19 'The War Situation', 8 October 1940, House of Lords Official Report (Vol. 67), pp. 402-8, 453-6; ibid., Lord David Davies, Question 'Dominions and the War', 8 August 1940, p. 161; Elibank to Churchill, 10 October 1940, PREM4/43/A/13; Mansergh, Problems of Wartime Cooperation, p. 93.
20 Churchill, Finest Hour, pp. 422-38; Gilbert, Finest Hour, pp. 876-90.
21 Stephenson to Machtig, 30 October 1940, DO35/998/7/13.
22 Mackenzie King to Churchill, 31 October 1940, DO35/998/7/13; ibid., Prime Minister's Personal Minute (No. M282), copied to Cranborne, 4 November 1940; ibid., Cranborne to PM, 8 November
1940.
23 Ibid., PM to Cranborne, 10 November 1940.
24 Cranborne to PM, 11 November 1940, DO35/998/7/13; ibid., Bridges to Cranborne, 11 November 1940; PM to Cranborne, 13 November 1940.
25 Cranborne to Churchill, 21 December 1940, CHAR20/11/114-116. Suggestions that he would be moved to Washington persisted into the following year and were clearly a source of annoyance to Cranborne: 'What an absurd idea about my going to Washington! I am glad to hear that there is nothing in it. Apart from everything else, it would be the greatest possible mistake for Edward to throw up the sponge after less than six months. Every ambassador takes at least a year to settle down to a new post. He cannot expect to be known and liked before that. And especially in this time for Edward, who is by nature shy and fastidious. I hope we shall hear no more of such nonsense'; Cranborne to Emrys-Evans, 31 July 1941, Emrys-Evans Papers (British Library), Add. MSS 58240.
26 'Information for the Dominions', 5 June 1940, WP192(40), CAB66/8.
27 Colonel Bishop to Holmes, 15 December 1940, DO35/1003/2/11/25.
28 Bishop to Machtig, 10 December 1940 within 'Information for the Dominions', WP466(40), December 1940, CAB66/14.
29 Machtig to Cranborne, 20 December 1940, DO35/1003/2/11/25; Pimlott, Diary of Hugh Dalton, pp. 120-2.
30 Churchill to Cranborne, 12 November 1940, Chartwell Papers, CHAR20/13/8; ibid., Churchill to Cranborne, 1 December 1940; Churchill to Cranborne, 21 December 1940.
31 Ibid., Cranbourne to Churchill, 23 December 1940.
32 Ibid., Churchill to Cranborne, 25 December 1940.
33 Note by Bruce of conversation with Churchill, 18 December 1940, Bruce Papers.
34 Churchill to Cranbourne, 7 January 1941, DO121/119.
35 Minute by Holmes, 30 December 1940, DO35/1003/2/11/25; ibid., minute by Stephenson, 1 January 1941; ibid., Machtig to Cranboune, 9 January 1941; Cranbourne to Churchill, 8 January
1941, DO121/10A; minute by Cranbourne, 12 January 1941, DO35/1003/2/11/25.
36 Diary, 11 January 1941, Menzies Papers (National Library of Australia), MS4936.
37 Mansergh, Problems of Wartime Cooperation, p. 90.
38 Day, Menzies and Churchill at War, pp. 33-40, 63-171; Daily Telegraph, 22 February 1941 and Sunday Times, 23 February 1941; an excellent account of the visit made to Britain by Menzies can be found in Galen Roger Perras, 'Hurry Up and Wait: Robert Menzies, Mackenzie King, and the Failed Attempt to Form an Imperial War Cabinet in 1941', Working Papers in Military and International History (No. 3, September 2004), Centre for Contemporary History and Politics, University of Salford, pp. 2-42.
39 Diary, 22 February 1941, Menzies Papers.
40 Menzies to Fadden, 25 February 1941, DAFP IV; ibid., Fadden to Menzies, 26 February 1941; Menzies to Fadden, 4 March 1941.
