What was happening at Dunkirk. – The Belgians surrender. – American considerations. – Three War Cabinets and a walk in the garden. – “You’d have been better off playing cricket.”
In the last days of May 1940 the fate of Britain — indeed, the outcome of the Second World War—depended on two things. One was the division between Churchill and Halifax. The other was the destiny of the British army crowding back into Dunkirk. These two matters were of course connected. But this appears only in retrospect. Churchill said that he would fight even if the BEF were lost (“our greatest military defeat for many centuries”). The final order to begin evacuation, Operation Dynamo, was issued a few minutes before seven o’clock on Sunday, 26 May, and Gort had been pulling back toward Dunkirk for several days before that; but no one thought that anything beyond a fraction of the almost half million British and French troops, now surrounded and squeezed by the Germans, could escape to England. It was not until about 31 May, more than five days later, that the prospect of a truly large-scale evacuation — including many of the French troops in and around Dunkirk — arose. It was certainly not foreseen earlier. This should appear from the first instructions of the Admiralty to Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey, who was in charge of the operation in Dover: “It is imperative for ‘Dynamo’ to be implemented with the greatest vigour, with the view of lifting up to 45,000 of the B.E.F. within two days, at the end of which it is probable that evacuation will be terminated by enemy action.” These instructions were drafted by Sir Dudley Pound, a notably cautious First Sea Lord; but there was not much reason to think or to estimate otherwise. In the end Dunkirk was not occupied by the Germans until nine days later, and nearly eight times more British and French soldiers were landed in Britain than what Pound had estimated. No one could have predicted this on 26 May, nor indeed for some time thereafter.
We have seen that Hitler had lifted the halt order on 26 May. Later that afternoon the advance of the German units from the south toward Dunkirk began. The siege of Dunkirk (if it can be called that) began in earnest early the next morning, on Monday, the twenty-seventh. At 7:15 A.M. Vice Admiral Somerville woke Churchill with a telephone call. The Germans had advanced their guns north of Calais and had begun to shell ships approaching Dunkirk.
Much worse than this shelling were the German bombs that started to rain on Dunkirk and the troops retreating thereto. In more than one way this day, 27 May, was the worst of the entire Dunkirk saga. The Germans ruled the air, with relatively little interference from the Royal Air Force. This was partly because the chiefs of the air staff had decided to preserve as much of the RAF as possible for the event of a German onslaught on Britain. When British fighters over Dunkirk attacked the slower German bombers they were often successful, but there were not many of them — something that filled the mass of British troops throughout the Dunkirk days and nights with outspoken bitterness and something that Churchill himself had to admit and explain in his speech on 4 June, after Dunkirk. As bad as the bombing raids on Dunkirk, if not worse, were the German dive-bomber attacks on the columns of the British and the French retreating along the dusty roads and lanes toward the town and port. Within the port the first attempts to organize the evacuation of masses of troops were only beginning. Two developments were fortunate that day. One was the achievement of a British officer, Captain W. G. Tennant, in making one of the two main piers of the port of Dunkirk serviceable for landing, loading, and pulling away. The other was the realization of the advantages of the long, sandy beaches north of the town, reachable also by small craft. Yet, all in all, on this shattering twenty-seventh day of May, not more than 7,700 British troops were able to leave for England. Next day there would be 18,000, but that was not much, either. Indeed, the two-day total was far less than the maximum of 45,000 stated by the first sea lord in his initial orders.1
It seems that Churchill himself was not quite aware of the situation at Dunkirk on the twenty-sixth — surely not at the beginning of this long day. In a message to Gort the previous night he had said: “At this solemn moment I cannot help sending you my good wishes. No one can tell how it will go. But anything is better than being cooped up and starved out.… Presume troops know that they are cutting their way back home to Blighty. Never was there such a spur for fighting. We shall give you all that the Navy and Air Force can do.”2 “All” was a slight exaggeration. We have seen that a wholesale engagement of the British fighter force in the battle over Dunkirk was not undertaken, and with good reason. The splendid efforts of the navy during the seven days of Dunkirk were decisive for the evacuation; but, save for destroyers and other smaller craft, larger warships and the bulk of the navy stationed farther north in Britain were not thrown into the battle — as indeed there would be no such engagement even in the event of a German cross-Channel invasion later that summer. All historic precedents notwithstanding, the waters of the Channel in 1940 would see nothing like what had happened in 1588 with the Spanish Armada or what could have happened with Bonaparte’s armada in 1803: for more than one reason, the bulk of the fleet in 1940 could not be sacrificed.
