Part 15

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.”

Compare this with Hitler’s interests: power; Hitler-Germany; the war; the German Army; barbarism; haranguing crowds in public; haranguing friends in private; propaganda; rewriting history; reading military history (and making it); suppressing journalism; the Jews; colossal architecture; the movies; vegetarian food; and of course “the warmonger Churchill.”

By this comparison I do not put the two men on the same level, for morally they cannot be considered as belonging to the same species, but it is interesting to note the contrasts that come out in such a list. It is not merely the contrast between the aristocrat who is striving to preserve free life for common men and the “guttersnipe” who is bent upon enslaving them all; it is a contrast of two worlds.