The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 (208 page)

Early in 1938, as he had intimated to his sister, Neville struck out boldly. The prime minister’s inspiration was christened “colonial appeasement.” In
Mein Kampf
, and in his demagogic speeches to Nazi mass rallies, the Führer had bitterly denounced the “theft” of Germany’s pre-1914 colonies at Versailles. Chamberlain believed that if the colonies were returned, Hitler would stop plotting to seize neighboring countries on the Continent. He presented his idea to the cabinet as a plan to court Nazi friendship by opening “an entirely new chapter in the history of African colonial development,” under which the Reich would be “brought into the arrangement by becoming one of the African Colonial Powers… by being given certain territories to administer.” Henderson and Halifax enthusiastically backed it. Eden’s support was muted. The P.M. looked at him sharply. It was an omen.
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Horace Wilson assembled a task force of civil servants to draft documents for the transfer of colonial possessions. Halifax told Ribbentrop, Hitler’s ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, that England was “urgently trying to make concessions”; Eden, still loyal to Chamberlain, assured the Nazi ambassador that His Majesty’s Government’s “earnest desire” was a quid pro quo—colonies for the Reich and, for England, “a greater feeling of security,” which would require some kind of arms agreement.
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At this point, the French, alarmed at reports from London, challenged the concept of colonial appeasement and Colonial Secretary Ormsby-Gore put a spoke in its wheel. Eden had pointed out that Britain’s moral superiority would be less plausible if, like Hitler and Mussolini, she shredded agreements and flouted compacts—which, Chamberlain’s colonial secretary now reminded him, would be entailed in such a deal. The territories which had once belonged to Germany flew the Union Jack now, but that didn’t mean that they belonged to Britain; the League of Nations had mandated them to the English with the understanding that Englishmen would better the lot of the native populations. That pledge would clearly be shattered if they were turned over to the Third Reich, which had withdrawn from the league and taken the official view that blacks, like Jews, belonged to an inferior race and should be so treated.

But the appeasers, like all fundamentalists, held facts in contempt. One of England’s most respected intellectuals, R. W. Seton-Watson, wrote heatedly that “the convenient thesis of Germany’s unfitness to administer colonies is as untrue as it is insulting, and should be recanted.” After Hitler’s Rhineland coup and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, it was argued, the Versailles treaty and the League of Nations had become feeble precedents. Dawson, back in his role as self-appointed spokesman for forty million Britons, wrote that “British public opinion is probably far ahead of the Government” in its conviction that a stable relationship with Germany should be the sole objective “of our foreign policy.” Englishmen, he declared, had “little sympathy with the view” that the Third Reich should be bound by “limits imposed twenty years ago.”
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Now a rift appeared among the appeasers. Hitler refused the quid pro quo on armaments. Eden argued that that should be the end of it. So did Churchill’s cousin Lord Londonderry, who thought all Germany’s former colonies should be returned but believed it essential that Britain get something in exchange. He was, he told a friend, “very anxious lest our conciliatory trend” be interpreted in Berlin as weakness, and he feared that when the Germans became strong enough they would seek to redress their grievances “by force of arms…. It appears to me that by the shilly-shallying policy of the Government we are slowly but surely drifting toward this position.”
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Actually that was already Chamberlain’s position. By February 1938, two years after the House of Commons had first debated the issue of German colonial claims—and despite the vehement protests of Eden—he cabled Nevile Henderson in Berlin that he would accept less quid than quo. To “justify” the exchange to the British public, he wanted the Nazis to offer something “towards safeguarding the peace of Europe.” He withdrew his request for a broad limitation of armaments and said an agreement on aerial bombing would be enough. When Ribbentrop rejected that, too, Chamberlain caved in. They could settle the colonial issue now. It wouldn’t even be used as a bargaining chip in future negotiations.
