A World at Arms (31 page)

Similar rejection greeted private and entirely unofficial sounding from individual Poles. A strongly pro-German Polish professor, Wladislaw Studnicki, had already been waved off in late 1939; when he tried again early in 1940, the Germans had him put in a sanatorium.
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A more serious approach came in July 1940 from former Under Secretary of State in the Polish Foreign Ministry, Count Jan Szembek, and a former Polish military attaché in Romania, Colonel Jan Kowalewski, both clearly operating without the authorization of the Polish government-in-exile; but the Germans rejected all such approaches.
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If there was one thing
Berlin did not want it was anything that might restrain their murderous activities in occupied Poland.

What the German government wanted was a temporary truce in the West, ending hostilities there, so that it could turn to the conquest of living space in the East. That meant not bargaining with Belgians and Poles but getting England to follow the example of France by acknowledging the totality of German victory and Allied defeat. It was exactly this, however, that the British government refused to do. Certain portions of the British official record for the critical period May-July 1940 remain closed, and it is possible that when these are opened the details of our knowledge of British policy will change; but it would appear that much of the closed material concerns the antics of the Duke of Windsor–which will be reviewed presently–and that the currently available information is entirely adequate for an understanding of the basic evolution of policy in London.
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As the collapsing situation in France became apparent to London, the possibility of Britain’s having to fight on by herself rose as the one clear image out of the fog of confusion and disaster on the continent. Having begun to face the possibility of a French collapse on May 17, the Cabinet received on May 25 a full report from the Chiefs of Staff Committee on “British strategy in a certain eventuality,” the latter phrase a polite circumlocution for France’s defection.
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While asserting that Britain could continue to fight only if she had the support of the United States, the British Chiefs of Staff argued that the way to victory would be in combining bombing of Germany and German-controlled Europe with a blockade as vigorous as Britain could make it and the raising of revolts against the Germans as their hold was weakened by bombing and blockade. Here was the outline for Britain’s strategy for victory, a strategy Churchill made his own with that combination of enthusiasm, determination, and inventiveness that was peculiarly his.

For a few days, primarily May 26 and 27, the Cabinet canvassed the possibility of considering any reasonable terms which preserved the independence of the United Kingdom that Hitler might offer; but it was not expected that such an offer would really be made, and even the concept that any proposals from Germany could be looked at was dropped in the immediately following days. I read the evidence as showing that only until it became obvious, as it did by May 28 and 29, that substantial numbers of the British Expeditionary Force could be extricated from the disaster on the continent, was there any willingness even to think about the possibility of peace. As evacuation became a reality, and it thus appeared possible to organize some defense of the
home islands, all thought of a compromise vanished.
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And in this resolve, the overwhelming majority of the population was clearly behind the government.

Very quickly the emphasis shifted. A major effort was made to try to insist with the French on conditions for relieving them from their treaty promise not to make a separate peace. While most of these conditions were not met, the emphasis in them was on practical measures to assist Britain in continuing the war or at least not hindering her.
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In these last-minute salvage operations, special attention was given to the fate of gold reserves, a subject on which the British were very sensitive in view of Germany’s having gotten a large part of Czechoslovakia’s gold.
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British success in protecting the gold of her allies was limited–the Vichy authorities would transport the Belgian gold reserves from Dakar in French West Africa back to the continent for delivery to the Nazis. But the British government moved quickly and decisively on its own assets. As early as May 21 it decided to act against the contingency of German occupation of the British Isles. In late June and early July Britain’s gold, foreign exchange reserves and negotiable foreign securities were shipped to Canada; within a few weeks over five billion dollars worth of bullion, bonds, and other securities crossed the Atlantic in a battleship, two cruisers and three passenger ships for deposit in vaults in Toronto and Montreal. The British war effort could now be financed from North America if necessary.
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By that time, the government was concentrating fully on its new strategy for continuing the struggle. With the leaders of the Conservative, Labour, and National Liberal parties all in the Cabinet, only David Lloyd George, the Liberal leader and World War I Prime Minister, remained outside. A major effort was made to include him, too, in spite of the initial reluctance of many to serve with him. But Lloyd George refused. In his country’s most dire crisis, he did not respond to Churchill’s plea. Chamberlain suggested that perhaps Lloyd George saw himself playing the role of the British Pétain, a speculation which Churchill thought likely.
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It seems more plausible, however, that Lloyd George saw himself as the British Laval; the role of Pétain would be played by another person who favored a prompt peace with Germany: the Duke of Windsor.

Since his abdication in 1936, the Duke had lived mainly in France. He, and even more his wife, had displayed strong pro-German sentiments which were enthusiastically reciprocated by Hitler. Although the evidence is not entirely clear, there seems to have been a German agent in the Duke’s immediate entourage, with or without the Duke’s knowledge, and during the first months of the war important information
passed from his blabbering through that agent to the Germans.
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In late June the couple went to Madrid where the British ambassador, Sir Samuel Hoare, who had his hands full trying to restrain Franco from entering the war, tried to get him off the continent as quickly as possible.
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The Germans on the other hand wanted him to stay in Spain.
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From the perspective of Berlin, here was the perfect prospective puppet.
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It would be all to the good if he remained accessible in Madrid as a possible replacement for the King of England, and with the option of calling on someone willing to make peace on German terms–like Lloyd George–who could take the place of Churchill as Prime Minister.
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The British government, however, pressured the Duke first to move to Portugal and then to accept an appointment as governor of the Bahamas, a position suitably remote and–at least for the German sinaccessible.
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After an inordinate amount of waffling on the part of the Duke and Duchess and some melodramatic projects by German intelligence at the very least to keep them in Portugal, and preferably to move them back to Spain, the couple finally left for the Duke’s new post a month after he had accepted it. By that time, the air attack on Great Britain had begun in a major way, and George VI soon showed by his presence in the bombed Buckingham Palace and tours of devastated areas of London that there were more important things for a King to worry about than the furnishings of a Paris apartment, which still preoccupied the Duke.

