Then came a shattering
explosion, and a great pillar of water rose in the darkness. Prien
waited some minutes to fire another salvo. Tubes ready. Fire. The
torpedoes hit amidships, and there followed a series of crashing
explosions. H.M.S. Royal Oak sank, with the loss of 786 officers and
men, including Rear-Admiral H. E. C. Blagrove [Rear-Admiral Second
Battle Squadronsuccessful offensive in Libya. Pray, after an examination of
whole problem with Wavell and Smuts, do not hesitate to make
proposals for action on large scale at expense of other sectors,
and ask for any further aid you require from here, including
aircraft and anti-aircraft [batteriesand found an air raid in
progress. The day was very cloudy and it was raining hard. The
Queen and I went upstairs to a small sitting-room overlooking the
370
Quadrangle (I could not use my usual sitting-room owing to the
broken windows by former bomb damage). All of a sudden we
heard the zooming noise of a diving aircraft getting louder and
louder, and then saw two bombs falling past the opposite side of
Buckingham Palace into the Quadrangle. We saw the flashes and
heard the detonations as they burst about eighty yards away.
The blast blew in the windows opposite to us, and two great
craters had appeared in the Quadrangle. From one of these
craters water from a burst main was pouring out and flowing into
the passage through the broken windows. The whole thing
happened in a matter of seconds and we were very quickly out
into the passage. There were six bombs: two in the Forecourt,
two in the Quadrangle, one wrecked the Chapel, and one in the
garden.
The King, who as a sub-lieutenant had served in the Battle of Jutland, was
exhilarated by all this, and pleased that he should be sharing the dangers of
his subjects in the capital. I must confess that at the time neither I nor any of
my colleagues were aware of the peril of this particular incident. Had the
windows been closed instead of open, the whole of the glass would have
splintered into the faces of the King and Queen, causing terrible injuries. So
little did they make of it all that even I, who saw them and their entourage so
frequently, only realised long afterwards, when making inquiries for writing
this book, what had actually happened.
In those days we viewed with stern and tranquil gaze the idea of going down
fighting amid the ruins of Whitehall. His Majesty had a shooting-range made
in the Buckingham Palace garden, at which he and other members of his
family and his equerries practised assiduously with pistols and tommy-guns.
Presently I brought the King an American short-range carbine, from a number
which had been sent to me. This was a very good weapon.
About this time the King changed his practice of receiving me in a formal
weekly audience at about five o?clock which had prevailed during my first two
months of office. It was now arranged that I should lunch with him every
Tuesday. This was certainly a very agreeable method of transacting State
business, and sometimes the Queen was present. On several occasions we all
had to take our plates and glasses in our hands and go down to the shelter,
which was making progress, to finish our meal. The weekly luncheons became
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a regular institution. After the first few months His Majesty decided that all
servants should be excluded, and that we should help ourselves and help each
other. During the four and a half years that this continued, I became aware of
the extrordinary diligence with which the King read all the telegrams and
public documents submitted to him. Under the British Constitutional system
the Sovereign has a right to be made acquainted with everything for which his
Ministers are responsible, and has an unlimited right of giving counsel to his
Government. I was most careful that everything should be laid before the
King, and at our weekly meetings he frequently showed that he had mastered
papers which I had not yet dealt with. It was a great help to Britain to have so
good a King and Queen in those fateful years, and as a convinced upholder of
constitutional monarchy I valued as a signal honour the gracious intimacy with
which I, as First Minister, was treated, for which I suppose there has been no
precedent since the days of Queen Anne and Marlborough during his years of
power.
* * * * *
This brings us to the end of the year, and for the sake of continuity I have
gone ahead of the general war. The reader will realise that all this clatter and
storm was but an accompaniment to the cool processes by which our war
effort was maintained and our policy and diplomacy conducted. Indeed, I
must record that at the summit these injuries, failing to be mortal, were a
positive stimulant to clarity of view, faithful comradeship and judicious action.
It would be unwise, how-ever, to suppose that if the attack had been ten or
twenty times as severe ? or even perhaps two or three times as severe ? the
healthy reactions I have described would have followed.
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A Hidden Conflict ? Lindemann?s Services ? Progress of Radar ? The
German Beam ? Mr. Jones?s Tale ? Principle of the Split Beam or
?Knickebein? ? Twisting the Beam ? Goering?s Purblind Obstinacy ? The XApparatus
? Coventry, November 14/15 ? The Decoy Fires ? The YApparatus
Forestalled ? Frustration of the Luftwaffe ? Triumph of British
Science ? Our Further Plans ? The Rocket Batteries ? General Pile?s
Command and the Air Defences of Great Britain ? The Aerial Mine Curtains ?
