‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown . . . ’
—George VI, 25 December 1939
January of 1940 was the coldest for forty-five years. There were snow storms and ice storms across the country. Trying to unwind in a stinging east wind at Sandringham in Norfolk, the king could not allay his fears for his troops in France as the ‘war of nerves’ continued unabated. ‘I’m so glad you are able to stay on at Sandringham,’ Kent wrote sympathetically from Scotland on 6 January, ‘as I am sure it will do you so much good after London.’ Kent had missed his elder brother Albert, but he added: ‘Mama would have been upset I think if we hadn’t gone there—we had a quiet Xmas and Mama enjoyed herself even to the paper hats we had to wear one night at dinner!’ 1
When the king returned to London in mid-January, all was familiar, the streets as yet unspoiled by war. Long stretches of the Thames were frozen, a white sheet of ice threading through parts of London. At the palace many treasures had been moved into safe storage but the gracious rooms and ornate interiors confirmed that he presided over a rich and secure heritage as his ancestors had done. There were repeated scares that Germany would invade the Netherlands and Belgium or the Balkans, George VI wrote in his war diary, each one with the attendant feelings of alarm. But no attack was forthcoming. Through the window the skyline was the same. People looked carefree: mothers with prams, walkers with dogs, occasionally children skating by. The very air seemed distilled by centuries of peace. There was nothing to indicate how rapidly the enemy could change all this into another Warsaw.
George VI knew that his War Cabinet faced growing criticism. The Allies had done little to help the Poles whose country was now wiped off the map. Finland too was getting precious little support. ‘The Finns are doing well,’ Kent continued, ‘but I wonder how long they can last without a great deal more help.’ 2 The newspapers were full of the ‘indomitable spirit’ of the vastly outnumbered Finns as they battled for their country from the frozen shores of the Arctic Ocean to the Baltic Sea in the south. Around 150,000 Finns took on over a million Soviet troops, but the Finns could fight on skis and ‘were making rings around Russian soldiery’ declared The Times on 4 January.3 In raids of epic daring, they emerged at furious speed from frozen landscapes camouflaged in white, swooping on cumbersome Soviet lines, machineguns blazing and hurling a new type of petrol bomb which acquired the nickname ‘the Molotov cocktail’. These silent ski troops were dubbed ‘White Death’ by the Soviets. Once injured and immobilised, a man would freeze to death; tens of thousands of Soviets died. The British government had not yet taken action. Could the Finns hold out?4
For the Duke of Windsor, who made a short visit to London without the king’s permission in early January, the Winter War highlighted his conviction that the Soviets were a far greater threat than the Fascists. Ugly details of Stalin’s regime filtered through the news reports. ‘Russian high command . . . is reported to have been purged,’ announced The Times editorial on 4 January. Soviet soldiers were once roused by God and country but now ‘Stalin has “liquidated” these ideals’.5 In Windsor’s view, Europeans should unite against the Soviet menace.
Windsor found support for the idea that it was not too late to negotiate peace with the Germans from his old friend, the once ‘devoted tiger’, Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook. Under his leadership the Daily Express had grown to become the bestselling paper in the world. ‘The first Baron of Fleet Street,’ as he was known, was also half-hearted about the ‘phoney war’, or ‘sitzkrieg’, with the Germans, a view he shared with Walter Buccleuch, the king’s Lord Steward, as well as other prominent aristocrats such as the Duke of Westminster.6 Beaverbrook was in scurrilous mood when he met the ex-king at the home of his lawyer, Walter Monckton. It did not take long before Windsor was predicting the likely fall of France and urging the case for Britain to make peace with Germany. Beaverbrook impetuously backed his old friend, urging him to ‘get out of uniform, come home, and after enlisting powerful City support, stump the country, in which case he predicted that the Duke would have tremendous success’. 7
Walter Monckton, sober as a judge, grave with the responsibility of steering the adventurous duke from excitingly wayward paths back to the straight and narrow, warned Windsor later that their conversation was not only preposterous, but also high treason. In front of Beaverbrook, he confined himself merely to mentioning that should the duke live in England, taxes would be payable, which rapidly decided Windsor on another, less frightening course.
