[BITList] Second World War: the build up to war

[John Feltham]

Second World War: the build up to war

On September 3 1939, at 11:15, Britain went to war with Germany. Nigel Farndale describes the unbearable tension, the meticulous planning, and the strange sense of relief surrounding that day.

By Nigel Farndale


 17 Aug 2009


People queue for an air raid shelter in London
What truly connects us to the recent past, to the half-century before we were born, is not the history books we read. It is the thread of family memory; those moments we heard our grandparents or parents talk about.

I remember my grand-mother, in her nineties, telling me there were whole decades she couldn't account for; the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies had merged and clouded for her, and she struggled to remember any defining events from them. But there was one six-year period that would always come into sharp focus, and it began in the summer of 1939, 70 years ago this month.

The clarity, she reckoned, was to do with 'the intensity of experience' that occurs only at a time of war. The stakes were higher. The uncertainties more profound. Every news report, every false dawn, every detail of every anxious day seemed to sear itself into the memory. These in turn became collective memories, spooling down the generations, entering folklore.

Everyone, it is said, every English woman and man of a certain age at least, remembers where they were at 11.15am on Sunday September 3, the moment when the nation gathered around their wireless sets to hear Chamberlain announce that Britain was once more at war with Germany.

Yet what my generation will never be able to appreciate, however hard we try to empathise, was the fear it instilled. The air raid sirens went off around London almost immediately after the broadcast and such was the psychological terror the Nazis had created, Londoners immediately looked to the sky, expecting to see it black with murdering Luftwaffe bombers.

It was a false alarm but the reaction was telling. The Nazis seemed like a cold and invincible enemy, thanks in part to the efficiency of their propaganda, the scale of the Nuremburg rallies, the skull and crossbones insignia, the scream of Stukas as they dive-bombed.

The brutality of Kristallnacht was also fresh in the memory, as was the Alexander Korda film "Things to Come", which imagined a city not unlike London being reduced to rubble within minutes of war being declared.

'Chamberlain won't survive. His cabinet will fall…' 
Adolf Hitler, August 23 1939

The actual dates on which wars begin and end are the preserve of historians, a luxury of retrospect. Since March 1939, when Hitler broke the Munich Agreement by occupying Prague, the British people had been hoping for peace but expecting war. Yet no one knew when it would start, when it would end and what would be the outcome.

As chronicled in Outbreak 1939, a compelling new book by Terry Charman, the senior historian at the Imperial War Museum, the countdown to war began in earnest on August 19 when Stalin informed Hitler that his foreign secretary Molotov was prepared to receive his German counterpart Von Ribbentrop in Moscow.

A non-aggression pact was to be signed between the two countries. Hitler was jubilant. His greatest deception had worked and now, he calculated, there was nothing to prevent him invading Poland, certainly not the 'spineless' British or French.

Two days after this, the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee departed to take up its station off the coast of Brazil and, in another sign that war was imminent, 23 U-boats left their bases to take up their war stations in the Atlantic. Britain's war footing also began that day with a call-up of nurses; they were needed to perform a mass inoculation of the British Army. Poland, meanwhile, advised foreigners to leave.

Chamberlain sent an urgent note to Hitler: 'Whatever may prove to be the nature of the German-Soviet Agreement,' it read, 'it cannot alter Great Britain's obligation to Poland which His Majesty's government have stated in public repeatedly and plainly and which they are determined to fulfil.' The Fuhrer was scornful of this attempt at sabre rattling by the old appeaser.

On August 23, Hitler summoned the British ambassador Sir Nevile Henderson to the Reich Chancellery and flew into a theatrical rage, dismissing Chamberlain's message. Afterwards, he laughingly told staff, 'Chamberlain won't survive this discussion. His cabinet will fall this evening.'

The next day, in London, Parliament reconvened and passed the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939. In the streets and parks, volunteers were filling sandbags, tape was being placed over windows to minimise shattering, precious statues were being moved or covered and trenches were being dug.

