Cabinet's Finest Hour

by Owen, David;

  On 28 May at 11.30 am the War Cabinet met and Churchill read out the humiliating terms of the armistice, signed by the Belgians before proceeding to make a statement to the House of Commons. At no stage was there any further record in the minutes of what was happening to the Roosevelt initiative until at the end of the day, after two further War Cabinet meetings had taken place. Churchill’s telephone call to M. Reynaud at 11.40 pm that evening had the following sentence included: “I may remind you also that that the President of the USA has received a wholly negative reply to the proposal which we jointly asked him to make and that no response has been made to the approach of Lord Halifax, made to the Italian Ambassador here last Saturday.”14 Nevertheless the War Cabinet knew from the memorandum ‘Suggested Approach to Signor Mussolini’ by Halifax on 26 May, which stated as a P.S. that Halifax was told when in conversation with the Master of the Rolls, who had just returned from Rome, “that Sir P. Loraine has been informed by the United States Ambassador that President Roosevelt’s last attempt to [deter] the Italian Government had been bitterly resented by Signor Mussolini as unwarrantable influence with Italy’s private affairs”. He further responded that the British Ambassador Loraine thought “any further approach would only be interpreted as weakness and would do no good”.

  Halifax, at the eighth meeting of the War Cabinet at 4.00 pm on 28 May, opened the afternoon discussion by reporting that his chief diplomatic adviser, Sir Robert Vansittart

  {had now discovered what the Italian Embassy had in mind, namely, that we should give a clear indication that we should like to see mediation by Italy. Churchill said that it was clear that the French purpose was to see Signor Mussolini acting as an intermediary between ourselves. He was determined not to get into this position.}

  A wiser and more flexible Foreign Secretary than Halifax would by this moment have abandoned the whole concept, but he ploughed on reiterating Reynaud’s stance which all the ministers knew from previous discussions. The minutes record him saying

  {The Prime Minister thought that the French were trying to get us on to the slippery slope. The position would be entirely different when Germany had made an unsuccessful attempt to invade this country.}

  Still Halifax blundered on reiterating old arguments that better terms were available now, before France went out of the war and our aircraft factories had been bombed. One can almost feel Halifax losing with every word a little more of Chamberlain’s support. Greenwood weighed in saying, “Reynaud was too much inclined to hawk round appeals. This was another attempt to run out.” Jenkins in his account noted that Greenwood “next to Churchill made most of the intransigent running” and was Churchill’s “most articulate Cabinet ally”.15 Attlee was “laconically reliable”. Chamberlain then said only

  {that, on a dispassionate survey, it was right to remember that the alternative to fighting on nevertheless involved a considerable gamble. The War Cabinet agreed that this was a true statement of the case. The Prime Minister said that nations which went down fighting rose again, but those which surrendered tamely were finished.}

  Once more, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had by now clearly lost the debate, the Foreign Secretary said:

  {nothing in his suggestion could even remotely be described as ultimate capitulation. The Prime Minister thought that the chances of decent terms being offered to us at the present time were a thousand to one against.}

  At this point the War Cabinet broke off its discussions to enable the Prime Minister to attend a meeting of the full Cabinet that had been arranged earlier in the day. It was clear that Halifax was in a minority of one. The meeting had been convened some time before, possibly after Churchill had made very clear his position in reply to Halifax’s first intervention at this meeting. The Prime Minister at any time could have simply passed a note to ‘not convene’ to the Cabinet Secretariat. Meetings of the full Cabinet were a fairly regular occurrence anyhow and a democratic way of ensuring the full Cabinet were kept abreast of the War Cabinet’s thinking. By calling such a meeting Churchill was not pre-empting the War Cabinet, but he could sense that day that the mood of Chamberlain had shifted and Halifax was on his own.