Meanwhile, at Dunkirk and in the large but steadily shrinking pocket where the BEF was retreating, fierce small skirmishes erupted all day, while the British were systematically destroying their vehicles, stores, ordnance, and other equipment. The French did not understand this. They still thought that the Dunkirk pocket was to be held rather than evacuated. (Also, the brave defense of Lille by the First French Army, led by General Prioux and Molinié, holding out until 1 June, delayed a fair number of German units otherwise ready to push on to Dunkirk.)
It may be asked—it has been asked by a few historians, but not until decades after these events—why the German land offensive aimed at Dunkirk was relatively slow. A fierce direct thrust into Dunkirk, if so ordered by Hitler, would have been possible. It would have meant the end, that is, the capture of the entire British Expeditionary Force and perhaps of much else besides. But such a last-ditch battle would have been bitter and bloody. There may have been political calculations, too, in Hitler’s mind. Still the decisive element was his inclination to agree with Goering to the effect that, at Dunkirk, Goering’s Luftwaffe, that is, German air superiority, could do the job.3
So this Monday, 27 May, was a very bad—perhaps the worst — day at Dunkirk and for the entire British Expeditionary Force, whose retreat was now imperiled by another factor, the political consequences of which were even more damaging than its military ones: Belgium, King Leopold III had decided, was to surrender. Churchill knew this; as a matter of fact, he, unlike the French, had a measure of melancholy understanding for the situation of the king who had decided to stay with his people. (The night before, Churchill had written to Gort, “We are asking them to sacrifice themselves to us.”) But the Belgian army was falling apart. Churchill knew that the king’s decision to remain meant that Leopold saw the war as lost and would ask the Germans for a separate peace. Early on the twenty-seventh, Churchill wrote to Sir Roger Keyes, his personal envoy to the king: “By his present decision the King is dividing the nation and delivering it into Hitler’s protection.” This was true. “Please convey these considerations to the King and impress on him the disastrous consequences on the Allies and to Belgium.”4 Late that night General Edward Spears telephoned Churchill from Paris with the news that King Leopold had sent a plenipotentiary to the Germans and asked for a cease-fire at midnight.
Thus ended this day of disaster across the English Channel. What happened within the War Cabinet in London was not less dramatic.
Or, perhaps, decisive. Churchill knew that. He braced himself for a day that would be as difficult as the day before, if not more so. (It may be interesting that in his otherwise precise household schedule there is no entry for Monday, 27 May.) We have seen that he was awakened by a telephone call from Vice Admiral Somerville as early as 7:15. Then he went through a very large sheaf of papers, mostly dispatches about the military situation, preparing himself for the first War Cabinet meeting, which met in Downing Street at half past eleven.
This was an unusually long meeting, concerning mostly, though not exclusively, military matters, during which Chamberlain, somewhat unusually, spoke at length. The military reports were sometimes confusing and often no longer accurate. The chief of the Imperial General Staff had reported: “Our troops in Calais were still holding out with great gallantry. Some of the garrison had been withdrawn to naval vessels, and were to be replaced by other men of the same unit.” This was astonishing: for fighting in Calais had ended more than sixteen hours earlier.
