Running Out of Time
MONDAY, 14 AUGUST 1939. In a shady corner of a restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne on the edge of Paris, Edward Spears and Winston Churchill were having lunch with the French Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Général Alphonse Georges, and his Aide-de-Camp. It being August, with much of the beau monde having deserted the capital for the holidays, the place was almost empty. It would be Georges’s birthday the following day – his sixty-fourth – but despite his advancing years and now almost white and thinning hair, he seemed, Spears thought, as full of energy as ever.
Spears had been in France a week, having driven over with his wife before meeting up with Churchill, conscious this might well be his last chance for a holiday for some time. They had stayed with old friends but Spears had been disturbed by their resentment towards Britain. The shadow of war hung heavy, just as it did in England, but it was clear they felt the British were not pulling their weight and were using France as a shield in the inevitable forthcoming conflict with Germany.
It was a relief, then, to find Général Georges on such good form, apparently ready to shoulder the burden of responsibility that would inevitably fall upon him should there be war. As they ate wood strawberries soaked in white wine, Churchill grilled the general about the French defences and, in particular, the Maginot Line, the series of fortifications that ran along the eastern edge of France, where there was a shared border with Germany. What concerned him was the shoulder of the line, facing the forests and valleys of the Ardennes. Churchill pursed his mouth and gazed at the fruit on the table with a distant expression in his eye, before warning Georges it would be unwise to think the Ardennes was impassable to a modern army. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘that we are faced with a new weapon, armour in strength, on which the Germans are no doubt concentrating, and that forests will be particularly tempting to such forces since they will offer concealment from the air.’
Capitaine André Beaufre had reached the Polish capital on the evening of 19 August, and now, the following morning, he was hurrying to the headquarters of the Polish General Staff and was struck by the apparent lack of concern of the Poles he saw out and about. No sandbags, no trenches being dug – rather, people just ambling about enjoying the August sunshine.
That he was there at all was because talks in Moscow had not gone well. In fact, they could hardly have got off to a worse start when they had met for first discussions on 12 August. The Russian delegation was led by Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, the Commissar for Defence and a more senior commander than either Doumenc or Drax; that he was meeting British and French delegates junior in rank and status felt like a snub.
As they had sat at a round table in the banquet room of the Spiridonovka Palace, Voroshilov had asked whether the French and British missions had written authority to negotiate on all military matters. Doumenc announced that he did, but Drax, shifting awkwardly and breaking out into uncontrollable coughing, was forced to admit that he did not; whether it was embarrassment or the thick cigarette smoke that caused the spluttering was not clear. At any rate, Voroshilov was far from amused. Matters plunged further downhill when Drax confessed the British only had a mere four infantry divisions – around 60,000 men – to contribute to any future military alliance. For the Soviets, who were well aware that the Germans had nigh on a hundred divisions, this was a risibly small contribution.
A further and bigger stumbling block, however, had been over the passage of Soviet troops through Poland. On 14 August, Voroshilov had asked point-blank whether they had secured permission from the Poles on this matter before beginning these talks; Doumenc and Drax had been forced to admit they had not. It was for this reason that Beaufre had been put on a train and urgently sent to Warsaw, reaching the Polish capital on the evening of the 18th. His mission was to find out whether there were any circumstances in which Russian forces would be allowed to pass through Poland.
Reaching the Polish General Staff headquarters, he was ushered in to see General Stachiewicz. ‘I understand your point of view perfectly,’ the Polish general told him. ‘But I ask you also to understand ours. We know the Russians better than you do; they are a dishonest people whose word is not to be relied upon by us or anyone else, and it is quite useless to ask us to even contemplate a proposition of this nature.’ Beaufre hung around another day, but, despite the best efforts of the French embassy staff, the answer remained steadfastly the same: ‘With the Germans we risk the loss of our liberty, but with the Russians we lose our soul.’
The next day, Monday, 21 August, Beaufre took a train to Riga, from where he planned to catch a flight to Moscow. It was another beautiful sunny day. On the train were families heading on holiday. From the window he watched bathers splashing in the rivers. All looked so happy, so carefree; Beaufre could feel nothing but deep sadness.
He reached Moscow later that evening, just as a telegram from Édouard Daladier, the Prime Minister, reached the French mission instructing them to lie about the Poles’ resolute stance. But, by then, it was too late in any case, because that night the British and French mission received a bombshell. The Russians, it was reported in Pravda, the Soviet newspaper, were about to sign an altogether different agreement – a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany.
