The Duel

The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill & Hitler

John Lukacs

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9780300180978
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Seconde Guerre mondiale

This day-by-day account of the maneuvering between Britain and Germany in 1940 is "a wonderful story wonderfully told" (George F. Will, New York Times -bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner). During the late spring and early summer of 1940, Hitler was poised on the edge of absolute victory, having advanced rapidly through a large part of Europe—and Britain was threatened by imminent invasion and defeat. From the acclaimed author of Five Days in London, May 1940, this book tells the story of two leaders facing off against each other, and the decisions they made that shaped the eventual outcome of the Second World War. "Powerful…An impressive study [written] with elegance and panache."— The New York Times "A master of narrative history on a par with Barbara Tuchman and Garrett Mattingly."— Kirkus Reviews "An often witty and always fascinating—even entertaining—writer."— The WashingtonPost

V
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
1–30 July

ON THE last day of June in Hitler’s headquarters the planning for the armed conquest of England began. This meant a change in his expectations. The change was not entire or sudden; it was gradual, and to some extent even reluctant. He had hoped that the British would consider making peace with him — naturally on his terms. Now he was not certain that this would happen. The time was coming to force them to do so. During the month of July these two expectations existed side by side in his mind. He still hoped that the British would no longer listen to Churchill. But through July Hitler realized that his earlier expectations had not borne results. His conquest of Western Europe, the expulsion of the British from the Continent and a war of nerves were not sufficient to dislodge Churchill from the field. They had not weakened the will of his opponent. Their war of nerves was, after all, a war of wills as much as it was a war of minds. Now Hitler’s expectations had begun to change: but their ultimate purpose was the same.

At this point this historian thinks he is compelled to address himself, no matter how briefly, to the larger question. What did Hitler want? We must disabuse our minds of certain ideas that otherwise flow from what we know about Hitler’s monstrosities. Hitler did not want to conquer the world. He knew that he could not achieve that. The world was too large for one nation to control. That — and not only his half-baked respect for British imperialism — was the main reason for the grand design of his offer for a settlement: America for the Americans, Europe dominated by the Third Reich, the British Empire largely untouched. He wanted to make his German Reich more powerful, prestigious, vital and healthy than ever; after the war (as he often said to his intimate circle) he would retire to peaceful occupations. He was interested in building, not razing; but if building required razing, razing it must be — with no exceptions and no mercy. Here was the categorical nature of the ideas and the merciless nature of the mind of this man. Hitler was less interested in accretions to his power than in compliance with it. Within Germany, he did not care whether men such as Papen or Weizsäckcr joined the Nazi Party or not; he wanted them to serve his purposes. Beyond Germany, he was less interested in territory than in vassalage. The record shows this. What he wanted in 1938 in Austria was a Nazi, pro-German government; it was only when he was carried away by popular enthusiasm in the city of his youth that he decided to proclaim the union of Austria with Germany, then and there in Linz. In 1939 he did not entirely incorporate Czechoslovakia into the German Reich; he made Bohemia and Moravia into a German “protectorate” and permitted an “independent” Slovak state, as long as it was wholly subservient to Germany. Regarding Poland, his main purpose was not the reconquest of Danzig; it was the drastic reduction of Polish independence. In 1940 and thereafter the question was not how much or how little of France would be annexed to or occupied by Germany; his main interest was that the Pétain government should never become independent enough to reduce its subservience to Germany.