41 Ismay to Brooke-Popham, 15 June 1941, Brooke-Popham Papers (Liddell Hart Archives), V/1/13.
42 Major-General I.S.O. Playfair et al., Official History of the Second World War: The Mediterranean and Middle East Vol. 2: The Germans Come to the Help of Their Ally, 1941 (London, 1956), pp. 1-40, 153-72; Martin van Creveld, 'Prelude to Disaster: the British Decision to Aid Greece, 1940-41', Journal of Contemporary History (Vol. 9, No. 3; 1974), pp. 65-92; Field Marshal Earl Wavell, 'The British Expedition to Greece, 1941', The Army Quarterly (Vol. 59, No. 2; January 1950), pp. 178-85; David Day, The Great Betrayal, Britain, Australia and the Onset of the Pacific War 1939-42 (Melbourne, 1988), pp. 110-41; David Horner, Inside the War Cabinet (NSW: Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1996), pp. 48-59; Sheila Lawlor, Churchill and the Politics of War, 1940-41 (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 167-259; Mansergh, Problems of Wartime Cooperation, pp. 96-101; General Freyberg to Churchill, 25 March 1949, Sir G.S. Cox Papers (Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington) 2003-005-15/10; Callum MacDonald, The Lost Battle: Crete, 1941 (London, 1993) pp. 87-113, 186-307; Antony Beevor, Crete: The Battle and the Resistance (London, 1991), pp. 30-82, 82-226; Brigadier A. T. J. Bell, 'The Battle for Crete—The Tragic Truth', Australian Defence Force Journal (No. 88, May/June 1991), pp. 15-18.
43 Sir Percy Joske, Sir Robert Menzies: A New, Informal Memoir (Sydney, 1978), p. 115; Diary, 17 April 1941, Pearson Papers.
44 'The Empire and the War', 2 April 1941, House of Lords Official Report (Vol. 118), pp. 952-73.
45 Diary, 30 April 1941 and 1 May 1941, Hankey Papers; Irving, Churchill's War: Vol. 1, pp. 550-6.
46 'Curtin Falls on Menzies', Reynolds Illustrated News, 27 April 1941.
47 Gilbert, Finest Hour, pp. 1083-4.
48 Cranborne to Churchill, 12 May 1941, PREM4/43A/12; ibid., Churchill to Cranborne, 13 May 1941.
49 Churchill to Cranborne, 25 March 1941, Chartwell Papers, CHAR20/13/8; minute by Holmes, 13 April 1941, DO35/1012/28/1/1.
50 Churchill to Mackenzie King, 11 May 1941 in Churchill, The Second World War: Vol. 3, The Grand Alliance (London, 1949), p. 595.
51 Ibid., Churchill to Mackenzie King, 10 May 1941; Day, The Great Betrayal, p. 134.
52 Cranborne to Churchill, 12 May 1941, PREM4/43A/12; Mackenzie King to Lord Davies, 19 May 1941, DO35/999/8/3; ibid., Mackenzie King to Cranborne, 20 May 1941.
53 Churchill to Foreign and Dominion Secretaries, 30 May 1941, PREM4/43A/12; ibid., Cranborne to Churchill, 30 May 1941.
54 Cranborne to MacDonald, 31 May 1941, Malcolm MacDonald Papers (University of Durham), 14/4/13.
55 Cranborne to Churchill, 3 June 1941, PREM4/43A/12; ibid., Cranborne to Churchill, 6 June 1941; Minutes of Advisory War Council Meeting, Canberra, 28 May 1941, cited in Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, p. 62.
56 Halifax to FO, 12 June 1941, FO371/27575; Menzies had told his colleagues in Canberra upon his eventual return, 'Mr Churchill has no conception of the British Dominions as separate entities. Furthermore, the more the distance from the heart of the Empire, the less he thinks of it'; cited in Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War against Japan, 1941-1945 (London, 1978), p. 63.
57 Diary, 5 June 1941, Hankey Papers; General Ismay to Brooke-Popham, 15 June 1941, Ismay Papers, V/1/13; Cranborne to Churchill, 6 June 1941, PREM4/43A/12; Diary, 6 June 1941, Hankey Papers; General Auchinleck to Ismay, 29 September 1941, Ismay Papers, IV/Con/1/1A; Garner, The Commonwealth Office, p. 203; this idea was, indirectly, forwarded to King George VI but his reaction was not recorded—Diary, 20 October 1940, Colville Papers (Churchill College), CLVL.
58 Diary, 5 June 1941, Waterson Papers.
59 WHC, 8 July 1941, DO121/11; Diary, 10 July 1941, Waterson Papers.
60 Casey to Menzies, 30 May 1940, DAFP III, p. 361; Bruce to Menzies, 29 June 1940, Bruce Papers; ibid., 'Speech given by Bruce at a dinner for Sir Ronald Cross', 18 May 1941; Cranborne to Churchill, 5 June 1941, DO35/1009/446/1/21.
