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Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts
One could argue that this has little to do with conservative history except that the government of this country in 1939 was Conservative under a Conservative Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain who had to lead the country into war, something that he had tried to avoid. By summer 1939 he knew that was a lost cause but he still tried to win some time and, who knew, perhaps ....
Everyone knows about September 1, 1939 when the German army crossed into Poland, September 3, when Britain declared war followed by a reluctant France as well as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. But how many people know about the next step in Poland: the country's invasion from the east by the Soviet army on September 17 just as Stalin and Hitler had agreed. Here is the photograph that sums it all up: a German and a Soviet officer shaking hands. One can see the about to be dismembered body of Poland between them:
And who could forget Low's famous cartoon:
Write my Spectator article. At 11 am (a bad hour) Vita comes to tell me that Russia has invaded Poland and is striking towards Vilna We are so dumbfounded by this news that there is a wave of despair over Sissinghurst. I do not think the Russians will go beyond her old frontier [sic] or wish to declare war on us. But of course it is a terrific blow and makes our victory even more uncertain.He then makes a series of analytical points and predictions most of which are wrong though some not. I love those diaries dearly and Nicolson's other writings but the man was often an ass. Did he not gather from Maisky what the agreement between Hitler and Stalin might have been about?
Chips Channon was not surprised. He had never liked the Bolsheviks, considering them, if anything worse than the Nazis. He was also PPS to Rab Butler at the Foreign Office at the time and may have had more accurate information about events than Nicolson. On the whole Chips managed to get fairly accurate information in or out of his lowly office. His published entry for September 17 reads:
A glorious September day in Kelvedon where I bathed in the pool, and then in a bath towel rang up the FO to be told the grim news that the Russians had definitely invaded Poland. Now the Nazis and the Bolsheviks have combined to destroy civilization and the outlook for the world looks ghastly.The detail about him being in his bath towel when he hears the fateful news is priceless but the phrase "had definitely invaded" would indicate that something of the kind was expected.
On October 10 Chips wrote:
Russia helps herself to a new country every day and no-one minds. It is only German crimes that raise indignation in the minds of the English.Well, why not? German crimes should raise indignation but it might have been useful if Russian (or, to be precise, Soviet) crimes had also been noted then and later. I am now reading David Satter's book about the bloody end of the Yeltsin era and the even more bloody rise of Putin to absolute power with a couple of invasions on the way, not to mention two horrendous wars in Chechnya, and the same cry can be uttered: no-one minds. Or, at least, very few people then or now.
In view of my plans to campaign for the publication of the full version of Chips Channon's diaries I have started re-reading them. I have a copy (much used ) of the 1967 version but the 1993 version has no changes, merely a short new introduction by Robert Rhodes James. Though the newly found late diaries are mentioned they are not added as too many people were still alive (actually not that many by 1993 but both Paul Channon and Robert Rhodes James had been scarred by the original reception of the book).
The moment one starts reading those entries one becomes engrossed. The people and events are fascinating and Chips's descriptions are enthralling. Some of the people are little known these days and so one cannot be sure whether he is right or wrong in his judgements (were those peeresses really so dowdy?) but others are historically important figures and then one can weigh up whether one agrees with him or not.
His adoration of Chamberlain is a little surprising not because the man was evil personified as some people would have it - he was not but a very capable and well-meaning politician - but because there is no evidence that he had the personality, which could excite adoration. Even in this case Chips mentions several times that the government had become a one man show, which is not healthy, and enumerates the speeches that are not all that good in his opinion.
More interesting is his dislike for the constantly seething "Glamour Boys", as he calls them, around Eden who plot to no particular end and who sometimes go into a huddle with the Soviet ambassador Maisky,
the Ambassador of torture, murder and every crime in the calendar.,as Chips wrote on May 3, 1939.
Ah yes, I hear people say, but what of his own lenient attitude to the Nazi regime. Indeed, he was not really harsh enough about them but it is not true that he was always lenient or even pro-Nazi. That is a big subject and I need to write a separate post about it. For the moment I shall keep to the subject of Chips on some of his colleagues in the House of Commons.
He is particularly interesting on Eden, whom he likes personally and whose charm he freely acknowledges but whose abilities he considers rather mediocre and whom he fears because of his lack of control in his international likes and dislikes. His prediction is that Eden's career will continue to be catastrophic, something that was seen to be completely wrong for a while but was eventually proved to be correct. For this, if no other reason, one would like to read Chips's late diaries, which must cover the Suez fiasco and the final collapse of that career.
