If Hitler Comes

by Christopher Serpell

  “Well, this beats me,” I said. “However, I don’t think I’ll trouble you. I am prepared to take full responsibility for what I have written.”

  Then it all came out. Mr. Johnson coughed apologetically, and said: “As a matter of fact, I doubt if the cable company will dispatch the message if I haven’t initialled it. Those seem to be the instructions.”

  So, in this little bare room, standing before a callow youth who was more of a straw than I was on the tide of change that was sweeping over England, I realized that we could no longer take for granted the Freedom of the Press. The young man picked up a blue pencil and poised it helplessly over the flimsy paper. He fumbled a little, initialled each page, and handed the wad back. “This looks all right,” he said weakly.

  I thanked him, and walked out unhappily. Poor Mr. Johnson, little as he looked the part, was a portent, and a very unpleasant one.

  “A tiresome business, this,” suggested the clerk, when I gave in the initialled sheets, “but we shall get used to it.”

  I hurried back to the office, anxious to consult my colleagues upon this new development. On the way I had a bright idea. I called in at the Post Office, and dispatched a private cable to my editor. It ran something like this:

  “TODAYS STUFF CANNOT ENTER NATIONAL SINCE ORMONDE RECENTLY ENTERED DERBY FENTON.”

  At Wellington they tumbled to my elementary code, and that day the staid Courier was as effective as any of its rivals in bringing home to New Zealand a sense of great changes. My dignified message was read between the lines by the whole Dominion, for it achieved the distinction, incredible in that time of peace and liberty, of being headed:

  “From Our Own Correspondent,

  LONDON, March 13.

  (Censored)”

  As a matter of fact, Mr. Johnson, though a portent, was but a temporary one. The Foreign Secretary called the important editors together. With them went my Australian colleague, Dorman, to represent the Dominion journalists, to whom he afterwards reported what had happened. He said that the tiny bubble of optimism that the Government had succeeded in blowing the day before had already burst. Naker had been unable to conceal his anxiety. He had spoken of “Herr Hitler’s somewhat natural impatience” and “the necessity of showing the utmost goodwill at the outset”, and had declared that “the success of this great experiment” depended altogether upon the discretion of the Press. But the outcry against a Foreign Office censorship had been too much for him, and he had agreed to the withdrawal of Mr. Johnson and his colleagues.

  In the afternoon Parliament met. This simple fact was of great comfort to the people. The pre-Hitler machinery of State in the United Kingdom was vast and complicated, with feudal trappings, but the sovereign power ultimately rested with the sober and simple entity known as the House of Commons, and the House of Commons, as was often proudly and ungrammatically declared, “is us”. To the average Englishman the authority of Parliament was unchallenged and unchallengeable; subconsciously, he probably believed that its mere assembling would set a term to any unfortunate nonsense that Naker, say, might have been up to.

  To be riding in a bus along Whitehall, past the Cenotaph, and to be bound for yet another important debate in the cramped Press gallery of that tawdry, stuffy, and majestic Chamber had a steadying effect upon my nerves. Big Ben struck two, in the tones that meant “heart of Empire” to half the world. A good crowd had gathered, and there was some excitement in Parliament Square. It was caused by one of those tiresome Greyshirt processions, which the police were dispersing. Demonstrations of any kind, it will be remembered, were forbidden within half a mile of the High Court of Parliament.

  Among my papers is Hansard for the Thirteenth of March. I have often glanced through it since the day I bought it, and it has assumed in my mind the proportions of a classic tragedy.

  “The House met at a quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. Speaker in the Chair.” The formula calls to mind that dignified little procession, perhaps the most moving of all the State ceremonial of England, when, preceded by the Serjeant-at-Arms with his mace, the bewigged Speaker walked through the lobbies and the House to his chair. Everyone would bow, and it was an expression, not so much of patriotism, as with cheers for the King, but of an even deeper loyalty to the ancient liberties of which Parliament was the age-long guardian.