61 Churchill to Smuts, 13 June 1941, PREM4/43A/16; Waterson to Smuts, 11 June 1941, Waterson Papers; ibid., Smuts to Waterson, 16 June 1941; Smuts to Duncan, 16 June 1941, Duncan Papers; Cranborne to Churchill, 17 June 1941, DO35/99/8/2.
62 Cranborne to Churchill, 17 June 1941, PREM4/43A/12.
63 Colville Diary, 21 June 1941/p. 480.
64 Churchill to Cranborne, 17 June 1941, PREM4/43A/12; Colville to Garner, 18 June 1941, DO35/999/8/2; Colville, His Inner Circle, pp. 174-5.
65 Cranborne to Churchill, 18 June 1941, PREM4/43A/12; ibid., Churchill to Dominion Prime Ministers, 21 June 1941.
66 Pickersgill, T
he Mackenzie King Record, pp. 216-17.
67 Minute by P. Mason, 15 October 1940, FO371/25224.
68 Mackenzie King to Churchill, 22 June 1941, PREM4/43A/12; ibid., Statement to the House of Commons by Churchill, 24 June 1941.
69 MacDonald to Cranborne, 1 August 1941, DO121/68; ibid., 'Note No. 1', 1 August 1941.
70 In the draft of his memoirs, the British high commissioner later asserted that, in his view, Churchill generally regarded his Canadian counterpart as 'a pygmy [and] with a touch of contempt'; Draft Memoirs, n.d., MacDonald Papers, 121/10/10.
71 Diary, 16 July 1941, Mackenzie King Papers; Garner to Martin, 14 July 1941, Chartwell Papers, CHAR20/27/36; ibid., Churchill to Cranborne, 18 July 1941, CHAR20/27/38; ibid., 'Note No. 2', 1 August 1941; Mackenzie King to Menzies, 2 August 1941, DO121/68; ibid., Cranborne to MacDonald, 11 August 1941; Pickersgill, The Mackenzie King Record, p. 235.
72 The Times, 13 August 1941; Menzies to Bruce, 8 August 1941 in W. J. Hudson and H. J. W. Stokes (eds), Documents on Australian Foreign Policy, 1937-1949: Vol. 5, July 1941-June 1942 (Canberra, 1982) (hereafter 'DAFP V').
73 Diary, 14 April 1941, Menzies Papers; Diary, 17 April 1941, Pearson Papers; Diary, 1 May 1941, Hankey Papers; DO to Eden, 14 August 1941, FO954/4; Diary, 15 August 1941, Harvey Papers (British Library, London), ADD.MD.56398.
74 'Extracts of a telegram dated 2 August 1941', MacDonald Papers, 14/5/11-16; Orde, The Eclipse of Great Britain, pp. 135-6.
75 Churchill to Attlee, 7 August 1941, Chartwell Papers, CHAR20/48/2; Bridges to Churchill, 5 August 1941, PREM3/485/3; MacDonald to Cranborne, 19 August 1941, MacDonald Papers, 14/5/9.
76 Batterbee to Cranborne, 29 April 1941, Batterbee Papers, 6/1; Diary, 30 June 1941, Waterson Papers; Diary, 22 August 1941, Mackenzie King Papers.
77 Smuts to Churchill, 23 August 1941, DO35/1009/446/1/38; Attlee to Churchill, 14 August 1941, Chartwell Papers, CHAR20/23.
78 Churchill to Menzies, 18 August 1941, Chartwell Papers, CHAR20/38/112.
79 Diary, 20 August 1941, Harvey Papers; DO to Eden, 14 August 1941, FO954/4; Diary, 25 August 1941, Mackenzie King Papers.
80 J. J. Dedman, 'Defence Policy Decisions Before Pearl Harbor', Australian Journal of Politics and History, No. 13 (1967), pp. 343-4; Australian Cabinet Minutes (Vol. 7), 19 August 1941, (National Archives, Canberra) CRS A2697; Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People (Canberra, 1973) pp. 495-6.
81 Diary, 22 August 1941, Mackenzie King Papers; ibid., Diary, 24 August 1941; Diary, 5 September 1941; HCWM, 22 August 1941, DO121/11.
82 Cross to Cranborne, 13 August 1941, CAB120/20; A. W. Martin, Robert Menzies, A Life: Vol. 1 (Melbourne, 1993), pp. 364-5, 373-8; Menzies, Afternoon Light (London, 1967), pp. 14, 52-4.