Meanwhile, here is a quote that made me laugh out loud. It is from his entry for May 10, 1939, after Hitler had "let Chamberlain down" by marching into Prague and Mussolini reneged on the Anglo-Italian Agreement by marching into Albania. War seems inevitable but Chips, as PPS to RAB Butler, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, is still a little hopeful. Even he is losing hope of peace for much longer. This is the wonderful entry:
All morning at the FO intriguing and arranging matters, and the hours passed in a confusion of secret telephone calls and conversations. The startling thing about my intrigues is that they always come off.On the whole that was probably true though eventually he did not manage to keep his job but then neither did RAB. It does, however, explain why Chips had such a multitude of enemies as well as friends.
At dawn of June 22, 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Soviet Union. No, not the invasion of Russia. They moved fast, largely because the Soviet armed forces were unprepared, what with the huge purges in 1938, the continuing movement of prisoners east-wards from the Baltic states and eastern Poland and the inexplicable trust Stalin put in Hitler, but they did not reach what we might call Russia for several weeks. By August they were attacking Leningrad and by late November they began the siege of Moscow. Stalin and his mates disappeared from Moscow in June. He did not make a public broadcast till July 3 when he addressed the people of the Soviet Union as "brothers and sisters". According to my mother, who was in Moscow at the time, that caused greater panic than anything else had done.
On June 22 the Germans invaded what was eastern Poland or western Ukraine, depending on your attitude, the territory that the USSR had grabbed in September 1939. They then rolled forward, causing enormous losses though Stalin contributed to that in various ways.
Nevertheless, the date did turn out to be the first real turning point of the war, the second and more important one being December 7, 1941. It was also a turning point in European history though that did not become obvious except to a few individuals like Evelyn Waugh until much later.
Next year will see a couple of important anniversaries: the centenary of the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik coup, which initiated the existence of possibly the most bloodthirsty political system in history, and the eightieth anniversary of the year that is generally seen as the symbol of Stalin's great purge: 1937. We should devote time to a remembrance and discussion of the victims of Communism.
Meanwhile, here and here are links to more pictures from Operation Barbarossa and its aftermath.
Dorothy L. Sayers, for reasons that are still debated by literary critics and historians, abandoned the writing of detective stories in 1937 though she continued to review other books in he genre and was very active in the Detection Club (here is my review of Martin Edwards's history of that august institution, in case anyone is interested). She became more interested in theological matters, social commentary and, eventually, translation of Dante. With C, S. Lewis and Charles Williams she became during the war a popular commentator from the right-wing perspective (unlike J. B. Priestley whom she greatly admired) and a popular theologian.
The long essay I have just finished reading, Begin Here, was commissioned and written at the end of 1939, during what is known as the "phony war" and published in early 1940. It was reprinted and republished many times during the no longer phony war, despite paper rationing.
In this Sayers tried to sum up what she felt had gone wrong with the country, its society and the its people and proposed some tentative ideas about what might have to be done after the war. It is curious how many people at various points of the political spectrum started thinking about post-war society almost as soon as the war began, there being a general assumption that this war would really change everything.
There are too many things in the book for me to discuss in just one posting but let me refer to something that amused me intensely and made me realize that some annoying aspects of our own society goes back a lot further than we sometimes think.
On pages 116 to 117 (I managed to find a copy of the Second Impression, from February 1940) we find the following, which will sound familiar to many people:
I am perpetually disquieted by the popular appetite for what is (horribly) called the "personal angle" on every question. This irrational obsession pervades the newspapers, makes the lives of public characters a burden to them, distracts public worship from its proper object, and is rapidly destroying the intelligence of the people.Another aspect of the subject is covered at a later point of the book, at the start of the last chapter, called Begin Here, where she outlines her various suggestions for the future:
It is as though nobody cred fro what is said, but only for who says it. an unsigned article in a newspaper carries no weight, however sound its arguments; except in those few national organs that are still read by highly educated people, articles on theology, drama, science, sociology, poetry or any other special subject have to be sponsored by "a name" if they are to attract attention - nor does it seem to matter in the least whether "the name" knows anything about the subject or not.
All questions of fact and all judgements calling for specialised experience must be referred to the people who have that special knowledge and experience. But when we have heard what they have to say, we must use our individual judgment as to the action to be taken, bearing always in mind the geral principles by which we have decided that the world should be governed.
We must also remember that an expert in one department is only an amateur in another; a biologist is no more specially qualified to pontificate about theology than a theologian to lay down the law about stage-management.
