Cabinet's Finest Hour Page 15

  17.00 I jot down the following: “We have to make peace as long as we have an army. When we have none left, the peace that will be imposed on us will be catastrophic – but in the end will Germany even accept it? Italy does not wish us to be completely crushed, but it will only be able to play a role in this as long as we still have cards up our sleeves. Conclusion: take action towards Rome to agree the necessary sacrifices if this is still possible”.

  18.10 Campbell arranged for the following message he had received from Churchill to be taken to Mr Paul Reynaud:

  “My telegram last night informed you of all that we know here and so far we have heard nothing from Lord Gort to contradict it – but I have to tell you that an officer from Staff Headquarters has submitted a report to the War Office confirming the withdrawal of two divisions from the Arras area, which was mentioned in your telegram. General Dill, who must currently be with Lord Gort, was instructed to send over by air an officer from Staff Headquarters. As soon as we know the outcome, we will let you know in full. It is clear, however, that the northern army is almost completely surrounded and that their communications have been cut except for Dunkirk and Ostend”.

  Late into the evening I visited the Prime Minister together with Baudouin and Leca. I explained the reasons why I believed it was necessary, as a matter of urgency, for Italy to act as mediator but I added that such a power would not agree with just a sweetener”. It needs something more substantial. As far as we know and according to logic, its deepest aspirations are the means of its independence rather than any expansion of its territory. It wishes to ensure above all that it has free access to both entries to the Mediterranean. Hence it was essential to convince the British to make a sacrifice in this respect.

  After a long discussion, Paul Reynaud decided to leave with me the following day for London. Having been advised of the visit over the telephone, Churchill replied that he awaited the Prime Minister. I then proceeded to collect until midnight the necessary information from Colonel Bourget59 and various officers. None of them seemed too sure of their figures, often hesitating on essential points.

  Next day, 26 May, at 5.00 pm, in a restricted meeting for the first time of the five politicians that made up the War Cabinet, a detailed discussion was held about approaching Signor Mussolini. The record of these discussions is the basis of Chapter 4. It was also the day that the French Prime Minister visited London. It is worth noting that Attlee had not only studied the Italian Renaissance at Oxford, but spoke fluent Italian. Italy was a country he knew much about.

  De Villelume records60 the visit to London of the French Prime Minister Reynaud:

  Sunday 26 May

  On early arrival at the Prime Minister’s private residence I had the unpleasant surprise to find de Margerie there. He had come to seek authorisation to accompany us to London, whereas he had stated yesterday that I alone would travel with Paul Reynaud.

  It was quite a long journey via the south of the Seine. We were escorted by six fighter aircraft.

  Whilst the Prime Minister was talking with Corbin61 in his office, I went into an adjoining room to write a note. The object was to show Paul Reynaud that we should not have any scruples opposite the British and provide him with a number of replies to Churchill. I reminded him of our grievances with regard to our allies: German rearmament; breach by Britain on 7 March 1936 of its obligations under the Treaty of Locarno, even though this had been ratified and recorded; separate negotiation with Italy in 1938 during which some of our interests were treacherously sacrificed; failure of the negotiations with Russia; direct action in 1939 at the breakout of the war; failure of the expedition in Norway; breach of the agreements of 27 April; lack of action by Gort to Weygand’s orders; derisory air support. It would be reasonable for Britain to make substantial concessions to Italy at Suez and Gibraltar to compensate for so many errors and disloyalties.

  I took this note to the Prime Minister who was in Corbin’s office and I left immediately. Unfortunately, Paul Reynaud cannot decipher my scribble. He called me just as I was at the door to ask me to read it out loud. I was rather put out as it is somewhat inelegant to disturb our host so directly. Moreover, the ambassador’s reactions were restrained.

  Shortly afterwards the President left to dine in private with Churchill. After this he had to attend a war meeting at the War Office in 10 Downing Street.

  Whilst the above was in progress, I dined at the Embassy. De Margerie did the same. On leaving the table I had a conversation with Corbin, which lasted several hours. My impression, maybe incorrectly, was that I had led him to support some of my ideas, or at least, to consider them less scandalous than they had seemed at first sight.

