The Phoney War : "Winston is back"

 

Hardly had Chamberlain finished speaking than the London air raid sirens gave out their wailing note, already familiar from practice alerts. Londoners filed down into cellars and basements, or into air raid shelters (where they existed), or into the slit trenches in the parks. There was no sign of alarm - except that one housewife was out in the street, on her way to a shelter, before she realised she had nothing on: she was just about to have a bath.

As expected, the Dominions followed up with their own declarations of war -- except Eire, which elected to remain neutral, a decision that disturbed the new First Lord of the Admiralty: Chamberlain had long resisted inviting Churchill to the Cabinet, but as soon as war broke out he asked him to return to the post he had held during the first World War; and a signal had been sent out to the fleet, "Winston is back". He was worried about the loss of three naval bases in Ireland, which Chamberlain had handed over to de Valera, and to which de Valera now refused access. Still, Churchill was elated at the prospect of returning to office, after years in the political wilderness. Instead of retiring to a shelter when the sirens sounded, he went up with his wife onto the roof of their house -- there to be greeted by the sight of barrage balloons rising into the sky. They were soon to become a clumsy and yet not unattractive feature, particularly on sunny days of the landscape.
Then Churchill went to Westminister, there to try to convey his feelings to the House of Commons: "the glory of Old England, peace loving and ill-prepared as she was, but instant and fearless at the call of honour, thrilled my being".

The belief that a deluge of bombs would fall on London and other major cities as soon as war was declared proved unfounded. The air raid turned out to be a false alarm; and then, for seven weeks, the sirens were heard no more. Perhaps, it was suggested, Hitler wanted to finish off Poland first. He soon did. It was a new kind of campaign, which the world had never seen before: the Biltzkrieg. Bombers -- and dive-bombers, another innovation -- first pounded the defences; then armoured divisions thrust their way through them; and then instead of pausing to consolidate, the tanks surged on, punching deep behind the lines, disrupting communications and throwing the defences into total disorder.
Warsaw and other cities were also subjected to terror bombing -- a technique learned by Hermann Goring's Luftwaffe in Franco's service in Spain -- to try to destroy civilian morale. Within three weeks Poland had been crushed and on 05th October, Hitler arrived for a victory parade in Warsaw.

Now surely, his bombers would turn on the United Kingdom. But no bombers were seen. No German Luftwaffe of any kind were seen, except on routine reconnaissance. On the Western Front, the two armies sat behind their defences -- the French Maginot Line, an elaborate underground network, and Hitler's Siegfried Line, less elaborate, but strong enough, it was supposed, to be too risky to attack until the Allies had built up their strength. Reports spoke of little news was there from the Western Front that the only episode to arouse much interest was when the French drove a flock of sheep over ground the Germans had been suspected of mining. To avoid offending British susceptibilities, the casualty list was not reported.

In due course, a British Expeditionary Force reached its prepared positions with no casualties (except, the story went, one man who had tripped on a gangway and twisted his ankle). This feat was hailed as a masterpiece of organization. What was not publicised was that the B.E.F., by November, still consisted of only four divisions. After the defeat of Poland, the Germans had been able to put about 100 divisions on the Western Front, and although the French army had almost as many, their fire power was inferior, and their morale dangerously low. General Alan Brooke, who had come to France with the B.F.E., was shocked by the poilus' appearance on parade: "men unshaven, horses ungroomed, vehicles dirty, and complete lack of pride in themselves or their units". What shook him most though, was "the look in the men's faces, dusgruntled and insubordinate". When ordered to give "Eyes Left", hardly a man bothered to do so.

This was not realised in Britain. People were puzzled at Hitler's inaction. Surely he must see that the longer he hesitated, the more powerful the Allied forces confronting him would become? When he made no move, people began to joke about the "Sitzkrieg", or the "Bore War", as Chamberlain described it; the "Phoney War", as some American commentater labelled it. The initial flurry, in which over three million people -- hospital cases, mothers, and children -- had been evacuated from the cities, began to look a little ridiculous. Mothers took their children back -- often to the relief of the countryfolk on whom they had been billeted, for reasons which Harold Nicolson, author and MP, described in his diary, when he noted that the Commons' main concern was not with the prosecution of the war, but with evacuees. "Many of the children are verminous and have disgusted habits", he heard. "The mothers refuse to help, grumbling dreadfully, and are pathetically homesick and bored." Soon most of them were back in their old homes again. There they had to cope with the black-out. Car headlights had to be masked which led to a frightening increase in the accident rate -- road deaths actually doubled. And when he reached home, the householder had to ensure that his curtains emitted no chink of light, or he would have zealous ARP wardens, with little else to do, hauling him up before the courts.