I am writing this because in 1940 for England, too, that was the crux of the matter. The crux of the matter was not Hitler’s supposed peace terms — for example, which of the former German colonies or other British possessions a peacemaking British government might transfer to the Third Reich. The crux of the matter was the character of British government. Hitler would perhaps make peace with Britain, leaving its imperial possessions largely untouched (though he might have some trouble with Mussolini in that regard); but then that British government must be something less than neutral: it must be indifferent to the German domination of Europe, and cultivate its relations with Germany rather than with the United States. (It must also restrict opponents of Hitler within Britain — for example, Socialists, Liberals, Churchillian Conservatives, Jews, the anti-German press — in sum, the British government must identify, isolate and suppress these, largely in compliance with Hitler’s wishes.) The inclination to demand compliance with one’s ideas is a more extreme and aggressive trait than the brutal demand to somebody to relinquish some of his possessions. That aggressiveness is at least in part the outcome of insecurity, eventually leading to hatred, is a common wisdom. In July 1940 Hitler was stunned by the British unwillingness to listen to him. Thereafter his former respect for the British began to vanish. He would not only attempt to subdue them by force; he would punish them for waging war against him — a reaction somewhat similar to his treatment of the Poles, whom he brutalized after September 1939 for having dared to oppose him, going to war. In the summer of 1940 Hitler still said on occasion that he would deplore the dissolution of the British Empire to the profit of the United States, Japan or others. Four years later he talked with relish about the shrinking of the Empire and the reduction of Britain to a shivering and starving island. In July 1940 he was still reluctant to order the bombing of Britain. Four years later he would order the destruction of London with his monstrous rockets.

What did his opponent want? There was an aggressive strain in Churchill’s character, too; but it was not dominant. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that he was a nationalist and definitely not a patriot; Churchill was a patriot rather than a nationalist; and patriotism, unlike nationalism, is not aggressive. Churchill’s patriotism was defensive. He believed in the Empire and, as he said later in the war, he would not preside over its liquidation; but he would give up much of it rather than comply with Hitler’s peace terms. The reason for this was neither stubbornness nor hatred. Churchill knew what compliance with Hitler’s wishes would mean: a giant German empire in Europe, able to force a remnant England into all kinds of eventual concessions because of the armaments, port cities, naval shipyards and factories at Germany’s disposal; but even before that, an England necessarily not only adjusting its status to German power but complying with many of Hitler’s ideas, at the cost of her traditional liberties, her conscience and her self-esteem. Churchill admired many things about Napoleon, whereas he was fierce about Hitler. Hitler was no Napoleon. Even a breathing space, such as the Peace of Amiens that a British government in 1802 had concluded with Napoleon (and which a year later Napoleon chose to cancel), was not possible with Hitler. It was not only that in 1940, unlike in 1802, there was no peace party in England of the caliber of Lord and Lady Holland and Charles James Fox. It was that the Peace of Amiens was an honorable armistice; and an honorable armistice, meaning that either party has agreed to respect not only the other’s fighting abilities but its remaining independence, was impossible with Hitler. Churchill knew that — which is why he became the savior of England and of Europe, too — even at the cost of transferring many of the Empire’s possessions and much of its imperial role to the United States, if need be.

AT THE end of June the realization of a change in Hitler’s mind activated some people at high levels of the German command. The eagerest among them were in the Luftwaffe, where a paper detailing plans for a landing in England was prepared on 25 June. (Hitler was wont to say that he had a conservative army, a reactionary navy and a National Socialist Luftwaffe.) It was then decided not to present the plan to the Führer, who had not yet contemplated crossing the Channel. But on the last day of June Jodl sat down to prepare a long memorandum. Jodl’s chief was away that day, motoring (and presumably enjoying the drive) through Alsace. More than presumably, Jodl had taken to his desk with Hitler’s approval. Throughout the entire war no one understood Hitler’s mind better than Jodl. This is one of the reasons why his memorandum of 30 June is important. It is a forerunner of Hitler’s directive, issued seventeen days later, ordering the preparation for the invasion of England. The strategic conceptions and even some of the language of the Jodl memorandum and the Hitler directive are almost identical.

