Their Finest Hour (22 page)

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For the first time in a hundred and twenty-five years a powerful enemy was now established across the narrow waters of the English Channel. Our re-formed Regular Army, and the larger but less well-trained Territorials, had to be organised and deployed to create an elaborate system of defences, and to stand ready, if the invader came, to destroy him – for there could be no escape. It was for both sides “Kill or Cure.” Already the Home Guard could be included in the general framework of defence. On June 25, General Ironside, Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, exposed his plans to the Chiefs of Staff. They were, of course, scrutinised with anxious care by the experts, and I examined them myself with no little attention. On the whole they stood approved. There were three main elements in this early outline of a great future plan: first, an entrenched “crust” on the probable invasion beaches of the coast, whose defenders should fight where they stood, supported by mobile reserves for immediate counter-attack; secondly, a line of anti-tank obstacles, manned by the Home Guard, running down the east centre of England and protecting London and the great industrial centres from inroads by armoured vehicles; thirdly, behind that line, the main reserves for major counter-offensive action.

Ceaseless additions and refinements to this first plan were effected as the weeks and months passed; but the general conception remained. All troops, if attacked, should stand firm, not in linear only but
in all-round defence,
whilst others moved rapidly to destroy the attackers, whether they came from sea or air. Men who had been cut off from immediate help would not have merely remained in position. Active measures were prepared to harass the enemy from behind; to interfere with his communications and to destroy material, as the Russians did with great results when the German tide flowed over their country a year later. Many people must have been bewildered by the innumerable activities all around them. They could understand the necessity for wiring and mining the beaches, the anti-tank obstacles at the defiles, the concrete pillboxes at the crossroads, the intrusions into their houses to fill an attic with sandbags, onto their golf-courses or most fertile fields and gardens to burrow out some wide anti-tank ditch. All these inconveniences, and much more, they accepted in good part. But sometimes they must have wondered if there was a general scheme, or whether lesser individuals were not running amok in their energetic use of newly granted powers of interference with the property of the citizen.

There was, however, a central plan, elaborate, co-ordinated, and all-embracing. As it grew, it shaped itself thus: the over-all command was maintained at General Headquarters in London. All Great Britain and Northern Ireland were divided into seven commands; these again into areas of corps and divisional commands. Commands, corps, and divisions were each required to hold a proportion of their resources in mobile reserve, only the minimum being detailed to hold their own particular defences. Gradually there were built up in rear of the beaches zones of defence in each divisional area, behind these similar corps zones and command zones, the whole system amounting in depth to a hundred miles or more. And behind these was established the main anti-tank obstacle running across Southern England and northward into Nottinghamshire. Above all was the final reserve directly under the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Forces. This it was our policy to keep as large and mobile as possible.

Within this general structure were many variations. Each of our ports on the east and south coasts was a special study. Direct frontal attack upon a defended port seemed an unlikely contingency, and all were made into strong-points equally capable of defence from the landward or the seaward side. It astonishes me that when this principle of fortifying the gorges was so universally accepted and rigorously enforced by all military authorities at home, no similar measures were adopted at Singapore by the succession of high officers employed there. But this is a later story. Obstacles were placed on many thousand square miles of Britain to impede the landing of air-borne troops. All our aerodromes, radar stations, and fuel depots, of which even in the summer of 1940 there were three hundred and seventy-five, needed defence by special garrisons and by their own airmen. Many thousands of “vulnerable points” – bridges, power-stations, depots, vital factories, and the like – had to be guarded day and night from sabotage or sudden onset. Schemes were ready for the immediate demolition of resources helpful to the enemy, if captured. The destruction of port facilities, the cratering of key roads, the paralysis of motor transport and of telephones and telegraph stations, of rolling stock or permanent way, before they passed out of our control, were planned to the last detail. Yet, despite all these wise and necessary precautions, in which the civilian departments gave unstinted help to the military, there was no question of a “scorched-earth policy”; England was to be defended by its people, not destroyed.

Telegram to President Roosevelt
—
My Visit to Tours
—
Increasing Degeneration
—
M. Baudouin
—
The Great Mandel
—
Conversation with Reynaud
—
My Refusal to Release France from the Obligation of March
28, 1940
— Resolute Attitude of MM. Herriot and Jeanneney — “L’Homme du Destin”
—
French Government Decide to Move to Bordeaux
—
President Roosevelt to M. Reynaud, June
13
— My Telegram to the President
—
And to Reynaud
—
“Indissoluble Union of France and Britain” — Disappointing Telegram from the President
—
My Telegram to the President of June
14/15
— A Grave Suggestion
—
Great Battle of June
9
Along the Aisne
—
Defeat of the French
—
Forlorn Resistance on the Maginot Line
—
Our Slender Contribution
—
General Brooke’s New Command — Talk of a Bridgehead in Brittany
—
Brooke Declares the Military Situation Hopeless
—
I Agree
—
Our Troops Withdraw and Re-embark, June
16/17
— The Pétain Government Asks for an Armistice
—
A Second Dunkirk Evacuation
—
A Hundred and Fifty Thousand British and Forty-two Thousand Poles Carried to Britain
—
The “Lancastria” Horror
—
My Message of June
16
to the Dominion Prime Ministers
—
My Hopes of the Air Battle over Britain.

