At one time I suspected Mallory of plotting a desperate revolt with his friends on the British General Staff, with whom he had some very secret contacts, or even of trying to shame the leaders of the Greyshirts into biting the vile hand that fed them. But he stuck to his view that the first preparations for such a move were moral and psychological, and for this he pinned his remaining hopes on the world of labour. He persuaded himself that if the solid basis of British society was firm it mattered not that the superstructure was breaking. He paid a visit to Transport House. When he returned he was very nearly in despair.
“My God, Fenton,” he said, “the British trade-union movement has crumpled at the mere raised fist of Dr. Ley. D. told me there had been some changes in the Executive, but there is a completely new crowd there now. That’s the devil about this controlled Press. A man like Citrine can have the whole of his life’s work bullied or bribed out of existence, and then not know how to get the facts before the workers or the public.
“Well, they are a strange, hunted lot at Transport House now. A rather pansy young man who had obviously never done a day’s manual work in his life seemed to regard me as an envoy of doomed Jewish capitalism.’ The British worker is done with fighting your battles,’ he said. I asked him if he was old enough to remember what had happened to the trade unions in Germany. He said that when capitalism was destroyed in Germany the trade unions turned to fulfil a more constructive function, and that we must be ready for the same glorious revolution over here—not without the co-operation of the Communists. Isn’t it extraordinary how, with big guns and determination, Hitler has been able to turn all the old political theories upside down?”
Next day Mallory went back to his old constituency in Lancashire. I saw him off at Euston, feeling acutely that his failure was due in the long run to the cowardly inactivity of such as I. I muttered over again my feeble self-justifications; and when the whistle blew I felt like jumping into the compartment with him, without quite knowing why. He pushed me back on to the platform with a melancholy smile.
Three weeks later I heard from him, at the “Old Red Lion”, Oldham. “How glad I am I have come back here,” he wrote. “This is where our resistance begins. You could sweep the whole decadent world of London away to-morrow, and these people would throw up a new set of politicians and financiers and professors without any fuss at all. I have been addressing some meetings of the local Cotton Spinners’ Association, and, if the men here are typical of the rank and file of the trade-union movement up and down the country, I can assure you that next September’s meeting of the T.U.C. will change the whole situation. The Greyshirts are strong here too, but I prefer the quiet strength of the loyal Labour men. No Hitler could begin to undermine their confidence and determination, or could resist them when the time comes to act.”
I had two or three letters from Mallory after that. He spoke of meetings and processions, and admitted to some unprofitable street encounters with the Greyshirts. There was something of the demagogue about him after all; he must have thumped the tub good and hard. Some of his friends shared with him a tour of all the industrial regions; nowhere was their belief shaken in the nationalist fervour of the British working man or in the crucial importance of the next Trades Union Congress.
He was, on a short view, deceived. History records that this Congress never met. It records very little (as yet) about Mallory and his movement. In the remaining London papers there was only this, an agency message published on Monday, 23rd June:
“In a slight street disturbance in Oldham market-place on Saturday evening an unfortunate accident caused the death of Mr. Stephen Mallory, of Crown Court, Temple, E.C., a former National Labour M.P. for the borough. Mr. Mallory was wounded in the head by a revolver bullet which is thought to have been fired inadvertently by one of the Socialist demonstrators.
“Mr. Mallory, who was thirty-eight and unmarried, had been staying at Oldham for some time. He served in the Ministry of Supply during the last war, but for some time had retired from political life.
“The street disturbance was of a minor character, and Major Robinson, the newly-appointed Chief Constable of Oldham, states that order has now been permanently restored. ‘We have had some trouble lately with Socialist agitators,’ he told a Press Association representative yesterday, ‘but we are taking firm steps to preserve law and order. A detachment of Greyshirts rendered yeoman service in giving immediate assistance to the police, and I cannot be sufficiently grateful for the help given by those members of the German police who are here under the exchange system, commanded by the gallant Captain Trauber.’”
