16
Suspense and Preparation — The Forward Leap, December 7/8 — Complete Success — Pleasure in Parliament — My Messages to Mr. Menzies and General Wavell — “Frappez la Masse” — The Gospel of St. Matthew — Bardia, January 3 — Tobruk, January 21 — One Hundred and Thirteen Thousand Prisoners and Over Seven Hundred Guns Taken — Ciano’s Diaries — Mussolini’s Reactions — My Warnings to the House About the Future — The U-Boat Menace — My Broadcast to the Italian People — “One Man, and One Man Only, Guilty” — The Revolt in Abyssinia — Return of the Emperor — Attempts to Redeem Vichy — My Message to Marshal Pétain and to General Weygand — Plans for Liberating Jibouti; “Operation Marie” — Airfields in Greece and Turkey — A Wealth of Alternatives — The End of the Year — I Receive a Letter from the King — My Reply, January 5 — Glory of the British Nation and Empire — The Flag of Freedom Flies — Mortal Peril Impends.
BEFORE a great enterprise is launched the days pass slowly. The remedy is other urgent business, of which there was at this time certainly no lack. I was myself so pleased that our generals would take the offensive that I did not worry unduly about the result. I grudged the troops wasted in Kenya and Palestine and on internal security in Egypt; but I trusted in the quality and ascendancy of the famous regiments and long-trained professional officers and soldiers to whom this important matter was confided. Eden also was confident, especially in General Wilson, who was to command the battle; but then they were both “Greenjackets,” 1 and had fought as such in the previous war. Meanwhile, outside the small group who knew what was going to be attempted, there was plenty to talk about and do.
For a month or more all the troops to be used in the offensive practised the special parts they had to play in the extremely complicated attack. The details of the plan were worked out by Lieutenant-General Wilson and Major-General O’Connor, and General Wavell paid frequent visits of inspection. Only a small circle of officers knew the full scope of the plan, and practically nothing was put on paper. To secure surprise, attempts were made to give the enemy the impression that our forces had been seriously weakened by the sending of reinforcements to Greece and that further withdrawals were contemplated. On December 6 our lean, bronzed, desert-hardened, and completely mechanised army of about twenty-five thousand men leaped forward more than forty miles, and all next day lay motionless on the desert sand unseen by the Italian Air Force. They swept forward again on December 8, and that evening, for the first time, the troops were told that this was no desert exercise, but the “real thing.” At dawn on the 9th the battle of Sidi Barrani began.
It is not my purpose to describe the complicated and dispersed fighting which occupied the next four days over a region as large as Yorkshire. Everything went smoothly; Nibeiwa was attacked by one brigade at 7 A.M., and in little more than an hour was completely in our hands. At 1.30 P.M. the attack on the Tummar camps opened, and by nightfall practically the whole area and most of its defenders were captured. Meanwhile, the 7th Armoured Division had isolated Sidi Barrani by cutting the coast road to the west. Simultaneously the garrison of Mersa Matruh, which included the Coldstream Guards, had also prepared their blow. At first light on the 10th, they assaulted the Italian positions on their front, supported by heavy fire from the sea. Fighting continued all day, and by ten o’clock the Coldstream Battalion Headquarters signalled that it was impossible to count the prisoners on account of their numbers, but that “there were about five acres of officers and two hundred acres of other ranks.”
At home in Downing Street they brought me hour-to-hour signals from the battlefield. It was difficult to understand exactly what was happening, but the general impression was favourable, and I remember being struck by a message from a young officer in a tank of the 7th Armoured Division, “Have arrived at the second B in Buq Buq.” I was able to inform the House of Commons on the 10th that active fighting was in progress in the desert; that five hundred prisoners had been taken and an Italian general killed; and also that our troops had reached the coast. “It is too soon to attempt to forecast either the scope or the result of the considerable operations which are in progress. But we can at any rate say that the preliminary phase has been successful.” That afternoon Sidi Barrani was captured.
From December 11 onward the action consisted of a pursuit of the Italian fugitives by the 7th Armoured Division, followed by the 16th British Infantry Brigade (motorized) and the 6th Australian Division, which had relieved the 4th Indian Division. On December 12, I could tell the House of Commons that the whole coastal region around Buq Buq and Sidi Barrani was in the hands of British and Imperial troops and that seven thousand prisoners had already reached Mersa Matruh.
We do not yet know how many Italians were caught in the encirclement, but it would not be surprising if at least the best part of three Italian divisions, including numerous Blackshirt formations, have been either destroyed or captured. The pursuit to the westward continues with the greatest vigour. The Air Force are now bombing, the Navy are shelling the principal road open to the retreating enemy, and considerable additional captures have already been reported.
While it is still too soon to measure the scale of these operations, it is clear that they constitute a victory which, in this African theatre of war, is of the first order, and reflects the highest credit upon Sir Archibald Wavell, Sir Henry Maitland-Wilson, the Staff officers who planned this exceedingly complicated operation, and the troops who performed the remarkable feats of endurance and daring which accomplished it. The whole episode must be judged upon the background of the fact that it is only three or four months ago that our anxieties for the defence of Egypt were acute. Those anxieties are now removed, and the British guarantee and pledge that Egypt would be effectually defended against all comers has been in every way made good.
The moment the victory of Sidi Barrani was assured – indeed, on December 12 – General Wavell took on his own direct initiative a wise and daring decision. Instead of holding back in general reserve on the battlefield the 4th British Indian Division, which had just been relieved, he moved it at once to Eritrea to join the 5th British Indian Division for the Abyssinian campaign under General Platt. The division went partly by sea to Port Sudan, and partly by rail and boat up the Nile. Some of them moved practically straight from the front at Sidi Barrani to their ships, and were in action again in a theatre seven hundred miles away very soon after their arrival. The earliest units arrived at Port Sudan at the end of December, and the movement was completed by January 21. The division joined in the pursuit of the Italians from Kassala, which they had evacuated on January 19, to Keren, where the main Italian resistance was encountered. General Platt had, as we shall see, a hard task at Keren, even with his two British Indian Divisions, the 4th and 5th. Without this farseeing decision of General Wavell’s the victory at Keren could not have been achieved and the liberation of Abyssinia would have been subject to indefinite delays. The immediate course of events both on the North African shore and in Abyssinia proved how very justly the Commander-in-Chief had measured the values and circumstances of the situations.
I hastened to offer my congratulations to all concerned, and to urge pursuit to the utmost limit of strength.
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Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt. |
13.XII.40. |
I am sure you will be pleased about our victory in Libya. This, coupled with the Albanian reverses, may go hard with Mussolini if we make good use of our success. The full results of the battle are not yet to hand, but if Italy can be broken, our affairs will be more hopeful than they were four or five months ago.
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Mr. Churchill to Mr. Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia. |
13.XII.40. |
I am sure you will be heartened by the fine victory the Imperial armies have gained in Libya. This, coupled with his Albanian disasters, may go hard with Mussolini. Remember that I could not guarantee a few months ago even a successful defence of the Delta and Canal. We ran sharp risks here at home in sending troops, tanks, and cannon all round the Cape while under the threat of imminent invasion, and now there is a reward. We are planning to gather a very large army representing the whole Empire and ample sea-power in the Middle East, which will face a German lurch that way, and at the same time give us a move eastward in your direction, if need be. Success always demands a greater effort. All good wishes.
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Prime Minister to General Wavell. |
13.XII.40. |
I send you my heartfelt congratulations on your splendid victory, which fulfils our highest hopes. The House of Commons was stirred when I explained the skilful staff work required, and daring execution by the Army of its arduous task. The King will send you a message as soon as full results are apparent. Meanwhile, pray convey my thanks and compliments to Wilson and accept the same yourself.
The poet Walt Whitman says that from every fruition of success, however full, comes forth something to make a greater struggle necessary. Naturally, pursuit will hold the first place in your thoughts. It is at the moment when the victor is most exhausted that the greatest forfeit can be exacted from the vanquished. Nothing would shake Mussolini more than a disaster in Libya itself. No doubt you have considered taking some harbour in Italian territory to which the Fleet can bring all your stuff and which will give you a new jumping-off point to hunt them along the coast until you come up against real resistance. It looks as if these people were corn ripe for the sickle. I shall be glad to hear from you your thoughts and plans at earliest….
As soon as you come to a full stop along the African coast we can take a new view of our prospects and several attractive choices will be open.
By December 15 all enemy troops had been driven from Egypt. The greater part of the Italian forces remaining in Cyrenaica had withdrawn within the defences of Bardia, which was now isolated. This ended the first phase of the battle of Sidi Barrani, which resulted in the destruction of the greater part of five enemy divisions. Over 38,000 prisoners were taken. Our own casualties were 133 killed, 387 wounded, and 8 missing.
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Prime Minister to General Wavell. |
16.XII.40. |
The Army of the Nile has rendered glorious service to the Empire and to our cause, and we are already reaping rewards in every quarter. We are deeply indebted to you, Wilson, and other commanders, whose fine professional skill and audacious leading have gained us the memorable victory of the Libyan Desert. Your first objective now must be to maul the Italian army and rip them off the African shore to the utmost possible extent. We were very glad to learn your intentions against Bardia and Tobruk, and now to hear of the latest captures of Sollum and Capuzzo. I feel convinced that it is only after you have made sure that you can get no farther that you will relinquish the main hope in favour of secondary action in the Soudan or Dodecanese. The Soudan is of prime importance, and eminently desirable, and it may be that the two Indian brigades [i.e., the 4th British Indian Division] can be spared without prejudice to the Libyan pursuit battle. The Dodecanese will not get harder for a little waiting. But neither of them ought to detract from the supreme task of inflicting further defeats upon the main Italian army. I cannot, of course, pretend to judge special conditions from here, but Napoleon’s maxim, “Frappez la masse et tout le reste vient par surcroit,” seems to ring in one’s ears. I must recur to the suggestion made in my previous telegram about amphibious operations and landings behind the enemy’s front to cut off hostile detachments and to carry forward supplies and troops by sea.
Pray convey my compliments and congratulations to Longmore on his magnificent handling of the R.A.F. and fine co-operation with the Army. I hope most of the new Hurricanes have reached him safely. Tell him we are filling up Furious again with another even larger packet of flyables from Takoradi. He will also get those that are being carried through in [Operation] “Excess.” Both these should arrive early in January.
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Prime Minister to General Wavell. |
18.XII.40. |
St. Matthew, Chapter VII, verse 7.2
General Wavell to Prime Minister.
St. James, Chapter I, verse 17.3
* * * * *
Bardia was our next objective. Within its perimeter, seventeen miles in extent, was the greater part of four more Italian divisions. The defences comprised a continuous anti-tank ditch and wire obstacles with concrete block-houses at intervals, and behind this was a second line of fortifications. The storming of this considerable stronghold required preparation. The 7th Armoured Division prevented all enemy escape to the north and northwest. For the assault there were available the 6th Australian Division, the 16th British Infantry Brigade, the 7th Battalion Royal Tank Regiment (twenty-six tanks), one machine-gun battalion, one field and one medium regiment of corps artillery.
To complete this episode of desert victory, I shall intrude upon the New Year. The attack opened early on January 3. One Australian battalion, covered by a strong artillery concentration, seized and held a lodgment in the western perimeter. Behind them engineers filled in the anti-tank ditch. Two Australian brigades carried on the attack and swept east and southeastward. They sang at that time a song they had brought with them from Australia which soon spread to Britain.
Have you heard of the wonderful wizard,
The wonderful Wizard of Oz,
And he is a wonderful wizard,
If ever a wizard there was.
This tune always reminds me of these buoyant days. By the afternoon of the 4th, British tanks – “Matildas,” as they were named – supported by infantry, entered Bardia, and by the 5th all the defenders had surrendered. Forty-five thousand prisoners and 462 guns were taken.
By next day, January 6, Tobruk in its turn had been isolated by the 7th Armoured Division, and on the 7th the leading Australian brigade stood before its eastern defences. Here the perimeter was twenty-seven miles long and similar to that of Bardia, except that the anti-tank ditch at many points was not deep enough to be effective. The garrison consisted of one complete infantry division, a corps headquarters, and a mass of remnants from the forward areas. It was not possible to launch the assault till January 21, when, under a strong barrage, another Australian brigade pierced the perimeter on its southern face. The two other brigades of the division entered the bridgehead thus formed, swinging off to left and right. By nightfall one-third of the defended area was in our hands, and early next morning all resistance ceased. The prisoners amounted to nearly 30,000, with 236 guns. The Desert Army had in five weeks advanced over two hundred miles of waterless and foodless space, had taken by assault two strongly fortified seaports with permanent air and marine defences, and captured 113,000 prisoners and over 700 guns. The great Italian army which had invaded and hoped to conquer Egypt scarcely existed as a military force, and only the imperious difficulties of distance and supplies delayed an indefinite British advance to the west.
Throughout these operations vigorous support was provided by the Fleet. Bardia and Tobruk were in turn heavily bombarded from the sea, and the Fleet Air Arm played its part in the battle on land. Above all, the Navy sustained the Army in its advance by handling about three thousand tons of supplies a day for the forward troops, besides maintaining an invaluable ferry service for personnel through the captured ports. Our victorious army was also greatly indebted for their success to the mastery which the Royal Air Force gained over the Regia Aeronautica. Although in inferior numbers, the aggressiveness of our pilots soon established a complete moral ascendancy that gave them the freedom of the air. Our attacks on enemy airfields reaped a rich reward, and hundreds of their aircraft were later found wrecked and abandoned.
* * * * *
It is always interesting to see the reactions of the other side. The reader is already acquainted with Count Ciano, and should not be too hard on weak people who follow easily into wrong courses the temptations of affluence and office. Those who have successfully resisted all such temptations should form the tribunal. When Ciano faced the firing-squad he paid his debts to the full. Villains are made of a different texture. We must not however imagine that it is better to be a rare villain than a Ciano or one of the multitudinous potential Cianos.
We have the Ciano diaries, jotted down each day.4 The diary:
December 8: Nothing new.
December 9: Intrigues against Badoglio.
December 10: News of the attack on Sidi Barrani comes like a thunderbolt. At first it doesn’t seem serious, but subsequent telegrams from Graziani confirm that we have had a licking.
Ciano saw his father-in-law twice on this day and found him very calm. “He comments on the event with impersonal objectivity … being more preoccupied with Graziani’s prestige.” On the 11th it was known in the inner circle at Rome that four Italian divisions must be considered destroyed, and, even worse, Graziani dwelt upon the daring and design of the enemy rather than upon any counter-measures of his own. Mussolini maintained his composure. “He maintains that the many painful days through which we are living must be inevitable in the changing fortunes of every war.” If the British stopped at the frontier nothing serious would have happened. If, on the contrary, they reached Tobruk, “he thinks the situation would verge on the tragic.” In the evening the Duce learned that five divisions had been “pulverised” in two days. Evidently there was something wrong with this army!
On December 13 a “catastrophic telegram” came from Graziani. He contemplated retiring as far as Tripoli, “in order to keep the flag flying on that fortress at least.” He was indignant that he should have been forced into so hazardous an advance upon Egypt by Rommel’s undue influence on Mussolini. He complained that he had been forced into a struggle between “a flea and an elephant.” Apparently the flea had devoured a large portion of the elephant. On the 15th, Ciano was himself by no means sure that the English would be content to stop at the frontier, and records his opinion in that sense. Graziani, in default of military deeds, served up to his master bitter recriminations. Mussolini remarked, perhaps with some justice, “Here is another man with whom I cannot get angry, because I despise him.” He still hoped that the British advance would be stopped at least at Derna.
* * * * *
I had kept the House daily informed of our progress in the desert, and on December 19, I made a long statement on the general war position. I described the improvement of our home defence and urged increasing vigilance. We must expect a continuance of the air attacks, and the organisation of shelters, the improvement of sanitation, and the endeavour to mitigate the extremely bad conditions under which people had to get their night’s rest was the first task of the Government at home. “The Air-Raid Precautions, the Home Office, and the Ministry of Health are just as much in the front line as are the armoured columns which are chasing the Italians about the Libyan Desert.”
I also thought it necessary to utter a warning about the sinkings in the Atlantic.
They still continue at a very disquieting level; not so bad as in the critical period of 1917, but still we must recognise the recrudescence of the danger, which a year ago we seemed to have mastered. We shall steadily increase, from now on, our resources in flotillas and other methods of defence, but we must regard the keeping-open of this channel to the world against submarines and the long-distance aircraft, which are now attacking, as the first of all of our military tasks.
* * * * *
I thought it the moment to address the Italian people by the broadcast, and on the night of December 23 I reminded them of the long friendship between Britain and Italy. Now we were at war.
… Our armies are tearing and will tear the African army to shreds and tatters…. What is all this about? What is all this for?
Italians, I will tell you the truth. It is all because of one man. One man and one man alone has ranged the Italian people in deadly struggle against the British Empire, and has deprived Italy of the sympathy and intimacy of the United States of America. That he is a great man I do not deny, but that after eighteen years of unbridled power he has led your country to the horrid verge of ruin can be denied by none. It is one man who, against the Crown and Royal Family of Italy, against the Pope and all the authority of the Vatican and of the Roman Catholic Church, against the wishes of the Italian people, who had no lust for this war, has arrayed the trustees and inheritors of ancient Rome upon the side of the ferocious pagan barbarians.
I read out the message I had sent to Mussolini on becoming Prime Minister and his reply of May 18, 1940, and I continued:
Where is it that the Duce has led his trusting people after eighteen years of dictatorial power? What hard choice is open to them now? It is to stand up to the battery of the whole British Empire on sea, in the air, and in Africa, and the vigorous counter-attack of the Greek nation; or, on the other hand, to call in Attila over the Brenner Pass with his hordes of ravenous soldiery and his gangs of Gestapo policemen to occupy, hold down, and protect the Italian people, for whom he and his Nazi followers cherish the most bitter and outspoken contempt that is on record between races.
There is where one man and one man only has led you; and there I leave this unfolding story until the day comes – as come it will – when the Italian nation will once more take a hand in shaping its own fortunes.
It is curious that on this same day Mussolini, speaking of the morale of the Italian Army, remarked to Ciano,5 “I must nevertheless recognise that the Italians of 1914 were better than these. It is not flattering for the regime, but that’s how it is.” And the next day, looking out of the window, “This snow and cold are very good. In this way our good-for-nothing Italians, this mediocre race, will be improved.” Such were the bitter and ungrateful reflections which the failure of the Italian Army in Libya and Albania had wrung from the heart of this dark figure after six months of aggressive war on what he had thought was the decadent British Empire.
* * * * *
This was a time when events were so fluid that every possible stroke had to be studied beforehand, and thus the widest choice of action lay open to us. Our victory in Libya had already stimulated the revolt against Italy in Abyssinia. I was most anxious that the Emperor, Haile Selassie, should re-enter his country as he desired to do. The Foreign Office thought this step premature. I deferred to the judgment of the new Secretary of State, but the delay was short, and the Emperor, eager to run all risks, was soon back on his native soil.
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(Action this day.) |
30.XII.40. |
It would seem that every effort should be made to meet the Emperor of Ethiopia’s wishes. We have already, I understand, stopped our officers from entering the Galla country. It seems a pity to employ battalions of Ethiopian deserters, who might inflame the revolt, on mere road-making. We have sixty-four thousand troops in Kenya, where complete passivity reigns, so they surely could spare these road-makers. On the first point, I am strongly in favour of Haile Selassie entering Abyssinia. Whatever differences there may be between the various Abyssinian tribes, there can be no doubt that the return of the Emperor will be taken as a proof that the revolt has greatly increased, and will be linked up with the rumours of our victory in Libya.
I should be glad if a favourable answer could be drafted for me to send to the Emperor.
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Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary. |
31.XII.40. |
One would think the Emperor would be the best judge of when to risk his life for his throne. In your Minute you speak of our being “stampeded into premature and possibly catastrophic action.” I do not wish at all to be “stampeded,” but I should like to know some of the reasons why nothing is to be done for some months yet by the Emperor. I should have hoped the telegram to him could have been more forthcoming, and the one to Sir Miles Lampson rather more positive. These are, however, only matters of emphasis, and if with your knowledge you are apprehensive of giving more clear guidance I do not press for alteration of the telegrams.
The question of what pledges we give to Haile Selassie about his restoration, and what are our ideas about the Italian position in East Africa, assuming that our operations prosper, as they may, is one which I was glad to hear from you this morning is receiving Foreign Office attention.
* * * * *
Finally, I was most anxious to give Vichy its chance to profit by the favourable turn of events. There is no room in war for pique, spite, or rancour. The main objective must dominate all secondary causes of vexation. For some weeks past the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the General Staff of the War Office had been preparing an Expeditionary Force of six divisions, and making plans, if the French attitude should become favourable, to land in Morocco. We had the advantage of M. Dupuy, the Canadian representative at Vichy, as a channel of communication with Marshal Pétain. It was necessary to keep the United States informed; for I already sensed the President’s interest in Tangier, Casablanca, and indeed in the whole Atlantic seaboard of Africa, the German occupation of which by U-boat bases was held by the American military authorities to endanger the security of the United States. Accordingly, with the full approval of the Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet, the following message was sent by the hand of M. Dupuy to Vichy and notified by the Foreign Office to our Chargé d’Affaires in Washington.
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Prime Minister to Marshal Pétain. |
31.XII.40. |
If at any time in the near future the French Government decide to cross to North Africa or resume the war there against Italy and Germany, we should be willing to send a strong and well-equipped Expeditionary Force of up to six divisions to aid the defence of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis. These divisions could sail as fast as shipping and landing facilities were available. We now have a large, well-equipped army in England, and have considerable spare forces already well trained and rapidly improving, apart from what are needed to repel invasion. The situation in the Middle East is also becoming good.
2. The British Air Force has now begun its expansion, and would also be able to give important assistance.
3. The command of the Mediterranean would be assured by the reunion of the British and French Fleets and by our joint use of Moroccan and North African bases.
4. We are willing to enter into Staff talks of the most secret character with any military representatives nominated by you.
5. On the other hand, delay is dangerous. At any time the Germans may, by force or favour, come down through Spain, render unusable the anchorage at Gibraltar, take effective charge of the batteries on both sides of the Straits, and also establish their air forces in the aerodromes. It is their habit to strike swiftly, and if they establish themselves on the Moroccan coast the door would be shut on all projects. The situation may deteriorate any day and prospects be ruined unless we are prepared to plan together and act boldly. It is most important that the French Government should realise that we are able and willing to give powerful and growing aid. But this may presently pass beyond our power.
A similar message was sent by another hand to General Weygand, now Commander-in-Chief at Algiers. No answer of any kind was returned from either quarter.
* * * * *
At this stage we may review the numerous tasks and projects for which plans and in most cases preparations had been made and approval in principle obtained. The first was of course the defence of the island against invasion. We had now armed and equipped, though not in all cases at the highest standard of modern equipment, nearly thirty high-class mobile divisions, a large proportion of whom were Regulars, and all of whose men had been under intense training for fifteen months. Of these we considered that, apart from the coastal troops, fifteen would be sufficient to deal with oversea invasion. The Home Guard, now more than a million men, had rifles and some cartridges in their hands, apart from our reserve. We therefore had twelve or fifteen divisions available for offensive action overseas as need and opportunity arose. The reinforcement of the Middle East, and especially of the Army of the Nile, from Australia and New Zealand and from India, had already been provided for by shipping and by other arrangements. As the Mediterranean was still closed, very long voyages and many weeks were required for all these convoys and their escorts.
Secondly, in case Vichy or the French in North Africa should rally to the common cause, we had prepared an Expeditionary Force of six divisions, with an air component, for an unopposed and assisted landing in Moroccan Atlantic ports, principally Casablanca. Whether we could move this good army to Morocco or to Ceuta, opposite Gibraltar, more rapidly than the Germans could come in equal numbers and equipment through Spain depended upon the degree of Spanish resistance. We could however, if invited, and if we liked it, land at Cadiz to support the Spaniards.
Thirdly, in case the Spanish Government yielded to German pressure and became Hitler’s ally or co-belligerent, thus making the harbour at Gibraltar unusable, we held ready a strong brigade with four suitable fast transports to seize or occupy some of the Atlantic islands. Alternatively, if the Portuguese Government agreed that we might for this purpose invoke the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance of 1373, “Friends to friends, and foes to foes,” we might set up with all speed a base in the Cape Verde Islands. This operation, called “Shrapnel,” would secure us the necessary air and refueling bases to maintain naval control of the critical stretch of the route round the Cape.
Fourthly, a French de Gaullist brigade from England, with West African reinforcements, was to be sent round the Cape to Egypt in order to effect the capture of Jibouti in case conditions there became favourable (“Operation Marie”).6
Preparations were also being made to reinforce Malta, particularly in air power (“Operation Winch”), with the object of regaining control of the passage between Sicily and Tunis. As an important element in this policy, plans had been made for the capture by a brigade of commandos, of which Sir Roger Keyes wished to take personal command, of the rocky islet of Pantellaria (“Operation Workshop”). Every effort was ordered to be made to develop a strong naval and air base in Crete at Suda Bay, pending the movement thither of any reinforcements for its garrison which a change in the Greek situation might require. We were developing airfields in Greece both to aid the Greek Army and to strike at Italy, or if necessary at the Rumanian oilfields. Similarly, the active development of airfields in Turkey and technical assistance to the Turks was in progress.
Finally the revolt in Abyssinia was being fanned by every means, and respectable forces were based on Khartoum to strike in the neighbourhood of Kassala, on the White Nile, against the menace of the large Italian army in Abyssinia. A movement was planned for a joint military and naval advance from Kenya up the East African coast towards the Red Sea to capture the Italian fortified seaports of Assab and Massawa, with a view to the conquest of the Italian colony of Eritrea.
Thus I was able to lay before the War Cabinet a wide choice of carefully considered and detailed enterprises which could at very short notice be launched against the enemy, and certainly from among them we could find the means for an active and unceasing overseas offensive warfare, albeit on a secondary scale, with which to relieve and adorn our conduct of the war during the early part of 1941, throughout which the building up of our main war strength in men and munitions, in aircraft, tanks and artillery, would be continuously and immensely expanded.
* * * * *
As the end of the year approached both its lights and its shadows stood out harshly on the picture. We were alive. We had beaten the German Air Force. There had been no invasion of the island. The Army at home was now very powerful. London had stood triumphant through all her ordeals. Everything connected with our air mastery over our own island was improving fast. The smear of Communists who obeyed their Moscow orders gibbered about a capitalist-imperialist war. But the factories hummed and the whole British nation toiled night and day, uplifted by a surge of relief and pride. Victory sparkled in the Libyan Desert, and across the Atlantic the Great Republic drew ever nearer to her duty and our aid.
At this time I received a very kind letter from the King.
SANDRINGHAM,
January 2, 1941.
My dear Prime Minister,
I must send you my best wishes for a happier New Year, and may we see the end of this conflict in sight during the coming year. I am already feeling better for my sojourn here; it is doing me good, and the change of scene and outdoor exercise is acting as a good tonic. But I feel that it is wrong for me to be away from my place of duty, when everybody else is carrying on. However, I must look upon it as medicine and hope to come back refreshed in mind and body, for renewed efforts against the enemy.
I do hope and trust you were able to have a little relaxation at Christmas with all your arduous work. I have so much admired all you have done during the last seven months as my Prime Minister, and I have so enjoyed our talks together during our weekly luncheons. I hope they will continue on my return, as I do look forward to them so much.
I hope to pay a visit to Sheffield 7 next Monday. I can do it from here in the day….
With renewed good wishes,
I remain,
Yours very sincerely,
GEORGE. R. I.
I expressed my gratitude, which was heartfelt.
January 5, 1941.
Sir,
I am honoured by Your Majesty’s most gracious letter. The kindness with which Your Majesty and the Queen have treated me since I became First Lord and still more since I became Prime Minister has been a continuous source of strength and encouragement during the vicissitudes of this fierce struggle for life. I have already served Your Majesty’s father and grandfather for a good many years as a Minister of the Crown, and my father and grandfather served Queen Victoria, but Your Majesty’s treatment of me has been intimate and generous to a degree that I had never deemed possible.
Indeed, Sir, we have passed through days and weeks as trying and as momentous as any in the history of the English Monarchy, and even now there stretches before us a long, forbidding road. I have been greatly cheered by our weekly luncheons in poor old bomb-battered Buckingham Palace, and to feel that in Your Majesty and the Queen there flames the spirit that will never be daunted by peril nor wearied by unrelenting toil. This war has drawn the Throne and the people more closely together than was ever before recorded, and Your Majesties are more beloved by all classes and conditions than any of the princes of the past. I am indeed proud that it should have fallen to my lot and duty to stand at Your Majesty’s side as First Minister in such a climax of the British story, and it is not without good and sure hope and confidence in the future that I sign myself “on Bardia Day,” when the gallant Australians are gathering another twenty thousand Italians prisoners,
Your Majesty’s faithful and devoted
servant and subject,
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
* * * * *
We may, I am sure, rate this tremendous year as the most splendid, as it was the most deadly, year in our long English and British story. It was a great, quaintly organised England that had destroyed the Spanish Armada. A strong flame of conviction and resolve carried us through the twenty-five years’ conflict which William II and Marlborough waged against Louis XIV. There was a famous period with Chatham. There was the long struggle against Napoleon, in which our survival was secured through the domination of the seas by the British Navy under the classic leadership of Nelson and his associates. A million Britons died in the First World War. But nothing surpasses 1940. By the end of that year this small and ancient island, with its devoted Commonwealth, Dominions and attachments under every sky, had proved itself capable of bearing the whole impact and weight of world destiny. We had not flinched or wavered. We had not failed. The soul of the British people and race had proved invincible. The citadel of the Commonwealth and Empire could not be stormed. Alone, but upborne by every generous heartbeat of mankind, we had defied the tyrant in the height of his triumph.
All our latent strength was now alive. The air terror had been measured. The island was intangible, inviolate. Henceforward we too would have weapons with which to fight. Henceforward we too would be a highly organised war machine. We had shown the world that we could hold our own. There were two sides to the question of Hitler’s world domination. Britain, whom so many had counted out, was still in the ring, far stronger than she had ever been, and gathering strength with every day. Time had once again come over to our side. And not only to our national side. The United States was arming fast and drawing ever nearer to the conflict. Soviet Russia, who with callous miscalculation had adjudged us worthless at the outbreak of the war, and had bought from Germany fleeting immunity and a share of the booty, had also become much stronger and had secured advanced positions for her own defence. Japan seemed for the moment to be overawed by the evident prospect of a prolonged world war, and, anxiously watching Russia and the United States, meditated profoundly what it would be wise and profitable to do.
And now this Britain, and its far-spread association of states and dependencies, which had seemed on the verge of ruin, whose very heart was about to be pierced, had been for fifteen months concentrated upon the war problem, training its men and devoting all its infinitely varied vitalities to the struggle. With a gasp of astonishment and relief the smaller neutrals and the subjugated states saw that the stars still shone in the sky. Hope and within it passion burned anew in the hearts of hundreds of millions of men. The good cause would triumph. Right would not be trampled down. The flag of Freedom, which in this fateful hour was the Union Jack, would still fly in all the winds that blew.
But I and my faithful colleagues who brooded with accurate information at the summit of the scene had no lack of cares. The shadow of the U-boat blockade already cast its chill upon us. All our plans depended upon the defeat of this menace. The Battle of France was lost. The Battle of Britain was won. The Battle of the Atlantic had now to be fought.