Churchill and the King

by Kenneth Weisbrode

  The position of a king toward his ministers is of a different but not unrelated character. Few monarchs arrive to their positions entirely on their own merits, and while some, as we have seen, may get there unexpectedly and after having passed a series of hard tests, the position almost always exists to be filled, not to be won, bought, seized, or concocted. Ministries are the opposite. They sit at the top of Benjamin Disraeli’s greasy pole. While it is often the case that ministers are appointed for unusual reasons, prime ministers rarely are; the more successful ones, that is, the ones that tend to hold on to power by amassing it, almost never get there by chance. They tend to be ambitious, brutal, bloody-minded, versatile, nimble, malleable people. While that is all pretty obvious, less so is the quality of the interaction ministers must have with their monarchs. It is tricky, probably just as much as wooing electorates, defeating rivals, and mastering the difficult art of timing. Monarchs are fixed beings; they can only be removed with great difficulty; they generally demand deference and must not display weakness or passivity; they always require loyalty but also judgment and probably some degree of competence. One model for such an association was between Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm I. It worked well, though not always happily, for nearly three decades and produced, among other things, the modern German nation. Still, it was “hard to be Kaiser under Bismarck.”

  Most of today’s constitutional monarchs are charity mavens and celebrities. This was not always true, even as recently as a generation ago. It was certainly not the case for prewar Britain. The British monarchy was an imperial one, and so carried different meanings to many subjects. Its apotheosis under Queen Victoria, like the empire itself, may have been impossible to perpetuate as it was. The special achievement of this king’s father, George V, was to redefine so much of the loyalty to the monarchical and imperial idea for the twentieth century in the context of what would eventually be regarded as imperial decline by affixing to the institution an enduring affection for the royal family in public. Kings and queens, princes and princesses, and the rest had long been granted varying degrees of favor by the people, but in the twentieth century it came to be expressed more directly, maybe more intimately. For the first time their voices were heard on the radio and their faces seen in motion pictures, even on television.

  The modern British monarchy was still something of a fragile flower, however. This is the main reason the abdication crisis carried so great a risk. It is difficult to name many chaste monarchs, but none—with the partial exception of George IV with Mrs. Fitzherbert, a precedent that Churchill once had the tactlessness to mention in Wallis Simpson’s presence—had ever married his mistress, let alone a twice-married foreigner.

  Devotion can be malleable. Thus Churchill’s later about-face over the abdication may be explained as being consistent with his monarchism. It was said that “he venerated tradition, but ridiculed convention.” Few would have challenged its sincerity. “No institution,” he said, “pays such dividends as the Monarchy.” His wife, Clementine, referred to him as “Monarchical No. 1.” His was a form of devotion that placed a priority on institutions as well as legacies. “I was a child of the Victorian era,” he had written in 1930, “when the structure of our country seemed firmly set, when its position in trade and on the seas was unrivalled, and when the realization of the greatness of our Empire and of our duty to preserve it was ever growing stronger.” It was to be preserved, no matter the cost.

  Yet there is a distinction between the institution and the person: “Dukes tended to believe they were as good as any monarch.” Respect and deference are not always dished out in equal measure. Churchill was said by his doctor, Lord Moran, to have a “positively regal” sense of himself, which was not necessarily inconsistent with his reverence for the actual monarchy. Perhaps, like his wartime railway coaches, Churchill’s orientation was “semi-Royal,” but this at times skated along the edges of irreverence. Edward VII once growled that his initials, W.C., were appropriate for the man. That king, like his son, eventually came around to giving Churchill something in the way of support, but never unconditional trust or affection. Other royals, such as George V’s daughter-in-law, Elizabeth, had similar doubts about him. Lascelles could not bear him, and once even described him as “repugnant.” Churchill returned the affection by calling him Alan instead of Tommy, which he preferred. This tendency to even the score occasionally hinted at republicanism, though never seriously. One of his first decisions at the Admiralty, for example, was to name a new battleship after Oliver Cromwell. (He later reversed the decision under pressure.) These are indications of his brand of humor: neither ribald nor dry, but playful, sometimes mocking. Another example came during the war, when an American bystander asked him the name of the “elephantine shuffle” the gruff, rotund Labour politician Ernest Bevin appeared to be doing on the dance floor. “What step was this, was it some old English step or dance?” The “P.M. looked, smiled and said, ‘That’s obviously the Labour movement.’”

