The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 (236 page)

T
he House witnessed its first sign of revolt by Tory MPs against their leadership on March 28, when thirty distinguished Conservatives—among them Churchill, Eden, Duff Cooper, and Macmillan—appealed for a new national government, with ministers drawn from the benches of all three parties.

Chamberlain, a better politician than a statesman, was ready for them. He knew the country no longer shared his faith in Munich. Indeed, it was apparent to all the appeasers that they could not survive another such sellout. Daladier told a secret meeting of his Foreign Affairs Commission that all agreements between France and Germany were “
en ruines
.” He said that “if France does not face up to the consequences there will be a stampede among friendly countries which until now have been firm. It will be a rush toward servitude [
à la servitude
]. And we must have no illusion as to what will happen thereafter. New invasions will come to our country and threaten to submerge it [
risqueront de le submerger
].” At both No. 10 and in the Élysée Palace it was agreed that the Führer’s next victim must be identified and bound to the democracies in a tight military alliance.
⁷⁵

It is a marvel that the Third Reich, now in its seventh year, had survived without precipitating a general conflict. It was coming now; historian Brian Gardner recalls that “While nations busily armed themselves for the war which statesmen said they had averted, there was a sort of political hush in Europe. Where would Hitler strike next, and when?” Appropriately, the answer found in London and Paris reflected their diplomatic incompetence. They picked the wrong country.
⁷⁶

Less than two weeks after the Führer had devoured Czechoslovakia the prime minister wrote one of his sisters: “There is always the possibility that Germany will act more cunningly & that instead we shall be faced with a new ‘commercial agreement’ which in effect puts Roumania at her mercy.” Although the Rumanians shared no common border with the Reich, Hungary did; the government in Budapest was hostile toward Bucharest and would not object—in fact, would not
dare
object—if Nazi panzers raced across Hungarian soil to penetrate Rumania, a primitive Balkan country which was nevertheless rich in oil and controlled the mouth of the Danube.
⁷⁷

In Paris, Phipps asked Bonnet whether he thought Rumania would be “the next course on the Nazi menu.” Bonnet told the British ambassador that he thought it “very likely.” He was in fact convinced of it; his prediction was later found in Quai d’Orsay files. Henderson agreed that Hitler’s next target would be “domination by force of the whole Danube basin.” All this seemed supported by Virgil Tilea, the Rumanian minister in London. Tilea called at the Foreign Office on Thursday, March 16, the day after Prague fell. He told his tale to an FO assistant under secretary, then to Halifax and Cadogan—and, going public, to
The Times
and the
Daily Telegraph
. The gist of it was that his government, “from secret and other sources,” had learned that the Germans planned to overrun Hungary and “disintegrate Roumania in the same way as they had disintegrated Czechoslovakia… establishing a German protectorate over the whole country.” Their greatest prize would be the oil fields at Ploesti. He asked for a loan of ten million pounds to strengthen his country’s defenses, emphasizing the “extreme urgency” of a “precise indication” of Britain’s position “in the event of Roumania becoming a victim of German aggression.” The “gravity” of the “imminent danger” was heightened by new German demands that the Reich receive preferred treatment in trade between the two countries, terms set forth in such language that they “seemed very much like an ultimatum,” an impression reinforced by Wehrmacht troop movements along the Rumanian border. The eruption of hostilities “might possibly be a question of days.”
⁷⁸

Halifax was alarmed. He seems to have accepted the Rumanian minister’s apprehension at face value. But Tilea’s account should have been examined more carefully. Had the Wilhelmstrasse conceived so bold a stroke, Rumania’s government would have known of it, and an appeal to Britain would have been made on the very highest level. Instead, Halifax and Cadogan—without consulting first with Sir Reginald Hoare, their envoy in Bucharest—sent cables to Britain’s ambassadors in Paris, Moscow, Warsaw, Ankara, Athens, and Belgrade, spreading Tilea’s story and instructing them to ask what the leaders in these capitals would do if events confirmed it. Sir Reginald, when informed of Tilea’s story, requested that these distress signals be withdrawn; he found the tale “utterly improbable” and the Rumanian foreign minister denied it in every particular. Sir Howard Kennard, His Majesty’s ambassador to Warsaw, cabled that Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was “highly skeptical,” and so, it developed, were other foreign ministries throughout Europe.
⁷⁹

