An agitated day. – Three meetings of the War Cabinet. – Chamberlain, Halifax, Churchill. – Disagreements between Halifax and Churchill.– Scarcity of news: “A mandate to delay judgment and not to worry” – “In Westminster Abbey.”
A gloomy day, in more than one way: for the first time in many a day it rained.
In early April there had been some talk of a National Day of Prayer. The archbishop of Canterbury had thought it inadvisable because it could be misinterpreted. Now, along with all the churches, he endorsed it. The king had spoken of it in his broadcast of 23 May.1 So had the newspapers. “Let Us Pray” was an article on the front page of the Daily Express on Saturday: “It must mean something tomorrow.” At ten o’clock on Sunday morning the king, the queen, and the highest personages of the empire arrived in Westminster Abbey. The king and queen carried gas masks. Wilhelmina, queen of the Netherlands, came with them. Someone shouted: “Long live the Netherlands!” Wilhelmina dropped a curtsey. There was a long queue outside. Churchill made it clear to his household that he and Mrs. Churchill would be able to attend for no longer than ten to thirty minutes. Indeed they left early, in the middle of the service, for there was plenty for him to do.
The events of this grave Sunday were so many and complicated that, before their reconstruction and analysis, their sequence ought to be sorted out and summed up briefly. We have seen that Churchill requested a meeting of the War Cabinet at the unusual hour of 9 A.M. on this Sunday. One hour later came the high service in Westminster Abbey. Meanwhile, Reynaud and a French delegation arrived in London. At noon Halifax saw the Italian ambassador again. Then he lunched with Chamberlain. Churchill had a long lunch with Reynaud in Admiralty House. He returned to 10 Downing Street for another cabinet at 2 P.M. After about forty minutes Churchill asked Halifax to go over to Admiralty House to meet with Reynaud. Churchill, Chamberlain, and Greenwood followed him twenty or so minutes later. A few minutes after four o’clock Reynaud left for France. The War Cabinet members stayed. There was another cabinet meeting in Admiralty House at five o’clock, ending at half past six. At eight Churchill dined with Ismay and Eden.
The War Cabinet session at 9 A.M. began with Churchill’s account of the situation with the French and with the Belgians. He had a letter from his personal representative in Paris, General Edward Spears — all bad news about France and the French. The king of Belgium was making ready to capitulate. Churchill’s envoy to the king, Sir Roger Keyes, had sent a telegram whose essence was that “King Leopold had written to King George VI to explain his motive in remaining with his army and people if the Belgian Army became encircled and the capitulation of the Belgian Army became inevitable.”
The gist of all this was summed up by Churchill: “It seems from all the evidence available that we might have to face a situation in which the French were going to collapse, and that we must do our best to extricate the British Expeditionary Force from northern France.”
Then Churchill played an important card. A few days before he had asked the chiefs of staff “to consider the situation which would arise if the French would drop out of the war.”
In the event of France being unable to continue in the war and becoming neutral, with the Germans holding their present position and the Belgian army being forced to capitulate after assisting the British Expeditionary Force to reach the coast; in the event of terms offered to Britain which would place her entirely at the mercy of Germany through disarmament, cession of naval bases in the Orkneys etc.; what are the prospects of our continuing the war alone against Germany and probably Italy. Can the Navy and the Air Force hold out reasonable hopes of preventing serious invasion, and could the forces gathered in this Island cope with raids from the air involving detachments not greater than 10,000 men; it being observed that a prolongation of British resistance might be very dangerous for Germany engaged in holding down the greater part of Europe.
The answer of the chiefs of staff has since become a historic document of first importance, well known to students of the period. Entitled “British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality,” it was a long paper.2 It presumed the worst possible conditions — and, by 25 May, an increasingly plausible situation: the French making peace with Germany, Italy entering the war, Europe and French North Africa under German control, and the loss of most of the British Expeditionary Force still struggling in northern France and Belgium. Still—even in these conditions Britain could hold out, if the United States would support Britain increasingly, eventually entering the war, and if the Royal Air Force, together with the navy, would remain in control over Britain and thus “prevent Germany from carrying out a serious sea-borne invasion of this country.” In this they were to be proved right. The rest of the document dealt with the question of whether Germany could be ultimately defeated. On 25 May this could not be even remotely envisaged. The chiefs of staff assumed that Germany’s economic situation was to be plagued by shortages of raw materials. Together with air attacks and revolts in the occupied countries, Germany could be defeated—at some time in the future, and with American help. In this assessment the chiefs of staff were wrong rather than right. They—much like Attlee and Greenwood in the War Cabinet, and to a considerable extent Chamberlain, too — not only overestimated but were altogether mistaken about the economic “factors” handicapping Germany.3 But that is not our concern here. The crux was “the immediate problem [of] … how to get through the next few months, with the Germans across the Channel and no effective allies. On this the Chiefs of Staff offered a reasoned case for hope.”4
We must, however, consider that on this Sunday, one so closely packed with dramatic events, the War Cabinet members did not have the time to peruse this long document in detail. And before copies of this secret paper were circulated, there occurred the first open clash of opinion between Halifax and Churchill.