  The accounts of Amery and Dalton of their meeting with Churchill make it very clear that this was no normal meeting, the full texts of which are available in Chapter 4 (pp. 202-206). Churchill told the 25 ministers around the Prime Minister’s room in the House of Commons that Britain was going to fight and not negotiate. It was, in effect, an eve of war battle cry, a culmination of eight very full meetings of the War Cabinet, made in the knowledge that he had won the support of Chamberlain and had the full support of Attlee, Greenwood and Sinclair. Dalton’s rather florid account has Churchill saying, “It was idle to think that, if we tried to make peace now, we should get better terms from Germany than if we went on and fought it out.”16 That was the War Cabinet’s decision and in the correct sequence it was now being endorsed by the full Cabinet. Churchill had ensured democratic debate had been on full display throughout.

  No one came out of the nine War Cabinet meetings diminished. If a Foreign Secretary cannot with honour raise the arguments for negotiating for peace during war then it is a diminished Prime Minister and Cabinet that blocks such a discussion. Halifax showed courage in persisting when Churchill showed no enthusiasm and that was his democratic right. It went too far in terms of what he saw as his role of restraining Churchill from below.

  There is no close historic precedent to what Halifax was trying to do. It was not like Haldane’s Mission to Berlin in 1912 which I describe in The Hidden Perspective: The Military Conversations 1906–191417, which was a brave and innovative attempt by the then Secretary of State for War to respond to an invitation from the then German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, to Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, to come to Berlin. It could and should have been supported by Grey in Cabinet and had Grey done so the First World War might never have happened. Halifax was trying to end a war that had started, using the Cabinet forum to authorise his diplomacy.

  The big problem Halifax had to contend with, and convince his War Cabinet colleagues on, was that Germany in 1940 was not just the aggressor but already occupied a significant part of France, and was engaged in a battle with British forces on the ground in France.

  Despite the risk of an inaccurate evaluation, once the Chiefs of Staff communicated to the War Cabinet that despite all the problems Britain could repulse a German invasion, Halifax continued looking defeatist and, to some around the Cabinet table, even advocating surrender. He was making a calculation of risk at a time of war against the Chief of Staff’s views. This was not the appeasement of Munich, which Halifax had supported initially with all the blind trust, self-deception and hubris that Chamberlain brought to that agreement. Halifax was perfectly entitled to continue the debate against the Chief’s conclusions and in so doing face the judgement of history. He was proved wrong. The War Cabinet had objectively looked at the alternative as any responsible government should have done. A War Cabinet of mere placemen would never have had those vital discussions. Nevertheless, Halifax held to his views all through the eighth meeting and longer than he needed to, and was, in effect, disowned on 28 May by the War Cabinet and crucially, though gently, by Chamberlain. Halifax, rightly, did not resign, which would have been damaging at this moment of national peril. Was he perhaps holding to his position believing he would be proved right by history? Probably, but it is hard to be sure. As Attlee, famous for his capacity to sum someone up in a few words, said of him when looking back in September 1965: “Queer bird, Halifax. Very humorous, all hunting and Holy Communion.”18

  Churchill’s judgement was wiser than Halifax’s and he was fully entitled to in effect dismiss him at the end of 1940. Correctly, as Prime Minister, Churchill did not stop debate but arranged for the professional view of the Chiefs of Staff to be brought forward. He supported their view to the hilt. He evaluated Hitler’s intentions from a political as well as a military position.
He had consistently held through the years of the rise of Hitler that appeasement was particularly dangerous of such a man for whom it would feed his ambition and his prejudices. In the War Cabinet he powerfully expressed the realities of what would happen if a negotiation was conceded, a most notable instance of which appears towards the end of the minutes for the eighth meeting:

  {M. Reynaud wanted to get us to the Conference table with Herr Hitler. If we once got to the table, we should then find that the terms offered us touched our independence and integrity. When, at this point we got up to leave the Conference table, we should find that all the forces of resolution which were now at our disposal would have vanished.}

  In effect Churchill knew that had talks been entered into, there would have to be a ceasefire. When the talks showed Hitler’s intransigence, he, Churchill, would never be able to lift the ceasefire and restart the war.

