The King's Speech - Mark Logue [64]
Czechoslovakia had a well-trained army, but its government knew that it would prove no match for the might of the Nazi war machine. The Czechs needed the support of Britain and France, but London and Paris were about to hang them out to dry. That September, Chamberlain met Hitler at his lair at Berchtesgaden, where it was agreed that Germany could annexe the Sudetenland, provided a majority of its inhabitants voted in favour in a plebiscite. Czechoslovakia’s remaining rump would then receive international guarantees of its independence. But when Chamberlain flew back to see the Nazi leader in Bad Godesberg, near Bonn, on 22 September, Hitler brushed aside the previous agreement.
Chamberlain was still in Germany when Logue met the King the next day. The reason for their meeting was a speech the King had to make for the launch of the Queen Elizabeth, on 27 September. He was understandably preoccupied by the worsening international situation and wanted to know from Logue what ordinary people thought about the prospect of war. The King, like so many of his generation, had been so appalled by the slaughter of the First World War that he seemed to consider anything – even appeasement of the Nazi leader – preferable to another all-out conflict. ‘You would be astonished, Logue, at the number of people who wish to plunge this country into war, without counting the cost,’ he told him.
Even if the King had thought otherwise, there was little he could have done about it: the influence of the monarch had declined considerably over the previous thirty years. In the first decade of the century, his grandfather Edward VII had been actively involved in foreign policy, helping pave the way for the Entente Cordiale with France in 1904. George VI, by contrast, would have little scope for changing the policies being pursued by Chamberlain and his ministers.
And so, in the early hours of 30 September, Chamberlain and his French counterpart Edouard Daladier, together with Hitler and Mussolini, signed what became known as the Munich Agreement allowing Germany to annexe the Sudetenland. On his return to London, Chamberlain waved a copy of the agreement to jubilant crowds at Heston airport in west London, stating his conviction that it meant ‘peace for our time’. Many believed him.
Munich did not prevent war, however; it merely postponed it. In the months that followed Logue continued to meet the King, becoming a frequent visitor to Buckingham Palace; there could be no more question of him visiting Logue in Harley Street as he had done when he was Duke of York.
The first immediate challenge for the King was the speech he was due to make for the State Opening of Parliament, set for 8 November 1938. He was also preparing for an important journey – a trip of more than a month to Canada, starting in early May 1939. This was the first by a reigning British monarch and was, if anything, even more important than his voyage to Australia and New Zealand more than a decade earlier that had prompted the beginning of his association with Logue. In the speech he was to confirm that while in Canada he would be accepting an invitation from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to make a short private visit across the border to the United States. The visits were not just about strengthening Britain’s bonds with the two North American powers. It was also a deliberate attempt to shore up sympathy there ahead of the conflict with Nazi Germany that now seemed inevitable.
Logue had been asked to go to the Palace at 6 p.m. on 3 November to run through the speech with the King. He arrived fifteen minutes early and dropped in on Alexander Hardinge, who showed him the text. As he read it, Logue was pleased to see the King would be accepting Roosevelt’s invitation. ‘I consider it