“Continuation of the War Against England” was Jodl’s title. It began: “If political means do not bring results, the English will to resist must be broken by force.” It went on: “The final German victory … is now only a matter of time. Enemy attacks of importance are no longer possible. So Germany can choose a method of warfare [Kampfverfahren] that preserves its own forces and avoids risks. At the beginning stands the fight against the English air force [Jodl’s italics]. … Any landing prepared only as a last resource. Since England fights or can fight no longer for victory but only for the preservation of its situation, everything indicates that it will incline to peace, once it learns that it still may reach that aim relatively cheaply.” That Jodl was suffused with the importance of his task appears, too, from the circumstance that, contrary to his customary habit and professional competence, he devoted considerable space in his memorandum to political speculations involving other world powers. The next day Jodl presented his paper to Hitler. Hitler seemed wholly to agree with it, except for one thing. One of the military means Jodl mentioned was “terror-attacks [Terror-Angriffe] against English population centers.” Hitler was not yet ready for that. He would order the Luftwaffe to aim at the destruction of the Royal Air Force, “but before everything the inflicting of great damages on the civil population must be avoided.”

Hitler was more reluctant than his generals: but he thought that the first step from waiting to action, from political to military expectations, must now be made. Sometime on 1 July he gave Jodl his permission to instruct all three armed forces, the army, the navy and the Luftwaffe, to begin drafting plans for a landing in England, with certain conditions in mind, of which the most important was achieving command of the air over southern England. These were the first definite orders for an invasion plan. The instructions went out on 2 July. Yet during his short and idyllic stay at his new headquarters, Hitler also said that the time had come to “make a peace proposal on a great and generous scale.” He hoped that the English people would respond, and put pressure on their warmonger government. (It is interesting to note that Hitler now spoke of the English people, no longer of those Conservatives who did not like Churchill.) Goebbels had come to see Hitler in “Tannenberg.” He found Hitler in a splendid mood, “glowing.” They talked about England. Goebbels brought news that morale in London was down and the English were divided. On 3 July Goebbels wrote in his diary: “Churchill was clearly a madman [ein reiner Narr]. Opposition against him increasing. England may be defeated in four weeks. … But the Führer does not want to destroy the Empire.” Hitler would make his “last offer.” On Saturday Hitler would return to Berlin, and on Monday make a great speech to the Reichstag, the main theme of which would be “generosity [Gross-zügigkeit].” On Friday instructions went out to the German press: it was still the aim of German propaganda to separate the people of England from their government. “Certain political mediations [Zwischenspiel] are still being awaited.”

At three o’clock on the afternoon of 6 July Hitler’s train pulled into the Anhalter station. After a week of overcast skies the sun had come out; it was a brilliant afternoon; large crowds cheered Hitler as he drove slowly to the splendid new Reich Chancellery. He had not been in Berlin in more than eight weeks. Nearly two months before, he had left Berlin at night, secretly, his great train taking him to the first of his three headquarters, to preside over the German conquest of Western Europe. Now he returned openly, in triumph. Goring and the entire government waited for him in the Anhalter station. It was a wonderful day, full of military celebrations and popular jubilation. Goebbels had helped to arrange it. Yet he was a bit fretful. “I admire the Führer’s patience” (he actually wrote “Engelsgeduld,” angelic patience). Ciano, who saw Hitler the following day, was again impressed with his reserve. In reality, Hitler’s patience and reserve were the garments of his hesitation — well-fitting garments, but garments nonetheless. He had already chosen to wait a little longer. He would speak not on Monday but five days later, on the thirteenth. Goebbels issued new instructions: the press and radio must attack Churchill “but not the English people as such.” In his diary he wrote that “opposition to Churchill grows in the country and probably also in Parliament. We keep attacking him, but we spare the English people on psychological grounds.” Then Hitler changed his mind again. He would go to his mountain house, the Berghof, on the Obersalzberg above Berchtesgaden, where his mind was at its clearest, ready to contemplate great decisions. Goebbels was not happy about this. “Despite everything the Führer still has a very positive attitude toward England. He is not yet ready for the final strike. He will go to the Obersalzberg and think over his speech there, in quiet.” Hitler wanted quiet; but he was also restless. He now postponed his speech again, to the nineteenth.

