have a base or several possible bases from which to operate against
the Reich. We have the British Isles and Russia and the Middle East,
and parts of North Africa, and may have other bases before the war is
over. But if the British Isles were captured, where could the British
Navy land to invade and repossess them? And with what troops would this
engagement be fought? With the Canadians and Australians? Nobody would
dare disparage the fighting qualities of these magnificent men, but if
the 46,000,000 Britishers in the British Isles had failed to throw back
the German Army is it likely that 16,000,000 Canadians and Australians
could defeat it? What about the United States? If we had not entered
the war before the conquest of the British Isles, is it likely we would
go to war after the British had been beaten? Moreover, if we did, it
is inconceivable that we should beat the Germans after they had seized
the resources of the United Kingdom. They would then have added to the
shipbuilding capacity of the continent all the British shipyards, at
this moment the most productive in the world. It might be worth our
while to glance an instant at the shipbuilding situation which would
exist if Germany takes the British Isles.
The shipbuilding capacity of each of the following countries is listed
as of the most productive year since 1917. This was usually 1919.
_Tons_
Germany 600,000
Denmark 140,000
France 210,000
Holland 240,000
Norway 60,000
Sweden 165,000
Italy 220,000
Japan 700,000
---------
2,335,000
United Kingdom 2,000,000
---------
Total 4,335,000
After the defeat of Britain, Germany and her allies would possess the
capacity to build 4,335,000 tons of ships a year, which is more than
four times our 1941 production of around 1,000,000 tons and is even
larger than our record performance in 1919 when we turned out 4,075,000
tons of ships. Admiral Land’s prediction that we would eventually
build 6,000,000 tons a year remains to be fulfilled. As matters now
stand if the Germans were to capture Britain, time would be on their
side for the building of ships. Furthermore, of course, the Germans
would inherit the vast British industrial machine, and save for the
production of steel, would have the power to turn out more airplanes
and munitions than we could for many years. All of this is merely to
emphasize what the fall of Britain and the end of the British Navy as a
fighting force against Hitler would mean to the United States.
Q. _But isn’t Churchill often wrong in his military judgment? Hasn’t he
made mistakes due to overconfidence?_
A. It is true that Mr. Churchill has the vices of his virtues, and
since his most prominent virtue is courage, he also possesses what has
seemed at times to be recklessness. His sanguine temperament makes him
ideally equipped to lead a nation in desperate circumstances, but his
critics of whom a few still exist will never cease insisting on the
obvious, that he makes mistakes, as though it were not the hoariest of
adages that only the man who never does anything commits no errors.
They list a roll of his alleged military failures, beginning with his
unsuccessful defense of Antwerp and the costly attempt to take the
Dardanelles in the last war; and in this war Norway, Greece, and Crete.
But if these events are analyzed it will be seen that each of them had
its justification.
Many military critics looking back at the last war now agree that Mr.
Churchill was right to advocate holding Antwerp as an Allied strong
point behind the German lines, and if the Allied High Command had
supported him sufficiently Churchill’s defense might have succeeded.
The Dardanelles attempt--which used to be the failure his enemies
most enjoyed--was in the view of most military men today a brilliant
conception which would have ended the war victoriously for the Allies
two years earlier, if Churchill’s plan had been carried out as it could
have been. We know now not only that the campaign could have succeeded
from the outset and at comparatively little cost, if the Churchill
timetable had been scrupulously kept, but also that the straits could
have been captured even at the very end if one last push had been
made. One of Raymond Swing’s best stories is of his experience as a
war correspondent with the Turks, whom he saw hoarding their last few
rounds of ammunition as, to their astonishment, the British steamed
away, losing with a completely un-British lack of persistence. It was
jealousy more than anything else that spoiled the Dardanelles campaign,
Kitchener’s jealousy of Churchill.
