Empire Lost - Andrew Stewart [25]
With the news that Canadian troops were heading for Britain it was thought Australia and New Zealand would soon follow suit.19 The threat from Japan and Italy was assessed to be receding and, with this no longer preventing troop movements, Chamberlain decided that the time had come to apply some pressure.20 The War Cabinet agreed that the sending of a second Anzac force to France would have an effect 'on the Empire, on the French, on neutrals and the Germans' which would be 'out of all proportion to the number of troops engaged'.21 The difficulty that remained was that the Australians were still uncertain of the merits of such a move.22 Richard Casey, a senior Australian minister visiting London for a meeting of Dominion ministers, told the British officials that there were lingering doubts in Canberra over Japanese intentions; an assurance that Britain would send capital ships to Australia when necessary would remove such fears. As will be seen, this British commitment to providing security in the Far East and Pacific had been a long-running theme that had dominated the Anglo-Dominion pre-war relationship. Now, while Eden urged that reassurance be given, Chamberlain remained intent on doing everything possible to avoid any such guarantee.
Such reluctance was not, however, shared by Churchill who seemed more than happy to provide promises of future assistance if it meant more Dominion troops would be available now. The Australians remained unconvinced by the First Lord's suitably vague assurance but his oratorical soothing was better received by the New Zealanders. The Wellington government agreed to send its troops not because of any new confidence in London, so it announced, but because they had insufficient training facilities left in New Zealand and had to move the first brigade of troops. In so doing Savage, the Dominion's now seriously ill prime minister, ignored an agreement that said he would maintain close contact with his counterpart in Canberra about defence measures. Menzies was seriously embarrassed, the decision by his neighbours left him little option other than to do the same or risk what effect Australia's continuing absence might have upon his own prestige and that of his country.23 Ministers and civil servants in Whitehall could, as a result, claim success in having persuaded the Tasman Dominions finally to agree to send troops. The truth was that this was not a convincing performance, based as it was on the back of what would later be exposed as a worthless guarantee. It was also a deal that would have hugely adverse political ramifications for the alliance in the years to come.
Dealing with military issues was not Eden's only work, there were also significant administrative matters requiring his department's urgent attention. From the outset of the war the Dominions had asked for some clear idea of what the Allies were fighting for, deeming it as essential to maintain domestic support. Chamberlain and many others within his Cabinet were wary of making such a declaration and despite the request being made repeatedly, on each occasion it was ignored. The British authorities argued that to establish the precise details of what the coalition was fighting for during the early stages of what would most likely be a long and fluid war could have a limiting effect; would the aims, for example, include a return to the pre-war European status quo, a state that was widely accepted as not only being impossible to accomplish but also extremely naive. By the same token would the enemy be Hitler alone, Germany as a nation or Germany and the Soviet Union who were both now seen as aggressor states. Chamberlain had himself recognized that his adversary might try and weaken the Allies' resolve.24 With the conquest of Poland completed, as anticipated Hitler delivered a speech in which a limited peace proposal was put forward. The War Cabinet played for time