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By Root 1006 0

Dalton wrote on May 12, 1942: “Dinner with [Tory MP] Victor Cazalet, who thinks we cannot possibly win the war with the present PM. He has, however, no good alternative.” King George VI, of all people, suggested to his prime minister at luncheon one day that the burden of also serving as defence minister was too much for him, and enquired gauchely what other aspect of public affairs he was interested in. Yet Churchill’s difficulty henceforward was that the most formidable challenge to his authority came not from his British critics, but from the nation’s overwhelmingly more powerful partner, the United States. When Harry Hopkins addressed MPs at the House of Commons on April 15, he sought to bolster Churchill’s standing by asserting that the prime minister was “the only man who really understands Roosevelt.” But the American also declared bluntly, as Harold Nicolson reported, that “there are many people in the USA505 who say that we are yellow and can’t fight.”

Dill mused in a letter to Wavell from Washington, “One trouble is that we want everything506 from them from ships to razor blades and have nothing but services to give in return—and many of the services are past services.” A clever British official, Arthur Salter, wrote early in 1942: “It must be accepted that policy will increasingly507 be decided in Washington. To proceed as if it can be made in London and ‘put over’ in Washington, or as if British policy can in the main develop independently and be only ‘coordinated’ with America, is merely to kick against the pricks.” The prime minister led a nation whose role in the war seemed in those days confined to victimhood, not only at the hands of the enemy, but also at those of its mighty new ally. He yearned inexpressibly to recover the initiative on some battlefield. His generals, however, offered no prospect of offensive action before autumn. Amid the deep public disaffection of spring and summer, this seemed to Churchill an eternity away.

2. Warriors and Workers

CHURCHILL was reconciled to the fact that Britain’s defeats by Japan were irreversible until the tide of the war turned. Henceforward, recognising American dominance of Far East strategy, he devoted much less attention to the Japanese struggle than to the campaign against Germany. He remained bitterly dismayed by the failures of Auchinleck’s forces in the Western Desert, where a paper comparison of strengths, showing significant British superiority, suggested that victories should be attainable. At a meeting with his military chiefs, he asserted repeatedly: “I don’t know what we can do for that Army508—all our efforts to help them seem to be in vain.” Back in 1941, Cadogan, at the Foreign Office, wrote: “Our soldiers are the most pathetic amateurs509, pitted against professionals … The Germans are magnificent fighters and their Staff are veritable Masters of Warfare. Wavell and suchlike are no good against them. It’s like putting me up to play Bobby Jones over 36 holes. We shall learn, but it will be a long and bloody business.” Yet a year later, there seemed no evidence that the British Army and its commanders had yet “learned.” Cadogan wrote after the Far East disasters: “What will happen if the Germans get a footing here510? Our army is the mockery of the world!”

Britain’s generals were conscious of their service’s low standing, but deemed it unjust that their own prime minister should sustain a barrage of harassment, criticism and even scorn against it. Especially between 1940 and 1942, they perceived themselves obliged to conduct campaigns with inadequate resources, in consequence of interwar defence policies imposed by the very Conservative Party which still dominated the government—though not, of course, by Churchill himself. Until 1943, and in lesser degree thereafter, the prestige of Britain’s soldiers lagged far behind that of its sailors and airmen. Churchill’s intemperate goading caused anger and distress to naval officers. He often threatened to sack dissenting or allegedly insufficiently aggressive admirals, including Sir Andrew Cunningham,