Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made (38 page)

III

Throughout the summer of 1940, Churchill did his utmost to secure US involvement in the war. With isolationist sentiment in Congress at his back, and hoping for re-election in November, President Roosevelt offered warm words in private but little tangible aid. Churchill cautioned Mackenzie King, ‘We must be careful not to let Americans view too complacently [the] prospect of a British collapse, out of which they would get the British Fleet and the guardianship of the British Empire, minus Great Britain.’
⁶⁰
Soon, however, a deal was struck whereby Britain would receive fifty old American destroyers in exchange for granting the USA ninety-nine-year leases on military bases in Newfoundland and the Caribbean. The diplomatic significance was much greater than the value of the hardware, which was negligible. ‘Undoubtedly’, Churchill observed with satisfaction, ‘this process means that these two great organizations of the English-speaking democracies, the British Empire and the United States, will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for their mutual and general benefit.’
⁶¹
One radical black writer later complained that, as a consequence of the agreement, land was ‘alienated from the Caribbean people without any consultation with them, or with such limited representative governments as had been permitted them by their British rulers’.
⁶²
Actually, Churchill did make some efforts to live up to his public promise of consultation and to protect the local people’s interests, although the Caribbean governments were indeed far from representative.
⁶³
Forthright action was perhaps at any rate forgivable in the circumstances.

As ever, Ireland was a complicating factor in Anglo-US relations, given the large Irish-American population. In June the War Cabinet discussed the suggestion made by Smuts that Britain should occupy the Irish Atlantic ports by force. In contrast to his earlier attitude, Churchill said that, although this might be done as a last resort, ‘it would be unwise at this moment to take any action that might compromise our position with the United States of America’.
⁶⁴
Two days later, in contrast to
his
earlier position, the still-influential Chamberlain further raised the possibility of seizing the ports, but urged that a tough approach to De Valera should be coupled with a declaration in favour of Irish unity. In a ‘passionate speech’ Churchill opposed any coercion of Northern Ireland.
⁶⁵
‘He would not urge those who had worked [at] self-government loyally within the Empire to join with those who wished to stay outside it.’
⁶⁶
Nevertheless, the British did now offer De Valera a declaration ‘accepting the principle of a United Ireland’ in exchange for the use of Irish ports and the stationing of troops and aircraft in Éire. In early July, De Valera turned the deal down, believing that, as the British would not force the Unionists into a united Ireland against their will, a declaration in principle was not worth having. He may also have suspected that the British were going to be beaten.
⁶⁷
In a draft cable to Roosevelt, never sent, Churchill wrote, ‘De Valera and his Party are reconciling themselves to throwing in their lot with the Germans,
whom they think are bound to win
.’
⁶⁸
Churchill
Can
Unite Ireland
was the title of a pamphlet published that summer by the Irish Republican writer Jim Phelan. It was a vain hope.
⁶⁹

In Ireland there were plenty willing to believe ‘that Mr Churchill hates Ireland and would not be sorry to set the clock back with a strong hand’.
⁷⁰
He himself did not help matters when he stated in the Commons in November that Britain’s inability to make use of ‘the South and West Coasts of Ireland to refuel our flotillas and aircraft and thus protect the trade by which Ireland as well as Great Britain lives’ was ‘a most heavy and grievous burden and one which should never have been placed on our shoulders, broad though they be’.
⁷¹
These remarks found strong support in the House of Commons and the British press, although this was not unanimous: the
National Review
thought Churchill was now paying the price for his earlier support of Irish self-government.
⁷²
Meanwhile, his comments created a storm in Ireland, and undid some of the positive effects that his famous radio broadcasts had achieved there earlier in the year.
⁷³
Sir John Maffey, the UK representative in Dublin, explained them away as ‘typically Churchillian’, telling the Irish that the Dominions Office had not been asked for its opinion beforehand.
⁷⁴
In his memoirs, Churchill acknowledged that Britain ultimately survived without the ports – the importance of which declined after America entered the war – but blamed the lack of them for the loss of ‘Many a ship and many a life’.
⁷⁵
A few months later Anglo-Irish relations were further soured by a proposal to extend conscription to Northern Ireland. The plan was dropped, but not before Churchill had told the Irish High Commissioner, as the latter recorded, that ‘he had drawn the sword and was definitely opposed to us’.
⁷⁶

