Churchill 1940-1945 Read online

  The outstanding point is that although the PM is at present at cross-purposes – and even at loggerheads – with you this is a purely temporary phase of a relationship which is marked by mutual esteem and, I might almost say, affection.

  You cannot judge the PM by ordinary standards, he is not in the least like anyone you and I have ever met. He is a mass of contradictions. He is either on the crest of a wave, or in the trough; either highly laudatory or bitterly condemnatory; either in an angelic temper, or a hell of a rage; when he isn’t fast asleep he’s a volcano. There are no half measures in his make-up – he apparently sees no difference between harsh words spoken to a friend and forgotten within the hour under the influence of friendly argument, and the same harsh words telegraphed to a friend thousands of miles away – with no opportunity for ‘making it up’ …

  You must do what you did with such happy results last time. YOU MUST COME HOME. I know how hard it is for you to leave your command at this juncture, but nothing matters so much as the removal of the wall of misunderstanding which has grown up between you two. I know that at heart the PM thinks the world of you, but he will never confess this, even to himself, until you have got together again and had the whole thing out.2

  Ismay’s letter is a perceptive one and a wise one. Auchinleck should have complied or resigned. He did neither and continued to irritate and delay. He faced a further threat of dismissal when he said that he would not be able to resume the offensive until June or July. Churchill said it was to be June or resignation.

  Churchill’s messages to Auchinleck were toned down again and again by Brooke, now CIGS. Phrases like ‘Armies are not intended to stand around doing nothing!’ were removed. Only unanimous opposition from the Chiefs of Staff prevented Auchinleck’s immediate dismissal and replacement with Gort, now Governor of Malta – a strange choice. But the Chiefs themselves were little more enthusiastic about the C-in-C, whom they regarded as excessively cautious. Like Wavell, Auchinleck was more concerned about an attack from the north on Persia than what went on in the wastes of the Western Desert. It was because of these larger concerns that Auchinleck infuriated Churchill by refusing to come to London to confer; but his greatest concern should have been for concerting his plans with those of the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. ‘[W]e can’t settle this by writing letters’, snarled the Prime Minister.

  Brooke went on too long in defending a general in whom even he was losing confidence. The Chiefs of Staff, as well as Churchill, were not impressed by the way Auchinleck conducted his long discussions with the Prime Minister and by some of his telegrams, such as his reply of 10 May to an order from the Cabinet to open his offensive at their risk, in which he asserted that the loss of Malta would not affect the position in the Middle East.3

  What Auchinleck was doing in the long gap that so annoyed Churchill after Rommel’s advance of January 1942 was preparing for a counter-offensive, which he planned for June. It was unfortunate that Rommel got off first. There was a grim battle, ‘the Cauldron’, when he defeated the British at Gazala. It was only when Auchinleck removed Ritchie and took personal command of Eighth Army that he was able to halt Rommel just short of Alexandria at First El Alamein. Ritchie had been appointed only to a temporary command of Eighth Army when he replaced Cunningham in the middle of CRUSADER. He had performed well enough then, with Auchinleck in attendance, but leaving him in position was as serious a mistake as appointing Cunningham had been. Churchill had suggested a month earlier that Auchinleck should take personal command of Eighth Army in the coming battle: the Commander-in-Chief felt that his wider responsibilities made this impossible. Churchill’s judgement had been sound.

  Churchill did not appreciate Auchinleck’s skill and success in bringing Rommel to a halt at First El Alamein. Rommel did: ‘I could weep’ he said. But now, instead of fighting to the last man, as Churchill had wanted, Auchinleck fell back in a fighting withdrawal, which involved losing Mersah Matruh. Mersah Matruh is only 170 miles east of the Egyptian frontier and is halfway to Alexandria.

  Auchinleck always failed to convince Churchill that the new troops with which he was supplied were simply not ready for fighting, supply and maintenance. He failed to get his point across, just as he failed to emphasise adequately that both his tanks and his anti-tank guns were inadequate. The British standard anti-tank gun, the two pounder, was too small. At over 600 yards, the shots simply bounced off German tanks.