Once back in Paris at the Military Mission, the weight of Monckton’s warning receded. Bruised by his reception in London where he had failed to make any progress on the personal grievances close to his heart, it appears that Windsor was once again indiscreet. By 27 January Julius von Zech-Burkersroda, the German ambassador to the Hague, was in a position to write to State Secretary Baron von Weizsäcker in Berlin with an accurate account of the duke’s recent trip. Windsor was dissatisfied, explained Zech, ‘and seeks a field of activity . . . which would permit him a more active role. In order to obtain this objective he was recently in London. There, however, he achieved nothing and is supposed to be disgruntled over it.’ Windsor was being frozen out, observed the German ambassador accurately, adding that this ‘fronde forming around W . . . might acquire a certain significance’. Weizsäcker at once saw the potential of this line of communication and passed Zech’s report to Ribbentrop, who was always eager for any scrap of information that might curry favour with Hitler.8
Ribbentrop did not have to wait long. Less than a month later, there was more news from the ‘Duke of W’ and this time it went well beyond his personal gripes. Windsor had attended a recent Allied War Council meeting to discuss plans for neutral Belgium. The neutral countries were posing a serious problem for the Allies. While Belgium protected her neutrality in order not to provoke the Germans, Allied troops could not enter the country to prepare defences, but instead had formed a line of defence along the French-Belgium border. The Allied War Council discussed its strategy should Germany invade Belgium. According to Zech, Windsor reported that the military argued the line should be held at the Belgian-French border, ‘even at the risk that Belgium should be occupied’ by the Germans. Political leaders at the Allied War Council ‘are said to have at first opposed this plan’. Windsor, doubtless wearing the invisible credentials of ‘being in the know’, created the impression that the weight of the meeting swung behind the military view: the Allies would not occupy Belgium if the Germans invaded.9
Historians have pointed out that in fact the Allied plan was the reverse. If the Germans attacked, Allied troops would move into Belgium to defend it at all costs. Was Windsor involved in some clever unauthorised double-bluff of his own making? Or was he merely misinformed? Either way, George VI’s prediction had proved correct. By being prepared to discuss not just his grievances, but also the content of the Allied War Council meeting with the enemy, or those that could make contact with the enemy, he had crossed a new line. Ribbentrop, delighted to have established such a prestigious source of information passed the report from Julius Zech to Hitler himself.10
The Duke of Gloucester dealt with the war of nerves by throwing himself into the preparations. In one week alone he travelled many hundreds of miles visiting army bases across France. At Rennes, he inspected the storage facilities for the mounting stacks of ammunition and supplies. At Nantes he visited workshops for vehicle maintenance and repair. The port of Le Havre was preparing for the repair of guns and tanks. At Marseilles he met troops on their way to the Middle East.11 The bitter chill remained as the mistral howled up the Rhone valley depressing spirits; ‘about the coldest I have ever known,’ Gloucester told Alice. ‘I think I hate this country and war more than ever. It is such an awful waste of everything.’ 12
Hearing of his brother’s low spirits, the king was quick to reply with encouragement. ‘Gort tells me that your report on what you saw at Marseilles & other places has been most useful,’ he told him on 9 March 1940. The king had urged Gloucester to leave GHQ and gain experience in the forward area in northern France at the Belgian frontier and now he counselled Gloucester to apply himself. ‘You must work at the job yourself to make it a success.’ 13
Gloucester joined the command of Major-General D.G. Johnson who was responsible for the defences around Lille, not far from the Belgian border with France. Soon Gloucester’s letters covered every aspect that George VI might wish to know, from the length of time needed to build communicating trenches to each pillbox to the shortage of trained officers.14 While Gloucester invariably threw himself into the physical challenge, his brother-in-law, Lord William Scott, the younger brother of Walter Buccleuch, who was in attendance found the training exercises for the battle ahead were something of an ordeal. They could last all night and brought back all the discomforts of drills during the First World War.15
The king was also aware of his youngest brother’s frustrations. Tours of Scottish naval dockyards and civil defences were relieved by occasional diplomatic tasks, such as meeting the inspirational Polish prime minister in exile, General Wladyslaw Sikorski.16 But the duke confided to Prince Paul that his job at the Admiralty was ‘an awful waste of time’. He went to see Chamberlain to ask if he could find him something ‘I could do, which . . . would be really useful to the country’.17
