THE TORY FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY 5 Days In May 1940

I

Churchill was in very many ways a terrible war leader; he constantly interfered in matters outside his competence, particularly respecting the military conduct of the war. He was directly responsible for the fiasco of the Greek and Cretan campaigns.[1] Of course he had form being responsible for the disastrous Dardanelles campaign in the First World War.

In between the wars he switched loyalties from the Liberals to the Conservatives, took a vehement position against the striking miners during The General Strike, openly admired Mussolini and championed the most reactionary causes, not least as a virulent opponent of Indian independence.

When he became Prime Minister he was deeply distrusted by the Conservatives and only supported by the Labour party as they could not countenance Chamberlain’s continuing occupation of the office, and had no confidence in Halifax. Prone to depression and a heavy drinker, divisive and occasionally petulant he presented as an unlikely national leader. 

Yet in 5 days in May 1940 his impact on the course of the war and the eventual destruction of the Nazi regime was decisive. The struggle he fought over those five days was not with the difficulties presented by the military situation but was with a significant body of the Conservative party and most importantly the rump of instinctive appeasers within his own cabinet, led by Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain.

After the war it proved convenient to gloss over this opposition to the continuing prosecution of the war and to create the legend of a unified cabinet solidly behind Churchill’s defiant rhetoric. Churchill himself colluded in this myth in his post war memoirs.

Churchill and Halifax

The key dates ran from the 24^th May through to Tuesday 28^th May; it was during this period that France collapsed and British forces were extricated from Dunkirk. The military disaster of the fall of France and the rout of the British Expeditionary force was seen by the former appeasers as indicating that the war was now lost. [2]  Halifax began, with Churchill’s nominal approval to explore peace proposals via the Italians.[3] Halifax continued to press for serious consideration of any peace terms provided via the conduit of Italy. Finally when confronted by Churchill’s continued refusal to give ground Halifax threatened that if Churchill would not accept a negotiated peace he would be forced to resign.

Such a resignation would represent a serious threat to Churchill’s position, since almost certainly Chamberlain would follow and Churchill would have faced a parliamentary revolt from the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, still very much Chamberlains party, i.e. the party of appeasement. This would have led to Churchill’s replacement as PM possibly by Halifax, with the withdrawal of Labour support and a consequent split at the top of the British Government at the moment of greatest danger.

Churchill affected to give way and presented Halifax with the impression that he was prepared to give a little, should the Italian proposals not be too onerous. He then rallied the outer cabinet, where his supporters predominated and successfully marginalised Halifax and the appeasement rump in the cabinet.

Neville Chamberlain architect of appeasement

In those five days in May Churchill outwitted the defeatist Halifax and the Conservative appeasers and ensured that Great Britain stayed in the war. In so doing he set in train the events that would lead to America’s eventual entry into the war and the defeat of Nazi Germany.[4]

Churchill has been over lauded as a war hero, as I say much of his conduct of the war was misguided, bungling and sometimes downright incompetent. Churchill however had two immense strengths when dealing with the disastrous situation the country faced in 1940. First he had the word,[5] much of Churchill’s wartime rhetoric was windy and over lofty, but he managed to give voice to the overwhelming feeling of defiance felt by the British people.

The second strength he enjoyed was that, unlike Chamberlain or Halifax, he knew what he was dealing with; he knew that Nazism could not be negotiated with, that it represented evil made manifest and that it had to be wiped off the face of the earth. He even understood that for all the evils of Stalinism, Nazism was by far the greater threat to civilisation. For those five days these two significant strengths enabled him to defy Hitler and defy the appeasers and for that alone he deserved to be honoured.

II

Appeasement is a more complex historical phenomenon than many people like to think. It has become the byword for stupidity and cowardice in international relations, and I have no intention here of resurrecting its reputation. Stupidity certainly represented a major component of the policy; however this went alongside a deep and abiding fear of another war; given the unremitting slaughter of the First World War no bad thing, possibly even noble. However this fear was not solely or even predominantly a fear of further slaughter but was motivated more by a chronic and severe anxiety as to what another war would do to Britain’s position in the world and of the impact such a war would have on the viability of the British Empire.

There was also the question of the Treaty of Versailles. Many members of the ruling elite and aristocracy, and appeasement was championed and pushed by this latter group, felt that Germany had been badly and unfairly treated after the war and that many of its claims against the territorial losses imposed on it by that treaty were legitimate; again a strain that could be seen as ethical even noble. However this concern was also heavily influenced by the nature of the German regime itself, not as one might suppose negatively, but on the contrary the Nazi regime was looked on with added favour, seen as disciplined and hostile to Communism and organised labour.[6] There was also the ‘attraction’ of anti Semitism, prevalent amongst the aristocratic appeasers like Lord Londonderry and Nancy Astor, whilst Chamberlain himself was possessed of a bourgeois ‘golf club’ variant of the virus. 

Whilst in France a slogan of ‘better Hitler than Blum,’ could find favour amongst the right, in Britain it never came to better Hitler than Greenwood or Atlee,[7] but it did consist of better Hitler than Stalin.

The policy was characterised by a complete indifference to the fate of the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe, indeed they wholly welcomed Hitler’s attention being diverted eastwards. The policy is best summed up in that awful squalid little phrase uttered by Chamberlain as democratic Czechoslovakia was about to be sacrificed to the Nazi’s, “a far away country of which we know little.” [8]  

III

As to Chamberlain and Halifax, rather like Trotsky in the Stalinist Soviet Union, they have been written out of the Conservative narrative of the twentieth century; Chamberlain is spoken of as the Prime Minister of a ‘National Government,’ whilst Halifax’s antics during May 1940 have been excised from the Tory history books. To hear the account of the war you would think that the whole Conservative party stood solidly behind Churchill in May1940.

It is therefore an important act of remembering to recall that Chamberlain was a Conservative and that appeasement was one of the most popular Tory policies ever. That Churchill’s anti appeasement stance led to him being loathed within the party, marginalised, maligned and ultimately threatened with the withdrawal of the whip.

---

[1] He certainly interfered as much as Hitler, often with similarly dire consequences. Fortunately as the war proceeded and Britain’s role was eclipsed by that of the United States his capacity to create problems became greatly diminished.

[2] Who now might more fairly be described as defeatists. 

[3] Churchill was in a weak position and had to play his hand skilfully, he could not veto Halifax’s manoeuvres. See ‘Five Days in May’ John Lukas  Yale University Press.

[4] Hitler argued that by invading the Soviet Union he was snuffing out the last hope of Great Britain that Russia would eventually come to the rescue.

[5] Churchill of course famously stated that history would be kind to him, he knew for he would be writing it. There is more than a grain of truth in this remark. Much also is forgiven to those who have a command of language, as Auden recognised, ‘Time with this strange excuse/Forgives Kipling and his views.’ From In Memory of W B Yeats.

[6] It is interesting to speculate how favourably a socialist or even communist Germany would have treated respecting the unfairness of Versailles.

[7] At least I can find no evidence of this.

[8] The spirit and mindset of appeasement proved to be alive and well as late as the mid 1990’s as demonstrated by John Major’s and Douglas Hurd’s callous indifference to the fate of Bosnia.                                      

Having visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.