by Richard Toye
II
The developing war soon pushed imperial issues into the background. On 8 April the Germans invaded Norway and Denmark. The Cabinet, after some dithering, sent troops for operations at Narvik and Trondheim. These proved to be a fiasco but Churchill, who had by now been appointed chairman of the government’s Military Co-ordination Committee, successfully escaped the blame. In an unpublished draft of his memoirs he confessed ‘it was a marvel – I really do not know how – [that] I survived and maintained my position in public esteem while all the blame was thrown on poor Mr Chamberlain’.22 In the Commons debate that followed the disaster, Leo Amery – who had not been included in the government at the outbreak of war – delivered one of the most dramatic lines against the Prime Minister. Sensing he had the mood of the House with him, he ‘cast prudence to the winds’ and quoted Oliver Cromwell’s words in dismissal of the Long Parliament: ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.’23 In the vote that followed the government’s majority was slashed to 81, and a reconstruction of the government appeared inevitable. Chamberlain hoped to remain Prime Minister, though, and it was only when it became clear that the Labour Party would not serve under him as part of a coalition that he determined to resign. The two plausible successors – as the only candidates likely to be acceptable to Labour – were Churchill and Halifax. The latter was Chamberlain’s favoured candidate, but he ruled himself out, not least on the grounds that it would be hard for him to lead the government from the House of Lords. On 10 May, as Germany launched its invasion of Belgium and Holland, the King asked Churchill to form a government. In a justly famous passage he recalled how, on his first night as Prime Minister, he went to bed at 3 a.m. with a deep sense of relief: ‘I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.’24 Trial it was, for he was quickly forced to take some appallingly tough strategic decisions, having to balance French requests for more fighter squadrons against the danger, as he put it, of denuding ‘still further the heart of the Empire’.25
Churchill created a broad-based administration stretching, as he boasted, ‘from Lord Lloyd of Dolobran on the Right to Miss [Ellen] Wilkinson on the Left’.26 Chamberlain remained in the Cabinet and continued to lead the Conservative Party until his resignation through terminal ill-health in the autumn. Lloyd became Colonial Secretary, although he too would be dead within a year. Amery became Secretary of State for India and Burma, and Lord Caldecote Dominions Secretary, although he was quickly replaced by Lord Cranborne. Reaction to the new government was generally positive but not universally so. The Labour Party conference, which was meeting at Bournemouth, debated whether or not to endorse its leaders’ decision to join the coalition. Emrys Hughes, a future MP who was to publish a sceptical biography of Churchill after the war, spoke in opposition. ‘Churchill would tell you honestly that he does stand for imperialism, which this Conference is against. [. . .] He is out for an imperialist policy, and so is Lord Lloyd, who is now in the Government.’ Hughes was followed by J. J. Toole of the Bury Labour Party, who boldly declared, to cries of protest, that Churchill was ‘the one man who has been right’ about Hitlerism. He added: ‘If it is an imperialist war, it is Hitler’s imperialist war.’27 The conference voted overwhelmingly to join the coalition.