In his old age, Kitchener, the Army chief, obstinately refused to do
what the Navy chief advised, and the end was failure. It was perhaps
the most keenly felt failure in the life of Churchill when he resigned
after the Dardanelles. Anyone who reads the painstaking account he
has written of the campaign in his history of the war, _The World
Crisis_, may perceive how heavy the blow was. Even clearer evidence are
the pictures of him in his country place at Chartwell. One for which
he sat immediately after the Dardanelles campaign shows him looking
years older than a picture of him before the campaign began. No, the
Dardanelles ought to be remembered to Churchill’s credit, and it will
be eventually.
In this war its place has been given by his critics to Norway,
Crete, and Greece. Ed Angly, my companion in flight from France,
used humorously to wonder if the British were ever going to cease
retreating and my reply was that they probably never would until they
had retreated to victory. The Norwegian campaign discouraged many, and
critics on both sides of the Atlantic demanded to know why the British
secret service had not known in advance of the German intention to
invade Norway; why the Royal Navy had not prevented invasion; why the
British Army landed in the north could not hold on.
The reproach of faulty information can be leveled only by persons not
acquainted with the nature of the Gestapo. It must not have escaped
general attention that when the German Army marches into a captured
territory, for a few days news of a sort continues to trickle out, and
we may hope that British or other enemy agents continue to function
during this time. But as soon as the Gestapo appears, with Himmler
directing its hordes of agents in civilian clothes, and its tens of
thousands of black-uniformed SS, it is as though an asbestos curtain
had fallen on the frontiers of the country, and from then on the
silence of the grave envelops the land. I was not surprised that
Hitler could strike with such devastating secrecy; what victim of his
has been warned except by the general reputation of the invader? Even
the Bolsheviks were plaintively surprised when the “assassin of the
working classes” so violently dissolved his friendship with the “scum
of the earth.” We may be sure that if Hitler were ever put, by the fall
of Britain, in a position to attack the Western Hemisphere, we would
also be surprised, not by the action but by the time and method. The
Norwegian surprise was no fault of Churchill.
The question why the British could not hold on is one that is put not
only about Norway but about Crete and Greece and it may be put again
before the last battle is fought. The answer is one which may have to
be borne in mind for a long time. It is contained in the simplest facts
about the war, which tend to be forgotten in the riot of daily news.
The principal fact is that Britain after two years of war has not yet
caught up with the numbers and equipment of the German war machine
built by a population double that of the British over seven years of
peacetime preparation and two of war. The British have fought on nearly
every one of their battlefields so far with inferior numbers against
superior material and better-trained men. Let those of us in America
who imagine we have only to call a few million boys to the colors
and train them a year in order to have an army, consider the British
experience. The British soldiers are only now after more than two years
of war training, becoming a capable modern army, about one-third the
size of Britain’s “medium-sized” army.
Finally we heard the criticism that Churchill’s decision to send troops
to Greece was a mistake, since he knew they could not hold out against
the Germans. “Political” reasons, it was said, ought not to govern
military decisions. But what is the war being fought about if not to
re-establish honor among nations? Britain was sworn to come to the
aid of Greece. Had she failed to do so, forlorn though the hope was
of immediate success, she would have lost a good part of that moral
reputation which is worth more than many army corps to her today. This
“political” decision was made in the sense of the classical definition
of politics, “that branch of ethics dealing with the ethical relations
and duties of states.”
Churchill did make one public mistake, and it was shared by hopeful
millions, when he said at the beginning of the Norwegian campaign,
“Herr Hitler has committed a grave strategic error in spreading the war
so far to the north.” The man who had almost never underestimated the
Germans did so that time.
Q. _Wasn’t that apparent error in judgment perhaps really a piece of
good-cheer propaganda for the people?_
A. I do not think so; it was a real mistake based on his own audacity,
yet who would not prefer a leadership which tries and fails to one
which does not try at all? In Churchill the British have one leader
who understands that wars are never won on the defensive, and we may
be sure that he can be depended upon to seize the first conceivable
opportunity to carry the war into Hitler’s territory. The offensive
spirit never had a more consistent exponent than Churchill, as in his
proclamation:
“We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of his Nazi
regime; from this nothing will turn us--nothing. We will never parley,
we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his men. We shall fight
him by land, we shall fight him by sea, we shall fight him in the
air, until, with God’s help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and
liberated his peoples from the yoke.”
