The King's Speech - Mark Logue [80]
Then came the turning point in Africa and, it could be argued, the war. The British forces counter-attacked, repulsing Rommel. The Germans dug in, however, and a stalemate ensued, during which Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery was appointed commander of the Eighth Army. On 23 October the Allies attacked again, with Montgomery’s 200,000 men and 1,100 tanks ranged against the Axis’s 115,000 men and 559 tanks: Rommel was back home in Germany on sick leave, but hurried back to lead his men. The numbers were overwhelmingly against him and on 2 November he warned Hitler his forces were not capable of offering any more effective opposition. The Nazi leader would not tolerate any talk of surrender: ‘It would not be the first time in history that a strong will has triumphed over the bigger battalions,’ Hitler replied the next day. ‘As to your troops, you can show them no other road than that to victory or death.’
Logue was one of the first to hear of Montgomery’s victory. On the afternoon of 4 November he was at the Palace with the King, going through a speech he was due to give at the State Opening of Parliament, set for the twelfth, when the telephone rang. The King had given orders that he was not to be disturbed unless he was wanted urgently. With a quizzical look, he walked over and picked up the receiver.
The King immediately became excited. ‘Yes! Yes! Well read it out, read it out,’ he said, before adding, ‘The enemy is in full retreat. Good news, thanks,’ and hung up. Smiling, he turned to Logue. ‘‘Did you hear that?’ he asked, and repeated the gist of the news. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That’s grand.’
That evening the King wrote in his diary: ‘A victory at last, how good it is for the nerves.’86 Four days later, Allied forces landed in Morocco and Algeria, both nominally in the hands of the Vichy France regime. Operation Torch, intended to open a second front in North Africa, was under way.
Amid such drama, yet another Christmas speech was looming. A couple of days before, Logue rehearsed it with the King, whom he had found in excellent form. The speech itself required a little surgery; Logue wasn’t keen on passages that Churchill had written into the text as they just didn’t seem right coming out of the King’s mouth. ‘It was typical Churchill and could have been recognised by anyone,’ Logue complained in his diary. ‘With the King’s help, we cut out adjectives and the Prime Minister.’
The weather that year was lovely, despite a touch of fog, and there was no repeat of the snow of the previous two years. Logue was again summoned to join the royal family for the festivities. He thought the Christmas tree looked much nicer and better decorated than the year before; a decoration Myrtle had sent had made all the difference. When the Queen came in, she walked over to Logue and told him how pleased she was to see him. To his surprise, she then asked him to repeat a trick he had been showing a couple of the equerries before lunch: how to breathe using only one lung. He happily did so, but warned her and the two princesses not to attempt the trick themselves.
Just after 2.30, Logue followed the King into his study to go through the speech for one last time. At 2.55 they entered the broadcasting room, he and Wood synchronized watches and at 2.58 the Queen came in to wish her husband good luck. A few seconds later the three red lights went on and, with a glance in Logue’s direction, the King began.
‘It is at Christmas more than any other time, that we are conscious of the dark shadow of war,’ he started.