Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [8]
Events which tower in the perception of posterity must at the time compete for attention with trifles. The BBC radio announcer who told the nation of the German invasion of Belgium and Holland followed this by reporting, “British troops have landed in Iceland,”22 as if the second news item atoned for the first. The Times of May 11, 1940, reported the issue of an arrest warrant at Brighton bankruptcy court for a playwright named Walter Hackett, said to have fled to America. An army court-martial was described, at which a colonel was charged with “undue familiarity” with a sergeant in his searchlight unit. What would soldiers think, demanded the prosecutor, on hearing a commanding officer address a sergeant as “Eric”? Advertisements for Player’s cigarettes exhorted smokers: “When cheerfulness is in danger of disturbance, light a Player … with a few puffs put trouble in its proper place.” The Irish Tourist Association promised, “Ireland will welcome you.” On the front page, a blue Persian cat was offered for sale at £2 10.s: “house-trained; grandsire Ch. Laughton Laurel; age 7 weeks—Bachelor, Grove Place, Aldenham.” Among “Business Offers,” a “Gentleman with extensive experience wishes join established business, Town or Country, capital available.” A golf report on the sports page was headed, “What the public want.” There was a poem by Walter de la Mare: “O lovely England, whose ancient peace / War’s woful dangers strain and fret.”
The German blitzkrieg was reported under a double-column headline: HITLER STRIKES AT THE LOW COUNTRIES. Commentaries variously asserted: BELGIANS CONFIDENT OF VICTORY; TEN TIMES AS STRONG AS IN 1914; THE SIDE OF HOLLAND’S ECONOMIC LIFE OF GREATEST INTEREST TO HITLER IS DOUBTLESS HER AGRICULTURAL AND ALLIED ACTIVITIES; THE MILITARY OUTLOOK: NO SURPRISE THIS TIME. The Times’s editorial column declared: “It may be taken as certain that every detail has been prepared for an instant strategic reply … The Grand Alliance of our time for the destruction of the forces of treachery and oppression is being steadily marshalled.”
A single column at the right of the main news, proclaimed: NEW PRIME MINISTER. MR. CHURCHILL ACCEPTS. The newspaper’s correspondence was dominated by discussion of parliament’s Norway debate three days earlier, which had precipitated the fall of Chamberlain. Mr. Geoffrey Vickers urged that Lord Halifax was by far the best-qualified minister to lead a national government, assisted by a Labour leader of the Commons. Mr. Quintin Hogg, Tory MP for Oxford, noted that many of those who had voted against the government were serving officers. Mr. Henry Morris-Jones, Liberal MP for Denbigh, deplored the vote that had taken place, observing complacently that he himself had abstained. The news from France was mocked by a beautiful spring day, with bluebells and primroses everywhere in flower.
Henry “Chips” Channon, American-born Tory MP, diarist, millionaire and consummate ass, wrote on May 10: “Perhaps the darkest day in English history23 … We were all sad, angry and felt cheated and outwitted.” His distress was inspired by the fall of Chamberlain, not the blitzkrieg in France. Churchill himself knew better than anyone how grudgingly he had been offered the premiership, and how tenuous was his grasp on power. Much of the Conservative Party hated him, not least because he had twice in his life “ratted”—changed sides in the House of Commons. He was remembered as the architect of the disastrous 1915 Gallipoli campaign, the 1919 sponsor of war against the Bolsheviks in Russia, the 1933–34 opponent of Indian self-government, the