F
UTURE GENERATIONS
may deem it noteworthy that the supreme question of whether we should fight on alone never found a place upon the War Cabinet agenda. It was taken for granted and as a matter of course by these men of all parties in the State, and we were much too busy to waste time upon such unreal, academic issues. We were united also in viewing the new phase with good confidence. It was decided to tell the Dominions the whole facts. I was invited to send a message in the same sense to President Roosevelt, and also to sustain the determination of the French Government and assure them of our utmost support.

Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt.

12.VI.40.

I spent last night and this morning at the French G.Q.G., where the situation was explained to me in the gravest terms by Generals Weygand and Georges. You have no doubt received full particulars from Mr. Bullitt. The practical point is what will happen when and if the French front breaks, Paris is taken, and General Weygand reports formally to his Government that France can no longer continue what he calls “co-ordinated war.” The aged Marshal Pétain, who was none too good in April and July, 1918, is, I fear, ready to lend his name and prestige to a treaty of peace for France. Reynaud, on the other hand, is for fighting on, and he has a young General de Gaulle, who believes much can be done. Admiral Darlan declares he will send the French Fleet to Canada. It would be disastrous if the two big modern ships fell into bad hands. It seems to me that there must be many elements in France who will wish to continue the struggle either in France or in the French colonies, or in both. This, therefore, is the moment for you to strengthen Reynaud the utmost you can, and try to tip the balance in favour of the best and longest possible French resistance. I venture to put this point before you, although I know you must understand it as well as I do.

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On June 13 I made my last visit to France for four years almost to a day. The French Government had now withdrawn to Tours, and tension had mounted steadily. I took Edward Halifax and General Ismay with me, and Max Beaverbrook volunteered to come too. In trouble he is always buoyant. This time the weather was cloudless, and we sailed over in the midst of our Hurricane squadron, making, however, a rather wider sweep to the southward than before. Arrived over Tours, we found the airport had been heavily bombed the night before, but we and all our escort landed smoothly in spite of the craters. Immediately one sensed the increasing degeneration of affairs. No one came to meet us or seemed to expect us. We borrowed a service car from the Station Commander and motored into the city, making for the préfecture, where it was said the French Government had their headquarters. No one of consequence was there, but Reynaud was reported to be motoring in from the country, and Mandel was also to arrive soon.

It being already nearly two o’clock, I insisted upon luncheon, and after some parleyings we drove through streets crowded with refugees’ cars, most of them with a mattress on top and crammed with luggage. We found a café, which was closed but after explanations we obtained a meal. During luncheon I was visited by M. Baudouin, an official of the French Foreign Office, whose influence had risen in these latter days. He began at once in his soft, silky manner about the hopelessness of the French resistance. If the United States would declare war on Germany, it might be possible for France to continue. What did I think about this? I did not discuss the question further than to say that I hoped America would come in, and that we should certainly fight on. He afterwards, I was told, spread it about that I had agreed that France should surrender unless the United States came in.

We then returned to the préfecture, where Mandel, Minister of the Interior, awaited us. This faithful former secretary of Clemenceau, and a bearer forward of his life’s message, seemed in the best of spirits. He was energy and defiance personified. His luncheon, an attractive chicken, was uneaten on the tray before him. He was a ray of sunshine. He had a telephone in each hand, through which he was constantly giving orders and decisions. His ideas were simple: fight on to the end in France, in order to cover the largest possible movement into Africa. This was the last time I saw this valiant Frenchman. The restored French Republic rightly shot to death the hirelings who murdered him. His memory is honoured by his countrymen and their Allies.

Presently M. Reynaud arrived. At first he seemed depressed. General Weygand had reported to him that the French armies were exhausted. The line was pierced in many places; refugees were pouring along all the roads through the country, and many of the troops were in disorder. The Generalissimo felt it was necessary to ask for an armistice while there were still enough French troops to keep order until peace could be made. Such was the military advice. He would send that day a further message to Mr. Roosevelt saying that the last hour had come and that the fate of the Allied cause lay in America’s hand. Hence arose the alternative of armistice and peace.