Kent rented a home, Pitlever House near Rosyth, and the duchess came to stay when she could for private breaks together in spite of the all-enveloping war. This was less easy when the king, keen for the royal family to show a united front, approved the appointment of the Duchess of Kent as commandant of the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS known as the Wrens) and the Duchess of Gloucester to be an air commandant in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF).18 The Times court circular soon carried references to their busy schedules, although in the interests of security the details were vague. The Duchess of Kent visited naval establishments ‘on the south east coast today’ or ‘in a north-east port’. Marina preferred to remain out of uniform like the queen, but Churchill would have none of it. She was compliant, obeying his order, but the beautiful duchess balked at the idea of being encased in military garb and invariably appeared with a few discreet accessories: high heels, jewels, or even a low-cut collar. The press took a great interest even if the glamorous duchess was just visiting a cabbage patch and talking to Wrens about their ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign.19
As Marina took on her first appointments as an air commandant in early March, the Winter War in Finland was reaching a brutal climax. The world had been witness to the weakness of the Red Army over the winter, but Stalin would not be made a fool of. With the spring thaw, he launched a new Soviet offensive to crush the Finns. The exhausted Finns were unable to hold out against an endless re-supply of Soviet troops without Allied support—which failed to arrive in time. At the palace the king found the prime minister ‘very worried’ when they met on the evening of 12 March 1940. Chamberlain explained that he was about to send eight bombers, with the promise of more to follow, on condition that the Finns did not surrender to the Soviets. But it was all too late.20
At Buckingham Palace the next day it was impossible to get through to the Foreign Office until 1 pm, ‘as all the lines were engaged by the foreign press I suppose’, noted George VI. Finally he and Elizabeth learned the rumours were true: the Winter War was over. The Foreign Office confirmed the Finns had surrendered to the Soviets on far harsher terms than anyone had suspected. A large swathe of land, critical industrial concerns, immense saw mills and power stations: all this now passed into Soviet ownership. Would they be used against Scandinavia, or even against Britain? The Finnish surrender ‘has come as a shock to us’, he confided to his diary on 13 March 1940, ‘& I am sure . . . it will be said that the democracies have failed again to protect a small nation against the power of aggression.’ 21
However honourably his ministers conducted themselves as gentlemen, it was not enough. Whichever way they turned seemed wrong. It was as if he was standing on the very threshold of chaos. Was it possible he was witness to the complete disintegration of everything Britain stood for? At a meeting with Sir John Simon, the chancellor, he found these feelings were shared. The whole country, said Simon, ‘had a feeling of frustration that our ideas had not gone right’ and that neutral countries felt Britain could not help them. For both men, Britain was suffering ‘because we were honest & honourable in our dealings with Neutrals’ while Germany ‘had put the fear of God into them’.22 In the sanctuary of his private sitting room, listening to the wireless and studying the map of Europe, it was hard for the king to picture what might happen next. German propaganda provided a continual rush of ominous threats. There were troubling reports of German merchant ships being adapted to carry troops. German vessels, large and small, on the high seas might be kitted out as transports. But which port was the target? Any number of neutral countries could be liable to a capricious and brutal attack—perhaps Britain herself.23 ‘I am very worried over the general situation,’ George VI wrote. ‘Anything we do, or try to do, appears to be wrong and gets us nowhere . . . ’ 24
The Duke of Windsor was under no such strain. The boundaries of Europe were changing. The foreboding of a bigger land war was in the air. But this was the time that the Duke of Windsor strolled into Cartier in Paris, precious stones jangling in his pockets. He was not thinking of war, but Wallis. His devotion undimmed, he wanted the stones refashioned to make a truly dazzling creation, something very large and showy: an exotic diamond clip, adorned with rubies, sapphires and emeralds in the shape of a flamingo. This was the one thing he could do for Wallis, and he would do it. She loved exciting new designs in a modern cut.
Norway, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands—perhaps even France: who knew where the next threat might fall. The world was at war, chaos ruled, but whatever direction the war took the Windsors’ position was unique. There was every reason to feel relaxed in the hushed and discreet surroundings of Cartier Paris as the duke discussed the shape of the jewel on 4 March with their designers.25 It was a complicated shape with tail feathers and he did not want any part of it digging into Wallis if she leaned over, making it awkward to wear. A solution was found: delicate retractable legs. Cartier, delighted to do business with a former King of England, obliged.
Easter of 1940 was calm; eerily calm. There were no crises, the king noted in his diary. There was even time to forget the strain of the phoney war and ride out with the princesses into Windsor Great Park following the familiar paths through ancient trees covered in a delicate tracery of tender spring growth. It was just like the precious pre-war days: the king with his family, ‘we four’. But it was not to last.
