THE chatter and criticisms of the Press, where the sharpest pens were busy and many shrill voices raised, found its counterpart in the activities of a few score of Members in the House of Commons, and a fairly glum attitude on the part of our immense majority. A party Government might well have been overturned at this juncture, if not by a vote, by the kind of intensity of opinion which led Mr. Chamberlain to relinquish power in May 1940. But the National Coalition Government, fortified by a reconstruction in February, was massive and overwhelming in its strength and unity. All its principal Ministers stood together around me, with never a thought that was not loyal and robust. I seemed to have maintained the confidence of all those who watched with full knowledge the unfolding story and shared the responsibilities. No one faltered. There was not a whisper of intrigue. We were a strong, unbreakable circle, and capable of withstanding any external political attack and of persevering in the common cause through every disappointment.
We had had a long succession of misfortunes and defeats—Malaya, Singapore, Burma; Auchinleck’s lost battle in the Desert; Tobruk, unexplained, and, it seemed, inexplicable; the rapid retreat of the Desert army and the loss of all our conquests in Libya and Cyrenaica; four hundred miles of retrogression towards the Egyptian frontier; over fifty thousand of our men casualties or prisoners. We had lost vast masses of artillery, ammunition, vehicles, and stores of all kinds. We were back again at Mersa Matruh, at the old positions of two years before, but this time with Rommel and his Germans triumphant, pressing forward in our captured lorries fed with our oil supplies, in many cases firing our own ammunition. Only a few more marches, one more success, and Mussolini and Rommel would enter Cairo, or its ruins, together. All hung in the balance, and after the surprising reverses we had sustained, and in face of the unknown factors at work, who would predict how the scales would turn?
The Parliamentary situation required prompt definition. It seemed however rather difficult to demand another Vote of Confidence from the House so soon after that which had preceded the collapse of Singapore. It was therefore very convenient when on June 25 the discontented Members decided among themselves to place a Vote of Censure on the Order Paper. It read as follows:
That this House, while paying tribute to the heroism and endurance of the Armed Forces of the Crown in circumstances of exceptional difficulty, has no confidence in the central direction of the war.
It stood in the name of Sir John Wardlaw-Milne, an influential member of the Conservative Party. He was chairman of the powerful all-party Finance Committee, whose reports of cases of administrative waste and inefficiency I had always studied with close attention. The Committee had a great deal of information at their disposal and many contacts with the outer circle of our war machine. When it was also announced that the motion would be seconded by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes, and supported by the former Secretary of State for War, Mr. Hore-Belisha, it was at once evident that a serious challenge had been made. Indeed, in some newspapers and in the lobbies the talk ran of an approaching political crisis which would be decisive.
I said at once that we would give full opportunity for public debate, and fixed July 1 for the occasion. There was one announcement I felt it necessary to make, and I telegraphed to Auchinleck: “When I speak in the Vote of Censure debate on Thursday, about 4 p.m., I deem it necessary to announce that you have taken the command in supersession of Ritchie as from June 25.”
The battle crisis in Egypt grew steadily worse, and it was widely believed that Cairo and Alexandria would soon fall to Rommel’s flaming sword. Mussolini indeed made preparations to fly to Rommel’s headquarters with the idea of taking part in the triumphal entry to one or both of these cities. It seemed that we should reach a climax on the Parliamentary and Desert fronts at the same moment. When it was realised by our critics that they would be faced by our united National Government some of their ardour evaporated, and the mover of the motion offered to withdraw it if the critical situation in Egypt rendered public discussion untimely. We had however no intention of letting them escape so easily. Considering that for nearly three weeks the whole world, friend or foe, had been watching with anxiety the mounting political and military tension, it was impossible not to bring matters to a head.
The debate was opened by Sir John Wardlaw-Milne in an able speech in which he posed the main issue. This motion was “not an attack upon officers in the field. It is a definite attack upon the central direction here in London, and I hope to show that the causes of our failure lie here far more than in Libya or elsewhere. The first vital mistake that we made in the war was to combine the offices of Prime Minister and Minister of Defence.” He dilated upon the “enormous duties” cast upon the holder of the two offices. “We must have a strong, full-time leader as the chief of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. I want a strong and independent man appointing his generals and his admirals and so on. I want a strong man in charge of all three branches of the Armed Forces of the Crown … strong enough to demand all the weapons which are necessary for victory … to see that his generals and admirals and air marshals are allowed to do their work in their own way and are not interfered with unduly from above. Above all, I want a man who, if he does not get what he wants, will immediately resign.… We have suffered both from the want of the closest examination by the Prime Minister of what is going on here at home, and also by the want ofthat direction which we should get from the Minister of Defence, or other officer, whatever his title might be, in charge of the Armed Forces.… It is surely clear to any civilian that the series of disasters of the past few months, and indeed of the past two years, is due to fundamental defects in the central administration of the war.”