  At about four o’clock, Paul Reynaud returned to the Embassy. He told us that Halifax was the only one to have shown some understanding; Churchill as prisoner of the swashbuckling attitude he always takes in front of his ministers was decidedly negative. I asked the Prime Minister if he had threatened him to reach a separate peace. He replied to me positively but stated that it had served no purpose. I gained the impression that Paul Reynaud had only dangled the threat, if Italy were to enter the arena as the result of a lack of British concessions. Furthermore, it would appear that his sole objective in these negotiations was to determine the means likely to prevent Mussolini from declaring war. I believe that mine, which was on a par with his, was completely neglected.[…]

  We returned with a fourth passenger, namely Spaak, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Belgium, as well as another member of the Belgian Government. Whilst flying over Lisieux, with the intention of landing at Chartres, we received at the last minute a radiotelegraphic message from staff headquarters to abort and fly on to Le Bourget. It appeared that German fighter aircraft were present around Évreux.

  On 27 May Spears wrote from Paris to Churchill having had a long talk with Reynaud, who “I thought rather yellow at the gills … He added that he himself would go on to the end but he could not disguise the fact that if the Germans really advanced on the Seine others ready to negotiate would replace him … I have located the nigger on the fence [sic] as far as Reynaud is concerned, the pessimist who, fat and sly, sits next door to him pouring defeatism in his ears. It is Lt Col de Villelume … If [Villelume] is half as dishonest and furtive as he looks, he has Fagin beat by furlongs … The French people are not angry yet. They are resolute and calm but bewildered.”62

  There is little doubt from some of Villelume’s comments and interpretation of history that he was not averse to stirring the pot of Anglo-French relations. But the real strains in relations were to emerge later in June as surrender loomed. Meanwhile the War Cabinet ministerial meetings on an approach to Italy were due to start on 26 May.

  1 Neville Chamberlain, The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Downing Street Years 1934–40. Ed. Robert C Self (Routledge, 2005), pp 528–530.

  2 Ibid, p 530.

  3 Neville Chamberlain, The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Downing Street Years 1934–40. Ed. Robert C Self, pp 531–532.

  4 Ibid, p 532.

  5 Ibid, p 535.

  6 Neville Chamberlain, The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Downing Street Years 1934–40. Ed. Robert C Self, pp 535–536.

  7 Ibid, p 537.

  8 William Manchester, The Caged Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1932–1940 (Michael Joseph, 1988).

  9 Neville Chamberlain, The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Downing Street Years 1934–40. Ed. Robert C Self, p 537.

  10 Ibid.

  11 Richard Toye, Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness (Pan Macmillan, 2008), p 351.

  12 Ibid, p 363.

  13 Neville Chamberlain, The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Downing Street Years 1934–40. Ed. Robert C Self, p 538.

  14 Hugh Purcell, Lloyd George (Haus Publishing, 2006), p 109.

  15 Roy Hattersley, David Lloyd George (Little Brown, 2010), pp 623–625.

  16 Peter Rowland, David Lloyd George: A Biography (P
an Macmillan: 1976), p 744.

  17 Ibid, p 772.

  18 Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, Volume II: Never Surrender May 1940–December 1940 (Heinemann, 1994), pp 194–195. An invaluable record of events, brilliantly edited by Martin Gilbert, from which I draw all documents from the period of May 1940–December 1940, unless otherwise indicated.

  19 Roy Hattersley, David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider (Hachette UK, 2010).

  20 Roy Hattersley, David Lloyd George, pp 629–633.

  21 Winston S. Churchill, Never Give In! Winston Churchill’s Speeches (A & C Black, 2013), p 317.

  22 Graham Macklin, Chamberlain (Haus Publishing, 2006), p 98.

  23 Neville Chamberlain, The Neville Chamberlain Diary Letters: The Downing Street Years 1934–40. Ed. Robert C Self, p 554.