The reaction throughout the Empire was broadly positive. On taking office, Churchill fired off telegrams to all the Dominion premiers. Churchill reserved the most personal touch for his ‘faithful comrade’ Smuts: ‘It is a comfort for me to feel that we shall be together in this hard and long trek [. . .] and that we shall make a strong laager for all beside the water at the end.’ To De Valera he wrote that he looked forward ‘with confidence to continued friendship between our two countries’. All this was for public consumption, so it is hardly surprising that the replies were supportive (with even De Valera reciprocating Churchill’s message ‘cordially’). We can, however, believe Smuts’s avowal that he was ‘deeply moved’.28 Mackenzie King was rather less pleased by the change of leadership. Chamberlain, he told his diary, ‘would have been a safer guide in the long run than Churchill. I have more confidence in his judgement and guidance’.29 He, though, was to change his opinion of Churchill quite radically. Furthermore, the new leader of the Canadian Tory Party, which Mackenzie King had just trounced heavily in a general election, proved ‘eager to jump on the Empire defense band wagon of Winston Churchill’.30
Elsewhere, it was widely felt that – as Jamaica’s Daily Gleaner put it – ‘Under prevailing conditions, Mr Winston Churchill’s aggressiveness contrives to make him an admirable individual for the chief position in the government.’31 The Canberra Times said, ‘The choice of the new leader was obvious, for Mr Churchill has warned his country for many years of what has now come, and if his services had been availed of earlier, our peril to-day would have been less.’32 The Palestine Post argued, ‘It is neither an accident nor a paradox that Labour should have signified its willingness to serve under one who has always stood for a conception of Empire diametrically opposed to its own, for Mr Churchill – Tory, Liberal, Diehard and, since 1933, the foremost foe of Hitlerism – has never been a party man in the narrow sense.’33 The British-run Calcutta Statesman claimed that ‘those who have discussed India with him since [he joined the government] last September are aware he is no reactionary’, and added optimistically, ‘A Government of which he is the head can be relied upon to assist in finding a practical and popular solution of the Indian problem.’34 Nirad Chaudhuri, a writer whose views on the Raj were later to spark controversy, caused bafflement amongst his friends by hanging a picture of Churchill on his wall.35
According to a summary prepared for the India Office, ‘The Burmese press welcomed the change of Cabinet and considered the election of Mr Churchill, most hated and feared by Hitler, as the head of affairs a right move at the right time, for it was contended that Mr Churchill was more dashing and decisive than his predecessor and that he could be trusted to make the war effort of the allies more daring and energetic.’ But there were also qualifications. The New Mandalay Sun argued, ‘Although the British are preaching about the evils of Nazism, they do not seem to have realized that for them it is better to be a member of the Empire constituting independent countries than to be under the Nazis. If a definite promise of independence after the war were made, then the subject nations would not grudge to train in the art of fighting with a view to fighting the Nazis.’36 In a press article in July Nehru welcomed the fact that Chamberlain had been replaced by ‘the far abler and more virile Mr Churchill’, but still described the war as ‘purely imperialist’. Complaining of the British decision to conciliate Japan by (temporarily) shutting the Burma Road supply route to China, Liquidation he wrote: ‘There has been enough appeasement of the aggressor. We want none of it, whether the aggressor is German or Italian or Japanese or British.’37 The comparison of the British with these other powers was invidious, but Nehru did at least make clear that, were he an Englishman, he would not accept Gandhi’s advice to lay down arms, knowing that ‘the alternative would be slavery’.38 Meanwhile, German radio propaganda tried to turn Churchill’s imperial past against him, using tendentious quotation from My Early Life to depict him as cowardly, cynical and brutal.39
On 13 May, in his first speech to the Commons as Prime Minister, Churchill declared ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ He said boldly that his aim was victory. As he continued, he equated the fate of the Empire with that of human progress, stating that without victory there could be no survival: ‘Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal.’40 Six days later, after the Germans had broken through the French defences, he spoke to the British people by radio, ‘in a solemn hour for t