  Tobruk had great significance for Churchill. He always referred to Tobruk as a fortress and probably overestimated its importance, seeing it as a defensive position in terms of a static war, which war in the desert was not. On the other hand, Auchinleck, while minimising its importance, did recognise that the fact that it remained in British hands had contributed to the success of CRUSADER. Indeed it is difficult to know precisely what Auchinleck’s intentions for Tobruk were.

  Earlier – in January 1942 – he had told the War Office that he did not intend to hold Tobruk, or anywhere else, as a fortress under siege. His views were shared by Admiral Cunningham for the navy and Air Chief Marshal Tedder for the air force. But it all became very confused. London appears to have overlooked what the Commander-in-Chief had said in January. In any case, the fairly clear terms of his January Operation Instruction, No. 110, were eroded by the partially contradictory terms of that of 11 February. At any rate, no doubt partly for reasons of morale at home, Churchill now gave very specific orders that Tobruk was to be held at all costs. Auchinleck appeared to fall in line, confirmed that Tobruk would be held, and gave Ritchie explicit instructions.4

  But by now the defences of Tobruk were in ruins and the place could really only be defended as part of a Tobruk–Gazala line. Ritchie knew the line would not hold, and indeed it soon dissolved into ‘the Gazala Gallop’ as allied troops tried to escape from Rommel’s advance. At one stage Ritchie flatly refused to accept the Auk’s orders; at other times he gave responses that were evasive and open to different constructions. If Auchinleck was simply resting on his January 1942 Operation Instruction to the War Office he avoided facing up to a confrontation with Churchill by saying so. He failed to secure Ritchie’s compliance with his own orders and he failed to repair the deficiencies in Tobruk’s defences or to communicate them to Churchill. Tobruk fell.

  The Prime Minister said later, ‘We did not … know the conditions prevailing in Tobruk. Considering that Auchinleck’s plan had been to await an attack, and remembering all the months that had passed, it was inconceivable that the already well-proved fortifications of Tobruk should not have been maintained in the highest efficiency, and indeed strengthened.’5

  In the event the loss of Tobruk was a very serious blow to national morale, as Churchill had known and Auchinleck had not understood. In military terms it was also a disastrous enough loss: 35,000 British and Empire troops were lost as casualties or prisoners, together with much materiel. Churchill had accurately understood the effect the fall of the town would have in Britain. As a result of the long siege of 1941, Tobruk had come to have an iconic significance for the public, and the mood after its fall was one of despondency. In Cairo the stock exchange plummeted, and the Gazala Gallop prompted the habitués of Groppi’s Café and the Shepheard Hotel – ‘Groppi’s Horse’ and ‘Shepheard’s Short Range Desert Group’ – to retire to Jerusalem. The Royal Navy abandoned Alexandria. The Cabinet was obliged to order an Inquiry, and in the Commons a Motion of No Confidence was tabled by a backbench Conservative member. For all this, and despite his many excellent, soldierly qualities, Auchinleck was to blame.

  His supporters argue still that Tobruk should not have been defended, but abandoned as he had originally planned. They overlook the significance of the place: the parliamentary debate was an uncomfortable one for Churchill. The debate was on a vote of censure, and the backbencher who moved it, Sir John Wardlaw-Milne, was not insignificant: he was Chairman of the all-party Finance Committee. Bevan contrasted the defence of Sebastopol for months with the fa
ll of Tobruk in twenty-six hours. There was much reference to the fact that Churchill had said the British weapons in the desert were the equal of German weapons, which was evidently not the case. The Liberal, Clement Davies, talked of impeachment. Ismay referred in his memoirs to the severe criticism that Parliament visited on the Prime Minister’s conduct of the war from time to time when things went badly. ‘[T]here is always a tendency to attribute to faulty direction the blame for failures which are due to very different causes. The House of Commons was not at its best in these debates.’6 The best feature of the debate for Churchill was when Wardlaw-Milne, who had started well enough, lost all credibility by making an impromptu suggestion that the new defence supremo should be the particularly incompetent royal prince, the Duke of Gloucester. Wardlaw-Milne had intended a purely ceremonial role for the Duke, but the damage was done. Churchill’s supporters hooted with derision and Channon recorded that ‘the House roared with disrespectful laughter, and I saw Winston’s face light up, as if a lamp had been lit within him and he smiled genially. He knew now that he was saved, and poor Wardlaw-Milne never quite regained the hearing of the House’.7

