The Grand Alliance (146 page)

Foreign Affairs andMinister for
Economic Warfare

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879

My message to Italy was deliberately designed to
separate the Italian people from the Fascist régime and
from Mussolini; and now that France is out of the war I
certainly intend to talk rather more about the Nazis and
rather less about the Germans. We must not let our
vision be darkened by hatred or obscured by sentiment.

A much more fruitful line is to try to separate the
Prussians from the South Germans. I do not remember
that the word “Prussia” has been used much lately. The
expressions to which I attach importance and intend to
give emphasis are “Nazi tyranny” and “Prussian militarism.”

(Action this day.) Prime Minister
6.I.41.

to Minister for Works and

Buildings (Minister of Health to
see.)

The great increase in the destruction and damage to
house property makes it all the more necessary that
you should regard emergency first-aid work to buildings
slightly damaged as the most important task. Please let
me have a weekly report of what you are doing in this
respect. I continue to see great numbers of houses
where the walls and roofs areall right, but the windows
have not been repaired, and which are consequently
uninhabitable. At present I regard this as your Number
1 war task. Do not let spacious plans for a new world
divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

Prime Minister to Secretary of
11.I.41.

State for Foreign Affairs

You spoke to me the other day about the length of
telegrams. I feel that this is an evil which ought to be
checked. Ministers and Ambassadors abroad seem to
think that the bigger the volume of their reports home,
the better is their task discharged. All kinds of gossip
and rumours are sent, regardless of credibility. The idea
seems to be to keep up a continued chat which no one
ever tries to shorten. I suggest that you should issue a
general injunction, but that in addition telegrams which
are unduly verbose or trivial should be criticised as
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such, and their authors told “this telegram was needlessly long.” It is sheer laziness not compressing thought
into a reasonable space. I try to read all these telegrams, and I think the volume grows from day to day.

Please let me know what can be done.

Prime Minister to Secretary of
12.I.41.

Slate for War and C.I.G.S.

The mechanisation of the Cavalry Division in Palestine is a distressing story. These troops have been
carried out with their horses and maintained at great
expense in the Middle East since the early months of
the war. Several months ago it was decided by the War
Office that they should be mechanised. I gladly approved. Now I learn, as the result of one of my own
inquiries, that nothing has been done about this, that
the whole division is to be carted back again home –

presumably without their horses – and that this is not to
begin until June 1. After that there will be a further
seven or eight months before they will be of any use.

Thus eight thousand five hundred officers and men,
including some of our finest Regular and Yeomanry
regiments, will, except for security work, have been
kept out of action at immense expense for two years
and five months of war.

2. Let me have a calculation of the cost involved in:
(a) Sending these troops to the Middle East, (b) Maintaining them with rations, pay, and allowances from the
beginning of the war to the beginning of March, 1942.

(c) Transporting them home again.

3. There must be many better uses to which these
troops could be put in the Middle East. Having regard to
their high intrinsic quality, they should very quickly
acquire new additional training. It is not necessary that
the organisation and establishment should follow
exactly the same patterns approved for mechanised or
armoured formations at home. The establishments of
the independent motorised brigade groups here might
be more suitable than those of a divsion. The Household Cavalry in the spring of 1918 or autumn of 1917

were very rapidly converted into a machine-gun regi-The Grand Alliance

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ment, and achieved their training in a couple of months
at Etaples. I cannot understand why the Cavalry
Division should not train in Palestine, where at any rate
they count as local security troops. One would have
thought it was the very country.

4. Some of the captured Italian tank equipment
might be taken over by these highly competent Regular
or quasi-Regular units. Alternatively, or in partial
substitute, we have a good supply of Bren-gun carriers,
two hundred of which could certainly be sent out.

5. There are various other solutions. They might be
converted into an infantry division, as several cavalry
divisions were in the last war, or formed, perhaps, into
independent brigade groups. In this case they would be
drafted up to full strength as infantry battalions. If this is
not acceptable, they could be sent to India to liberate
an equal number of Regulars in battalions serving there

– say, eight battalions. Or, again, they might form the
kernel of a force to dominate Iraq. One thing is certain:
now that we are starving ourselves to send men to the
East with ever-dwindling shipping, there can be no
question of bringing this large body of men and these
invaluable cadres home, especially perhaps at the very
moment when the fighting in the Middle East is at its
height.

Prime Minister to Secretary of
12.I.41.

State for Air and C.A.S.

Must the operational reports from the Middle East be
of their present inordinate length and detail? It surely is
not necessary to describe minutely what happened in
every individual raid of a dozen aircraft over the
enemy’s lines and encipher and decipher all this at
each end, and cable it, thus congesting the lines.