On Tuesday 9 April he and Elizabeth were listening to the wireless at 8 am. The dispassionate voice of the BBC newsreader invaded the space with words that were hard to take in. Germany had attacked the neutral countries of Denmark and Norway. German troops were in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. The enemy navy was at sea in force. The War Cabinet had already met at 6.30 and would meet again at noon. Norwegian ports were under attack.26
The king went to the War Rooms of the Admiralty later that day to see the positions of the British battle fleet for himself. The rooms were crowded and smoke-filled, the atmosphere hot and stale. The telephones did not stop ringing as officers tried to keep up with the movement of the fleet. The picture was confusing but it was hard not to feel that Britain had been outwitted once again. Denmark was unable to defend herself, having little more than a police force. The Danish king, Christian X, and his government had already capitulated. It took barely two hours. In Norway, the best information pointed to a stark conclusion: the key ports were already in German hands despite the efforts of the British Navy. All around him was frantic activity but for the king there was a constant nagging worry that Germany had been able to succeed in taking the Norwegian ports ‘because we were too righteous’ against an aggressor ‘that stuck at nothing’. George VI listened to the BBC news at 6 pm and again at 9 pm hoping for a clearer picture. He felt the frustrations of the situation deeply. ‘I have spent a bad day,’ he confided to his diary that night. ‘Everybody working at fever heat except me.’ 27
George VI had last seen his ‘Uncle Charles’, King Haakon VII of Norway, on a wintry day in London in late November 1938, at the funeral of his wife, Maud, the youngest daughter of Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark. Before the day was out he learned that his 68-year-old Uncle Charles was in flight from Oslo. What he did not know was that Hitler himself had given instructions that the monarch must not escape.28 German warships had entered the fjord at Oslo with a team of Gestapo agents on board under instruction to capture the Norwegian king and senior government officials. Fierce resistance by the Norwegians at Oslo gave King Haakon and his government time to flee. A Nazi supporter and Norwegian politician known as Vidkun Quisling, who had been painstakingly courted by German diplomatic staff reporting to Ribbentrop, now saw his moment. He seized power in Oslo and broadcast a message declaring himself prime minister of Norway.
Uncle Charles was thrown into the worst crisis of his life. A German ultimatum ordered him to install a Nazi puppet government, with Vidkun Quisling at its head. Should he fail to do so, the alternative would be far worse for Norway. At a momentous meeting in impromptu headquarters 125 miles north-east of Oslo, the King of Norway spoke gravely to his ministers. German retribution if thwarted did not need to be underlined. His brother, King Christian of Denmark, had surrendered, but King Haakon took a different view. If the Norwegian cabinet wished to appoint Quisling, then he would abdicate, he said, but he could never meet the German demands. ‘It would conflict with all that I have considered to be my duty as King of Norway.’ 29 King Haakon’s passionate conviction made a deep impression. In spite of the danger to their country, the cabinet supported the king.
That night the Norwegian government’s stand against their Nazi invaders was broadcast. Norway would resist the German attack as long as possible, whatever the consequences. The Luftwaffe sought revenge and bombed the village of Nybergsund where the king was staying. Haakon and his son fled into the surrounding country, deep in snow, heading for the northern coast. George VI felt as though the whole world ‘is looking at us now waiting for our counterattack on Germany in Norway’.30
As Norway faced the Nazi onslaught, the Duke of Gloucester found it ‘very trying’ waiting in France, he confided to Alice. There was deep frustration in the British Army guarding the French-Belgian border but the appalling prospect of a German Blitzkrieg unfolding simultaneously on the Low Countries could not be dismissed. Gloucester told Alice that he expected the order to drive into Belgium to pre-empt a German invasion there. Despite the fate of neutral Norway, he found it very worrying that Belgium and the Netherlands still clung to neutrality in order not to provoke a German attack. King Leopold of Belgium, a friend of Gloucester’s from school days, would not permit Allied troops to enter his country and prepare defences. For Gloucester this was a perilous kind of safety. ‘These small neutral countries are most awful fools as they must see that Germany will eat them up one by one,’ he wrote to his wife.31
By the end of April the king found the news from Norway ‘all very depressing’. He knew the situation was dire, far worse than the public realised, the Germans in control of most of the country.32 King Haakon and members of his cabinet were beaten back to the northern tip of Norway within the Arctic Circle. He and his son took refuge in a log cabin in the forest with the local rifle association for their protection. The evacuation of British troops in early May heightened divisions in the War Cabinet. ‘Winston still seems to be causing a good deal of trouble according to the PM,’ George VI wrote in his diary on the weekend of 30 April. Chamberlain blamed Churchill for critical delays in landing more troops in central Norway because he was worried about losing big ships. ‘The PM is having another talk to Winston tonight laying down what he can and cannot do . . . ’ 33
But ironically as news of the Norwegian campaign became widely known, the anger of MPs and public turned on Chamberlain, and not Churchill, who was primarily responsible for the campaign. For all his efforts, Chamberlain was increasingly under fire, cruelly transformed by his critics into ‘the Old Umbrella’, a relic from another age, known by his signature umbrella. The prime minister faced a hostile House on 7 May 1940, as one member after another stood up to vent their fury at his handling of the war. In a moment of high drama, Leopold Amery, Conservative MP for Birmingham South, rounded on his leader and condemned him, echoing the famous words of Cromwell to Parliament centuries before. ‘You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, Go!’ 34
But Chamberlain did not offer his resignation to the king when he saw him that evening. The prime minister had the strained air of a man buckling under a burden too big to carry. He still ‘spoke with a smile’, noted the king, and hoped to continue by creating a coalition with the Labour party. George VI believed in his prime minister and disliked the way the government and the press were subjecting him to a ‘stab in the back’ at such a time. He offered to appeal to the Labour party to unite behind Chamberlain on his behalf.35 But on 8 May there was a vote in the House of Commons in which it was clear that he was dismissed as yesterday’s man, of no more use than the nickname given him by his critics. Quietly, rigidly, stiff upper lip unwavering, ‘the Old Umbrella’ walked out of the House, looking ‘bowled over’ according to one of his loyal allies. But the cheers of his supporters were drowned out by the humiliating chant, ‘Go in God’s name, go!’ echoing around the chamber and still audible as the doors closed behind him.
