The Second World War - First Phase First Phase

THE SECOND WORLD WAR First Phase CONTENTS PREFACE 9 I RESIGNATION 15 II REFORM 40 III THE NEW SESSION 59 IV THE END OF THE YEAR 83 V THE NEW YEAR 105 VI THE LULL 137 VII THE IDES OF MARCH . 164 VIII ITALY 194 IX FRANCE 212 X REACTION 254 XI THE END OF THE SESSION 284 XII AUGUST 317 INDEX 343 PREFACE WRITTEN history is of two kinds the raw material and the finished product. The raw material is the stuff that is turned out while the events are happening speeches, articles, diaries, correspondence of all kinds, from the dispatches of ambassadors to the private letters of friends. Upon this mass of material the historian descends. Part of it he accepts, part he rejects. He finds there many con tradictions. Some have deliberately written what is false, others, misled by prejudice, have honestly blundered. Subsequent events will have helped to distinguish the truth from the falsehood. The further the historian is re moved from his subject the more scientific will be his approach to it, the cooler his judgment. But what he gains in detachment he loses in atmosphere. The longer the flesh has left the bones the harder it becomes to make it grow on them again in the likeness of life. This volume is concerned with some of the events of the last twelve months. It was suggested to me that I should write a history of that period. To do so at present would be impossible because tlje raw material of such a history is not available. A subaltern engaged in one corner of the field cannot describe a battle that is still in progress. Therefore since I cannot write a history I have thought well to publish some original documents, speeches and articles, which may at least serve the historian when he comes tohis task as evidence of how it struck a contem porary. PREFACE The value of such evidence must largely depend upon how far It Is selective and how far It Is complete. If I had selected from my speeches and articles of the last year only those which pleased me most in retrospect I should have failed even to present an accurate picture of what had taken place in the mind of one individual. If I had altered anything I should not only have failed but have falsified. For this reason I have reprinted every article that I have written during this period, nor have I altered a word except to correct a misprint. I have not however inflicted on the reader all my speeches because the majority of them have never been written down, and some of those in the House of Commons, where the record of Hansard remains, are of no general interest, such as those on the Army and Navy estimates. Where I have quoted a speech I have given the whole of it, as it was reported at the time. The producer of the finished article has another great advantage over the purveyor of the raw material he can select his period and assign to it a beginning and an end. History, it has been said, is a tragedy upon which the curtain is ever about to fall, and a book like the pre sent must suffer in consequence, because it deals with a problem that remains unsolved it tells a story of which the end is not yet. There is one other weakness in this volume which the reader may remark and of which the author is aware. It contains several repetitions which have been unavoidable owing to the system upon which it is planned. But my excuse for saying the same thing more than once is that I have been meaning the same thing all the time. I havemeant to convince my countrymen that we are at war 10 PREFACE with the most formidable adversary that we have ever faced. That the agreement of Munich was a defeat in that war and that we could only retrieve it by reorganiz ing our fighting forces on a new scale. I believed that such reorganization must demand the introduction of the compulsory principle, beginning with a national register and ending with conscription. I urged that we should seek the friendship of Russia and the support of the smaller European Powers...