The survey of the situation of the British Expeditionary Force took a long time. Then Chamberlain brought up the question of what should be told to the Dominions. This was a serious matter, since the high commissioner for Australia in London, Stanley Bruce, was evidently a defeatist. He had told Chamberlain the night before that he did not think that Britain could continue the war if France fell out, and that Britain had to learn something about possible terms (perhaps through Mussolini). At the War Cabinet, Chamberlain said that he would “see the High Commissioners again, and inform them that even if France went out of the war, there was no prospect of our giving in. We had good reason to believe that we could withstand attack from Germany, and we were resolved to fight on.”5 (Bruce was not convinced and insisted on his gloomy view for several days, after which he faded out of the picture.) The first lord of the Admiralty, A. V Alexander, a Labourite, was present at this meeting. He knew that Bruce was a defeatist. (So did the Dominions secretary, Viscount Caldecote, a Conservative, who said that the Australian prime minister was not inclined to agree with Bruce.) At this point Churchill entered the discussion. He thought “that it would be as well that he should issue a general injunction to Ministers to use confident language. He was convinced that the bulk of the people of the country would refuse to accept the possibility of defeat.” Churchill issued such a stern admonition the next day.
There followed a lengthy discussion about the necessary evacuation of Narvik, in Norway, which British, French, and Polish troops had succeeded in occupying two days before — the only, and much belated, Allied victory on land since the beginning of the war. Then came an even longer discussion about the air war, during which Churchill presented estimates that were somewhat more optimistic than those of the chief of the air staff. Then Churchill once more returned to the larger prospects of France. He speculated that France might become a neutral, in which case “it was not certain that Germany would insist on retaining all the ports in northern France. She might be so anxious to divide France from us that she would offer France very favourable terms of peace.”6 Chamberlain followed with a very reasonable summary analysis of the previous reports (“A Certain Eventuality …”) of the chiefs of staff. He began, however, by stating that their report “was based on the assumption that the United States of America would be willing to give us full economic and financial support. This was perhaps not an unjustifiable assumption, but we might not obtain this support in the immediate future.”
This was so. Churchill knew it. “The United States,” he said, “had given us practically no help in the war and now that they saw how great was the danger, their attitude was that they wanted to keep everything which would help us for their own defence.” He knew that President Roosevelt was, as yet, both unable and unwilling to commit the United States to stand by Britain in ways that would be both definite and quick. One of Roosevelt’s reasons was, of course, domestic American politics, at a time when neither his unprecedented nomination for a third term nor his victory in the subsequent presidential election was assured. Another, more important reason was Roosevelt’s view of the greater issue of the war: if worse came to worst, the British fleet could come over to the Western Hemisphere. Churchill had already warned Roosevelt against this in a somber and important message on 15 May. Five days later, in another message that he at first hesitated to send but then dispatched, Churchill warned Roosevelt that he could not and should not count on the British fleet.
Roosevelt was not yet ready to trust Churchill completely. Nor did he trust Kennedy in London, but he did trust his ambassador in Paris, William C. Bullitt, who, though resolutely anti-Hitler, thought at that time that the British might crack and consider a deal with Germany. We have seen that on 24 May Roosevelt even contacted the Canadian prime minister to discuss “certain possible eventualities which could not possibly be mentioned aloud.” Thus Roosevelt recognized the first signs of the “eventuality” that Britain might have to sue for peace, and he reacted to this in his own, frequently devious way. His relationship with Churchill had not yet matured into the one of mutual confidence that it would become later that year. On 25 May Halifax drafted a telegram to Roosevelt that, in accord with Churchill — who presumably thought it both futile and not strong enough—he decided not to send.7 Thus during the dramatic last ten days of May there were no direct communications between Churchill and Roosevelt.
During this first War Cabinet on the twenty-seventh, Halifax spoke not much. He did mention a telegram from the British ambassador in Washington, who suggested at least the possibility of offering certain British island bases in the Western Hemisphere in exchange for American support. (Such an idea had already been bruited during the king and queen’s visit to the United States the previous summer.) That was not worth discussing now, Churchill said. Halifax also made a comment about sending an economic mission to Washington, but otherwise he said little during this lengthy session, which ended with a further discussion about the air war, about military preparations for a possible invasion of England, and about Ireland.8
Cadogan, who was present for part of the session, wrote in his diary: “Cabinet at 11:30 — as gloomy as ever. See very little light anywhere.”9 It is not ascertainable where or with whom Churchill or Halifax took their lunch that day. Then, at 4:30, the War Cabinet met again. This meeting was more restricted than the morning one, with few outside officials present except for Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberals’ leader, secretary of state for air, and a supporter of Churchill.
