Cabinet's Finest Hour Read online

  Roosevelt repeated not once, but several times to Churchill that, for constitutional reasons, he could not give any assurance that the United States would declare war no matter what the provocation, short of direct attack upon the United States itself. But he well knew that if Britain and the Royal Navy went down then the Monroe Doctrine, let alone security in the Atlantic Ocean, and the principle of the freedom of the seas and the solidarity of the Western hemisphere would be threatened as never before.

  By contrast, Churchill wrote on 13 May: “The public don’t in the least realise the gravity of the situation. Walking round the lake (in St James’s Park) today it was heartbreaking to see the people enjoying the sunshine as they lolled in their chairs or watched the little ducklings darting about in the water. We will try and bring them a little nearer to a sense of reality, though I dare say events will do more towards that end than anything else I can think of.”

  On 17 May Churchill received a reply from Roosevelt which he read out to the War Cabinet at 10.00 am, the Prime Minister having flown back from France that morning:

  I have just received your message and I am sure it is unnecessary for me to say that I am most happy to continue our private correspondence as we have in the past. I am of course giving every possible consideration to the suggestions made in your message. I shall take up your specific proposals one by one.

  First: With regard to the possible loan of 40 or 50 of our older destroyers. As you know a step of that kind could not be taken except with the specific authorisation of the Congress and I am not certain that it would be wise for that suggestion to be made to the Congress at this moment. Furthermore, it seems to me doubtful from the standpoint of our own defence requirements, which must inevitably be linked with the defence requirements of this hemisphere and with our obligation in the Pacific, whether we could dispose even temporarily of these destroyers. Furthermore, even if we were able to take the step you suggest, it would be at least six or seven weeks as a minimum, as I see it, before these vessels could undertake active service under the British flag.

  Second: We are now doing everything within our power to make it possible for the Allied Governments to obtain the latest type of aircraft in the United States.

  Third: If Mr Purvis may receive immediately instructions to discuss the question of anti-aircraft equipment and ammunition with the appropriate authorities here in Washington, the most favourable consideration will be given to the request made in the light of our own defence needs and requirements.

  Fourth: Mr Purvis has already taken up with the appropriate authorities here the purchase of steel in the United States and I understand that satisfactory arrangements have been made.

  Fifth: I shall give further consideration to your suggestion with regard to the visit of the United States squadron to Irish ports.

  Sixth: As you know, the American fleet is now concentrated at Hawaii where it will remain at least for the time being. I shall communicate with you again as soon as I feel able to make a final decision with regard to some of the other matters dealt with in your message and I hope you will feel free to communicate with me in this way at any time.

  The best of luck to you.

  Churchill replied to President Roosevelt on 20 May.

  Lothian has reported his conversation with you. I understand your difficulties, but I am very sorry about the destroyers. If they were here in six weeks they would play an invaluable part. The battle in France is full of danger to both sides. Though we have taken heavy toll of enemy in the air and are clawing down two or three to one of their planes, they have still a formidable numerical superiority. Our most vital need is, therefore, the delivery at the earliest possible date of the largest possible number of Curtiss P-40 fighters now in course of delivery to your Army.

  With regard to the closing part of your talk with Lothian, our intention is, whatever happens, to fight on to the end in this Island, and, provided we can get the help for which we ask, we hope to run them very close in the air battles in view of individual superiority. Members of the present Administration would likely go down during this process should it result adversely, but in no conceivable circumstances will we consent to surrender. If members of the present Administration were finished and others came in to parley amid the ruins, you must not be blind to the fact that the sole remaining bargaining counter with Germany would be the Fleet, and, if this country was left by the United States to its fate, no one would have the right to blame those then responsible if they made the best terms they could for the surviving inhabitants. Excuse me, Mr President, putting this nightmare bluntly. Evidently I could not answer for my successors, who in utter despair and helplessness might well have to accommodate themselves to the German will. However, there is happily no need at present to dwell upon such ideas. Once more thanking you for your goodwill.

  Hard and fast major decisions were continuously being taken by the War Cabinet. Their meeting on 18 May at 5.30 pm details how Ernest Bevin that morning had stressed that authority to apply measures for the control of labour would have to be vested in the Ministry of Labour if they were to be practicable. He contended that such authority should not be distributed among a number of Departments, as in the case of the measures which applied to the control of property. He had also taken the view that it would be essential that the control of profits should be put into operation simultaneously with that of labour.

  The Prime Minister then said that the proposed powers would be transitory and would be related to the declaration of a supreme emergency. When this emergency arose, the Government would claim the right to take service and property as it might think right. When the emergency had passed, the reinstatement of former rights would be considered in accordance with the constitutional usages of the country. The request for the necessary powers should be presented to Parliament in the simplest terms and the details of the scheme should be worked out under the guidance of Neville Chamberlain, Lord President of the Council, in association with the ministers and officials concerned. The War Cabinet’s formal decision was recorded as follows:

  (1)Invited the Lord President of the Council to proceed with the working out of a scheme conferring on the Government drastic powers for the control of property, business, labour and services, on the lines indicated in his Report.