The Proximity Fuze ? The Prospect of Counter-Attack ? The Expansion of
?Air Defence Great Britain. ?
D URING THE HUMAN STRUGGLE between the British and German Air Forces,
between pilot and pilot, between anti-aircraft batteries and aircraft, between
ruthless bombing and the fortitude of the British people, another conflict was
going on step by step, month by month. This was a secret war, whose battles
were lost or won unknown to the public, and only with difficulty
comprehended, even now, to those outside the small high scientific circles
concerned. No such warfare had ever been waged by mortal men. The terms
in which it could be recorded or talked about were unintelligible to ordinary
folk. Yet if we had not mastered its profound meaning and used its mysteries
even while we saw them only in the glimpse, all the efforts, all the prowess of
the fighting airmen, all the bravery and sacrifices of the people, would have
been in vain. Unless British science had proved superior to German, and
unless its strange sinister resources had been effectively brought to bear on
the struggle for survival, we might well have been defeated, and, being
defeated, destroyed.
A wit wrote ten years ago: ?The leaders of thought have reached the horizons
of human reason; but all the wires are down, and they can only communicate
4
The Wizard War
373
with us by unintelligible signals.? Yet upon the discerning of these signals and
upon the taking of right and timely action on the impressions received
depended our national fate and much else. I knew nothing about science, but
I knew something of scientists, and had had much practice as a Minister in
handling things I did not understand. I had, at any rate, an acute military
perception of what would help and what would hurt, of what would cure and
of what would kill. My four years? work upon the Air Defence Research
Committee had made me familiar with the outlines of radar problems. I
therefore immersed myself so far as my faculties allowed in this Wizard War,
and strove to make sure that all that counted came without obstruction or
neglect at least to the threshold of action. There were no doubt greater
scientists than Frederick Lindemann, though his credentials and genius
command respect. But he had two qualifications of vital consequence to me.
First, as these pages have shown, he was my trusted friend and confidant of
twenty years. Together we had watched the advance and onset of world
disaster. Together we had done our best to sound the alarm. And now we
were in it, and I had the power to guide and arm our effort. How could I have
the knowledge?
Here came the second of his qualities. Lindemann could decipher the signals
from the experts on the far horizons and explain to me in lucid, homely terms
what the issues were. There are only twenty-four hours in the day, of which at
least seven must be spent in sleep and three in eating and relaxation. Anyone
in my position would have been ruined if he had attempted to dive into depths
which not even a lifetime of study could plumb. What I had to grasp were the
practical results, and just as Lindemann gave me his view for all it was worth
in this field, so I made sure by turning on my power -relay that some at least
of these terrible and incomprehensible truths emerged in executive decisions.
* * * * *
Progress in every branch of radar was constant and unceasing during 1939,
but even so the Battle of Britain, from July to September, 1940, was, as I
have described, fought mainly by eye and ear. I comforted myself at first in
these months with the hope that the fogs and mist and cloud which
accompany the British winter and shroud the island with a mantle would at
least give a great measure of protection against accurate bombing by day and
still more in darkness.
374
For some time the German bombers had navigated largely by radio beacons.
Scores of these were planted like lighthouses in various parts of the Continent,
each with its own call-sign, and the Germans, using ordinary directional
wireless, could fix their position by the angles from which any two of these
transmissions came. To counter this we soon installed a number of stations
which we called ?Meacons.? These picked up the German signals, amplified
them, and sent them out again from somewhere in England. The result was
that the Germans, trying to home on their beams, were often led astray, and
a number of hostile aircraft were lost in this manner. Certainly one German
bomber landed voluntarily in Devonshire thinking it was France.
However, in June I received a painful shock. Professor Lindemann reported to
me that he believed the Germans were preparing a device by means of which
they would be able to bomb by day or night whatever the weather. It now
appeared that the Germans had developed a radio beam which, like an
invisible searchlight, would guide the bombers with considerable precision to
their target. The beacon beckoned to the pilot, the beam pointed to the
target. They might not hit a particular factory, but they could certainly hit a
city or town. No longer, therefore, had we only to fear the moonlight nights,
in which at any rate our fighters could see as well as the enemy, but we must
even expect the heaviest attacks to be delivered in cloud and fog.
Lindemann told me also that there was a way of bending the beam if we
acted at once, but that I must see some of the scientists, particularly the
Deputy Director of Intelligence Research at the Air Ministry, Dr. R. V. Jones, a
former pupil of his at Oxford. Accordingly with anxious mind I convened on
June 21 a special meeting in the Cabinet Room, at which about fifteen persons
were present, including Sir Henry Tizard and various Air Force Commanders. A
few minutes late, a youngish man ? who, as I afterwards learnt, had thought
his sudden summons to the Cabinet Room must be a practical joke ? hurried
in and took his seat at the bottom of the table. According to plan, I invited
him to open the discussion.