Halifax said that “in the dark picture which had been presented there was one brighter spot in that the dispute on the rights and wrongs of Lord Gorf’s action in drawing back had now been satisfactorily cleared up and there would be no recriminations on that point.” Then he came to “the broader issue. We had to face the fact that it was not so much now a question of imposing a complete defeat upon Germany but of safeguarding the independence of our own Empire and if possible that of France.”
“In this connection,” he told the cabinet about his interview with the Italian ambassador the night before, “Signor Bastianini had clearly made soundings as to the prospect of our agreeing to a conference. The Ambassador had said that Signor Mussolini’s principal wish was to secure peace in Europe” He (Halifax) “had replied that peace and security in Europe were equally our main object, and we should naturally be prepared to consider any proposals which might lead to this, provided our liberty and independence were assured. The French had been informed of this approach by the Italian Ambassador. Signor Bastianini had asked for a further interview this morning, and he might have fresh proposals to put forward.”
Churchill said that peace and security would not be achieved under a German domination of Europe: “That we could never accept. We must ensure our complete liberty and independence. He was opposed to any negotiations which might lead to a derogation of our rights and power.”
Chamberlain now said that he “thought it very probable that Italy might send an ultimatum to France very shortly, saying that unless she would agree to a conference, Italy would come in on Germany’s side. This would bring very heavy pressure to bear on the French.” There followed some confusing talk about Italy. Attlee “thought that Mussolini would be very nervous of Germany emerging as the predominant power in Europe.” (This was not so.) Attlee added that he had not yet read the papers of the chiefs of staff “as to our prospects of holding out if the French collapsed.” Halifax made a somewhat obscure statement. He pointed out that if the French intended to come to terms, “they had a very strong card to play if they made it clear to Hitler that they were bound not to make a separate peace.” (Why?) “They might use this as a powerful lever to obtain favourable terms which might be of great value to us, if it was Hitler’s object to break the alliance.”
At that moment copies of another paper by the chiefs of staff were handed to the members of the cabinet about the prospects of Britain going on with the war single-handed. “It had been drawn up simply for the purpose of providing arguments to deter the French from capitulating and to strengthen their will to continue to fight.”5 Chamberlain thought that Italy was important. “Was it possible to ask the French whether Italy could be bought off? This might at least keep matters going.” Churchill “agreed that this point was worth bearing in mind.” Halifax then said that, from reading the chiefs of staffs’ paper, he gathered that the entire issue “of our ability to carry on the war single-handed against Germany would depend on the main on our being able to establish and maintain air superiority over the Germans.”
The chief of the air staff, who was present throughout the meeting, said that the issue was “not our obtaining air superiority over the Germans, but on our preventing the Germans from achieving such air superiority as would enable them to invade this country.” There was some discussion of this, with Halifax suggesting that once France collapsed the Germans would “no longer need large land forces. They would be free to switch the bulk of their effort to air production.” He also “suggested that in the last resort we should ask the French to put their factories out of gear.” Chamberlain must have felt that this was nugatory: “Whatever undertakings of this character we might extract from the French would be worthless, since the terms of peace which the Germans would propose would inevitably prevent their fulfilment.” Churchill “agreed. It was to be expected, however, that the Germans would make the terms of any peace offer as attractive as possible to the French, but lay emphasis on the fact that their quarrel was not with France but with England.”6
Then he asked the War Cabinet to convene again at 2 P.M., after his lunch with Reynaud. They adjourned, Churchill and Chamberlain hurrying to Westminster Abbey. Halifax went back to the Foreign Office, where Bastianini came to see him. Cadogan, who was present, wrote in his diary: “Nothing to be got out of [Bastianini]. He’s an ass — and a timid one at that.”7 Then Halifax had a quick lunch with Chamberlain.
Churchill had a long lunch with Reynaud at Admiralty House. Reynaud was constrained to present Churchill with a general view of the near hopelessness of the French military situation, largely in accord with what Weygand and Pétain had insisted upon in their high council the night before. Churchill said that Britain would go on alone. “We would rather go down fighting than be enslaved to Germany.” Yet underlying their discussion, which was not unfriendly — Reynaud, who was an Anglophile, respected and admired Churchill—was an understanding that their governments were divided. This, of course, was less so with the British than with the French. Reynaud “had hinted that he himself would not sign peace terms imposed upon France, but that he might be forced to resign, or might feel he ought to resign” — which eventually came about, three weeks to the day. Churchill knew about Weygand and Pétain, though he was not yet fully aware of the defeatism of the former. Nor was he quite aware of what another member of the French delegation had sensed, or had pretended to sense. Colonel Villelume was Reynaud’s principal military aide. That evening he wrote in his diary, “Halifax … shows his understanding; Churchill, prisoner of his habit of blustering, was absolutely negative.”8
At 2 P.M. the War Cabinet convened again. Churchill gave a lengthy and rather precise account of what Reynaud had said and what he had told Reynaud. He then suggested that Halifax go over and see Reynaud, who was still at Admiralty House; Churchill, Chamberlain, and Attlee would follow a few minutes later. Halifax would talk with Reynaud about the chances of buying off Mussolini. Did Churchill wish to avoid Halifax, since the latter might state his case before the others in the War Cabinet? We cannot tell. And Halifax did not leave yet. “A short further discussion ensued whether we should make any approach to Italy.” Halifax “favoured this course, and thought that the last thing that Signor Mussolini wanted was to see Herr Hitler dominating Europe. He would be anxious, if he could, to persuade Herr Hitler to take a more reasonable attitude.” Churchill “doubted whether anything would come of an approach to Italy, but said that the matter was one which the War Cabinet would have to consider.”
