Never Give In! (25 page)

Agree with thine adversary quickly while thou art in the way with him.

Let us free the world from the approach of a catastrophe, carrying with it calamity and tribulation, beyond the tongue of man to tell.

‘HITLER HAS TORN UP THE TREATIES AND GARRISONED THE RHINELAND’

6 April 1936

House of Commons

As Hitler’s actions became more brazen and the British and French Governments more craven, Churchill’s warnings took on an added stridency and urgency.

Herr Hitler has torn up treaties and has garrisoned the Rhineland. His troops are there, and there they are going to stay. All this means that the Nazi régime has gained a new prestige in Germany and in all the neighbouring countries. But more than that. Germany is now fortifying the Rhine zone, or is about to fortify it. No doubt it will take some time. We are told that in the first instance only field entrenchments will be erected, but those who know to what perfection the Germans can carry field entrenchments like the Hindenburg Line, with all the masses of concrete and the underground chambers there included – those who remember that will realise that field entrenchments differ only in degree from permanent fortifications, and work steadily up from the first cutting of the sods to their final and perfect form.

I do not doubt that the whole of the German frontier opposite to France is to be fortified as strongly and as speedily as possible. Three, four or six months will certainly see a barrier of enormous strength. What will be the diplomatic and strategic consequences of that? I am not dealing with the technical aspect, but with the diplomatic reactions. The creation of a line of forts opposite to the French frontier will enable the German troops to be economised on that line, and will enable the main forces to swing round through Belgium and Holland. That is for us a danger of the most serious kind. Suppose we broke with France. Suppose these efforts to divide the last surviving free democracies of the Western world were successful and they were sundered, and suppose that France, isolated, could do no more than defend her own frontier behind Belgium and Holland by prolonging her fortress line, those small countries might very speedily pass under German domination, and the large colonial empires which they possess would no doubt be transferred at the same time. These are matters that ought not to escape our attention.

I thought that the Prime Minister’s remark which he made some years ago about our frontier being the Rhine [30 July 1934] was liable at the time to be misunderstood; but if he meant that it was a mortal danger to Britain to have the Low Countries in the fortified grip of the strongest military power upon the Continent, and now, in these days, to have all the German aviation bases established there, he was only repeating the lesson taught in four centuries of history. That danger will be brought definitely and sensibly nearer from the moment that this new line of German fortifications is completed. But then, look East. There the consequences of the Rhineland fortification may be more immediate. That is to us a less direct danger, but is a more imminent danger. The moment those fortifications are completed, and in proportion as they are completed, the whole aspect of Middle Europe is changed. The Baltic States, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, with which must be associated Yugoslavia, Rumania, Austria and some other countries, are all affected very decisively the moment that this great work of construction has been completed.

Some of those nations, but not all, are now balancing in deep perplexity what course they should take. Should they continue in their association with the League of Nations and with what is called collective security and the reign of law? Or should they make the best terms they can with the one resolute, warlike Power which is stirring in Europe at the present time? That is the question they have to ask themselves. If nothing satisfactory has been achieved by the negotiations and conferences which no doubt will occupy a large part of this year, we may see many powerful nations, with armies and air forces, associated with the German Nazi system, and the other nations who are opposed to that system isolated and practically helpless. It is idle to say that these are not matters which the House of Commons should view with vigilance and attention. It is idle to pretend that these are only matters affecting the obscurities, the politics and the hatreds of Central Europe.

‘THANK GOD FOR THE FRENCH ARMY’

24 September 1936

Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris

Next to the English Channel, the French Army
–
many times the size of Britain’s – was the principal bulwark standing between Britain and the armoured might of Nazi Germany. Here Churchill does what he can to put some backbone and resolve into the government of France. Sadly, his faith in the French Army was to prove misplaced.

There are three kinds of nations in the world at the present time. There are the nations which are governed by the Nazis; there are the nations which are governed by the Bolshevists, and there are the nations which govern themselves. It is this third class of nations in which the French and English peoples are most interested. We are interested in the nations which govern themselves through Parliaments freely elected under a democratic franchise. These are the nations where the people have the right to criticise the Ministers and functionaries of State. They can choose the complexion of the Government they wish to manage their affairs. They can hold public meetings to express all their different opinions. The individual citizen has the right if aggrieved to sue the State at law, and impartial Courts are provided which pronounce whether he or the executive power is in the right. In these countries the State exists to protect the rights of the individual, to enable him to make the best of himself, and to secure the free development of family life within the cottage home. We live in countries where the people own the Government and not in countries where the Government owns the people. Thought is free; speech is free; religion is free; no one can say that the Press is not free; in short, we live in a liberal society, the direct product of the great advances in human dignity, stature, and well-being which will ever be the glory of the nineteenth century.

We have also the feeling that in France, England, the United States, in Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and Scandinavia we not only have liberal constitutions which secure our rights, but we have been able to produce a greater material prosperity more widely diffused among the masses of the people than any form of despotism has yet been able to show. In these self-governing countries we may also claim to lead the world alike in accumulated wealth and in compassionate treatment of misfortune.

We must recognise that we have a great treasure to guard; that the inheritance in our possession represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause?

