Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (46 page)

Churchill’s Commons tribute to Moyne seemed to confirm that the atrocity had been counterproductive. His eulogy was clearly marked by personal grief, and the House listened in grim silence.
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On 17 November he followed it up with a further statement to MPs:

This shameful crime has shocked the world. It has affected none more strongly than those, like myself, who, in the past, have been consistent friends of the Jews and constant architects of their future. If our dreams for Zionism are to end in the smoke of assassins’ pistols and our labours for its future to produce only a new set of gangsters worthy of Nazi Germany, many like myself will have to reconsider the position we have maintained so consistently and so long in the past.
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Moyne’s murder led to a sea-change in Churchill’s attitude to Zionism. It is, however, important to remember that, in spite of the extravagance of some of his language, his support for it had always had limits. Earlier in the war, primed by Chaim Weizmann, he had lent his support to the idea that a Jewish Palestine could be included in a wider Arab Federation to be headed by King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. That plan foundered – inevitably – on the rock of Ibn Saud’s opposition.
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Subsequently, Churchill told the Cabinet that he was ‘committed to [the] creation of a Jewish National Home in Palestine’. This should be proceeded with, he said, adding that at the end of the war, ‘we shall have plenty of force with which to compel the Arabs to acquiesce in our designs’.
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In 1944 the Cabinet reached agreement on the principle that Palestine should be partitioned into Arab and Jewish areas, which arguably fulfilled the ‘National Home’ pledge. Yet this did not satisfy the Zionists – who wanted the Jews to achieve a majority in the whole of Palestine through immigration – as Weizmann made clear in a meeting with Churchill two days before Moyne was shot. Churchill though, refused to listen to his arguments and made it plain that no more favourable plan was on offer. After Moyne’s murder – which Weizmann condemned – Churchill instructed that discussion of even this scheme be put to one side. Although Roosevelt found him ‘as strongly pro-Zionist as ever’, in the spring of 1945, Churchill (perhaps influenced by Smuts’s opposition to it) refused to revive the partition plan.
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That July, he reacted to US criticisms of his government’s policy in Palestine by suggesting that Britain should give up responsibility ‘for managing this very difficult place’. He wrote: ‘I am not aware of the slightest advantage which has ever accrued to Great Britain from this painful and thankless task. Somebody else should have their turn now’.
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Significantly, he never met Weizmann again, in spite of describing him in the Commons as ‘a very old friend of mine’.
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The suggestion of international involvement in Palestine made, of course, a strong contrast with Churchill’s normal antipathy to outside interference in the Empire’s affairs. On the last day of 1944, after an American request for British proposals on the colonial question, he wrote a minute about the trusteeship issue:

There must be no question of our being hustled or seduced into declarations affecting British sovereignty in any of the Dominions or Colonies. Pray remember my declaration against liquidating the British Empire. If the Americans want to take Japanese islands which they have conquered, let them do so with our blessing and any form of words that may be agreeable to them. But ‘Hands off the British Empire’ is our maxim and it must not be weakened or smirched to please sob-stuff merchants at home or foreigners of any hue.
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The showdown on trusteeship came in February 1945 at the Big Three conference at Yalta in the Crimea.
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(Beforehand, Churchill and Roosevelt had met at Malta – which earlier in the war had earned the admiration of both by withstanding a devastating siege – although the ailing President, who had only weeks to live, avoided substantive talks on political questions.)
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The foreign ministers of all three countries were able to agree that, prior to the forthcoming conference that was to establish the UN organization, the great powers should consult each other on the establishment of trusteeships. But when Edward Stettinius (who had replaced Cordell Hull as Secretary of State) reported this to Stalin, FDR and Churchill, the latter declared that he would never ‘consent to forty or fifty nations thrusting interfering fingers into the life’s existence of the British Empire’.
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Furthermore, ‘After we have done our best to fight in this war and have done no crime to anyone I will have no suggestion that the British Empire is to be put into the dock and examined by everybody to see whether it is up to their standard.’
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In his memoirs Eden described how Stalin ‘got up from his chair, walked up and down, beamed, and at intervals broke into applause’.
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Yet in spite of the pyrotechnics, Churchill slipped up when it came to the detail. Eager to calm him down, Stettinius reassured him that the trusteeship proposal related to the stripping of Japan of islands it held under League of Nations mandates and told him, ‘We have had nothing in mind with reference to the British Empire.’
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These comments were not intended to deceive, but they appear to have lulled Churchill into a false sense of security. He went on to approve a formula whereby trusteeship would apply to a) existing League mandates, b) territory taken away from enemy states as a consequence of the war, and c) any territories that might be placed under trusteeship voluntarily. As Britain did hold existing mandates, for example Tanganyika, the proposal clearly did apply to parts of her Empire, regardless of what Stettinius had said.
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It is unclear whether Churchill ever realized his error; either way, he convinced himself that there was ‘Not much to fear’ as the new world organization would ‘make a mess’ of its responsibilities.
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He was too sanguine. Over the coming years the UN’s Trusteeship Council was to create many opportunities for vocal international criticism of Britain’s colonial policies, contributing significantly to the growing movement for rapid decolonization.
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The episode shows that, although Churchill was more vocally committed to the maintenance of the Empire than many of his fellow politicians, he was by no means immune to the pressures to which later governments were forced to succumb.

