by Martin Allen
Just a year before, Churchill had greatly feared that Germany might leak information about Chamberlain’s negotiations connected with the Venlo Incident. Now he was facing a similar dilemma. What if the Germans turned the Messrs HHHH operation on him? It could cause the worst of all disasters. American political pressure might even be exerted on the British government to accept Germany’s peace offer. There was, after all, very little in the Hitler–Hess–Haushofer proposals that would not have appeared acceptable in early 1941.
Despite these immense dangers, the German attempt to open a line directly to Lord Halifax did have one encouraging feature: it indicated that Hitler, together with Hess and Haushofer, had swallowed the fiction about a potentially powerful British peace faction, which would appear to have been led by Lord Halifax and Sam Hoare. The main concern now was to ensure that they remained deceived, which meant they would have to be kept away from Halifax. The extent of his involvement was mainly to represent a potential leader, and he is unlikely to have had much knowledge about what SO1 and Hoare were negotiating, ostensibly on his behalf.
Within a few days of receiving Halifax’s telegram, Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, replied to it in a ‘MOST SECRET’ telegram. After opening with a cordial ‘Dear Edward,’ Cadogan immediately became very serious:
Further to your telegram to the Foreign Secretary of 8th February regarding the approach by an emissary of [German Ambassador] Dieckhoff concerning the H matter, I have been instructed to pass on the following guidance.
All matters regarding H must be managed under the strictest diplomatic protocols, as we instructed Sam [Hoare] to inform the emissary last November. As we all agreed, the emissary was ordered not to contact you directly, so as to confuse their assessment of the situation, and to prevent your compromise should there be a mistake. We do not believe the opposition would intentionally leak as it will end their whole operation, and we certainly would not as we are not supposed to know – but mistakes do happen.
Both Winston and Anthony [Eden] agree that if any further approach is made, feign anger and walk away. For our part we have informed Sam to tell the emissary that any further attempt to influence you will result in an immediate end to negotiations.
Tellingly, Cadogan concluded the telegram by stating:
I need hardly emphasise how dangerous a failure during the coming sensitive stage could be. Please destroy this telegram after digesting the content.
Yours ever AC45
Cadogan’s telegram is an extremely interesting document, for it reveals many things – some obvious, others less so – with very important implications indeed. Primarily, it refers to the ‘H’ matter, confirming Sam Hoare’s involvement since the previous November when he had met the Papal Nuncio, and the fact that he had instructed the Germans that no direct contact to Halifax was to be made. Of greater importance, however, is the statement that ‘We [i.e. Churchill and Eden, who are mentioned, and possibly SO1 too] do not believe the opposition [the Germans] would intentionally leak as it will end their whole operation, and we certainly would not as we are not supposed to know’.
This last is the most important statement of all. It is the smoking gun which indicates that all this subterfuge – the pretence of negotiations with a non-existent peace faction within Britain – was being conducted with the full knowledge of Churchill, through the secret political warfare organisation operating out of Woburn Abbey. The statement cannot be misconstrued to mean anything else, particularly in light of the later comment: ‘Both Winston and Anthony agree that if any further approach is made, feign anger and walk away.’ This is telling not only because it reveals who was being consulted, but because of the use of the phrase to feign anger – i.e. not even Halifax’s indignation at being contacted by the Nazis was to be genuine.
Throughout the six months that the Messrs HHHH operation had been in existence a key participant, as head of SOE, had been Hugh Dalton. His relationship with Rex Leeper had not much eased during the autumn and winter of 1940, and there continued to be friction between them. With Halifax’s departure for Washington, Dalton had lost an unlikely but valuable ally. At first the Conservative Lord Halifax had not been inclined to look favourably upon the socialist Dalton – indeed, as late as the summer of 1940 he had referred to him as a ‘naturally offensive creature’.46 However, over the months that followed the two men began to recognise each other’s abilities, and had developed a good working relationship.47
Now Dalton found Anthony Eden – much more of a devotee of the Churchillian style of conducting war than Halifax could ever be – in Halifax’s place at the Foreign Office. Dalton rapidly found himself an isolated figure amongst Churchill and his old cronies, including Leeper, Hoare, Ingrams, Eden and Bruce Lock-hart. As the Messrs HHHH operation picked up momentum, Dalton’s conscience begin to trouble him with increasing frequency, particularly when he realised that its ultimate objective was the turning of Germany on Russia.