We have now arrived at the most crucial of the nine War Cabinet sessions during the three days of 26 and 27 and 28 May—a meeting whose mention, let alone reconstruction, Churchill consciously excluded from his inimitable and detailed History of the Second World War, his own War Memoirs. It was during this meeting, which was somewhat shorter than the previous one that morning, that Halifax felt compelled to confront Churchill directly. He had challenged Churchill the day before, too, but not in so definite a manner. What came to the fore now were not their minor differences but their veritably opposite convictions about the immediate destiny of their country. Now the slow careful Halifax believed not only that the time had come to express his differences with Churchill; he seems to have believed that there was no time left to waste — indeed, if their differences were irreconcilable, he was thinking of resigning from the government. This is why we must attempt to reconstruct the events of this afternoon in considerable detail.
The session began with a discussion of Halifax’s draft memorandum, the “Suggested Approach to Signor Mussolini.” Churchill said that it was better for Roosevelt to approach Mussolini than for the British to do so through the French. A key sentence in Churchill’s initial statement shows that he foresaw the essence of the French tragedy: “If France collapsed, Germany would probably give her good terms, but would expect the French to have the kind of Ministers who were acceptable to the Germans.” That is, instead of France falling back into some kind of neutrality, there would come about a France that had switched to the other side: pro-German and anti-British. Halifax did not entirely disagree; he reported the last cryptic news from the British ambassador in Rome, to the effect that “nothing we could do would be of any value at this stage, so far as Signor Mussolini was concerned.” Chamberlain largely agreed: he thought that Mussolini might “play any part in the game,” but not until “Paris had been taken.” Yet, for the sake of the French — or, rather, to avoid letting them down entirely—” it would be unfortunate if they were to add to this that we had been unwilling even to allow them the chance of negotiations with Italy.”
Now Churchill made his first statement opposing any approach to Italy—thus stating his opposition to Halifax’s “Suggested Approach” in its entirety. He said that Chamberlain’s argument “amounted to this, that nothing would come of the approach, but that it was worth doing to sweeten relations with a falling ally.” He then read a telegram that he had received from Reynaud that morning, which at least indirectly implied that more important than the Italian business was “the argument which to [Reynaud’s] mind carries most weight.… The assistance given by Britain to France at this tragic hour will help to strengthen the alliance of hearts which I [Reynaud] believe to be essential.” There Churchill stopped. Sir Archibald Sinclair backed him up: “He was convinced of the futility of an approach to Italy at this time. Being in a tight corner, any weakness on our part would encourage the Germans and the Italians, and it would tend to undermine morale both in this country and in the Dominions. The suggestion that we were prepared to barter away pieces of British territory would have a deplorable effect and would make it difficult for us to continue the desperate struggle that faced us. Nevertheless, he was impressed with the importance of doing all we could to strengthen the hands of the French.” Attlee and Greenwood said much the same thing. Greenwood said that he saw “no way of getting France out of her difficulty. … If it got out that we had sued for terms at the cost of ceding British territory, the consequences would be terrible. … It would be heading for disaster to go any further with these approaches.”
Halifax interceded only once, and then somewhat obliquely. He came back to the record of his discussion with Bastianini two days before, “in which he had said that we had always been willing to discuss the questions between our two countries and to endeavour to find solutions satisfactory to both sides. The French were not really proposing to go much further than this, except in the direction of geographical precision, where he was not prepared to accept their views. He doubted whether there was very much force in the argument that we must do nothing which gave an appearance of weakness, since Signor Mussolini would know that President Roosevelt’s approach had been prompted by us.” This was largely true. But what appeared behind Halifax’s argument was his realization that Churchill was about to reject his entire “Suggested Approach” unconditionally.
Right he was: for Churchill now made his decisive statement. Phrases of it have been cited by other historians, but here we should reproduce it in its entirety:
THE PRIME MINISTER said that he was increasingly oppressed with the futility of the suggested approach to Signor Mussolini, which the latter would certainly regard with contempt. Such an approach would do M. Reynaud far less good than if he made a firm stand. Further, the approach would ruin the integrity of our fighting position in this country. Even if we did not include geographical precision and mentioned no names, everybody would know what we had in mind. Personally he doubted whether France was so willing to give up the struggle as M. Reynaud had represented. Anyway, let us not be dragged down with France. If the French were not prepared to go on with the struggle, let them give up, though he doubted whether they would do so. If this country was beaten, France became a vassal state; but if we won, we might save them. The best help we could give to M. Reynaud was to let him feel that, whatever happened to France, we were going to fight it out to the end. This manoeuvre was a suggestion to get France out of the difficulty that she might have to make a separate peace, notwithstanding her bargain not to do so.
