Other books by Brian Hodgkinson

© Brian James Hodgkinson 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd

www.shepheard-walwyn.co.uk

First published in 2015 by

Shepheard-Walwyn (Publishers) Ltd

107 Parkway House, Sheen Lane,

London SW14 8LS

www.shepheard-walwyn.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record of this book

is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-85683-506-3

Typeset by Alacrity, Chesterfield, Sandford, Somerset

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom

by imprintdigital.com

Contents

Preface

1   The Menace of Nazi Germany

2   The Prophet Unheeded

3   Office Denied

4   Appeasement

5   Dreadnoughts and Dardanelles

6   The Admiralty at War

7   Prime Minister at Last

8   The Battle of France

9   Dunkirk

10   The Agony of France

11   Armistice

12   Tragedy at Mers-el-Kebir

13   The Threat of Invasion

14   The Battle of Britain

15   The Blitz

16   Dakar

17   North African Success

18   Balkan Disaster

19   Nadir

20   Operation Barbarossa

21   The Atlantic Charter

22   Crisis at Moscow

23   The Failure of Crusader

24   Pearl Harbor

Principal Sources

Preface

Winston Churchill was the greatest Englishman of the twentieth century, and perhaps the greatest of all time.* His life was immensely rich and varied, for he excelled in the fields of politics, war, statesmanship and literature. Yet his crowning achievement was, without question, his leadership of Britain and the British Empire and Commonwealth during the Second World War. Even within that, his supreme qualities of courage, resolution and inspiring oratory were concentrated in the period from the outbreak of war in 1939 until the entry of the USA into the war in December 1941. Hence any literary work that tries to capture the essence of the man needs to focus likewise on this relatively short period when Britain fought for its survival against Nazi Germany. Especially is this so when the literary form is narrative poetry, where facts and historical detail are secondary to emotional intensity. As far as possible, I have adhered to recorded history within the limitations of the principal sources used and my own recollection of wider reading over many years. However, the selection of facts has been influenced by the overall demand for dramatic impact.

In particular the direct speeches made by Churchill in the poem are no more than paraphrases with a few words taken from what he actually said. This is necessitated by the need to avoid actual quotation, but especially by the demands of conciseness and metre. Personally I do not believe that Churchill himself would have objected to any attempt, however inadequate, to portray him as an epic hero.

* In 2002 he was named as the greatest Briton of all time in a nation-wide poll conducted by the BBC, attracting more than a million votes.

1

The Menace of Nazi Germany

Winter 1933

Throughout the night the drum of marching feet

And flickering light from torches held aloft

Engrossed the streets of many German towns;

Whilst in Berlin the aged President

Saluted from his balcony the troops

Of Sturmabteilung, Stahlhelm and S.S.,

Whose banners rose in white and red and black.

And watching, too, with burning eyes of zeal,

Stood Adolf Hitler, now the Chancellor.

In that great land of prehistoric myth,

Of mighty rivers, darkest forest, lakes,

Of Alpine peaks that cast long shades of night

And bar the way to Bacchus’ revelries,

A deep resentment warped the souls of men.

The lust of Mars, the pride of nationhood,

Abruptly had been shamed. For many years,

The warlike Germans could not carry arms.

Their massive guns, steel-plated battleships,

And marching ranks of millions, bold and loyal,

Obedient to fatherland and king,

Had vanished at the word of armistice.

Thus mortal wounds, inflicted by defeat

And violent insurrection, doomed the State

Which followed on the Versailles settlement.

It was an interregnum for all those

Who smouldered with desire to be avenged.

Some, like Stresemann, tried to quench the fire,

But few would stand by Weimar and the law.

Bruning and Streicher struggled to enforce

Their vain attempts at sweeping compromise,

Till Papen came, a former Chancellor,

To woo the careworn President with hope

That, once in office, Hitler would be bound

By cabinet colleagues, like the Nationalists.

“We’ll box him in!” brave Hugenberg had said,

And few, beyond the Nazis, could believe

That Corporal Hitler, but a demagogue,

Would govern long unruly Germany.

Yet soon he showed his innate ruthlessness.

The violence of his language won support

From all those Germans keen to see destroyed

The Treaty of Versailles, and those who feared

That Jews and Marxists threatened Germany.