BY 1 JULY a fortnight had passed since the French collapse, and a month since Dunkirk. Now the specter of a German invasion of England rose. But there was a lull. Still during the next two weeks Churchill’s energy was relentless. In the first days of July the spirit of this physically soft and aging man would harden into a resolve that was more than aggressive: it contained an element of ruthlessness, and even of cruelty. We have seen that on 1 July he contemplated the drenching of the beaches of England with gas, to suffocate those Germans who would set their feet on them. By that time he had already decided on another brutal tack. He would seize or destroy the battleships of his former allies the French, to make certain that Hitler should not be able to lay his hands on them.

He convinced the War Cabinet of the Tightness of that decision as early as 27 June. The final terms of the armistice that Hitler had imposed on the French had been made public five days before. Hitler knew that if he demanded the French fleet he would not get it; those modern and impressive warships — a fleet larger than the German one at that moment — would sail away to the west and the south, out of his reach. Pétain’s government had been relieved to learn that the Germans had not demanded a wholesale surrender of the fleet. That would have made the negotiation (if that was what it was) for the armistice difficult, to say the least. What had happened was a kind of tradeoff: the French fleet would not sail away, and Hitler would leave a portion of France unoccupied, allowing Pétain’s people to function — in circumscribed conditions, of course. The naval clause of the armistice required the French fleet to remain in French ports, manned by their own crews, under German and Italian supervision on land. (The exact word in the armistice text was contrôle, wherein resided a nuance of misunderstanding: the English naturally translated contrôle into “control,” whereas in French the exact meaning is “verification”) But this did not matter much. What truly mattered was that Churchill did not trust Hitler. Nor did he think that he could afford to trust the resolution of the French.

The most modern French battleships, the Dunkerque, the Strasbourg, the Richelieu and the Jean Bart, were beyond Hitler’s reach. The first two, the most modern battle cruisers, together with an array of other ships, were at the naval base of Mers-el-Kébir in French Algeria, three miles west of Oran. Churchill’s Operation Catapult aimed at them. He had another plan, too, Operation Susan, a British landing in French Morocco. His naval and military advisers persuaded him to drop that plan, since it would have required an unnecessary dispersal of British forces at the time of the home island’s greatest need. As so often, Churchill fretted against their cautionary advice but then he gave in. (That was all to the good: a British landing in Morocco, even if successful — and that was questionable — might have activated Hitler — and Franco — to go after them, with the probable result of conquering Gibraltar and closing the Mediterranean to the British.) Operation Catapult itself was a bit reminiscent of Nelson’s cruel and unexpected destruction of the neutral Danish fleet at Copenhagen in 1801. There was, however, a difference. Nelson attacked a potential enemy of Britain. Churchill would attack the ships of Britain’s recent ally, ships and sailors who had no inclination to side with Germany.

What happened at Oran (or Mers-el-Kébir) on 3 July had the elements of a Greek tragedy. Admiral M.-B. Gensoul, the French com mander, was an honorable man. Aboard his ship he heard the terms of British Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, communicated by Captain Cedric Holland, an intelligent, sympathetic and Francophile officer. The British ultimatum gave Gensoul three main choices: sail to British ports (wherefrom the crews would be sent back to France, if they so wished); sail to American waters; or sink the ships themselves. If he refused, his ships would be attacked by the British warships outside the entrance to the bay. Admiral Gensoul refused. A few minutes before six Captain Holland’s launch passed out of the boom of the harbor. He was returning to the British flagship with a heavy heart. Before the first fading of the sun on that hot Mediterranean afternoon the British opened fire. It lasted nine minutes. The Dunkerque and another old French battleship ran aground. Another one blew up. The Strasbourg drove out of the harbor. Twelve hundred fifty French sailors were dead. On the same day the British navy used force to take over some of the smaller French craft still in British ports. At Alexandria in Egypt an agreement was made whereby the French warships were to be immobilized, under conditions not dissimilar to what Hitler had achieved in his supervision and immobilization of French ships in European ports.

