Their Finest Hour (68 page)

* * * * *

I filled Mr. Eden’s place as Secretary of State for War by submitting to the King the name of Captain Margesson, at that time the Chief Whip to the National Government. This choice excited some adverse comment. David Margesson had been for nearly ten years at the head of the Government Whip’s Office in the House of Commons, and it had fallen to him to marshal and to stimulate the patient and solid Conservative majorities which had so long sustained the Baldwin and Chamberlain Administrations. I had, as a leading figure among the Conservative dissentients from the India Bill, had many sharp passages with him. In the course of those eleven years of my exclusion from office my contacts with him had been not infrequent and generally hostile. I had formed the opinion that he was a man of high ability, serving his chief, whoever he was, with unfaltering loyalty, and treating his opponents with strict good faith. This opinion was also held by the Whips of the Labour and Liberal Parties, and such a reputation is of course essential to the discharge of this particular office. When I became Prime Minister it was generally expected that I should find someone else for the task, but I was quite sure that I should receive from Margesson the same skilful and faithful service that he had given to my predecessors; and in this I had been in no way disappointed. He had served in the First World War, and through much of the worst of it as a regimental officer, gaining the Military Cross. He thus had a strong soldierly background as well as a complete knowledge of the House of Commons.

In Margesson’s place I appointed Captain James Stuart, with whom also I had had many differences, but for whose character I had high respect.

* * * * *

The interval between November, 1940, and the passage of Lend-Lease in March, 1941, was marked by an acute stringency in dollars. Every kind of expedient was devised by our friends. The American Government bought from us some of the war plants which they had built to our order in the United States. They assigned them to the American defence programme, but bade us go on using them to the full. The War Department placed orders for munitions that it did not need immediately, so that when finished they could be released to us. On the other hand, certain things were done which seemed harsh and painful to us. The President sent a warship to Capetown to carry away all the gold we had gathered there. The great British business of Courtaulds in America was sold by us at the request of the United States Government at a comparatively low figure, and then resold through the markets at a much higher price from which we did not benefit. I had a feeling that these steps were taken to emphasise the hardship of our position and raise feeling against the opponents of Lend-Lease. Anyhow, in one way or another we came through.

On December 30, the President gave a “fireside chat” on the radio, urging his policy upon his countrymen.

There is danger ahead – danger against which we must prepare. But we well know that we cannot escape danger by crawling into bed and pulling the covers over our heads…. If Britain should go down, all of us in all the Americas would be living at the point of a gun, a gun loaded with explosive bullets, economic as well as military. We must produce arms and ships with every energy and resource we can command….
We must be the great arsenal of Democracy.

 

Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt.

31.XII.40.

We are deeply grateful to you for all you said yesterday. We welcome especially the outline of your plans for giving us the aid without which Hitlerism cannot be extirpated from Europe and Asia. We can readily guess why you have not been able to give a precise account of how your proposals will be worked out. Meanwhile, some things make me anxious.

First, sending the warship to Capetown to take up the gold lying there may produce embarrassing effects. It is almost certain to become known. This will disturb public opinion here and throughout the Dominions and encourage the enemy, who will proclaim that you are sending for our last reserves. If you feel this is the only way, directions will be given for the available Captown gold to be loaded on the ship. But we should avoid it if we can. Could we, for instance, by a technical operation, exchange gold in South Africa for gold held for others at Ottawa and make the latter available for movement to New York? We must know soon, because the ship is on its way.

My second anxiety is because we do not know how long Congress will debate your proposals and how we should be enabled to place orders for armaments and pay our way if this time became protracted. Remember, Mr. President, we do not know what you have in mind, exactly what the United States is going to do, and we are fighting for our lives. What would be the effect upon the world situation if we had to default in payments to your contractors, who have their workmen to pay? Would not this be exploited by the enemy as a complete breakdown in Anglo-American co-operation? Yet a few weeks’ delay might well bring this upon us.