Many people read this item of news and blenched, or hung their heads with shame, but there were few comments on it. At the inquest they brought in a verdict of accidental death; but from evidence as reported in the Oldham Chronicle it would not have taken Lord Peter Wimsey to deduce that of all the unhappy people huddled together in the market-place that Saturday evening the only man likely to be armed with a revolver was the gallant Captain Trauber himself. He soon became Major Trauber, and got himself appointed to a coveted post (for such as he) in Whitechapel.
After that, one heard no more of the Patriots—if, indeed, one had heard of them before. A bullet from a minor Nazi gangster brought that whole grandiose movement to an end. One or two younger men, hitherto known to have been somewhat active on the fringe of public life, disappeared, apparently to the complete mystification of the police. One day, when it is quite certain that they are either dead or safe from Nazi clutches, I will write what I know about them. Meanwhile, I must confess that I had certain fears for my own safety, though Heaven knows I am no hero, and had done nothing to deserve the crown of martyrdom.
I expect that by this time the mill-owners of Oldham, hot under the collar when the Nazi “labour leaders” order them about their business or whisk their plant off to Chemnitz, have long forgotten the Mallory “incident”, and have never known that he might have been their saviour. Others, like myself, are vainly trying to forget him, recalling that we had declined to join him, not out of an intellectual disbelief in his chances of success, but out of the moral paralysis which, the punishment of those who put their hand to the plough and then look back, had descended upon the whole of our generation. Himmler may have it in his secret records somewhere that a not very dangerous centre of resistance was, as a measure of extreme precaution, neatly liquidated during June. The failure of Stephen Mallory—Stephen the Protomartyr—was, you may say, complete.
Yet indeed the banner of freedom had been raised, however hopelessly. There had at least been that little demonstration on the windy market-place at Oldham. Lancashire men had shouted their belief in freedom, and Lancashire hearts had beat high, for a moment. A small group of patriots had staked everything for the salvation of England. In the general disorderly retreat a token challenge had been made.
I suspect that Adolf Hitler, who has a flair for these things, was about the only man who at that time accorded Mallory his full importance. I believe he watched the small affair at Oldham with considerable anxiety. He knew well how a political snowball can start to roll; he knew the illimitable possibilities of audacity and faith. Even with Mallory out of the way he must have decided to take no chances.
The inevitable next step followed swiftly. Its cue, however, was given not by any internal development, but, to the surprise of everyone, by the President of the United States.
It was known that Washington had serious misgivings over the turn of events. Then, just a week after the light of Mallory had been put out, the President chose the occasion of a meeting of the Pan-American Conference for an important statement of American policy. He referred bluntly to the German “domination” of Great Britain, and said that Americans’ worst fears were being fulfilled. The American Government, he said, saw with concern the effect which this domination would have on the policy of the United Kingdom. The danger of a penetration of German ideas and German power into the western hemisphere
was imminent. He then touched on the position of the British Dominions and colonies. He reaffirmed that the existing Monroe doctrine covered Canada, and that no new influence on the policy of that great country could be permitted by the United States. The ensuing passage of his speech, so fraught with immediate and indirect consequences, is worth quoting.
“The Monroe doctrine,” said the President, “like all great political conceptions, is elastic in character and expands itself to embrace new developments in human thought and human history. It was originally evolved to preserve the stability of the American Continent, and to safeguard the life and freedom of those States which have their home and being on the soil of that continent. The basic idea inspiring it was the preservation of peace and the status quo within a wide area of the globe. With the vast development of communications and the evolution of new and long-range weapons during the past half-century, can we doubt that the area of the earth’s surface necessary for the free and unhampered growth of the American peoples has not also expanded? Can we doubt that if the sovereignty and integrity of such vigorous and prosperous young nations as Australia and New Zealand were threatened, this would not also be a threat to the safety and freedom of every denizen of the western hemisphere? The Monroe doctrine has ceased to have a merely American significance.”
