The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 (284 page)

That same Saturday His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition asked for a debate on the war situation. It was scheduled for May 7. The prime minister wasn’t concerned or even particularly interested; on Saturday, May 4, he noted: “I don’t think my enemies will get me this time.” By “enemies” he meant his critics in the House of Commons, not Nazis, though a state of war had existed between Great Britain and the German Reich for eight months, and he himself had declared it. But in London it was easy to forget. Here there were no parading bands, no marching soldiers, no banners, and no posters. In the first weeks of the war people had talked of little else; now, except among those complaining about the blackout, it was scarcely mentioned.
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Winston in the cabinet was Winston gagged, so even politics was a bore. There was the usual maneuvering behind the scenes. The Watching Committee to which Nicolson had referred was led by Lord Salisbury, son of the turn-of-the-century prime minister. Now seventy-eight, the frock-coated marquess had been lord privy seal and the leader of the House under Baldwin. He was a man of convictions—his denunciation of Munich had been so savage that one of Chamberlain’s supporters had physically assaulted him.

On May 5 the noble lord wrote: “The Sunday papers are excited, as I knew they would be, about Norway and the reconstruction of the Government. A good deal of this inspired by personal prejudice against the P.M. I fancy the movement for including Labour will grow, but whether they will serve under him [Chamberlain] or not remains to be seen.” Actually, it was the other way round; the prime minister was not interested in leading a cabinet with Labour ministers. But Chamberlain’s popularity had dropped so far and so fast that even Conservatives were speculating about his successor. Halifax was no speculator, not even in his diary, because his name was the one mentioned most often as the next prime minister. Geoffrey Dawson had been promoting him since March. And on Monday, May 6, the
Evening Standard
observed that “an all-party group of critics” wanted some ministers dropped and replaced by Liberals and Socialists. “If Mr Chamberlain refuses to make the changes,” the
Standard
declared, “they say there should be a new Prime Minister. And the man they select is Lord Halifax.” Halifax’s only comment in his diary that evening was: “Considerable political clamour, but I doubt whether this, at present in all events, will amount to much.”
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The following day was Tuesday, May 7, 1940.