  How much had not been accomplished in this mock-Gothic Chamber in the course of a century, by the last Parliaments in the long line that went back centuries more! One thought of the wise social legislation brought to fruition, the scandals exposed and ended, the voices of successive statesmen summoning the nation to its constructive tasks. Thus had British democracy and empire been slowly and delicately integrated, through storm and calm, until to-day, it had come to provide the framework of millions of happy and useful lives.

  And now this great institution, palladium of English liberties, was still in being, its meeting-place overflowing with the full complement of duly elected members. Everyone, I was told, was there for prayers; and very moving it must have been. Even the Cabinet were in their places, Naker and the rest; but surely those of them (I exclude Evans) who knew what they had done or assented to must have felt like Judas in the Upper Room.

  I never mastered British Parliamentary procedure, and cannot explain how it came about that a meeting summoned during the Easter recess to deal with an emergency and to ratify a treaty should begin with a string of questions to Ministers about pensions and municipal finance in West Ham. But I have the clearest recollection of the famous incident that came in the middle of these proceedings, and added to the feeling of tension in the debate that followed.

  There was suddenly a great commotion in the Distinguished Strangers’ Gallery. It was already stiff with diplomats, but here came the German Ambassador, followed by a suite of seven or eight attachés and brown-shirted secretaries such as had never before been seen in these surroundings. The Dutch and Flemish Ministers, with some others, hastened to make room for them, but they did not at once sit down. Instead, standing to attention and raising their right hands towards the Chair, they interrupted the quavering voice of the Minister of Health with the raucous, staccato cry, like blasphemy in church, “Heil Hitler!”

  The Speaker made no sign, but, while the House kept shocked and humiliated silence, a bold member of the Labour Opposition jumped to his feet, and cried: “On a point of order, sir. Will not the officers of the House, in accordance with practice, see that the strangers responsible for this unseemly interruption are summarily ejected?”

  The Germans had clattered down into their seats, like a Roman emperor and his familiars at the circus. There was a pause; the Labour man remained on his feet, while a faint sound of “Hear, hear” came from the benches around him. The Treasury Bench tried to look as though nothing remarkable was happening.

  At last the Speaker found his voice. It shook as he took the only dignified course, picking up the thread that had been rudely, perhaps permanently, broken. “The Right Honourable the Minister of Health,” he said, looking straight in front of him; and the thin voice that had been interrupted resumed its part in the orderly proceedings of the Mother of Parliaments.

  At last the Foreign Secretary rose to open for the Government in the big debate. He had quite regained his self-possession; one could see that he knew exactly what he was going to say, that he was prepared to answer certain objections and determined to ignore others, and that by the sheer force of his personality he intended to keep the debate on the plane of slightly cynical, but genial, common sense.

  His brisk, cheerful tones dispelled some of the gloom of the “Heil Hitler!” incident. He was, in fact, brilliantly persuasive. For all his tortuousness he had always been a good Commons man, and he wooed the House like a rather too practised lover. There at least he was sure of himself, however delicately he might still have to tread before the representatives of the Wilhelmstrasse.

  There is no need to repeat his arguments. They look false enough n
ow, but most people welcomed them gladly enough at the time, as holding out the one chance of a prosperous and not undignified future for Great Britain. The House listened to them hopefully, but in silence.

  He came at length to the circumstances of the last fatal week-end.

  “As time went on”, he said, “it became increasingly clear to His Majesty’s Government and to the Government of the German Reich that the new situation should be clarified and crystallized, for all the world to see, in a treaty of friendship and mutual assistance. This instrument, freely negotiated, is that which the House——”

  It was here that the first interruption occurred. There were cries of “Question”, and Churchill was first on his feet to ask with calm deliberation whether His Majesty’s Government, in these “free negotiations”, had been uninfluenced by the fact that Germany on the previous Thursday had begun the transport of twenty divisions from the interior to the north-east coast.

  “And by Hitler’s threat on Friday night to bomb London to bits,” added a bold member of the Labour Opposition, guessing at the truth.