I am sure that the French, British, or American democracies would be very miserable if they were suddenly put under Nazi or Bolshevist rule. France and England are the chief architects of modern civilisation, and the United States is the heir and champion of our ideas. How could we bear, nursed as we have been in a free atmosphere, to be gagged and muzzled; to have spies, eavesdroppers, and delators at every corner; to have even private conversation caught up and used against us by the secret police and all their agents and creatures; to be arrested and interned without trial; or to be tried by political or party courts for crimes hitherto unknown to civil law? How could we bear to be treated like schoolboys when we are grown-up men; to be turned out on parade by tens of thousands to march and cheer for this slogan or for that; to see philosophers, teachers, and authors bullied and toiled to death in concentration camps; to be forced every hour to conceal the natural normal workings of the human intellect and the pulsations of the human heart? Rather than submit to such oppression there is no length we would not go. Our cause is good. Our rights are good. Let us make sure that our arms are good. Let us make sure that our conduct is wise. Let us make sure that it is governed by forethought and statesmanship.

The French Republic and the British Empire should stand shoulder to shoulder against aggression. After all we are not so weak and helpless as some people make out. Four years ago when things were very different I exclaimed to the House of Commons, ‘Thank God for the French Army.’ I repeat it here today with the instructed conviction that that Army is today the finest in the world. The future is not so certain – there are grave anxieties about the future – but it is something to speak with confidence of today. Of the British Fleet I can speak with particular assurance. It is certainly far stronger in relation to any fleet or combination of fleets in Europe than it was in 1914, and by the arrangements which are now being made by his Majesty’s Government its preponderance will certainly be maintained in the future. There remains the problem of the Air, which requires the most urgent study of the Western democracies and greater exertions than either of them has yet made. But at any rate it would be a great mistake to suppose that we are either of us defenceless in this new arm at the present time. Here at any rate are means of defence which leave us still masters of our fortunes.

But good defences alone would never enable us by themselves to survive in the modern grim gigantic world. There must be added to those defences the sovereign power of generous motives and of high ideals, in fact, that cause of freedom, moral and intellectual, which I have endeavoured to describe. We must trust something to the power of enlightened ideas. We must trust much to our resolve not to be impatient or quarrelsome or arrogant. We seek peace. We long for peace. We pray for peace. We seek no territory. We aim at no invidious monopoly of raw materials. Our hearts are clean. We have no old scores to repay. We submit ourselves whole-heartedly, nay proudly, to the Covenant of the League of Nations. We desire faithfully and fairly to bear our part in building up a true collective security which shall not only lighten the burden of the toiling millions, but also provide the means by which the grievances of great dissatisfied nations, if well-founded, can be peacefully adjusted.

Another Great War would extinguish what is left of the civilisation of the world, and the glory of Europe would sink for uncounted generations into the dark abyss. We wish to prevent this war. We can only do so if we are armed and strong, if we are united upon fundamental principles, if we serve with equal loyalty side by side for the same high purpose, for no selfish purpose, no narrowly national purpose, no reactionary purpose, but a purpose known to us all, comprehended by us all, a purpose worthy of the genius of mankind.

It is the nature of extremists to be violent and furious, whereas the great central mass of temperate, tolerant, good-natured humanity is apt to be feeble in action and leadership. But if the cause of ordered freedom, of representative government, of the rights of the individual against the State is worth defending, it is surely worth defending efficiently. If we are to be drawn into such a competition let us make sure we win. Let us make sure that the force of right is not in the last resort deprived of the right of force. In Britain as in France the great mass of good people mean the right thing. Let those who have the responsibility of leadership make sure that they get it.

When we speak of representative or Parliamentary government we mean a system which faithfully and punctually gives those guarantees of law and order, or justice, tolerance, and fair play without which no Parliament or parley is possible. A Parliamentary régime must not become a mere fraudulent pretence to cover the advances of Nazi-ism or Communism. It was a grave fault in the Spanish Ministers that they continued to accept responsibility after they had ceased to have power. Their names stood for Parliamentary government; but others were acting in their names. That is a betrayal of trust. And this feature has justified, nay imposed upon us, a strict neutrality.

When we speak of collective security we mean a real collective security. We do not mean merely that one or two Powers should run great risks while others fail to play their part according to their strength; we certainly do not mean a multiplication of risks for some without equal or even any compensating protection. We do not mean that the peace-seeking nations should disarm while those who glorify war forge their weapons and array their regiments. Secondly, when we seek this real collective security for ourselves we offer it most earnestly to all others. Great Britain and France ask for themselves no single guarantee of safety and independence that they are not willing and resolute to extend to the great German people, with whom we all sincerely desire to dwell in peace and goodwill.

Someone asked me: ‘If Germany and Russia went to war, would you be in favour of Germany or of Russia?’ That is a very easy question to answer. Our feelings and any action we are bound to take under the Covenant of the League of Nations would be against the unprovoked aggressor. It would not be a question of Germany or Russia. It would not be a question of Right or Left. It would be a question of right or wrong. I should like to see, and there are many in Britain who think with me, so tremendous an organisation of nations ready to fall upon the aggressor that no one would dare to break the peace of Europe. If Governments are to band themselves together for collective security, it follows that they must rigorously abstain from organised interference in the internal affairs of their neighbours and fellow members in the League. When we speak of aggression we mean unprovoked aggression. Propaganda carried on by foreign money in any country is a serious form of provocation.