For some months, he told us, hints had been coming from all sorts of sources
on the Continent that the Germans had some novel mode of night-bombing on
which they placed great hopes. In some way it seemed to be linked with the
code-word ?Knickebein? (curtsey) which our Intelligence had several times
mentioned, without being able to explain. At first it had been thought that the
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enemy had got agents to plant beacons in our cities on which their bombers
could home; but this idea had proved untenable. Some weeks before, two or
three curious squat towers had been photographed in odd positions near the
coast. They did not seem the right shape for any known form of radio or
radar. Nor were they in places which could be explained on any such
hypothesis. Recently a German bomber had been shot down with apparatus
which seemed more elaborate than was required for night-landing by the
Lorenz beam, which appeared to be the only known use for which it might be
intended. For this and various other reasons, which he wove together into a
cumulative argument, it looked as if the Germans might be planning to
navigate and bomb on some sort of system of beams. A few days before
under cross-examination on these lines, a German pilot had broken down and
admitted that he had heard that something of the sort was in the wind. Such
was the gist of Mr. Jones?s tale.
For twenty minutes or more he spoke in quiet tones, unrolling his chain of
circumstantial evidence, the like of which for its convincing fascination was
never surpassed by tales of Sherlock Holmes or Monsieur Lecoq. As I listened,
the Ingoldsby Legends jingled in my mind:
But now one Mr. Jones
Comes forth and depones
That, fifteen years since, he had heard certain
groans
On his way to Stone Henge (to examine the stones
Described in a work of the late Sir John
Soane?s)
That he?d followed the moans,
And, led by their tones,
Found a Raven a-picking a Drummer-boy?s bones!
When Mr. Jones had finished, there was a general air of incredulity. One high
authority asked why the Germans should use a beam, assuming that such a
thing was possible, when they had at their disposal all the ordinary facilities of
navigation. Above twenty thousand feet the stars were nearly always visible.
All our own pilots were laboriously trained in navigation, and it was thought
they found their way about and to their targets very well. Others round the
table appeared concerned.
376
* * * * *
I will now explain in the kind of terms which I personally can understand how
the German beam worked and how we twisted it. Like the searchlight beam,
the radio beam cannot be made very sharp; it tends to spread; but if what is
called the ?split-beam? method is used, considerable accuracy can be
obtained. Let us imagine two searchlight beams parallel one to another, both
flickering in such a way that the left-hand beam comes on exactly when the
right-hand beam goes out, and vice versa. If an attacking aircraft was exactly
in the centre between the two beams, the pilot?s course would be continuously
illuminated; but if it got, say, a little bit to the right, nearer the centre of the
right-hand beam, this would become the stronger and the pilot would observe
the flickering light, which was no guide. By keeping in the position where he
avoided the flickerings, he would be flying exactly down the middle, where the
light from both beams is equal. And this middle path would guide him to the
target. Two split beams from two stations could be arranged to cross over any
town in the Midlands or Southern England. The German airman had only to fly
along one beam until he detected the second, and then to drop his bombs.
Q.E.D.!
This was the principle of the split beam and the celebrated ?Knickebein?
apparatus, upon which Goering founded his hopes, and the Luftwaffe were
taught to believe that the bombing of English cities could be maintained in
spite of cloud, fog, and darkness, and with all the immunity, alike from guns
and intercepting fighters, which these gave to the attacker. With their logical
minds and deliberate large-scale planning, the German High Air Command
staked their fortunes in this sphere on a device which, like the magnetic mine,
they thought would do us in. Therefore, they did not trouble to train the
ordinary bomber pilots, as ours had been trained, in the difficult art of
navigation. A far simpler and surer method, lending itself to drill and large
numbers, producing results wholesale by irresistible science, attracted alike
their minds and their nature. The German pilots followed the beam as the
German people followed the Fuehrer. They had nothing else to follow.