  Almost the whole House was now on its feet, the Opposition back-benchers emboldened at last to make a demonstration, screaming “Traitors!” at the Government, and the Government members calling “Mischiefmakers!” in reply. The Speaker made no attempt to quell the tumult, and Naker remained seated until it had died down. Then (says my Hansard):

  “Honourable members opposite”, he said (with a deprecating gesture of his hands), “are inclined to ignore the processes of history. Their antique jingoism has little meaning to-day. One could not but admire their valour (were it ever put to the test), but we on this side of the House prefer a higher patriotism. To us the British Empire is no mere temporary phenomenon, consistent with but one phase of historical development. We do not seek to preserve it by vainly trying to keep the rest of the world unchanged; we seek to develop it by meeting changing conditions in a spirit of realism and co-operation.”

  So he went on, and no interruptions could break his apparent complacency. He became very plain and matter-offact, almost casual, and in a bare twenty minutes he had finished the speech in which, as British Foreign Secretary, he virtually handed his proud country to the mercy of the enemy. But when he sat down there was sweat on his forehead.

  Some of the speeches that followed, on the Opposition side, were almost worthy of this great and tragic occasion. One notable Tory Parliamentarian evoked the great leaders of past times, who would have wept had they seen the extremity to which modern leadership had brought the nation. Labour leaders spoke of painfully won social reforms, and asked who would be their guardian now. All pleaded that the House might, at the last moment, take a mighty risk to redress a great error; all, at the same time, clearly knew they were making valedictory speeches.

  On the Government side there was gallant wishful thinking. Backbenchers exhibited a renewed faith in Nazi promises, and the Lord Privy Seal almost made it appear that Great Britain, out of sheer altruism, had condescended to help Germany in her European problems. “Naught”, he said, with sublime inappropriateness, “shall make us rue.”

  Chamberlain’s unforgettable speech will find its way (if civilization survives) in the school history books. “Peace was my life’s ambition, but not this peace.” His voice trembled when he said that it was his faith in his country’s courage and integrity that had enabled him to make the great experiment of Munich. Could it be that faith was unjustified?

  Evans rose to wind up the debate. One was aware of the strange similarity between the two men. They had many ideals in common, and were equals in sensibility, but Evans had no strength of character.

  The House held its breath. Who knows but that in that brief moment there lay the chance that a great leader might have seized, to rescue England, if not from destruction, then from shame? Did the House feel that the shades of Pitt, Disraeli, Gladstone were crowding round the last holder of their great office, begging, even commanding him to shrink from the final betrayal? If so, the moment passed, and soon members were settling down to listen to an uninspired recapitulation of all the arguments which, during the last six months, had been brought to defend a policy of surrender. There was a sense of anticlimax as, rather unexpectedly, the Prime Minister sat down; and the question was put. No-one had the heart to challenge a division; the last formalities were rapidly attended to; and, in the midst of an intolerable silence, the Speaker rose and left the Chamber. British democracy, fruit of centuries of struggle on this hallowed spot, had gone by default.

  Few of the faithful Commons could trust themselves to speak, either to themselves or to the familiar, courteous attendants, as they struggled into their overcoats and were gone. “Who goes home?” Many, many things, that would not bear thinking of.

  Chapter Two

  “BLOOD IN BRITAIN”

  FATE, you may remember, allowed Sir John Naker three days in which to enjoy the full triumph of his foreign policy. Three spring-like days they were, so that, discarding an overcoat, he could walk jauntily across the Park each morning to the Foreign Office, surveying, through the burgeoning trees, the gallant towers of Westminster, symbols of the mighty State machine that he had set rumbling on the course he had chosen for it. They were honeymoon days, with the diplomatic wires buzzing with congratulatory messages, from Göring, from Ribbentrop, from Hitler himself, while the British Press played up nicely and the Stock Exchange boomed. There was no need for him to listen at Cabinet meetings to the tale of woe of the Minister of Labour; he, Naker, had now provided the international conditions for a trade revival, and it was for the other fellows to take advantage of them. Still less need he bother much with the Egyptian Ambassador who kept anxiously asking for certain assurances, and for a promise of mediation in some incipient dispute; trust him, Naker, not to interfere in anyone else’s Lebensraum. Soon it would be time to settle some of the details of the brave new world, and Hitler’s State visit, expected in May, would be a busy time for him; meanwhile, he felt he could afford to climb with leisurely aplomb into the biggish niche that history, he was sure, had provided for him.