Peole also had to carry gas masks, wherever they went -- to the office, to the shops, to the cinema. A Thornton Heath vicar refused to marry two of his parishioners until the girl agreed to bring a gas mask to the altar. The instruction went out from the Ministry of Agriculture that ploughboys must carry gas masks while ploughing. Eton college boys were told to exchange their traditional toppers for gas masks, for the duration. And two murderers sentenced to death at the Old
Bailey, were reprimanded by the warden when they shambled out of the dock for leaving their gas masks behind.

But no poison gas bombs were dropped on the United Kingdom. No bombs of any kind were dropped. Bomber Command's aircraft, too where they were sent over Germany, put down nothing more dangerous than leaflets-- "the confetti war", as it was derisively described. When Amery suggested to the Secretary of State for Air, Kingsley Wood, that incendiary bombs should be dropped in the Black Forest, upon which Germany relied for her reserve of timber. Wood repllied that trees were not a military objective. Amery offered an alternative target: the munitions works at Essen. Wood explained that they could not be bombed either, as they were "private property".

War, people began to find, was not so different from peace. Petrol supplies were restricted, but the basic ration for car owners was quite liberal. Ministers, having enjoyed mocking the Germans for their stringent rationing and the ersatz food they had to accept as rations -- coffee, particularly, being made from everything except coffee beans -- for a while resisted introducing food rationing for British citizens. The theaters continued to show the latest Hollywood products -- Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights; de Mille's Union Pacific; Disney's Fantasia; Deanna Durbin in Three Smart Girls Grow Up..The dance bands played on, more popular than ever, with such inevitable topical songs as "They can't black out the moon".

There was no feeling of guilt among those who stayed on in their jobs and enjoyed themselves as if there wasn't a war on. Conscription had been introduced, belatedly, but apart from those who had committed themselves before the war, in the territorials or in school officers' training corps men who went to join up found themselves being told to wait their turn to be called up. No "Your King and Country need you" posters were required; white feathers were not distributed to young men of military age in civilian clothes. There were not even many conscious objectors; and most of those who refused to join the services did so because they were opposed to the force as a means of settling issues, not because they disagreed with the ends for which the war was being fought.

Only at sea was there action; and there, on balance, the results were encouraging. True, U-boats were a menace. War had hardly been declared when on of them sank the liner Athenia; another torpedoed the aircraft carrier. Courageous; and intrepid U-boat Commander actually managed to penetrate the defences of the naval base at Scapa Flow and sink the Battleship Royal Oak. For a while, too, the Germans made effective use of the magnetic mine. It was responsible for the loss of several merchant ships, as well as severe damage to the battle cruiser Renown. But a remedy was quickly found; the ships were "disgaussed" -- encircled by an electric cable, which neutralized the magnetism. And on 13th December, the Navy had its first victory when three cruisers, Ajax, Achilles, and Exeter crippled a German "pocket-battleship" (so called because it was one of a new class: heavy cruiser with battleship sized 11 inch guns) in the Battle of River Plate. The commander of the Graf Spee had to take her into Montevideo harbour, for repairs. Fearing that he would be unable to escape, he gave orders that his ship should be scuttled, and he committed suicide.

But the only serious hostilities on the land that winter were in Finland. In September, the Russians had moved in the occupy eastern Poland, by pre-arrangement with Hiter; and on 26th November, announcing that the treacherous Finnish army had fired on innocent Russian soldiers, Stalin launched an invasion. Copying Hitlers ways, Russian aircaft also bombed the capital, Helsinki.
The Russian radio claimed they were dropping bread to feed the starving, capitalist-oppressed poor; and bombs were to be facetiously described as "Molotov bread baskets", until bombing ceased to be a matter of jokes.