What, I wonder, would be Miss Sayers's opinion of the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch, a successful and fairly talented actor, who seems to have set himself up as an expert on all subjects to do with morality.
Seventy years ago the first atom bomb to be used in war was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, the second one, on Nagasaki to follow two day later. It undoubtedly ushered in a new world politically and militarily and has remained in many people's minds the pre-eminent example of a war crime. In fact, the casualties incurred by the firebombing of Tokyo were higher and when it came to war crimes, there were many competitors for the title of the worst.
The decision to drop the two atom bombs was taken by President Harry S Truman because he considered, probably rightly, that the this was the only way to bring the war in the Pacific to an end speedily without further very high American and Japanese casualties. That alternative would have probably meant many more British, Australian, Indian and other casualties.
On September 17, 1939 the war that is known as the Second World War entered its crucial phase though, possibly, this was not recognized at the time. The Soviet Union, acting in accordance with the Pact that the two Foreign Minister, Molotov and Ribbentrop had signed, invaded eastern Poland, thus squeezing the Polish army and the population of that country between themselves and Nazi Germany.
One cannot really ignore Low's brilliant cartoon on the subject.
Here is a photograph that remains one of my favourites from that period and that region: the jolly meeting at a German military parade in Brest of two tank commanders, General Heinz Guderian and General Semyon Krivoshein who was, as it happens, Jewish. Astonishingly enough, General Krivoshein survived two purges: that of the armed forces in 1938 and that of prominent (and not so prominent) Jews in 1951. As the great Sovietologist, Robert Conquest, said to me when I asked him why he thought Krivoshein survived: "Someone had to".
Both generals were prominent in the Battle of Kursk. Friendships between tyrants have a short life.
I wrote more about that here.
So spoke the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Neville Chamberlain at 11.15 BST on September 3, 1939. After the announcement by Alvar Lidell that the Prime Minister would now address the nation, Mr Chamberlain said:
This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to WITHDRAW their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us.In the end, right did but it took a good many more decades than just the Second World War and the news from eastern Ukraine makes one feel that the battle is not over yet.
I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful.
Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened, and although He now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement. The proposals were never shown to the Poles, nor to us, and, although they were announced in a German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them, but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier. His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.
We and France are today, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack on her people. We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace. The situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be TRUSTED and no people or country could feel themselves safe has become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage.
At such a moment as this the assurances of support that we have received from the Empire are a source of profound encouragement to us.
The Government have made plans under which it will be possible to carry on the work of the nation in the days of stress and strain that may be ahead. But these plans need your help. You may be taking your part in the fighting services or as a volunteer in one of the branches of Civil Defence. If so you will report for duty in accordance with the instructions you have received. You may be engaged in work essential to the prosecution of war for the maintenance of the life of the people - in factories, in transport, in public utility concerns, or in the supply of other necessaries of life. If so, it is of vital importance that you should carry on with your jobs.
Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against - brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution - and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.
On September 1, 1939 German troops crossed into Poland and the Second World War began. Britain and France, having guaranteed Poland's borders, would declare war on Germany in two days' time. The Soviet Union was, at that stage, Germany's ally and would, itself, invade Poland on September 17. Nobody guaranteed the country's eastern borders.
This is a well known picture: German soldiers move Polish border fences to open the road to tanks, armoured vehicles and for the troops to march in.
Below is a more optimistic picture: Poland for years under German and Soviet occupation became independent again in 1989. Today they were commemorating the German invasion and the tragedies that followed for many years.
Barbarossa Day. The German invasion of the Soviet Union begins. Not of Russia or of what was then Ukraine but of the Soviet Union or, in other words, eastern Poland that the Red Army had invaded in 1939. Did Hitler make a mistake by the invasion itself? It did not look like it at first as the Wehrmacht rolled ahead and Stalin and his gang were caught "unawares" despite the many warnings. Nevertheless, it was his big mistake or, to be precise, the conduct of the war in the east was.
The greatest sea-borne invasion force sets out to liberate western Europe from Nazi occupation.
"Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
"Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened, he will fight savagely.
"But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to victory!
"I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!
"Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."
— Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower, 6 June 1944.
Yesterday's anniversary of Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich with that famous piece of paper in his hands requires a longish blog, on which I am working. In the meantime, let me remind readers of another anniversary, one that shows the triumph of humanity over barbarity.