  24 Alan Bullock, Baron Bullock, The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin: Trade Union Leader 1881–1940 (Heinemann, 1960), pp 651–652.

  25 Richard Toye, The Labour Party and the Planned Economy (Boydell & Brewer, 2003), p 118.

  26 Ernest Bevin, The Job to be Done (Heinemann, 1942), p 16.

  27 Roy Jenkins, Churchill (Pan Macmillan, 2012), p 634.

  28 Major General Ismay, known as ‘Pug’, was born in 1887. After Sandhurst, he started active service in India in 1908, and Somaliland from 1914–20. He was Military Secretary to the Viceroy of India from 1931–33; Deputy Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence 1936–38; Secretary in Succession to Sir Maurice Hankey in 1938; and Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence Winston Churchill 1940–45.

  29 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F. D. Roosevelt, 1939 (Best Books, 1941), p 463.

  30 Robert E. Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L Hopkins: An Intimate History, Volume I, September 1939–January 1942 (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948), p 3.

  31 Ibid, p 125.

  32 Robert E Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L Hopkins: An Intimate History, p 143.

  33 Ibid, p xii.

  34 Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, p 75.

  35 Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, p 78.

  36 Richard Stafford Cripps, Labour MP 1931–50. Ambassador to Moscow, 1940–2. Minister of Aircraft Production, 1942–5. President of the Board of Trade, 1945. Minister for Economic Affairs, 1947. Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1947–50.

  37 Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, p 72.

  38 Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, p 97.

  39 Cabinet papers, 66/7.

  40 William George Andrews, European Political Institutions: a comparative government reader (Van Nostrand, 1966), p 475.

  41 Sir Oswald Mosley, principally known as the founder of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). MP for Harrow 1918–24 and Smethwick 1926–31. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Labour Government of 1929–31. Formed the New Party which merged with the BUF (also known as the Blackshirts) in 1932. Interned in 1940, released in 1943.

  42 Recent English translation from Paul de Villelume, Journal d’une défaite (23 août 1939 – 16 juin 1940). Preface de René Rémond (Grandes Études Contemporaines Fayard, 1976), pp 344–346.

  43 According to Reynaud, he had told Churchill, “Weygand is satisfied. We ought not to change anything. We must follow the path which we have traced out. We must go on.” Paul Reynaud, In the Thick of the Fight (London, 1955), p 369. The italics were Reynaud’s own.

  44 Recent English translation from Paul de Villelume, Journal d’une défaite (23 août 1939 – 16 juin 1940).

  45 David Duff, George and Elizabeth: A Royal Marriage (Sphere, 1984), p 177.

  46 Sir Ronald Campbell: Ambassador in Paris since 1939.

  47 Cabinet papers, 65/7.

  48 Emile de Cartier, Baron de Marchienne.

  49 Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff 1939–41, Tom Spencer Vaughan Phillips. Drowned when his flagship, the Prince of Wales, was sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers on 10 December 1941.

  50 Sonic Armour Piercing ammunition.

  51 Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, p 139.

  52 Brigadier C N Nicholson, Commanding the four battalions of the 30th Brigade, Calais 1940. Captured by the Germans on the late afternoon of 26 May, he was taken prisoner and died in a German prisoner-of-war camp.

  53 Martin Gilbert, The Churchill War Papers, pp 137–138.

  54 Winston Churchill, Their Finest Hour (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1986), p 65.

  55 Recent English translation from Paul de Villelume, Journal d’une défaite (23 aoôt 1939 – 16 juin 1940). Preface de René Rémond (Grandes Études Contemporaines Fayard, 1976), pp 349–354.

  56 Head of Artillery

  57 Sub-Lieutenant Imbert of the 41st Artillery Regiment assured me later that on about 20 June he had seen at least one hundred de Bange cannons at the Clermont-Ferrand artillery yard.

  58 General Pierre Héring, Governor of Paris. He will be the one to call on the Government to leave for Bordeaux.

  59 Colonel P-A Bourget: Chief of Staff and Principal Private Secretary to Weygand.

  60 Recent English translation from Paul de Villelume, Journald’une défaite (23 août 1939 – 16 juin 1940). Preface de René Rémond (Grandes Études Contemporaines Villelume, Fayard, 1976) pp 355–6.