The BBC announced that all schoolteachers were to return to their schools as soon as possible. This was a signal that evacuation was about to take place. Miss Vivienne Hall, a typist in Putney, wrote in her diary: 'New hats, frocks, coats, theatres and even holidays are forgotten and replaced by purchase of tinned foods, black curtains and adhesive tape. For 12 long, weary months we have lived with the threat that on such-and-such a date war will be declared and as each date passes nerves become more strained, the tension grows tighter and we wait with a jagged dread for the next date.'

The following day, Britain and Poland signed their five-year military mutual assistance agreement. In Berlin, Hitler again summoned Sir Nevile. He appeared to be more conciliatory now, telling the British ambassador that once the Polish 'question' was resolved, he was prepared to guarantee the continued independence of the British Empire.

It was an attempt to put a wedge between the British and the Polish. That same day, Hitler received a message from Mussolini informing him that Italy was in no position to render Germany any military assistance at the present time. This news brought about a rare change of mind. The Fuhrer decided to postpone his planned invasion of Poland for a few more days. It had been set for 4.30am on August 26.

On August 30, German troops began massing on the Polish border. All day long crowds gathered outside embassies and government buildings in London, Paris, Berlin and Warsaw awaiting news and watching the diplomatic comings and goings.

The following day, as the evacuation of three million children began in Britain, a poll showed that a large majority of British people still thought Hitler was bluffing. They couldn't have been more wrong – this was the day he issued his Directive No 1 for the Conduct of War. It concluded that the date and time of the attack on Poland was now fixed: September 1 at 4.45am.

In Katowice, Poland, The Daily Telegraph correspondent Clare Hollingsworth woke up suddenly to what sounded like doors slamming followed by the roar of planes. She ran to the window and saw 'the planes high in the sky and below them bursts of anti-aircraft fire'.

She rang her colleague Hugh Carlton Greene in Warsaw. He then rang Patrick Maitland from The Times, who drowsily acknowledging the news, fell back to sleep and woke again quarter of an hour later with a start.

'I read somewhere that they're going to move London to Canada, and I can well believe it' Band leader, Bolton, September 1 1939

In London, at 10.15am, the Defence Policy Plans Committee of the Cabinet decided on the total mobilisation of the British armed forces. Fifteen minutes later, the BBC reported the German invasion of Poland for the first time. Over in the foreign office, the chiefs of staff informed the foreign secretary, Lord Halifax, that they wanted war to be declared that night so that they could 'get at Germany as soon as possible' – 6pm would be good, because by then the children would be evacuated.

At 12.30pm a party of primary school children arrived at Victoria station. There were about 200 people to see them off, the vast majority women wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs. The children were all carrying gas masks and haversacks.

At 7.45pm the blackout came into force for the first time. As almost 2,000 Luftwaffe planes bombed Poland, Hitler told his staff in Berlin that he was supremely confident that 'Britain would chicken out'.

In her diary at 10.30pm Mayra Charlton of Takeley noted: 'Surely a nation has never gone to war so grim and disillusioned and coldly resentful as we are now.'

While looking at the evacuees in Liverpool, popular author Cecil Roberts wrote: 'So this was modern war in the progressive age, children were in it as much as the men in the trenches. There was no "front" any more.'

At 10.30am the following morning Evelyn Waugh sat in his house in Gloucestershire awaiting the arrival of his evacuees. As a precaution, he had removed all the valuable objects from the rooms that he was going to let them have.

At 1pm the Bolton dance bandleader was quoted as saying: 'I've been calm all week, but yesterday I listened to the news bulletin and I got a bad dose of the jitters. I read somewhere that they're going to move London to Canada, and I can well believe it.'

At 2pm Polish soldiers in Silesia surrendered to the Germans. They were thrown to the ground and driven over by tanks. This was one of many atrocities committed by the SS that day, mostly against civilians, including women and children who were bayoneted and burned in their houses.

At 7.44pm the Prime Minister made a statement to the House that if the German government should be ready to withdraw her forces then His Majesty's government would be willing to regard the position as the same as it was before German forces crossed the Polish frontier.