If one asks, what does this tragicomedy mean, three points deserve to be made. The least significant is that concerning the Duke himself. The evidence is clear that he seriously considered working with the Germans and, in fact, remained in contact with them for some time
after
going to the Bahamas. But he did finally follow the call to the new post and the advice of his old friend, Sir Walter Monckton, whom Churchill had sent to Lisbon to keep him from doing anything obviously foolish. More important is the light this episode sheds on British and German policy in the summer of 1940. It shows a British government determined to remove the possibility of any confusion about its continuing in the war; Churchill, who had once isolated himself in British politics by defending Edward VIII in the abdication crisis, now took the lead in pressuring the Duke into the equivalent of exile.
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The German maneuvers, on the other hand, while giving evidence of a completely unrealistic assessment of the situation in England, do show the extent of Berlin’s casting about for any possible handle to use to obtain an end to hostilities in the West.
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While the Germans were still imagining that they had won the war which had begun on September 1, 1939, and were making preparation
for future wars in both East and West, to be reviewed subsequently, the British, who had no intention of giving up, were beginning to implement the strategy they believed necessary for eventual victory: to defend themselves, to bomb and blockade Germany and German-controlled areas, and to raise revolts against the Germans wherever possible.
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The first necessity, clearly, was to defend the home islands if at all possible. That meant that the navy had to be in a position to defend the United Kingdom and protect the supply routes to it. In view of the almost complete absence of effective German surface naval forces in the summer of 1940, the navy could expect to be successful if it were protected against the German air force and could cope with enemy submarines. The first condition was, as we shall see, met by the Royal Air Force; the second was increasingly dependent on assistance from the United States, an issue that will also be examined. The Royal Air Force had acquitted itself well in the earlier fighting in spite of incurring heavy losses. It would now be put to another stern test of battle, and it is important to point out that it entered that battle with airplanes and the critical radar screen which had been ordered in the years when Chamberlain led the British rearmament effort. Finally, the army had to be rebuilt after the disaster on the continent so that it could cope with a German invasion.

Most critical, in the eyes of those in charge in London, were several immediate complications in each of these areas. Britain’s naval situation would be catastrophically injured if the Germans were to gain control of the French navy. Concern over this question was agitating the British government by June 11, and the sailing of French warships to British ports had been Britain’s absolute condition for relieving France from its promise not to make a separate peace. The French instead had agreed to armistice terms which provided for their fleet to go to metropolitan French ports, there to be demilitarized under Axis control. This opened up the possibility of their being seized by the Germans and not only replacing German losses, but, together with the Italian fleet, giving them superiority over the British. This was seen as an intolerable risk by the British government. The alternative of relying on the promises of the French naval commander, Admiral Darlan, never to let the ships fall into German hands, looked equally dangerous to Churchill, though many British naval and political leaders were prepared to accept this alternative, especially after the French battleship
Richelieu
left Dakar for France and had to be chased back by the British. The idea of tying up large parts of the British navy in watching the ships of its former ally as the Germans were preparing to invade England looked like a recipe for certain disaster. On July 3, 1940, British warships attacked the French at Mers-el-Kebir in North Africa when the French refused to sail to British ports, demobilize, or sail to the French West Indies. Many French ships elsewhere were seized or immobilized. However distasteful this attack on an erstwhile ally, those who preferred keeping their new agreement with Germany to observing their prior treaty commitment to Britain could hardly expect greater consideration from the latter.
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In commenting on this sad episode in his speech of July 14, 1940, Churchill added to a general report on the war and the future of France when she would again be freed, the assertion that “we are prepared to proceed to all extremities, to endure them and to enforce them” in the continuing war against Germany.
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That was a reference not only to the action against the French fleet which had, of course, taken place in full public view, but also the prospective battle against any invading German army. On June 15 the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir John Dill, had argued for the use of poison gas against any German forces which succeeded in getting ashore and could not be immediately repulsed. After initial objections from some, Churchill obtained the agreement of the Cabinet for such use of gas on June 30.
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This decision on the “extremities” to which the British were prepared to resort was, ironically, assumed by the Germans in their own plans for the invasion,
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but is barely reflected in post-war accounts since those involved preferred to veil the issue in discreet silence. In any case, the Germans, though planning to land their troops with gas masks, did not have them for the thousands of horses which were to be included in the first assault waves.
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The British were prepared to use gas on German invaders not only if they came ashore in England, but also if they secured a lodging in Ireland.
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As the collapse of France brought Germany to the open Atlantic Ocean, the neutrality of the Irish Free State both made the British navy’s task in the Battle of the Atlantic more difficult by closing some of the nearby ports to save shipping, and simultaneously seemed to invite German invasion to a place where–as in the other recently invaded neutrals–resistance would be minimal. Furthermore, there were those in Ireland, primarily the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who preferred control of all of Ireland by the Germans to partition with the northern portion, Ulster, still a part of the United Kingdom.
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Opposed to the government in Dublin as well as that in London, they believed, like some extreme nationalist groups in other parts of the world, that if only the Axis triumphed over the Allies all would be well for their cause. These movements never comprehended that if Germany and Italy, subsequently in alliance with Japan, could conquer Great Britain, as well
as its later allies the Soviet Union and the United States, it was hardly likely that they themselves could maintain their peoples’ independence against the victors.