The Gathering Storm: The Second World War (18 page)

* * * * *

Nevertheless, when on July 20, 1934, the Government brought forward some belated and inadequate proposals for strengthening the Royal Air Force by forty-one squadrons or about 820 machines
only to be completed in five years,
the Labour Party, supported by the Liberals, moved a vote of censure upon them in the House of Commons.

The motion regretted that

His Majesty’s Government should enter upon a policy of rearmament neither necessitated by any new commitment nor calculated to add to the security of the nation, but certain to jeopardise the prospects of international disarmament and to encourage a revival of dangerous and wasteful competition in preparation for war.

In support of this complete refusal by the Opposition to take any measures to strengthen our air power, Mr. Attlee, speaking in their name, said: “We deny the need for increased air armaments…. We deny the proposition that an increased British air force will make for the peace of the world, and we reject altogether the claim to parity.” The Liberal Party supported this censure motion, although they would have preferred their own, which ran as follows:

That this House views with grave concern the tendency among the nations of the world to resume the competitive race of armaments which has always proved a precursor of war; it will not approve any expansion of our own armaments unless it is clear that the Disarmament Conference has failed and unless a definite case is established; and these conditions not being present as regards the proposed additional expenditure of £20,000,000 upon air armaments, the House declines its assent.

In his speech the Liberal leader, Sir Herbert Samuel, said: “What is the case in regard to Germany? Nothing we have so far seen or heard would suggest that our present air force is not adequate to meet any peril at the present time from this quarter.”

When we remember that this was language used after careful deliberation by the responsible heads of parties, the danger of our country becomes apparent. This was the formative time when by extreme exertions we could have preserved the air strength on which our independence of action was founded. If Great Britain and France had each maintained quantitative parity with Germany, they would together have been double as strong, and Hitler’s career of violence might have been nipped in the bud without the loss of a single life. Thereafter it was too late. We cannot doubt the sincerity of the leaders of the Socialist and Liberal Parties. They were completely wrong and mistaken, and they bear their share of the burden before history. It is indeed astonishing that the Socialist Party should have endeavoured in after years to claim superior foresight and should have reproached their opponents with failing to provide for national safety.

* * * * *

I now enjoyed for once the advantage of being able to urge rearmament in the guise of a defender of the Government. I therefore received an unusually friendly hearing from the Conservative Party.

One would have thought that the character of His Majesty’s Government and the record of its principal Ministers would have induced the Opposition to view the request for an increase in the national defence with some confidence and some consideration. I do not suppose there has ever been such a pacifist-minded Government. There is the Prime Minister, who in the war proved in the most extreme manner and with very great courage his convictions and the sacrifices he would make for what he believed was the cause of pacifism. The Lord President of the Council is chiefly associated in the public mind with the repetition of the prayer, “Give peace in our time.” One would have supposed that when Ministers like these come forward and say that they feel it their duty to ask for some small increase in the means they have of guaranteeing the public safety, it would weigh with the Opposition and would be considered as a proof of the reality of the danger from which they seek to protect us.

Then look at the apologies which the Government have made. No one could have put forward a proposal in more extremely inoffensive terms. Meekness has characterised every word which they have spoken since this subject was first mooted. We are told that we can see for ourselves how small is the proposal. We are assured that it can be stopped at any minute if Geneva succeeds. And we are also assured that the steps we are taking, although they may to some lower minds have associated with them some idea of national self-defence, are really only associated with the great principle of collective security.

But all these apologies and soothing procedures are most curtly repulsed by the Opposition. Their only answer to these efforts to conciliate them is a vote of censure, which is to be decided tonight. It seems to me that we have got very nearly to the end of the period when it is worth while endeavouring to conciliate some classes of opinion upon this subject. We are in the presence of an attempt to establish a kind of tyranny of opinion, and if its reign could be perpetuated, the effect might be profoundly injurious to the stability and security of this country. We are a rich and easy prey. No country is so vulnerable, and no country would better repay pillage than our own….
With our enormous metropolis here, the greatest target in the world, a kind of tremendous, fat, valuable cow tied up to attract the beast of prey,
we are in a position in which we have never been before, and in which no other country is at the present time.

Let us remember this: our weakness does not only involve ourselves; our weakness involves also the stability of Europe.

I then proceeded to argue that Germany was already approaching air parity with Britain:

I first assert that Germany has already, in violation of the Treaty, created
a military air force which is now nearly two-thirds as strong as our present home defence air force.
That is the first statement which I put before the Government for their consideration. The second is that Germany is rapidly increasing this air force, not only by large sums of money which figure in her estimates, but also by public subscriptions – very often almost forced subscriptions –which are in progress and have been in progress for some time all over Germany.
By the end of
1935,
the German air force will be nearly equal in numbers and efficiency to our home defence air force at that date even if the Government’s present proposals are carried out.

The third statement is that if Germany continues this expansion and if we continue to carry out our scheme, then some time in 1936 Germany will be definitely and substantially stronger in the air than Great Britain. Fourthly, and this is the point which is causing anxiety, once they have got that lead we may never be able to overtake them. If these assertions cannot be contradicted, then there is cause for the anxiety which exists in all parts of the House, not only because of the physical strength of the German air force, but I am bound to say also because of the character of the present German dictatorship.
If
the Government have to admit at any time in the next few years that the German air forces are stronger than our own, then they will be held, and I think rightly held, to have failed in their prime duty to the country.