The open disagreement between Halifax and Churchill had now become evident. Halifax no longer wished merely to state his views; now he wanted to extract a commitment from Churchill: “We had to face the fact that it was not so much now a question of imposing a complete defeat upon Germany but of safeguarding the independence of our Empire.… We should naturally be prepared to consider any proposals which might lead to this, provided our liberty and independence were assured. … If he [Churchill] was satisfied that matters vital to the independence of this country were unaffected,” would he be “prepared to discuss such terms?”
At this juncture Churchill knew that he could not answer with a categorical no. He said that he “would be thankful to get out of our present difficulties on such terms, provided we retained the essentials and the elements of our vital strength, even at the cost of some territory” — an extraordinary admission (my italics).9 He then added that he did not believe in the prospect of such a deal. Chamberlain did not say much. Then with Churchill and Greenwood he departed to Admiralty House to join Halifax and Reynaud, who were discussing the approach to Mussolini. Reynaud left after four o’clock.
Churchill now asked the War Cabinet to stay on in Admiralty House. The record of this day’s third, fairly dramatic meeting of the War Cabinet is preceded by two significantly cryptic notes: “After M. Reynaud’s departure, an informal Meeting of War Cabinet Ministers was held in Admiralty House.” (Why “informal”?) Also, perhaps more significantly: “This record does not cover the first quarter of an hour of the discussion, during which the Secretary [Sir Edward Bridges] was not present.”10 Such conditions of secrecy had no precedent in the modern history of Britain. Then the Secretary came in and Churchill began.
“We were in a different position from France. In the first place, we still had powers of resistance and attack [?] which they had not. In the second place, they would be likely to be offered decent terms by Germany, which we would not. If France could not defend herself, it was better that she should get out of the war rather than that she should drag us into a settlement which involved intolerable terms. There was no limit to the terms which Germany would impose upon us if she had her way. From one point of view, he would rather France was out of the war before she was broken up, and retained the position of a strong neutral whose factories could not be used against us.”
Attlee said that Hitler “was working to a time-limit, and he had to win by the end of the year.” Chamberlain agreed. (Both were wrong — again, due to their overestimation of the economic factors.)
Churchill said that “he hoped that France would hang on. At the same time we must take care not to be forced into a weak position in which we went to Signor Mussolini and invited him, to go to Herr Hitler and ask him to treat us nicely. We must not get entangled in a position of that kind before we had been involved in serious fighting.”
Now Halifax spoke. He “did not disagree with this view,” but “he attached perhaps rather more importance than the Prime Minister to the desirability of allowing France to try out the possibilities of European equilibrium.11 He was not quite convinced that the Prime Minister’s diagnosis was correct and that it was Herr Hitler’s interest to insist on outrageous terms. On this lay-out it might be possible to save France from the wreck.” Churchill disagreed. Halifax “said that he was not so sure.” He “thought that we might say to Signor Mussolini that if there was any suggestion of terms which affected our independence, we should not look at them for a moment. If, however, Signor Mussolini was alarmed as we felt he must be in regard to Herr Hitler’s power, and was prepared to look at matters from the point of view of the balance of power, then we might consider Italian claims. At any rate, he could see no harm in trying this line of approach.”
Chamberlain now sat on the fence. He “thought that Mussolini could only take an independent line if Herr Hitler were disposed to conform to the line which Signor Mussolini indicated. The problem was a very difficult one, and it was right to talk it out from every point of view.” Chamberlain did not think that Reynaud had a case for buying Mussolini off: “For one thing, the only advantage we should get was that France would be able to move away ten divisions now on the Italian front. Signor Mussolini would get something for nothing, and what was offered would be only the starting-point for new demands.” This was correct. Yet: “Another method of approach would be if the French told Signor Mussolini that he must consider the future of Europe, including his own future. Italy was in no safer position than any other country. If Signor Mussolini was prepared to collaborate with us in getting tolerable terms, then we would be prepared to discuss Italian demands with him.” Hadn’t Churchill said “that it was undesirable that France should be in a position to say that we had stood between her and a tolerable settlement?” Still, Chamberlain agreed with Churchill that we might be better off without France, “provided we could obtain safeguards on particular points. This was certainly a point of view which deserved serious consideration.”
Churchill “thought that it was best to decide nothing until we saw how much of the Army we could re-embark from France. The operation might be a great failure. On the other hand, our troops might well fight magnificently, and we might save a considerable portion of the Force. A good deal of the re-embarkation would be carried out by day. This would afford a real test of air superiority, since the Germans would attempt to bomb the ships and boats.” (Attlee “thought that the Germans might well attempt some diversion against this country while we were engaged in re-embarking the Force”) This was the first indication that what was to happen at Dunkirk was predominant in Churchill’s mind.