George VI felt the vacuum in leadership the following day when the question continued to dominate Parliament. It was a bright and sunny May day, but for the king, impossible to relax. He waited impatiently for news. Now of all times was no moment for indecision. His prime minister still hoped to head a national coalition; or if not him, his like-minded friend and colleague, Lord Halifax. The king’s loyalty to his prime minister was unshaken and he and Elizabeth felt that he was being hounded unfairly. Over this issue they were united, Elizabeth recognising what she called Chamberlain’s ‘wisdom and high purpose’ in staking so much to try to prevent war.36 Now that events had turned against him his treatment was shameful.
At 4.15 pm on 9 May Chamberlain summoned Lord Halifax and Churchill to Downing Street. The leadership issue was discussed and once again remained undecided. Later that day, Chamberlain renewed his offer to Labour to collaborate in a national coalition led by him. The answer was a resolute no. ‘An unprofitable day,’ the king wrote in his diary.37 The indecision that had become the prime minister’s hallmark continued to the last and was rapidly overtaken by events as Hitler pressed his advantage.
Events did not wait for Chamberlain. Before dawn on 10 May 1940, out of the night, German tanks and infantry emerged across 150 miles of the border into the Low Countries. Through the darkness, across peaceful land, the front blazed with flame and gunfire and all the accompanying horrors of war throughout Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. From above, German bombers dived over airfields, communications and military targets, unleashing terror.
To the north in the Netherlands an airborne assault took the Dutch by surprise. In the small hours, high above sleeping coastal towns, the Luftwaffe hummed overhead, disappeared into the night sky over the North Sea and circled back to bomb the Dutch airfields. They were swiftly followed by German planes dropping 5,000 paratroopers over the leading industrial port of Rotterdam and other cities, their parachutes gliding down silently over strategic sites. The paratroopers were under orders to seize bridges and airfields and then move to The Hague, the Dutch seat of government, to seize the royal family and leading ministers. To the east the German Eighteenth, Sixth and Fourth Armies blasted into the Netherlands and Belgium. In Brussels the anti-aircraft fire was deafening and the Belgian army hurried to the counter-attack, destroying bridges to slow down the enemy.
At 5.30 am Lord Gort received the alert that the attack on the western front had begun. The signal went out for a million Allied soldiers to go forward into Belgium. In anticipation that the Germans would attack France through Belgium, three French armies and the British Expeditionary Force were massed along the French-Belgium border. The vast operation ‘Plan D’ as these armies moved north to defend Belgium sprang into action. Western Europe had begun its long descent into hell.38
The Duke of Gloucester woke that night to the sounds of war. The skies were alive with aircraft and in the distance intermittent gunfire and the scream of air-raid sirens disturbed the night. ‘Blast Hitler!’ he wrote to Alice.39 He had been due to go on leave, but ‘Hitler has done me down again’ he told her. He was back at GHQ at Arras, having returned to Lord Gort’s command on 2 May. Even at this distance, 100 miles from Brussels, the sound of bombing brought home the reality of the western front.