I ended as follows:

The Opposition arc very free-spoken, as most of us are in this country, on the conduct of the German Nazi Government. No one has been more severe in criticism than the Labour Party or that section of the Liberal Party which I see opposite. And their great newspapers, now united in the common cause, have been the most forward in the severity of their strictures. But these criticisms are fiercely resented by the powerful men who have Germany in their hands. So that we are to disarm our friends, we are to have no allies, we are to affront powerful nations, and we are to neglect our own defences entirely. That is a miserable and perilous situation. Indeed, the position to which they seek to reduce us by the course which they have pursued and by the vote which they ask us to take is one of terrible jeopardy, and in voting against them tonight we shall hope that a better path for national safety will be found than that along which they would conduct us.

The Labour Party’s vote of censure was, of course, defeated by a large majority, and I have no doubt that the nation, had it been appealed to with proper preparation on these issues, would equally have sustained the measures necessary for national safety.

* * * * *

It is not possible to tell this story without recording the milestones which we passed on our long journey from security to the jaws of Death. Looking back, I am astonished at the length of time that was granted to us. It would have been possible in 1933, or even in 1934, for Britain to have created an air power which would have imposed the necessary restraints upon Hitler’s ambition, or would perhaps have enabled the military leaders of Germany to control his violent acts. More than five whole years had yet to run before we were to be confronted with the supreme ordeal. Had we acted even now with reasonable prudence and healthy energy, it might never have come to pass. Based upon superior air power, Britain and France could safely have invoked the aid of the League of Nations, and all the states of Europe would have gathered behind them. For the first time the League would have had an instrument of authority.

When the Winter Session opened on November 28, 1934, I moved in the name of some of my friends
¹
an amendment to the Address, declaring that “the strength of our national defences, and especially of our air defences, is no longer adequate to secure the peace, safety, and freedom of Your Majesty’s faithful subjects.” The House was packed and very ready to listen. After using all the arguments which emphasised the heavy danger to us and to the world, I came to precise facts:

I assert, first, that Germany already, at this moment, has a military air force – that is to say, military squadrons, with the necessary ground services, and the necessary reserves of trained personnel and material – which only awaits an order to assemble in full open combination; and that this illegal air force is rapidly approaching equality with our own. Secondly, by this time next year, if Germany executes her existing programme without acceleration, and if we execute our existing programme on the basis which now lies before us without slowing down, and carry out the increases announced to Parliament in July last, the German military air force will this time next year be in fact at least as strong as our own, and it may be even stronger. Thirdly, on the same basis – that is to say, both sides continuing with their existing programmes as at present arranged – by the end of 1936, that is, one year farther on, and two years from now – the German military air force will be nearly fifty per cent stronger, and in 1937 nearly double. All this is on the assumption, as I say, that there is no acceleration on the part of Germany, and no slowing-down on our part.

Mr. Baldwin, who followed me at once, faced this issue squarely, and on the case made out by his Air Ministry advisers, met me with direct contradiction:

It is not the case that Germany is rapidly approaching equality with us. I pointed out that the German figures are total figures, not first-line strength figures, and I have given our own first-line figures and said they are only first-line figures, with a considerably larger reserve at our disposal behind them, even if we confine the comparison to the German air strength and the strength of the Royal Air Force immediately available in Europe. Germany is actively engaged in the production of service aircraft, but her real strength is not fifty per cent of our strength in Europe today. As for the position this time next year, if she continues to execute her air programme without acceleration, and if we continue to carry out at the present approved rate the expansion announced to Parliament in July,
so far from the German military air force being at least as strong as, and probably stronger than, our own, we estimate that we shall still have a margin in Europe alone of nearly fifty per cent.
I cannot look farther forward than the next two years. Mr. Churchill speaks of what may happen in 1937. Such investigations as I have been able to make lead me to believe that his figures are considerably exaggerated.

* * * * *

This sweeping assurance from the virtual Prime Minister soothed most of the alarmed, and silenced many of the critics. Everyone was glad to learn that my precise statements had been denied upon unimpeachable authority. I was not at all convinced. I believed that Mr. Baldwin was not being told the truth by his advisers, and anyhow that he did not know the facts.

* * * * *

Thus the winter months slipped away, and it was not till the spring that I again had the opportunity of raising the issue. I gave full and precise notice.

On the air estimates on Tuesday, I propose to renew our discussion of last November and to analyse as far as I can your figures of British and German air strength for home defence at the various dates in question, viz.: then, now, at the end of the year 1935, calendar and financial, etc. I believe that the Germans are already as strong as we are and possibly stronger, and that if we carry out our new programme as prescribed, Germany will be fifty per cent stronger than we by the end of 1935 or the beginning of 1936. This, as you will see, runs counter to your statement of November, that we should have a fifty-per-cent superiority at that date. I shall, of course, refer to your undertaking of March, 1934, that “this country shall no longer be in a position inferior to any country within striking distance of our shores,” and I shall argue that, according to such knowledge as I have been able to acquire, this is not being made good, as will rapidly be proved by events.