On 28 February 1941, Dalton wrote an urgent note directly to Anthony Eden to voice his fears, saying: ‘I have been in deep contemplation ever since the matter we discussed yesterday with the P[rime] M[inister], and feel I must put my concerns to you before we take any further action.’48 He went on: ‘Leeper’s assessment on Saturday was pretty close to the mark, and his conclusions that despite being unable, probably, to win in Europe, we could win a world war has, of course, been bandied about for the last month or two.’
As Dalton voices his fears about what is planned, it becomes clear that serious discussions were taking place behind closed doors concerning Britain’s long-term war strategy. He reveals that it had secretly been concluded that a lone Britain could not win a European war. If, however, the conflict could be expanded into a world war, bringing in other nations – particularly the United States – Germany would undoubtedly lose in the end. Dalton commented: ‘what Winston now proposes is a truly terrible thing, and I am not sure my conscience will allow me to participate’.
Dalton was not a weak man opposed to war, and his recoiling from action must have taken his colleagues by surprise. He must have realised the terrible consequences of a German push into the east – and it should be remembered that Hitler’s invasion of Russia would indeed be marked by tens of millions of deaths. He continued: ‘I have always maintained that in this war body-line bowling of the Hun is justified, and the Messrs HHHH Operation, once we took it over, was intended to fulfil that function, but I do not believe we can be morally justified to use it to cause the suggested end result. I feel we must have another meeting to discuss where we are going to take this matter.’ Dalton concluded his letter to Eden by using the old political trick of attempting to bring an adversary on side by asking for his counsel and advice: ‘I would appreciate your opinion.’
If Hugh Dalton believed that Anthony Eden would support him against the use of Messrs HHHH to achieve what he saw as a dreadful end, he was mistaken. Furthermore, he made two fatal blunders. Firstly, he overestimated his own importance as Minister of both Economic Warfare and SOE. Secondly, at the same time as writing to Eden, Dalton also sent a letter to Churchill voicing his concerns over the direction the Messrs HHHH operation was taking. What Churchill regarded as his weakening of resolve would prove to be Dalton’s political undoing for the remainder of the war.
That same weekend Robert Vansittart, who had undoubtedly been to see Churchill, wrote a brief note to Rex Leeper:
Dear Rex,
I thought I should send you this short note concerning the H[ugh] D[alton] matter. I have rarely seen Winston so annoyed as when he received HD’s letter yesterday. It has thrown the whole matter in turmoil, but I believe we can keep HD on side long enough to conclude the matter at hand.
I would appreciate first hand news of any problems with HD, as I believe BB has been given the go ahead to reduce him once the operation has reached its conclusion.49
‘BB’ was Churchill’s loyal stalwart Brendan Bracken, described by some
as his ‘faithful chela’, whose political career rose and fell with that of his mentor. A brash, red-haired Irishman of humble origins, Bracken had been a prominent journalist and MP during the inter-war period, and by early 1941 had become Churchill’s Political Private secretary.50 His loyalty and friendship would be rewarded in 1941 when, having ‘reduced’ Dalton and banished him to the Board of Trade, Churchill made Bracken Minister of Information. Thus he in effect inherited SO1, which was soon to be renamed the Political Warfare Executive, or PWE, and placed under the Ministry of Information.
In later years Dalton would call Bracken a ‘most malevolent influence upon Mr Churchill’, and a ‘force of evil’.51 In the early spring of 1941, however, Dalton had little idea of the forces beginning to range against him, or that soon he would become expendable. No one, not even a senior government Minister, would be allowed to jeopardise this most crucial of operations, upon which Britain’s very survival might depend.
