A few posts back, I compared the present upheavals in the Middle East to the dramatic events of October-November 1956 -- both being critical moments in history with future consequences that weren't, or won't be, fully realized until much later. Even better, I now realize, I might have called to mind the brief but critical period between May 24 to 28, 1940.
I've just finished reading Five Days in London, May 1940, by the American historian John Lukacs. Lukacs has views that seem somewhat eccentric -- he is a self-described "reactionary," who describes Hitler as a "populist." A basic premise of most of his books is that the fact that "populist" regimes have replaced governments guided by aristocrats ("elitists") over the past half century is the greatest threat facing civilization today. Nevertheless -- keeping in mind his biases, which help explain his strong attachment to Churchill -- his book is a fascinating read. He relies heavily not only on governmental and diplomatic archives, personal memoirs by officials and other persons living at the time, and newspaper accounts, but also on contemporary assessments from day to day of British public opinion and morale.
Lukacs makes a strong case that those five days in May 1940 were a turning point, more important in certain respects than the dramatic military events that transpired later. Critical decisions were made by the British government, decisions that did not themselves ensure Germany's defeat but that did ensure that Hitler could not achieve his fundamental war aim -- i.e., total domination of continental Europe.
The essential struggle within Britain's five-man War Cabinet was between Churchill, who had just been appointed prime minister, and Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary. Both were Conservatives. But Lukacs describes Churchill as a fellow reactionary, and Halifax as a rational and balanced conservative, an apparently desirable characteristic which, in the context of the world of 1940, resulted in his being an appeaser. Churchill won the argument, helped in great part, surprisingly, by the critical support of the still highly influential Neville Chamberlain, whom he had just replaced and who now served as Lord President of the Council and a member of the War Cabinet.
When the critical five days began, few of the British people outside the government realized the peril that the nation faced. France was on the verge of surrender. Just under a half million British and French troops were rapidly pulling back toward Dunkirk, with no hope of holding back the German forces that were pushing them toward the sea. No one in the British government believed that more than a small fraction could be evacuated before they were captured, along with all their equipment, or killed. Italy was clearly on the verge of declaring war against France, although many in the British government, including Lord Halifax, held to the misguided belief that Mussolini was afraid of German domination in Europe and would assist Britain in negotiating a settlement upholding a balance of power.
Then, during the five ensuing days, King Leopold surrendered Belgium to the Nazis, despite the opposition of his government, making the position of the troops at Dunkirk even more untenable.
Moreover, for years, there had been a general feeling throughout Europe, including within Britain itself, that parliamentary democracy was an old, stale form of government. Hitler seemed to offer the world a new sort of leadership, one that seemed vigorous, dynamic, highly competent. (And absolutely no one questioned the superiority of Germany's military forces and equipment.) Moreover, Naziism was based on a form of populism -- a Führer who embodied and enacted the will of the people (der Volk) -- rather than one based on fusty old aristocratic institutions and interminable parliamentary squabbling.
Lord Halifax weighed all these facts rationally. He came to the conclusion that Britain would be invaded within weeks, and utterly defeated. To him, it appeared clear that Hitler's essential war aim was the domination of continental Europe -- not the securing of colonies overseas or the occupation of England. Britain, by having declared war the prior September and by remaining in the war, was an obstacle to that domination. By temperament and interests, Halifax was not particularly concerned with the European continent; he urged that Britain should come to terms with Hitler, offer him no opposition in Europe, and thus preserve the British Empire.
Churchill was hardly more optimistic about the future. But he was convinced that Hitler would agree to such a settlement only if he secured Britain's surrender of its fleet, obtained possession of certain critical British island possessions, and forced the Kingdom into general disarmament -- in other words, Britain would have to accept a new status as an "independent" state in name only, one that was, in effect, a German vassal. Churchill was a romantic. He was also a student of history. Nations that are utterly defeated often rise again, he noted; nations that surrender without a struggle are doomed forever. Better to go down swinging, even in the face of impossible odds.
Churchill won his argument within the cabinet, and the rest is history -- victory for Britain and the Allies, a victory secured much more easily by the odd failure of Germany in the next couple of weeks to prevent the British evacuation from Dunkirk, and by the subsequent decision of Hitler -- finding himself confronted by Churchill's irritating obstinacy -- to attack the Soviet Union rather than to invade Britain.
Lukacs agrees that there were to be many critical turning points in the years ahead -- but failure at none of those points would necessarily have been fatal to Britain -- and to Western civilization. If Lord Halifax had prevailed during those five days of cabinet meetings, however, we would be living in a far different world. But the triumph was temporary: Lukacs is morosely convinced that Churchill simply won the West another fifty years; he idiosyncratically believes that "populism" finally triumphed about twenty years ago, and that the values for which Britain fought are more or less doomed.
[Churchill] helped to give us -- especially those of us who are no longer young but who were young then -- fifty years. Fifty years before the rise of new kinds of barbarism not incarnated by the armed might of Germans or Russians, before the clouds of a new Dark Age may darken the lives of our children and grandchildren. Fifty years! Perhaps that was enough.
I was chagrined, as I read the book, to realize that essentially I'm a Halifaxian, a damnably rational Halifaxian -- and that had I been a member of the War Cabinet in 1940, I would have made the same arguments as did Lord Halifax. I suspect I would have shared Halifax's opinion that Churchill was mad -- not literally, of course, but with the lunacy of an irrational romantic.
(But I am relieved to read elsewhere that Lukacs strongly opposed George W. Bush's presidency, and his ill-advised invasion of Iraq! Reactionary, Lukacs may be, but not crazy.)
---------------------By complete coincidence, I went to see The King's Speech on Saturday. A couple of days later, I read in Lukacs's book: "'The King's speech had a steadying but not a deep effect.' (King George VI had broadcast to the nation the previous night; many people commented favourably on his delivery, since the king was known for his habit of stuttering.)"
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