MPs were horrified by this apparent act of spinelessness. The problem, Chamberlain protested later, was that the French were vacillating about their own declaration of war. They wanted another 48 hours. At 9.50pm, he rang Daladier, the French Prime Minister, and told him of the angry scenes in the Commons. He also warned that if the French insisted on a delay then it would prove impossible to 'hold the situation' in London.

At 11pm the Cabinet met and decided that Britain would have to issue its ultimatum unilaterally. Hopefully this would shame the French into action. Hore-Belisha, the Minister of War, argued that the ultimatum should be given in three hours time, at 2am, to expire at 6am.

He was overruled and it was decided it should be delivered at 8am British time to expire at noon. The War Minister considered this interval too long, so it was changed to 11am – a fateful time in British military history, the hour of the Armistice. At midnight a thunderstorm broke out over London.

'There goes my singing career' Vera Lynn, 
September 1 1939

In Berlin, at 3am, Henderson received instructions that he was to seek a meeting with Von Ribbentrop to present the British ultimatum at 9am local time. The text was being prepared.

In a calculated snub, the bumptious Von Ribbentrop sent word that he would not be available at that time but that his interpreter Dr Paul Schmidt would be able to see Henderson. Schmidt, an altogether more clubbable man, overslept and only just made it to his desk by the time the British ambassador arrived.

Henderson declined an offer to sit and then read out the British ultimatum. On a personal note he added: 'I am sincerely sorry that I must hand such a document to you in particular, as you have always been most anxious to help.' Schmidt returned the compliment and the two men shook hands. After this, Schmidt hurried to the Reich Chancellery.

The BBC announced at 10am London time that the ultimatum was due to expire at 11am and that the Prime Minister would address the nation at 11.15.

At 11.14 Chamberlain made his way to the Cabinet Room where a microphone had been installed. Outside Number 10 a large crowd had formed. They stood silently. An announcer said: 'This is London. The Prime Minster.'

Then Chamberlain's voice was heard. According to many diarists and commentators, it sounded 'sad and tired'. 'This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.'

At the end of his announcement the national anthem was played. A schoolmistress in the shires noted in her diary: 'I held my chin high and kept back the tears at the thought of the slaughter ahead.'

Tom Driberg, the journalist, heard the announcement at a London church. 'That's that,' the vicar said when it had finished. Driberg thought this a 'characteristically English way of acknowledging the news'.

In Barking, Vera Lynn listened with her parents in the garden. Her first thought was: 'There goes my singing career'.

'The first day of war!'

Vivienne Hall, typist, 
September 1 1939

Into the eerie silence that followed the broadcast in London came the sound of an air siren.

The Churchills, in their flat in Westminster, joked that it was a sign of German punctuality. They headed for the top of the building to see what was going on and saw 30 or so barrage balloons begin to rise, silver against the blue sky. They then headed for the nearest shelter with a bottle of brandy.

Noël Coward over in St John's Wood felt 'a sudden coldness in the heart and an automatic tensing of the muscles'. It was a false alarm, but an alarm none the less.

At noon, the House of Commons sat for the first time on a Sunday since 1820. It was packed. A number of the MPs were now in uniform, some wearing the spurs of cavalry officers, others the Royal Air Force blue. Among those observers seated on the diplomats' benches was the 22-year-old Jack Kennedy. He was accompanying his father, the US Ambassador Joseph Kennedy.

At 6pm the King made his broadcast. It wasn't as bad as people thought it would be, given his speech impediment. People spoke of 'war nerves' but there was also, perhaps, a sense of relief that the waiting was finally over. At 7.40pm, a U-boat sank the SS Athenia, an unarmed passenger liner bound for the United States.

A 10-year-old girl on board became the first Western civilian to be killed in the war. At 11.45pm Vivienne Hall noted in her diary: 'The first day of war! How long will this diary be by the time I type "The last days of war"?' "These war-time batteries are so frightfully weak!" "She says she can't knit any other kind"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/6043113/Second-World-War-the-build-up-to-war.html





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20100814/3ed160da/attachment-0001.shtml