However, Bracken himself would also occasionally prove problematic in later years. During a visit to New York in 1943 he created an uncomfortable stir when he blithely made it public that ‘Hess had been firmly convinced that certain circles in Britain would topple the Churchill government and join forces in crushing the Soviet Union’.52 That was a little too close for comfort, and earned him sharp a rebuke from Churchill on his return to Britain.
CHAPTER 5
A Tense Spring
Throughout the spring of 1941 Churchill’s concern about the possibility of a German push through the Balkans towards Britain’s source of oil in the Middle East steadily increased. The beginning of 1941’s fighting season was almost upon him, and Churchill knew that the next few months would be crucial in determining whether Britain was going to survive, or go under.
In the late autumn of 1940 Italian troops had marched from occupied Albania into north-west Greece. At first all seemed to go well for the Italians, but soon they hit an impasse as the fiercely independent Greek troops first fought them to a standstill, then began to push them back beyond the Albanian-Greek frontier. It was all very embarrassing for Hitler’s ally Mussolini.
Now, in the spring of 1941, a new development arose, which in part originated from Churchill’s fear that Germany might also attack Greece, and then force its way through Thrace to the Dardanelles.1 It was a region that haunted Churchill, but his disastrous Dardanelles campaign of 1915 would pale into insignificance if this really was the direction of Hitler’s intent in 1941 – for beyond the Dardanelles lay Turkey, Anatolia and the gateway to the Middle East. No matter how good the strategic planning in London, the military efforts in North Africa or the sacrifices made by the Merchant Navy facing German U-boats in the Atlantic, it would all be for nothing if Hitler’s troops could take the Middle East’s oil reserves.
Churchill would later recall that the early spring of 1941 was ‘the moment … when the irrevocable decision [had to] be taken whether or not to send the Army of the Nile to Greece. This grave step was required not only to help Greece in her peril and torment, but to form against the impending German attack [on the] Balkan Front … We did not then know that he [Hitler] was already deeply set upon his gigantic invasion of Russia.’2 Mindful of the need to protect Britain’s Middle Eastern flank, at the end of February Anthony Eden travelled out to the eastern Mediterranean to negotiate an arrangement with the Greek government for British military support. It was a strategy that would prove disastrous, and would almost cause complete catastrophe.
During the late autumn and winter of 1940, British forces in North Africa had at long last managed to turn back the Axis tide of conquest, pushing the enemy westward away from Egypt and the Suez Canal. After heavy fighting and loss of life, the British North African Army had even managed to take Sidi Barani in Libya, and allowed themselves to dream that they might actually win the campaign.
Now Churchill began to make his plans known of removing a considerable chunk of the North African Army to Greece, with the objective not only of defending the east Mediterranean flank and the route to the Middle East, but of giving Hitler another front to worry about. On 4 March the C-in-C Mediterranean, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, based in Alexandria, counselled caution against such a move, enumerating the very considerable risks involved in removing such a substantial segment of the British Army and Air Force from Egypt and North Africa for deployment in Greece. His warnings were not heeded.
On 1 March German forces had poured across the Romanian frontier into Bulgaria, and the tensions in the region rose inexorably. On 6 March Churchill telegrammed to Eden in Cairo:
Situation has indeed changed for worse … Failure of [Greek General] Papagos to act as agreed with you on Feb. 22, obvious difficulty of his extricating his army from contact in Albania … together with other adverse factors … make it difficult for Cabinet to believe that we now have any power to avert fate of Greece unless Turkey and/or Yugoslavia come in, which seems most improbable. We have done our best to promote Balkan combination against Germany.
Loss of Greece and Balkans by no means a major catastrophe for us, provided Turkey remains honest neutral . .. We are advised from many quarters that our ignominious ejection from Greece would do us more harm in Spain and Vichy than the fact of submission of Balkans, which with our scanty forces alone we have never been expected to prevent …3
After the war Churchill received considerable criticism for the Greek campaign, and comments were made that had he not drawn much-needed men and materiel from North Africa, the desert war would have ended much sooner, and the costly toing and froing across Libya from 1941 to 1942 might never have occurred. However, as his telegraphically communicated fears of a German push through Greece made clear, Churchill had very considerable worries in the spring of 1941. Britain simply did not possess sufficient armed forces to cover all eventualities, and in the months ahead this situation would grow steadily worse.
