Never Give In! (21 page)

Broadcast, London

This was one of those rare occasions during Churchill’s ‘Wilderness Years’ when the BBC authorities
–
exercising a monopoly of the airwaves, heavily biased towards appeasement and ever fearful of broadcasting anything that might make Herr Hitler angry – allowed Churchill’s lone voice airtime.

As we go to and fro in this peaceful country, with its decent orderly people going about their business under free institutions, and with so much tolerance and fair play in their laws and customs, it is startling and fearful to realise that we are no longer safe in our island home. For nearly a thousand years England has never seen the camp fires of an invader. The stormy seas and our Royal Navy have been our sure defence. Not only have we preserved our life and freedom through the centuries, but gradually we have come to be the heart and centre of an Empire which surrounds the globe. It is indeed with a pang of stabbing pain that we see all this in mortal danger.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a State,

An hour may lay it in the dust. . . .

Only a few hours away by air there dwells a nation of nearly seventy millions of the most educated, industrious, scientific, disciplined people in the world, who are being taught from childhood to think of war and conquest as a glorious exercise, and death in battle as the noblest fate for man. There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties in order to augment its collective might. There is a nation which, with all its strength and virtues, is in the grip of a group of ruthless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law, by Parliament or by public opinion. It is but twenty years since these neighbours of ours fought almost the whole world, and almost defeated them. Now they are rearming with the utmost speed, and ready to their hands is this new lamentable weapon of the air, against which our Navy is no defence, before which women and children, the weak and frail, the pacifist and the jingo, the warrior and the civilian, the front line trenches and the cottage home, lie in equal and impartial peril.

Nay worse still, for with the new weapon has come a new method, or rather has come back the most brutish methods of ancient barbarism, namely the possibility of compelling the submission of races by terrorising and torturing their civil population. And worst of all – the more civilised a country is, the larger and more splendid its cities, the more intricate the structure of its social and economic life; the more is it vulnerable, the more it is at the mercy of those who may make it their prey.

At present we lie within a few minutes’ striking distance of the French, Dutch, and Belgian coasts, and within a few hours of the great aerodromes of Central Europe. We are even within canon-shot of the Continent. So close as that! Is it prudent, is it possible, however we might desire it, to turn our backs upon Europe and ignore whatever may happen there? Everyone can judge this question for himself, and everyone ought to make up his mind about it without delay. It lies at the heart of our problem. For my part I have come to the conclusion – reluctantly I admit – that we cannot get away. Here we are and we must make the best of it. But do not underrate the risks – the grievous risks – we have to run.

I hope, I pray, and on the whole, grasping the larger hope, I believe, that no war will fall upon us. But if in the near future the Great War of 1914 is resumed again in Europe after the Armistice – for that is what it may come to – under different conditions no doubt – no one can tell where and how it would end, or whether sooner or later we should not be dragged into it, as the United States were dragged in against their will in 1917. Whatever happened and whatever we did, it would be a time of frightful danger for us. . . . Therefore it seems to me that we cannot detach ourselves from Europe, and that for our own safety and self-preservation we are bound to make exertions and run risks for the sake of keeping peace.

There are some who say – indeed it has been the shrill cry of the hour – that we should run the risk of disarming ourselves in order to set an example to others. We have done that already for the last five years, but our example has not been followed. On the contrary, it has produced the opposite result. All the other countries have armed only the more heavily; and the quarrels and intrigues about disarmament have only bred more ill-will between the nations.

‘A CORRIDOR OF DEEPENING AND DARKENING DANGER’

31 May 1935

House of Commons

I agree with Sir Herbert Samuel when he says that it is impossible for us, in the world in which we live, to treat with blank distrust the utterances of the Leader of so vast a State as Germany. To represent everything that has been said by Herr Hitler as only designed for the purposes of political manoeuvre would be to destroy the very means of contact and of parley between one great nation and another.

I agree with him also in feeling that the Air Locarno, as it has been called, is in itself an eminently desirable objective towards which we should work, and which, if concluded, will be a matter of real substance and importance. I welcome, with him, any steps which may be taken to achieve, if possible, air parity at levels lower than those which are now mentioned. But it is not going to be very easy. I welcome also, and perhaps most keenly, what has been said by the German Chancellor stigmatising the vile crime of indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations. Naturally the Government will be encouraged by all sections in the House to pursue these matters with patience and not without hope. But do not let us underrate the difficulties which attach to them. There may be many more complications in what is called an Air Locarno than would appear at first sight. Still, for what it is worth, the union of great countries putting their names to a document pledging them all to bomb the bomber would be an event which everyone would hail.

Even more difficulties attend the limitation of air armaments. Air armaments are not expressed merely by the air squadrons in existence or the aeroplanes which have been made; they cannot be considered apart from the capacity to manufacture. If, for instance, there were two countries which each had 1000 first-line aeroplanes, but one of which had the power to manufacture at the rate of 100 a month and the other at the rate of 1000 a month, it is perfectly clear that air parity would not exist between those two countries very long.

