by Owen, David;
Lukacs raised questions about a meeting that took place around 4.00 pm after Reynaud’s departure, described as an informal meeting of the War Cabinet in Admiralty House. The record does not cover the first quarter of an hour during which the Secretary to the Cabinet, Edward Bridges, was not present. Lukacs has said of this meeting that, “Such conditions of secrecy has no precedent in the modern history of Britain.”2 That is, I suspect, an exaggeration. I can think of many occasions when a small group of ministers discussed matters before being joined by the Cabinet Secretary, usually filling in time with gossip and raw politics. They may have been updating each other since Churchill, Chamberlain and Greenwood had not been present when Halifax had developed talks with Reynaud.
There is an interesting diary entry from Halifax’s chief diplomatic adviser, Cadogan, from 26 May, saying, Churchill by 5.00 pm, and having been with M. Reynaud most of the day, was coming around to thinking “we might almost be better off if France ‘did’ pull out and we could concentrate on defence here. Not sure he is right. He is against final appeal, which Reynaud wanted to Muss. He may be right there.”3 ‘Muss’ is, of course, his shorthand for Mussolini. Here in front of Halifax, Chamberlain, Attlee and Greenwood, Churchill is letting the chief diplomat know his feelings, and in the privacy of his diary Cadogan is questioning the view of his boss, Halifax. Cadogan on 28 May, as will be discussed later, becomes a crucial factor in talking Halifax out of resigning on this very issue of Mussolini. It was also Cadogan who two years earlier persuaded Halifax that his assessment of Hitler was wrong, which in turn led to Halifax opposing Chamberlain in Cabinet.
During the fourth meeting on 27 May, the six men including Sinclair, who had been added to the War Cabinet by Churchill to strengthen his own position, had the task of absorbing the two and a half typed pages of the convincing and concise Chiefs of Staff report on the ‘Near Future’. Most of the report would have already been known to Churchill, and almost certainly to Sinclair, the majority of its facts having stemmed from the Air Ministry.
This is arguably the most important single military assessment put to the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the entire War. A number, I suspect, particularly Attlee and Greenwood, were somewhat surprised by its rational optimism, an extract of which is below (see Chapter 4, p. 156, for the full paper):
6. The crux of the matter is air superiority. Once Germany had attained this, she might attempt to subjugate this country by air attack alone.
7. Germany could not gain complete air superiority unless she could knock out Air Force, and the aircraft industries, some vital portions of which are concentrated at Coventry and Birmingham.
8. Air attacks on the aircraft factories would be made by day or night. We consider that we should be able to inflict such casualties on the enemy by day as to prevent serious damage. Whatever we do, however, by way of defensive measures and we are pressing on with these with all despatch, we cannot be sure of protecting the large industrial centres, upon which our aircraft industries depend, from serious material damage by night attack. The enemy would not have to employ precision bombing to achieve this effect.
A huge sense of relief must have been felt as they turned the page to read paragraphs 11 and 12. For Chamberlain, too, this must have been a moment when he started to question his hitherto broad support for Halifax’s initiative over Mussolini. If Britain could hold out for a few months, all three of them must have thought, then a better negotiating position could be achieved.
11. It must be remembered that numerically the Germans have a superiority of four to one. Moreover, the German aircraft factories are well dispersed and relatively inaccessible.
12. On the other hand, so long as we have a counter-offensive bomber force, we can carry out similar attacks on German industrial centres and by moral and material effect bring a proportion of them to a standstill.
Then comes the final paragraph, which in its new brevity, clarity and force one can sense the influence of Dill on his first day in post having replaced Ironside. Dill, as the most senior military adviser to the Government, was definitely backing a fight and not a negotiating strategy. Urged on by Churchill, the report had been put together and influenced by his personal adviser General Ismay, but it had the stamp and authority of a new head of the Chiefs of Staff. As if to emphasise this new authority, the independence of the Chiefs is rightly asserted at the bottom below the all-important last paragraph 13 (see p. 160).
13. To sum up, our conclusion is that prima facie Germany has most of the cards; but the real test is whether the morale of our fighting personnel and civil population will counter-balance the numerical and material advantages which Germany enjoys. We believe it will.