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Chamberlain sent Hitler a new offer. African colonies which had never belonged to Germany—and had therefore been unmentioned at Versailles—would be “redistributed.” They were now the property of France, Belgium (the Congo), and Portugal (Angola), but they would be a present from England to the Reich. Hitler understood this kind of language. It was his own. Intrigued, he asked what would happen if the Belgians and Portuguese objected. Chamberlain replied that not only Portugal and Belgium but also “presumably” France would “in the end cooperate in the settlement.” At present, however, it was essential that no word of his new plan reach Paris, “much less” Lisbon or Brussels. They would “merely be informed” that talks had been held to discuss issues “concerning Germany and England.” Unfortunately for this scheme, Britain had a free press. Henderson explained to the Führer that Chamberlain lacked his absolute control over newspapermen. However, the ambassador continued, he had spoken to “about eighty” men from Fleet Street and had “earnestly emphasized” the need for discretion. At the same time Halifax happily sent the Wilhelmstrasse word that “measures taken” by the BBC guaranteed that broadcasts “eliminated discussion regarding colonies.” In London Horace Wilson noted that Halifax had taken “special pains” to keep the country ignorant of the deal. Wilson expressed “hope that he has been successful.”
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Chamberlain was running fantastic risks. In exchange for a phantom promise to calm British nerves, he was laying territories belonging to three imperial powers—none of which had been consulted, or would be told of the decision until it had been made—on the diplomatic table. Luckily for him, the Reich chancellor rejected his proposal. Once again Hitler fooled everyone, including his own diplomats. As late as November 10, 1937, Baron Ernst von Weizsäcker, the Wilhelmstrasse’s equivalent of Vansittart, had written: “From England we want colonies…. The British need for tranquillity is great. It would be profitable to find out what England would be willing to pay for such tranquillity.” And so it was. Hitler had begun to acquire a sense of Chamberlain, a feel for his weaknesses. As for the colonies, he brusquely told the amazed Henderson on March 3, he had no use for them. They “would only be a burden for me.” The colonial question, he said, “can wait for four, six, eight, or even ten years.” The British ambassador asked for something more definite, and Hitler promised a written reply, but Henderson, as he wrote in his memoirs, “left Berlin a year and a half later without having received it.” Belatedly Henderson realized that the issue of Germany’s prewar colonies had been a red herring, that it was not “understanding with Great Britain” that Hitler wanted; it was “dominion in Central and Eastern Europe.”
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T
he P.M. had been courting Mussolini, hoping to sign him up before Hitler could, but the Führer was a more skillful seducer. Eden knew it, and so did Kurt von Schuschnigg, the Austrian minister who had hanged the Nazi murderers of Chancellor Dollfuss in 1934 and had now himself become chancellor. Schuschnigg had been the object of both Hitler’s and Mussolini’s manipulations. In the summer of 1936 the Duce had persuaded him that a rapprochement with the Third Reich was desirable, and the result—a joint communiqué published on July 11, 1936—declared that Austria would “maintain a policy based on the principle that Austria acknowledges herself to be a German State,” while the Reich recognized “the full sovereignty of the Federal State of Austria.” It was a bad bargain. Secret clauses stipulated the muzzling of the Viennese press and amnesty for Nazi “political prisoners” in Austrian jails—many of them storm troopers convicted of murdering Jews and critics of the Führer.
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A devout Catholic and a born leader, Schuschnigg nevertheless knew that his small army would be helpless against Hitler’s Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe. And Mussolini, when asked whether he could continue to guarantee the Austrian frontiers, was now evasive. Schuschnigg was pondering a restoration of the Hapsburg dynasty as his last available safeguard when, on February 12, 1938, Hitler summoned him to the Berghof, his villa in the Bavarian mountains. Berlin had announced that the meeting had been called to foster better relations between the two countries; nonetheless, Schuschnigg was wary. He was not a man to be intimidated, but the Führer had yet to meet the man he couldn’t break.

The Führer’s methods were rarely subtle. Wearing the brown tunic of a Nazi storm trooper and flanked by German generals—a shocking breach of protocol, particularly to an Austrian of impeccable old-world Viennese manners—he led his uneasy guest to his second-floor study, with its enormous picture window overlooking the snow-capped Alps. In his later account of the meeting,
Ein Requiem in Rot-Weiss-Rot
(Red-White-Red, the national colors of Austria), Schuschnigg described what followed as “somewhat one-sided [
einseitig
].”