  Outside Parliament criticism was echoed in the quality press and in a report for the Cabinet from Stafford Cripps in his capacity as Leader of the House. Cripps said the recent loss of Maldon in a by-election ‘shows the profound disquiet and lack of confidence of the electors’ and that there was ‘a general feeling that something is wrong and should be put right without delay’.8

  Auchinleck realised what had happened. On 23 June he wrote to the CIGS offering his resignation if it were wished. Significantly, his letter referred to ‘the disastrous fall’ of Tobruk. He suggested Alexander as his successor. On the following day he wrote a fine letter to Churchill: ‘I thank you personally and most sincerely for all your help and support during the last month, and deeply regret the failures and setbacks for the past month, for which I accept the fullest responsibility’. Churchill’s response was equally up to the level of events, and in an immediate telegram he conveyed his complete confidence. In reality he genuinely liked the Auk, as opposed to Wavell, and to the end he remained basically well disposed.9

  Auchinleck had no illusions about the indifferent quality of the Eighth Army at this stage of the war, and he was frustrated by the fact that lack of a real reserve and of fresh troops made it impossible to do more than halt the enemy. But he had halted them, and German observers, such as Rommel’s Chief of Staff, General Bayerlein, acknowledged his achievement: ‘if Rommel had not been beaten then, he would have advanced deep into Egypt’.10

  But Auchinleck’s conception of his role was not Churchill’s. The general considered that his duty was to protect the Middle East. That was his command and his responsibility. Thus he saw it as proper to envisage fighting a retreating battle if necessary, so that his army was kept intact and capable of protecting the Persian oil fields, which were ultimately important as Egypt was not – or so it was thought: in fact Hitler never showed any interest in the Middle East oil.11 Auchinleck’s analysis was logical enough, but it was not a concept that would win the war. Montgomery’s approach was quite different, and much more in tune with the Prime Minister’s.

  17

  Dilly-Dally and Brookie

  Dill had a tough time as CIGS. His wife had suffered a serious stroke not long before his appointment, and he could no longer communicate with her or she with him. When he escaped the stress of working with his demanding chief, it was not to relax in domesticity but to agonise over his wife’s attempts to speak to him and watch the pain in her eyes as she failed. The strain of his two burdens must have been almost unsupportable. Churchill, who could sometimes be touchingly sympathetic, was not specially understanding. When Dill remarried after Lady Dill’s death he asked for three days’ holiday as a honeymoon. Churchill refused. Eventually he had one day off.

  Churchill’s relationship with him was neither as turbulent nor, ultimately, as fruitful as with Brooke. In fact Dill understood Churchill well, and acted as an effective gear between him and the generals. The very lack of turbulence was uncongenial for the Prime Minister.

  Dill had been appointed CIGS in May 1940, in succession to Ironside, but Churchill was criticising him to Eden as early as July of the same year, talking of what a disappointment the new CIGS was, and claiming that he was unduly alarmed by Germany’s strength. Thereafter Dill was ‘Dilly-Dally’ or, quite unfairly, ‘the dead hand of inanition’. The second appellation was applied to him in front of the Cabinet.

