Two things happened on this day in 1940: 1) Germany invaded
France, Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium; 2) Winston Churchill became Prime
Minister of England. Hostilities between
the United Kingdom and France on one hand and Germany on the other had been
ongoing since Sept. 3rd, 1939.
Germany invaded Poland two days prior.
When Hitler’s armies occupied what was left of Czechoslovakia in March
1939, both the UK and France made guarantees to Poland that should Germany
invade, they would come to their aid.
Germany did just that on Sept 1st, 1939. The Allied response? Not much.
Yes, they did declare war on Germany two days later, but other than that… There was what was called the Saar
Offensive. On Sept. 7th,
France attacked Germany in the Saar.
There wasn’t much opposition, and the French advanced about 5 miles into
Germany. Two weeks after the attack
began, the French withdrew back into France.
They were content to wait for a German attack behind their Maginot Line,
and thus began the eight-month “Phoney War”.
Conservative MP Leo Amery [we’ll get back to him shortly] wanted to bomb
German munitions factories. The Air
Minister, Kingsley Wood, said “no” because the German factories were private
property, and that the Germans would retaliate [isn’t that what you do in
wartime?].
One constructive thing the British did was to bring Winston
Churchill into the War Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty [the post he held
at the beginning of World War I].
Churchill had been in the political wilderness as a backbencher since
1931. He [and pretty much he alone, save
for Leo Amery] criticized his own party’s government [first under Stanley
Baldwin, then Baldwin’s successor Neville Chamberlain] for what he perceived as
the UK’s lack of preparedness in the face of what he saw as a credible threat
to the UK, namely, Nazi Germany. He had
pushed both Baldwin and Chamberlain to spend more money on armaments with
limited success. He denounced the government’s
policy of appeasement. Churchill had a
sense that once the UK and France acquiesced to Adolf Hitler’s hunger for
territory, Hitler would not be satisfied and would want more. When Chamberlain and French Premier Daladier
agreed to allow Hitler to have the part of Czechoslovakia known as the
Sudetenland, Chamberlain believed Hitler when he told him he had no further
territorial claims to make. Chamberlain waved
the piece of paper with his signature and Hitler’s, and proclaimed “peace in
our time”. Six months after that, Hitler
proved Churchill to be right when he occupied the rest of what was left of Czechoslovakia. The scales had finally fallen from
Chamberlain’s eyes, hence the guarantee of support to Poland.
But first, there is a prologue to the invasion of France and
the Low Countries – Norway. While the
French and the Germans were content to exchange artillery fire after the fall
of Poland, the Soviet Union invaded Poland on Sept. 17th [as
discussed in a previous blog] and Finland in November 1939 [more on that in a
separate blog]. Churchill, now in the
government, saw much value to be gained by occupying then-neutral Norway. He thought two things could be achieved by this
move: 1) the British could stop Germany’s
supply of iron ore from Sweden by occupying the northern port of Narvik; 2) Once
secured, Narvik could be used as a base to help Finland against the
Soviets. It took a lot of persuasion,
but Chamberlain agreed to the Norway operation.
This operation was in his mind a way to engage the Germans far from
home, would have the appearance of “doing something”, and would avoid the repetition
of the mass carnage of the Somme and Passchendaele from World War I.
The RAF dropped propaganda leaflets instead
of bombs on Germany in the hope there would be some “revolt of the generals” to
overthrow Hitler, or he would be assassinated, and mass bloodshed could be
avoided. But by the time the British got
around to going into Norway, Finland surrendered to the Soviets. French Premier Daladier had staked his
government’s survival on helping Finland.
When Finland surrendered, Daladier was replaced by Paul Reynaud. Reynaud supported Churchill’s Norwegian
plan. The Allies agreed to mine
Norwegian waters. The mines were laid on
April 8, 1940. Chamberlain proclaimed
that Hitler had “missed the bus”. The
Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Ironside, taunted the Germans to “do
their worst”. Little did the British
know, Hitler had his own plans for Norway.
Also, unknown to the British, the German invasion fleet sailed for
Norway on April 6th.