This eloquence of Churchill is a gift from Heaven for our side during
these terrible years, when confusion of mind is the greatest foe of
the democracies. One of the most famous sayings of Hitler, quoted
by Rauschning is: “Mental confusion, contradiction of feeling,
indecisiveness, panic; these are our weapons.”
We in America can see how effective these weapons are. Consider the
mental confusion, indecisiveness, and conflicting feelings aroused in
the United States by the speeches of Hitler’s American Quislings, the
Lindberghs and Wheelers. The counterpart of these circles existed in
England but they were long ago rendered powerless and even speechless
by the analytical eloquence of Churchill. Take the case of Hitler’s
invasion of Russia. Hitler undoubtedly expected to divide the outside
world by proclaiming his “Holy Crusade” against Bolshevism. But
Churchill choked this deceit in its inception. The Germans began their
attack on Russia at four o’clock in the morning, and before the day was
out Churchill had given the world his answer. Other statesmen might
have waited a day or even a week. Churchill gave Hitler no time to
spread mental confusion. “Any man or state,” Churchill declared, “who
fights against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or state who marches
with Hitler is our foe.... Hitler’s invasion of Russia is no more than
a prelude to an attempted invasion of the British Isles.... The Russian
danger is therefore our danger and the danger of the United States....
Let us redouble our exertions and strike with united strength while
life and power remain.” This declaration, swift and uncompromising as
a bullet, was equivalent to the loss of a great battle for Hitler. I
am sure he entertained hopes that he could induce Britain even to stop
fighting in order that he could more easily destroy Bolshevik Russia.
Churchill’s speed prevented the question from even being debated. This
is the finest example of leadership. The Prime Minister did not wait to
find out by Gallup poll or otherwise what the British people thought.
He boldly led them.
Q. _Do you think the flight of Hess to England had any connection with
the German attack on Russia which followed six weeks later?_
A. Hess fled to England May 10, and Hitler attacked Russia June 21. I
think there must have been a connection, and I have my theory of it,
but it is only a theory. I think Hess may have carried Churchill a
message from Hitler saying he was going to attack Russia, offering a
negotiated peace, and soliciting the benevolent neutrality if not the
active aid of Britain to destroy the Bolshevik menace. We may be sure
that whatever was the purpose of Hess’s visit, Churchill knows all
about it by now.
There are two passages in Churchill’s speech after the invasion of
Russia which might bear on Hess. In one place he says, “All this was
no surprise to me. I gave clear and precise warnings to Stalin of
what was coming.” And then, as though he realized that this statement
might indicate that he had specific foreknowledge of the German plans
against Russia, Churchill adds, “I gave him warnings as I have given
warnings to others before. I can only hope that these warnings did not
fall unheeded.” Then at another point Churchill emphasized: “We will
never parley, we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his men.”
That might refer to Hess’s effort to negotiate. We know that if Hess
had carried such a proposal to Churchill it would have been rejected,
and if Churchill warned Stalin it is very likely Stalin profited by
the warning. It has been argued, however, that the British could have
allowed Hess to believe, and to transmit to Hitler his belief, that the
proposal would be accepted. This would have served to encourage Hitler
to go ahead with his plans and attack Russia. We can be certain that in
the meeting between Hess and Churchill, the Prime Minister did not come
off second best.
I knew Hess personally--not very well, but well enough to have formed
an estimate of his character. On the basis of his character I would
say we could exclude a great many alleged explanations of his flight.