October 1, 1943 was going to be the date on which the SS would round up the 7,800 Jews of Denmark, arguing that as the evening was that of Rosh Hashanah, they would all be at home. Instead, almost all of them had been warned, gone into hiding and were taken out of the country to Sweden, many to continue their journey onwards. Notable among those was the great physicist, Niels Bohr who was taken to the United States immediately.
This short summary on the Yad Vashem website mentions that the Danes were awarded the Righteous Among Nations title and also that large sums of money were paid to the sailors who agreed to take the refugees to Sweden.
For once, I suggest going to Wikipedia, which gives a much more detailed analysis, naming some of the rescuers, explaining the role of the German diplomat, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and adding
At first, a few "bad apples" among the fishermen assisting in the rescue charged an excessive sum of money to transport Jews to Sweden, but most took just a modest payments from those who could pay for the passage or were helped by funds supplied by the organizers. The Danish underground took an active role in organizing the rescue and providing financing, mostly from wealthy Danes who donated large sums of money to the endeavor.Not all were rescued. About 450 were arrested by the Gestapo and some perished during the journey. It was, nevertheless a stupendous effort in which large sections of the Danish population were involved directly with the support of others. It is a little sad to hear that the story of King Christian X wearing the yellow star because the Jews were his subjects, too, is a myth but the truth is quite honourable enough.
Denmark marked the anniversary a couple of days ago, on the anniversary of when the Jews were actually warned.
The results of the 1945 General Election, in which votes took a long time to count because of the numbers that were still overseas, were declared on July 26: an astonishing though not altogether surprising (if I may use such a paradox) landslide victory for the Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee who, as Deputy Prime Minister during the war, managed to spread many of the party's ideas and create the necessary structures even before he withdrew from the Coalition and demanded and election. This blog has referred to this in a posting on Robert Crowcroft's Attlee's War.
The reasons for that victory were many. Debates about it have gone on since that day and will go on for a long time. These debates and discussions are of importance because they have shaped and will continue to shape Conservative Party politics.
Was it the memory of the "heroes" coming back after the Great War to broken promises? Was it the desire never to repeat the Depression of the early thirties? Was it Churchill's undoubted lack of popularity but how popular was Attlee? Was it the dishonesty of Labour accusing the Conservatives in not seeing the dangers in Hitler's Germany while they and the unions had tried to prevent rearmament as long as they could? Was it the lack of Conservative Party structures as so many active members were still serving one way or another? Was it the lack of Conservative ideology to withstand that of the Labour Party? Or was it simply the regular exhaustion the electorate feels with one party, too long in power? As the saying goes: discuss.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, thus finally bringing the United States into World War II. That and Hitler's monumental folly in declaring war on that country. However, the link I have, via The Raw Story, is to a fascinating story of one eyewitness account, which was considered to be too harrowing at the time (yes, well, war is harrowing) being published. Here is that harrowing tale.
Anyone who asks what sort of narrative can British Muslims have should be told about the tens of thousands of them who fought for Britain in two world wars and at other times. There are other narratives as well, but this is the one I am concerned with in particular today as I was sent this link.
The Princess Royal has unveiled a sculpture of Noor Inayat Khan, a WWII agent dubbed the "Spy Princess" by her biographer Shrabani Basu, in London's Gordon Square Gardens.
Raised in Britain and France and a descendant of Indian royalty, bilingual Noor Inayat Khan was recruited by the elite Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1942 to work in Paris as a radio operator.
Records from the national archives show she was the first female wireless operator sent to Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
After evading capture for three months, the spy was imprisoned, tortured and eventually shot by the German Gestapo at Dachau concentration camp in 1944.
Her final word - uttered as the German firing squad raised their weapons - was simple. "Liberté".
Liberty was a notion the pacificist-turned-war-heroine held deeply, according to Ms Basu.It has been argued that love of liberty rather than love of Britain inspired her and that this love ran in her family.
Noor Inayat Khan's great-great-great-grandfather was Tipu Sultan, an 18th century Muslim ruler of Mysore. He refused to submit to British rule and was killed in battle in 1799.
Born on 1 January 1914 in Russia to an Indian father and American mother, the agent's infancy was spent in London.
The family moved to France when she was a child and lived in Paris, where she was educated and learnt fluent French.
The national archives describe how the sensitive young woman studied both medicine and music.
In 1939 the Twenty Jataka Tales, a collection of traditional Indian children's stories she had retold, were published in Le Figaro.
When war broke out in 1939, Noor Inayat Khan trained as a nurse with the French Red Cross.