I suggest that the average weekly wordage of these
routine telegrams should be calculated for the last two
months and Air Marshal Longmore asked to reduce
them to, say, one-third their present length.

The Foreign Office are also asking for condensation
of their messages.

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Prime Minister to Home

12.I.41.

Secretary

This kind of propaganda
3
ought not to be allowed,
as it is directly contrary to the will of Parliament, and
hampers the maintenance of resistance to the enemy. I
do not see why, if Mosley is confined, subversives and
Communists should not be equally confined. The law
and the regulations ought to be enforced against those
who hamper our war effort, whether from the extreme
Right or the extreme Left. That is the position which the
Conservative Party adopt, and I think it is a very strong
one, and one of which the country as a whole would
approve. I know it is your wish to enforce an even
justice, and if you bring the matter before the Cabinet I
am sure you will receive full support. “Sauce for the
goose is sauce for the gander!”

Prime Minister to General

13.I.41.

Ismay, for C.O.S. Committee

I do not think it would be wise to attack these
smaller islands of the Dodecanese. They are no use in
themselves; they are not necessary for the attack upon
the larger islands now that we hold Crete. Stirring up
this quarter will put the enemy on their guard, and will
bring about the disagreement between Greece and
Turkey, which has become only too apparent as we
have explored tentatively this subject. The Defence
Committee have not approved these operations.

Prime Minister to Dominions

17.I.41.

Secretary

I have read these two documents, which do not
seem to me to add very much to what we already know
or what is obvious in the existing Southern Irish situation. The strategic position has been repeatedly examined, and the Admiralty have a paper on the urgent
need for the Irish bases, as well as for airfields on the
south and west coasts. I am asking General Ismay to
see that this information is placed before you.

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I do not consider that it is at present true to say that
possession of these bases is vital to our survival. The
lack of them is a grievous injury and impediment to us.

More than that it would not at present be true to say. I
could not, however, give the assurance suggested by
Mr. Dillon that in no circumstances should we “violate
Irish neutrality.” I do not personally recognise Irish
neutrality as a legal act. Southern Ireland having
repudiated the Treaty, and we not having recognised
Southern Ireland as a Sovereign State, that country is
now in an anomalous position. Should the danger to
our war effort through the denial of the Irish bases
threaten to become mortal, which is not the case at
present, we should have to act in accordance with our
own self-preservation and that of our Cause. Meanwhile the policy which we recently decided on should
be carried out as you arc doing, and the influence of
the United States must be invoked by every means
open to us. It is possible that Mr. Hopkins, with whom 1

have had long talks, will himself visit Ireland, and I am
of opinion that his visit might be useful. I do not think
the time is ripe yet for you to visit Ireland, unless you
receive a direct invitation from Mr. de Valera. It would
be better to see how the economic and shipping
pressures work. At any time the slow movements of
events in Ireland may be violently interrupted by a
German descent, in which case with or without an
invitation we should have to go to turn out the invaders.

For the present therefore I see no policy other than the
one we have recently adopted.

Prime Minister to Foreign

18.I.4I.

Secretary

If you approve I should like Livorno to be called in
the English –Leghorn; and Istanbul in English – Constantinople. Of course, when speaking or writing
Turkish we can use the Turkish name; and if at any
time you are conversing agreeably with Mussolini in
Italian, Livorno would be correct.

And why is Siam buried under the name of Thailand?

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(Action this day.) Prime

19.I.41.

Minister to General Ismay, for
C.O.S. Committee and Home

Secretary

Many and increasing indications point to the early
use of gas against us. The Armed Forces have been
kept fully abreast of these possibilities, and are accustomed to use their masks and eye-shields. It would be
well however to issue renewed instructions to all
Commands, and also to consider whether any new filter
is required for possible new toxic gases.

Let me have a report on this (one page),
2. But what is the condition of the gas masks in the
hands of the civil population? Have they been overhauled regularly? Very few people carry masks nowa-days. Is there any active system of gas training? It
appears that the whole of this has become extremely
urgent. Let me have an early report of the present
position, and what is being done to bring it up to full
efficiency. This report should also cover the decontami-nation system, and staffs.

3. Finally, it is important that nothing should appear
in the newspapers, or be spoken on the B.B.C., which
suggests that we are making a fuss about anti-gas
arrangements, because the enemy will only use this as
part of his excuse, saying that we are about to use it on
him. I am of opinion nevertheless that a nation-wide
effort must be made.