Alone, 1932-1940

by William Manchester

  This cable arrived in the Reich’s Moscow embassy at 5:45 A.M. on Saturday, and the German ambassador made a 2:00 P.M. appointment with Molotov. But when they met, the foreign commissar refused to make a date for Ribbentrop’s trip; he repeated that “thorough preparations” would be required. Depressed, Schulenburg returned to his embassy, wondering how he could break the news to a despot who never accepted excuses and ruthlessly punished failure. So fearsome were the consequences that—blasphemous in a servant of the Führer—he prayed. And his prayers were answered. At 4:30 P.M. his telephone rang. It was Molotov, asking him to return. Emerging from the commissar’s office, the elated ambassador returned to his embassy and sent the Wilhelmstrasse a triumphant wire. “The Soviet Government agree to the Reich Foreign Minister coming to Moscow,” it began. The Soviet foreign commissar had stated that Ribbentrop “could arrive in Moscow on August 26 or 27. Molotov handed me a draft of a nonaggression pact.” Hitler was elated, but he had by now set August 26 as the date for the attack on Poland. Drastic measures were necessary. Overcoming his distaste for Bolsheviks, on the twentieth the Führer sent a personal cable to Stalin, accepting the general terms of the nonaggression treaty and urging that final negotiations take place as soon as possible.95

  Late the next night, Berlin radio interrupted a musical program for an announcement: “The Reich government and the Soviet government have agreed to conclude a pact of nonaggression with each other. The Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs will arrive in Moscow on Wednesday, August 23, for the conclusion of the negotiations.” It was nearly midnight, Monday, August 21, 1939. Europe had ten slaughterless days left.96

  This conspiracy against peace—for that is what the pact amounted to—was a cynical deal, and Russia would pay a terrible price for it. But the British and French governments had played a sorry role. Over four months had passed since Litvinov had made his proposal to them. Had the opportunity been seized—had Eden, say, arrived in the Soviet capital with plenary powers—Hitler might never have had his chance. Russia needed peace; everyone knew that; but the democracies were insensitive to it. Three years later Stalin explained to Churchill: “We formed the impression that the British and French Governments were resolved not to go to war if Poland were attacked, but that they hoped the diplomatic line-up of Britain, France, and Russia would deter Hitler. We were sure it would not.” Later Winston wrote: “Thus Hitler penetrated with ease into the frail defences of the tardy, irresolute coalition against him.”97

  Bonnet, as he later wrote in his memoirs, realized that “pour France c’était un désastre.” At a bleak convocation of the Conseil de la Défense Nationale a pall of defeatism hung heavy over the council table. Gamelin, the most spineless generalissimo, said the army would not be ready for war until 1942; the most France could do now was mobilize, bringing “some relief to Poland by tying down a certain number of large German units on our frontier.” Bonnet said flatly that they should ponder whether to ignore their treaty commitment and leave the Poles to their fate.98

  Only Daladier’s peasant strength suppressed Bonnet’s pusillanimity. France’s commitment to Poland, the premier reminded him, was a matter of honor and had been since Marshal Foch’s secret military agreement with the Poles in 1921. If either a German hobnail or a Russian boot set foot on Polish soil, France had agreed, the Army of the Third Republic was pledged to attack the aggressor. Therefore, at the premier’s insistence, the Conseil de la Défense decided that “la seule solution” in the present crisis was to adhere to “nos engagements vis-à-vis de la Pologne.” In a public statement the French government reconfirmed its alliance with Poland, with each party guaranteeing the other “immediately and directly against any menace, direct or indirect, threatening their vital interest.” The formal language of exchanges between governments could be no more precise.99

