The Day We Went to War (28 page)

Neville Mooney, the first baby born in London after the declaration of war, wearing a new type of gas helmet specially made for babies and infants.

When I spoke to the House last night I could not but be aware that in some parts of the House there were doubts and some bewilderment as to whether there had been any weakening, hesitation or vacillation on the part of the Government.

In the circumstances I make no reproaches, for if I had been in the same position as Hon. Members on those benches and not been in a position of having the information which we have I might have felt the same.

The statement that I have to make this morning will show that there is no ground for those doubts. We were in consultation all day yesterday with the French Government, and we felt that the intensified action which the Germans were taking against Poland allowed of no delay in making our position clear.

Accordingly we decided to send our Ambassador in Berlin instructions which he was to hand to the German Foreign Secretary.

Chamberlain reads out the ultimatum that Sir Nevile Henderson handed to Dr Schmidt earlier this morning, and continues:

Sir, that was the final Note. No such undertaking was received by the time stipulated, and consequently this country is now at war with Germany.

I am in a position to inform the House that according to arrangements made between the British and French Governments the French Ambassador in Berlin is at this moment making a similar
démarche
also accompanied by a definite time-limit.

Polish civilians who had taken up arms against the German invaders are rounded up by a reconnaissance patrol of the 76th Motorised Regiment during the Battle of the Tucheler Heide, 1–5 September 1939.

As the British ultimatum runs out at midday, Hitler receives the new Soviet ambassador Alexander Shkvartsev
(second from left)
at the Reich Chancellery.

The House has already been made aware of our plans, and, as I said the other day, we are ready.

The Prime Minister ends his statement on perhaps a too highly personal note:

It is a sad day for all of us. For none is it sadder than for me. Everything that I have worked for, everything that I hoped for, everything that I believed in during my public life has crashed into ruins this morning. There is only one thing left for me, and that is to devote what strength and powers I have to forwarding the victory of the cause for which we have to sacrifice so much.

I cannot tell what part I may be allowed to play myself, but I trust I may live to see the day when Hitlerism has been destroyed and a restored and liberated Europe has been re-established.

12.15pm, L
ONDON

Chamberlain sits down to sympathetic cheers from all sides of the House. Victor Cazalet thinks the speech ‘very dramatic. No overstatement, no appeal to emotion or sentiment. Just a heartfelt cry against the stupidity of it all.’ The Prime Minister is followed by Arthur Greenwood and Sir Archibald Sinclair, the leader of the Liberal Party. Both the tone and content of the two leaders’ speeches demonstrate the unity of all the parties today in their determination to have the war prosecuted successfully. Greenwood speaks of how ‘The intolerable agony of suspense from which all of us have suffered is over; we now know the worst. The hated word “war” has been spoken by Britain, in fulfilment of her pledged and unbreakable intention to defend Poland and so to defend the liberties of Europe. We have heard more than the word spoken. We have heard the war begin, within the precincts of this House.’

Labour’s acting leader then goes on to praise the Poles, ‘who for fifty-four hours had stood alone, at the portals of civilization,
defending us and all free nations’. He finishes with a call that ‘Nazism must be finally overthrown’. To this end he promises Labour’s ‘wholehearted support to the measures necessary to equip this State with the powers that are desired’. But he warns Chamberlain and his ministers that should they not prove up to the job, should there be inefficiency or wavering, then ‘other men must be called to take their place’.

Sir Archibald Sinclair also rises to the occasion. But he warns MPs:

Great advances have been made in our organization for war, but in individual preparation, in the contributions which the men and women of the two countries are making to the common cause, I say that France at this moment is ahead of us. If you go to France and meet ten people in the streets you may be sure that eight of them have their places and parts to play. Our people will do the same as time goes on, but let us have no doubts as to the determination with which the French people are facing this crisis.

As Sir Archibald speaks, there are still nearly one and a half million registered unemployed men in Britain. The Liberal leader concludes on a fine rhetorical flourish. ‘Let me only say in conclusion: let the world know that the British people are inexorably determined, as the Prime Minister said, to end this Nazi domination forever and build a word based on justice and freedom.’

As Sir Archibald sits down, his old commanding officer from the Great War then rises to make his statement. At last, Winston Churchill knows that he is now to be given an important government post. Chamberlain has asked to see him just as soon as the debate dies down. To the House he now says:

In this solemn hour it is a consolation to recall and dwell upon our repeated efforts for peace. All have been ill-starred, but all have been
faithful and sincere. That is of the highest moral value – and not only moral value, but practical value – at the present time, because the wholehearted concurrence of scores of millions of men and women, whose co-operation is indispensable and whose comradeship and brotherhood are indispensable, is the only foundation upon which the trial and tribulation of modern war can be endured and surmounted.

This moral conviction alone affords that ever-fresh resilience which renews the strength and energy of people in long, doubtful and dark days. Outside the storms of war may blow and the lands may be lashed with the fury of its gales, but in our own hearts this Sunday there is peace. Our hands may be active, but our consciences are at rest.