Tilea had been discredited. Nevertheless, he retracted nothing, and the response of His Majesty’s Government was exactly what it would have been had he been confirmed. Chamberlain convened an emergency meeting of the cabinet on Saturday, the eighteenth. Halifax reported that Rumania’s foreign minister, Grigore Gafencu, denied that there was a word of truth in what Tilea had said and affirmed that relations between his government and the Reich were “proceeding on completely normal lines as between equals.” Therefore, said the foreign secretary, the matter was “probably” not “immediately threatening,” as they had thought. But, as they all knew, he continued, the Führer was capable of anything. He proposed that they anticipate the next crisis and ponder what HMG’s position should be. His own opinion was that “if Germany committed an act of naked aggression on Roumania, it would be very difficult for this country not to take all the action in her power to rally resistance and to take part in that resistance herself.”
⁸⁰

They discussed how to go about ascertaining which countries might be willing to join Britain in standing up to Nazi Germany. At the time that Churchill had urged a Grand Alliance in Parliament, such a coalition had been feasible, but since Munich Britain had few friends in eastern Europe. His Majesty’s Government simply wasn’t trusted. Other ministers suggested the obvious course—to court the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany’s sworn enemy and the most powerful military force in eastern Europe. But Chamberlain, as he wrote his sister, held “the most profound distrust of Russia.” He concluded that Saturday meeting by saying that “the real point at issue” was whether Britain could persuade “sufficient assurances from other countries” to justify “a public pronouncement that we should resist any further act of aggression on the part of Germany.”
⁸¹

It was Tilea who suggested that Britain’s position would be strengthened if Poland joined them as a third ally. Halifax and Chamberlain found the prospect appealing. Poland shared a common border with Rumania and, according to British intelligence (whose agents cannot have been on speaking terms with Churchill’s informants), was “in a strong position with regard to Germany.” The governments in Warsaw and Berlin were much alike. Both persecuted Jews; both despised Soviet Russia; both had conspired against the Czechs—during the Munich crisis and its aftermath Ribbentrop had worked in tandem with Colonel Józef Beck, Poland’s foreign minister. The Poles had left nothing undone to weaken Prague’s position and, with Hitler’s approval, had annexed Czech territory. In 1934 the Reich and Poland had signed a ten-year nonaggression treaty proclaiming mutual respect for existing territorial rights, the first breach in France’s structure of alliances in eastern Europe. Since then Beck had toiled strenuously—and, it seemed, successfully—to remain on the best possible terms with Germany.
⁸²

To be sure, the port of Danzig was a potential sore spot. But the city’s Polish commissioner, asked about the possibility of a German coup, “definitely” discounted it. In London, Dirksen, the German ambassador, assured Halifax that although the Reich intended to pursue a new role for the city, Hitler’s means would entail neither threats nor violence. Instead, he would propose “consultation with the Polish government.” (The anesthetic effect of German promises to negotiate in these years was extraordinary. Hitler never negotiated. He lied, he bluffed, he blackmailed, but serious negotiation was a skill he despised, a refuge for weaklings.) The last and decisive card in Poland’s deck was her military reputation. Unlike her neighbors—and Great Britain—she boasted a field strength that was, at least on paper, immense: a million men under arms and another 800,000 reserves.
⁸³