The President’s words were received in the United States with surprisingly unanimous approval: they were received in Germany with a revealing burst of fury. The indignation which Dr. Goebbels and his men felt on behalf of the British Empire resembled the screech of a vulture which had seen someone attempting to revive what it had regarded as its own legitimate carrion. We were told, till we yawned, of this brutal and unprovoked threat to our national sovereignty. The Propaganda Ministry in Berlin had for long been deprived of a worthy target for its abuse, and it fell on “American imperialism” and the “American lust for world domination” with renewed ardour.
Gradually this clamour developed into a new expression of policy. The German people, it was declared, would not stand by and see their allies despoiled by robber Powers. The American menace had welded the German and the British peoples into a new and closer unity, and had given them a new mission, the protection of the “Nordic peoples” all over the world. Finally it was announced, with a bray of trumpets, that the Führer himself would set the seal of this new brotherhood by vouchsafing his presence on English soil. The oppressed British should have a chance of welcoming their new Protector in person, and it was to be a very different affair than the “State visit” mentioned at the time the Treaty was signed.
There is reason to believe that the decision to visit Great Britain was Hitler’s own, and was taken against the advice of his lieutenants, who feared that his presence might be a stimulus to any lingering tendencies towards independence. But the Führer saw himself now as a demi-god indeed, and no longer felt the need to retire to his eyrie in the Bavarian Alps in order to experience his godhead. The old lion had been cowed into submission, and he, the tamer, would now strut into the cage in full uniform, and make it go through its newly learnt tricks, to the crack of the whip.
Göring and Ribbentrop acquiesced, but they were taking no chances. There should be loaded rifles, as well as a whip, to ensure that nothing untoward befell the lion-tamer. Hitler, it was announced, would arrive on 1st July, but the “Führer’s Bodyguard” would precede him. Owing to the censorship and the general atmosphere of secrecy which now enveloped everything it was never known how many men constituted Hitler’s bodyguard on this occasion, but, according to a rumour emanating from Hull, 20,000 men were landed at that port alone from troopships during the week before the coming of the Führer. They were not seen in London, however, except as small detachments of superlatively well-disciplined men, who were apparently quartered in the Guards’ Barracks in Birdcage Walk. Even so, public attention was carefully distracted from their presence by the loudly heralded arrival of several thousands of Hitler Youth, on a mission of Kameradschaft. They were to take part in the festivities, and subsequently were to propagate the doctrines and ideals of Nordic boyhood throughout the schools of Great Britain. These youngsters, after arriving in Kraft durch Freude vessels at Tilbury, paraded through Central London and were given a mayoral banquet at Guildhall, before being quartered on families in the suburbs. They seemed to have plenty of pocket-money, and were seen everywhere in the streets during the latter part of June.
Hitler’s entry into London was superbly staged, and even the weather was subservient The Scharnhorst, with an escort of German and British destroyers, arrived in the Thames soon after eleven o’clock. Opposite Greenwich the Führer entered a motor-torpedo boat and proceeded up river, accompanied by six similar craft flying the Swastika flag from the bows and all manned with rigidly watchful S.S. men facing the banks with machine guns at the ready. Tower Bridge, with elephantine courtesy, broke its lower span and raised up the great bascules as the diminutive vessels passed underneath. On all the other bridges, ornamented with pylons and banners for the occasion, stood serried lines of steel-helmeted “bodyguard”, and in the centre of each was a band which broke into the strains of the German national anthem as the flotilla appeared. Squadrons of bombers in formation roared up and down the river, only a few hundred feet above the heads of the crowds on the Embankment, who were allowed to peer at the spectacle through a continuous line of British police facing inwards. At Westminster Pier, where the flotilla arrived punctually as Big Ben announced noon, Hitler was met by the Cabinet, headed by Dr. Evans, who, it was afterwards stated, greeted him with the raised arm salute. It was impossible, however, for the ordinary man to see this incident, since the approaches to the pier were hedged deep with troops and a phalanx of Hitler Youth who barked out a triple “Heil!” as their Führer set foot in England.