But, duly forewarned, and acting on the instant, the simple British had the
answer. By erecting the proper stations in good time in our own country we
could jam the beam. This would, of course, have been almost immediately
realised by the enemy. There was another and superior alternative. We could
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put a repeating device in such a position that it strengthened the signal from
one half of the split beam and not from the other. Thus the hostile pilot, trying
to fly so that the signals from both halves of the split beam were equal, would
be deflected from the true course. The cataract of bombs which would have
shattered, or at least tormented, a city would fall fifteen or twenty miles away
in an open field. Being master, and not having to argue too much, once I was
convinced about the principles of this queer and deadly game, I gave all the
necessary orders that very day in June for the existence of the beam to be
assumed, and for all counter-measures to receive absolute priority. The
slightest reluctance or deviation in carrying out this policy was to be reported
to me. With so much going on, I did not trouble the Cabinet, or even the
Chiefs of the Staff. If I had encountered any serious obstruction, I should of
course have appealed and told a long story to these friendly tribunals. This,
however, was not necessary, as in this limited and at that time almost occult
circle obedience was forthcoming with alacrity, and on the fringes all
obstructions could be swept away.
About August 23, the first new Knickebein stations, near Dieppe and
Cherbourg, were trained on Birmingham, and a large-scale night offensive
began. We had, of course, our ?teething troubles? to get through; but within a
few days the Knickebein beams were deflected or jammed, and for the next
two months, the critical months of September and October, the German
bombers wandered around England bombing by guesswork, or else being
actually led astray.
One instance happened to come to my notice. An officer in my Defence Office
sent his wife and two young children to the country during the London raids.
Ten miles away from any town, they were much astonished to see a series of
enormous explosions occurring three fields away. They counted over a
hundred heavy bombs. They wondered what the Germans could be aiming at,
and thanked God they were spared. The officer mentioned the incident the
next day, but so closely was the secret kept, so narrow was the circle, so
highly specialised the information, that no satisfactory explanation could be
given to him, even in his intimate position. The very few who knew exchanged
celestial grins.
The German air crews soon suspected that their beams were being mauled.
There is a story that during these two months nobody had the courage to tell
Goering that his beams were twisted or jammed. In his ignorance he pledged
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himself that this was impossible. Special lectures and warnings were delivered
to the German Air Force, assuring them that the beam was infallible, and that
anyone who cast doubt on it would be at once thrown out. We suffered, as
has been described, heavily under the Blitz, and almost anyone could hit
London anyhow. Of course, there would in any case have been much
inaccuracy, but the whole German system of bombing was so much disturbed
by our counter-measures, added to the normal percentage of error, that not
more than one-fifth of their bombs fell within the target areas. We must
regard this as the equivalent of a considerable victory, because even the fifth
part of the German bombing, which we got, was quite enough for our comfort
and occupation.
* * * * *
The Germans, after internal conflicts, at last revised their methods. It
happened, fortunately for them, that one of their formations, Kampf Gruppe
100, was using a special beam of its own. It called its equipment the ?X
apparatus,? a name of mystery which, when we came across it, threw up an
intriguing challenge to our Intelligence. By the middle of September we had
found out enough about it to design counter-measures, but this particular
jamming equipment could not be produced for a further two months. In
consequence Kampf Gruppe 100 could still bomb with accuracy. The enemy
hastily formed a pathfinder group from it, which they used to raise fires in the
target area by incendiary bombs, and these became the guide for the rest of
the de-Knickebeined Luftwaffe.
Coventry, on November 14/15, was the first target attacked by the new
method. Although our new jamming had now started, a technical error
prevented it from becoming effective for another few months. Even so, our
knowledge of the beams was helpful. From the settings of the hostile beams
and the times at which they played we could forecast the target and the time,
route and height of attack. Our night-fighters had, alas! at this date neither
the numbers nor the equipment to make much use of the information. It was
nevertheless invaluable to our fire -fighting and other Civil Defence services.
These could often be concentrated in the threatened area and special
warnings given to the population before the attack started. Presently our
counter-measures improved and caught up with the attack. Meanwhile decoy
fires, code-named ?Starfish,? on a very large scale were lighted by us with the
right timing in suitable open places to lead the main attack astray, and these
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sometimes achieved remarkable results.
By the beginning of 1941 we had mastered the ?X apparatus?; but the
Germans were also thinking hard, and about this time they brought in a new
aid called the ?Y apparatus.? Whereas the two earlier systems had both used
cross-beams over the target, the new system used only one beam, together
with a special method of range-finding by radio, by which the aircraft could be
told how far it was along the beam. When it reached the correct distance, it
dropped its bombs. By good fortune and the genius and devotion of all
concerned, we had divined the exact method of working the ?Y apparatus?
some months before the Germans were able to use it in operations, and by
the time they were ready to make it their pathfinder, we had the power to
render it useless. On the very first night when the Germans committed
themselves to the ?Y apparatus,? our new counter-measures came into action
against them. The success of our efforts was manifest from the acrimonious
remarks heard passing between the pathfinding aircraft and their controlling
ground stations by our listening instruments. The faith of the enemy air crews
in their new device was thus shattered at the outset, and after many failures
the method was abandoned. The bombing of Dublin on the night of May
30/31, 1941, may well have been an unforeseen and unintended result of our
interference with ?Y.?