We must not underrate the gravity of the task which lies before us or the temerity of the ordeal, to which we shall not be found unequal. We must expect many disappointments and many unpleasant surprises, but we may be sure that the task which we have freely accepted is not beyond the compass and the strength of the British Empire and the French Republic.

The Prime Minister said it was a sad day, and that is indeed true, but at the present time there is another note which may be present, and that is a feeling of thankfulness that, if these great trials were to come upon our island, there is a generation of Britons here now ready to prove itself not unworthy of those great men, the fathers of our land, who laid the foundations of our laws and shaped the greatness of our country.

This is not a question of fighting for Danzig or for fighting for Poland. We are fighting to save the whole world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny and in defence of all that is most sacred to man. This is no war for domination or imperial aggrandisement or material gain; no war to shut any country out of its sunlight and means of progress.

It is a war, viewed in its inherent quality, to establish on impregnable rocks the rights of the individual, and it is a war to establish
and revive the stature of man. Perhaps it might seem a paradox that a war undertaken in the name of liberty and right should require as a necessary part of its processes, the surrender for the time being of so many of the dearly valued liberties and rights. In these last few days the House of Commons has been voting dozens of Bills which hand over to the executive our most dearly valued traditional liberties.

We are sure that these liberties will be in hands which will not abuse them, which will use them for no class or party interests, which will cherish and guard them, and we look forward to the day, when our liberties and rights will be restored to us, and when we shall be able to share them with the peoples to whom such blessings are unknown.

Churchill, the man who has now been proved so devastatingly correct in his warnings, receives a generous and enthusiastic reception from all sides of the House. But, Beverley Baxter is not one of the speech’s admirers today. He thinks it far below Churchill’s usual high standard. Baxter believes this is because Churchill has put too much preparation in it. It smacks, thinks Baxter, too much ‘of the professional orator, the too conscientious pupil of Pericles. The language too colourful, the sentiment too significant, the style too momentous.’ But, Baxter concedes, ‘Perhaps history will record his efforts . . . as a triumph.’ Others share Baxter’s view. Harold Nicolson thinks Churchill’s speech misfires as it sounds too much like one of his newspaper articles. On the other hand ‘Chips’ Channon, a devoted Chamberlainite, considers that Churchill has spoken well. And in the Press Gallery, lobby correspondent J.E. Sewell thinks as he listens, ‘That’s it! That’s just it!’ Churchill, he believes, has just given a brilliant and succinct definition of Britain’s war aims, encapsulated in the one Churchillian sentence, ‘it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man’.

Former Labour leader George Lansbury, a passionate pacifist, also speaks. But it is Lloyd George who wins outright the parliamentary plaudits this afternoon. Britain’s great wartime leader tells his fellow MPs:

I am one of those who, with Hon. and Right Hon. Friends on this side of the House, have from time to time challenged the handling of foreign affairs by the Government, but this is a different matter. The Government are now confronted with the latest, but I am afraid not the last, of a series of acts of brigandage by a very formidable military power, which if they are left unchallenged will undermine the whole foundation of civilisation throughout the world. The Government could do no other than what they have done. I am one out of ten million in this country who will back any government that is in power in fighting this struggle through, in however humble a capacity we may be called upon to render service to our country. I have been through this before, and there is only one word I want to say about that. We had very bad moments, moments when brave men were rather quailing and doubting, but the nation was firm right through, from beginning to end. One thing that struck me then was that it was in moments of disaster, and in some of the worst disasters with which we were confronted in the War, that I found the greatest union among all classes, the greatest disappearance of discontent and disaffection, and of the grabbing for rights and privileges. The nation closed its ranks then. By that means we went right through to the end, and after four and a half years, terrible years, we won victory for right. We will do it again.

A great cheer sweeps through the House as the seventy-six-year-old former premier resumes his seat. Even the acerbic Baxter believes that the ‘Welsh Wizard’s’ speech has exactly caught both the spirit of the occasion and the mood of the House. And one of Churchill’s supporters, Major-General Sir Edward Spears, the MP for Carlisle, thinks it the best speech that he has heard today.

12.15pm, SS
A
THENIA
, A
TLANTIC
O
CEAN

Passengers crowd around the notice board to read the announcement that Copland and Wotherspoon have just drawn up. In the main the news is greeted in silence. Some feel a sense of relief. Others notice that there is a ‘sudden cessation of laughter and gaiety’ among the younger people on board. Texan college student Rowena Simpson confesses to feeling butterflies in her stomach, and so do some of her friends. Most passengers, however, are sure that nothing will happen to the liner, now 296 miles from Liverpool. But Judith Evelyn, travelling to Toronto with her Canadian fiancé Andrew and his father, feels the ‘surge of a strong presentiment’. All morning she has been ‘conscious of a dull, oppressive sense of disaster’.