Russia's reputation fell to its lowest point - lower even than it was to fall over the invasion of Hungary in 1956, and newspaper editors prepared Finland's obituary notices. But the Finns were not downhearted. The main Russian attacks, across the Karelian Isthmus, was held by the defenders of the Mannerheim Line; and in the north, the Finns ski-borne and white uniformed, cut off and cut to pieces Russian divisions sent against them through the winter snow. Their gallantry roused public opinion in France and Britain, and an expeditionary force of 100,000 men was mustered to h er lp them. But the Swedish and Norwegian governments, terrified that to allow the trsnsit of such a force would give the Germans a pretext for invasion, refused to let them through. Eventually the Finns were worn down by the sheer weight of numbers, tanks and bombs and in March they gave way, accepting the Russian surrender terms.

Apart from that heartening resistance, and the Battle of River Plate, there was little to lift people's spirits in Britain. Tommy Handley did his best in one of the most popular radio shows ever presented: "It's That Man Again", with Jack Train inna variety of parts; with Mrs "Can-I-do-you-now" Mopp; and with a host of other characters identified by their catchphrases: "This is Funf speaking"; "Don't forget the Diver"; " 'After you Cecil' -- 'After you, Claud' ".

I.T.M.A.'s popularity was rivalled on the radio only by a commentator in Germany, 'Lord Haw-Haw", eventually identified as William Joyce, a former member of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Facists. Joyce managed to sound as if his lips were curled in perpetual sneer, but his information about what was happening in Britain was sometimes accurate, and rumour began to credit h m6im with almost clairvoyant powers -- he knew, it was said, when a local village clock stopped, and would report it a few hours later. His audience amounted to some six million regulars in Britain, and sometimes to three times as many.

Still, during the phoney war period, at least, Lord Haw-Haw was regarded more as an entertainer than as a serious commentator; he might have been an I.T.M.A. character. And as spring approached hope grew that the war might be won without the predicted accompanying horrors, without even much dislocation of normal life. Food rationing, admittedly, had been introduced early in the new year -- because ministers, to their surprise (they continually underrated the public) found from opinion polls that the public wanted it, to ensure fair shares for all -- particularly when certain goods started to disappear "under the counter", to be given only to favoured customers. Butter, bacon, and sugar were the first foods to be rationed followed soon after by meat. Newsprint supplies began to get tight, too, reducing the size of newspapers and magazines. But this did not prevent Cyril Connolly from lauching his magazine Horizon, which was to provide house room for serious writers of the war period.

"In the name of God go!"
Gradually, it came to be believed that the Navy was gaining command of the seas, and the British and French forces building up to strength which Hitler would be rash to challenge. The words of the song, "Run, Rabbit Run" were converted by Flannagan and Allen to 'Run Hitler Run"; and two song writers came up with the same idea and title "We'll hang out our washing on the Siegfried Line" -- one of them becoming a popular hit.

Churchill had warned against such complacency, "Come, then", he had told an audience in Manchester at the end of January "Let us to the task, to do battle, to the toil -- each to our part, each to our station. Fill the armies, rule the air, pour out the munitions, strangle the U-boats, sweep the mines, plough the land, build the ships, guard the streets, succour the wounded, uplift the downcast, and honour the brave" -- but these ringing words were hardly heard until later in the year, after Dunkirk, when they were recalled and used for propaganda purpoese. The commoner attitude was expressed by Chamberlain at the beginning of April. After seven months of war, he said he felt ten times as confident as he had at the beginning. Was it not extra ordinary, he asked his audience, that Hitler had delayed until France and Britain were ready to withstand him? Whatever the reason, Hitler had not attacked; "one thing is certain; he missed the bus".

Even while Chamberlain was speaking, German ships used in the iron ore trade with northern Norway, which normally went back in balkst, were sailing noth with instead of ballst, soldiers, guns and ammunition. For months the British Government had been complaining to the Norwegian authorities that German ships were abusing the safety of Norwegian territorial waters to transport war materials; and on at least one occasion, to transport British prisoners of war, taken off merchant vessels. The allegation had been proved when Captain Vian of the destroyer Cossack entered a Norwegian fiord and rescued some 300 British prisoners from the Allmark, a supply ship for the Graf Spee. Reluctant though ministers were to offend Norwegian susceptibilities, they had eventually been persuaded that if the Norwegians were unable or unwilling to intervene, mines must be laid in Norwegian territorial waters. On 08th April, in the small hours of the morning, British destroyers laid minefields off the Norwegian coast. The Norwegian Government met to prepare a formal protest, only to learn they were just about to be invaded. On 09th April, German troops were landed at all the main Norwegian ports; and within two days, all their main objectives had been taken. Denmark was also occupied.