At the moment our prestige in Europe was very low. The only way we could get it back was by showing the world that Germany had not beaten us. If, after two or three months, we could show that we were still unbeaten, our prestige would return. Even if we were beaten, we should be no worse off than we should be if we were now to abandon the struggle. Let us therefore avoid being dragged down the slippery slope with France. The whole of this manoeuvre was intended to get us so deeply involved in negotiations that we should be unable to turn back. We had gone a long way already in our approach to Italy, but let us not allow M. Reynaud to get us involved in a confused situation. The approach proposed was not only futile, but involved us in a deadly danger.
It is perhaps not unreasonable to assume that by naming Reynaud in the penultimate sentence Churchill also meant Halifax. Chamberlain now injected a calming proposal of compromise: “While he agreed that the proposed approach would not serve any useful purpose, he thought that we ought to go a little further with it, in order to keep the French in a good temper. He thought that our reply should not be a complete refusal.” However, let Roosevelt address Mussolini first; this would give Britain some time.
Churchill now made a brief statement about the fighting spirit of the French army; he had heard that morning that there was some improvement there. “Otherwise everything would rest on us. If the worse came to the worst, it would not be a bad thing for this country to go down fighting for the other countries which had been overcome by the Nazi tyranny.”
Halifax now had had enough. He began by saying that he largely agreed with Chamberlain. ‘“Nevertheless, he was conscious of certain rather profound differences of point of view that he would like to make clear” (my italics).
He could not recognize any resemblance between the action which he proposed, and the suggestion that we were suing for terms and following a line which would lead us to disaster. In the discussion of the previous day he had asked the Prime Minister whether, if he was satisfied that matters vital to the independence of this country were unaffected, he would be prepared to discuss terms. The Prime Minister had said that he would be thankful to get out of our present difficulties on such terms, provided we retained the essentials and the elements of our vital strength, even at the cost of some cession of territory.
Here was Halifax’s attempt to nail Churchill down. He went on:
On the present occasion, however, the Prime Minister seemed to suggest that under no conditions would we contemplate any course except fighting to a finish. The issue was probably academic, since we were unlikely to receive any offer which would not come up against the fundamental conditions which were essential to us. If, however, it was possible to obtain a settlement which did not impair those conditions, he, for his part, doubted if he would be able to accept the view now put forward by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister had said that two or three months would show whether we were able to stand up against the air risk. This meant that the future of the country turned on whether the enemy’s bombs happened to hit our aircraft factories. He was prepared to take that risk if our independence was at stake; but if it was not at stake he would think it right to accept an offer which would save the country from avoidable disaster.
Churchill said “that he thought the issue which the War Cabinet was called upon to settle was difficult enough without getting involved in the discussion of an issue which was quite unreal and was most unlikely to arise. If Herr Hitler was prepared to make peace on the terms of the restoration of German colonies and the overlordship of Central Europe, that was one thing. But it was quite unlikely that he would make any such offer.”
Chamberlain “thought that if concrete proposals were put before the War Cabinet there would be no difficulty in settling what were and what were not essential.”
This was a suggestion of compromise between Halifax and Churchill. But Halifax spoke up once more:
THE FOREIGN SECRETARY said that he would like to put the following question. Suppose the French Army collapsed and Herr Hitler made an offer of peace terms. Suppose the French Government said: “We are unable to deal with an offer made to France alone and you must deal with the Allies together.” Suppose Herr Hitler, being anxious to end the war through knowledge of his own internal weaknesses, offered terms to France and England, would the Prime Minister be prepared to discuss them?