  The ninth and final series of meetings of mainly just ministers took place at 7.00 pm on 28 May. Churchill reported on his meeting with the full Cabinet, and said:

  {They had not expressed alarm at the position in France, but had expressed the greatest satisfaction when he had told them that there was no chance of our giving up the struggle. He did not remember having ever before heard a gathering of persons occupying high places in political life express themselves so emphatically.}

  Halifax raised again the proposed appeal to the United States but Churchill thought it

  {altogether premature. If we made a bold stance against Germany, that would command their admiration and respect, but a grovelling appeal if made now, would have the worst possible effect.}

  This was almost certainly a veiled reference to a draft telegram which Churchill had been sent by Halifax to send to Roosevelt, and which Churchill had sat on and refused to send. Only the draft exists, undated. It detailed what Roosevelt might say to Hitler if Britain had been offered by Hitler terms “destructive of British Independence”. The draft telegram would encourage Roosevelt to assert that such an offer would “encounter US resistance”. It was however too defeatist in tone and ran counter to Churchill’s deep belief that Roosevelt had to be convinced that Britain had the determination to fight and win. The Prime Minister was then charged with the task of telephoning M. Reynaud to relay what could reasonably be described as the Cabinet government decision, and not just that of the War Cabinet, to fight on.

  Churchill could now return to his major concern – how to get Roosevelt away from the isolationists in America and readier to supply arms, equipment, ships and planes. He had been alarmed at Roosevelt’s view on 24 May that Canada should urge the British fleet to sail for North America before it could become a bargaining counter in any surrender terms demanded by Hitler.19 Churchill was not ready to queer his pitch of credible defiance with such a letter. He knew the Americans were not ready to make the details of the President’s letter to Mussolini public and were acting as if they regretted it, and probably did so.

  For the next few days Britain continued to face its greatest challenge on the beaches of Dunkirk where the withdrawal was still under way. On 31 May Churchill flew to Paris escorted by nine Hurricane planes and met at the Ministère de la Guerre at 2.30 pm with Reynaud. The atmosphere was bad, recriminations very near the surface. Pétain, looking all of his 84 years, took little part as they discussed Narvik and Dunkirk. Churchill wrote his own recollections in Their Finest Hour: “The young Frenchman, Captain de Margerie, had already spoken about fighting it out in Africa. But Marshal Pétain’s attitude, detached and sombre, gave me the feeling that he would face a separate peace. The influence of his personality, his reputation, his serene acceptance of the march of adverse events, apart from any words he used, was almost overpowering for those under his spell.”20 Churchill was referring back to the fact that Pétain had been in charge of the defence of Verdun in 1916 and was Commander in Chief from 1917–18 when he had impressed Churchill in his determination to throw back the German onslaught. Spears, accompanying Churchill and a fluent French speaker, said to Pétain, “I suppose you understand, M. le Maréchal, that that would mean blockade? ... That would not only mean blockade, but bombardment of all French ports in German hands.”

  It is worth recalling that Verdun was the longest battle in the First World War and when the Germans attacked on 21 February 1916, the Somme offensive, which was originally intended as a joint Franco-British operation with France providing 40 divisions and the British only 25, became a British battle. On the first day of the battle on 1 July 1916, 19,240 men were killed and another 37,000 were listed as wounded or missing in action. The battle continued for 140 days and by mid-November, as Sir David Reynolds writes, it had “muddied out”, with the British having lost 420,000 men “killed, wounded or missing, in order to advance at most six miles”. Reynolds continues “There were dissenters, not only on the radical Left, but also at the highest levels of government. In November, as the battle subsided into the mud, Lord Lansdowne, a former Foreign Secretary and now wartime minister, wrote a memo to his Cabinet colleagues ‘imploring them to consider a negotiated peace. Generations will have to come and go before the country recovers from the loss which it sustained in human beings, and from the financial ruin and the destruction of the means of production which are taking place … All this is no doubt our duty to bear, but only if it can be shown that the sacrifices will have its reward.’ His pleas were brushed aside. Despite its private doubts, the Government closed ranks behind Haig”.21

