Once again, Chamberlain’s hopes were not realized. Instead of opening fresh discussions with Britain, Germany embarked on its own talks with Russia, which would pave the way for the Nazi– Soviet Pact of August 1939. Russia agreed to remain neutral should Germany become embroiled in a war, and Germany agreed to limit its territorial ambitions in Poland. Germany was no longer ‘encircled’, and Russia was no longer isolated. News of the pact was greeted with consternation in Britain. Conservative MPs, who had seen Nazi Germany as an infinitely lesser evil than Soviet Russia, felt betrayed by Hitler, while the Left felt betrayed by Stalin.
Chamberlain spoke publicly of his determination to honour Britain’s agreement with Poland, while privately trying to lure Hitler away from Poland with the promise of economic rewards. Pressure was also placed on Poland to accede to German demands over Danzig, but the Poles stood firm. Hitler, unconvinced that Britain and France would go to war over Poland, thought he could once more deceive the enemy with a successful yet limited war in Poland, followed by negotiations in which Britain and France would cede to his demands.
On 1 September 1939, German troops entered Poland, and its planes attacked Warsaw. Britain’s response was to urge Hitler to withdraw his troops, as the prelude to a negotiated solution to the ‘Polish question’. When Chamberlain mentioned this plan in the Commons the next day, he was greeted with silence. Arthur Greenwood, acting as leader of the Labour party for the convalescing Attlee, demanded that Chamberlain send an immediate ultimatum – ‘Every minute’s delay now means the loss of life, imperilling our national interests, imperilling the very foundations of national honour.’ Chamberlain agreed and an ultimatum was sent the following morning at 9 a.m. When it expired two hours later, Britain was officially at war with Germany. She was soon joined by France, India, the colonies and the dominions. Ireland, which had declared itself a sovereign state in 1937, exercised its right to remain neutral.
On 3 September 1939, air-raid warnings could be heard across London, sandbags were filled and thousands of children were evacuated to the countryside. They filled the platforms of the capital’s railway stations, gas mask boxes in hand, just as a violent thunderstorm burst in the skies above them. The contrast to the mood in 1914 could not have been more marked. There was no rejoicing, no enthusiasm. Instead, as the writer Vera Brittain put it, ‘the expected had happened, and was accepted with philosophic pessimism’.
29
The alteration
If war had indeed fallen on England, then it appeared to have done so with remarkable diffidence. Preparations for the predicted casualties of bombing had been intensive, with two million beds set aside in Greater London alone, and yet the terrible bombardment from the air remained unseen, unfelt and unheard for eight months. Rumours of war lay far off. The blackout had been put in place, the children prepared, and rationing had begun, but where was the enemy?
In fact, the enemy had other concerns. Until 1938, the possibility of war with Britain had not been seriously entertained by the Nazis. There had been no attempt, for example, to identify the most vulnerable or valuable targets. German intelligence had been uncharacteristically amateurish. In any case, Poland had to be secured before any further ventures could begin. Defended by an army that combined great gallantry with pitiful weaponry, Poland swiftly fell and burned. The Poles had rejoiced at Britain’s declaration of war, but as the bombs fell on Poland’s cities, the French and the British divisions in France did nothing. They outnumbered their German counterparts by more than two to one and yet a brief French incursion into the Saar region of Germany was all they achieved. Indeed this ‘invasion’ served only to convince the Germans, if further persuasion was needed, of Allied timidity. The Polish commander-in-chief was informed that the Siegfried Line had been broken and then that the operation ‘must be postponed’. The first was a simple lie and the second one of those painful euphemisms that were to characterize so much of the conflict. Why then did France and Britain stand by when they were committed by treaty to intervene ‘within two weeks’ with a ground attack on Germany? The French, led by a commander who trusted to the strategy of the previous war, felt unprepared, and the British were still divided.
Meanwhile, a German official wrote, ‘it is the Führer’s and Goering’s intention to destroy and exterminate the Polish nation. More than that cannot even be hinted in writing.’ But the clandestine madness, and the vindictive cruelty, should soon have become obvious. From the outset, a policy obtained of bewildering the conquered peoples; savage violence alternated with hypocritical gestures of conciliation, particularly where the Jews were concerned. Even the forced moves to artificial ghettoes were presented as a means of protecting the Jewish minorities from their gentile neighbours. Nazi policy towards other Poles, however, was forthright from the first. They were plucked from their homes and shifted in vast numbers to the east, frequently before being casually murdered. It was considered vital to destroy the nation’s cultural leaders, so the intelligentsia went the way of industrialists and nobles. Priests were singled out for particularly savage treatment.
In time, the use of buses, theatres, concert halls and even churches was prohibited to all but those of German stock. The intent was to kill or drive out all but a rump population, kept alive solely to furnish the Greater Germany with slave labour, leaving the land ‘free’ for German settlement. Polish children were given a bare minimum of education, the most important task of such ‘education’ being to engender in them a sense of inferiority to their conquerors. This was to prove a template for later conquests. A policy of removing elements considered ‘unfit’, ‘undesirable’, ‘degenerate’ or ‘useless’ commenced. In suburban Brandenburg a euthanasia centre was established, where the insane and mentally impaired were destroyed.
Anxiety and terror were the responses of those in England who listened to the wireless and accurately heeded the signs: horror at the rapid German advance and fear that the ‘Blitzkrieg’, or ‘lightning war’ would soon be visited upon their own country. The term well evoked the successive shock, terror and destruction that characterized the German military approach. Soon enough Britain would feel the force of its first wave. Hitler teased his next victim cruelly. At a rally he proclaimed, ‘They are asking themselves in England, “When will he come? Will he come?” I tell you: He is coming.’
Norway had done its best to remain neutral, but the Reich had invaded anyway. The Allies had sent forces against the great battleships that heaved their way up the fjords, but were soon obliged to withdraw. Britain’s first active engagement with the enemy had ended in humiliation at Narvik. On 7 May, the mood in the House of Commons was incandescent. Lloyd George openly called for Chamberlain to ‘sacrifice the seals of office’. Before proposing a division, Herbert Morrison of Labour reminded the House that defeat would be ‘a fatal and terrible thing for this country and, indeed, for the future of the human race’. Most celebrated is the appeal of Leo Amery, who, invoking Cromwell, urged: ‘In the name of God, go.’ The stern, succinct reproaches of Sir Roger Keyes, a war hero who had bedecked himself in full uniform for the occasion, carried perhaps more weight than anything. His refusal to blame any individual or party, and simple protest that it ‘was not the Navy’s fault’ was eloquent enough. As for Churchill, he had been reinstated as First Lord of the Admiralty on the day that war was declared, and thus felt bound to support the government he had so relentlessly attacked, whatever his private misgivings. When the results of the division were announced, the government found that its majority had been reduced to double figures. It was a defeat in all but name.