He called for new elections, claiming these

Would but confirm his own supremacy.

Before the votes were cast the Reichstag fire

Had burnt to ashes hopes of real reform.

The stormtroop legions cast aside restraint.

When Goring sanctioned police atrocities,

The Communists were murdered, or were held

Without due trial, regardless of the law.

A presidential edict had destroyed

All guarantees of personal liberty;

The new Republic, handicapped from birth

By enemies of freedom – Freikorps bands

And revolutionaries of left and right –

Was strangled by the senile Hindenburg.

At Potsdam, where the Prussian kings had sat,

Old memories of the Kaiserreich were stirred

When Hitler bowed before the head of State,

And wreaths were laid on tombs of monarchy.

But two days later all pretence was gone.

The Reichstag met in Berlin’s Opera House

To grant to Hitler unrestricted power.

Before the doors the Sturmabteilung stood,

Jackbooted brownshirts, eyeing delegates.

Inside, their comrades ringed the chamber walls.

Despite such terror, Otto Wells spoke out,

A final voice of liberal Germany,

Against the certain passage of the Bill

That gave to Hitler overwhelming powers.

Wells could not win. Too many absentees,

Deprived of rights, were held in custody.

This overture to German tragedy

Now set the scene for crude dictatorship.

The State would be the instrument of men

Obsessed by hate and racial fantasies.

The road to war was opened to the tread

Of German armies soon revitalised.

To Adolf Hitler war had been a dream,

Which offered him a kind of comradeship

In risk and violence, bravery and will.

When, as a youth, he’d seen so many Jews

Within his Austrian homeland, when he’d read

Hypotheses of racial purity,

And heard condemned the role of German Jews

In business, banking, law and medicine,

His mind was warped by unremitting rage:

Marxism was the Jew’s conspiracy,

Now thriving in that Slavic hinterland

Where Germany demanded Lebensraum.

The Nordic race must claim its destiny

And rid itself of all but German stock.

By war a race survives, by right of strength.

Destroy the rule of parties and of laws

That do not bear the German people’s will.

Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer; thus it was.

2

The Prophet Unheeded

Summer 1932

Winston Churchill, of the famous line

Descended from the Duke of Marlborough,

Had stayed in Munich, just before the rise

Of Adolf Hitler to dictatorship.

In that same city, which not long before,

Had seen the police shoot down a Nazi band,

Who’d planned to seize the reins of government,

A meeting was arranged. For Churchill then

Had little knowledge of this violent man,

Who was to be his chief protagonist.

Against Herr Hitler, at this time, he said,

He had no national prejudice, nor knew

What views he held, what type of man he was;

He had the right to be a patriot,

To stand up for his country in defeat.

But Hitler learned that Churchill had enquired

About the Jews. Why did he hate them so?

No more advances came from either side.

The arch-opponents of the future war

Would never see each other face to face.

Though he had held high offices of State,

Now Winston Churchill sat in Parliament

Below the aisle, a lonely figure, shunned,

A critic of his party’s policies.

Rotund and short, and stooping from a blow

Received in playing polo in his youth,

He yet retained a charismatic power.

His smooth and pinkish face, with glaucous eyes,

Set ’neath a lofty brow and balding head,

Could be expressive when he was aroused.

But often now he looked more in repose,

In brooding thought on matters secretive,

As one – for those who knew him – like a fire,

Damped down, but waiting, incubated, dulled,

Yet burning still with concentrated heat.

Most doubted now his judgment, since that time

When, in the former war, he’d pressed the case

For Allied action in the Dardanelles.

How much he’d suffered from that cruel debacle,

Fought out on shores of far Gallipoli!

Without full power, yet ardent to pursue

A plan to end the slaughter in the west,

He’d watched its failure, grieved at its mistakes,

And mourned for those who’d perished there in vain.

He listened now to lesser men’s debates.

Prime Minister MacDonald was not loth

To press upon the European powers

The need to hasten their disarmament.

Widespread opinion favoured such a course.

Had not the war been caused by armaments?

The losers had been stripped of all their power,

But, of the victors, France especially,

Retained its forces in preponderance.

Should not the French and others acquiesce

By cutting down their arms to parity?

The British government did not make a stand

Against this plea from vanquished enemies.

