform the Prime Minister of the latest situation. Churchill was surprised to discover that standing at the door, alongside Lord Munster (aide-de-camp to Lord Gort), was his nephew, John Spencer-Churchill, who, in his own words, arrived at his uncle’s door ‘still soaking wet, and in full battle kit’. He informed his uncle that ‘the most urgent need is for small boats to get the troops off the beaches and out to the bigger ships’, and Munster added that Lord Gort believed ‘the small boats can be our salvation’.
By the afternoon’s 5.30 War Cabinet meeting, Churchill was pleased to announce that over 100,000 troops had landed on the English coast, but the ‘fog was now seriously interfering with the evacuation’. General Spears had sent a message to the War Cabinet updating them on the situation in France. There were fears that the battle still raging near the Somme might soon be lost: ‘General Weygand had given the odds as three to one against the French. Time had never been so precious, and he [Weygand] had begged that the British should send every possible soldier . . . One British Division would make all the difference.’
Churchill felt that the list of requests from the French was becoming worryingly long and that when, inevitably, Britain refused any of them, ‘as we must’, they would use it as the excuse they’d been looking for to give up the struggle. The meeting discussed the options and agreed with Churchill when he suggested that Britain tell the French, once more, that they had to hold out just a little longer, that Britain would send help as soon as it could, but that ‘we should make it quite clear that we had no forces that we could send at the present moment’.
As General Ismay wrote in his memoirs, Churchill ‘always preferred to see things for himself and learn what was happening at first hand’. He therefore suggested that a meeting of the Supreme War Council be called the following day so he could travel to Paris and explain the situation in person to the French. Churchill was extremely anxious that as many French troops as possible were shipped out of Dunkirk alongside the BEF. In the 11 p.m. Defence Committee meeting, the Prime Minister stressed that ‘[t]he British Army would have to stick it out as long as possible so that the evacuation of the French could continue’. If they failed to do so, it was likely to cause ‘irreparable harm’ to relations between Britain and France.
At 8.30 on the morning of 31 May the party left London in two Flamingoes for Paris. Churchill’s protection officer, Detective Inspector W. H. Thompson, remembers flying over ‘straggling masses of refugees. With what possessions they could gather in carts, prams and even on their backs, they hurried away from the fighting line as fast as they were able.’ Also in the delegation were General Ismay and, more unusually, Clement Attlee. It was the Lord Privy Seal’s first time at the conference table, and Ismay recalled in his memoirs that ‘[h]e was brave, wise, decisive, and completely loyal to Churchill. His integrity was absolute, and no thought of personal ambition seemed to enter his mind.’
When the Supreme War Council convened, Churchill’s main focus was the Dunkirk evacuation. He explained that ‘up to noon on that day, 165,000 men had been evacuated by sea’, to which Reynaud ‘drew attention to the disparity in numbers . . . [O]f 220,000 British troops in the Low Countries, 150,000 had been evacuated, whereas of 200,000 French troops only 15,000 had been taken off. He [Reynaud] was most anxious, from the point of view of French public opinion, that the French should be withdrawn in greater numbers; otherwise the public might draw unfortunate conclusions.’ Churchill tried to explain that ‘the chief reason why the British had got a lot of their people off first was because there had been many Line-of-Communication troops and other rear units in the back area [of Dunkirk] who were available for immediate evacuation. The proportion of fighting troops evacuated was much smaller.’ As the French troops had not yet been given an official order to evacuate as the BEF had, Churchill stressed that this was ‘one of the chief reasons why he had come to Paris . . . to make sure that the same orders were now given to the French troops as had been given to the British’.
The War Council thought that ‘Dunkirk could not be held for more than another 48 hours at the most, if only on the account of the growing shortage of water, food and ammunition’ and Churchill confessed that ‘the British Government had found itself compelled to order Lord Gort to evacuate the fighting troops before the wounded, of which there were many thousands within the perimeter. It was only the dire circumstances of the war that had made such an order necessary for the sake of the future.’ The British had not got off easily, despite their expectation that 200,000 able-bodied troops could be evacuated, for they had lost all of their equipment with the exception of small arms and personal equipment. Reynaud thanked and praised the British armed forces for their wonderful work in connection with the evacuation, but was convinced that ‘once the situation on the North-Eastern front had been liquidated, Germany would at once . . . undertake an attack southwards against the line of the Somme and the Aisne . . . [and asked] that as soon as the operation in the north was ended, the full strength of the Royal Air Force should be made available on the new front, together with such troops as Great Britain could spare.’ Churchill, his focus now more on the defence of Britain, replied that it was ‘impossible to determine what British land forces could be sent out until a clear picture had been obtained of what total forces had been retrieved from the North’.