M. Reynaud proceeded to say that the Council of Ministers had on the previous day instructed him to inquire what would be Britain’s attitude should the worst come. He himself was well aware of the solemn pledge that no separate peace would be entered into by either ally. General Weygand and others pointed out that France had already sacrificed everything in the common cause. She had nothing left; but she had succeeded in greatly weakening the common foe. It would in those circumstances be a shock if Britain failed to concede that France was physically unable to carry on, if France was still expected to fight on and thus deliver up her people to the certainty of corruption and evil transformation at the hands of ruthless specialists in the art of bringing conquered peoples to heel. That then was the question which he had to put. Would Great Britain realise the hard facts with which France was faced?

The official British record reads as follows:

Mr. Churchill said that Great Britain realised how much France had suffered and was suffering. Her own turn would come, and she was ready. She grieved to find that her contribution to the land struggle was at present so small, owing to the reverses which had been met with as a result of applying an agreed strategy in the North. The British had not yet felt the German lash, but were aware of its force. They nevertheless had but one thought: to win the war and destroy Hitlerism. Everything was subordinate to that aim; no difficulties, no regrets, could stand in the way. He was well assured of British capacity for enduring and persisting, for striking back till the foe was beaten. They would therefore hope that France would carry on fighting south of Paris down to the sea, and if need be from North Africa. At all costs time must be gained. The period of waiting was not limitless: a pledge from the United States would make it quite short. The alternative course meant destruction for France quite as certainly. Hitler would abide by no pledges. If, on the other hand, France remained in the struggle, with her fine Navy, her great Empire, her Army still able to carry on guerrilla warfare on a gigantic scale, and if Germany failed to destroy England, which she must do or go under, if then Germany’s might in the air was broken, then the whole hateful edifice of Nazidom would topple over. Given immediate help from America, perhaps even a declaration of war, victory was not so far off. At all events England would fight on. She had not and would not alter her resolve: no terms, no surrender. The alternatives for her were death or victory. That was his answer to M. Reynaud’s question.

M. Reynaud replied that he had never doubted England’s determination. He was, however, anxious to know how the British Government would react in a certain contingency. The French Government – the present one or another – might say: “We know you will carry on. We would also, if we saw any hope of a victory. But we see no sufficient hopes of an early victory. We cannot count on American help.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel.
We cannot abandon our people to indefinite German domination. We must come to terms. We have no choice….” It was already too late to organise a redoubt in Brittany. Nowhere would a genuine French Government have a hope of escaping capture on French soil…. The question to Britain would therefore take the form: “Will you acknowledge that France has given her best, her youth and life-blood; that she can do no more; and that she is entitled, having nothing further to contribute to the common cause, to enter into a separate peace while maintaining the solidarity implicit in the solemn agreement entered into three months previously?”

Mr. Churchill said that in no case would Britain waste time and energy in reproaches and recriminations. That did not mean that she would consent to action contrary to the recent agreement. The first step ought to be M. Reynaud’s further message putting the present position squarely to President Roosevelt. Let them await the answer before considering anything else. If England won the war, France would be restored in her dignity and in her greatness.

All the same I thought the issue raised at this point was so serious that I asked to withdraw with my colleagues before answering it. So Lords Halifax and Beaverbrook and the rest of our party went out into a dripping but sunlit garden and talked things over for half an hour. On our return I restated our position. We could not agree to a separate peace however it might come. Our war aim remained the total defeat of Hitler, and we felt that we could still bring this about. We were therefore not in a position to release France from her obligation. Whatever happened, we would level no reproaches against France; but that was a different matter from consenting to release her from her pledge. I urged that the French should now send a new appeal to President Roosevelt, which we would support from London. M. Reynaud agreed to do this, and promised that the French would hold on until the result of his final appeal was known.

Before leaving, I made one particular request to M. Reynaud. Over four hundred German pilots, the bulk of whom had been shot down by the R.A.F., were prisoners in France. Having regard to the situation, they should be handed over to our custody. M. Reynaud willingly gave this promise, but soon he had no power to keep it. These German pilots all became available for the Battle of Britain, and we had to shoot them down a second time.

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At the end of our talk, M. Reynaud took us into the adjoining room, where MM. Herriot and Jeanneney, the Presidents of the Chamber and Senate respectively, were seated. Both these French patriots spoke with passionate emotion about fighting on to the death. As we went down the crowded passage into the courtyard, I saw General de Gaulle standing stolid and expressionless at the doorway. Greeting him, I said in a low tone, in French: “L’homme du destin.” He remained impassive. In the courtyard there must have been more than a hundred leading Frenchmen in frightful misery. Clemenceau’s son was brought up to me. I wrung his hand. The Hurricanes were already in the air, and I slept sound on our swift and uneventful journey home. This was wise, for there was a long way to go before bedtime.

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After our departure from Tours at about half-past five, M. Reynaud met his Cabinet again at Cangé. They were vexed that I and my colleagues had not come there to join them. We should have been very willing to do so, no matter how late we had to fly home. But we were never invited; nor did we know there was to be a French Cabinet meeting.