[The Chiefs of Staff have not had an opportunity to see this Report in its final form and reserve to themselves the right to suggest such modifications as they may wish to put forward]
I was nearly two years old when those words were written for the War Cabinet. When I read them tears came to my eyes, as if I remembered the bombing of Plymouth, sleeping under the stairs or in the metal bomb shelters on the floor in Newport. Throughout the war my father was a doctor away fighting, first with the BEF in France and then the 8th Army in North Africa and Italy. I did not recognise him on his return in 1945. My mother told me when she was 80 with total conviction that she had never doubted we would win. Here, on 27 May 1940, our military leaders were anticipating victory in the air during the Battle of Britain that ran from 10 July until October 1940. That prediction and those crucial paragraphs ensured the War Cabinet’s eventual determination that we should fight on and not negotiate.
Meanwhile, three days earlier, unbeknown to anyone in that room in London, Hitler was visiting the HQ of Colonel-General Gerd Bon Rundstedt, fifteen miles to the south of Dunkirk with the Panzer tanks that had spearheaded the Germans’ invasion. He gave the order on 24 May that “the advance should be halted at that point and not proceed to Dunkirk itself.” Hitler “later suggested that he had not wanted to destroy the British Army, the backbone of the British Empire”.4 This was no more than a face-saving rationalisation. In fact, he was merely following the advice of his field commander, Rundstedt, who had wanted to preserve his motorised units for the final push south to conclude the campaign. Far from wanting to preserve the British Army, Hitler was being advised by Göring, Commander in Chief of the German Air Force, that the Luftwaffe would finish it off.5
The War Cabinet’s fifth meeting at 4.30 pm that same day, 27 May, focused in considerable detail on the Foreign Secretary’s note about the approach to Signor Mussolini. Chamberlain was still standing alongside Halifax, but there was seemingly less enthusiasm. At one stage the minutes read:
{The Prime Minister said that the Lord President’s [Chamberlain’s] argument amounted to this, that nothing would come of the approach, but that it was worth doing to sweeten relations with a failing ally. He read the following telegram, which he had received from M. Reynaud that morning (No 283 DIPP)}
What carried most weight with Reynaud then was Chamberlain’s conviction too, and the approach would help strengthen an alliance of hearts, which he believed to be essential. Given Chamberlain’s later scathing criticism of the French military (page 82), Churchill sensed that Chamberlain’s argument for negotiating was nuanced and not one of principled opposition nor even a really substantive point.
Lukacs’s account of this fifth meeting contains two important assertions, which according to Roy Jenkins are not justified from the minutes of the evening procedures: “The one was that ‘Chamberlain now sat on the fence’6; and the other was that ‘Churchill, at least momentarily, thought that he had to make some kind of concession to Halifax’.”7 Roy Jenkins concludes, “The balance of likelihood, however, seems on Lukacs’s side on both statements.” 8 I would not be so sure, both Chamberlain and Churchill seem to me to be adopting tactical positions for a purpose, namely for hoping to bring Halifax around to the gathering consensus in the War Cabinet, which was quit
e simply against making a deal to preserve the Empire. Halifax, it is easy to forget, had been Viceroy of India and wielded monarchal power – an experience of empire far different from that of Churchill’s fighting in South Africa. There were also underlying tensions between Halifax and Chamberlain, the roots of which lay in the infamous Munich deal. Churchill, though not in Chamberlain’s Cabinet at that stage, was almost certainly aware of it. Parliament is a place of gossip and in the smoking room, which Churchill frequented, there would have been people even ‘loyal’ to Chamberlain who, having witnessed the scene in the Cabinet, would have passed on the story of Halifax turning against Chamberlain. Today the smoking room no longer exists, nor the same male dominance. What was influencing Churchill in managing Chamberlain was his assessment of the man; what lay behind his flaws and his virtues.