For every hopeful or positive assessment of the situation, Reynaud retained a defeatist and pessimistic outlook. Churchill made one last attempt to put steel in Reynaud’s spine as the meeting drew to a close:
He could not believe that the German Army was as good as the French. If the Allies could hold out through the summer, Britain would emerge as a most important factor . . . The Allies must maintain an unflinching front against all their enemies . . . England did not fear invasion, and would resist it most fiercely in every village and hamlet. To put up a stout resistance she must have troops, and it was only after her essential and urgent needs had been met that the balance of her armed forces could be put at the disposal of her French ally.
In the present emergency, it was vital that England and France should remain in the closest accord. By doing so, they could best ensure that their spirits remained high. He was absolutely convinced that they had only to carry
on the fight to conquer. Even if one of them should be struck down, the other must not abandon the struggle. The British Government were prepared to wage war from the New World if, through some disaster, England herself was laid waste. It must be realised that if Germany defeated either Ally, or both, she would give no quarter: they would be reduced to the status of vassals and slaves for ever. It would be better far [sic] that the civilisation of Western Europe, with all its achievements, should come to a tragic but splendid end, than that the two great Democracies should linger on, stripped of all that made life worth living. That, he knew, was the deep conviction of the whole British people, and he would himself be proclaiming it in the British Parliament within a few days.
Though no one knew it, Churchill – for the benefit of France – had just trialled a rough version of the speech that would forever define him.
Attlee, moved by what he heard, added that ‘he entirely agreed with everything Mr. Churchill had said. The British people now realised the danger with which they were faced, and knew that in the event of a German victory everything they had built up would be destroyed: for the Germans killed not only men, but ideas. Our people were resolved as never before in their history.’
There was little Reynaud could say, but he thanked Churchill and Attlee for their inspiring words, grateful for the former’s assurance that if France went under Britain would not abandon the struggle. In saying that their two countries had never been closer, he adjourned the meeting.
One man who was keenly awaiting news of how the meeting had gone was Lord Halifax. Sir Ronald Campbell, the British Ambassador to France, wrote immediately to tell him that Churchill had come ‘at a psychological moment and his visit was of supreme value’:
He handled the French magnificently. He will give you a much better account of it than I could do by letter. All I need say is that at the end of the Supreme War Council meeting he made the most magnificent peroration on the implacable will of the British people to fight on to the bitter end, and to go down fighting rather than succumb to bondage.
This must have been the last thing Halifax wanted to read. Only the previous day he had written in his diary following the 5.30 p.m. War Cabinet meeting that he had never seen such a ‘disorderly’ mind as Winston’s, and that he was ‘coming to the conclusion that his process of thought is one that has to operate through speech. As this is exactly the reverse of my own it is irritating.’
Halifax was correct in his assessment of Churchill’s thought process operating through speech, but he could not have been more wrong in describing his mind as ‘disorderly’, for since his speech to the House of Commons on 28 May, when he had promised to speak again in a week, his mind had done nothing but begin to create order – an order of words. It is Ambassador Campbell’s observation rather than Halifax’s that is the most astute, and it brings us back into the company of Churchill’s old friend, Cicero.
In his book De Inventione, Cicero wrote of the natural order of a speech, breaking it down into six divisions, the last of which is known as the peroration and is defined as an emotional conclusion of a speech ‘typically intended to inspire enthusiasm in the audience’. The ‘magnificent peroration’ Churchill had spoken to the Supreme War Council showed that, as before, he was already testing out the final part of a speech that would go down in history as one of the greatest ever delivered.
Back in London, word was already circulating about Churchill’s masterful efforts with the French. Hugh Dalton noted in his diary: ‘The King says he has had to remind Winston that he is only P.M. in England and not in France as well!’ Churchill returned home in the early hours of Saturday, 1 June.
At that morning’s War Cabinet meeting, members were delighted to find that ‘Operation Dynamo was prospering beyond all hope and expectation’, and almost 225,000 troops had now been evacuated. Lord Halifax had the previous day met with the American Ambassador, Joseph Kennedy, who had told him that ‘Dunkirk was worth forty appeals from the Allies to the United States’; the prospects of Britain obtaining the destroyers it had ordered were now looking better, as ‘events were moving fast in the United States’, so Churchill should take this opportunity to speak directly to the President to speed things along.
Back at the Admiralty, Colville presented the Prime Minister with a suggestion that had come in ‘about sending the National Gallery pictures to Canada’, to which Churchill replied, ‘No, bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them.’ A similar response was also issued regarding the removal of the Royal Family, the Crown Jewels and even the Government to an Empire territory overseas: ‘I believe we shall make them rue the day they try to invade our island. No such discussion can be permitted.’
