Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [158]
Churchill knew that his nation and his soldiers had to be seen to fight. If they could not engage in Europe, they must do so in the Middle East. The long periods of passivity which gripped Eighth Army in North Africa, however necessary logistically, inflicted immense harm upon both British self-esteem and the nation’s image abroad. At a War Cabinet meeting presided over by Attlee, Bevin declaimed theatrically: “We must have a victory!597 What the British public wants is a victory!” When John Kennedy was summoned to Downing Street, the prime minister talked of current operations in North Africa, “then added a dig at the British Army (which unfortunately he can never resist) saying, ‘if Rommel’s army were all Germans [instead of part Italian], they would beat us.’” Later, the DMO reported the conversation to Brooke: “I told him what Winston had said598 about the Germans being better than our troops & he said he must speak to Winston about this. His constant attacks on the Army were doing harm—especially when they were made in the presence of other politicians, as they so often were.” Yet so ashamed was Kennedy, as a soldier, about the fall of Tobruk that for some time he avoided his beloved “Rag”—the Army & Navy Club—to escape unwelcome questions about the army’s lamentable showing.
While Churchill was in Washington in June, some American newspapers suggested that his government would fall. He was sufficiently disturbed by what he read to telephone Eden from the White House for reassurance that there was no critical threat to his leadership. Nothing important had changed, he was told, but Tory MP Sir John Wardlaw-Milne had tabled a censure motion in the Commons. Public opinion was fragile. “The people do not like him being away599 so much in such critical times,” wrote a naval officer. A Mass Observation diarist, Rosemary Black, deplored Churchill’s absence in America at a time when the British people were enduring so much bad news: “I myself felt pretty disgusted with him600 when I saw a photograph of him enjoying himself at the White House again. If only he’d keep those great gross cigars out of his face once in a way.”
London voluntary worker Vere Hodgson, bewildered as was the rest of the nation by the fall of Tobruk, wrote crossly in her diary: “The enemy did not seem to understand601 what was expected of them, and failed to fall in with our plans. Grrr! As Miss Moyes says, it makes you see green, pink and heliotrope. I woke up in the middle of Sunday night, and thought of that convoy delivered with so much blood, sweat and losses to Tobruk on Saturday—to fall like ripe fruit into German mouths. I squirmed beneath the bedclothes and ground my teeth with rage.” She added after the prime minister’s broadcast two weeks later: “Mr Churchill’s speech did not contain much comfort602. He dominated us as he always does, and we surrender to his overpowering personality—but he knows no more than any of us why Tobruk fell!”
George King wrote to his son from Sanderstead in Surrey: “We heard yesterday that we have lost Tobruk603; the same old story—rotten leadership. The Yanks will yet show us how to do the job. The ‘red tabs’ form the only rotten part of the British Army!” Lancashire housewife Nella Last, intensely loyal to Churchill, mused in bewilderment to her diary