As all hell broke out across the Channel, late in the afternoon in London, Chamberlain, the humiliating Commons defeat still fresh, went to the palace and tendered his resignation. It was a difficult task. Chamberlain was a broken man. ‘I . . . told him how grossly unfairly I thought he had been treated,’ the king wrote, ‘& that I was terribly sorry that all this controversy had happened.’ But in the restorative peace of the elegant palace room, in an air of unhurried calm, both men were able to discuss in a rational way who should be the next prime minister. ‘I of course suggested Halifax,’ continued the king. For him, Halifax was the obvious choice; trustworthy, a man of sound judgement, a safe pair of hands. George VI was very disappointed to learn that Halifax was not keen. ‘Then I knew that there was only one person who I could send for to form a Government who had the confidence of the country and that was Winston.’ Chamberlain confirmed that ‘Winston was the man to send for’.40
For George VI this was not an easy choice. Temperamentally the two men formed a striking contrast. Churchill with his commanding personality displayed all those regal attributes expected of a monarch. He appeared impetuous, undaunted by any challenge, almost a law unto himself, giving cause for his detractors on occasion to refer to him as a ‘gangster’ or ‘pirate’.41 The king, who could be diminished utterly at the prospect of a speech, felt he could never be comfortable in the company of such a man. For years the two had held different views. Before the war, the king had favoured appeasement, while Churchill had ridiculed it. It was hard to shake off the feeling that he thirsted for war. During the first air raid over London, Churchill’s bodyguard, Walter Thompson, had found him ‘staring up into the sky like a warhorse scenting battle’.42 Britain’s war horse exuded an almost cavalier sense of fearlessness. And there was also a question over his judgement. George VI was aware of Churchill’s support for his brother which continued even now. Could he really trust such a man? How was he ever going to get on with this pushy politician? Chamberlain, safe and solid as silver, was to be replaced by this emotional maverick in Britain’s hour of great need. ‘Only in very exceptional circumstances would he consent to WSC’s being made PM,’ the king had allegedly confided to President Roosevelt in Washington.43
Churchill was in the Admiralty at 6 pm on 10 May 1939 when a message arrived summoning him to the palace. He drove along the Mall, a two-minute journey. Newspaper placards proclaimed the horror: ‘Paris raided’, ‘Brussels bombed’, ‘Lille bombed’ and even ‘Bombs in Kent’.44 There was no crowd or press waiting at the palace gates, the leadership crisis and the ‘quiet conversations’ of the previous day eclipsed by what Churchill saw as ‘the splintering crash of this vast battle’. He was swiftly taken to see the king.
Their exchange that evening in Buckingham Palace was oddly light-hearted, George VI perhaps unable to believe in the very words he was saying.
‘I suppose you don’t know why I have sent for you,’ the king said to Churchill.
Churchill responded to his tone, replying in a teasing manner. ‘Sir, I simply could not imagine why.’ 45
The king laughed and asked him to form a government. Whatever his private reservations, George VI was determined to be open-minded, noting in his diary that Churchill was ‘full of fire & determination to carry out the duties of Prime Minister’.46
Churchill immediately set about forming his War Cabinet and went to bed at 3 am ‘with a profound sense of relief’. At last he had ‘the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny . . . and I was sure I should not fail.’ 47
The king, as ever cautious, experienced no such relief. The next day the decision still preyed on his mind. ‘I cannot yet think of Winston as PM,’ he wrote. ‘I met Halifax in the garden & I told him I was sorry not to have him as PM.’ 48 Gloucester was sympathetic in his letters from France, recognising that his brother must be having ‘an awful time with forming a new Government with such little good material to choose from’.49 The matter was still troubling the king when he wrote to Churchill to express concerns about his wish to appoint his old friend Lord Beaverbrook to run aircraft production. Doubtless the king had heard reports of Windsor’s treasonable conversation with Beaverbrook earlier in the year. But Churchill had his way. As for Beaverbrook, he was so pleased to be part of it all that ‘he was like the town tart who has married the Mayor’, observed Chips Channon gloomily.50
The unrelenting catastrophe unleashed across the English Channel unfolded with such extraordinary speed that in London it was almost impossible for officials in the Cabinet War Rooms to gain a clear view of the battle. The king and queen, like everyone else, waited for news reports on the wireless which built up a frightening picture of war raging across the Continent. On 11 and 12 May the battle intensified in the Netherlands and Belgium. French reinforcements trying to move forward to help the Dutch struggled because they found the Germans already controlled key bridges. When the small, poorly equipped Dutch army was forced to retreat, it found German troops already established behind on the coast. In Belgium, the defenders had counted on the fortified Albert Canal, 80 miles of waterway which stretched across the country through the capital, Brussels. Yet again German paratroopers took the defenders by surprise, landing on the roof of Fort Eben-Emael, which guarded the main bridge, enabling enemy troops to breach the all-critical Albert Canal.