What is significant in this discourse is that the “Suggested Approach” involving Mussolini and Italy no longer figures in Halifax’s argument. His question was, simply and bluntly, Would Churchill consider any peace terms, at any time? And now Churchill thought that he could not answer with a definite no: “He would not join France in asking for terms; but if he were told what the terms offered were, he would be prepared to consider them.”10
Chamberlain thought that Hitler’s tactics would likely be to make a definite offer to France and, when the French responded that they had allies, then he would say, “I am here, let them send a delegate to Paris.” “The War Cabinet thought that the answer to such an offer could only be ‘No.””
Very well: but Halifax still insisted that he did not wish to “send a flat refusal” to the French. It was then agreed that Reynaud should get a draft along the lines that had been suggested by Chamberlain. The meeting ended with a brief discussion about the United States and the British fleet: “President Roosevelt seemed to be taking the view that it would be very nice of him to pick up the bits of the British Empire if this country was overrun. It was as well that he should realize that there was another aspect to the question.”11
But the essential matter was the split in the cabinet. Hadn’t Halifax, if somewhat obliquely, suggested that he might resign? And now came the walk in the garden, about which, alas, we have no account either from Halifax or from Churchill. For now Halifax asked Churchill “to come out in the garden with him” for a talk. Before that Halifax told Cadogan, “I can’t work with Winston any longer.” Cadogan: “I said ‘Nonsense: his rhodomontades probably bore you as much as they do me, but don’t do anything silly under the stress of that.’”12 What exactly Churchill told Halifax in the garden we do not know; neither man left a record of their discussion. It
“Halifax [right] told Cadogan, ‘I can’t work with Winston any longer’ Cadogan: ‘I said “Nonsense: his rhodomontades probably bore you as much as they do me, but don’t do anything silly under the stress of that.”’”
is unlikely that Churchill had some kind of secret intelligence information that he could impart only to Halifax. What is more likely is that he was able to charm and soothe Halifax somewhat (he had done this once in the past)13 but, more important, that he impressed Halifax that his resignation from the government would open up the gravest possible national crisis. Still it is very doubtful that during that brief stroll Churchill was able to convince Halifax of the tightness of his own views.14
There was, again, a third War Cabinet that day, at the unusually late hour of ten o’clock. It dealt almost exclusively with the consequences of the Belgian surrender. The minister of information, Duff Cooper, “suggested that the public should be given some indication of the serious position in which the B.E.F. had been placed.… There was no doubt that the public were, at the moment, quite unprepared for the shock of realisation of the true position.” Churchill “thought that the seriousness of the situation should be emphasised, but he would deprecate any detailed statement or attempt to assess the results of the battle, until the situation had been further cleared up. The announcement of the Belgian Armistice would go a long way to prepare the public for bad news.”15
Before this last session Churchill had received a long dispatch from Spears in Paris, who had had a long talk with Reynaud.16 Churchill retired at midnight, after having asked for “a very weak” whiskey and soda. His spirits were better than they had been the night before. But his situation was not secure. After two days of protracted and exhausting debates his resolution had not, after all, carried the day.
Despite the secrecy of the War Cabinet, for the first time some word of what had happened there filtered out. John Colville wrote in his diary: “There are signs that Halifax is being defeatist. He says our aim can no longer be to crush Germany, but rather to preserve our own integrity and independence. Fortunately Ironside is gone.”17 Hugh Dalton wrote in his diary: “After having studied the most important and secret papers, I am told at the Ministry that I am not wanted at the Cabinet this morning as only War Cabinet members will be there.… Some streaks of defeatism are visible in some of the private papers.” Dalton saw Attlee briefly after lunch, “Ministers and high officials will all get a high directive from the P.M. not to talk or look defeatist.”18 In neither the published nor the unpublished diaries of Harold Nicolson is there any indication that he knew about the bitter debate in the War Cabinet.19
Nancy Astor (the American-born politician who became the first woman to sit in the House of Commons) wrote in a letter that day, “The news is bad but I am told it is not as bad as it looks.”20 The Manchester Guardian of 27 May cited Nicolson’s word for rurnormongers: “chatter-bugs.” “We are now suffering from a virulent form of the rumour epidemic.” The day before, Duff Cooper had broadcast to France in French. This was reported in the Times of 27 May under the headline “German Peace Trap for France,” suggesting that at least something of the secret discussions about a possible French withdrawal from the war did filter through. (People often called Duff Cooper’s public opinion reporters “Cooper’s Snoopers”) The Daily Express as well as the Yorkshire Post suggested that Mussolini’s entry into the war may now have become well-nigh inevitable. The Rome correspondent of the Daily Telegraph reported the portents: “The Duce received his military advisers today. Fierce statements on Italian radio. Remains true that ‘ordinary Italians’ remain most friendly, but afraid they will soon be involved in the war.” That same day: “New productions at London theatres this coming week … despite the present difficulties.”21 A front-page news item in the Daily Mail reported that fifteen towns on the southern coast were to be declared “evacuation areas. Children whose parents wish them to be evacuated are to be sent to Midlands and Wales.” These towns included Ramsgate, where hotels and boardinghouses “for vacation” were still being advertised in the same paper.