  Having presented on opposite sides of the abdication and appeasement questions, Churchill and the king might have been expected to get off to an uncomfortable start once Churchill reentered government. This did not happen for three reasons. The king may have been the alternative to and beneficiary of his brother’s disgrace, but in fact he and Churchill were on the same side in that instance, at least in principle and in public, especially regarding the position of Wallis Simpson. The king’s real views on the appeasement policy are harder to pin down. More than anything else he seemed concerned, perhaps bemused, by it. Again, he, like many people in Britain, was desperate to forgo entering another war. Which of course is not the same thing as saying they were tolerant, let alone backers, of Nazi tyranny. Finally, it is important to remember that neither man was unknown to the other: there was a history of contact, albeit not familiarity, going back decades.

  The two would settle into their new roles without a clean slate. It may have been tarnished, but it was strengthened by shared expectations. For the king this meant above all the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn. The triple formula had come from Walter Bagehot, whose classic interpretation of the place of royalty in the country’s constitution emphasized the distinction between official and personal devotion, with the moral representation of the royal family paramount. The new king grasped the point. He had studied Bagehot, and was already known for having a strong sense of duty. Robert Rhodes James has added two other important qualities: ability and luck. Both may be tempered, diminished or enhanced, as the case may be, by the nature of relations between a monarch and his or her ministers. In Rhodes James’s account, the modern British monarchy evolved during the course of the nineteenth century from one having a confrontational to a cooperative role with governments. This was a way of enhancing, maybe refining, ability and mitigating the effects of bad luck.

  The next subject is bravery. The king’s bravery, unlike Churchill’s, was compensatory, since he was not naturally fearless. His had to be cultivated. They shared this “supreme quality,” the one Churchill had said, “which guarantees all others.” Churchill once recalled the encounter he had in the First World War with General John French, in which French said that he did not worry about being shot while “look[ing] over the parapet.” If he lived, he would adjust his life accordingly. Performing such a risky act on purpose was another matter. Risk for risk’s sake did not bring the same dividends. The primary measure of bravery, then, was less inherent than circumstantial. But you had to take risks, especially if you were born with the ability to avoid them. Choosing to “not mingle in the hurly-burly” did not gain a person credit in Churchill’s book.

  What of other qualities: Affection? Charity? These fall under the rubric of friendship. It is a different concept. Lord Birkenhead, among others, has said of Churchill, “He has never in all his life failed a friend, however embarrassing the obligation which he felt it was necessary to honour.” Churchill re
vered some elements of friendship over others, chief among which was the pleasantness of another’s company, its “rich and positive quality,” as he put it. Birkenhead had this quality in abundance. He made Churchill happy.

  Both the king and Churchill, however, had few real friends, or at least few who could be considered equals. They were essentially friendless. How, then, to explain their own friendship? Churchill was devoted to the king and the king came to be in awe of Churchill, and the latter may be the more significant historical fact, for it tended to deepen whatever initial devotion the minister may have felt toward his monarch. This in turn speaks to the power of their particular asymmetry. Britain breeds loads of dutiful, worthy, upright, and not very intelligent people, and the king was clearly one of them. He was neither clever nor cunning. He presented the best virtues of that British invention: the “moderate and politically uninterested London clubman,” whose gentlemanly ideal was one of “temperance, magnificence, good-temper, justice and a certain kindliness.” Mental ability and temperament are not always matched consistently. The latter, as the familiar line about Roosevelt goes—a man with a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament—can count for a great deal in a leader.