  (2)Agreed that the institution of these measures should be linked to a declaration of a supreme emergency.

  (3)Agreed that the draft Bill, containing the necessary powers, should be couched in the simplest terms.

  (4)Invited the Prime Minister to broadcast a statement on the following day, on the lines suggested by the Lord President.

  Chamberlain’s notes for the Prime Minister’s broadcast suggested it should be used to make “an urgent call for a great intensification of effort on the part of everyone who can contribute to the winning of the war. The hour is grave. A great and critical battle is being fought in France and Flanders. The men of the BEF and of the armies of our Allies are withstanding with magnificent courage the shock of a fierce and bitter assault. Their self-sacrifice and resolution must be matched by equal constancy and sacrifice at home.”34

  The coalition government was now seen to be combining the weight of Bevin and Chamberlain on a very sensitive issue of human rights and using Parliament with no attempt to bypass its authority. Without the coalition, this legislation would have been very hard to achieve and certainly would not have been done so quickly and with so great a consensus.

  Churchill wrote to Chamberlain describing the “relations of perfect confidence which have grown up between us…” on 16 May 1940:

  16 May 1940

  My dear Neville,

  You have been good enough to consult me about the leadership of the Conservative Party. I am of course a Conservative. But as Prime Minister of a National Government, formed on the widest basis, and comprising the three parties, I feel that it would be better for me not to undertake the leadership of any one political party. I therefore express th
e hope that your own leadership of our party will remain undisturbed by the change of government or premiership, and I feel sure that by this arrangement the cause of national unity will be best served.

  The relations of perfect confidence which have grown up makes this division of duties and responsibilities very agreeable to me.

  Yours ever,

  Winston S. Churchill

  Neville Chamberlain wrote back to Churchill on 18 May an important acceptance on the style of the coalition. In truth many Conservative MPs were still very unhappy with having Churchill as Prime Minister and would not have taken kindly to him becoming party leader.

  18 May 1940

  My dear Winston,

  Thank you for your letter about the leadership of the Conservative Party. I can quite understand that in your present position as Prime Minister in a Government embracing all three parties it might seem inappropriate that you should at the same time be leader of one party, even though that party be your own.

  I shall therefore very gladly fall in with your suggestion that I should retain the leadership, in the belief that this course will best enable me to help you in serving the cause of national unity, to which we both attach primary importance.

  Yours ever

  Neville Chamberlain

  That same day, the Prime Minister’s private secretary John Colville made a note in his diary that Churchill had met with A.V. Alexander, the new Labour First Lord of the Admiralty, who came in and showed him the sharp and uncompromising reply Mussolini had sent to Churchill’s “firm but very polite telegram on becoming Prime Minister”. Alexander thought that as Italy’s involvement in the war was now practically unequivocal (an opinion Colville did not share) “we should seize the initiative and occupy Crete”. Colville noted, “Winston answered that our hands were too full elsewhere to enable us to embark on adventures; such is the change that high office can work in a man’s inherent love of rash and spectacular action.”35

  At a War Cabinet meeting on 18 May at 11.30 am, Halifax said that he felt the Soviet Government were uneasy at the German advance, and that it might be possible to make some arrangement with them. The possibility of such an arrangement had to be ascertained and Halifax had been in a long conversation with Sir Stafford Cripps,36 who had flown from China to Moscow to enter into discussions with Molotov. The minutes noted that “Sir Stafford Cripps took the view that we had been at fault in our handling of the Soviet Government and felt convinced that we could reach an agreement with them on trade and possibly on political questions. For this purpose personal discussions were essential. Sir Stafford did not ask to be entrusted with this task, but if the Government felt he could be of service and chose to send him to Moscow to find out what the possibilities were, no harm would be done and the Soviet Government would see that we were in earnest”.37

  Halifax and Churchill had discussed the matter with the Minister for Economic Warfare, Hugh Dalton, and agreed that it would be of advantage to invite Sir Stafford Cripps to undertake this mission, provided it was clearly understood by him that his functions were to ascertain from the Soviet Government their attitude on various questions in which the Ministry of Economic Warfare and other departments were interested, and to report back. Churchill, however, had doubted whether it would be desirable to announce Britain’s intention of sending an ambassador to Moscow; surely this could be left till a later stage. It is interesting to observe Labour and Conservative, Dalton and Halifax, working together to put Cripps’s visit into operation. Only a year earlier, the party divide had been fierce when Churchill, Dalton and Cripps had been in favour of involving Russia in a triple alliance in the spring of 1939, before the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact formed, and Halifax and Chamberlain had opposed it. Now, within eight days, the value of the cross-party coalition was becoming ever more apparent; there was the start of a meeting of minds on the issue of how to handle Russia as our new partner against Hitler, helped by the gravity of the situation facing them all.