  But the triple alliance which Russia had proposed and Churchill had enthusiastically endorsed—which conceivably could have averted war, or at the very least given the Germans less than an overwhelming margin—had become another of history’s colossal Ifs. England and France were in the position of disappointed fiancées. The Soviets, in need of a spouse, had asked for their hand. They, also lacking a strong partner, had reluctantly approached the altar. There the ritualistic question had been raised: whether anyone had just cause to object to the union. And the Poles, at that crucial moment, had rudely spoken up, leaving the Russians in the embarrassing position of rejected suitors. Ribbentrop, having caught them on the rebound, rejoiced. His glee is understandable. The jubilation of Beck is harder to grasp, but he certainly felt triumphant. Ordinarily, he ran his office like a martinet, his face stiff and expressionless. But all that critical week his smile was vulpine, a smile of malice, the smile of a man who relished revenge. In the Russo-Polish War of 1920 the Bolsheviks had driven deep into Beck’s homeland, to the gates of Warsaw. Now they had thought they could do it again, but he had outwitted them. This, he told his staff, was his greatest success. If he were to be remembered, it would be for barring the Red Army from Polish soil. He had saved Poland from the Communists.

  So Nazis and Communists, until now sworn enemies, had been meeting secretly, frequently, and with growing confidence while the frustrated British public watched the Moscow-London-Paris entente, imaginatively conceived, struggling vainly to avoid stillbirth. Churchill’s breathing spells from his book had been rare and brief. Any major issue brought him up to the House of Commons, however, and the prime minister created one when he decided to adjourn Parliament for two months—from August 4 to October 3. Chamberlain wrote his sister from Chequers that “all my information indicates that Hitler now realises that he can’t grab anything else without a major war and has therefore decided to put Danzig into cold storage.” If Parliament urged a show of Britain’s growing military strength, however, the Führer would feel that “he must do something to show he is not frightened. I should not be at all surprised therefore, to hear of movements of large bodies of troops near the Polish frontier…. That is part of the war of nerves and [would] no doubt send Winston into hysterics.” Provocative speeches in the House of Commons and demands for military maneuvers would, Chamberlain wrote, “play straight into Hitler’s hands and give the world [the impression] that we are in a panic.”100

  Churchill—anxious, not panicky—feared, as a friend put it, “that Neville, having got rid of the House, proposed to do another Munich.” Therefore, he decided to protest Chamberlain’s decision to adjourn Parliament. General Spears, who had been staying at Chartwell that last weekend in July, told Harold Nicolson: “The old boy is determined to speak with great violence and to vote against, arguing, ‘It is no good Chamberlain saying he will summon Parliament “if there is any change of situation.” He must promise to summon if any cloud rises at all.’ ” Churchill told Spears that the motion for recess was a profound mistake because it would convince Hitler that Britain would be slow to act in a crisis, and give Russia the impression that Britain was not serious about collective security. “The scattering of Parliament,” he wrote to Lord Wolmer, “is a serious snub.”101

  Most Tory critics of appeasement agreed, but thought the issue not worth another vote against their party leader. Harold Macmillan felt that way and phoned Churchill, asking him to reconsider. Winston bluntly refused, Eden also suggested that they let Chamberlain have this one and “toe the line,” as Nicolson noted in his diary, adding: “I would do so were it not that Winston refuses, and I cannot let the old lion enter the lobby alone. But apart from this I do feel very deeply that the House ought not to adjourn for the whole of two months. I regard it as a violation of constitutional principle and an act of disrespect to the House.”102

  “This House,” Churchill opened on August 2, “is sometimes disparaged in this country, but abroad it counts.” Its debates and motions were particularly weighed by dictators “as a most formidable expression of the British national will and an instrument of that will in resistance to aggression.” Winston
had “the feeling that things are in a great balance.” Certainly it was an “odd moment” for a parliamentary vacation “when the powers of evil are at their strongest.” Berlin said the Reich had two million men under arms—the real figure was at least triple that—and another half million would be added this month.103

  He had learned that public schools in large parts of Czechoslovakia, especially Bohemia, were being cleared and prepared for accommodation of wounded Germans. There was “a definite movement of supplies and troops through Austria towards the east” and a “strained situation in the Tyrol.” The elements of crisis were there, and “all these are terribly formidable signs.” Thus, he said, “At this moment in its long history it would be disastrous, it would be pathetic, it would be shameful for the House of Commons to write itself off as an effective and potent factor… against aggression.” Then he delivered his heaviest blow:

  It is a very hard thing, and I hope it will not be said, for the Government to say to the House, “Begone! Run off and play. Take your masks with you. Do not worry about public affairs. Leave them to the gifted and experienced Ministers” who, after all, so far as our defences are concerned, landed us where we were landed in December of last year, and who, after all—I make all allowances for the many difficulties—have brought us in foreign policy at this moment to the point where we have guaranteed Poland and Rumania, after having lost Czechoslovakia, and not having gained Russia.104

  Amery and Macmillan joined in arguing against such a long adjournment, but Chamberlain was unmoved. Nicolson noted in his diary: “To the astonishment of the House the Prime Minister gets up and after saying that he will not give way an inch, he adds that… he wished it to be clearly understood that he regarded the vote as a vote of confidence in himself…. The general impression is that Chamberlain has in fact missed an opportunity and outraged the feelings of the House.” Party strength prevailed, although forty Conservatives abstained; on that sour note the House dispersed for the summer.105

  The following Tuesday Winston delivered a broadcast to the United States. Once more he was looking westward, convinced that the hope of England’s security and, if it came to that, her deliverance lay across the Atlantic, in the vast untapped power of the United States. The fact that his mother had been American in no way diminished his loyalty to the Crown—he had been called “fifty percent American and one hundred percent British”—but he believed in bloodlines, was proud to have cousins across the sea, and admired the United States as Baldwin and Chamberlain did not. Furthermore, Franklin Roosevelt was president. Churchill would have regarded most occupants of the White House as lesser men than himself, but Roosevelt was not among them. Like Churchill, he was a great statesman. The two men were very different in other ways, but both possessed intellect, vision, courage, and the conviction that if civilization was to survive, Adolf Hitler must be destroyed. Roosevelt’s handicap was that his people were overwhelmingly isolationist. Refugees from Europe, or descended from refugees, they wanted no part of “Europe’s wars.” Roosevelt and Churchill saw that the German demagogue was the enemy of freedom for all men. In his broadcast Churchill tried to plant the seed of that thought in the minds of his U.S. listeners, there to be nourished by Roosevelt.

  His opening chord was unfortunate. In his hands the rapier of wit or the broadsword of ridicule was deadly, but on this occasion he was awkward, even embarrassing, with the hacksaw of sarcasm. He began heavily: “Holiday time, ladies and gentlemen! Holiday time, my friends across the Atlantic! Holiday time, when the summer calls the toilers of all countries for an all too brief spell from the offices and mills and stiff routine…” This went on. And on. He rumbled: “Let me look back—let me see. How did we spend our summer holidays twenty-five years ago?” Millions of listeners were too young to remember, and the rest had no recollection, as he had, of Germans “breaking into Belgium and trampling down its people.” He had forgotten that the United States hadn’t declared war on Germany until three years later, and that another year passed before U.S. doughboys, most of whom had never heard of Belgium, filed into the trenches.106

  In the same vein of ponderous japery, he said that to believe Dr. Goebbels, “you would suppose that it was… this wicked Belgium,” with “England and the Jews,” who attacked Germany, which in its righteous might fought manfully for four years and was about to win an overwhelming victory when “the Jews got at them again, this time from the rear. Armed with President Wilson’s Fourteen Points they stabbed, we are told, the German armies in the back.”

  Dropping his caustic tone, Churchill became Churchillian once more, rousing and persuasive. Now, he said somberly, “There is a hush all over Europe, nay, over all the world.” What kind of hush? “Alas, it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear.” But, he said, almost whispering, if you listened carefully you could hear “the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the parade grounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million Germans and over a million Italians.” He recited their conquests—Austria, Czechoslovakia, Abyssinia, Albania—noting that the Duce and the Führer called them “liberations,” and commented: “No wonder there is such a hush among the neighbors of Germany and Italy while they are wondering which one is going to be ‘liberated’ next.”