  Prime ministers are generally afraid of worrying their monarchs because assuaging their fears can be time-consuming, and because having an upset monarch on one’s hands is just unpleasant, and possibly risky. In this case, the king was a born worrier, and even more so when he saw what Churchill was dealing with in the war. Churchill by contrast was not a worrier but a “despairer”: “Worry is a spasm of the emotion; the mind catches hold of something and will not let it go,” he wrote. Hence one explanation for his attention to the king. Sharing his worries may have reduced the chances of despair taking hold. The king was perpetually anxious and knew he did not know how to handle many things. Unlike his father, for example, he kept his fingers out of party politics and most questions of policy. Churchill may have occasionally regarded him like a pet, knowing that the king felt he was dealing with a superman who was clearly out of the king’s class and whose decisions he almost always accepted, even when he disagreed. This was not true the other way around. Ziegler has put the point more succinctly: “He would have died for the cause of the King if this had seemed necessary, but it would not have occurred to him to alter a detail of his budget or to shuffle the members of a ministry because he believed that to be the King’s desire.” It is tempting, then, but not entirely accurate, to call this patronizing.

  Churchill extended to the king the reassurance that he needed in order to reassure the British people. The king understood and respected him for it. The result was good. Asymmetry can work two ways. It was once said of the relationship between Halifax and Churchill that they “are a very good combination as they act as a stimulus and brake on each other.” It could just as well have applied here.

  Asymmetry, therefore, was one source of the alliance’s strength. A more symmetrical match might have meant a dangerous clash of wills. Asymmetry, however, is not always conducive to subordination. This is apparent from Churchill’s complex and often difficult wartime relations with his military commanders and political allies.

  —

  Franklin Roosevelt performed his own role as commander in chief with detachment; he deferred nearly all operational decisions to General Marshall and the secretary of war, Henry Stimson. Stalin commanded, it is presumed, with a heavier hand. Only Churchill had the burden (some would say advantage) of a constant battle of wits against his senior commanders, who challenged his judgment as often as he belittled theirs. It was not war command by seminar, but it was hardly smooth, simple, or uniformly effective. Churchill took his combined ministerial role seriously, perhaps too seriously. His commanders generally praised his performance as prime minister. He held the country together, gave it hope, strengthened its resolve, and tended its alliances as well as nearly anyone else could have done. His performance as head of the Defence Ministry was another matter. And as a commander who “adored funny operations,” he was said to be dismal.

  He drove some serving under him to distraction. One put it this way: “If he were a woman I could put up with him. If he were an Elizabeth I or Cleopatra. But Gloriana with a cigar I cannot stomach.” Churchill recognized the problem but cast it in a positive light. “They may say I lead them up the garden path,” he said of his chiefs, “but at every turn of the path they have found delectable fruits and wholesome vegetables.” He pushed hard, but he did so not for its own sake but to get better results, which he often got.

  It is a commonplace but bears repeating: as wartime leader he was certainly dictatorial but he was no dictator. Once, he told the king “that his fellow Ministers spent all their time telling him he was wrong and that such a project could not be carried out. ‘Perhaps they’re sometimes right,’ said the king, with a smile. ‘Nine times out of ten,’ replied Mr. Churchill, unabashed.” But these were methods, not aims. Fighting a war was not the same as winning a debate, a charge the Labour politician Aneurin Bevan once leveled against him. He did not insist on his way no matter what, not all the time. His goal was not the permanent state of his own power, however indispensable he may have believed it was. Nor was it to win arguments for their own sake. His goal was victory for his country. Thus, despite the fury that he provoked in a few of those who served under him, there was less of a split between the politicians and the generals than there had been during the previous war.