Thirdly, apart from the interim period, there arises a group of problems about the scope of your plan after being approved by Congress. What is to be done about the immense heavy payments still due to be made under existing orders before delivery is completed? Substantial advance payments on these same orders have already denuded our resources. We have continued need for various American commodities not definitely weapons – for instance, raw materials and oils. Canada and other Dominions, Greece and refugee allies, have clamant dollar needs to keep their war effort alive. I do not seek to know immediately how you will solve these latter questions. We shall be entirely ready, for our part, to lay bare to you all our resources and our liabilities around the world, and we shall seek no more help than the common cause demands. We naturally wish to feel sure that the powers with which you propose to arm yourself will be sufficiently wide to deal with these larger matters, subject to all proper examination.

Sir Frederick Phillips is discussing these matters with Mr. Secretary Morgenthau, and he will explain the war commitments we have in many parts of the world for which we could not ask your direct help, but for which gold and dollars are necessary. This applies also to the Dutch and Belgian gold, which we may become under obligation to return in specie in due course.

 

They burned a large part of the City of London last night, and the scenes of widespread destruction here and in our provincial centres are shocking; but when I visited the still-burning ruins today, the spirit of the Londoners was as high as in the first days of the indiscriminate bombing in September, four months ago.

I thank you for testifying before all the world that the future safety and greatness of the American Union are intimately concerned with the upholding and the effective arming of that indomitable spirit.

All my heartiest good wishes to you in the New Year of storm that is opening upon us.

Hitler Turns Eastward
—
Stalin’s Attempts to Placate Germany
—
Communist Machinations in the British Factories
—
Projects of Dividing the British Empire
—
Soviet Miscalculations
—
Molotov’s Visit to Berlin
—
His Meeting with Ribbentrop and with the Fuehrer
—
Soviet-Nazi Negotiations
—
A British Air Raid Intervenes
—
Further Argument with the Fuehrer
—
Second British Air Raid
—
Talks in a Dugout
—
Stalin’s Account Given to Me in August,
1942 —
Hitler’s Final Resolve to Invade Russia
—
Military Preparations
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The Draft Agreement
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The Soviets Ask for More
—
Ambassador Schulenburg’s Efforts to Reach an Agreement
—
Hitler Veiled
—
“Operation Barbarossa,” December,
1940.

H
ITLER
had failed to quell or conquer Britain. It was plain that the Island would persevere to the end. Without the command of the sea or the air, it had been deemed impossible to move German armies across the Channel. Winter with its storms had closed upon the scene. The German attempt to cow the British nation, or shatter their warmaking capacity and will-power by bombing, had been foiled, and the Blitz was costly. There must be many months’ delay before “Sea Lion” could be revived, and with every week that passed, the growth, ripening, and equipment of the British home armies required a larger “Sea Lion,” with aggravated difficulties of transportation. Even three-quarters of a million men with all their furnishings would not be enough in April or May, 1941. What chance was there of finding by then the shipping, the barges, the special landing-craft necessary for so vast an oversea stroke? How could they be assembled under ever-increasing British air-power? Meanwhile this air-power, fed by busy factories in Britain and the United States, and by immense training schemes for pilots in the Dominions centred in Canada, would perhaps in a year or so make the British Air Force superior in numbers, as it was already in quality, to that of Germany. Can we wonder, then, that Hitler, once convinced that Goering’s hopes and boasts had been broken, should turn his eyes to the East? Like Napoleon in 1804, he recoiled from the assault of the island until at least the Eastern danger was no more. He must, he now felt, at all costs settle with Russia before staking everything on the invasion of Britain. Obeying the same forces and following the same thoughts as Napoleon when he marched the Grand Army from Boulogne to Ulm, Austerlitz, and Fried-land, Hitler abandoned for the moment his desire and need to destroy Great Britain. That must now become the final act of the drama.

There is no doubt that he had made up his own mind by the end of September, 1940. From that time forth the air attacks on Britain, though often on a larger scale through the general multiplication of aircraft, took the second place in the Fuehrer’s thoughts and German plans. They might be maintained as effective cover for other designs, but Hitler no longer counted on them for decisive victory. Eastward ho! Personally, on purely military grounds, I should not have been averse from a German attempt at the invasion of Britain in the spring or summer of 1941. I believed that the enemy would suffer the most terrific defeat and slaughter that any country had ever sustained in a specific military enterprise. But for that very reason I was not so simple as to expect it to happen. In war what you don’t dislike is not usually what the enemy does. Still, in the conduct of a long struggle, when time seemed for a year or two on our side and mighty allies might be gained, I thanked God that the supreme ordeal was to be spared our people. As will be seen from my papers written at the time, I never seriously contemplated a German descent upon England in 1941. By the end of 1941, the boot was on the other leg; we were no longer alone; three-quarters of the world were with us. But tremendous events, measureless before they happened, were to mark that memorable year.