Indeed they showed displeasure at the French

For clinging to their own security.

For Britain had not witnessed German troops

Trample the growing corn of native land,

And seen their ancient villages subdued

By field-grey soldiers, alien in tongue.

Yet France would keep her army, though some knew,

Like Charles de Gaulle, it was not competent.

Amidst these cries of fear and sentiment,

One voice in England spoke of principles:

‘Whilst grievances of vanquished States remain,

It is not safe for victors to disarm.’

Churchill did not ignore the Germans’ case

For some amendment of the harshest terms

Imposed by post-war treaty at Versailles:

Their loss of land, their weakness in defence

In view of Russia’s greater armaments,

Their economic burdens, and the guilt

Which they regarded as unjustly borne.

And yet to see them arming for revenge

Was to invite a new catastrophe.

It was not long ago that he himself

Had argued for the British to reduce

Expenditure on arms. As Chancellor,

He’d forced the British Admiralty to cut

Its spending on new cruisers; then refused

To finance a new base at Singapore.

And later he’d advised the Cabinet

To keep the rule that war was not foreseen

For ten years in the future. Now he knew

How circumstances differed; how once more

The world was threatened with the bane of war.

So Churchill braved the judgment of his peers;

‘Thank God’, he cried, ‘that France has not disarmed.’

Though even he did not expect the war

That Germans, like von Seekt, had now conceived:

A war of movement, blitzkrieg, planes and tanks.

Instead he feared the flames in city streets,

The hail of bombs on helpless citizens.

For he well knew the face of war had changed.

As First Lord of the Admiralty, he’d known

How every ship was armed; how they must match

The German Dreadnoughts and the submarines

Within the North Sea and the ocean deeps.

One admiral then, he’d said, could lose the war;

In one engagement all could be at risk.

But aircraft had transformed the art of war.

Britain, especially, was most vulnerable,

With massive cities, ports and industries

And London within minutes of the coast.

He was appalled to hear the government say

That no new squadrons were to be equipped;

That Britain’s air force was the fifth air power.

What scorn he poured on Baldwin’s later claim

That he’d not called for due rearmament,

Because he’d feared to lose too many votes!

Within the Civil Service some men felt

The need to give support to Churchill’s views,

For they, like him, envisaged Britain’s plight

If she was soon outpaced in armaments.

They secretly informed him of the news

About the German programme, whilst he too

Obtained from agents on the continent

Material to further his critique

Of Baldwin and his government’s policy.

3

Office Denied

Summer 1934

From Germany a fearsome signal came

Of what dire evil gathered there unchecked.

The leader of the Sturmabteilung, Roehm,

Was not content with Hitler’s policies,

Especially for the army, which Roehm saw

As still the Prussian hierarchy’s preserve,

A bastion of social privilege

Denied to those who’d fought for Nazi power

With rallies, marches, violence in the streets.

Stormtroopers, or the Wehrmacht? Which would hold

The sword of execution in the State?

Though Hitler was reluctant to condemn

A comrade from the Munich barricades,

He did not dare offend the army’s pride.

Upon the Wehrmacht all his hopes were built

Of future war, of German dominance.

With its connivance, Roehm was soon destroyed –

S.S. gunmen shot him down unarmed –

With others who might threaten the regime.

To justify the murders, Hitler claimed

That fateful hour had made him arbiter,

Responsible for German destiny

And thus empowered to disregard the law.

When Churchill heard of this dark episode,

It but confirmed his view of Nazidom.

Yet British leaders still retained some trust

That Hitler’s word could be relied upon.

They signed a naval treaty, which defined

A limit to the German Kriegsmarine.

Henceforth it could not build beyond a third

Of British strength, except in submarines.

Churchill condemned it. Did it not ignore

The limitations still applicable?

Moreover, Churchill knew that not for years

Could Germany construct beyond this norm.

How could the British claim still to respect

Collective action ’gainst the German threat,

When now they came to terms bilateral?

The world could see’, he said, ‘they had connived

At Germany’s undue rearmament.’

The hope of peace was struck another blow

By Mussolini’s greed in Africa.

To claim revenge for Adowa’s defeat

And build an Italian empire in the south,

The Fascist leader wilfully attacked

The ancient State of Ethiopia.