By the end of 1940 Churchill could breathe a little easier. The Battle of Britain had been won. (As it raged, ‘The P.M. expressed delight at the success of our pilots, but said, “It is terrible – terrible – that the British Empire should have been gambled on this.” ’)
⁷⁷
Abandoning the attempt to achieve air superiority prior to invasion, the Luftwaffe shifted its attention to the bombing of cities. One supposedly humorous German magazine cover showed Churchill looking out over a blitzed landscape and saying ‘Our Empire is so vast, what does it matter if a small island burns down!’
⁷⁸
In spite of the horrors of the Blitz, the British now enjoyed their first taste of success. In December Roosevelt promised Lend-Lease aid to avert UK bankruptcy. At the start of 1941 British forces scored brilliant victories over the Italians in Libya. When Robert Menzies arrived in Britain in February, he found Churchill in vigorous form, denouncing De Valera as ‘a murderer & perjurer’ and confident of victory. ‘Winston is completely certain of America’s full help, of her participation in a Japanese war, and of Roosevelt’s passionate determination to stamp out the Nazi menace from the earth.’
⁷⁹

The Australian premier’s own relationship with Churchill was not an easy one. During the summer of 1940 Menzies wobbled briefly, privately urging a compromise peace before finally pledging to support Britain no matter what the cost.
⁸⁰
That autumn, a raid on Dakar by British and Free French forces was botched. Menzies was not told about the operation until later, even though an Australian cruiser had taken part. He sent Churchill a ‘hectoring’ telegram complaining about the lack of consultation and criticizing the ‘half-hearted’ nature of the attack. Churchill was deeply offended, taking it as a personal assault on his war leadership.
⁸¹
Once he had calmed down, he welcomed, or so he said, the prospect of a visit by Menzies to London for consultations. Menzies travelled to Britain via Singapore and the Middle East, where he received a rapturous reception from Australian troops. ‘Chips’ Channon MP, meeting him in Cairo, recorded that he was ‘jolly, rubicund, witty, only 46 with a rapier-like intelligence and gifts as a raconteur’.
⁸²
Menzies was alarmed at the vulnerability of Singapore, and a key purpose of the trip was to seek assurances about the defence of Australia. But that was not his sole motivation. His United Australia Party was reliant for its survival on the support of two independent MPs, and to leave for an extended period might put his position in danger. All the same, the Anglophile Menzies seems to have been sick of domestic manoeuvrings and eager to make a name for himself at the centre of the Empire.

Before his departure, S. M. Bruce, Canberra’s High Commissioner in London, had given him a warning. Power in London was increasingly concentrated in Churchill’s hands, and although the Prime Minister would treat his Australian counterpart with courtesy, attempts ‘to pin him down to definite discussions of fundamental war policy’ would lead to him becoming ‘discursive and elusive’. Menzies, therefore, would have to choose between forcing ‘a considerable show down’ and leaving Britain at the end of his mission ‘with a sense of frustration’.
⁸³
The point was soon proved. Mussolini had invaded Greece the previous October and German intervention now looked imminent too. Would Britain respond to the Greek requests for help? A few days after his arrival, Menzies recorded a ‘Momentous discussion’ with Churchill ‘about [the] defence of Greece, largely with Australian & New Zealand troops’ to be taken from the Middle Eastern theatre.
⁸⁴
The next day he attended a Cabinet meeting which discussed the possibility of a Balkan expedition. Menzies was ‘evidently doubtful, but the general sense’ of the meeting ‘was to go ahead with it’, seemingly as much for moral reasons as strategic ones.
⁸⁵
The final decision was not taken until early March, by which time the military prospects had deteriorated. Eden (now Foreign Secretary), who was in the Middle East, nevertheless concluded an agreement with the Greeks to give them aid, essentially pledging Australasian troops without consulting their governments. Menzies was angry but accepted the position of Churchill (who had doubts of his own) that there was no backing out. The Cabinet requested from Eden a ‘precise military appreciation’ of the chances of success; it didn’t get one, but approved the expedition anyway.
⁸⁶
British ministers had been bounced; so had Menzies. The campaign was a disaster. Not only did the British and Dominion troops have to withdraw from Greece after Hitler attacked in April (11,000 men were lost) but the Middle Eastern front was seriously weakened. With the Germans under Erwin Rommel as a new force in North Africa, the British were swept back to Tobruk.
⁸⁷
Menzies had spoken ‘plain words’ but they had had little effect.
⁸⁸

