• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 849 0

1942, quoted an army officer who had been a prewar Labour parliamentary candidate: “Everywhere there is a feeling that some groups of people—perhaps Big Business, perhaps the politicians—are thwarting our natural development. A few more Russian victories and Far East defeats may force Westminster to understand that the most deep-seated feeling in England today is one of envy—envy of the Russians, who are being allowed to fight all out.” Envy was surely the wrong word to ascribe to public sentiment, but guilt there was in plenty among British people who felt that their own country was doing embarrassingly little to promote the defeat of the Axis.

On Sunday, March 29, forty thousand people massed in Trafalgar Square for a demonstration in support of a Second Front. Among other speakers, Sunday Express columnist John Gordon addressed the theme: “Strike in Europe now!” In April, the government lost two parliamentary by-elections, one in Rugby to an independent candidate standing on a “Second Front Now” ticket. On May 1 the left-wing weekly Tribune carried an unsigned article by Frank Owen, then undergoing armoured training as a soldier, headlined: WHY CHURCHILL? Its author posed the question: “Have we time to afford Churchill’s strategy?”—meaning the delay to a Second Front. Brooke wrote in his diary, voicing sentiments which would persist through the next two years: “This universal cry to start a second front558 is going to be hard to compete with, and yet what can we do with some 10 divisions against the German masses? Unfortunately the country fails to realize the situation we are in.” The Germans, operating with good land communications and a strong air force, could crush a miniature invasion without significantly depleting the vast Axis army, over two hundred divisions strong, engaged on the Eastern Front.

If Churchill could not escape the slings and arrows of critics ignorant of British military weakness, it was harsh that he also faced a barrage from one man who should have known better. Beaverbrook had resigned from the government allegedly on grounds of exhaustion. The shrewd civil servant Archie Rowlands believed, however, that the press lord perceived Churchill’s administration failing, and wished to distance himself from its fate. Since Beaverbrook’s visit to Moscow, this archcapitalist had become obsessively committed to Stalin’s cause, and to British aid for Russia. His newspapers campaigned stridently for the Second Front, intensifying the pressure on Churchill.

Visiting New York as a semiofficial emissary of the British government, Beaverbrook addressed an audience of American newspaper and magazine publishers on April 23. He told them, “Communism under Stalin has won the applause and admiration of all the western nations.” He asserted that there was no persecution of religion in the USSR, and that “the church doors are open.” He urged: “Strike out to help Russia! Strike out violently! Strike even recklessly!” Here was rhetoric that went far beyond the courtesies necessary to placate Stalin and encourage his people, and which flaunted Beaverbrook’s irresponsibility. Yet when Churchill telephoned the next day from London, instead of delivering the stinging rebuke which was merited, he sought to appease the erratic press baron by offering him stewardship of all Britain’s missions in Washington. Happily this proposal was rejected, but it reflected Churchill’s perception of his own political beleaguerment.

Beaverbrook preened himself before Halifax about the huge quantity of fan mail he claimed to be receiving. His egomania fed extravagant ambition. The ambassador recorded in his diary that Beaverbrook told him: “I might be the best man to run the war559. It wants a ruthless, unscrupulous, harsh man, and I believe I could do it.” It is possible that, at a time when there was widespread clamour for the Ministry of Defence to be divorced from the premiership, Beaverbrook saw himself in the former role. Yet he demonstrated notable naïveté about strategic realities, given that he was privy to so much secret information