T
he debate which opened that day was to be one of the most memorable in British history, but no one planned it so, or even expected it. Like a runaway grand jury, it was moved by forces deep within the House of Commons, views vehemently held by individual MPs who had been unaware, till now, that so many fellow members shared them and felt just as strongly. They were to address the formal motion, “That this House do now adjourn,” though in fact they would be debating the prosecution of the war. Chamberlain had chosen to open for the Conservatives; Churchill would close the following day. Labour had wanted Winston first—“We took the view that the First Lord was the Prime Minister’s principal witness,” Herbert Morrison said—but the prime minister knew Churchill was his most effective speaker and could draw all the government’s arguments together as no other minister could.
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The government’s most ineffective speaker was Chamberlain himself. “The House is crowded,” Nicolson wrote, “and when Chamberlain comes in, he is greeted with shouts of ‘Missed the bus!’ He makes a very feeble speech and is only applauded by the Yes-men. He makes some reference to the complacency of the country, at which the whole House cheers vociferously and ironically, inducing him to make a little, rather feminine, gesture of irritation.” As always Neville was coldly logical, but he seemed to lack his usual easy control of the House; his heart wasn’t in it. Norway was no Gallipoli, he said—a comparison Winston may have wished he had found unnecessary, though the P.M. defended his first lord by dismissing as “unworthy and unfounded” the suggestion that one minister was more responsible than his colleagues for what had happened. Plainly, he was off his form. It may have been at this point that he realized for the first time that a shadow lay over his government.
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Attlee also made “a feeble speech” in Nicolson’s opinion, but “Archie Sinclair a good one.” Sinclair said the Norwegian operation had failed because “there had been no foresight in the political direction of the war and in the instructions given to the Staffs.” He added: “In the first major effort of this war… we have had to creep back to our lairs, which is against the spirit of the men who are over the waters.” Such damaging words were rarely heard in the Commons, but the pyrotechnics had only started. Another slashing speech followed, and yet another by the Labour MP Josiah Wedgwood, which was very odd. Nicolson wrote that he said “everything that he ought not to have said” and gave “the impression of being a little off his head. At one moment he suggests that the British Navy have gone to Alexandria since they are frightened of being bombed.”
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This led to the first sign that a real tempest loomed. As Wedgwood wound up, Roger Keyes entered the chamber. At Duff Cooper’s suggestion Keyes was in full uniform, gold braid up to his elbows and six rows of ribbons, topped by the Grand Cross of the Order of Bath, glittering on his chest. Here was a genuine naval hero, the man who had led the gallant raid against the German U-boat pens at Zeebrugge and Ostend in 1918. Nicolson handed him a note quoting Wedgwood’s remark about the navy. The old admiral immediately rose, went straight to the Speaker’s chair, was recognized at once, and began by calling the previous speaker’s remark “a damned insult”—unparliamentary language, but the Speaker did not call him on it, and the House, noted Nicolson, “roars with laughter, especially Lloyd George who rocks backwards and forwards in boyish delight with his mouth wide open.”
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But Keyes had not come to amuse Parliament. He had brought a speech. His appalling delivery was known to everyone in the chamber, so at Harold Macmillan’s suggestion he had written everything out. It was a devastating attack on the naval conduct at Narvik; the chamber was completely silent when he declared that a naval assault at Trondheim would have succeeded but had been canceled because of lack of nerve at the Admiralty. This was a blow at Churchill, doubly so because he and the admiral were old friends. It was probably unjustified; nevertheless, when Keyes sat down Chamberlain knew he was in real trouble. Nicolson described the reaction: “There is a great gasp of astonishment. It is by far the most dramatic speech I have ever heard, and when Keyes sits down there is thunderous applause.”
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Now it was Leo Amery’s turn. The Speaker called him during the dinner hour, and the House was no longer crowded, but Clement Davies, a Liberal MP and the unofficial whip of the dissident factions, toured the dining room, lobbies, and smoking room, drumming up an audience for him. They found him worth it. Amery was a senior parliamentarian; he had been an admirer of old Joe Chamberlain’s and a friend of both Joe’s sons. With great skill he moved the target of the government’s critics away from the navy—and by implication, Churchill—and toward Chamberlain and the conduct of the war. “Somehow or other,” he said, “we must get into the Government men who can match our enemies in fighting spirit, in daring, in resolution and in thirst for victory.” Approaching the end he said: “Some 300 years ago, when this House found that its troops were being beaten again and again by the dash and daring of the Cavaliers, by Prince Rupert’s cavalry, Oliver Cromwell spoke to John Hampden. In one of his speeches he recounted what he had said. It was this: ‘I said to him, “Your troops are most of them old, decayed serving men and tapsters and such kind of fellows.” You must get men of a spirit that are likely to go as far as they will go, or you will be beaten still.’ ”

Amery paused. He said: “We are fighting today for our life, for our liberty, for our all. We cannot go on being led as we are.” Again he paused, assessing the mood of the House. He had them rapt. In his research he had come upon another quotation. It was brutal; he might lose his converts if he used it, but he was carried away, and looking toward the front bench he plunged ahead:

In the opinion of some close to Chamberlain, Amery’s pitiless attack shattered him. Churchill later wrote: “These were terrible words coming from a friend and colleague of many years, a fellow Birmingham Member, and a Privy Councillor of distinction and experience.” In Nicolson’s opinion the general impression left by the debate was that “we are unprepared to meet the appalling attack which we know is about to be delivered against us.” The response was “something more than anxiety; it is one of actual fear, but it is a very resolute fear and not hysteria or cowardice in the least. In fact I have seldom admired the spirit of the House so much as I did today.” He believed “there is no doubt that the Government is very rocky and anything may happen tomorrow.” In his diary the loyal Henry Channon noted of the first day’s debate: “The atmosphere was intense, and everywhere one heard whispers: ‘What will Winston do?’ ”
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There is a jeu d’esprit that Frenchmen tell—though only to one another—of how, when God created the earth, he wanted one perfect place, so he made France. Then, seeing what he had done, he decided he had gone too far, so he made Frenchmen. At times foreigners also repeat the story, and it was enjoying an exceptional vogue in early May 1940. Anyone who has studied the fighting which was about to begin as the Wehrmacht surged into France cannot doubt that Reynaud was justified in his determination to cashier the indecisive, almost inaccessible Généralissime Gamelin. However, the premier’s timing was poor. It may be that having no commander in chief was preferable to the French Hamlet in Vincennes, but the problem was larger than that. It was political, because Gamelin’s champion, the republic’s minister of defense, was Daladier, who wanted to be premier again and was awaiting only an opportunity to strike. Cashiering the
généralissime
would provoke Daladier’s resignation and, therefore, a cabinet crisis. France could survive without a government now, but not if she were invaded. But Reynaud’s mind was made up. By May 8 the document of indictment was ready; the premier called a cabinet meeting for the following day. The prospect, for everyone except Germans, was depressing. Marianne would face a powerful foe with her leaders quarreling among themselves. Once again poilus would reel backward shouting, “
Nous sommes trahis!
” and in a sense they would be right, though the betrayers would be
les députés
they had elected to office.

But Paris in the spring! In that second week in May the place God had made was a poem of beauty. The gardens of the Luxembourg and the Tuileries were in full blossom; so were the chestnut trees along the Seine; the overarching sky was unflawed by a single cloud, and on the boulevards and the Champs Élysées one could meditate or amuse oneself with friends in what Henri de Kerillis later remembered as “a bath of sun.” The Duchess of Windsor worked at a canteen for poilus; Clare Boothe Luce, who had come to see her, thought the capital “insanely beautiful,” with “unstartled birds singing in the gardens” and the flower market at the Madeleine “madly colorful.” Theatres, cinemas, and nightclubs were packed; so were the stands at the Auteuil for spring racing; so were the halls of the Grand Palais, where the annual art exhibition was on display. In the rue de la Paix the windows of the great gem stores glittered with rubies, garnets, diamonds, jade, opal, sapphires, and emeralds, and business was brisk. On the Place Vendôme elegantly dressed women moved through the gilded corridors on their way to tea or lunch. Afterward de Kerillis would remember “how carefree and lighthearted” Parisians were.
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London is less celebrated for its beauty, though there are those who prefer it because, among other reasons, it never occurred to Londoners—and certainly not to Churchill—that England’s capital should be surrendered rather than be submitted to the ravages of battle. The British were prepared to sacrifice London house by house, to be destroyed rather than dishonored. The French loved honor, but loved Paris more, as they would demonstrate before summer arrived. On Wednesday, May 8, the second day of the Norway debate in the House of Commons, Hitler set the final date for
Fall Gelb
. It would begin at 5:35
A.M
. on Friday. This would be confirmed Thursday when he flashed the irrevocable code word “Danzig” to his commanders. Meantime, the Führer boarded his special train for his headquarters, Felsennest (Aerie), near Münstereifel, twenty-five miles southwest of Bonn. That Wednesday, as the House of Commons gathered, with its leaders feeling they were on the verge of something tremendous, though none could identify it, Shirer was cabling New York from Berlin. As he later wrote, he advised his home office “to hold one of our correspondents in Amsterdam instead of shipping him off to Norway, where the war had ended anyway.” That evening his military censors “allowed me to hint in my broadcast that there would soon be action in the West, including Holland and Belgium.” Only later did he learn why. The Nazis were deliberately focusing attention on the northern and western parts of the Low Countries, in the hope that no one would notice the German troop concentrations around the Ardennes.
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