This was not so with Halifax. He came back to the Italian matter. He read out the account of his talk with Bastianini. Churchill answered that “his general comment on the suggested approach to Signor Mussolini was that it implied that if we were prepared to give Germany back her colonies and to make certain concessions in the Mediterranean, it was possible for us to get out of our present difficulties. He thought that no such option was open to us. For example, the terms offered would certainly prevent us from completing our re-armament.” Halifax did not quite agree. Churchill said that “Herr Hitler thought that he had the whip hand. The only thing to do was to show him that he could not conquer this country. If, on M. Reynaud’s showing, France could not continue, we must part company. At the same time, he did not raise objection to some approach being made to Signor Mussolini.”
What this meant was that Churchill, at least momentarily, thought that he had to make some kind of concession to Halifax. There followed a discussion of what might be offered to Mussolini. Greenwood “thought that Signor Mussolini would be out to get Malta, Gibraltar and Suez. He felt sure that the negotiations would break down; but Herr Hitler would get to know of them, and it might have a bad effect on our prestige.” Chamberlain generally agreed. Halifax “thought that this was a good argument against mentioning particular matters in the approach.” Chamberlain “thought that Signor Mussolini would say that he knew what he wanted, but was only prepared to deal as part of a general settlement.” This was so; but now Halifax came to the essence of his argument. He “thought that if we got to the point of discussing the terms of a general settlement and found that we could obtain terms which did not postulate the destruction of our independence, we would be foolish if we did not accept them.”12 And now Churchill felt that he could not oppose Halifax unconditionally. The War Cabinet agreed to ask Halifax to prepare a draft of his “Suggested Approach to Italy.” At the same time Churchill gained a point: the cabinet agreed that the next day Archibald Sinclair, the secretary of state for air, “as head of the Liberal Party, would be invited to be present when this matter was discussed.” Sinclair was a supporter of Churchill.
The rest of the meeting involved discussions about Belgium and Ireland. Chamberlain asked what information should be given out to the Dominions. Churchill said that nothing should be divulged as yet, except that the French had agreed to the move of the BEF to the coast.13
The meeting lasted for about an hour and a half. It was a “very jumpy” meeting (Halifax wrote in his diary), especially near the end, with secretaries coming in and out, bringing dispatches about Belgium, Ireland, and so on. Toward the end of the meeting, Halifax produced his “Suggested Approach to Signor Mussolini,” prepared after his meeting with Reynaud.14 Its essence was: “If Signor Mussolini will co-operate with us in securing a settlement of all European questions which safeguard[s] the independence and the security of the Allies, and could be the basis of a just and durable peace for Europe, we will undertake at once to discuss, with the desire to find solutions, the matters in which Signor Mussolini is primarily interested.” (Somewhat disingenuously, Halifax suggested that this kind of phrasing was Reynaud’s, whereas it was really Halifax’s.) This was now coupled with the text of a joint British-French appeal in Washington to President Roosevelt, asking that he inform Mussolini of the French and British willingness to consider certain Italian claims, “to be dependent of course on Italy not entering the war against the Allies.”15 The memorandum had a postscript reporting the opinion of the British ambassador to Rome, Sir Percy Loraine, to the effect that neither this approach nor any attempt by Roosevelt would do any good. Yet “the situation could hardly be made worse by the approach suggested by M. Reynaud, and that the first consideration there set out must be very present to Signor Mussolini’s mind.” (That “first consideration” in the memorandum was “a frank explanation of the position in which Signor Mussolini will be placed if the Germans establish domination in Europe”) Yet there was a difference in the emphasis of the approaches. Reynaud’s main purpose was to try buying Mussolini off; Halifax’s, to try inducing Mussolini to mediate with Hitler.16
Let us now leave Halifax and Churchill for a moment and consider Chamberlain. Cadogan was summoned to Admiralty House for the 5 P.M. meeting. In his diary he wrote: Churchill “seemed to think we might almost be better off if France did pull out and we could concentrate on defence here. Not sure he’s right. He [is] against final appeal, which Reynaud wanted, to Muss. He may be right there. Settled nothing much. W.S.C. too rambling and romantic and sentimental and temperamental. Old Neville still best of the lot.”17 Best of the lot or not, Chamberlain, in his handwritten diary, tells us much about the atmosphere and about some of the details of that crucial day: “May 26. Blackest day of all.… This was the National Day of Prayer. I could hardly attend to the service with this load on my mind.” About the 5 P.M. cabinet: “Halifax said why not suggest that [Mussolini’s] own independence would be threatened if France and G.B. [!] collapsed but if he would use his influence to discuss terms which did not menace our independence and offered a prospect of a just and durable settlement of Europe we would try to meet his own claims.… The P.M. disliked any move toward Musso.18 It was incredible that Hitler would consent to any terms that we could accept — though if we could get out of this jam by giving up Malta & Gibraltar & some African colonies he would jump at it. But the only safe way was to convince Hitler that he couldn’t beat us. … I supported this view, Attlee said hardly anything but seemed to be with Winston.… We hear Hitler had told Mussolini that he does not want him in as he can manage France by himself.19 If so, he evidently cannot be bought off.… But it is a terrible position for France and ourselves. The most horrible in our history.”20