European monarchs were in fear of their lives. During the night of 13 May, King George was summoned to the telephone to answer a long-distance call from the Netherlands. To his astonishment it was Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. George VI had never met her before, but there was no mistaking the note of desperation in her voice as she begged for his help. He knew that the Dutch held an instinctive unease about the British nurtured since the Boer War, fought on southern African territory originally settled by the Dutch. Yet here was the Queen of the Netherlands on the telephone at five in the morning pleading directly with the King of England for British aircraft to defend her country. George VI, unaccustomed as he was to taking calls out of the blue from a foreign queen, was keen to help, and alerted the appropriate officials. He soon found there was little that could be done that was not being done already.51
Later that morning Queen Wilhelmina’s only daughter, Princess Juliana, and her husband, Prince Bernhard, and their two daughters arrived at Buckingham Palace. Their shocking account pressed home the frightening reality of the catastrophe that had overtaken the Netherlands. They had woken in the early hours to loud and continuous gunfire nearby from a German attack. It sounded as though they were too late to escape, that capture was inevitable and they would fall into Nazi hands. In spite of Dutch neutrality the Germans had attacked once again, Blitzkrieg fashion, on a country unprepared. Queen Wilhelmina had called a Cabinet meeting for 4.30 am but the news was that the Netherlands was all but taken and all around them the sounds of war were terrible. It was difficult to retaliate, such was the scale of Hitler’s all-out attack. Queen Wilhelmina needed help fast. Above all, Prince Bernhard’s account impressed on George VI the shock of the efficiency of the German parachute troops, ‘who were arriving in Holland by hundreds, in various disguises’.52
Their worrying conversation was put to a stop by yet another important telephone call, now from the port of Harwich, in Essex. Queen Wilhelmina had landed in England. The German parachute commando teams had gained control so fast in The Hague that she had fled to Rotterdam and boarded the British destroyer, Hereward. Her hopes of rejoining her forces were soon crushed by the scale of the German assault. The crisis was so grave that the Admiralty recalled the Hereward to Harwich, and the queen had to abandon all hopes of returning to the Netherlands that day. Her dramatic escape was so close-run that she evaded capture by the Nazi paratroopers by just thirty minutes.
The king was waiting at Liverpool Street that afternoon to greet her as her steam train pulled into the platform. The train door opened to reveal a 59-year-old woman in a mackintosh, with no luggage save her jewels and tin hat. She had the air of a person who commanded respect and talked only of returning to the Netherlands as soon as possible. In spite of her indomitable spirit, the calamity of her country and her life, now in ruins, was underlined by the fact that her only luggage was not enough to keep out the cold or cover modesty. Beneath the mackintosh she was wearing only her nightdress and had no change of clothes. As she was rather large nothing could be readily found at the palace that would remotely fit her.53 But agonising defeat and domestic trials could not subdue this queen with the Boadicea-like spirit who, George VI noted, although under great strain, was determined to get help for her country.54
Meanwhile, in France, the Duke of Gloucester wanted to speak to the King of Belgium in person to do anything he could to strengthen his resolve and offer support. He and William Scott set out on 13 May, but were unable to reach the Belgian border and returned to the Hotel Univers in Arras. The next day they set out again, this time transferring north to Lille. This move quite possibly saved Gloucester’s life, because that night the Hotel Univers was bombed causing several deaths, including the occupants of the rooms adjacent to those held by Gloucester and Scott.55
In London on 14 May ‘the bad news began to come in’, wrote Churchill, with typical understatement.56 It was a confusing picture and it concerned not Belgium or the Netherlands—but France. As the French and British armies moved north into Belgium they had created a gap between them and the French forces guarding the border through the Ardennes. It was widely believed that this densely forested area was impassable for a modern army. But now the impossible was happening. There were reports that armoured divisions were roaring through the Ardennes into France with a speed and fury and on a scale that was inconceivable for Allied leaders.
Three German panzer divisions broke through at Sedan in France near the Belgian border, 150 miles north-east of Paris. French defenders, lulled by nine months of inactivity in a peaceful landscape, were flung into the deadly fire of blazing tanks and dive-bombing. Anthony Eden, the new Secretary of State for War, brought the latest update to the king that afternoon. The Germans were ‘making headway in their attack’ on the weakest section of the French line and had seized crucial bridgeheads over the River Meuse. Eden, concerned at the effectiveness of German paratroopers in the Netherlands, was hurriedly organising a new volunteer Defence Corps to prepare Britain for enemy parachutists.57
Further north that day events in the Netherlands were at a critical stage. Queen Wilhelmina used the king’s broadcasting room at Buckingham Palace to speak to the people of the Netherlands in an attempt to raise morale. By mid-morning Dutch commanders received a German ultimatum: surrender or the port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands’ largest industrial target, would be bombed. Even though negotiations resulted in a ceasefire, by late afternoon ninety German bombers were in the sky above the city so unprepared for enemy treachery. The Luftwaffe failed to abort their mission. Nothing could save the docks which exploded into a firestorm as vegetable oil tanks caught fire. Anyone in the area was doomed. Those who tried to escape were sucked into the fireball. Some 900 people lost their lives; 80,000 lost their homes. By dawn one square mile in the centre of the city had been flattened. If this pitiless obliteration was the price of any hesitancy on the part of the Dutch government to recognise the absolute power of the Reich, it was a message all Europe noted.