All this was making its point, but Sir John then made a digression. “It would be a very desirable move—if His Majesty the King and His Royal Highness would agree—if His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester were to be appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British Army—without of course administrative duties.” This proved injurious to his case, as it was deemed a proposal to involve the Royal Family in grievous controversial responsibilities. Also the appointment of a Supreme War Commander with almost unlimited powers and his association with a Royal Duke seemed to have some flavour of dictatorship about it. From this moment the long and detailed indictment seemed to lose some of its pith. Sir John concluded, “The House should make it plain that we require one man to give his whole time to the winning of the war, in complete charge of all the Armed Forces of the Crown, and when we have got him let the House strengthen him to carry out the task with power and independence.”
The motion was seconded by Sir Roger Keyes. The Admiral, who had been pained by his removal from the position of Director of Combined Operations, and still more by the fact that I had not always been able to take his advice while he was there, was hampered in his attack by his long personal friendship with me. He concentrated his criticisms mainly upon my expert advisers—meaning of course the Chiefs of Staff. “It is hard that three times in the Prime Minister’s career he should have been thwarted—in Gallipoli, in Norway, and in the Mediterranean—in carrying out strategical strokes which might have altered the whole course of two wars, each time because his constitutional naval adviser declined to share the responsibility with him if it entailed any risk.” The inconsistency between this argument and that of the mover did not pass unnoticed. One of the members of the Independent Labour Party, Mr. Stephen, interrupted to point out that the mover had proposed “a Vote of Censure on the ground that the Prime Minister has interfered unduly in the direction of the war; whereas the seconder seems to be seconding because the Prime Minister has not sufficiently interfered in the direction of the war.” This point was apparent to the House.
“We look to the Prime Minister,” said Admiral Keyes, “to put his house in order, and to rally the country once again for its immense task.” Here another Socialist made a pertinent intervention. “The motion is directed against the central direction of the war. If the motion is carried the Prime Minister has to go; but the honourable and gallant Member is appealing to us to keep the Prime Minister there.” “It would be,” said Sir Roger, “a deplorable disaster if the Prime Minister had to go.” Thus the debate was ruptured from its start.
Nevertheless, as it continued the critics increasingly took the lead. The new Minister of Production, Captain Oliver Lyttelton, who dealt with the complaints made against our equipment, had a stormy passage in the full, detailed account which he gave of this aspect. Strong Conservative support was given to the Government from their back benches, Mr. Boothby in particular making a powerful and helpful speech. Lord Winterton, the Father of the House, revived the force of the attack, and concentrated it upon me. “Who is the Minister of the Government who practically controlled the Narvik operation? It is the present Prime Minister, who was then First Lord of the Admiralty.… No one dares put the blame, where it should be put constitutionally, on the Prime Minister.… If whenever we have disasters we get the same answer, that whatever happens you must not blame the Prime Minister, we are getting very close to the intellectual and moral position of the German people—’The Fuehrer is always right.’ … During the thirty-seven years in which I have been in this House I have never seen such attempts to absolve a Prime Minister from Ministerial responsibility as are going on at present.… We never had anything in the last war comparable with this series of disasters. Now, see what this Government get off with—because ‘the Fuehrer is always right.’ We all agree that the Prime Minister was the Captain-General of our courage and constancy in 1940. But a lot has happened since 1940. If this series of disasters goes on the right honourable gentleman, by one of the greatest acts of self-abnegation which any man could carry out, should go to his colleagues—and there is more than one suitable man for Prime Minister on the Treasury Bench now—and suggest that one of them should form a Government, and that the right honourable gentleman himself would take office under him. He might do so, perhaps, as Foreign Secretary, because his management of our relations with Russia and with the United States has been perfect.”
It was not possible for me to listen to more than half the speeches of the animated debate, which lasted till nearly three in the morning. I had of course to be shaping my rejoinder for the next day; but my thoughts were centred on the battle which seemed to hang in the balance in Egypt.