he life of our country, of our Empire, of our Allies, and, above all, of the cause of Freedom’.41 Then came the near-miraculous escape of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk, completed on 4 June. That day, in his ‘fight them on the beaches’ speech, he emphasized that ‘we shall never surrender. And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.’42 This final remark was important. Churchill’s message was not merely one of defiance, but also held out the hope of ultimate victory, even if the worst-case scenario should come to pass. Enemy propagandists leapt on the phrase, twisting the words in order to suggest that Churchill and his fellow ‘plutocratic warmongers’ were on the verge of fleeing Britain to conduct the war from territories elsewhere.43
On 18 June, after France’s army had collapsed and her new government had asked the Germans for an armistice, Churchill made a further speech, to which no superlatives can do justice:
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. [. . .] Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’44
In a broadcast in July, warmly welcomed by Australian and New Zealand newspapers, he said that ‘all depends now upon the whole life-strength of the British race in every part of the world’.45 In his famous speech in August during the Battle of Britain (‘Never in the field of human conflict . . .’) he reminded his listeners of how, during the crisis of May, ‘The British nation and the British Empire, finding themselves alone, stood undismayed against disaster.’46 In October, accepting the leadership of the Conservative Party upon Chamberlain’s retirement, he claimed: ‘Alone among the nations of the world we have found the means to combine Empire and liberty.’47 These speeches had a global reach. At this time, Nelson Mandela was at the University College of Fort Hare (the only institution of its kind in South Africa open to black people). In his memoirs he recalled how he and his fellow students would ‘huddle round an old radio’ late at night to listen to Churchill speaking.48
Imperial rhetoric came easily to Churchill. As one scholar has put it, ‘If talking about a chip shop in Salford, Churchill would find a way to mention how important its chips were to the Empire.’49 Sometimes he had to be reminded when it was inappropriate. Halifax, appointed ambassador to Washington at the end of 1940, recalled a wartime occasion when Churchill addressed US legislators. Beforehand, the influential Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg told Halifax, ‘We should all get on much better if you British would stop talking about the British Empire.’ When Churchill began his speech in his usual patriotic manner Halifax, by his own account, ‘managed to convey telepathically’ what Vandenberg had said. ‘Whereupon Mr Churchill, turning towards the Senator, went on: “The British Empire – or the Commonwealth of Nations. We keep trade labels to suit all tastes.” ’50
Yet Churchill’s apparently almost reflexive use of the word ‘Empire’ should not distract our attention from the selective way in which he deployed it. His efforts to equate the British Empire with liberty led to some interesting silences. In the ‘finest hour’ speech, for example, he emphasized the support received from the Dominions, ‘who are absolutely free to choose their course, but are absolutely devoted to the ancient motherland’. Menzies, Mackenzie King, Peter Fraser of New Zealand, and ‘that wonderful man’ Smuts were all ‘elected on wide franchises’ and thus represented the will of their respective peoples, he said. (Of course, this was hardly true of the franchise in South Africa.) But he made no mention of India, the African colonies, or other territories whose peoples had not been asked for their consent. Clearly, in view of the Indian National Congress’s position, it would have been hard for him to reiterate wholeheartedly his earlier claim that Britain had that country’s moral support. And his statement that the Dominions were free to choose their own path sat uncomfortably with his attitude to Irish neutrality.
Furthermore, we need not necessarily conclude from his repeated invocations of Empire that his vision for the war as a whole was an imperial one. Of course, imperial resources were highly welcome to him. ‘It will be a splendid episode in the history of the Empire if Australia, New Zealand & Canadian troops defend the motherland against invasion’, he wrote when Menzies offered soldiers.51 But in early July 1940 he gave his sanction to a recommendation by the Chiefs of Staff prioritizing the defence of the Middle East, implicitly over that of Singapore and Australasia, a reversal of pre-war strategy. He did assure Fraser and Menzies that if the Japanese invaded their countries ‘on a large scale’ Britain would cut its losses in the Mediterranean and ‘proceed in good time to your aid’. However, the promise was a vague one, intended to offer his fellow Prime Ministers the assurance that it was safe for them to send more troops to help him.52 Churchill’s method – and it was undoubtedly sound strategy – was not to rush all possible help to under-defended outposts, but rather to exploit the imperial periphery in order to defend the metropole. The more he talked up the Empire the easier it was to achieve this, for, if he could offer the Dominions little concrete assistance, at least they could still believe he was thinking about their interests. As George Orwell observed in 1943, it was ‘politically necessary to flatter the Dominions, which involves playing down the British’.53