That very same evening, Monday, 21 August, the German Führer, Adolf Hitler, was holding court at the Berghof, his mountain retreat on the Obersalzberg, in the Bavarian Alps. During supper, the 34-year-old Albert Speer watched as the Führer was handed a note. Reading it swiftly, Hitler stared momentarily into space, flushed, then banged a fist on the table so hard that the glasses shook. Then, with a voice tremulous with excitement, said, ‘I have them! I have them!’ A few moments later, having regained his control, he continued eating. No one else dared say a word, least of all Speer. A trusted member of Hitler’s inner circle, Speer was the Führer’s chief architect, responsible for the enormous parade grounds at Nuremberg and also the vast new 146-metre-long Reich Chancellery in the heart of Berlin. He had also drawn up plans to rebuild Berlin which included a three-mile-long grand boulevard and a huge ‘Great Hall’ over 200 metres high and capable of holding 180,000. Speer, like Hitler, preferred to think big.
This was one of the Führer’s chief attractions as far as Speer was concerned. He assumed that the Führer’s ultimate goal was world domination, and Speer could think of nothing better; it was the whole point of his buildings, which, to his mind, would have looked grotesque if Hitler were not to spread the wings of Nazi Germany. ‘All I wanted,’ he said, ‘was for this great man to dominate the globe.’
The next stage in Hitler’s planned expansion of territory was finally revealed after supper, when the Führer called his guests together and announced the non-aggression pact with Russia was about to be concluded. Speer was stunned. ‘To see the names of Hitler and Stalin linked in friendship,’ he noted, ‘was the most staggering, the most exciting, turn of events I could have imagined.’
Having left Churchill and Général Georges, Edward Spears and his wife continued their holiday, staying with friends in a chateau in south-west France. Once again, he had found the atmosphere in France heavy with apprehension. His friends felt the world had gone mad. What on earth was that lunatic house-painter Hitler thinking of? And why, if Britain and France were intending to challenge him over Poland, had they not rearmed in line with Germany? That Britain and France together had more tanks, men and artillery pieces, many more ships and only fractionally fewer aircraft would have stunned most of Spears’s French friends. These well-educated and intelligent amis were also incredulous that both France and Britain should risk war over Poland. After all, they pointed out, it had been bad enough trying to defend France last time around, so why do so for Poland? That seemed crazy!
Spears’s own special prayer was that nothing would happen to spoil his holiday, which he had been looking forward to all year. His prayers, however, were in vain. That morning, 22 August, news of the impending Soviet–German pact was announced around the world. ‘This is very bad news, isn’t it?’ Spears’s host had asked. He could only agree that it was. Later that day, word reached him that Parliament had been recalled for a special session two days later. The Spearses would have to abandon their holiday and head back to England just as fast as they could.
Edward Spears and his wife were not the only two people forced to interrupt their holiday. That same day, men throughout Britain and France found themselves being mobilized into service. Bill Cheall, three days shy of his twenty-second birthday and on a camping holiday near Crediton in Devon, heard the news in an announcement on the wireless. All those in the Territorial Army were to report to their headquarters without delay. He had joined the 6th Battalion, The Green Howards, its Territorial battalion, back in April when it had been announced there would be a doubling of the TA force. At the time, Cheall had been working in the family grocery business in Middlesbrough, but realizing war was most likely just around the corner and that he would be called up at some point, he decided to join up right away, telling himself it was better to enlist on his own terms rather than waiting to be ordered to do so.
Life in the Territorials meant weekly sessions in the drill hall at Lytton Street in Middlesbrough and annual camp near Morecambe Bay earlier in August. Drill, route marches, rifle practice – that made up the bulk of his training. The rest of the time, he continued as before, working in the family business.
The holiday to Devon, however, had been a big adventure. Bill had never been so far south, and he and his mates had driven the long journey down in his cherished Morris Ten. That morning, the sun had shone, larks had sung vibrantly above them and, having been out for a quick dip in the river at the bottom of the field, Bill had called in at the farm to collect eggs and milk. He’d been lying back on the grass, thinking all was well in the world, when the call to arms had been announced.
Immediately, they set to, taking down the tent, loading the car, and, soon after, speeding on their way back north to Yorkshire.
In Paris, that Tuesday, René de Chambrun had gone to work as normal, to the law office he had set up four years earlier. It being August, the city seemed empty, and that evening, on his way home, he had looked up at the cloudless sky and had felt somehow that the entire city belonged to him.
At his apartment on the Place du Palais Bourbon his wife was waiting for him. His birthday was the following day, and he immediately went into a family council to decide what they should all do to celebrate it. After a short discussion, they agreed he would take the day off and they would all motor to Deauville and have a day by the sea.