The man who might well determine if these troops would be sent into battle was an enigmatic Polish colonel who in some ways resembled the Führer. No one questioned Józef Beck’s ability. His remarkable diplomatic skills had led to his appointment, at the age of thirty-eight, as Poland’s foreign minister. Respected for his intellect and powerful will, he was also distrusted—even detested—for his duplicity, dishonesty, and, in his private life, depravity. In Rome, where he had spent an extended visit-cum-vacation, the Princess of Piedmont had said of him that he had “the sort of face you might see in a French newspaper as that of a ravisher of little girls.” Ciano thought him “an unsympathetic character who produces a chill around him.” On one of his visits to London that spring, HMG gave him a lunch at the Savoy. Churchill thought him “cynical” and “coldhearted.” Winston was watching him carefully, because he knew more about the strain between Warsaw and Berlin than anyone else there except the guest of honor. He casually asked Beck: “Will you get back all right in your special train through Germany to Poland?” The colonel gave him a sharp look and replied quietly: “I think we shall have time for that.”
⁸⁴

Léger had advised the FO not to trust Beck because, to deflect Hitler southward, “he betrayed Rumania or is in the process of doing so.” The very premise of Halifax’s stratagem was false; it was Beck who fostered the notion that Poland was safe from Germany and did all he could to make it plausible. His ambassador in London told Halifax that Beck would “go a long way” to avoid a quarrel with the Reich. Beck himself, in conversation with Halifax, said that he and Ribbentrop would soon open negotiations over Danzig and he had decided to offer the Germans “magnanimous” terms. It would be his posture to do “nothing provocative.” Pressed for details, he replied that he “did not propose to trouble” the British with an analysis of the Danzig dilemma. The problem was local, he said, and easy to solve; the possibility that it might grow into an international issue was inconceivable.
⁸⁵

Polish support of Rumania was indispensable, Halifax believed; however, on March 19, when he asked Beck to join a four-power declaration to warn the Germans against aggression in eastern Europe—the four being Britain, France, Poland, and Russia—Beck declined. Such a move would only provoke Germany, he said, and Poland did not want to associate herself in any way with the Soviet Union. In Warsaw, Ambassador Kennard asked Beck to “ponder” the matter, and within five days the Polish foreign minister came back with a counterproposal, relayed to Halifax by Beck’s London ambassador, Count Edward Raczyński. Beck suggested that the two countries sign a bilateral convention that would call for Britain and Poland to “consult” in the event Germany threatened Poland. This should be kept a secret, Raczyński said, to avoid antagonizing the Reich. Halifax and Chamberlain were cool to the idea. For one thing, it made no mention of Rumania, which was the locus of Britain’s concern. Besides, a secret convention would offend the French, whom the British had been consulting regularly, and would have no impact as a deterrent to the Nazis. A public pronouncement was needed.
⁸⁶

Halifax now conceived of another approach, which he proposed to the P.M.: What if Britain took matters a step further and offered to guarantee Poland? That might persuade Beck to reciprocate by joining Britain in guaranteeing Rumania. Chamberlain thought it was worth a try; after all, the Führer had no designs on territory governed by the Poles. What could be the harm? On his instructions, therefore, Halifax, Cadogan, and Butler spent the evening drafting a declaration of England’s commitment. After consultation with the Quai d’Orsay, the consequence was an Anglo-French offer to rescue Poland or Rumania if either were attacked by Germany and resisted, although the commitment to Bucharest was contingent upon Warsaw’s also agreeing to intervene—support the P.M. and his foreign secretary were confident they could secure. On March 27 the proposal was transmitted to Warsaw and Bucharest.
⁸⁷

As soon as reactions were received from these capitals, it was thought, negotiations to refine the details could proceed apace. The Continent was quiet. Nothing seemed particularly urgent. And then, suddenly, everything did. One reason was Chamberlain himself. Despite his hard-headed businessman’s approach to issues, he had a hidden mercurial streak; he blew hot and cold, destroying a defensible Czechoslovakia one year and now guaranteeing Poland—which would prove far less defensible—the next. He had been misled by rumors all month, and this was dangerous, because his decisions were often based on fragile, unconfirmed evidence. Tilea’s false alarm was one example.