It was not long since Churchill had approved

Of Mussolini as a lawgiver;

But now the Duce clearly had transgressed

The common rules of international law.

A hard dilemma faced the Western powers.

Though Italy had previously opposed

All Nazi plans to coerce Austria,

If France and Britain did not acquiesce

In Italy’s unwarranted attack,

The Fascist State might turn to Germany.

Churchill realised this, yet he advised

That international law was paramount.

The British followed League of Nations’ plans

For economic sanctions, but these proved

Much weakened by omission of the oil

That drove the wheels of Mussolini’s force.

Yet Churchill knew that greater danger lay

In what was happening inside Germany.

For Adolf Hitler, now the Head of State,

Whom every German soldier swore to serve –

Since Hindenburg had died – against advice

Of cautious generals, sent a Wehrmacht force

Across the Rhine to occupy the zone

Devoid of troops since Germany’s defeat.

This was a flagrant challenge to those powers

Who’d signed two treaties with the Weimar State

That guaranteed the western status quo.

It was a gamble. Hitler knew his troops

Could not withstand a major French assault.

But he discerned infirmity of will,

And deep divisions, doubt, and dread of war,

Besetting now the populace of France.

No leader, like the tiger Clemenceau,

Would bend the springs of French resilience.

To Britain Monsieur Flandin looked for help,

Yet Baldwin would do nothing but protest.

The Germans, it was said, had only moved

Into their own back-garden. Hitler drew

Some sure conclusions from his enterprise:

The Western allies would not make a stand;

Their leaders were both timid and corrupt,

Their people feeble, crippled by the fear

Of Armageddon. Whilst in Germany,

They cheered the Austrian corporal’s bold success.

Meanwhile, Churchill was contemptuous

Of Baldwin’s prevarication and delay:

‘They cannot make their minds up. They go on,

Decided in indecision, and resolved

On being always most irresolute.

They’re firm for drift, and impotent in power!’

At this key juncture some had pressed the right

Of Churchill to return to government,

And he himself still coveted the chance

Of moving in the corridors of power.

How much he yearned for office once again:

To speak his mind with due authority,

No longer but to cajole and persuade

These purblind men, who ruled in ignorance.

But Baldwin’s weakness would not let him turn

To one who stood for firmness. He foresaw

Fierce arguments within the Cabinet room,

Across the table Winston’s angry face,

The pointed finger, blunt acerbic phrase,

The facts divulged by sympathetic friends,

The unrelenting will, the wish to act.

Only a few M.P.s and journalists

Supported Churchill’s claim. So once again,

The aging statesman laid ambition down,

And sought for solace at his Chartwell home –

Upon a tree-crowned hill in northern Kent –

Where he took up his pen, and set his mind

On follies of more distant history.

He nursed his grievance, England’s tragedy.

But, in the country, pressure groups were formed,

Who saw the need for forthright leadership.

Though journalism earned him high rewards,

Expensive social life and personal tastes

Incurred large bills, besides the heavy cost

Of life at Chartwell, where the house employed

A range of servants, from a governess

To bailiff, groom and several gardeners.

Clementine, his wife, was always loyal.

His marriage was secure; but troubles came

From wayward children. Headstrong Randolph,

Brave, indeed, but rash, was entertaining hopes

Of having a political career,

Against his father’s contrary advice.

‘An animal love connects us’ Churchill said,

‘But, when we meet, we have a bloody row’.

One daughter recently had been divorced.

Another, Sarah, was about to wed

An entertainer Churchill did not like,

Not least because he was a Viennese,

Twice married and much older than his bride.

Mary, the youngest child, was still at school.

And so, despite some disappointed hopes,

Churchill loved his children, and declined

To let their faults distract him from his task.

And later, in the war, they all would play

An active part, of which he would be proud.

In Parliament he was still moved to speak:

‘Now, like the Great War’s line of Hindenburg,

Across the western front a fortress wall

Would soon be built of bunkers, mines and guns.

Then German arms could turn upon the Slavs.’

He made a sweeping gesture with his hands,

As though he saw the Germans surging through

The undefended borders to the east.

‘No more could Poland, nor the French entente

Of Yugoslavs, Roumanians and Czechs,

Expect assistance from the western States.

Even Russia was more vulnerable.

Who now could stop the Anschluss? Who could know

The sequel to the Führer’s overture?’

But Churchill’s hopes of office were destroyed.

Edward of England, recently enthroned,

Became enamoured of a divorcee,

The American Mrs Simpson, disinclined

To rest content as mistress of a king.

Supported by the Church and by The Times,

Baldwin opposed the marriage. Even so,

Against this powerful triad, Churchill spoke

Of Edward’s right to personal happiness.

Established interests were too strong for him.

King Edward chose his wife and not the crown.

His brother George succeeded in his place,

And Churchill’s judgment was again denounced

As lacking wisdom, and impetuous.

Whatever chance remained for his return

Was cast away by loyalty to a king.

None knew, not even he, what hand of fate,

Protected him by failure. None would say

That he had held high office in the land

When policy had erred, when war was caused

By gross mistakes and lack of readiness.

4

Appeasement

Spring 1937

Upon the stage of British politics

Another actor rose to eminence.

The time had come for Baldwin to withdraw.

His powers were waning; he was not the man

To meet the challenge posed by Hitler’s threats.

Succeeding him came Neville Chamberlain,

A man of conscience, self-assured, austere,

Who brought to government much efficiency

Acquired by years in peacetime offices.

He sought to understand the claims of those

Who threatened to disrupt the world’s affairs:

If he could meet dictators face to face,

Discuss at length their problems, then assess

What compromise might meet their due demands,

Then none would have recourse to violent means.

Such was his view – negotiate, appease.

The path he trod, convinced of rectitude,

Was far too strait for men of Churchill’s ilk.

When Chamberlain soon planned to recognise

Italian claims on Ethiopia,

Eden resigned as Foreign Minister.

Henceforth he joined with that tiny band

Who stood opposed to Chamberlain’s designs,

And recognised increasingly the need

For Churchill’s hand on Britain’s helm of State.

The sacrifice of office Eden made

Awoke in Churchill feelings of respect,

And yet he also felt a dark despair

At this new step towards the brink of war.

Hitler was not chastened by the thought

That Chamberlain would meet his just demands.

Once more he’d break the treaty, threatening now

The Anschluss with his native Austria.

Courageously the Chancellor Schuschnigg tried

To show by plebiscite his country’s will,

But Hitler’s fury swept away such hopes.

Where music once had charmed the Viennese,

In Summer parks and vacant palaces,

There echoed now the clattering of tanks,

With harsh commands and footsteps of the Reich.

Just at the time when German soldiers marched

To implement the Anschluss, there occurred

A luncheon party at 10 Downing Street.

The guest of honour was von Ribbentrop,

Departing as the Reich’s ambassador,

To be, instead, its Foreign Minister.

Churchill, too, was present, and observed

A note was passed to Neville Chamberlain,

Who then seemed worried and pre-occupied.

Deliberately the Ribbentrops stayed late,

As though to hamper Chamberlain’s desire

To take some action over Austria.

When Churchill rose to leave, and said he hoped

That Anglo-German friendship would endure,

The wife of the ambassador was curt;

‘Make sure you do not spoil it!’ she replied.

The British government only could protest;

But Churchill spoke in quite another vein,

When, on the morrow, he addressed the House:

‘Again a solemn treaty is ignored,

To build, so it is claimed, a greater State;

Yet it transfers the Ostreich’s minerals,

And access to the Danube waterway.

Now south-east Europe lies at Hitler’s feet,

And Czechs and Slovaks henceforth are besieged.

How can appeasement check the Führer’s will?’

Already Wehrmacht generals had prepared

A detailed plan to seize Bohemia.

The pretext was the Czech Sudetenland,

Where Germans claimed they were deprived of rights.

A Nazi party there became the tool

For Hitler’s pressure on the Czech regime.

Their leader, Henlein, would not compromise.

At Hitler’s bidding all he would accept

Was full succession to the German Reich.

In Berlin’s Sportspalast the Führer spoke,

Calling the German people to their fate:

To fight for Lebensraum, for blood and race.

His petty figure, with a small moustache

And puffy features, grey hypnotic eyes,

Black thinning hair that fell across his brow,

Was magnified by words of monstrous power,

Harsh consonants and long emphatic vowels

That rose within him, surging from his throat

With growing volume as the speech progressed.

His grimaces and deft, expressive hands