He was brave and led a life of hazardous adventure. He was not likely
to flee for cowardly reasons. He was first in the personal esteem
of Hitler and Hitler was the only person who could have threatened
his life. Himmler could not do so, nor Goering. He was a quiet,
unambitious fellow and had few enemies. I do not believe fear had
anything to do with the flight. He was devoted to Hitler and it is
almost inconceivable that he should have done anything contrary to the
Fuehrer’s wishes. He was never a policy maker, meddled not at all in
the high politics of the party or state, but merely delivered speeches
on order, and acted as a sort of super-private secretary and valet
to his master. It is not likely that he went to England to advance a
policy of his own, as was widely believed before the German attack
on Russia. Many signs point to the probability that Hess was acting
as Hitler’s emissary to try to dupe Churchill into withdrawing from
the war and sanctioning the attack on Russia. The objections are, of
course, that it is hard to believe that Hitler could have been such a
fool as to think such an attempt feasible, or that he would risk losing
his valued confederate on a mission with such little likelihood of
success, or that he would have risked the revelation of his plans to
the Russians. Yet if Hess had fled because he was afraid, or because he
thought Germany was losing, or because he had split with Hitler, or for
any other reason discreditable to the Nazi cause, surely the British by
now would have given the facts to the public. It would have made the
best propaganda in the world. I heard Jan Valtin, author of _Out of the
Night_, advance the suggestion that Hess, who was always a sensitive
fellow, with a touch of sissy in his carriage, and who was attached to
the Fuehrer with an almost morbid devotion, might have succumbed to a
fit of pique; he might have been slighted by Hitler before one of his
rivals, as Goering or Himmler or Goebbels or Rosenberg, and might have
leaped into his plane and left the country to “make Hitler sorry.” This
is an engaging theory. I will stick to mine.
Q. _What is the secret of Churchill’s success?_
A. His appetite for creation. He is as eager to create as Hitler is
to destroy life. He cannot live without creating. Hitler cannot live
without destroying. Churchill’s courage, wit, and eloquence are matched
by his industry. He does an incredible amount of work. Before he came
back into the government he never let a day go by without writing at
least 2,000 or 3,000 words. His powers of concentration are phenomenal.
His memory is prodigious. He dictates everything he writes. I have
visited him in his workroom on the top floor of his country home at
Chartwell in Kent. A shelf about breast-high runs the length of the
room, and on it he has arranged his books of reference, notes, and
documents. I was there when he was finishing his monumental life of his
ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough. There were twenty or thirty volumes
lying open on the shelf, with paper slips marking other passages to
be consulted. His practice is to walk up and down the room, glancing
here and there at his various works of reference, dictating all the
time to a secretary. As in the composition of his speeches, he has a
first draft typed with plenty of space for corrections and interlining.
This is returned for recopying and sometimes half a dozen drafts are
necessary before the final form is completed. The result of this
striving after perfection is something as near approaching perfection
as one can find in the works of any writer of, what I might call,
inspired history. I remember once a conversation about Churchill’s
writing ability with Alexander Woollcott. I thought I had been as
appreciative as one could be, but Aleck broke in: “No, Knick, you
haven’t said enough. Churchill is the greatest master of the English
language since the men who wrote the King James version of the Bible.”
There is a nobility and grandeur about Churchill’s oratory which no
literature I know outside the Bible can approach. On July 14, 1940 when
Hitler’s army had swept all before it save the British Isles, Churchill
said: “And now it has come to us to stand alone in the breach, and
face the worst that the tyrant’s might and enmity can do. Bearing
ourselves humbly before God, but conscious that we serve an unfolding
purpose, we are ready to defend our native land against the invasion
by which it is threatened. We are fighting _by_ ourselves alone; but
we are not fighting _for_ ourselves alone. Here in this strong City of
Refuge which enshrines the title deeds of human progress and is of deep
consequence to Christian civilization; here, girt about by the seas
and oceans where the Navy reigns; shielded from above by the prowess
and devotion of our airmen--we await undismayed the impending assault.
Perhaps it will come tonight. Perhaps it will come next week. Perhaps
it will never come. We must show ourselves equally capable of meeting
sudden violent shock, or what is perhaps a harder test, a prolonged
vigil. But be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no
terms, we shall tolerate no parley; we may show mercy--we shall ask for
none.”