The debate, which had talked itself out in the small hours of its first day, was resumed with renewed vigour on July 2. Certainly there was no denial of free speech or lack of it. One member even went so far as to say:
We have in this country five or six generals, members of other nations, Czechs, Poles, and French, all of them trained in the use of these German weapons and this German technique. I know it is hurtful to our pride, but would it not be possible to put some of those men temporarily in charge in the field, until we can produce trained men of our own? Is there anything wrong in sending out these men, of equal rank with General Ritchie? Why should we not put them in the field in charge of our troops? They know how to fight this war; our people do not, and I say that it is far better to win battles and save British soldiers’ lives under the leadership of other members of the United Nations than to lose them under our own inefficient officers. The Prime Minister must realise that in this country there is a taunt on everyone’s lips that if Rommel had been in the British Army he would still have been a sergeant.* Is that not so? It is a taunt right through the Army. There is a man in the British Army—and this shows how we are using our trained men—who flung 150,000 men across the Ebro in Spain: Michael Dunbar. He is at present a sergeant in an armoured brigade in this country. He was Chief of Staff in Spain; he won the battle of the Ebro, and he is a sergeant in the British Army. The fact of the matter is that the British Army is ridden by class prejudice. You have got to change it, and you will have to change it. If the House of Commons has not the guts to make the Government change it, events will. Although the House may not take any notice of me to-day, you will be doing it next week. Remember my words next Monday and Tuesday. It is events which are criticising the Government. All that we are doing is giving them a voice, inadequately perhaps, but we are trying to do it.
The main case against the Government was summed up by Mr. Hore-Belisha, the former Secretary of State for War. He concluded, “We may lose Egypt or we may not lose Egypt—I pray God we may not—but when the Prime Minister, who said that we would hold Singapore, that we would hold Crete, that we had smashed the German army in Libya … when I read that he had said that we are going to hold Egypt, my anxieties became greater.… How can one place reliance in judgments that have so repeatedly turned out to be misguided? That is what the House of Commons has to decide. Think what is at stake. In a hundred days we lost our Empire in the Far East. What will happen in the next hundred days? Let every Member vote according to his conscience.”
I followed this powerful speech in winding up the debate. The House was crammed. Naturally I made every point which occurred to me. Mr. Hore-Belisha had dwelt upon the failures of the British tanks and the inferiority of our equipment in armour. He was not in a very strong position to do this on account of the pre-war record of the War Office. I was able to turn the tables upon him.
The idea of the tank was a British conception. The use of armoured forces as they are now being used was largely French, as General de Gaulle’s book shows. It was left to the Germans to convert those ideas to their own use. For three or four years before the war they were busily at work with their usual thoroughness upon the design and manufacture of tanks, and also upon the study and practice of armoured warfare. One would have thought that even if the Secretary of State for War of those days could not get the money for large-scale manufacture he would at any rate have had full-size working models made and tested out exhaustively, and the factories chosen and the jigs and gauges supplied, so that he could go into mass production of tanks and anti-tank weapons when the war began.
When what I may call the Belisha period ended we were left with some 250 armoured vehicles, very few of which carried even a 2-pounder gun. Most of these were captured or destroyed in France.
I willingly accept, indeed I am bound to accept, what the noble Lord [Earl Winterton] has called the “constitutional responsibility” for everything that has happened, and I consider that I discharged that responsibility by not interfering with the technical handling of armies in contact with the enemy. But before the battle began I urged General Auchinleck to take the command himself, because I was sure nothing was going to happen in the vast area of the Middle East in the next month or two comparable in importance to the fighting of this battle in the Western Desert, and I thought he was the man to handle the business. He gave me various good reasons for not doing so, and General Ritchie fought the battle. As I told the House on Tuesday, General Auchinleck on June 25 superseded General Ritchie and assumed command himself. We at once approved his decision, but I must frankly confess that the matter was not one on which we could form any final judgment, so far as the superseded officer is concerned. I cannot pretend to form a judgment upon what has happened in this battle. I like commanders on land and sea and in the air to feel that between them and all forms of public criticism the Government stands like a strong bulkhead. They ought to have a fair chance, and more than one chance. Men may make mistakes and learn from their mistakes. Men may have bad luck, and their luck may change. But anyhow you will not get generals to run risks unless they feel they have behind them a strong Government. They will not run risks unless they feel that they need not look over their shoulders or worry about what is happening at home, unless they feel they can concentrate their gaze upon the enemy. And you will not, I may add, get a Government to run risks unless they feel that they have got behind them a loyal, solid majority. Look at the things we are being asked to do now, and imagine the kind of attack which would be made on us if we tried to do them and failed. In war-time if you desire service you must give loyalty.…
I wish to speak a few words “of great truth and respect”—as they say in the diplomatic documents—and I hope I may be granted the fullest liberty of debate. This Parliament has a peculiar responsibility. It presided over the beginning of the evils which have come on the world. I owe much to the House, and it is my hope that it may see the end of them in triumph. This it can do only if, in the long period which may yet have to be travelled, the House affords a solid foundation to the responsible Executive Government, placed in power by its own choice. The House must be a steady stabilising factor in the State, and not an instrument by which the disaffected sections of the Press can attempt to promote one crisis after another. If democracy and Parliamentary institutions are to triumph in this war it is absolutely necessary that Governments resting upon them shall be able to act and dare, that the servants of the Crown shall not be harassed by nagging and snarling, that enemy propaganda shall not be fed needlessly out of our own hands, and our reputation disparaged and undermined throughout the world. On the contrary, the will of the whole House should be made manifest upon important occasions. It is important that not only those who speak, but those who watch and listen and judge, should also count as a factor in world affairs. After all, we are still fighting for our lives, and for causes dearer than life itself. We have no right to assume that victory is certain; it will be certain only if we do not fail in our duty.… Sober and constructive criticism, or criticism in Secret Session, has its high virtue; but the duty of the House of Commons is to sustain the Government or to change the Government. If it cannot change it it should sustain it. There is no working middle course in war-time.… Only the hostile speeches are reported abroad, and much play is made with them by our enemy.
