- Lukacs, John.
Five Days in London.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
ISBN 0-300-08466-8.
-
Winston Churchill titled the fourth volume of his
memoirs of The Second World War,
describing the events of 1942,
The Hinge of Fate.
Certainly, in the military sense, it was in that year
that the tide turned in favour of the allies—the
entry of the United States into the war and the Japanese
defeat in the Battle of Midway, Germany's failure at Stalingrad
and the beginning of the disastrous consequences for the
German army, and British defeat of Rommel's army at El Alamein
together marked what Churchill described as, “…not the
end, nor is it even the beginning of the end, but, it is perhaps, the
end of the beginning.”
But in this book, distinguished historian John Lukacs argues
that the true “hinge of fate” not only of World War
II, but for Western civilisation against Nazi tyranny, occurred
in the five days of 24–28 May of 1940, not on the
battlefields in France, but in London, around conference
tables, in lunch and dinner meetings, and walks in the garden.
This was a period of unmitigated, accelerating disaster for
the French army and the British Expeditionary Force in
France: the channel ports of Boulogne and Calais fell to the
Germans, the King of Belgium capitulated to the Nazis, and
more than three hundred thousand British and French troops
were surrounded at Dunkirk, the last channel port still in
Allied hands. Despite plans for an evacuation, as late as
May 28, Churchill estimated that at most about 50,000 could
be evacuated, with all the rest taken prisoner and all the
military equipment lost. In his statement in the House of
Commons that day, he said, “Meanwhile, the House
should prepare itself for hard and heavy tidings.”
It was only in the subsequent days that the near-miraculous evacuation
was accomplished, with a total of 338,226 soldiers rescued by June
3rd.
And yet it was in these darkest of days that Churchill vowed that
Britain would fight on, alone if necessary (which seemed increasingly
probable), to the very end, whatever the cost or consequences. On May
31st, he told French premier Paul Reynaud, “It would be better
far that the civilisation of Western Europe with all of its
achievements should come to a tragic but splendid end than that the
two great democracies should linger on, stripped of all that made life
worth living.” (p. 217).
From Churchill's memoirs and those of other senior British
officials, contemporary newspapers, and most historical
accounts of the period, one gains the impression of a
Britain unified in grim resolve behind Churchill to fight on
until ultimate victory or annihilation. But what actually
happened in those crucial War Cabinet meetings as the disaster
in France was unfolding? Oddly, the memoirs and collected
papers of the participants are nearly silent on the period,
with the author describing the latter as having been
“weeded” after the fact. It was not until the
minutes of the crucial cabinet meetings were declassified
in 1970 (thanks to a decision by the British government to reduce
the “closed period” of such records from fifty
to thirty years), that it became possible to reconstruct what
transpired there. This book recounts a dramatic
and fateful struggle of which the public and earlier historians
of the period were completely unaware—a moment when
Hitler may have come closer to winning the war than at any
other.
The War Cabinet was, in fact, deeply divided. Churchill, who had only
been Prime Minister for two weeks, was in a precarious position, with
his predecessor Neville Chamberlain and the Foreign Secretary Lord
Halifax, who King George VI had preferred to Churchill for Prime
Minister as members, along with Labour leaders Clement Attlee and
Arthur Greenwood. Halifax did not believe that Britain could resist
alone, and that fighting on would surely result in the loss of the
Empire and perhaps independence and liberty in Britain as well. He
argued vehemently for an approach, either by Britain and France
together or Britain alone, to Mussolini, with the goal of keeping
Italy out of the war and making some kind of deal with Hitler which
would preserve independence and the Empire, and he met on several
occasions with the Italian ambassador in London to explore such
possibilities.
Churchill opposed any effort to seek mediation, either by
Mussolini or Roosevelt, both because he thought the chances
of obtaining acceptable terms from Hitler were
“a thousand to one against” (May 28, p. 183)
and because any approach would put Britain on a
“slippery slope” (Churchill's words in the same
meeting) from which it would be impossible to restore the
resolution to fight rather than make catastrophic concessions.
But this was a pragmatic decision, not a Churchillian declaration of
“never,
never, never, never”. In the May 26 War Cabinet
meeting (p. 113), Churchill made the rather astonishing
statement that he “would be thankful to get out of our
present difficulties on such terms, provided we retained
the essentials and the elements of our vital strength,
even at the cost of some territory”.
One can understand why the personal papers of the
principals were so carefully weeded.
Speaking of another conflict where the destiny of Europe hung in the
balance, the Duke of Wellington said of Waterloo that it was
“the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life”.
This account makes it clear that this moment in history
was much the same. It is, of course, impossible to forecast
what the consequences would have been had Halifax prevailed
and Britain approached Mussolini to broker a deal with Hitler.
The author argues forcefully that nothing less than
the fate of Western civilisation was at stake. With
so many “what ifs”, one can never know. (For
example, it appears that Mussolini had already decided by
this date to enter the war and he might have simply rejected a
British approach.) But in any case this fascinating, thoroughly
documented, and lucidly written account of a little-known but
crucial moment in history makes for compelling reading.
February 2007 