Unaware of news of the proposed Soviet–German pact, he had gone to bed happily looking forward to his birthday. Early the following morning, however, there was a knocking at the door. Chambrun hurried down to find two policemen waiting for him.
‘Monsieur René de Chambrun?’ asked the first, and on receiving a nod in reply drew out a summons from his leather bag informing him that, as a reserve officer, he was to report to his unit immediately.
‘This time it means business,’ said the second policeman.
A couple of hours later, having dusted down his uniform, packed his bag and bade farewell to his wife and all whom he loved, he was heading for the Gare de l’Est. His birthday trip would have to wait.
Tuesday, 22 August 1939. Hitler invited all his senior generals to a ‘tea party’ at the Berghof. They were to come in civilian clothes. While everyone wore sombre suits, Göring took the opportunity to don grey stockings, knickerbockers, white blouse and green leather jerkin, with a heavy gold dagger hanging from his side; he looked as though he’d come to a fancy dress party as Robin Hood. This comical appearance rather belied the fact that Göring had been at the heart of the diplomatic manoeuvres. With continued silence from Britain to his overtures – despite repeated and thinly veiled hints of German collusion with the Soviet Union – it had been he who had encouraged von Ribbentrop to contact Stalin; it was a move Hitler had been considering since the spring. Göring had greeted the news of the subsequent pact as triumphantly as the Führer. He was convinced, like Hitler, that Britain and France would not now interfere.
With his generals before him, Hitler outlined his plans for war with Poland. It was, he told them, better to test German arms now. The situation with the Danzig Corridor had become intolerable; German prestige was at stake, and it was almost certain that the West would not uphold its pledge of war. Of course there was a risk, but it was one he was prepared to take, and with iron resolve. ‘We are faced,’ he told them, with his usual black or white world-view, ‘with the harsh alternatives of striking or of certain annihilation sooner or later.’ The only choice remaining was to invade and to crush Poland. ‘Act brutally,’ he told them. ‘The wholesale destruction of Poland is the military objective.’
Hitler was never one to use one word when ten would do, and this speech lasted more than two hours. As one of the senior officers summoned to the Berghof, Oberst Walter Warlimont was among those listening with a sinking heart. Warlimont was Acting Chief of Operations at the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW, the Combined Staff of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and since the spring had been trying to counter Hitler’s plans, which he was convinced would plunge Germany into a war that ultimately they could not win. The 44-year-old Warlimont was bright, well-educated and with an incisive intellect, and, unlike most of the German senior staff, had not only studied English in Britain, but had also been to the United States before the Crash to study American methods of industrial mobilization, an experience that had impressed him deeply. Then, in 1936, he had been sent to Spain as military attaché to General Franco. Combined with his experience as a gunner in the First World War, he was in a unique position at the OKW in having both active military experience and a realistic world-view.
Needless to say, his attempts, and those of the Operations Staff, to dissuade Hitler from the course on which he was set had failed dismally. His immediate boss was General Wilhelm Keitel, who was rarely prepared to stand up to Hitler, which was precisely why he’d been appointed. Back in January 1938, Keitel had been described to the Führer as little more than an office manager. ‘That’s exactly the man I’m looking for,’ Hitler had replied. A month later, Hitler had scrapped the War Office, made himself Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht and created the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht instead. This new establishment was the world’s first ever combined services operations organization and, on the face of it, a good idea. But Hitler liked to rule by creating rival and parallel organizations; the OKW had never been given any executive power and where it stood in relation to the Army’s Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH), for example, was not clear.
Warlimont, as Acting Chief of Operations, had early in the summer drawn up plans demonstrating that Germany could not hope to keep pace with the armaments potential of the Western democracies – which he had witnessed first hand – but Keitel had flatly refused to put this to Hitler. Next, Warlimont and his staff had suggested a series of summer war games in preparation for possible conflict not only with Poland, but also Britain and France. Again, Keitel had demurred. As the summer months had passed, with no word reaching the OKW on just how, when and if an attack on Poland might be launched, Warlimont and his staff found themselves existing in Berlin in a rather uneasy vacuum. Only as July gave way to August had it become clear that a possible advance into Poland was imminent and plans stepped up accordingly.