Churchill returned from Yalta via Cairo. While in Egypt he met King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, joining him for an enormous lunch. The British were given whisky and soda, albeit in coloured glasses and described as ‘medicine’ in order not to offend Islamic sensibilities.
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Churchill raised the question of Palestine (which shows he had not lost interest in it altogether). According to the King, ‘Mr Churchill opened the subject confidently wielding the big stick’, drawing attention to the subsidies given him in the past and urging compromise with Zionism. The King said that such a compromise would be ‘an act of treachery to the Prophet’ and that at any rate it would do Britain no good, ‘since the promotion of Zionism from any quarter must indubitably bring bloodshed, wide-spread disorder in the arab lands, with certainly no benefit to Britain or any one else’. Ibn Saud observed: ‘By this time Mr Churchill had laid the big stick down.’
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Egypt’s King Farouk, whom Churchill met next, was more pliable. The conversation was recorded by Lord Killearn, the British High Commissioner. Farouk was young, sybaritic and ineffectual. Although the head of a nominally independent state, it was clear where the power lay. In 1942, Killearn (then Sir Miles Lampson) had forced Farouk to choose between abdication or the formation of a new government acceptable to the British, making the position clear by surrounding his palace with tanks. Churchill spent a fair part of the discussion telling Farouk

that he should take a definite line in regard to the improvement of the social conditions in Egypt. He ventured to affirm that nowhere in the world were the conditions of extreme wealth and extreme poverty so glaring. What an opportunity for a young Sovereign to come forward and champion the interests and living conditions of his people? Why not take from the rich Pashas some of their superabundant wealth and devote it to the improvement of the living conditions of the fellaheen?

This was highly revealing of Churchill’s attitudes, and not only because it showed that his concern with economic development, which had been especially strong during the Edwardian period, was still present. Equally striking was his romantic conception that the problems could easily be taken in hand by a progressive ‘young Sovereign’, ignoring both the corrupt nature of the regime and the likely difficulties that Farouk would have faced even if he had been serious about tackling poverty. Churchill also urged the execution of Lord Moyne’s assassins, who had been sentenced to death but who had not yet been hanged.
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He had previously complained to Killearn about the delay, saying that failure to carry out the executions (which in due course went ahead) would be a ‘gross interference with the course of justice’ and would likely cause a breach in Anglo-Egyptian relations.
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Churchill does not seem to have reflected that his own pressure was itself an attempted interference with the judicial process.

In March 1945 another of Killearn’s visitors was Wavell, returning to London for consultations. The Viceroy wanted to discuss with ministers his ideas for constitutional progress. Churchill had agreed to this only reluctantly. Wavell’s credibility with the Prime Minister had been dented by his decision in May 1944 to release Gandhi on medical grounds. His prediction that ‘Gandhi is unlikely ever to be an active factor in politics again’ had soon been falsified, which led to ‘a peevish telegram’ from Churchill asking ‘why Gandhi hadn’t died yet!’
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A letter from Gandhi to Churchill received no reply.
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Wavell had continued to press for some political initiative and Churchill had in turn denounced him in Cabinet ‘for betraying this country’s interests in order to curry favour with the Indians.’ (On that occasion Amery told the Prime Minister ‘to stop talking damned nonsense’; previously he had said that he ‘didn’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s’.)
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Eventually, Amery joined forces with Cripps to make the Prime Minister accept that Wavell’s desire for forward movement could no longer be ignored. Having given in, Churchill wrote a letter to his wife from Malta, while on his way to the Crimea. In this he confided his ‘feeling of despair about the British connection with India’ and about what would happen if it were broken. ‘Meanwhile we are holding onto this vast Empire, from which we get nothing, amid the increasing criticism and abuse of the world, and our own people, and increasing hatred of the Indian population, who receive constant and deadly propaganda to which we can make no reply. However out of my shadows has come a renewed resolve to go on fighting on as long as possible and to make sure the Flag is not let down while I am at the wheel.’ These thoughts had been prompted by reading a book by the author Beverley Nichols,
Verdict on India
(1944). The book denounced the Hindus, so it is not too surprising that Churchill agreed with it. More striking is the fact that – as he also told Clementine – he agreed with its support for the principle of Pakistan.
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His remarks on similar lines to Butler in 1943 had not been merely casual ones.

Wavell’s sojourn in London was not a happy one. One caller found that he cut a rather sad figure in the ‘cheerless’ room granted him at the India Office and noted, ‘The girl messenger who was looking after his visitors did not know how to spell his name.’
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The Viceroy was not a natural politician – he was disconcertingly lacking in small-talk – and he had to contend with the fact that Churchill and many of his ministers were uninterested in discussing India. At his (somewhat belated) first meeting with the Prime Minister, Churchill said, ‘you must have mercy on us’, and suggested that, in view of the government’s many difficulties, constitutional progress in India ‘could be kept on ice’. Wavell stated firmly that the issue was urgent, which prompted ‘a long jeremiad’ from Churchill in which he indicated his support for partition. ‘He talked as if I was proposing to “Quit India”, change the Constitution, and hand over India right away,’ Wavell noted, ‘and I had to interrupt him a number of times.’
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Excluded from key meetings and denied the chance to see key documents, the Viceroy soon felt like ‘an Untouchable in the presence of Brahmins’.
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He did, however, have significant support from the unholy alliance of left-wing Cripps and right-wing Amery. Amery took care to ensure Churchill knew that if Wavell was forced to resign then he and Cripps would too.