It had originally been reported that Hitler would receive the homage of Parliament at Westminster, but this item on the programme had been abandoned, apparently because it was not yet considered politic to enforce a full attendance of both Houses, or even to reconvene that neglected organ of State. Instead, a procession of bullet-proof cars with an escort of motor-cyclist troops proceeded slowly up Whitehall towards St. James’s Palace, where Hitler had elected to have his temporary residence and where a reception was to be held that afternoon. The shuttered windows of Buckingham Palace, which had witnessed so many a flashing Sovereign’s escort, gazed blankly down the Mall as the new régime, surrounded by a cloud of stuttering motor-cycles, advanced towards them and then turned to the right into St. James’s.
On that very day, when so much that was portentous was happening in London, the rest of the “bodyguard” set foot in England, to the number of 300,000 men. Within twenty-four hours every large port was occupied, in clockwork order, and Admiralty signals ordered all naval commanders to “co-operate” with the nearest units of the German Grand Fleet. Resistance was of the slightest, although it did leak out afterwards that some sixty British sailors and marines lost their lives at Chatham and Portsmouth.
The good news was brought to Adolf Hitler in strange surroundings. During the night he had driven westwards, through the sleeping suburbs, to fulfil a curious little ambition. At dawn, when his secretaries rushed up with the latest cables, he was the illustrious tenant of Hampton Court Palace, walking moodily among the roses wet with dew.
Chapter Six
FIXTURE AT LORD’S
AND now there were German troops stationed in London and Exeter, in York and Edinburgh and Carlisle. German words of command rang out on Salisbury Plain and in the green recesses of Ashdown Forest; steel helmets moved across the skyline of Dartmoor and the Grampian Hills. The grey Reichswehr paraded down Whitehall, deployed across Newmarket Heath, billeted itself in the stone cottages of the Cotswolds. And everywhere there went with it, like hostages, a few sullen men in khaki, who were the rightful heirs of these places, and had meant to devote their lives to defending them.
The Germans came swinging along the Mall wi
th flowers round their bayonets, and the flowers did not wither straight away. Unprovoked, the officers remained polite, the men stonily respectful. But they smiled grimly to themselves as they proceeded to their stations, mounting their machine guns according to prearranged plan. Within three days the whole of Great Britain was effectively occupied, and the invasion was complete.
There was something apparitional about the invaders. Hitler’s men—they had been so long the distant bogies whom our armed might was holding at bay, that it was unbelievable that one fine day they should arrive, as it were, by bus. You might, for instance, on Wednesday be walking down a sandy lane, to buy some cigarettes in the village, reflecting on the way how changeless was the countryside, whatever the B.B.C. might say at nine o’clock; then on Thursday, repeating the errand, you might find a company of Hessian Jäger resting on a route march beneath the beeches, looking more or less at home in your inviolable pastures. “Ah, the Germans,” you would say to yourself, rather as though they were a circus that was passing through the village. But the circus had come to stay.
Outside London, the fact that England had been seized by the enemy was brought home to many people only in flashes. Twelve months earlier most inhabitants of Debenford would have said, quite truthfully, that they would rather be dead than see German soldiers encamped on Sutton Walks. Now, by some odd conjuring trick of fortune, they were there—and Gerald Cooke wrote to us that the one complaint of the villagers was that, a well-worn short cut being now denied to them by a smiling Westphalian sentry, it was two furlongs more to Woodbridge. The parish meeting wrote to the commanding officer about this short cut, and young Captain von Krausnitz, being a clever man, at once threw it open again. Thenceforth the villagers walked through the camp with their shopping baskets, beaming with gratitude and friendliness, and fraternized to some extent with the soldiers. After all, they were hardly stranger than the actors and actresses who had turned an old sailing barge on the Deben into a weekend haunt, or worse-behaved than Londoners in their little red bungalows over the hill. Also they had money to spend. The landlord of the “Rose Revived” adapted his cellar to the keeping of lager, both dunkles and helles, on draught; the village baker learnt how to make Milchbrödchen. The girls began to dream of dances at Ipswich, and a few old ladies, their minds full of all the crime reports in the Daily Mail, were genuinely relieved that “the military”, albeit grey-clad, had arrived to preserve law and order.
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