At this moment in his long life Neville Chamberlain was already a very sick man. He may not have known that; the diagnosis of his cancer occurred a month later. But — notwithstanding all the justifiable gloom and doom of his diary, which he wrote with a strong and untrembling nervous hand at the end of that very long, very tiring day—he was not weak. His situation in the War Cabinet was central. He sat — literally as well as figuratively —between Halifax and Churchill. Had he sided with Halifax, Churchill’s position would have been not only very difficult but perhaps untenable. But it was not only because of Chamberlain’s literally crucial position that we must eschew the imputation of weakness. When I wrote above that on one occasion he “sat on the fence,” balancing between Halifax and Churchill, his statements show a considerable strength of his views. There were two elements in these. One was his, perhaps belated, but essentially substantial, realization of what Hitler was: of what could, and of what could not, be expected from him. In this respect Chamberlain had become more realistic and less willing to compromise than Halifax. There was now a nearly complete reversal of their respective views of Hitler nineteen months (before Munich) or even eight months before, when it was he, Chamberlain, who had been inclined to give Hitler some benefit of doubt and Halifax much less so, if any at all; Chamberlain had learned much since that time. But there was another element, too — perhaps an even more important one. This was Chamberlain’s new relationship with Churchill. Yes, Churchill was dependent on him, even after becoming prime minister, because of Chamberlain’s support by the majority of the Conservative Party. Yes, Churchill had asked him to be in charge of important matters of government. (When, on 16 May, Churchill had had to fly to Paris, he said, “Neville, please mind the shop!”) But there was even more to it than that. After the May crisis, Churchill wrote to Lloyd George (who hated Chamberlain): “I have received a very great deal of help from Chamberlain. His kindness and courtesy to me in our new relations have touched me. I have joined hands with him and must act with perfect loyalty.”21 Note the phrase “new relations.” This change was indeed new—and more than an improvement. Its main architect (if that is the word) was Churchill, inspired less by calculation than by magnanimity. Their enmities and suspicions had begun to dissolve from the very moment when Churchill had become a member of Chamberlain’s government—from the very first day of the war. Soon Chamberlain would confide to his wife and sister that Churchill’s loyalty was unexceptionable. And after 10 May it was not only that Chamberlain knew he was now subordinate to the new prime minister. There was, too, Churchill’s instant and generous offer to the Chamberlains to continue living at 10 Downing Street. Churchill’s magnanimity was something to which, perhaps because of his temperament and background, Chamberlain had been unaccustomed. Indeed to some extent it may have surprised him. He not only welcomed but appreciated it and responded to it, which is to his credit; and this was more than a weary gratitude for courtesies that had been offered to an old man.
It was thus that, during what was probably the greatest crisis for Britain in long centuries, Churchill did not have to face opposition from Chamberlain. Few people outside the War Cabinet were aware of that.22 This does not mean that Churchill and Chamberlain now saw everything in the same way. They were, after all, different in their temperaments and also in their vision. Next to Britain, Churchill mainly envisaged Europe; Chamberlain, perhaps, the Empire. Churchill was convinced that a British acceptance of the German dominion of Europe was intolerable, and not only because of the security of Great Britain. Chamberlain knew less about Europe than Churchill did and, save for Europe’s effects on Britain’s security, was less inspired by what happened there. What they had come to agree on was that Hitler could not be trusted; indeed, that he must be rejected; and in these crucial days, that was enough.
This was not the case with Halifax. But before returning to an analysis of Halifax’s views, perhaps we should permit ourselves one more word about his character, especially in view of his relationship with the king, which did contain a possible political consideration. King George VI liked Halifax and offered him many private and personal favors. “Diffident, moral, family men, the King and Halifax both had speech impediments, which caused them to dislike microphones and distrust Churchill’s ebullient grandiloquence. They had many good qualities in common, and their view on appeasement and politics in general largely coincided, but they were the wrong type of men to lead Britain in a world war. Fortunately, Halifax appreciated this fact about himself” (Andrew Roberts). “Halifax had a reputation for sound judgment, and never did he exercise it better than when he refused the Premiership on 9 May 1940. Halifax’s new role was to work with Chamberlain in the War Cabinet to restrain Churchill, and it must have been a relief for him to know that, if the new Prime Minister did turn out to justify their worst fears, the ultimate prerogative to dismiss him lay with a monarch whom the ‘Respectable Tendency’ could trust to act in their best interests.”23 And Churchill knew that.