  Churchill started to think of getting rid of Dill as early as May 1941 as a result of his support for the Far East against Egypt.1 In the event, he was reprieved till the end of the year, when he was eased out of office by the use of a rule which Churchill is usually said to have invented, and which required the CIGS to retire at the age of sixty, which he attained on Christmas Day 1941. In fact it was Dill himself who devised the rule that was his own undoing. He said to Kennedy as early as 20 August 1941 that he thought he should go at the age of sixty, and intended to submit his offer to go in writing. It is not quite clear, then, why he was so surprised to be taken at his word in November: ‘The world is upside down for me. I am to go. The Prime Minister told me last night.’ Everyone liked him and was sorry to see him go, but no one thought he should stay.

  Even Kennedy, always inclined to support soldiers against politicians, thought Dill was tired. He had told him in August that he was right to submit his resignation, and he still felt the same way in November.2 Hollis noticed the strain telling more on Dill than on the other Chiefs to the extent that he could no longer concentrate and at Chiefs of Staff meetings would sit asking questions that were quite irrelevant to the matters under discussion.3

  ‘Dilly-Dally’ and ‘the dead hand of inanition’ are powerful examples of how damaging and persistent in their effect critical sobriquets can be. A close examination of Dill’s record reveals none of the weakness that the nicknames suggested. The chemistry between the CIGS and Churchill was unproductive and Dill was too easily bullied. If he had responded more forcefully to Churchill’s sometimes grotesque comments, accusations of cowardice against the generals and indeed the whole military Establishment, as Brooke was to do, he might have lasted longer. As it was, his responses were too slow, and were usually put on paper. That was not how Churchill operated. But Dill did oppose Churchill when he thought it necessary, did understand him, and did give good and perceptive advice to men such as Wavell on how Churchill should be handled.4

  Sir Alan Brooke succeeded Dill. In his diary on 20 October 1941 Brooke had written:

  Winston had never been fond of Dill. They were entirely different types of character and types that could never have worked harmoniously together. Dill was the essence of straightforwardness, blessed with the highest principles and an unassailable integrity of character. I do not believe that any of these characteristics appeal to Winston. On the contrary, I think he disliked them as they accentuated his own shortcomings in this respect.

  The changeover was not made at the last minute, and Brooke and Dill worked together in the last month or two of the latter’s time as CIGS. The original idea for Dill’s retirement activity was to be Governor of Bombay, ‘followed’, as Churchill said, ‘by a bodyguard with lances’. In the event, because he accompanied Churchill to Washington for the Christmas visit of 1941, Dill had a very different kind of retirement: he played a key role in liaising between Churchill and the American Chiefs. It is difficult to overstate how much he contributed to the working of the combined military machine. It operated much less smoothly after his death. Brooke was not able to persuade Churchill to recommend a peerage for Dill, but he was promoted field marshal, and he was appointed to his crucial role in Washington.

  Although Churchill cut him out of the loop on occasions, Dill and General George Marshall, the American Chief of Staff, got on extremely well. The two men met for the first time at the Placentia Bay Conference off Newfoundland in Aug
ust 1941, and they hit it off from the first, corresponding from that time onwards. Marshall told Dill that he had so many battles to fight that ‘I am never quite sure whether I’m fighting you, or the President or the Navy!’ After Dill’s appointment to Washington, he and Marshall were in touch on an almost daily basis and lunched weekly, often only with their wives present. Even if he did get tired from time to time of ‘begging from the Americans’, his commitment to making the Anglo-American military alliance work was total, and reciprocated by Marshall.

  To the end, Churchill’s attitude to Dill was both unfair and ungenerous. The Joint Chiefs in Washington sent their commiserations to Churchill when Dill died. Churchill’s response was inadequate and prompted this reaction from Marshall: ‘To be very frank and personal, I doubt if you or your Cabinet associates fully realise the loss you have suffered’.5 Three months after Dill’s death Marshall told Major Reginald Winn, Dill’s Personal Assistant, that he still felt completely lost without him; he had never met another man of such character, integrity, breadth of vision and selflessness. He thought Brooke was good, but Dill was irreplaceable.6 Anglo-American relations deteriorated steadily after his death.