He had equally little luck in his bid to secure air reinforcements for Australia and Singapore and to get specific commitments about the naval defence of the Far East.
⁸⁹
‘What irresponsible rubbish these Antipodeans talk!’ was the private response of Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office.
⁹⁰
Convinced he could make a contribution to solving the Irish problem, Menzies visited De Valera in Dublin; he liked ‘Dev’, ‘but thought him and all Irishmen crazy’,
⁹¹
and the impact of his interference was probably only to annoy Churchill. The Australian’s morale-boosting speeches to the British people were a success, though, and he was a hit with the press, which did no damage to his barrage-balloon-sized ego. He was not without admiration for Churchill, Liquidation writing to his own government that the British Prime Minister combined ‘remarkable fighting and driving qualities with an astonishing mastery of the details of both plans and equipment’.
⁹²
Yet he also had serious doubts. He told his diary: ‘The Cabinet is deplorable – dumb men most of whom disagree with Winston but none of whom dare to say so. [. . .] Winston is a dictator; he cannot be overruled, and his colleagues fear him.’
⁹³
Visiting Lloyd George at his home in Surrey, Menzies discovered that ‘we had many ideas in common’. Menzies may not have shared – at least not fully – the former Prime Minister’s defeatism and desire for a compromise peace. But the two men could agree that Churchill was a poor strategist, a weak organizer, and that he ‘should be at the helm instead of touring the bombed areas’. They also believed that the War Cabinet ‘
must
contain a Dominions man, for the Dominions type of mind is essential’.
⁹⁴

There was little doubt in Menzies’s mind that this ‘Dominions man’ ought to be one R. Menzies. After his return to Australia in May, he continued to press the idea, telling his Cabinet, ‘Mr Churchill has no conception of the British Dominions as separate entities. Furthermore, the more distant the problem from the heart of the Empire, the less he thinks of it.’
⁹⁵
The idea of a permanent Dominion representative found press support in London, but, as Menzies acknowledged, neither Canada nor South Africa was interested, ‘Smuts going so far as to say [. . .] that we Dominion Prime Ministers should mind our own business and leave Churchill to mind his.’
⁹⁶
Peter Fraser thought the proposal ‘absurd’.
⁹⁷
Churchill himself worked hard to frustrate both it and the proposal for a full-scale Imperial War Cabinet that was being floated concurrently. It has been suggested that, having first made his way into the War Cabinet, Menzies aimed to use his position to seize 10 Downing Street for himself.
⁹⁸
The concrete evidence for this is slight, but even if some such idea did cross his mind, he was only ever an irritant to Churchill, not a serious rival. In August, having failed in his efforts to create a National Government in Australia, and facing growing opposition from within his own party, Menzies resigned. Soon afterwards the Labour Party came to power under John Curtin. A few days before Menzies stood down, Mackenzie King, who was in London, recorded a conversation at Chequers: ‘Churchill [. . .] spoke very strongly against Menzies. [. . .] In speaking strongly, he said he loathes his own people. He says you cannot hope to be Prime Minister of a people you don’t like.’
⁹⁹