83 Churchill to Menzies, 29 August 1941, DO121/19; Waterson to Smuts, 30 August 1941, Waterson Papers.
84 Diary, 5 September 1941, Mackenzie King Papers; ibid., 16 October 1941; Churchill to Athlone, 12 September 1941, PREM4/44/10.
85 Diary, 22 August 1941, Massey Papers; Massey to Pearson, 12 September 1941, Pearson Papers.
86 Cranborne to Emrys-Evans, 31 August 1941, Emrys-Evans Papers.
Notes to Chapter 6: Pacific Test
1 Fadden to Bruce, 29 August 1941, DAFP V; Martin, Menzies, pp. 364-5.
2 Sir Earle Page, Truant Surgeon (London, 1963), p. 298.
3 Hasluck, The Government and the People, pp. 505-7.
4 Cross to Cranborne, 20 January 1942, Emrys-Evans Papers.
5 Bruce to Fadden, 29 August 1941, Bruce Papers.
6 Cross to Cranborne, 13 January 1944, DO121/11; Bruce to Fadden, 29 August 1941, DAFP V.
7 Garner, The Commonwealth Office, p. 211.
8 Churchill to Fadden, 29 August 1941, PREM4/50/4A.
9 Diary, 25 August 1941, Waterson Papers; ibid., Waterson to Smuts, 30 August 1941; Diary, 2 September 1941; Waterson to Smuts, 30 August 1941; Smuts to Waterson, 2 September 1941.
10 Churchill to Fadden, 31 August 1941, DAFP V.
11 Fadden to Churchill, 4 September 1941, DO35/1010/476/3/30.
12 Fadden to Churchill, 5 September 1941, DO35/999/8/15.
13 'Dominions and the War: Voice in Direction', The Times, 12 June 1941; ibid., 'The Dominions and the War Cabinet', 13 August 1941; 'Dominions' Part in the War: Question of Cabinet Representation', 28 August 1941; 'The Dominions' Part', 25 August 1941.
14 Cranborne to Churchill, 4 September 1941, PREM4/50/5.
15 Cranborne to Churchill, 6 September 1941, DO35/999/8/13.
16 It also left him unsure about his high commissioner: 'I really don't know what has happened to Ronnie. Apart from telephoning every day to say that he must have a new car or two new bathrooms, 'on public grounds', he has now taken to lecturing Australian Ministers as if they were small and rather dirty boys. The air of the Antipodes seems to have gone to his head ...'; Cranborne to Emrys-Evans, 31 August 1941, Emrys-Evans Papers.
17 Churchill to Cranborne, 6 September 1941, PREM4/50/5; '[Page] was no polished Bruce. He was a country doctor, who, having made good in Macquarie Street as a very fine surgeon, got into politics and stayed there by a remarkable shrewdness in anticipating which way the cat was going to jump, and jumping before it'; 'Our Best Men Must Go to Singapore and London', Sydney Daily Telegraph, 23 December 1941.
18 Minute by Stephenson, 8 September 1941, DO35/999/8/13; Machtig to Cranborne, 9 September 1941, DO35/999/4; ibid., Cranborne to Machtig, 10 September 1941.
19 Sir Arthur Fadden, They Called Me Artie (Melbourne, 1969), pp. 73-8; Sir Arthur Fadden, 'Forty Days and Forty Nights: Memoir of a Wartime Prime Minister', Australian Outlook (Vol. 27; 1973), pp. 9-11.
20 Cranborne to Churchill, 22 April 1941, PREM3/206/1-3; Fadden, They Called Me Artie, pp. 58-9; Judith Brett, Robert Menzies' Forgotten People (Australia, 1992), pp. 250-1.
21 Day, The Great Betrayal, pp. 153-5; Horner, High Command, Australia and Allied Strategy (Sydney, 1982), pp. 100-13; Halifax to FO, 12 June 1941, FO371/27575.
22 Menzies to Churchill, 20 July 1941, DAFP V; ibid., Churchill to Menzies, 9 August 1941.
23 Horner, High Command, pp. 104-17. Blamey was even willing to make the dubious claim that his troops in Tobruk should be replaced because they were no longer medically capable of its defence; Blamey to General Auchinleck, 18 July 1941 cited in Robertson and McCarthy, Australian War Strategy, pp. 125-6; Duffy (Acting Official Secretary) to DO, 25 February 1946, DO35/1767.