  So I read his attitude, but I do not pretend to know what came into his mind when the three days were over and the ground opened before his feet. I do not know whether even then he foresaw the full disaster, or whether the thing that meant so much for the rest of us had little or no significance for him. He was a man without roots, patrician or plebeian, and he could have been betrayed by his cynicism into grave miscalculations.

  But none of us, indeed, had realized quite how large a place the monarchy played in British nationhood. When the Renown slipped silently out of Plymouth Sound, flying the last Royal Standard ever rightfully to flutter in an English breeze, it took away more than the Crown. It took away our faith in our future and in ourselves. Constitutional propriety allowed only this supreme rebuke from the monarch to his people. There had never been a juster one.

  The quiet honeymoon was over. Shorn of our ancient symbol of continuing tradition, we found ourselves face to face with grim reality of the present. We felt uncomfortable when Herr Hitler sent a telegram of congratulation to our makeshift, and probably unconstitutional, Council of Regency, upon their good fortune in “opening a new and glorious chapter in Anglo-German Nordic history”. We were afflicted with painful doubts about the legal status of the British Empire, under the Statute of Westminster. We trembled when we came to examine the problems that demanded solution at home.

  “Watch the Greyshirts” came as an entirely unnecessary admonition from my editor. Who in England was not now watching them? Within a few days, wherever Englishmen met and talked the same question was asked: “What will the Greyshirts do now?”

  Looking back, I am ashamed to think that I had not paid more attention to the rise of Fascism in England. It was an alien, injected poison, but when the right conditions for its growth appeared it began to flourish soon enough.

  Our body politic had long before been deliberatel
y inoculated by the adroit pathologists of Nazi expansion. The technique which, after years of careful tending, turned Austria into a hotbed of sedition, which converted the Sudeten Germans from a comparatively passive minority into a raging fever of protest, and which pushed the Trojan horse into Norway, Holland, and Belgium, was from the very outbreak of hostilities directed towards fomenting divisions and dissensions not only between the chief Allies but between parties and bodies of opinion in both nations.

  For a time these efforts had no results. Goebbels undoubtedly thought at the beginning that the tolerant atmosphere of a democracy would present an ideal field for his experiments. He forgot that he was attacking a healthy body, which centuries of open political discussion and criticism, and the traditions of a free Press, had immunized against the poison of seditious propaganda. A few pacifists, purblind with the immature ideals of youth, could be found to heckle the public speeches of Ministers and glory in the martyrdom of being expelled by the police. The I.R.A. could be subsidized to distribute a few bombs and so-called Communists could be bribed to foment disorder, but the British public could never be persuaded to adopt the right terrified attitude towards the melodramatic type of agitator. It was only mildly indignant at an added inconvenience to existence. Thus the first German attempts to introduce sedition failed miserably. People were too absorbed in the magnitude of the task undertaken by the nation to pay much attention to those who sought to sow doubts; and where there were just grievances the Constitution still allowed a remedy.

  Demobilization brought back into the civilian life thousands upon thousands of young men who had thrown up jobs and prospects to fight for the ideals which had now been betrayed. They came back disillusioned and exasperated. They had experienced all the boredom and misery of war, and all its horrors; some of them had even tasted its triumphs on the field of battle. But their determination and their endurance had suddenly been nullified by the action of “politicians” and they were faced with an intolerable anticlimax. All were convinced that they would have “brought it off” if they had been given a chance. Consequently, from the very beginning, the mood of the average demobilized man, with his weather-beaten old-young face and the green “Nuremberg ribbon” in his button hole, was one of sulkiness and wounded pride. But he was to suffer a worse blow yet. He and nine-tenths of his fellows had been assured that their jobs would be kept for them when they came home. Now they were to find that industry was hard put to it to absorb one-third of their numbers. No-one had taken their jobs: the jobs had simply ceased to exist. Firms which had begun the war by complaining of being short-handed had very soon begun to be thankful for their depleted pay-roll. Now there was no question of rapid expansion. Supplies were still short, and demand was restricted by the thin purse of the average citizen.