All Hell Let Loose_ The World at War 1939-1945 - Max Hastings [22]
Seven hundred fascists were interned, though most of the aristocrats who had flirted with Hitler were spared. ‘It certainly is breath-taking how all these lords get away with their pre-war affiliations to the Nazi regime,’ complained British communist Elizabeth Belsey in a letter to her soldier husband. If the British had emulated French policy towards communists, thousands of trades unionists and a substantial part of the intellectual class would also have been incarcerated, but these too were left at liberty. There was still much silliness in the air: the Royal Victoria Hotel at St Leonardson-Sea, advertising its attractions in The Times, asserted that ‘The ballroom and adjacent toilets have been made gas-and splinter-proof.’ Published advertisements for domestic staff made few concessions to conscription: ‘Wanted: second housemaid of three; wages £42 per annum; two ladies in family; nine servants kept.’ The Archbishop of Canterbury declared that Christians were allowed to pray for victory, but the Archbishop of York disagreed. While the war was a righteous one, he said, it was not a holy one: ‘We must avoid praying each other down.’ Some clergymen urged their congregations to ask the Almighty’s help for charity: ‘Save me from bitterness and hatred towards the enemy.’ There was anger among British Christians, however, when in November the Pope sent a message of congratulation to Hitler on escaping an assassination attempt.
Hundreds of thousands of young men trained in England with inadequate equipment and uncertain expectations, though they assumed some of their number would die. Lt. Arthur Kellas of the Border Regiment took for granted his own survival, but speculated about the fates of his fellow officers: ‘I used to wonder which of them were for the killing. Would it be Ogilvy, such a nice little man, so worried about his mother in Dundee? Or Donald, so handsome, confident and pleased with himself? Or Hunt, newly married, prosperous in the City of London? Germain? Dunbar? Perkins, whom we ragged without pity? Or Bell, of whom we were jealous when he was posted off to glory with the first battalion in the line in France, first of us to be promoted to the First Fifteen, leaving behind such a pretty sister in Whitehaven? It had happened to our fathers after all. Presumably our War would be much the same as theirs.’
They were so young. As eighteen-year-old Territorial soldier Doug Arthur paraded with his unit outside a church in Liverpool shortly before embarking for overseas service, he was embarrassed to be picked out by one of an emotional crowd of watching housewives: ‘Look at ’im, girls,’ she said pityingly. ‘’E should be at ’ome wit’ ’is Mam. Never mind, son, yourse’ll be alrigh’. God Bless yer la’. He’ll look after yourtse, yer know, like. That bastard ’itler ’as gorra lot to answer for. I’d like to get me bleedin’ ’ands on ’im for five bleedin’ minutes, the swine.’
US president Franklin Roosevelt wrote to his London ambassador Joseph Kennedy on 30 October 1939: ‘While the [First] World War did not bring forth strong leadership in Great Britain, this war may do so, because I am inclined to think the British public has more humility than before and is slowly but surely getting rid of the “muddle through” attitude of the past.’ FDR’s optimism would ultimately prove justified, but only after many more months of ‘muddle through’.
The next act of the struggle increased the world’s bewilderment and confusion of loyalties, for it was undertaken not by Hitler, but by Stalin. Like all Europe’s tyrants, Russia’s leader assessed the evolving conflict in terms of the opportunities it offered him for aggrandisement. In the autumn of 1939, having secured eastern Poland, he sought further to enhance the Soviet Union’s strategic position by advancing into Finland. The country, a vast, sparsely inhabited wilderness of lakes and forests,