Hitler of course was eager to make play with the Empire’s difficulties. Addressing the Reichstag in July, he spoke of his distaste for British leaders and especially Churchill. ‘I feel a deep disgust for this type of unscrupulous politician who wrecks whole nations and States. [. . .] Mr Churchill ought perhaps, for once, to believe me when I prophesy that a great Empire will be destroyed – an Empire which it was never my intention to destroy or even to harm.’54 Supposedly, Germany would be willing to offer Britain peace ‘with 95% of the Empire left intact’.55 His protestations, it hardly need be said, were unconvincing. True, he had expressed some admiration for the British Empire in Mein Kampf, arguing that German Great War propagandists had underestimated it woefully. Indeed ‘I, as a man of Germanic blood, would, in spite of everything, rather see India under English rule than under any other.’56 But in 1937, at a conference with his top military leaders, he made it clear that he did not regard the Empire as ‘unshakeable’ and that he regarded the possibility of its disintegration with equanimity. ‘The emphasis on the British Crown as the symbol of the unity of the Empire was already an admission that, in the long run, the Empire could not maintain its position by power politics’, he said.57 He, of course, had imperial designs of his own in Europe.58 ‘No one can say how far Herr Hitler’s empire will extend before this war is over,’ Churchill told MPs, ‘but I have no doubt that it will pass away as swiftly as, and perhaps more swiftly than, did Napoleon’s Empire, although, of course, without any of its glitter or its glory.’59
III
Throughout the summer of 1940, Churchill did his utmost to secure US involvement in the war. With isolationist sentiment in Congress at his back, and hoping for re-election in November, President Roosevelt offered warm words in private but little tangible aid. Churchill cautioned Mackenzie King, ‘We must be careful not to let Americans view too complacently [the] prospect of a British collapse, out of which they would get the British Fleet and the guardianship of the British Empire, minus Great Britain.’60 Soon, however, a deal was struck whereby Britain would receive fifty old American destroyers in exchange for granting the USA ninety-nine-year leases on military bases in Newfoundland and the Caribbean. The diplomatic significance was much greater than the value of the hardware, which was negligible. ‘Undoubtedly’, Churchill observed with satisfaction, ‘this process means that these two great o
rganizations of the English-speaking democracies, the British Empire and the United States, will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for their mutual and general benefit.’61 One radical black writer later complained that, as a consequence of the agreement, land was ‘alienated from the Caribbean people without any consultation with them, or with such limited representative governments as had been permitted them by their British rulers’.62 Actually, Churchill did make some efforts to live up to his public promise of consultation and to protect the local people’s interests, although the Caribbean governments were indeed far from representative.63 Forthright action was perhaps at any rate forgivable in the circumstances.
As ever, Ireland was a complicating factor in Anglo-US relations, given the large Irish-American population. In June the War Cabinet discussed the suggestion made by Smuts that Britain should occupy the Irish Atlantic ports by force. In contrast to his earlier attitude, Churchill said that, although this might be done as a last resort, ‘it would be unwise at this moment to take any action that might compromise our position with the United States of America’.64 Two days later, in contrast to his earlier position, the still-influential Chamberlain further raised the possibility of seizing the ports, but urged that a tough approach to De Valera should be coupled with a declaration in favour of Irish unity. In a ‘passionate speech’ Churchill opposed any coercion of Northern Ireland.65 ‘He would not urge those who had worked [at] self-government loyally within the Empire to join with those who wished to stay outside it.’66 Nevertheless, the British did now offer De Valera a declaration ‘accepting the principle of a United Ireland’ in exchange for the use of Irish ports and the stationing of troops and aircraft in Éire. In early July, De Valera turned the deal down, believing that, as the British would not force the Unionists into a united Ireland against their will, a declaration in principle was not worth having. He may also have suspected that the British were going to be beaten.67 In a draft cable to Roosevelt, never sent, Churchill wrote, ‘De Valera and his Party are reconciling themselves to throwing in their lot with the Germans, whom they think are bound to win.’68Churchill Can Unite Ireland was the title of a pamphlet published that summer by the Irish Republican writer Jim Phelan. It was a vain hope.69