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Actually it was outrageous. The Austrian addressed Hitler as “Herr Reichskanzler,” as diplomatic courtesy required; the Führer rudely referred to him as “Schuschnigg.” Hitler spoke in harsh and contemptuous tones. Gazing out beyond the Alps, toward Austria, he declared: “I have a historic mission, and this mission I shall fulfill because Providence has destined me to do so…. Who is not with me will be crushed [
kommt unter die Räder
].” Austria was too weak to defend herself against his Wehrmacht and would be without allies. Italy? He and Mussolini saw things “eye to eye [
im reinen
].” France could have stopped him at the Rhineland; now “it is too late for France.” And England? He had an understanding with the British; “England will not lift one finger for Austria [
keinen Finger für Österreich rühren
].” To Schuschnigg it seemed that Hitler might as well be speaking Hindustani; he was “a man from another world.”

But in the end his tremendous, hypnotic force won. After eleven hours of insults and threats—at one point Hitler screamed: “I have only to give an order, and your ridiculous defenses will be blown to bits [
zerstoben
]!”—Schuschnigg crumbled. He accepted the Führer’s ultimatum, signing a two-page “agreement” drafted by Ribbentrop. All jailed Austrian Nazis were to be freed, their party was recognized as legitimate, and three pro-Nazis were to become members of the cabinet, including the infamous Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who, as minister of the interior, would wield dictatorial powers over the police and security.
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Hitler reported all this to a cheering Reichstag, praising Schuschnigg’s “understanding” and his “warmhearted willingness” to bring Austria and the Reich closer. This provoked a snort from Churchill: “When a snake wants to eat his victims he first covers them with saliva.” The repercussions were felt in every world capital, though not by every world leader. On February 16, the day the Austrian cabinet was rebuilt to suit Hitler, Chamberlain’s cabinet met to consider an RAF appeal for larger appropriations. Foreign Secretary Eden and First Lord of the Admiralty Duff Cooper thought it overdue. Chancellor of the Exchequer Simon argued against it on the ground that higher taxes would imperil Britain’s “present standard of financial prosperity.” Chamberlain agreed. So did Inskip; though responsible for defense coordination, he took the line that the Foreign Office should set about “reducing the scale of our commitments and the number of our potential enemies.” This could only mean continued appeasement of Germany and Italy, and when Chamberlain said, “Hear, hear,” Eden flushed.
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Relations between the prime minister and his young foreign secretary were approaching the breaking point. In January President Roosevelt had cabled Chamberlain, proposing that European leaders convene in Washington to discuss their differences. The prime minister was annoyed—according to Sir Alexander Cadogan, Vansittart’s deputy at the Foreign Office, Chamberlain “had an almost instinctive contempt for the Americans”—and he rejected Roosevelt’s offer without consulting Eden, stiffly replying that he believed he could reach agreements with the dictators, with Mussolini first. His Majesty’s Government was prepared “to recognise
de jure
the Italian occupation of Abyssinia, if they found that the Italian Government on their side were ready to give evidence of their desire to contribute to the restoration of confidence and friendly relations.”
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In Churchill’s opinion Chamberlain’s rebuff to the president’s overture effectively ended, as he wrote in his memoirs, “the last frail chance to save the world from tyranny other than by war.” If this seems extravagant, one must reflect on Churchill’s reasoning, which Eden had adopted. Roosevelt, as Churchill wrote, was “running great risks in his own domestic politics by deliberately involving the United States in the darkening European scene.” And he knew the democracies could not survive in Europe without American support. Roosevelt was not a man you could insult twice. His message had been graceful, even deferential; now he knew he and Neville Chamberlain could never mesh. FDR realized that at some time Hitler must be turned back. If Great Britain fell, FDR could buy peace for a generation, but by then the position of the United States would be hopeless. Already local admirers of the Nazis were swinging clubs in the streets of Latin American capitals. Therefore the president, like Churchill, was determined to establish a special relationship between England and America.
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