Meanwhile, clear skies over Dunkirk meant the Luftwaffe could resume its terrifying assault on the harbour and provide air-cover for German ground troops. The evacuation was continuing at the same rate, but the day had seen heavy losses: seventeen ships, among them four precious destroyers, plus ten more seriously damaged. In the Chiefs of Staff Committee meeting at 3.30 p.m., Churchill ‘emphasised the importance of holding on as long as possible. The Germans might now break through, and it might be possible to continue for another night. The success or failure of our efforts to rescue the remnants of the French Army might have great results on the Alliance. As long as the front is held, the evacuation should be continued – even at the cost of naval losses.’
A ‘Most Immediate’ telegram was sent to General Weygand at 6.45 p.m., warning him that the situation was reaching boiling point, and while they would hold out as long as they could, it was quite probable that the Germans would break through and the evacuation would have to be abandoned.
Concern now shifted to the citizens of Britain, whose morale was low and among whom a general panic was growing. The newspapers were reporting on Hitler’s plans to invade Britain. The War Cabinet agreed that in an attempt to boost public spirits, Duff Cooper should make a radio broadcast on the evening of 2 June to announce that 276,030 troops had been successfully evacuated. But it was not just the people who were in need of hope; concerns were still rife among Government ministers, and the diary entries of the MPs Harold Nicolson, Hugh Dalton and Chips Channon, respectively, express these keenly:
There are few grounds for enthusiasm really, except moral grounds. We have lost all our equipment. The French have lost 80% of their forces and feel that we deserted them. It will constitute a real problem to recreate good relations between the forces.
What will Europe look like after six months? Famine, starvation and revolt, most of all in the slave lands which Germany has overrun.
Everything is conspiring against us . . . We are in an appalling position . . .
I wonder as I gaze out upon the grey and green Horse Guards Parade with the blue sky, the huge silver balloons like bowing elephants, the barbed-wire entanglements and soldiers about, is this really the end of England? Are we witnessing, as for so long I have feared, the decline, the decay and perhaps extinction, of this great island people?
By midday on 3 June the miracle evacuation of the BEF was almost complete, with 292,380 troops rescued. Churchill’s Private Secretary, John Martin, wrote in his memoirs:
Through all those terrible days the Prime Minister remained utterly steadfast; but it was easy to feel the intensity of the responsibility that weighed upon him; and the imagination and emotion with which he watched the agony of France, eager to bring any support and comfort he could, yet steeling himself in face of desperate entreaties and his own generous instincts to hold back that bare minimum of aircraft strength on which our hope of continuing the struggle in Britain depended.
Winston was due to speak to the House of Commons in less than twenty-four hours and was yet to finish writing his speech. Throughout the day, while dashing between meetings, he stole chances to sit at his desk in Downing Street to add and delete lines to ensure the gravity of the situation was conveyed as clearly as possible. He knew the basic thrust
of his message. It was more or less the same message he’d delivered to the French at the Supreme War Council meeting, but this one called for a language that would resound especially deeply in the core of the British people – a simple language, anchored in short Anglo-Saxon words, phrases falling in triplets like hammers ringing on the same anvil.
He circulated the first draft of the speech to his inner circle. Initial thoughts were that it was ‘a little rough on the French High Command’, given the fragility of the current situation and their request for extra British military support. He crossed out the line stating, ‘Even though the United States continues to watch with a strange detachment, the growth and advance of dangers which menace them ever more darkly.’ Perhaps on reflection he remembered that this speech should entice the Americans to join the war effort and not turn them off it. Wonderfully, he wrote stage directions to himself in the margins, such as ‘express sympathy!’ next to the line ‘Our losses in men have exceeded 30,000 – killed, wounded and missing.’
Winston’s method of speech-writing was painstaking and took many days. In 1973, John Martin, Winston’s Private Secretary, was interviewed about his boss’s process and recalled that he took ‘tremendous care’ over this secret art form. A typist would be called in, then Churchill would begin to ‘very slowly dictate what he was going to say . . . once he saw his very careful selection of words and phrases . . . he would try out a number of words in a sort of whisper, so you could just hear a string of about half a dozen words . . . he would say them with his tongue and try them out’ before finally selecting what he felt sounded the best. The next step was to have the speech typed up into ‘draft form’. Once this was done, he would go through it with a red pencil and make changes before it was typed again into a ‘semi-draft’ form. This would then be sent out to the various ‘experts for vetting’ to ensure the facts and figures were correct. Finally, it would be typed into ‘psalm form’. This was his own unique format – with the lines laid out like the stanzas of a poem, each new line indented a bit more than the last – that he would then begin to practise with, over and over again, pacing around the room, grabbing his lapels, trying out the full range of intonations, from bombast to whisper.
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