24 Sebastian Cox, '"The Difference between White and Black": Churchill, Imperial Politics and Intelligence before the 1941 Crusader Offensive', Intelligence and National Security (Vol. 9, No. 3; July 1994), pp. 413-15; Fadden to Churchill, 5 September 1941, PREM3/63/2; ibid., Churchill to Auchinleck, 6 September 1941.
25 Auchinleck to Churchill, 10 September 1941, DO35/1009/446/1/40.
26 Diary, 3 October 1941, Massey Papers.
27 Lyttelton to Churchill, 11 September 1941, PREM3/63/2.
28 R. James (ed.), Victor Cazalet (London, 1976), p. 264; Diary, 15 September 1941, Harvey Papers
29 Cranborne to Emrys-Evans, 31 August 1941, Emrys-Evans Papers; WCM(41)92, 11 September 1941, CAB65/23.
30 Churchill to Fadden, 11 September 1941, PREM3/63/2; ibid., Fadden to Churchill, 15 September 1941; Fadden, They Called Me Artie, p. 77.
31 'Auchinleck Overruled During Tobruk Siege: Australia Insisted On Relief of Her Troops' (Lt-Gen H. G. Martin, Military Correspondent), Daily Telegraph, 22 August 1946.
32 Churchill to Fadden, 29 September 1941, PREM3/63/2; ibid., Fadden to Churchill, 4 October 1941; Churchill to Cranborne, 15 September 1941.
33 Ibid., Churchill to Lyttelton, 18 September 1941; minute by Pugh, 25 July 1945, DO35/1767; ibid., DO minute, 13 September 1945; Holdgate to Antrobus, 13 September 1945; minute by Antrobus, 13 September 1945.
34 Hasluck, The Government and the People, pp. 510-18.
35 Ross, John Curtin, pp. 214-19.
36 War Cabinet Defence Committee, 5 March 1941, cited in J. M. McCarthy, 'Australia:
A View from Whitehall, 1939-1945', Australian Outlook (No. 28; 1974), p. 325.
37 Horner, Inside the War Cabinet, pp. 21-2; Horner, High Command, pp. 137-40; The Times, 25 August 1939.
38 Cross to Cranborne, June 1944, Machtig Papers, DO121/111; Brooke-Popham to Ismay, 28 February 1941, Brooke-Popham Papers.
39 Day, The Great Betrayal, p. 188; Cox, 'The Difference between White and Black', pp. 416-17; Horner, High Command, p. 123.
40 It is easy to see why it has been described as a long, slow game, one that wavered between, conciliatory diplomacy, economic blackmail and downright appeasement at the basis of which lay the panacea, 'Main Fleet to Singapore', John Gallagher, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 130-1; John McCarthy, 'Singapore and Australian Defence, 1921-1942', Australian Outlook, (Vol. 25; 1971), pp. 165-79; Ian Cowman, Dominion or Decline: Anglo-American Naval Relations on the Pacific, 1937-1941 (Oxford, 1996), pp. 37-9.
41 For example the Review of Imperial Defence and the Far Eastern Appreciation, two major documents produced by the British chiefs of staff as preparation for the 1937 Imperial Conference; W. David McIntyre, The Rise and Fall of the Singapore Naval Base (London, 1979), pp. 129-31; A. C. Welburn, 'The Singapore Strategy: Half-Truths, Evasion and Outright Deception', Australian Defence Force Journal (No. 100; May/June 1993), pp. 39-48.
42 'Imperial Naval Policy', Committee of Imperial Defence (Minutes of 123rd Meeting) cited in Donald Gordon, The Dominion Partnership in Imperial Defence, 1870-1914 (Baltimore, 1965), p. 279.
43 W. David McIntyre, New Zealand Prepares for War (Canterbury, 1988), pp. 193, 203-16, 241; McIntyre, 'Imperialism and Nationalism' in Geoffrey W. Rice (ed), The Oxford History of New Zealand (Melbourne, 2002), pp. 338-47; Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore had been part of the British delegation and confirmed publicly four years later that Frederick Jones, the NZ defence minister, 'had not appeared to be convinced' by his assurances that New Zealand would be all right as long as Singapore was held, 'Speech given at the Royal Empire Society, London by The Hon. Frederick Jones, MP', 8 June 1943, United Empire (Vol. 34, No. 5), p. 128.
Empire Lost: Britain, the Dominions and the Second World War Page 31