The question that we must raise at this moment is this: Now, a fortnight after Churchill’s assumption of the premiership, was Halifax’s judgment sound? He had come to believe that, for the sake of England’s survival, the attempt to inquire about peace terms should not be avoided, and that here Churchill, carried away perhaps by his flamboyance and other qualities alien to Halifax, was wrong; indeed, that perhaps Churchill ought to be stopped in his tracks. But the purpose behind this was not political ambition: there is not the slightest indication that, were Churchill thwarted or eventually removed, Halifax wished to take his place. He was motivated by patriotism, not ambition. Halifax was not a defeatist, nor was he an intriguer. He was a seasoned watcher of the tides of events and of the tides of British opinion. He was a very British type, in the sense that he know how to adjust his mind to circumstances rather than to attempt to adjust the circumstances to his ideas. This does not mean that he was a hypocrite or an opportunist—except in the habitual Anglo-Saxon way, which is not really Machiavellian since the innate practice of that kind of English hypocrisy often serves purposes that are higher than individual prestige or profit.24
And now: was Halifax a typical British conservative? By this I mean not his situation within the Conservative Party but whether he could be considered a “conservative,” with a lowercase c: was he an exemplar of British conservatism? Yes and no. Yes: because of his background and habits and his personal and social inclinations. No: because his views about Britain’s position in the world were more Whiggish than Tory, more pragmatically rather than historically minded, and certainly not Burkean. An important clue to this may be found in one of his, generally unremarked, speeches. The title of his address, “British Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future,” is telling, and so is the date, 24 February 1939, that is, well after his conversion from appeasement to resistance to the Third Reich.25 In the central argument of his speech Halifax refuted Burke. Burke had said in 1792, about the French Revolution, “It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war.” Halifax said, “But that, however, is precisely what we were not.” Note that “precisely.” He cited Pitt, and he cited Castlereagh in 1820: “When the territorial balance in Europe is disturbed [England] can interfere with effect, but she is the last government in Europe which can be expected or can venture to commit itself on any question of abstract character.”26 Leaving aside the consideration that Edmund Burke, ideologically opposed as he was to the French Revolution, was very far from being an abstractionist, Halifax’s statement of the principles of British foreign policy make it clear that he was thinking in the usual terms of the balance of power.27 And, in a way, it was still in terms of a balance of power that Halifax saw the war in May 1940. It is interesting that it was Halifax who suggested on 16 May that Churchill write a personal letter to Mussolini.28 At the same time he—unlike Chamberlain—was very willing to improve relations with Stalin’s Russia. On that same day of 16 May he consulted Sir Stafford Cripps about Russia (and China). “I like Cripps very much.”
Whether Halifax knew the history of the Napoleonic era as well as did Churchill we cannot tell. Yet the position advocated by Halifax in May 1940 resembled that of the Foxite and Hollandite Whigs in 1802, who were in favor of the armistice with Bonaparte, the 1802 Peace of Amiens. (There was, however, a difference: the Foxite and Hollandite Whigs in 1802 had a definite respect, even a touch of admiration, for Bonaparte, whereas Halifax had no such ideological sentiments for Hitler.) What Halifax did not understand was that, unlike Bonaparte in 1802, Hitler would have been contemptuous of the kind of Britain that would inquire for terms. And that Churchill understood very well.
And in 1802 Britain still had, if not actual, then potential Allied Powers in Europe. Unlike in 1802, in 1940 Britain, after France, would have none. Unlike Churchill, Halifax never thought much of the French or of the French army; as early as December 1939 he said in the cabinet that if ever the French dropped out, “we should not be able to carry on the war by ourselves.” The night before 26 May he wrote in his diary about how awful the collapse of the French army was, “the one firm rock on which everybody has been willing to build for the last two years.” (For “everybody,” read Churchill.) In this respect the British historian Sheila Lawlor, in Churchill and the Politics of War, 1940-1941, is wrong. She writes of the “superficial differences (which were really the best way to deal with the French)” between Halifax and Churchill in May 1940, concluding that “Halifax rejected the peace moves and negotiations, on ground both of policy and tactics — his support for the approach to Mussolini in May having been a matter of not giving the French the opportunity to recriminate. His position was not so different from Churchill’s.”29 But the differences between Halifax and Churchill were not superficial.
There were differences between the two men of the Right — between a pragmatist and a visionary, between a Whiggish conservative and a traditionalist reactionary. That “visionary” and “reactionary” (especially the latter) are not necessarily positive adjectives in the English political language is true, but in May 1940, in confronting Hitler, neither pragmatism nor Whiggism would do.
The differences between Churchill and Halifax were not merely tactical. Nor were they owing principally to their very different temperaments. According to another British scholar of the period, David Reynolds, Churchill had no plan in May 1940, save the hope that, with the help of the United States, Britain could somehow go on. This was suggested too by Halifax’s excellent biographer Andrew Roberts at least by the title of his otherwise mostly unexceptionable chapter about these dramatic days: “Churchill as Micawber,” the character in David Copperfield who keeps hoping that “something may turn up.” But Churchill was no Dickensian character. Nor was he an incarnation of John Bull — not in his personality, in his character, or in his wide interest and knowledge of the world beyond England. To Churchill a “general European settlement” in May 1940, or even any sign of a British inclination to elicit such proposals, would be a deadly danger for British morale. In this Greenwood and Attlee and perhaps Chamberlain too would agree. Unlike Halifax, Churchill was convinced that such a settlement, under any conditions, could not be counterbalanced by a maintenance, let alone a guarantee, of British liberty and independence. To him these were not separable issues. Any British acceptance of a German domination of Europe would inevitably mean the reduction of Britain to some kind of a minor partner or even a satellite of Germany. That was, and remained, the essence of Churchill’s vision.