Items about the war were often inaccurate, misleading, or even false. (News Chronicle: “Calais Is Definitely in Our Hands.” “300 Austrians Mutiny in Norway.” “French Hold Upper Hand on Somme.” “60,000 Nazi Wounded in Austria.” Daily Herald: “Allied Troops Are This Morning Firmly Holding the Channel Ports of Calais, Dunkirk, Ostend and Zeebrugge”) Yet the general impression from the press was still that of a somewhat astonishing calm at home. The stock exchange showed no considerable fluctuation (but then neither had the stock exchange of Paris). In Westminster Cathedral Cardinal Arthur Hinsley’s sermon was interrupted by a woman who shouted “Peace!” No charges were brought against her.22 A vignette in the News Chronicle: “A man walked last night into a pub near Staines.” A cricketer, in white flannels. A red-faced man spoke up: “He ought to be ashamed of himself.” “Talking about me?” “As a matter of fact I was. With the war in this state it’s no time for cricket.” “Well, I’ll ask you a question. What did you do this afternoon?” “Read the papers, watched the wireless, and worried myself sick.” “You’d have been better off playing cricket.” One or two days later, the weary but smiling masses of soldiers in the trains, just back from Dunkirk, could glimpse white-flanneled men playing cricket on the greenswards of Kent, at some distance from the stations of the Southern Railway, where large crowds of Englishmen and women had spontaneously gathered to present tea and lemonade and sandwiches to the troops and cheer them on.
The 26 and 27 May summaries of Mass-Observation, Morale: Sunday and Monday, reported that “there is noticeable a small, but significant increase in fatalism again, in general interest and quality of opinion. Absence of news as a deliberate policy, if long continued, is likely to increase this. There are dangers involved.” On Sunday, 26 May: “There is, however, an increase in the remarks showing distrust of the papers which is not specifically connected with the official announcement about news.” On Monday, 27 May: “Opinion today is still rather confused. People are in a state of suspense, waiting for definite news. There is an undercurrent of anxiety present, although there are as many who say we shall come through all right as there are those who show anxiety.… There is a growing section of women who say that they prefer not to think about it, and who deliberately refrain from listening to the wireless.” “In Bolton there was an increased reluctance to express an opinion, as in London. In Liverpool, the opinions expressed show a great advance in ‘realism’ and decline of ‘wishful thinking’ as compared with some weeks ago.” “East Suffolk remains calm as ever, despite extensive military and flooding operations—the latter much to the annoyance of some farmers.” “Oxford: Several complaints of the papers’ lack of news which on the whole is taken to mean bad news. But everybody is quite confident we shall win in the end. Several favourable comments on the new Government.”23
The General Morale: Background Situations, issued a few days later, summed up the past week: “Throughout morale investigations in late May, innumerable unconscious tributes to Hitler, and innumerable expressions of an inferiority feeling towards Germany were obtained.”24 A numerical “Ratio of Optimism to Pessimism” (with “optimism an index figure of 1 throughout”) showed pessimism increasing after 21 May: 22-24 May, 1.24; 25-27 May, 1.04; rising to 2.17 on 28-30 May; but then declining to 76 on 31 May – 2 June, when at last the better news from Dunkirk was coming through.
