British reactions to peace initiatives. That same
day contingency arrangements to evacuate the
BEF were acted on.
The last week of May 1940 was the most
critical and dramatic of the Second World War.
The full account of British Cabinet deliberations
on possible peace negotiations with Hitlerite
Germany only recently came to light, some so
secret that their record was kept in a special file.
Churchill’s ‘finest hour’ was to come: Britain
withstood the German Blitz, later that summer
and autumn. Government and people were deter-
mined to repel invasion from their shores. In
Churchill’s speeches the spirit of resolution and
the will to fight were accurately encapsulated. Yet,
the ‘finest hour’ might never have struck.
The picture of Churchill as the indomitable
war leader towering over colleagues is so deeply
etched in the history of the Second World War
that it comes as a surprise that his position as
prime minister during the first weeks of office
was far weaker than that enjoyed by any of his
predecessors since the fall of Lloyd George.
Chamberlain saw Churchill as the best war leader
for the duration of the conflict and he was also the
one Conservative whom Labour and Liberals
could agree to serve under. Churchill presided
over a small War Cabinet of five. Chamberlain and
Halifax, the two most powerful Conservatives,
were now joined by two Labour Party ministers,
Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood. But
Churchill was regarded with much suspicion by
many Conservatives, who continued to look to
Chamberlain for guidance. Within the War
Cabinet, Chamberlain’s role was still decisive. If
he sided with Halifax against Churchill, given the
continued party loyalty Chamberlain still enjoyed
and the overwhelming strength of the Conserva-
tives in the House of Commons, Churchill would
not be able to make his views prevail even with the
support of Labour and its two representatives in
the War Cabinet. The government might then
break up – as the French did – with disastrous
results at a moment of crisis. This political reality
has to be borne in mind when assessing what
Churchill, Chamberlain, Halifax, Attlee and
Greenwood said during the long hours of Cabinet
discussion in May 1940. What was at stake was
more than the fate of a government. Whether
Britain would remain in the war, the future of
Western Europe and the course of world history.
Halifax, the foreign secretary, made a deter-
mined bid to persuade the War Cabinet to sanc-
tion peace feelers. The Cabinet had authorised
him on 24 May to try to discover what terms
might keep Mussolini out of the war. But Halifax
went beyond his brief when he spoke to the
Italian ambassador on 25 May. He reported back
to the Cabinet on the morning of Sunday, 26
May, that the Italian ambassador had sounded
him out on whether the British government
would agree to a conference; according to the
ambassador, Mussolini’s principal wish was to
secure peace in Europe, and he wanted Italian and
British issues to be looked at as ‘part of a general
European settlement’. Halifax agreed emphati-
cally and replied that peace and security in Europe
were equally Britain’s main object and that ‘we
should naturally be prepared to consider any pro-
posal which might lead to this provided our
liberty and independence were assured’. In this
way efforts to keep Italy out of the war – efforts
that the Cabinet had already sanctioned involved
seeking Roosevelt’s good offices – were being
widened to draw in Germany and France in an
attempt to reach a general peace. Halifax now
wanted to secure the authorisation of the Cabinet
to seek the duce’s mediation for this purpose.
Churchill opposed Halifax; the prime minister’s
instincts were sound. Even if ‘decent’ terms were
offered in May 1940 they would have been no
safeguard against fresh demands later, once
Britain was at Hitler’s mercy. Churchill also knew
that if he consented to the commencement of any
negotiations it might then prove impossible to
fight on. He was therefore determined by any and
all means to block Halifax’s manoeuvres.
After the Cabinet meeting on the morning of
Sunday 26 May, Churchill lunched with the
French prime minister Paul Reynaud, who had
flown over from France. Churchill urged him to
keep France in the war. Reynaud, according to
Churchill, ‘dwelt not obscurely upon the possible
French withdrawal from the war’. Reynaud’s
immediate request was that negotiations should
be started to keep Italy out of the war by bribing
1
GERMANY’S WARS OF CONQUEST IN EUROPE, 1939–41 247