nOran was not a complete naval success. The Strasbourg escaped; the Richelieu, attacked by the British a few days later at Dakar, was only partly damaged. But it was a political success for Churchill, in more than one way. We shall come to its repercussions in Britain in a moment. Even more important were its repercussions throughout the world. It was a symbol of the British willingness to fight, of Churchill’s resolution to thrust and parry in his duel with Hitler. Across the ocean many Americans, among them their naval-minded President, were impressed. He told the British ambassador that he agreed with what Churchill had done. In Italy Ciano wrote in his diary: the British action “proves that the fighting spirit of His Majesty’s fleet is quite alive, and still has the aggressive ruthlessness of the captains and pirates of the seventeenth century” — phrases very different from what Ciano’s father-in-law, Mussolini, had said not so long before, that the British were no longer what they had been in the past, they were now governed by tired old men. In Madrid the Spanish press screamed invectives against the British, but most people, including Franco, were startled and impressed.

Oran was a psychological turning point of sorts. But — this must be said in his favor — Churchill was not gloating. “Nothing succeeds like success” — that was typical of Hitler’s mind, not of Churchill’s. He told Colville that night that what happened at Oran was “heartbreaking for me.” This was not a rueful reaction after a cruel deed. Five days before Oran Churchill had told the War Cabinet: we must convince the French people “that we were being cruel in order to be kind.” The night before the tragic day he sent Vice-Admiral Somerville this message: “You are charged with one of the most disagreeable and difficult tasks that a British Admiral has ever been faced with …” (“but we have complete confidence in you and rely on you to carry it out relentlessly”). In this duality of sentiments — if that is what it was — Churchill was in accord with the British people. All of the evidence and reports of public opinion show that the people of Britain harbored little resentment for the French at the time of their collapse; on the contrary, many people expressed sincere sympathy for them. That was one side. The other side — seemingly contradictory, but perhaps only seemingly — was their undivided approval of what Churchill had ordered at Oran. There was a sudden rise of Churchill’s domestic and political support on the morrow. The morning after Oran Churchill reported to the House of Commons. It was a long speech. The enthusiasm was tremendous. Churchill was deeply affected, with tears streaming down his face. It was “unique in my experience,” Churchill remembered. “Up till this moment the Conservative Party had treated me with some reserve.” This scene in the House was very significant in itself. Many observers, including foreign diplomats, had noticed in May and June how many of the Conservative members, former Chamberlainites, showed their restraint about Churchill. Around 1 July one of Churchill’s admirers (incidentally, a German refugee journalist) brought this to Chamberlain’s attention, who then told his friend the Conservative Whip to speak to some of the members about that: there must be no impression that Churchill’s support was not strong enough, suggesting a division of minds. Together with Churchill’s announcement of the aggressive British action at Oran, its result was the extraordinary cheering that he received on 4 July.

There was another, connected matter that Churchill brought to the attention of the House that day. It again concerned national morale. The home secretary, Sir John Anderson, had told the Cabinet the day before that public opinion was somewhat “jumpy.” Churchill was still worried about defeatist talk. He drafted an Admonition, which he first read to the Cabinet and which was then sent out to all leading officials. “The Prime Minister expects all His Majesty’s servants in high places to set an example of steadiness and resolution. They should check and rebuke the expression of loose and ill-digested opinions in their circles, or by their subordinates. They should not hesitate to report, or if necessary remove, any persons, officers, or officials who are found to be consciously exercising a disturbing or depressing influence, and whose talk is calculated to spread alarm and despondency.” He read the entire message to Parliament.

On 1 July Kennedy saw Chamberlain and told him that “everyone in the U.S.A. thinks [England] will be beaten before the end of the month.” This was an exaggeration. There was, at the same time, an evacuation of English children to Canada and the United States. At the end of June Chips Channon packed up his son Paul for America. “At the station there was a queue of Rolls-Royces and liveried servants and mountains of trunks.” Churchill did not like this. On 1 July he said to the War Cabinet that the sending of British children across the Atlantic “encouraged a defeatist spirit.” Eighteen days later: “I entirely deprecate any stampede from this country at the present time.” (Hitler knew what wa...