While to uninformed continentals and the outer world our fate seemed forlorn, or at best in the balance, the relations between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia assumed the first position in world affairs. The fundamental antagonisms between the two despotic Powers resumed their sway once it was certain that Britain could not be stunned and overpowered like France and the Low Countries. To do him justice, Stalin tried his very best to work loyally and faithfully with Hitler, while at the same time gathering all the strength he could in the enormous mass of Soviet Russia. He and Molotov sent their dutiful congratulations on every German victory. They poured a heavy flow of food and essential raw materials into the Reich. Their Fifth Column Communists did what they could to disturb our factories. Their radio diffused its abuse and slanders against us. They were at any time ready to reach a permanent settlement with Nazi Germany upon the numerous important questions open between them and to accept with complacency the final destruction of the British power. But all the while they recognised that this policy might fail. They were resolved to gain time by every means, and had no intention, as far as they could measure the problem, of basing Russian interests or ambitions solely upon a German victory. The two great totalitarian empires, equally devoid of moral restraints, confronted each other, polite but inexorable.

There had, of course, been disagreements about Finland and Rumania. The Soviet leaders had been shocked at the fall of France, and the end of the Second Front for which they were so soon to clamour. They had not expected so sudden a collapse, and had counted confidently on a phase of mutual exhaustion on the Western Front. Now there was no Western Front! Still, it would be foolish to make any serious change in their collaboration with Germany till it could be seen whether Britain would give in or be crushed in 1940. As it gradually became apparent to the Kremlin that Britain was capable of maintaining a prolonged and indefinite war, during which anything might happen about the United States and also in Japan, Stalin became more conscious of his danger and more earnest to gain time. Nevertheless, it is remarkable, as we shall see, what advantages he sacrificed and what risks he ran to keep on friendly terms with Nazi Germany. Even more surprising were the miscalculations and the ignorance which he displayed about what was coming to him. He was indeed from September, 1940, to the moment of Hitler’s assault in June, 1941, at once a callous, a crafty and an ill-informed giant.

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With these preliminaries we may come to the episode of Molotov’s visit to Berlin on November 12, 1940. Every compliment was paid and all ceremony shown to the Bolshevik envoy when he readied the heart of Nazi Germany. During the next two days long and tense discussions took place between Molotov and Ribbentrop, and also with Hitler. All the essential facts of these formidable interchanges and confrontations have been laid bare in the selection of captured documents published early in 1948 by the State Department in Washington under the title “Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-1941.” On this it is necessary to draw if the story is to be told or understood.

Molotov’s first meeting was with Ribbentrop.
¹

November
12, 1940.

The Reich Foreign Minister said that in the letter to Stalin he had already expressed the firm conviction of Germany that no power on earth could alter the fact that the beginning of the end had now arrived for the British Empire. England was beaten, and it was only a question of time when she would finally admit her defeat. It was possible that this would happen soon, because in England the situation was deteriorating daily. Germany would, of course, welcome an early conclusion of the conflict, since she did not wish under any circumstances to sacrifice human lives unnecessarily. If, however, the British did not make up their minds in the immediate future to admit their defeat, they would definitely ask for peace during the coming year. Germany was continuing her bombing attacks on England day and night. Her submarines would gradually be employed to the full extent and would inflict terrible losses on England. Germany was of the opinion that England could perhaps be forced by these attacks to give up the struggle. A certain uneasiness was already apparent in Great Britain, which seemed to indicate such a solution. If, however, England were not forced to her knees by the present mode of attack, Germany would, as soon as weather conditions permitted, resolutely proceed to a large-scale attack and thereby definitely crush England. This large-scale attack had thus far been prevented only by abVsppara weather conditions.

.  .  .  .  .

Any attempt at a landing or at military operations on the European Continent by England or by England backed by America was doomed to complete failure at the start. This was no military problem at all. This the English had not yet understood, because apparently there was some degree of confusion in Great Britain and because the country was led by a political and military dilettante by the name of Churchill, who throughout his previous career had completely failed at all decisive moments and who would fail again this time.