Now, at last, the waiting game appeared to be over. It was clear to Warlimont that the main purpose of Hitler’s speech was to convince his generals of the rightness of his decision, and assure them Britain and France would keep out. The Führer’s confidence was based on a number of factors, not least his experiences back in March when German troops had marched into Czechoslovakia unopposed. He had been braced then for a more dramatic response from the Western democracies, and yet he had got away with it. He had been getting away with it for years; not a shot fired as his troops had reclaimed one chunk of territory after another: first the Rhineland, then Austria, then the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and then the remainder of the country. The rest of the world had stood by and watched; it stood to reason an attack on Poland would be treated in the same way despite the threats, and even more so now a pact had been signed with Stalin.
Because of his staggering lack of geo-political understanding, because he had a rampant ego, and because such was the adulation in which most Germans held him, and the sycophancy of his inner circle, Hitler had begun to believe his ‘will’ alone made him invincible. And, like most megalomaniacs, he could rarely, if ever, see any point of view other than his own. To his mind, it made no sense that France and Britain would risk war over Poland. Therefore they would not.
Also listening had been the 33-year-old Hauptmann Gerhard Engel, who was Hitler’s Army Adjutant. Engel thought the Führer had seemed calm and objective, but it was clear to him that the generals had not been convinced. ‘Grave’ was what Engel thought them. ‘Not just over Poland,’ he scrawled in his diary, ‘but what will follow. They are expecting definite consequences with France and Britain.’
The next day, Hitler told his commanders the invasion of Poland would begin on 26 August, in just three days’ time. For Warlimont, and all the other service staffs, this was ridiculous – three days! It was no time at all and flew in the face of all accepted military practice. It was one of the many problems thrown up by having a Commander-in-Chief who had promoted himself to the top job from the rank of corporal, and with no military experience or staff training in between.
Later that evening, Wednesday, 23 August 1939, Albert Speer joined the Führer out on the terrace that led from the main drawing room at the Berghof. From the veranda, the view out across the Untersberg was stunning. Curiously, that night the aurora borealis, the Northern Lights, was showing over the Alps. The sky was alive with a dazzling array of shimmering lights while a shroud of deep red was now cast across the Untersberg and the valley between. Hitler marvelled at the sight, but Speer noticed the same red light bathed their hands and faces, and, as if all minds were now filled with the same thought, the small gathering suddenly became pensive.
Hitler turned to one of his military adjutants. ‘Looks like a great deal of blood. This time we won’t bring it off without violence.’
He could not have been more right. For all his talk of Britain and France bluffing, the one who was really doing so was Hitler. The carefully orchestrated parades, the even more carefully managed showreels of German troops and tanks and skies thick with aircraft, were, to a very large extent, a projection of military might rather than representative of the reality. Germany was by no means ready for all-out war. It did not have enough tanks, vehicles or trained soldiers, and certainly not enough natural resources, to carry out anything more than a short, sharp campaign against a massively inferior enemy: Germany possessed little iron ore, no oil, no copper, tungsten, bauxite or rubber, and, crucially, did not have enough land, sufficiently farmed, to fulfil the food requirements of both the population and a massive military. Few, if any, nations had access to all the resources needed for war-making, but, unlike Britain and France, Germany’s merchant fleet was small and access to global resources was limited.
Meanwhile, for all the concerns of men like Churchill or Général Georges, the disparity in air power was not as great as they feared. In Britain, aircraft production was almost on a par with that of Germany; monthly British output was 662 aircraft, compared with 691 in Germany. France was one of the leading powers in the world and had a sizeable standing army, with the administration and infrastructure in place to mobilize more than a hundred divisions in a matter of days should it come to war.
It was true Britain’s army was small by comparison, but it was growing rapidly. Within the Royal Navy and Air Force, rearmament had been going on since 1935, and Britain now had the world’s first fully co-ordinated air defence system. It also had the world’s largest Navy by some margin and stood at the centre of the biggest global trading network the world had ever seen. It was rich – the richest country in Europe, even after the depression – had the kind of access to resources Germany could only dream of, and it was, and had been for some time, the world’s largest armaments exporter. With its Empire and Dominions, it also had access to an unprecedented amount of manpower. In almost every way, Britain was better equipped for a major conflict than Germany.
The gloomy mood in Britain and France that last summer before war was because most knew they were not bluffing Hitler. If Germany invaded Poland, that would mean war; there was to be no more acquiescing to a megalomaniacal despot, who had repeatedly shown he could not be trusted in any way. That was profoundly and deeply depressing. No wonder the mood had been sombre, yet although they would go to war reluctantly, Britain, especially, could do so with a fair degree of confidence.
As Hitler stood on his balcony that night of 23 August, his hands bathed in red, his mind was more determined than ever. Poland would be invaded.
It was to be one of the most catastrophic decisions ever made.