  61 French Ambassador in London.

  62 PREM 3/188/6.

  4

  The Hidden Agenda

  Minutes of the War Cabinet

  “Future generations may deem it noteworthy that the supreme question of whether we should fight on alone never found a place on the War Cabinet agenda. It was taken for granted and as a matter of course by these men of all parties in the state, and we were much too busy to waste time on such unreal, academic issues.”

  Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 2: Their Finest Hour

  (London, 1949)

  That categorical assertion at the start of Chapter Nine of Their Finest Hour is described by professor David Reynolds “… strictly correct yet seriously misleading. There are no items of the Cabinet minutes headed ‘Surrender’ or ‘Negotiated Peace’.”1 But when Churchill wrote that chapter he was writing the most significant cover-up in the book. In 1949 he was Leader of the Opposition and a general election was due after the five-year limit for a parliament had almost been reached. Prime Minister Attlee held a massive majority and Churchill knew that the 1950 election would be very difficult to win. He made the decision to exclude the details of the Cabinet meetings as a politician, not an historian. It suited his election strategy for he cast himself as the indomitable figure, resolute, uncompromising for victory whatever the cost. He was being censored by Whitehall to conceal secrets – for example, he was not allowed to describe ‘Enigma’ or the work of the Bletchley Park code breakers – and he censored his comments on people like de Gaulle, Eisenhower and Tito whom he expected to meet again when back in government, so a little censorship concerning his own image was not so reprehensible. As someone commented, Churchill fought the war twice over, first as Prime Minister and then as its premier historian. We can understand why he distorted history, but we must not forget that he did distort it. This record of nine highly secret ministerial meetings, from 26 to 28 May 1940 reveals the truth. Churchill was the leader of a War Cabinet in which his voice was powerful, but not all-powerful.

  As Churchill wrote, “Those of us who were responsible at the summit in London understood the physical structure of our island strength and were sure of the spirit of the nation. The confidence with which we faced the immediate future was not founded, as was commonly supposed abroad, upon audacious bluff or rhetorical appeal, but upon a sober consciousness and calculation of practical facts.” It was in no sense “academic”. Here are the facts, and here are the sober calculations for you, the reader, to make your own assessment.

  The following Chapter has been arranged so that on the left hand side, on even page numbers, you can read a continuous account of seven confidential ministerial War Cabinet meetings. On the opp
osite right hand side, on odd page numbers, you can read the actual documents the ministers had before them at the time.

  This pattern is followed for the majority of the chapter, until page 156, when a series of documents available to Cabinet ministers run alongside the arguably most essential read for ministers ‘British Strategy in the Near Future’. The Eighth Meeting of Ministers (page 193) is directly followed by the Ninth Meeting (page 196). The chapter ends on a series of recollections and diary extracts from the later writings of Dalton, Amery and Churchill.

  Defence Committee Meeting at Admiralty (Cabinet papers 69/1)

  25 May 1940

  10 p.m.

  The Prime Minister directed that a Meeting of the War Cabinet should be held at 9 o’clock on the morning of Sunday, 26 May. (DO:) At that meeting the following extract of the minutes was read out to the ministers from the Defence Committee of the previous day.

  March to the Coast

  The Prime Minister summed up the plans outlined in discussion as follows:—

  (1)Lord Gort should march north to the coast, in battle order, under strong rearguards, striking at all forces between himself and the sea.

  This plan should, if possible, be prepared in conjunction with General Blanchard, and the Belgians should be informed.

  (2)A plan should at once be prepared on these lines, and the Navy should prepare all possible means for re-embarkation, not only at the ports but on the beaches.

  (3)The RAF should dominate the air above the area involved.

  (4)The warning telegram should at once be sent by the War Office to Lord Gort to draw up a scheme on these lines, on the assumption that the march would start on the night of the 26th/27th, but informing him not to give effect to this plan without further orders from the War Cabinet.