Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [57]
A few weeks later, by American readers’ acclamation, Churchill became Time’s Man of the Year.
One evening at Chequers, in an irresistibly homely metaphor, he compared himself to “a farmer driving pigs190 along a road, who always had to be prodding them on and preventing them from straying.” He professed that he “could not quite see why he was so popular.” For all his undoubted vanity, almost everything that he had to tell the British people was bleak. His public confidence masked private uncertainty which goes far to explain his caution about government appointments and dismissals in 1940. For more than a decade, he had been an outcast, clinging precariously to a handhold on the parapet of power. Though from May 1940 he acted the part of prime minister with supreme outward conviction, it was many months before he became assured of his own authority. “For something like a year191 after he took office, Winston had no idea of his political strength among the voters, which is a mercy,” observed his aide Maj. Desmond Morton.
Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador in London, displayed in his reports home an increasing enthusiasm for Churchill: “One can now say confidently,”192 he told Moscow at the end of June,
that the government’s decision to continue the war has gained overwhelming popular support, especially among the working class. The confusion and despondency which I reported in the first days of the war are gone. Churchill’s speeches have played a great part in this … Although Churchill thus far commands the support of the working class, the ruling classes are clearly split … [The faction] headed by Chamberlain is terribly fearful and willing to make peace with Germany on any acceptable terms … these elements are the real “Fifth Column” in England … The problem is that, for all Churchill’s determination to continue the war, he is afraid to split the Conservative Party and rely upon a workers’ coalition.
Maisky’s view of political divisions in Britain was not entirely fanciful. He was wrong to ascribe leadership of a peace party to Chamberlain, but correct in asserting that some old Chamberlain supporters, as well as a few Labour MPs, remained eager to parley with the Axis. Lord Lothian, Britain’s ambassador in Washington, telephoned Halifax in July, begging him to say nothing publicly that would close the door to possible negotiated terms. Harold Nicolson expressed relief that Halifax appeared unmoved by Lothian’s “wild” appeal193. Raymond Lee wrote after a conversation with a businessman: “[He] was very interesting about the City194 … he … confirmed my belief that the City is ready for appeasement at any time and is a little bit irritated because it has no hold at all on Churchill.”
Privately, the prime minister expressed concerns about the staunchness of the upper classes. Among some of Britain’s ruling caste, admiration for his dazzling oratory did not confirm his fitness for the premiership. At dinner tables in some great houses, traditional arbiters of power muttered into their soup about the perceived vulgarities, follies and egomania of the chubby cuckoo whom fate had so rashly planted in Downing Street, and entrusted with Britain’s destinies. Some people in high places—senior officers as well as politicians—resented his popularity with the public. They failed to perceive how desperately the nation needed to suppose itself led by a superman. How else might its survival be secured?
The House of Commons, through the summer, was swept along by the national mood and Churchill’s stunning speeches. George Lambert, a Liberal MP since 1891, told the House at a secret session on July 30 that he had not heard such oratory since Gladstone. But