  Some, like John Dill, the chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS)—Britain’s senior military commander—had so much trouble working with Churchill (who liked to call him “Dilly Dally”) that he just appeared to surrender. Alas, Dill would not survive the war, which has led to the charge that Churchill “killed men who could not keep up . . . just as Napoleon Bonaparte killed horses under him.” Dill in the end was better suited to what would become his last assignment, to Washington, where he mastered a partnership with Marshall that was second only in importance to the one Churchill had developed with Roosevelt. It was that important, not only because of the deep differences between Churchill and Marshall and the other generals over strategy, but also because it was believed by some that Dill’s replacement as CIGS, Alan Brooke, had trouble working with Americans, including—partially—Churchill.

  Where Marshall appreciated Dill’s thoughtful, rational nature, Churchill was dismissive. In consequence, Dill “would often relapse into tongue-tied silence” or complain, as Admiral John Fisher, Churchill’s longtime nemesis from the navy, once did, “He out-argues me.” Relations between the two were beset as much by bad chemistry as by bad luck. There was the time, for example, when they went to see a demonstration of a weapon, a kind of missile designed to seek and destroy tanks. One misfired and headed straight for Dill; another went after Churchill. He ran as fast as he could and missed being hit when the rocket landed nearby. “Damn the man!” he shouted. “I won’t speak to him for a week.”

  Dill went on to perform yeoman’s service in America, as would Halifax as ambassador. Who would have guessed, in Halifax’s case, that “a great aristocrat, noted as a Master of Foxhounds, who in his political career had been closely identified with the policy of Munich, and to whom the American continent was terra incognita” would prove such an inspired choice? Not those who saw a man who, shortly after arriving in America, asked an embassy attaché, “What shall I say to them? I’ve never seen so many mayors in my life.” The attaché replied, “Quite easy. Just whinny like a stallion.”

  Another who suffered from Churchill’s impatience was Archibald Wavell, the general who headed the Middle East Command. He was said to be “the luckiest general in the war.” Churchill supposedly regarded him as “‘a good average colonel’ who would make a ‘good chairman of a Tory association.’” A “‘still waters running deep’ sort of man,” Wavell could be laconic to an extreme. His silence even disturbed the king. “Why does Winston dislike me?” Wave
ll asked. Churchill never gave the reason. Being inarticulate had something to do with it. Halifax had a better answer: Churchill “hates doormats. If you begin to give way he will simply wipe his feet upon you.” Like Halifax and Dill, Wavell would be packed off—in his case, to India.

  Others familiar to students of the war included Claude Auchinleck, “the Auk,” who was the man on the other side from Wavell on Churchill’s two fishing rods when he said, “I feel that I have got a tired fish on this rod, and a very lively one on the other.” Replacing Wavell as commander in the Middle East in the summer of 1941, Auchinleck was a charmer to whom Churchill remained too loyal for too long. He felt similarly, perhaps even more so, toward Harold Alexander, who replaced Auchinleck in the Middle East and then went on to command the Allied armies in Italy. Alexander was probably his favorite commander, although his achievements on the ground were sometimes lacking. With another prima donna, Bernard Montgomery, the issuing of praise was more complicated. Churchill tolerated but did not enjoy Monty. There was a certain clash of egos, not to mention the occasional flare of jealousy. Churchill once asked Brooke,

  “Why did not the king give Monty his [field marshal’s] baton when he visited him in France?”

  “[P]robably one was not ready.”

  “No! . . . [T]hat’s not it. Monty wants to fill the Mall when he gets his baton! And he will not fill the Mall!” . . .

  [T]here was no reason for Monty to fill the Mall on that occasion. But he continued, “Yes, he will fill the Mall because he is Monty, and I will not have him filling the Mall!”

  Churchill’s tendency, when unhappy with a commander’s progress, was to drown him in memoranda. Hastings Ismay, Churchill’s principal military aide and secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, urged a commander not “to be irritated by these never-ending messages, but to remember that Churchill, as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, bore the primary responsibility for ensuring that all available resources . . . were apportioned . . . in the best interests of the war effort as a whole.”