One would imagine, sitting in this House today, that the dangers were in process of abating. I believe that the exact contrary is the truth – that they are steadily advancing upon us, and that no one can be certain that a time may not be reached, or when it will be reached, when events may have passed altogether out of control. “We must look at the facts. Nourish your hopes, but do not overlook realities.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs [Sir John Simon] dropped out a phrase today which really is in keeping with what I call the illusion basis on which much of this discussion has proceeded. It was one of those casual phrases which nevertheless reveal an altogether unsound conception of the facts. He referred to countries with whom you feel it your absolute duty to remain on terms of air equality. Look at that. A ‘duty to remain on terms of air equality.’ We have not got equality. Speeches are made in the country by leading Ministers saying that we have decided that we must have air equality, that we cannot accept anything less. We have not got it. We are already decidedly inferior to Germany, and, it must be said, of course to France. All that lies before us for many months is that this inferiority becomes more and more pronounced. In the autumn of this year, in November, when we are supposed to be 50 per cent stronger, I hazard the melancholy prediction that we shall not be a third, possibly not a quarter, of the German air strength. What is the use of saying ‘the countries with whom we consider it our absolute duty to remain on terms of air equality’? This is one of the terrible facts which lie before us and which will not be swept away merely by following the very natural inclination which we all have to say that they do not exist.

The German Army, already developed to twenty-one or twenty-two divisions, is working up to thirty-six as fast as it can, a division a month or something like that coming into full mobilisation capacity, tanks and the whole business. There is the Navy, and submarines have been made. Some are actually, I believe, practising, training their crews in that difficult art. Let me tell the House that submarines can be manufactured very quickly. I remember in November 1914 arranging for Mr Schwab, of Bethlehem, to make twenty submarines in what was then considered the incredibly short period of six months. Although these vessels had to be shifted from the United States to a Canadian dockyard for reasons of neutrality, it was possible to put sections on the railway-trucks and to deliver them in time. How do you know what progress has been made in constructing such sections? The arms production has the first claim on the entire industry of Germany, The materials required for the production of armaments are the first charge on the German exchange. The whole of their industry is woven into an immediate readiness for war. You have a state of preparedness in German industry which was not attained by our industry until after the late war had gone on probably for two years.

Besides this, there is tremendous propaganda, beginning with the schools and going right through every grade of youth to manhood, enforced by the most vigorous and harsh sanctions at every stage. All this is taking place. It is a very nice comfortable world that we look out on here in this country. It has found an apt reflection in this Debate today, but it has no relation whatever to what is going forward, and going forward steadily. Mark you, in time of peace, in peace politics, in ordinary matters of domestic affairs and class struggles, things blow over, but in these great matters of defence, and still more in the field of actual hostilities, the clouds do not roll by. If the necessary measures are not taken, they turn into thunderbolts and fall on your heads. The whole of this great process of psychological, moral, material and technical mobilisation of German war power is proceeding ceaselessly and with ever-increasing momentum.

It is the growth of German armaments which has fascinated and petrified nation after nation throughout Europe. Just look at what has happened in the last few weeks since we were last engaged in a serious discussion on foreign affairs. We know perfectly well that Poland continues in the German system. The Czechoslovakian elections have created a new Nazi party in Czechoslovakia, which is, I believe, the second party in the State. [19 May.] That is a very remarkable fact, having regard to the energy which the German people, when inspired by the Nazi spirit, are able to exercise. The Austrian tension increases. Many people talk about guaranteeing the independence of Austria, but guaranteeing that Austria will be kept separate from Germany is a different thing. You may at any time be faced with the position that the will of the Austrian people will be turned in the reverse direction from that which our policy has hitherto proclaimed. There is the Danubian tour of General Goering. He has been to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and to Hungary. He has, in Hungary and Bulgaria, been renewing those old ties of comradeship and confidence which existed between them and Germany in the days of the war. In Yugoslavia undoubtedly his presence has exercised a very important influence there as a counter-influence to others that may be brought to bear. Everywhere these countries are being made to look to Germany in a special way, and let me say that I read in
The Times
on the 30th of May a significant telegram from Vienna dealing with this tour of General Goering, which finished up with these words: ‘In the circumstances the strength and clarity of German policy gains by contrast’ – that is, to the Allied policy – ‘and the waverers among the smaller States are closely watching events.’

There is the question of the relations between Germany and Japan. It seems to me that that is a matter which must be in the thoughts of everyone who attempts to make an appreciation of the foreign situation. There are the difficulties of Italy’s preoccupation with Abyssinia. There are the obvious stresses through which France is passing, not, indeed, in the matter of national defence, but in almost every other aspect of the life of that people. There is our own weakness in the air which is to become worse and worse month after month. All this is going forward.

It is easy, then, for Herr Hitler and the German Government to pursue a policy which I have heard described as ‘power diplomacy’. What a transformation has taken place in the last two or three years! Two or three years ago it was considered sentimental, intellectual, liberally minded, to speak words of encouragement and compassion, and even to speak patronisingly of the German people, and to seek opportunities of making gestures to raise them up to more and greater equality with other countries. Now we see them with their grievances unredressed, with all their ambitions unsatisfied, continuing from strength to strength, and the whole world waits from week to week to hear what are the words which will fall from the heads of the German nation. It is a woeful transformation which has taken place.

It would be folly for us to act as if we were swimming in a halcyon sea, as if nothing but balmy breezes and calm weather were to be expected and everything were working in the most agreeable fashion. By all means follow your lines of hope and your paths of peace, but do not close your eyes to the fact that we are entering a corridor of deepening and darkening danger, and that we shall have to move along it for many months and possibly for years to come. While we are in this position, not only have we our own safety to consider, but we have to consider also whether the Parliamentary Governments of Western Europe, of which there are not many that function in the real sense of the word, are going to be able to afford to their subjects the same measure of physical security, to say nothing of national satisfaction, as is being afforded to the people of Germany by the dictatorship which has been established there. It is not only the supreme question of self-preservation that is involved in the realisation of these dangers, but also the human and the world cause of the preservation of free Governments and of Western civilization against the ever-advancing forces of authority and despotism.