From the perspective of retrospect, Churchill was surely right. But that was hardly the end of the matter at the time. One must keep in mind that in May 1940 Churchill’s position as prime minister was not as strong as it would become later that summer, and he knew that, too: the tenure of the Belligerent Premier may, after all, be a transitory one. Not that Churchill clung to power for predominantly personal ambitions. A difficult argument, some may say, for isn’t every human ambition essentially personal? Still, to employ two figures of speech, he had climbed to the top of the greasy pole (Disraeli’s metaphor), but with the purpose of holding up the flag. But: he was not blinded by the breadth of his ambition or by a narrowness of his vision — which is how Hitler believed him to be. He was aware not only of the potential fragility of his power but of that of Britain, too. His knowledge of the former appeared, on more than one occasion, during the three cabinet sessions of that day, when he felt that he should not, because he could not, oppose Halifax’s proposals entirely. But he knew that not only was the greasy pole swaying but the flag itself was in danger because of the power of the German storm. If he and Britain were to break, someone other than he would have to hold on to the flag. He thought of Lloyd George. He knew that Lloyd George admired Hitler; he knew that Hitler knew that, too; he knew that Lloyd George thought that Britain had no chance of winning this war against Hitler’s Third Reich. Lloyd George was wrong; he was very old,30 but at least he was not an ideologue; he was someone whom Hitler respected. As early as 13 May Churchill had invited Lloyd George to become a member of the cabinet, as minister of agriculture. Lloyd George refused; he hated Chamberlain. Twice more, in June, Churchill approached Lloyd George and talked to Chamberlain about this. But Lloyd George refused again, mostly because of Chamberlain, and Churchill knew that his loyalty to Chamberlain had to prevail. During the crucial days of late May Lloyd George’s name did not come up. Yet I could not forego mentioning this matter, if only to indicate that Churchill was indeed aware of Britain being at the edge of the abyss. If worse came to worst, Churchill thought, Lloyd George rather than someone like Mosley.
Years after the war someone asked Churchill which year of his life he would like to relive. “1940,” he said, “every time, every time.” Yes — and no. There were some moments that he would not have wanted to revisit. On this Sunday, 26 May, two hours after the last cabinet, he dined with Eden, Ironside, and Ismay. He knew that he had to abandon Calais, where the last guns had fallen silent earlier that afternoon. Yet he had to urge Brigadier Nicholson to fight to the very end — all in vain. For once Churchill’s legendary appetite was gone. He ate and drank almost nothing. He sat in silence throughout the dinner. Afterward he stood up and told his friends that he felt physically sick. Lord Ismay remembered: “As we rose from the table, he said: I feel physically sick.’ He has quoted these words in his memoirs but he does not mention how sad he looked when he uttered them.”31 We know that he was thinking of Calais,
but he knew, too, that through three cabinets that day, against Halifax he did not quite have his way.
A few hours after the guns had fallen silent at Calais, the order for Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force fom Dunkirk, was issued. There was no connection between these two events. We have seen that Gort’s decision to retreat toward Dunkirk was made days before; so was the order of the Admiralty to collect all available seaworthy craft for an eventual largescale evacuation. Earlier that day Hitler lifted the halt order, though that could not be implemented until a few hours later. From the south the Germans advanced slowly, as yet with little resistance from the French and British units withdrawing into Dunkirk. By next day certain German spearheads were less than five miles from the town. The port was still largely unvexed by German shelling or air bombardment. During the last six or seven hours of Sunday, 26 May, twenty-eight thousand British nonfighting personnel were off the piers, evacuated, sailing for Dover. A promising sign, but only in retrospect. More than 300,000 were still left around Dunkirk. No one, including Churchill, was optimistic about the prospects of their safe withdrawal to England.
