The Gathering Storm: The Second World War (38 page)

The President’s letter was considered at a series of meetings of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Cabinet. Mr. Eden succeeded in procuring a considerable modification of the previous attitude. Most of the Ministers thought he was satisfied. He did not make it clear to them that he was not. Following these discussions, two messages were sent to Washington on the evening of January 21. The substance of these replies was that the Prime Minister warmly welcomed the President’s initiative, but was not anxious to bear any responsibility for its failure if American overtures were badly received. Mr. Chamberlain wished to point out that we did not accept in an unqualified manner the President’s suggested procedure, which would clearly irritate both the Dictators and Japan. Nor did His Majesty’s Government feel that the President had fully understood our position in regard to
de jure
recognition. The second message was in fact an explanation of our attitude in this matter. We intended to accord such recognition only as part of a general settlement with Italy.

The British Ambassador reported his conversation with Mr. Sumner Welles when he handed these messages to the President on January 22. He stated that Mr. Welles told him that “the President regarded recognition as an unpleasant pill which we should both have to swallow, and he wished that we should both swallow it together.”

Thus it was that President Roosevelt’s proposal to use American influence for the purpose of bringing together the leading European Powers to discuss the chances of a general settlement, this, of course, involving however tentatively the mighty power of the United States, was rebuffed by Mr. Chamberlain. This attitude defined in a decisive manner the difference of view between the British Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary. Their disagreements were still confined to the circle of the Cabinet for a little time longer; but the split was fundamental. The comments of Mr. Chamberlain’s biographer, Professor Feiling, upon this episode, are not without interest: “While Chamberlain feared the Dictators would pay no heed or else
would use this line-up of the democracies as a pretext for a break,
it was found on Eden’s return that he would rather risk that calamity than the loss of American good will. There was the first breath of resignation. But a compromise was beaten out….” Poor England! Leading her free, careless life from day to day, amid endless good-tempered parliamentary babble, she followed, wondering, along the downward path which led to all she wanted to avoid. She was continually reassured by the leading articles of the most influential newspapers, with some honourable exceptions, and behaved as if all the world were as easy, uncalculating, and well-meaning as herself.

* * * * *

It was plain that no resignation by the Foreign Secretary could be founded upon the rebuff administered by Mr. Chamberlain to the President’s overture. Mr. Roosevelt was indeed running great risks in his own domestic politics by deliberately involving the United States in the darkening European scene. All the forces of isolationism would have been aroused if any part of these interchanges had transpired. On the other hand, no event could have been more likely to stave off, or even prevent, war than the arrival of the United States in the circle of European hates and fears. To Britain it was a matter almost of life and death. No one can measure in retrospect its effect upon the course of events in Austria and later at Munich. We must regard its rejection – for such it was – as the loss of the last frail chance to save the world from tyranny otherwise than by war. That Mr. Chamberlain, with his limited outlook and inexperience of the European scene, should have possessed the self-sufficiency to wave away the proffered hand stretched out across the Atlantic leaves one, even at this date, breathless with amazement. The lack of all sense of proportion, and even of self-preservation, which this episode reveals in an upright, competent, well-meaning man, charged with the destinies of our country and all who depended upon it, is appalling. One cannot today even reconstruct the state of mind which would render such gestures possible.

* * * * *

I have yet to unfold the story of the treatment of the Russian offers of collaboration in the advent of Munich. If only the British people could have known and realised that, having neglected our defences and sought to diminish the defences of France, we were now disengaging ourselves, one after the other, from the two mighty nations whose extreme efforts were needed to save our lives and their own, history might have taken a different turn. But all seemed so easy from day to day. Now ten years later, let the lessons of the past be a guide.

* * * * *

It must have been with declining confidence in the future that Mr. Eden went to Paris on January 25 to consult with the French. Everything now turned upon the success of the approach to Italy, of which we had made such a point in our replies to the President. The French Ministers impressed upon Mr. Eden the necessity of the inclusion of Spain in any general settlement with the Italians; on this he needed little convincing. On February 10, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary met Count Grandi, who declared that the Italians were ready in principle to open the conversations.

On February 15 the news came of the submission of the Austrian Chancellor, Schuschnigg, to the German demand for the introduction into the Austrian Cabinet of the chief Nazi agent, Seyss-Inquart, as Minister of the Interior and head of the Austrian police. This grave event did not avert the personal crisis between Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Eden. On February 18 they saw Count Grandi again. This was the last business they conducted together. The Ambassador refused either to discuss the Italian position towards Austria, or to consider the British plan for the withdrawal of volunteers, or so-called volunteers – in this case five divisions of the regular Italian Army – from Spain. Grandi asked, however, for general conversations to be opened in Rome. The Prime Minister wished for these, and the Foreign Secretary was strongly opposed to such a step.