  Against this historic background, let there be no doubt that Halifax as Foreign Secretary was right to ensure in May 1940 that a negotiated peace was extensively discussed in the War Cabinet, and none of his colleagues showed any signs of resentment that he had stimulated such a debate.

  1 David Owen, In Sickness and In Power (Methuen, 2011), pp 453–462.

  2 John Lukacs, Five Days in London, May 1940 (Yale University Press, 2001), p 113.

  3 Ibid, p 119.

  4 Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices. Ten Decisions That Changed The World 1940–1941 (Allen Lane, 2007), p 27. Also Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945. Nemesis (Allen Lane, 2000), pp 295–6 and p 921 nn. 63 and 66. Also Heinz Magenheimer, Hitler’s War: Germany’s Key Strategic Decisions 1940–1945, (Cassell Military Paperbacks, 1998), p 24.

  5 Ibid, p 27.

  6 John Lukacs, Five Days in London: May 1940, p 121.

  7 Ibid, p 116.

  8 Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography (Pan Macmillan, 2002), p 603.

  9 Geoffrey Best, Churchill and War (A & C Black, 2006), p 104.

  10 David Reynolds, Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century (Allen Lane, 2007), p 91.

  11 Roy Jenkins, Churchill (Pan Macmillan, 2012), p 605.

  12 Kevin Jefferys, War and Reform: British Politics during the Second World War (Manchester University Press, 1994), p 44.

  13 Sir Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, O.M., 1930–1945 (Putnam, 1972), p 291.

  14 Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour, p 110.

  15 Nichlaus Thomas-Symonds, Attlee: A Life in Politics (I. B. Tauris, 2012).

  16 Kevin Jefferys, War and Reform: British Politics During the Second World War (Manchester University Press, 1994), p 45.

  17 David Owen, The Hidden Perspective (Haus Publishing, 2014), p 145.

  18 Clem Attlee, The Granada Historical Records Interview, p 20.

  19 Ian Kershaw, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940–1941 (Penguin, 2013), pp 30–31.

  20 Churchill, Their Finest Hour, p 100.

  21 David Reynolds, New Statesman, 12–18 August 2016, p. 25.

  6

  Dunkirk and Defiance

  The evacuation of Dunkirk was recorded by a total cumulative figure each day in Cadogan’s diaries: 40,000 off the beaches by the end of 29 May at a rate of 2,000 an hour. On the 30 May, 102,000. By noon on 31 May, 164,000 – a figure Cadogan refers to as “a miracle”, a word which was to become famously associated with Dunkirk in B
ritish history. At the Cabinet meeting at 11.30 am on 31 May the total figure was given as 224,000 and 34,000 Allies. What that figure would have been if the German Panzers had not been stopped outside Calais by Hitler and his field commander, one can only imagine. Had that miracle never happened Professor Hindsight, that well-known figure that haunts political history, would have told us Halifax had been right. But the air battle that lay ahead was the crucial factor and we might still have avoided invasion if we had got 100,000 men off at Dunkirk. The Battle of Britain may have been enough to bring eventual victory. Fortune favours the brave. Even so, a huge price was paid in the massive amounts of ammunition, equipment, vehicles and tanks lost.

  The next political hurdle to cross was Churchill’s letters of requests to Roosevelt, sent against the background of a Presidential Election due in November in an American mood still of isolationism and on which the President had yet to declare as a candidate. On 1 June, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt again on the question of aircraft asking for the release of 200 Curtiss P-40 fighters, saying at the present rate of comparative losses, they would account for something like 800 German machines.