The German invasion of Norway began April 9th. They beat the British to the punch. On that first day, the Luftwaffe took control
of most Norwegian airfields. The Germans
quickly captured the coastal cities of Bergen and Trondheim, and they landed in
Narvik just ahead of the British. There
the first clash between Allied forces and German forces occurred. The Royal Navy bombarded Narvik and pummeled
the German Kreigsmarine, but British
troops didn’t follow-up their success with a direct assault on the town. British troops also landed in Namsos and
Andalsnes to capture Trondheim in a pincer attack. But they had no skis, no proper maps of
Norway, and no heavy guns. Nor did they
have any air support. There wasn’t much
they could do when they ran into the well-equipped Germans. German control of the airfields was the key
to the battle. The British learned a
hard lesson that sea power alone without airpower couldn’t win battles
anymore. The British withdrew from
Norway and returned home. When they got
back, and angry Parliament wanted answers for why the British failed in Norway.
For nearly a year before the debate over the conduct of the
war in general and the debacle in Norway there had been a building up of
bitterness and anger by those who wanted Britain to go all out against the
Germans. Not only the Labour opposition
but members from Chamberlain’s own Conservative party felt the conduct of the
war couldn’t be carried out by Chamberlain.
During the debate, deputy Labor leader Herbert Morrison announced Labour
would vote against Chamberlain when the debate was over. For all intents and purposes, this debate was
over confidence in Chamberlain’s government.
Ironically, Churchill put up a vigorous defense of Chamberlain. Although the Norway campaign was Churchill’s
idea, Chamberlain was getting the blame for its failure. And then Leo Amery spoke. Like Churchill, he too had been an opponent
of appeasement. He quoted Oliver
Cromwell’s words –
“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!”
David Lloyd George gave an equally damning speech about Chamberlain,
and advocated that since Chamberlain had asked the British public to make
sacrifices to support the war effort, that Chamberlain too should make a
sacrifice. To wit:
“He has appealed for
sacrifice. The nation is prepared for every sacrifice so long as it has
leadership, so long as the Government show clearly what they are aiming at and
so long as the nation is confident that those who are leading it are doing
their best. I say solemnly that the Prime Minister should give an example of
sacrifice, because there is nothing which can contribute more to victory in
this war than that he should sacrifice the seals of office.”
After the debate finished on May 8th, the House of Commons
divided. The vote went Chamberlain’s
way, but it was a pyrrhic victory. The
vote was 281-200 in Chamberlain’s favor.
The Conservatives had a 213-seat majority, but in this vote 41
Conservative MPs voted with Labour against Chamberlain, while 60 other
Conservatives abstained. Chamberlain
knew that he needed to form a coalition government. On May 9th Labour told him they
would serve in such a government, but not if he was the Prime Minister. The choice was between Churchill and the
Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. Halifax
was a Peer. No Peer had been Prime
Minister in 40 years at that time.
Churchill was viewed with suspicion.
In the First World War, Gallipoli was his idea. It was also a spectacular failure. Chamberlain favored Halifax to succeed
him. In a meeting in the Cabinet Room at
Downing Street on May 10th, Chamberlain asked Churchill if he saw
any reason why the next Prime Minister couldn’t be from the House of
Lords. Uncharacteristically, Churchill
said nothing. According to Churchill,
Halifax said his position as a peer would make it difficult for him to be Prime
Minister. He would be responsible for
everything, but couldn’t “guide the assembly” [the House of Commons] upon whose
confidence his government would need.
At
dawn that same morning, the Germans invaded the Low Countries. That same
day, Chamberlain resigned. Later that
evening, the King sent for Winston Churchill.
Upon his arrival at Buckingham Palace, Churchill recalled:
I was taken immediately
to the King. His Majesty received me
most graciously and bade me sit down. He
looked at me searchingly and quizzingly for some moments, and then said, ‘I suppose
you don’t know why I have sent for you?’
Adopting his mood, I replied, ‘Sir, I simply couldn’t imagine why”. He laughed and said ‘I want to ask you to
form a Government’. I said I would
certainly do so.
Sources:
The World at War – Distant War: September 1939 – May 1940
Winston Churchill – The
Gathering Storm
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