Churchill was not five days into his leadership and there was an even bigger shock in store. His famous account outlines what happened next.
May 15 1940. 7.30 am. The telephone next to Churchill’s bed rang.
The voice spoke in English. But it was Monsieur Reynaud, the French premier, from Paris.
‘We have been defeated,’ he said.
Churchill could not quite gather himself. The voice continued with some urgency.
‘We are beaten. We have lost the battle.’ 58
The French premier explained the scale of the German breakthrough into France through the Ardennes. Churchill tried to reassure him that the offensive must end and there would be a chance to counter-attack. But nothing could calm the French leader in his conviction that defeat for France was imminent. ‘The idea of the line being broken, even on a broad front, did not convey to my mind the appalling consequences that now flowed from it,’ Churchill wrote later. Despite Poland and Norway, ‘I did not comprehend the violence of the revolution effected since the last war by the incursion of a mass of fast moving armour.’ 59 Churchill agreed to go to France in person to understand the situation.
The crisis deepened rapidly that morning. Rotterdam was still blazing. The Dutch commanders were informed that the same fate awaited the Dutch cities of Amsterdam and Utrecht. Within hours came the news that the Netherlands had surrendered. At 11 am the Dutch laid down their arms. It had taken just five days for the Germans to overrun the country.
The Duke of Gloucester and Lord William Scott were driving into Belgium when they learned the disastrous news from the Netherlands. They were determined to reach King Leopold and headed towards the front in Belgium with an escort of military police. As yet unaware of the catastrophe unfolding behind them in France, they continued deeper into the country, reaching a secret destination near Tournai in east Belgium.
Gloucester was taken to the King of the Belgians who was shattered and disheartened. They had a long talk in which Gloucester did his best to strengthen the Belgian monarch’s resolve. Gloucester knew full well how stretched the Allied defences were in Belgium. He had visited the RAF squadrons only a few days earlier and seen that the pilots doing sorties day and night were exhausted.
Leopold of Belgium was ‘very depressed’, Gloucester observed. His army was unable to hold its position. Young men of Belgium were being sacrificed in vain in the face of a merciless German advance. He was convinced that German spies and infiltrators were so pervasive it was like an entire ‘5th column’ of troops operating within the country. The Belgian plan of slowing the enemy by blowing up the bridges was failing because wires were sabotaged or brave defenders were shot in the back as they tried to light the fuse. The Dutch surrender and the desolation of his country had a devastating effect on his morale. Gloucester and Scott found themselves wondering how long Belgium could stand firm.60
The Duke of Gloucester wrote to George VI on 15 May 1940. He found his distant cousin, King Leopold of Belgium, ‘very depressed’. German infiltrators were acting as a ‘5th column’ within Belgium, disrupting planned defences, such as blowing up the bridges. (The Royal Archives ©Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)
The Duke of Gloucester hoped to return to Belgian GHQ but there was no chance. As they were driving back they were caught up in the retreat. The Allies were withdrawing east behind Brussels. At Tournai, Gloucester was suddenly in the thick of it all. With no warning they were being strafed by enemy bombers that were directly overhead. All around them bombs were falling. Buildings along the road exploded into flame. Above them planes dived low, dropping their deadly load. Suddenly their car was on fire. Somehow Gloucester and his escort managed to get out of the vehicle. They dived into a narrow alleyway, dodging falling debris and tiles, unable to see what was happening because of clouds of dust. From their position they could feel the earth vibrate from the bombing. On the main road the dark outline of their car was engulfed in flames.61
While the Duke of Gloucester was under attack, the former King of England was not at his post in the Paris Mission. He was neither with the British troops nor the French. Nor was he on his way back to Britain to see what he could do. No—the former king and his would-be queen had decided that war-torn countries had little to offer; better to sit in the sun and wait it out. Fashionable Biarritz in south-west France was their destination, well away from the noise of battle.
People were fleeing from Paris. The roads were jammed with cars and carts brimming over with household goods. Many vehicles had broken down and were blocking the road. Most people, young, old, infants in arms, were on foot, carrying the most meagre of essentials. They trudged patiently on the long straight roads, driven by the fear of what might come, always on the look-out for the enemy. But the journey for the duke and duchess on 16 May proceeded smoothly. In the Hotel du Palais in Biarritz the duke knew he and Wallis could count on a little light relief. There was a wonderful promenade along a great sweep of sandy beach, distant views of surfers bracing themselves against the Atlantic, beachfront casinos and glamorous night life; altogether a much more suitable setting for his bejewelled wife complete with her stunning flamingo brooch.