  John Colville, whom Churchill had inherited as private secretary from Chamberlain, had earlier admitted in a diary entry that he had some difficulty initially in transferring both loyalty and affection. In time, however, he became devoted to Churchill; his diary entry for 19 May is worth quoting for the sense it gives of the spirit of working with Churchill:

  After the Cabinet I went to Admiralty House and found Mrs Churchill, who said that the preacher at St Martin-in-the-Fields had preached such a pacifist sermon that morning that she got up and left. “You ought to have cried ‘Shame’, said Winston, ‘desecrating the House of God with lies!’” Then he came back and said to me, “Tell the Minister of Information with a view to having the man pilloried.” It is refreshing to work with somebody who refuses to be depressed even by the most formidable danger that has ever threatened this country.

  That night – Trinity Sunday – Churchill gave his first radio broadcast to the country. He quoted a centuries old religious call:

  Arm yourselves and be ye men of valour and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altars. As the will of God is in Heaven, even so let him do.

  At the War Cabinet meeting on 20 May, Churchill agreed that Britain had reached the limit of the air assistance it could provide to France, and that the further despatching of resources permanently to France could not be considered “thus denuding our defences at home”.38 This followed an insightful report received two days earlier, ‘The Air Defence of Great Britain’39 by Newall, Pound and Ironside. Churchill was ensuring a process of carefully organised information for those members of the War Cabinet, such as Attlee and Greenwood, who had not had the benefit of such papers as MPs in opposition. It stated:

  If we decline to send any further fighter assistance to France or to continue the support which we are now affording with these squadrons in England for more than a few days at a time at most, then it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the French Army may give up the struggle. If, on the other hand, we continue to accept this constant drain on the vital defences of this country in order to sustain French resistance, then a time will arrive when our ability to defend this country will disappear. We do not believe that to throw in a few more squadrons, whose loss might vitally weaken the fighter line at home, would make the difference between victory and defeat in France.

  On 21 May, Churchill made a statement to the House of Commons:

  With regard to the Business of the House, tomorrow, as already announced, we shall take the Second Reading of the Treachery Bill. I think it is desirable that we should ask the House not only to take the Second Reading, but the Committee and remaining stages so that the Bill may become law as early as possible.40

  The Bill passed through the House of Commons without dissent on the evening of 22 May 1940, only the second sitting day after the Labour Party and the Liberals had joined the Government. The Treason Act made it possible to detain without trial anyone suspected of treasonable activities. As a result, many German spies were arrested and subsequently shot, though some were turned into spies to work against their first masters. That evening an amendment to Regulation 18B of the First World War Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was also passed, which made possible the arrest of Sir Oswald Mosley41 and other members of the British Union of Fascists. Yet another example of how controversial this legislation would have been in the Commons without a cross-party coalition government.

  On the morning of 22 May, Chamberlain informed the War Cabinet that, in light of the grave news from France and owing to the difficulty of ascertaining exactly the circumstances of the country, the Prime Minister had decided to go, and was now on his way to Paris to meet M. Reynaud and General Weygand. During his absence, the Prime Minister had requested that Chamberlain should take his place, endorsing “whatever decision might be taken in his absence in regard to the assumption of such additional powers by the Government as might be considered necessary to me
et the present situation”.

  The first of these additional powers concerned the approval of Defence Regulation No. 54B, which gave the Government power over local authorities. The Regulation had been discussed the previous evening by a Committee which included all the Members of the War Cabinet, with the exception of the Prime Minister, and it had been unanimously agreed to submit the Regulation to His Majesty for approval.

  Churchill reached Vincennes Grand Quartier Général (GQG) about midday, accompanied by the British Ambassador to Paris Sir Ronald Campbell, General Sir John Dill, Air Vice-Marshal Peirse, and General Ismay. M. Paul Reynaud was accompanied by Captain de Margerie, Cabinet Secretary April–June 1940. General Weygand welcomed the two Prime Ministers to his General Staff Headquarters and conducted them to the Map Room. Lt.-Col. de Villelume, Reynaud’s private military adviser, who, according to General Spears, Reynaud had great confidence in, wrote in his diary for 22 May:

  After having called on Simon to explain the situation, General Weygand, using a map, showed that the combined Anglo-Franco-Belgian force amounted to forty divisions. Whilst the Belgian army would provide cover to the East and North, available French and British forces would have to attack in the general direction of Saint-Quentin to reach the flank of the German armoured divisions. At the same time, the Frère army would sort out the latter by launching an offensive in a northerly direction.

  Churchill and Dill fully approved what Weygand had said. The Prime Minister added that Gort’s force only had four days of provisions left and that re-supplying these via the Channel ports had become risky. His assessment was that it was all the more necessary to attack in the direction of Arras-Bapaume.

  General Weygand then advised the British with firmness that their fighters and bombers should fully engage only in that battle and renounce actions further afield. [Air Vice-Marshal] Peirse objected as some of the bombers, namely the Wellingtons, could only fly at night. It was finally agreed that the RAF would wholly support troops on the ground. Fighter Command would attack in successive waves. As they were starting on English soil they would only have twenty minutes flying time left over enemy lines.