… The mover of this Vote of Censure has proposed that I should be stripped of my responsibilities for defence in order that some military figure or some other unnamed personage should assume the general conduct of the war, that he should have complete control of the Armed Forces of the Crown, that he should be the Chief of the Chiefs of Staff, that he should nominate or dismiss the generals or the admirals, that he should always be ready to resign—that is to say, to match himself against his political colleagues, if colleagues they could be considered—if he did not get all he wanted, that he should have under him a Royal Duke as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and finally, I presume, though this was not mentioned, that this unnamed personage should find an appendage in the Prime Minister to make the necessary explanations, excuses, and apologies to Parliament when things go wrong, as they often do and often will. That is at any rate a policy. It is a system very different from the Parliamentary system under which we live. It might easily amount to or be converted into a dictatorship. I wish to make it perfectly clear that as far as I am concerned I shall take no part in such a system.
Sir John J. Wardlaw-Milne here injected, “I hope my right honourable friend has not forgotten the original sentence, which was ‘subject to the War Cabinet’?”
I continued:
“Subject to the War Cabinet”, against which this all-powerful potentate is not to hesitate to resign on every occasion if he cannot get his way. It is a plan, but it is not a plan in which I should personally be interested to take part, and I do not think that it is one which would commend itself to this House.
The setting down of this Vote of Censure by Members of all parties is a considerable event. Do not, I beg of you, let the House underrate the gravity of what has been done. It has been trumpeted all round the world to our disparagement, and when every nation, friend and foe, is waiting to see what is the true resolve and conviction of the House of Commons, it must go forward to the end. All over the world, throughout the United States, as I can testify, in Russia, far away in China, and throughout every subjugated country, all our friends are waiting to know whether there is a strong, solid Government in Britain and whether its national leadership is to be challenged or not. Every vote counts. If those who have assailed us are reduced to contemptible proportions and their Vote of Censure on the National Government is converted to a vote of censure upon its authors, make no mistake, a cheer will go up from every friend of Britain and every faithful servant of our cause, and the knell of disappointment will ring in the ears of the tyrants we are striving to overthrow.
The House divided, and Sir John Wardlaw-Milne’s motion of “No Confidence” was defeated by 475 votes to 25.
My American friends awaited the issue with real anxiety. They were delighted by the result, and I woke to receive their congratulations.
A curious historical point had been made in the debate by Mr. Walter Elliot when he recalled Macaulay’s account of Mr. Pitt’s Administration. “Pitt was at the head of a nation engaged in a life-and-death struggle.… But the fact is that after eight years of war, after a vast expenditure of life and … wealth, the English Army under Pitt was the laughing-stock of all Europe. They could not boast of a single brilliant exploit. It had never shown itself on the Continent but to be beaten, chased, forced to re-embark.” However, Macaulay proceeded to record that Pitt was always sustained by the House of Commons. “Thus through a long and calamitous period every disaster that happened without the walls of Parliament^ was regularly followed by triumph within them. At length he had no longer an Opposition to encounter, and in the eventful year 1799 the largest majority that could be mustered to vote against the Government was twenty-five.” “It is odd,” said Mr. Elliot, “how history is in some ways repeated.” He could not know before the division how true this was. I too was astonished that the figure of twenty-five was almost exactly the one I had named to the President and Harry Hopkins when I was with them at the White House on the day of the Tobruk news.