There were prolonged parleyings and Cabinet meetings. Of these the only authoritative account yet disclosed is in Mr. Chamberlain’s biography. Mr. Feiling says that the Prime Minister “let the Cabinet see that the alternative to Eden’s resignation might be his own.” He quotes from some diary or private letter, to which he was given access, the following statement by the Prime Minister: “I thought it necessary to say clearly that I could not accept any decision in the opposite sense.” “The Cabinet,” says Mr. Feiling, “were unanimous, though with a few reserves.” We have no knowledge of how and when these statements were made during the protracted discussions. But at the end Mr. Eden briefly tendered his resignation on the issue of the Italian conversations taking place at this stage and in these circumstances. At this his colleagues were astonished. Mr. Feiling says they were “much shaken.” They had not realised that the differences between the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister had reached breaking-point. Evidently if Mr. Eden’s resignation was involved, a new question raising larger and more general issues was raised. However, they had all committed themselves on the merits of the matter in dispute. The rest of the long day was spent in efforts to induce the Foreign Secretary to change his mind. Mr. Chamberlain was impressed by the distress of the Cabinet. “Seeing how my colleagues had been taken aback I proposed an adjournment until next day.” But Eden saw no use in continuing a search for formulas, and by midnight, on the twentieth, his resignation became final. “Greatly to his credit, as I see it,” noted the Prime Minister.
¹
Lord Halifax was at once appointed Foreign Secretary in his place.
²

It had, of course, become known that there were serious differences in the Cabinet, though the cause was obscure. I had heard something of this, but carefully abstained from any communication with Mr. Eden. I hoped that he would not on any account resign without building up his case beforehand, and giving his many friends in Parliament a chance to draw out the issues. But the Government at this time was so powerful and aloof that the struggle was fought out inside the ministerial conclave, and mainly between the two men.

* * * * *

Late in the night of February 20, a telephone message reached me as I sat in my old room at Chartwell (as I often sit now) that Eden had resigned. I must confess that my heart sank, and for a while the dark waters of despair overwhelmed me. In a long life I have had many ups and downs. During all the war soon to come and in its darkest times I never had any trouble in sleeping. In the crisis of 1940, when so much responsibility lay upon me, and also at many very anxious, awkward moments in the following five years, I could always flop into bed and go to sleep after the day’s work was done – subject, of course, to any emergency call. I slept sound and awoke refreshed, and had no feelings except appetite to grapple with whatever the morning’s boxes might bring. But now, on this night of February 20, 1938, and on this occasion only, sleep deserted me. From midnight till dawn I lay in my bed consumed by emotions of sorrow and fear. There seemed one strong young figure standing up against long, dismal, drawling tides of drift and surrender, of wrong measurements and feeble impulses. My conduct of affairs would have been different from his in various ways; but he seemed to me at this moment to embody the life-hope of the British nation, the grand old British race that had done so much for men, and had yet some more to give. Now he was gone. I watched the daylight slowly creep in through the windows, and saw before me in mental gaze the vision of Death.

“Case Otto” — Hitler Assumes Supreme Command
—
The Austrian Chancellor Summoned to Berchtesgaden — His Ordeal — Schuschnigg’s Collapse — Hitler’s Speech to the Reichstag, February
20 —
Debate on Mr. Eden’s Resignation — Hitler and Mussolini in Combination
—
The Austrian Plebiscite — The Invasion of Austria — Hitler’s Debt to Mussolini — The Triumphal Entry into Vienna and Its Background — A Farewell Luncheon to Ribbentrop — The Debate of March
12 —
Consequences of the Fall of Vienna — Danger to Czechoslovakia — Mr. Chamberlain and the Soviet Overture — A Side Blow — Negotiation with Mr. De Valera — Surrender of the Irish Ports — A Major Injury to Britain — Irish Neutrality — My Vain Protest.

U
SUALLY IN MODERN TIMES
when states have been defeated in war they have preserved their structure, their identity, and the secrecy of their archives. On this occasion, the war being fought to an utter finish, we have come into full possession of the inside story of the enemy. From this we can check with some exactness our own information and performances. We have seen how in July, 1936, Hitler had instructed the German General Staff to draw up military plans for the occupation of Austria when the hour should strike. This operation was labelled “Case Otto.” Now, a year later, on June 24, 1937, he crystallised these plans by a special directive. On November 5, he unfolded his future designs to the chiefs of his armed forces. Germany must have more “living space.” This could best be found in Eastern Europe – Poland, White Russia, and the Ukraine. To obtain this would involve a major war, and incidentally the extermination of the people then living in those parts. Germany would have to reckon with her two “hateful enemies,” England and France, to whom “a German Colossus in the centre of Europe would be intolerable.” In order to profit by the lead she had gained in munitions production and by the patriotic fervour aroused and represented by the Nazi Party, she must therefore make war at the first promising opportunity, and deal with her two obvious opponents before they were ready to fight.

Neurath, Fritsch, and even Blomberg, all of them influenced by the views of the German Foreign Office, General Staff, and officer corps, were alarmed by this policy. They thought that the risks to be run were too high. They recognised that by the audacity of the Fuehrer, they were definitely ahead of the Allies in every form of rearmament. The Army was maturing month by month, the internal decay of France and the lack of willpower in Britain were favourable factors which might well run their full course. What was a year or two when all was moving so well? They must have time to complete the war machine, and a conciliatory speech now and again from the Fuehrer would keep these futile and degenerate democracies chattering. But Hitler was not sure of this. His genius taught him that victory would not be achieved by processes of certainty. Risks had to be run. The leap had to be made. He was flushed with his successes, first in rearmament, second in conscription, third in the Rhineland, fourth by the accession of Mussolini’s Italy. To wait till everything was ready was probably to wait till all was too late. It is very easy for historians and other people, who do not have to live and act from day to day, to say that he would have had the whole fortunes of the world in his hand if he had gone on growing in strength for another two or three years before striking. However, this does not follow. There are no certainties in human life or in the life of states. Hitler was resolved to hurry, and have the war while he was in his prime.