Furthermore, the Axis completely dominated its part of Europe militarily and politically. Even France, which had lost the war and had to pay for it (of which the French, incidentally, were quite aware), had accepted the principle that France in the future would never again support England and de Gaulle, the quixotic conqueror of Africa. Because of the extraordinary strength of their position, the Axis Powers were not, therefore, considering how they might win the war, but rather how rapidly they could end the war which was already won.

* * * * *

After luncheon the Soviet Envoy was received by the Fuehrer, who dilated further upon the total defeat of Britain.

The war [he said] had led to complications which were not intended by Germany, but which had compelled her from time to time to react militarily to certain events.

The Fuehrer then outlined to Molotov the course of military operations up to the present, which had led to the fact that England no longer had an ally on the Continent…. The English retaliatory measures were ridiculous, and the Russian gentlemen could convince themselves at first hand of the fiction of alleged destruction in Berlin. As soon as atmospheric conditions improved, Germany would be poised for the great and final blow against England. At the moment, then, it was her aim to try not only to make military preparations for this final struggle, but also to clarify the political issues which would be of importance during and after this showdown. He had, therefore, re-examined the relations with Russia, and not in a negative spirit, but with the intention of organising them positively – if possible, for a long period of time. In so doing he had reached several conclusions:

1. Germany was not seeking to obtain military aid from Russia.

2. Because of the tremendous extension of the war, Germany had been forced, in order to oppose England, to penetrate into territories remote from her and in which she was not basically interested politically or economically.

3. There were, nevertheless, certain requirements, the full importance of which had become apparent only during the war, but which were absolutely vital to Germany. Among them were certain sources of raw materials, which were considered by Germany as most vital and absolutely indispensable.

* * * * *

To all this Molotov gave a non-committal assent.

Molotov asked about the Tripartite Pact.
²
What was the meaning of the New Order in Europe and in Asia, and what rôle would the U.S.S.R. be given in it? These issues must be discussed during the Berlin conversations and during the contemplated visit of the Reich Foreign Minister to Moscow, on which the Russians were definitely counting. Moreover, there were issues to be clarified regarding Russia’s Balkan and Black Sea interests, about Bulgaria, Rumania, and Turkey. It would be easier for the Russian Government to give specific replies to the questions raised by the Fuehrer if it could obtain the explanations just requested. The Soviet would be interested in the New Order in Europe, and particularly in the tempo and the form of this New Order. It would also like to have an idea of the boundaries of the so-called Greater East Asian Sphere.

The Fuehrer replied that the Tripartite Pact was intended to regulate conditions in Europe as to the natural interests of the European countries, and consequently Germany was now approaching the Soviet Union in order that she might express herself regarding the areas of interest to her. In no case was a settlement to be made without Soviet-Russian co-operation. This applied not only to Europe, but also to Asia, where Russia herself was to co-operate in the definition of the Greater East Asian Sphere and where she was to designate her claims there. Germany’s task in this case was that of a mediator. Russia by no means was to be confronted with a
fait accompli.

When the Fuehrer undertook to try to establish the above-mentioned coalition of Powers, it was not the German-Russian relationship which appeared to him to be the most difficult point, but the question of whether a collaboration between Germany, France, and Italy was possible. Only now … had he thought it possible to contact Soviet Russia for the purpose of settling the questions of the Black Sea, the Balkans, and Turkey.

In conclusion, the Fuehrer summed up by stating that the discussion, to a certain extent, represented the first concrete step toward a comprehensive collaboration, with due consideration for the problems of Western Europe, which were to be settled between Germany, Italy, and France, as well as for the issues of the East, which were essentially the concern of Russia and Japan, but in which Germany offered her good offices as mediator. It was a matter of opposing any attempt on the part of America to “make money on Europe.” The United States had no business in Europe, in Africa, or in Asia.

Molotov expressed his agreement with the statements of the Fuehrer upon the rôle of America and England. The participation of Russia in the Tripartite Pact appeared to him entirely acceptable in principle, provided that Russia was to co-operate as a partner and not be merely an object. In that case he saw no difficulties in the matter of participation of the Soviet Union in the common effort. But the aim and the significance of the Pact must first be more closely defined, particularly with regard to the delimitation of the Greater East Asian Sphere.