Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [28]
Reynaud seemed moved. The newly appointed army minister, Brig. Gen. Charles de Gaulle, was much more impressed by the prime minister’s representation of himself as an Englishman than as an ally: “Mr. Churchill appeared imperturbable87, full of buoyancy. Yet he seemed to be confining himself to a cordial reserve towards the French at bay, being already seized—not, perhaps, without an obscure satisfaction—with the terrible and magnificent prospect of an England left alone in her island, with himself to lead her struggle towards salvation.” The other Frenchmen present made nothing of the prime minister’s words. Though courtesies were sustained through a difficult dinner that night, Reynaud told Britain’s leader over brandy that Pétain considered it essential to seek an armistice.
To his staff, Churchill fumed at the influence upon Reynaud of his mistress, the Comtesse de Portes, an impassioned advocate of surrender: “That woman … will undo88 everything during the night that I do during the day. But of course she can furnish him with facilities that I cannot afford him. I can reason with him, but I cannot sleep with him.” For all the hopes which Churchill reposed in Reynaud, even at his best the French prime minister never shared the Englishman’s zest for war à l’outrance. The American undersecretary of state, Sumner Welles, reported a conversation with France’s leader earlier that summer: “M. Reynaud felt that while Mr. C89[hurchill] was a brilliant and most entertaining man with a great capacity for organization, his kind has lost elasticity. He felt that Mr. C could conceive of no possibility other than war to the finish—whether that resulted in utter chaos and destruction or not. That, he felt sure, was not true statesmanship.” This seems a convincing representation of Reynaud’s view in June 1940. Like a significant number of British politicians in respect of their own society, the French prime minister perceived, as Churchill did not, a limit to the injury to the fabric and people of France which might be acceptable in the cause of sustaining the struggle against Nazism.
The next morning, June 12, Churchill told Spears to stay with the French, and to do everything possible to sustain them: “We will carry those who will let themselves be carried.” Yet Britain had no power to “carry” France. Pétain absented himself from the ensuing meeting of the Supreme War Council. His own decision was reached. Churchill raged at news that a planned RAF bombing mission to Italy the previous night had been frustrated by farm carts pushed across the runway by French airmen. Reynaud said that any further such missions must be launched from England. At the Briare airfield, Ismay observed encouragingly that with no more allies to worry about, “we’ll win the Battle of Britain.” Churchill stared hard at him and said: “You and I will be dead in three months’ time.” There is no reason to doubt this exchange. Churchill claimed later that he had always believed Britain would come through. He certainly had a mystical faith in destiny, however vague his attachment to a deity. But it is plain that in the summer of 1940 he suffered cruel moments of rationality, when defeat seemed far more plausible than victory, when the huge effort of will necessary to sustain the fight was almost too much for him. Six months later, Eden confessed to the prime minister that during the summer he and Pound, the first sea lord, had privately acknowledged despair to each other. Churchill said: “Normally I wake up buoyant to face90 the new day. Then, I awoke with dread in my heart.”
When so many others were dying, he could scarcely take for granted his own survival. A German bomb, a paratroop landing in Whitehall, an accident by land, sea or air—such as befell many other prominent wartime figures—could