Startling, again, in retrospect, is that nothing of the War Cabinet deliberations filtered through to the public. There was no sign of any division in the War Cabinet and no sign of the gravity of the crisis in any of the newspapers — not in the Monday (27 May) editions, nor in the days that followed. Only in the Daily Express was there a fair amount of space devoted to the prospect of Italy entering the war, and even there only a short passage about Reynaud’s visit to London on Sunday. There was no sense of the crisis in the letters to the editors. There exists no evidence, again, that this was the result of self-censorship or of self-discipline. The influential owners of the British newspapers were unaware of the gravity of the discussions in the War Cabinet. This is evident from some of their later reminiscences and also from the scattered letters and diaries of other influential British personages, men and women, of the time. (One interesting, if amusing, item: in late May the radio column of the Times still printed the times of broadcasts in English from abroad, including Hamburg, Bremen [also Rome and Milan]. In a private letter to the editor, Geoffrey Dawson, Lady Astor complained about this. Soon this kind of information was withdrawn. Until mid-June the Times still referred to “Herr Hitler” and “Signor Mussolini.”) In both the published and unpublished diaries and letters of Harold Nicolson (by then a junior minister of the government), there is no indication that he knew anything about the Halifax-Churchill division. In a letter to his wife on 22 May he had already written about his and her preparations for suicide if the Germans were to land in England and overrun them: “To think that we should come to this! … Anyhow you know I have always seen the possibility of defeat since the beginning of the war and even before that. Darling … the dots represent all the things I can’t say.” At night on 26 May he wrote: “What makes it worse is that the blue-bells are still smoking in the woods and that boys of Cranbrook school have a holiday and are plashing around naked in the lake. … I look around the garden feeling I may never see it again.” He went on: “It is strange to record the emotions of the last ten days. My own experience is as follows: (a) The first realisation that the Germans had by their superior air and tank power broken through and separated the two armies filled me with despair and fear, (b) I then passed to the conclusion that the next thing would be the invasion of these islands and especially of Kent. (c) I then faced the fact that if that succeeds I should personally be shot and that Vita [his wife] would or might be exposed to persecution. (d) I then saw that I must be prepared to commit suicide. And help Vita do the same. But when I found that she took it so calmly and agreed a great calm descended upon me and I saw that it was really most unlikely that this might occur. I therefore returned [to London, that night] in high spirit.… We are not in the least beaten but we must prepare for the worst.”32
Nicolson’s mood seems to have been in accord with that of the British people in general. According to the “Secret” report (summary) of the Ministry of Information, “Public Opinion on the Present Crisis”: “Reports show a certain steadiness of morale over the weekend. This is partly due to acceptance of what is believed to be a deliberate policy of restricting news. One gets the impression that opinions are being withheld and emotions held in suspense deliberately. … By the withholding of news the public has been given a mandate to delay judgment and not to worry.… On the other hand, the continued detailed publication of German claims and communiqués in the press has an effect of cancelling out this relief and detachment.” Again the report compared the morale in London with that in the provinces and countryside, where spirits continued to be “noticeably higher”: “Reports from the Regions indicate some satisfaction over the development of plans for the mobilisation of man power. ‘The wHitler the collar the less the assurance’ is the report of our Regional Information Officer at Reading.” In Newcastle: “19 members of Durham Light Infantry are telling alarming stories of wiping out of a D.L.I battalion in Boulogne, and confusion among the wounded, etc. at the quayside; the result is some public anxiety and anger” Leeds: “‘We’re alright, but people at the top are wrong.’” Reading (southern): “Church attendance up. Bitterness towards Germany increases, thanks to refugee stories. Allied counteroffensive anxiously awaited. Oxford optimistic.” Manchester: “Excellent spirit in factories. Rumours still growing. Nicholson’s [sic] broadcast thought not to have had enough punch.” Belfast: “German violation of Eire as a possibility has made people nervous. Division of opinion over Conscription: majority against it for fear of disloyalist section” London: “Suspense: people getting on with their own affairs; some fatalism while waiting for news.… Undercurrent of anxiety is present especially among women who realise the sacrifice of life: ‘we shall win — but at what price.’ Sunday services well attended; some emotionalism displayed.… Working-classes … listen regularly to Haw Haw at 9.15. Cinema audiences thin. Comedies and musicals preferred to serious and war pictures. New internment of aliens approved. Mistrust of the French expressed.”33
Most of this is in accord with the Mass-Observation reports of morale as reported on Sunday and Monday.34 “Intensive investigation carried on over the weekend shows a general levelling up and steadiness in morale, but this is partly at the expense of interest and identification with the events in France. The cut-down of news … give people, as it were, an excuse for not carrying on with the process of facing up to the facts, a process which has been steadily increasing in recent days. Today in particular, there is noticeable a small, but significant increase in fatalism again, in general interest and quality of opinion.… Off setting possible disadvantages arising from this, is the definite advantage that the violent day to day swings and short-time anxiety is automatically relieved for many people by the slackening of the news tempo.… Opinion is that on the whole the news is a little better, although opinion is not very certain of itself.”35
We began this reconstruction of this grave day, 26 May 1940, with an account of the National Day of Prayer in Westminster Abbey. Allow me now to end it with a poem by the gentle English poet John Betjeman. In “In Westminster Abbey” his ironic stanzas portray a somewhat frivolous Englishwoman of a certain class, not of course on that deeply dramatic day of 26 May but most probably earlier, during the Reluctant War.
Let me take this other glove off
As the vox humana swells,
And the beauteous fields of Eden
Bask beneath the Abbey bells.
Here, where England’s statesmen lie,
Listen to a lady’s cry.
Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans.
Spare their women for Thy Sake,
And if that is not too easy
We will pardon Thy Mistake.
But, gracious Lord, whate’er shall be,
Don’t let anyone bomb me.
Keep our Empire undismembered
Gallant blacks from far Jamaica,
Honduras and Togoland;
Protect them Lord in all their fights,
And, even more, protect the whites.
Think of what our Nation stands for,
Books from Boots’ and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
Democracy and proper drains.
Lord, put beneath Thy special care
One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.
Although dear Lord I am a sinner,
I have done no major crime;
Now FU come to Evening Service
Whensoever I have the time.
So, Lord, reserve for me a crown,
And do not let my shares go down.
I will labour for Thy Kingdom,
Help our lads to win the war,
Send white feathers to the cowards
Join the Women’s Army Corps,
Then wash the Steps around Thy Throne
In the Eternal Safety Zone.
Now I feel a little better,
What a treat to hear Thy Word,
Where the bones of leading statesmen.
Have so often been interr’d.
And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait
Because I have a luncheon date.36