By 1938 Chamberlain had had his head turned by power. He saw himself as a man of destiny. His relations with Halifax deteriorated as his policies of appeasement were progressively discredited. Only a few months later in the House of Commons, on 5 October 1938, Churchill unleashed his full invective, calling the Munich settlement “a total and unmitigated defeat”.9 Now, less than 18 months later, Chamberlain was in a lesser position. If Hubris is acquired, so it can recede with less power. Chamberlain was now focusing on reputation.
Exhausted but not depressed the day after his heady return from Germany to Heston Airport, he admitted to his sisters that he had come nearer to a nervous breakdown “than I have ever been in my life”.10 His mood was then exultant, and he believed he had been successful in ending the prospect of war. He had acted throughout with a small inner Cabinet and had marginalised any anti-opinion in the full Cabinet. Apologists for Chamberlain had begun in 1940 to claim he gained time for UK rearmament, and though this probably was the result it was not his intended objective in 1938. He had deluded himself about Hitler’s trustworthiness and underestimated his sinister ambitions. But now in May 1940, he wanted to restore his place in history. Chamberlain had just that opportunity in these discussions in the War Cabinet and Churchill sensed he might be able to persuade him to recognise that talk of negotiating with Mussolini was a front and that behind it lay the figure of Hitler. Because Chamberlain had made the wrong assessment of Hitler in 1938, now in a different situation he had the chance to put that right. So Halifax only nominally came in behind the Lord President Chamberlain’s words and he was aggressive. Halifax’s words are noteworthy he {saw no particular difficulty in taking the lines suggested by the Lord President. Nevertheless, he was conscious of certain rather profound differences of points of view he would like to make clear … In the discussion the previous day, he had asked the Prime Minister whether, if he was satisfied that matters vital to the independence of this country were unaffected, he would be prepared to discuss terms. The Prime Minister had said that he would be thankful to get out of our present difficulties on such terms, provided we retain the essentials and the elements of our vital strength, even at the cost of some cession of territory.}
The fifth meeting (page 172) was important for Chamberlain in clarifying Churchill’s sticking points. The Prime Minister had earlier said, “it might be argued that an approach on the lines proposed by M. Reynaud was not unlike the approach which we had asked President Roosevelt to make to Signor Mussolini. There was, however, a good deal of difference between making the approach ourselves and allowing one to be made by President Roosevelt ostensibly on his own initiative.” Halifax would have been wiser to have accepted that distinction then. In which case he could have avoided the meeting ending on a very harsh exchange. Halifax clearly brought the differences to the surface.11 He conveys more than a hint of an impending resignation in the phrase “doubted he would be able to accept the view now put forward by the Prime Minister”.
{On the present occasion, however, the Prime Minister seemed to suggest that under no conditions would we contemplate any course except fighting to a finish. The issue was probably academic, since we were unlikely to receive any offer which would not come up against the fundamental conditions which are essential to us. If, however, it was possible to obtain a settlement which did not impair those conditions, he, for his part, doubted if he would be able to accept the view now put forward by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister had said that two or three months would show whether we were able to stand up against the air risk. This meant that the future of the country turned on whether the enemy bombs happened to hit our aircraft factories. He was prepared to take that risk if our independence was at stake; but if it was not at stake he would think it right to accept an offer which would save the country from avoidable disaster.
The Prime Minister said that he thought that the issue which the War Cabinet was called upon to settle was difficult enough without getting involved in the discussion of an issue which was quite unreal and was most unlikely to arise. If Herr Hitler was prepared to make peace on the terms of the restoration of the German colonies and the overlordship of Central Europe, that was one thing. But it was quite unlikely that he would make any such offer.
The Foreign Secretary said he would like to put the following question. Suppose the French Army collapsed and Herr Hitler made an offer of peace terms. Suppose the French Government said, “We are unable to deal with an offer made to France alone and you must deal with the Allies together.” Suppose Herr Hitler, being anxious to end the war through knowledge of his own internal weaknesses, offered terms to France and England, would the Prime Minister be prepared to discuss them?