For a time, optimism in Britain actually increased. Hitler might have gained the advantage of suprise; but how could he keep it, without control of the seas? Some of the German warships involved in the campaign had been sunk or severely damaged; British losses were relatively lighter. And with the German destroyer force in Narvik harbour pulverized, it should surely be an easy matter to set up a base there, denying Germany her essential supply of iron ore? An expeditionary force was sent to seize the town; and in mid April landings were also made north and south of Trondheim, preliminary to prising that port, too, out of German hands.

Humiliation followed. The officer commanding the expeditionary force off Narvik delined to risk his men an a frontal assault on the small German garrison there; and the troops north and south of Trondheim had hardly been there a week before it was realized that their situation was hopeless. At the beginning of May, they were withdrawn. Taunted by the Opposition -- Hitler had missed the bus, had he? -- Chamberlain only made matters worse by claiming on 04th May, that Germany had not reached all her objectives; "the balance of advantage rested with us". As Harold Nicolson recorded in his diary, "if Chamberlain believed it himself, then he was stupid. If he did not believe it, then he was trying to deceive. In either case, he loses confidence."

How much confidence he has lost was revealed in the Commons debate on the war situation on 07th May. Although it had been demanded by the Labour Opposition, it was disgruntled Cons backbenchers who used it to the best effect: Admiral of the Fleet Lord Keyes, who appeared in full uniform and fired devastating broadside at the Government for its mishandling of the Norwegian operation; and Amery, who delivered an even more destructive thrust at the Prime Minister himself, ending with Cromwell's order to the Long Parliament: "You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

To Harold Macmillan -- one of Churchill's supporters in the Commons --
Amery's speech was decisive; so was the debate, "for it altered the history of Britain and the Empire, and perhaps the world". Chamberlain himself did not realise how shaky his position had become; "I have friends in this House", he told the Opposition, with what looked like a triumphant leer. He had -- but the division showed how rapidly he was losing them; the Government's usual majority of over 200 had slipped to 81, and forty Conservatives had voted with the opposition. He made one last attempt to salvage his self-esteem. The Commons' anger, he managed to persuade himself, was not so much with him as with his team. Apart from Churchill and Eden, brought in after the outbreak of war, the members of the Cabinet were all veterans of the appeasement era. Well, there should be a reconstruction, bringing in younger men, including some Labour and Liberal leaders.

But the Labour Party, Chamberlain found was not prepared to serve under him. Lord Halifax, then? Yes; they would serve under Halifax, in spite: of his record as an appeasing foreign secretary: in spite of his friendship with the repulsive Reichmarschall Herman Goring. But Halifax felt sick in the stomach at the prospect. When he went with Churchill to see Chamberlain, on 09th May, he explained that as a member of the House of Lords, he did not feel that he would be in a position to excercise the required authority in the House of Commons. Churchill, without a doubt, it would have to be.

Even while this dicision was being taken, German troops were moving into position for Hitler's next onslaught, on the Low Countries. The following morning they were invaded. For a moment, Chamberlain believed that the reconstruction would have to be postponed.

He was quickly undeceived, and that evening he told King George of his decision to resign. In his dairy, the King noted he had told Chamberlain "how grossly unfairly I thought he had been treated"; and informally porposed Halifax as his successor; his peerage could be placed in abeyance for the time being. Clearly the prospect of Winston Churchill as Premier did not appeal to him. But the decision had already been taken. Churchill was duly called to Buckingham Palace, and asked to form a government.

Unlike Halifax, Churchill had no fears, no reservations. at last, he had the authority he needed to prosecute the war in the way and in the spirit it should be untaken. "I felt" -- he was to recall in his History of the Second World War: "as if I were talking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour, and for this trial. . . I could not be reproached either for making a war or want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, though impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams."