Churchill: The Hinge of Fate

by EDWARD R. MURROW

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I AM certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am a prod.” (Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, February 11, 1942.)

“With all his faults, right or wrong, he was always for lighting; which is something.” (From Winston Churchill, of Marlborough.)

The Hinge of Fate (Houghton Mifflin, $6.00) is the fourth volume dealing with World War II, produced by that ancient and honorable son of the House of Commons — Winston Spencer Churchill. It is, I think, the most revealing document to come from the pen of this great craftsman of the English language. At the not inconsiderable age of seventyfive he demonstrates again that he is a reporter without equal, a diplomat of great skill, a man of war with the habit of command heavy upon him. No other man of the century has made and written such history. And Churchill the Historian supports Churchill the Statesman.

This chronicle begins in 1942 with the onslaught of Japan; with the prolonged exchanges between Mr. Churchill and Prime Minister Curtin of Australia.

Mr. Churchill has been criticized for burdening this book with so many cables, telegrams, minutes, and directives. His explanation, not defense, is in essence that he has had enough of being criticized as a “partial editor and sub-editor of history" and he prefers to give his readers the raw meat of official data which they may digest, if they are able. The difficulty is, of course, that by no means all of the documents are here presented. The selection is Mr. Churchill’s; and even giants are rumored to welcome additions to their strength. For example, Mr. Churchill gives us a glimpse of his exchange with General Auchinleck in the Desert in 1942. We find the Prime Minister advising the General as to enemy dispositions and what the General’s action should be; telling Auchinleck to withhold certain information in his communiqués in order that Reporter Churchill might divulge this information to the House of Commons.

Mr. Churchill’s chronicle moves to the fighting in the Malay Peninsula; the retreat to Singapore; more telegraphic argument between Mr. Curtin and Mr. Churchill; Mr. Churchill’s dismay that there were no permanent fortifications covering the landward side of the naval base in the city of Singapore. Then we are back to domestic politics: a vote of confidence in the House of Commons in the face of Far Eastern disasters, Mr. Churchill’s unsuccessful effort to persuade Sir Stafford Cripps to take the Ministry of Supply, the hostility between Lord Beaverbrook and Sir Stafford Cripps, Churchill trying to reshuffle his Cabinet to include Cripps; while the battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with the cruiser Prinz Eugen came out of Brest and ran the gantlet of the Channel, thereby creating more public dismay and resentment than was produced by the fall of Singapore. Mr. Churchill still isn’t quite sure what happened at Singapore, and implies that an inquiry should be held.

In the early months of 1942 disaster continued in Asia, while shipping losses mounted in the Atlantic. There were more differences between Mr. Churchill and the Australian government, the Prime Minister failing to realize why Australians didn’t react like Englishmen. Sir Stafford Cripps took off on his mission to India. Mr. Churchill makes it clear that his attitude toward the brightest jewel in the Crown had not changed in fifty years. He describes the desperate efforts to force convoys through to Murmansk, and he is unusually restrained in reporting the rough and surly answers he received from Stalin regarding both supplies and the second front.

But diplomacy, naval warfare, disposition of land forces, and domestic politics were not enough to occupy Mr. Churchill’s time. He was prodding the scientists and the airmen about GEE, OBOE, and WINDOW. He accepted responsibility for everything, but would accept no diminution of his own authority. He even found time to set down his ideas of the post-war Europe which was not to be dominated by “barbarism.”

Meanwhile he continued to prod Auchinleck to attack in the Desert. Rommel attacked first. Churchill counseled Auchinleck from a distance. The British were driven back, but it did not appear to occur to Mr. Churchill that if they could not hold on defense, they might not have had the force necessary to take the offensive against Rommel.

In March and April of ‘42 the correspondence between Churchill and Stalin became slightly more agreeable. Molotov arrived in London and stayed at the Prime Minister’s country place at Chequers, where there occurred “some remarkable incidents.” Mr. Molotov’s room “had been thoroughly searched by his police officers. The bed was the object of particular attention. The mattresses were all prodded in case of infernal machines; and the sheets and blankets were re-arranged by the Russians so as to leave an opening in the middle of the bed, out of which the occupant could spring at a moment’s notice, instead of being tucked in.”One night the sentries in the garden saw a chink of light showing through Mr. Molotov’s blackout curtains. The housekeeper at Chequers, “a Scottish lady in her prime, and of placid temperament,”went up and knocked at Mr. Molotov’s door. The door was opened about a foot, and Molotov confronted her with an automatic pistol in his right hand. Mr. Churchill believed that “the incident reveals one aspect of the gulf between the Soviet way of life and that of the Western Powers.”

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THROUGHOUT this volume Mr. Churchill exercises the utmost restraint in reporting his differences with Stalin, De Gaulle, and President Roosevelt. He devotes considerable space to critical debates in the House of Commons. And it is clear that a victory in the House pleased him only slightly less than a victory in the field. His affection and respect for Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins is never beneath the surface of his memory or his dispatches.

Regarding the deal with Admiral Darlan, Mr. Churchill deprecates purely military decisions, still retains his irritation with General de Gaulle, and fails to make clear that Admiral Darlan ordered the cease-fire in North Africa after the firing had ceased of its own accord. Darlan’s assassination “ relieved the Allies of their embarrassment at working with him.” Churchill the Parliamentarian is obviously not proud of the “Darlan Deal.” But Churchill the Man of War was and is persuaded that it contributed to victory, and he hopes the tortured Admiral may rest in peace.

Churchill is candid when he discusses the invitation to General de Gaulle to join the two giants at the Casablanca meeting. He says that Elliott Roosevelt hastened to write about the confidential talks he heard at the meals to which he was brought by his father. “He seems to suggest that the President suspected me of trying to stop De Gaulle coming, and objecting to his being brought there.” Churchill produces the cablegrams to refute this and says of young Mr. Roosevelt’s book: “This rubbish has had a wide and long currency.”

The phrase “unconditional surrender” gave Mr. Churchill a feeling of surprise when he heard the President use it at a press conference at Casablanca. He thinks perhaps it had been mentioned in prior conversations, but he isn’t sure. As usual, he takes his share of responsibility. And anyway, whatever the origin, he doesn’t think it was a mistake. It is not Mr. Churchill’s habit to regard decisions once taken as having been in error. He still believes that his desire to go into northern Norway instead of North Africa was correct, and it would be difficult to prove that he was wrong. He was impelled in part by a desire to bring more effective and immediate help to the Soviet Union, although he was under no illusion as to Russia’s past or probable future policy. And he was, during the period of this narrative, subjected to harassing and “needling” correspondence from Stalin.

The Hinge of Fate reveals Mr. Churchill as one of those rare Englishmen who can get along with foreigners; who insisted that only his view should prevail, after reasonable but not too long discussion. He clearly found his relations with American officers agreeable, although in recounting his experiences with Generals Eisenhower and Mark Clark he appears to neglect to report what might be called a typical Churchillian intervention.

On one occasion, during lunch at 10 Downing Street, General Clark so far forgot himself as to preface a remark to Mr. Churchill by saying: “Of course you civilians . . .” The General’s remaining words of wisdom were unspoken, because the Prime Minister growled at him: “Young man, I was killing people when you were puling and puking in your blanket.”

Throughout the war Mr. Churchill never really regarded himself as a civilian. He was quite prepared — as he did — to order his pilot to gain altitude in order to avoid a mountaintop which was nowhere near the course of flight. The habit of command was strong in this incredible individual with the restless, ranging mind, who throughout his life has found that green and pleasant Island too small a stage upon which to play.

He regarded himself, I suspect, as a great commander, unavoidably and unfortunately prevented from commanding armies in the field because his services were more urgently needed for the central and supreme direction of the war. He could scarcely endure to see a conflict looming over the horizon without being seized with an almost irresistible urge to grasp the English language in both hands and use it as a cudgel. His favorite adjectives appear to be “austere,” “sombre,” “sordid,” and “squalid.” He seldom employs a phrase that has lost its cutting edge.

He acknowledges only one master, which is the House of Commons, unless it be his wife, whose judgment of individuals and issues often surpasses his own, and who can and does interrupt what the late Harold Laski once called “those thunderous and well-rehearsed improvisations” with the remark: “Shut up, Winston, and listen to this.”

Mr. Churchill was, in his own words, “ brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.” But at the same time he cannot resist the attraction of an intoxicating phrase that rolls well off the tongue. He labors long over his public utterances and has the rare ability to taste a sentence before he writes or utters it. He was able, during the war years, to mobilize Elizabethan language in a manner that lifted the hearts of his fellow countrymen. He divined and tapped the wellsprings of their tradition, their fears, their hopes, and their arrogance.

He was and is an astounding combination of a gallant gambler, an aristocrat, an historian, and an early eighteenth century cavalry officer. At the same time his sense of humor labels him as one of the world’s indestructible juveniles.

He is, I think, the most considerable man to walk the stage of world history in the last fifty years. His own version of history will support his actions. He both made it and wrote it. Later historians who have access to full documentation may amend or reverse his conclusions. But he is, as they will be, the prisoner of experience.

In these four volumes, with which historians may disagree but which they cannot ignore, Winston Churchill has permitted himself two mild expressions of personal regret or bitterness. One, over the fact that the House of Commons refused him permission to install recording apparatus for one of his great speeches; and two, over the fact that the British electorate “turned him out to pasture" when victory had been achieved.

The four volumes contain a substantial clue as to why his fellow countrymen denied him political power when the fighting was done. He was, in a sense, scarcely aware of them. For him the battle was everything. He drove himself so hard in the intoxicating atmosphere of high command that he failed to realize that other millions of nameless Britons, without his heritage, ability, or vision, were driving themselves as relentlessly; that they had visions of a fuller measure of equality — milk and hot lunches for their children, decent houses, and “fair shares for all.”

I think it is true that most nations in time of war and dire peril dig back into their history, their folklore, and their traditions for support and sustenance. The British did that, and fortunately found them all wrapped up in one man. In the dark days they committed their present to his keeping. But they refused him the burden or the privilege of guiding their future.

This volume is Mr. Churchill’s version of the turning tide or the hinge of fate. Historians may disagree with him about Dieppe or Darlan. They may feel that he selected his documents to sustain his judgment. They may conclude, as I did at the time, that his popularity was greater in this country than it was in Britain—just as Roosevelt’s was greater in Britain than it was here. They may conclude that his knowledge of the past was so great as to becloud his perspective of the future.

I do not pretend to know upon what myth or fact future historians will agree. But I would hope that out of these four volumes, those to come, and all the footnotes and documents of the era, those historians will succeed in dredging up the essential greatness of Mr. Churchill.

That greatness is not, I suggest, his courage, his eloquence, patriotism, tenacity, or knowledge of history. His critics who condemn him for arrogance, for not having changed his mind for fifty years, for his imperialistic — or if you like, reactionary— utterances will, I hope, be confounded by a single fact. He truly regarded himself as a servant of the House of Commons. No democracy in modern time has been nearer than was Britain to the all-consuming flame of totalitarianism and survived. It was Mr. Churchill’s purpose — and policy that the nation he led should survive or perish in freedom, and in a manner calculated to bring applause and respect from ancestors and descendants. This adherence and scrupulous attention to parliamentary procedure may prove an example, a hinge of fate more powerful than anything recorded in these four volumes.

I find no indication that there was ever a time when Mr. Churchill could have lost the war in an afternoon. But there were certainly times when he could have destroyed, or at least irreparably damaged, the faith of the Western world that it can defend its freedom without losing it in the process.

The conduct, the character, and the behavior of Mr. Churchill and his fellow countrymen were more eloquent than any book even he is likely to write. It was proof of what he said in a moment of serious levity at Ottawa, in December of 1941: “We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”