The Prime Minister said that he would not join France in asking for terms; but if he were told what the terms offered were, he would be prepared to consider them.}
Some of the tension which lay within this exchange was that Halifax’s position was by now seen by Churchill, Attlee, Greenwood and Sinclair as defeatist, and I suspect by Chamberlain too. John Colville, the Prime Minister’s private secretary, who did not attend such meetings but was in very close contact with the notetakers who did, wrote in his diary that evening, “The Cabinet are feverishly considering our ability to carry on the war alone in such circumstances, and there are signs that Halifax is being defeatist. He says that our aim can no longer be to crush Germany but rather to preserve our own integrity and independence.”12 Significantly, he did not link Chamberlain’s name with Halifax.
Within that meeting’s exchange, Chamberlain must have sensed the degree of exasperation, even resignation, from Halifax; yet Chamberlain said nothing – a significant omission, for if he intended to resign, it could be argued he owed it to colleagues to at least indicate he shared some of the concerns of Halifax.
Cadogan’s diary entry for that day is significant: “After the afternoon Cabinet H. asked W.S.C. to come into the garden with him. H. said to me, ‘I can’t work with Winston any longer.’ I said, ‘Nonsense: his rodomontades probably bore you as much as they do me, but don’t do anything silly under the stress of that.’ H. came to have tea in my room after. Said he had spoken to W., who of course had been v. affectionate! I said I hoped he really wouldn’t give way to an annoyance to which we were all subject and that, before he did anything he would consult Neville. He said that of course he would and that, as I knew, he wasn’t one to take hasty decisions.” Cadogan seemed to have sensed, although not present at the meeting, that Chamberlain was in a different position, not as wounded as Halifax and more conciliatory.
Halifax in his diary entry writes:
At the 4.30 Cabinet we had a long and rather confused discussion about, nominally, the approach to Italy, but also largely about general policy in the event of things going really badly in France. I thought Winston talked the most frightful rot, also Greenwood, and after bearing it for some time I said exactly what I thought of them, adding that if that was really their view, and if it came to the point, our ways must separate. Winston, surprised and mellowed, and when I repeated the same thing in the garden, was full of apologies and affection. But it does drive me to despair when he work
s himself up into a passion of emotion when he ought to make his brain think and reason.
By 7.00 pm Churchill was telling the Defence Committee that the situation for the BEF was desperate and they would have to fight their way to the coast. He felt:
{We had no need to reproach ourselves for the terrible ordeal which now faced the British Expeditionary Force. We had agreed unreservedly before the war to place the British Expeditionary Force under the orders of the French. Immediately the Germans invaded Holland and Belgium Lord Gort, under the orders of the French High Command, had moved forward into Belgium. Then had come the German breakthrough on the Meuse, and the complete inability of the great French Army to stem the German advance.}
The sixth meeting of the War Cabinet started at 10.00 pm on 27 May and went to around midnight. An extract from the minutes read:
{Apparently the collapse of the Belgians was due to the heavy bombing to which they had been subjected that day. Any grounds for recrimination lay rather in the Belgian action on the outbreak of war than in the more immediate past. At the time when there had been only fifteen German divisions on their Western frontier, and the bulk of the Germans had been engaged in Poland, if Belgium had then invited us to enter their country, we could have established ourselves in a strong defensive position or invaded Germany. The King’s action was certainly not heroic. Presumably, he would now make a separate peace with the Germans and carry on as a puppet monarch. This might well be the best that he could do for his country, but we had to face the fact that it had the most serious consequences for the British Expeditionary Force.}
There was no recorded discussion about the Italian’s adverse reaction to Roosevelt’s message, but it was leaking out from Rome and Washington that there had been difficulty in fixing meetings and the unsatisfactory nature of the exchange had caused reluctance in the Americans to engage further. On the document which had Mussolini’s hostile reply, and included in his diaries under the entry for 27 May, Cadogan wrote “of course Mussolini is not going to, and in fact dare not, make any separate agreement with the Allies, even if he wanted to. He is simply wondering how much of the general ‘share-out’ he will be allowed by his ‘Ally’ to take, and whether he will ultimately get more, or less, by soiling Italian blood for it. We can’t tell which way he will jump, but I hope we shan’t delude ourselves into thinking that we shall do ourselves any good by making any more ‘offers’ or ‘approaches’”.13 This was a very different appreciation to that of Halifax and closer one suspects to Chamberlain’s.