  Once more he appealed for collective security, once again he disposed of the Nazi charge of “encirclement.” Then he drew a striking parallel between the American and British constitutions. “It is curious,” he observed, “how the English-speaking peoples have always had [a] fear of one-man power,” or “handing themselves over, lock, stock and barrel, body and soul, to one man, and worshipping him as if he were an idol.” Tradition in the Reich was different: “In Germany, on a mountain peak, there sits one man who in a single day… can plunge all that we have and are into a volcano of smoke and flames.” If that man “does not make war there will be no war. No one else is going to make war…. No one has ever dreamed of attacking Germany.”

  Approaching the end he said: “It is not, believe me, my American friends, from any ignoble shrinking from pain and death that the British and French peoples pray for peace.” He was wallowing again; everyone shrinks from pain, and there is nothing ignoble about it. Yet, as always, he came on strong at the end:

  But whether it be peace or war—peace with its broadening and brightening prosperity, now within our reach, or war with its measureless carnage and destruction—we must strive to frame some system of human relations in the future which will put an end to this prolonged hideous uncertainty, which will let the working and creative forces of the world get on with their job, and which will no longer leave the whole life of mankind dependent upon the virtues, the caprice, or the wickedness of a single man.107

  Even when off his form, Churchill was a powerful broadcaster, and getting better all the time. By now informed Americans were beginning to realize it. As early as October 1938, he had told U.S. listeners why Munich had been a disaster and the perils it had spawned. Thomas Jones wrote a friend in the United States: “Churchill’s speech to America, brilliant as it was in phrasing, is criticised here as not likely to be helpful on your side. I should have thought that for the present we ought to leave America alone.”108

  British opinion had reversed itself since Munich. Chamberlain, however, had not, and the country’s new mood was not reflected in his policy. The public—even the House of Commons—knew very little of the decisions and commitments being made in the name of their king and affecting their future, or indeed, whether they would have one. Fleet Street had kept them informed of negotiations looking toward an alliance with the Soviets, because Litvinov had announced his plan to foreign correspondents. No Englishman—including, for a time, the country’s leaders—knew of the talks between Berlin and Moscow, but England’s Polish policy should have been known everywhere in Britain. At the very least it ought to have been debated in Parliament. In practice, it was conducted in secret by a handful of men, led by Chamberlain, H
alifax, and Horace Wilson. They withheld news of the moves and countermoves in London, Warsaw, and Berlin because they knew their countrymen would disapprove. They were still the Men of Munich. Their higher loyalty was to appeasement. That policy continued to entail duplicity, lies, a stronger Reich, and a further weakening of the Führer’s enemies in the coming conflict. His Majesty’s Government had sold out the Czechs; now, if they thought it would keep them out of war, they would sell out the Poles, too.

  Hitler and Stalin could gag their newspapermen; in the democracies that was impossible. Foreign correspondents from the United States and every European capital were aware of the developing tension between London and Warsaw, and although they only picked up fragments of the story, they gave the Poles a forum for their grievances, which were found to be completely justified when the forty volumes of Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-39 were published after the war. The issue was whether England would or would not fight for Poland. One of the first journalists to put it bluntly was Garvin, who noted in the Observer that summer that Chamberlain’s reputation was reflected in the greeting now exchanged by passing acquaintances on the streets of Warsaw. They simply said: “Remember Munich.”109

  On Monday, August 14, the day Ribbentrop cabled Schulenburg that he wanted to fly to Moscow “in the name of the Führer” with the object of “restoring German-Russian friendship,” Churchill left England for a three-day tour of the Maginot Line. His mission was an exercise in personal diplomacy, obsolescent then, illegal today, and rarely productive. At the time of Winston’s departure, Chamberlain and his cabinet were unaware that he had left the country; only the Imperial General Staff, whose blessing he had, knew where he was going, and why. His name and his reputation were familiar to every Frenchman in authority.110