Can this language be matched except by the adjurations of the prophets
of old? And what could surpass the fiery blast of his invective turned
upon Hitler? “This wicked man,” he said, “the repository and embodiment
of many forms of soul-destroying hatred, this monstrous product of
former wrongs and shame, has now resolved to try to break our famous
island race by a process of indiscriminate slaughter and destruction.
What he has done is to kindle a fire in British hearts, here and
all over the world, which will glow long after all traces of the
conflagration he has caused in London have been removed. He has lighted
a fire which will burn with a steady and consuming flame until the last
vestiges of Nazi tyranny have been burnt out of Europe and until the
Old World--and the New--can join hands to rebuild the temples of man’s
freedom and man’s honor, upon foundations which will not soon or easily
be overthrown.”
It is interesting to catalogue the various words Churchill has used to
describe Hitler, and to note that he prefers the simplest descriptives,
“wicked,” “evil,” and “bad.” What other speaker could use the childish
adjective “bad” and make it so effective as did Churchill on April 27,
1941 when he said: “In February, as you may remember, _that bad man_ in
one of his raving outbursts threatened us with a terrifying increase
in numbers and activities of his U-boats....” And again on February
9: “We must all of us have been asking ourselves what is _that wicked
man_ whose crime-stained regime and system are at bay and in the toils,
what has he been preparing during these winter months?” And earlier on
October 1, 1939: “How soon victory will be gained depends upon how long
Herr Hitler and his group of _wicked men_, whose hands are stained with
blood and soiled with corruption, can keep their grip upon the docile,
unhappy German people.” Once he calls him a “cornered maniac,” and in
the same speech of November 12, 1939 says: “I have the sensation and
also the conviction that _that evil man_ over there and his cluster of
confederates are not sure of themselves as we are sure of ourselves;
that they are harassed in their guilty souls by the thought and by
the fear of an ever approaching retribution for their crimes, and for
the orgy of destruction into which they have plunged us all....” On
March 30, 1940 he refers to “Hitler’s murderous rage,” and says, “In
his frenzy, this _wicked man_ and the criminal regime which he has
conceived and erected, increasingly turn their malice upon the weak.”
Constantly recurs the simile of bloodstained, foul hands, perhaps best
in Churchill’s speech of June 12, 1941 when he said: “We can not yet
see how deliverance will come or when it will come, but nothing is more
certain than that every trace of Hitler’s footsteps, every stain of his
infected and corroding fingers will be sponged and purged and if need
be, blasted from the surface of the earth.”
The most famous of Churchill’s epigrams is the one now known by the
entire English-speaking world, about the Royal Air Force, delivered
in his speech of August 20, 1940 on “The War Situation” in the House
of Commons. I heard that speech and particularly noted the epigram,
but I cannot now certify which of the two current versions he actually
delivered. As I remember, he said, “Never in the field of human
conflict have so many owed so much to so few.” But in the collected
volume of his speeches edited by his son, Randolph, the sentence runs,
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to
so few.” I have seen both of these versions on placards in British
stores and offices. Hansard must have the original version and it is
possible Churchill or his son may have made an amendment in the volume
of speeches.
Q. _What are Churchill’s principal interests?_
A. I am going to make an omnibus answer to this and include replies to
a score of questions usually asked about Mr. Churchill. Roughly, in
order of importance Mr. Churchill’s principal interests are England;
the war, the Royal Navy; his family, past, present, and future; power;
politics; the English language; public speaking; writing history and
making it; writing journalism; reading history, biography, literature;
the English-speaking people; Scotch whisky; good food, good wines,
cigars; the French people; all other people; conversation; favorable
publicity; unfavorable publicity; ceremony; painting; bricklaying;
swimming (in younger days polo); six-pack bezique; his hats; his shoes;
his clothes; and of course “that bloodthirsty guttersnipe.”