By the end of March the Balkans had become a hotbed of turmoil. There would be revolution in Yugoslavia, and in early April Germany, boasting an overwhelming military presence, invaded both Yugoslavia and Greece. It did indeed seem that the fighting season of 1941 would see the Balkans fall to German conquest, opening up the eastern Mediterranean and raising the prospect of a Middle Eastern campaign.
Despite this, there was still a multiplicity of confusing signals emanating from the German government. The Nazi leadership’s carrot-and-stick style of warfare persisted, with unremitting war and devastation threatened on the one hand, with tentative offers of peace on the other. In this perplexing and bizarre situation Sam Hoare, skilled in the arts of politics and diplomacy, was in his element. On the same day that Churchill telegrammed Anthony Eden in Cairo, Hoare was also preparing a communication. It appeared that someone else in Germany was trying to cut a peace deal; what was more, he seemed to know that Britain’s Ambassador to Spain, Sir Samuel Hoare, was the key man to approach.
This new protagonist had a track record in peaceable approaches. A Sudeten German aristocrat, Prince Max zu Hohenlohe had in the months preceding his approach to Sam Hoare been busily engaged in an attempt at peace mediation with David Kelly, the British Ambassador in Berne, on behalf of Himmler and Ribben-trop. Now, however, he appeared to be speaking with the authority of someone considerably more eminent, there being covert signals of a connection to Hitler through Hermann Göring.
An intrigued Hoare agreed to a secret meeting with Hohenlohe at the Madrid flat of his old friend Brigadier Torr. On this occasion, as the reports made clear, Hoare was wearing his official hat as the representative of the British government in Spain, and not his unofficial one as SO1 go-between to a fictitious political faction led by Lord Halifax. This stance was taken because it was known that Hohenlohe was not connected to the Hess-Haushofer line of communication.
In view of the delicacy of the situation, Hoare communicated what had taken place directly to Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, in a ‘Personal & Secret’
note accompanied by a closely-typed two-page report. Hoare wrote:
I had not, of course, seen [Hohenlohe] since the months just before the war when we met from time to time socially in London. He appeared to be ill at ease at the beginning of the talk. This made the Military Attaché and myself take the view that he had come to Madrid with some kind of special mission from Göring. This impression has been subsequently increased by the fact that … after I left … he told the Military Attaché that he had recently been staying with Göring.4
Hoare went on to reveal that after Hohenlohe had begun with ‘a few platitudes about his properties in Europe and our mutual friends in London’, the conversation had quickly ‘moved into more serious questions’. Hohenlohe had stated that ‘it was a calamity that the war was continuing, Hitler had been ready to make peace last July [1940] after his great success [at the fall of France]’. Hohenlohe had then asked ‘Why were we not ready to make peace now after our great [North] African successes?’
Over the next hour Hohenlohe tried to impress upon Hoare the futility of continued conflict, declaring that as ‘Germany could never be defeated, and as the English believe they could never be defeated, the only result of the continuance of the war would be the devastation of Europe, the end of European civilisation and the Communism or Americanisation of the world’. Hoare reported Hohenlohe as claiming that ‘Hitler … never wanted to fight Great Britain, and if peace were made now we [the British government] should find him very reasonable.’
At this point Hoare interrupted, asking the German Prince what he meant by Hitler’s ‘reasonableness’.
‘Hitler,’ Hohenlohe replied, ‘wanted Eastern Europe and China. As to Western Europe and the rest of the world, he wanted little or nothing.’
Hoare commented to Cadogan that at this point ‘I said to him … no one in England believed Hitler’s word,’ to which Hohenlohe retorted that if Britain ‘would not make peace with Hitler we should never be able to make peace at all’.