She fled the country just before the government surrendered to Germany in November 1940, escaping by boat to England with her mother and sister.Subsequently, she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and was recruited into the SOE. The article implies that there may have been some problems between her and the higher echelons of the service and she may well have gone beyond her orders in her work. One would have to read the book to find out the details.
Many people came to Britain and joined the forces because of their love of their own country or just the desire to fight evil. That, too, is part of this country's history as is Noor Inayat Khan's heroic, tragic and inspiring story.
Some time ago I heard about a letter General Eisenhower wrote on the eve of D-Day (D-day --1) to be used in case the invasion went horribly wrong. In it he completely shouldered the blame for the failure. As it happens, though the fighting of the first few days was hard and bloody, the invasion was seen to be a success very soon and the letter did not surface for another month. Interestingly, he dated the letter July 5 though it was clearly written on June 5. Even General Eisenhower's nerves were playing up.
Here is the text of the letter with some analysis.
After the war Masterman, sensibly, thought that the world should know about the committee's achievements but came up against the British official obsession with secrecy: both Roger Hollis, head of MI5 and Alec Douglas-Home, Prime Minister, opposed publication. In 1945 The Double Cross System in the War of 1939 - 1945 was published privately and in 1970 in the United States by Yale University Press. For a time there was talk of legal action against the author but eventually common sense prevailed and the book came out in Britain in 1972. Even then nothing was said about Britain's most successful "weapon", ULTRA, information about which was not made public till 1974.
At the end of the novel there is an Introduction. As these are always written after the rest of the book, explains the author, it is reasonable that this one should be put in its rightful place. In it the author finds himself in court prosecuting himself for not writing a proper detective story and also defending himself. It is the defence that is particularly interesting:
My only difficulty is that I want to repudiate all the accusations at the same time. That doesn't matter; I am in the middle of my speech without any realization of how I began.
'You say that the story should be told directly, but that, I assure you, would not add any sense of actuality. I have never seen a murdered corpse, and I could not describe one in a manner which would make a reader believe that I had. On the other hand, I have often enough sat late in Common Room discussion crimes, and have advanced theories about disputed cases in courts of law. To me, then, the conversations in Common Room are much more real than any direct story would be.
And I would go further. A detailed realism is no necessary part of a detective story, for the detective story, for the detective story follows highly artificial but well-established conventions. How often is a cursory and unnecessary concession made to the belief that the story should be made realistic without any influence on the reader's mind at all! Usually at the sight of the corpse one of the characters vomits, or alternatively another remarks, "I did not know there could be so much blood in a human body." But that is all, and the reader hurries on to the rest of the story without pausing to let the horrid spectacle of the corpse sink into his mind.
Reality has little to do with detective fiction. At most there is only a sort of pseudo-realism.Julian Symons: eat your heart out.
I am trying to create some order among my various collections of books, particularly those that come into the category of detective fiction. After a couple of days of intermittent work I have managed to put in order all the A to C ones though I keep finding ones that were hidden in piles on the stairs. On the whole I did very little re-reading in the process but have emerged with the certain knowledge that I need to go through Edmund Crispin's novels again. (I did re-read the two collections of short stories but that did not take long).I started with the first one, The Case of the Gilded Fly, published in 1944 when Crispin (real name Bruce Montgomery) was still an undergraduate at Oxford. It is not as good as some of the subsequent ones and I had to go back several times to work out what happened on which day. There is also a longish phony ghost story that is only marginally relevant to the plot and could have been condensed into a paragraph or two.
Professor Gervase Fen is in his element - the college, various pubs and the theatre where a new and brilliant play is being produced. He also has a family. Mrs Fen appears quite a lot (something I had forgotten) and the children appear once. There is even a cat. In subsequent novels Mrs Fen is referred to and the children are mentioned though the cat makes no further appearance. Mrs Fen is actually rather entertaining and provides a pleasant antidote to some of the donnish mannerisms. It is a pity Crispin decided not to have her around much later on, not even in the Oxford novels, which most of them are not.
However, my attention was taken up by something else. An important part of the plot is that two characters listen to the radio on the evening when the murder is committed and the music is rather loud. Apparently, what they listen to is the Meistersinger overture and Ein Heldenleben. Well, what is wrong with that, I hear my readers ask. Nothing except that the events of the book take place during a week in October 1940, that is the height of the Blitz. Did the BBC Third Programme really play German music during this period and not just any old German music but Wagner and Richard Strauss? It seems incredible but Bruce Montgomery was a musician and composer as well as a writer of detective stories and one would expect him to know such things.