General Martini, the German chief in this sphere, has since the war admitted
that he had not realised soon enough that the ?high-frequency war? had
begun, and that he underrated the British Intelligence and counter-measures
organisation. Our exploitation of the strategic errors which he made in the
Battle of the Beams diverted enormous numbers of bombs from our cities
during a period when all other means of defence either had failed or were still
in their childhood. These were, however, rapidly improving under the pressure
of potentially mortal attack. Since the beginning of the war we had brought
into active production a form of air-borne radar called ?A.I.,? on which the Air
Defence Research Committee had fruitfully laboured from 1938 onward, and
with which it was hoped to detect and close on enemy bombers. This
apparatus was too large and too complicated for a pilot to operate himself. It
was, therefore, installed in two-seater Blenheims, and later in Beaufighters, in
which the observer operated the radar, and directed his pilot until the enemy
aircraft became visible and could be fired on ? usually at night about a
hundred yards away. I had called this device in its early days ?the Smeller,?
and longed for its arrival in action. This was inevitably a slow process.
380
However, it began. A widespread method of ground-control interception grew
up and came into use. The British pilots, with their terrible eight-gun batteries,
in which cannon-guns were soon to play their part, began to close ? no longer
by chance but by system ? upon the almost defenceless German bombers.
The enemy?s use of the beams now became a positive advantage to us. They
gave clear warning of the time and direction of the attacks, and enabled the
night-fighter squadrons in the areas affected and all their apparatus to come
into action at full force and in good time, and all the anti-aircraft batteries
concerned to be fully manned and directed by their own intricate science, of
which more later. During March and April the steadily rising rate of loss of
German bombers had become a cause of serious concern to the German war
chiefs. The ?erasing? of British cities had not been found so easy as Hitler had
imagined. It was with relief that the German Air Force received their orders in
May to break off the night attacks on Great Britain and to prepare for action in
another theatre.
Thus, the three main attempts to conquer Britain after the fall of France were
successively defeated or prevented. The first was the decisive defeat of the
German Air Force in the Battle of Britain during July, August, and September.
Instead of destroying the British Air Force and the stations and air factories on
which it relied for its life and future, the enemy themselves, in spite of their
preponderance in numbers, sustained losses which they could not bear. Our
second victory followed from our first. The German failure to gain command of
the air prevented the cross-Channel invasion. The prowess of our fighter
pilots, and the excellence of the organisation which sustained them, had in
fact rendered the same service ? under conditions indescribably different ? as
Drake and his brave little ships and hardy mariners had done three hundred
and fifty years before, when, after the Spanish Armada was broken and
dispersed, the Duke of Parma?s powerful army waited helplessly in the Low
Countries for the means of crossing the Narrow Seas.
The third ordeal was the indiscriminate night-bombing of our cities in mass
attacks. This was overcome and broken by the continued devotion and skill of
our fighter pilots, and by the fortitude and endurance of the mass of the
people, and notably the Londoners, who, together with the civil organisations
which upheld them, bore the brunt. But these noble efforts in the high air and
in the flaming streets would have been in vain if British science and British
brains had not played the ever-memorable and decisive part which this
381
chapter records.
* * * * *
There is a useful German saying, ?The trees do not grow up to the sky.?
Nevertheless, we had every reason to expect that the air attack on Britain
would continue in an indefinite crescendo. Until Hitler actually invaded Russia
we had no right to suppose it would die away and stop. We therefore strove
with might and main to improve the measures and devices by which we had
hitherto survived and to find new ones. The highest priority was assigned to
all forms of radar study and application. Scientists and technicians were
engaged and organised on a very large scale. Labour and material were made
available to the fullest extent. Other methods of striking down the hostile
bomber were sought tirelessly, and for many months to come these efforts
were spurred by repeated, costly, and bloody raids upon our ports and cities. I
will mention three developments, constantly referred to in the Appendices to
this Volume, in which, at Lindemann?s prompting and in the light of what we
had studied together on the Air Defence Research Committee of pre-war
years, I took special interest and used my authority. These were, first, the
massed discharge of rockets, as a reinforcement of our anti-aircraft batteries;
secondly, the laying of aerial mine curtains in the path of a raiding force by
means of bombs with long wires descending by parachutes; thirdly, the search
for fuzes so sensitive that they did not need to hit their target, but would be
set off by merely passing near an aircraft. Of these three methods on which
we toiled with large expenditure of our resources, some brief account must
now be given.
None of these methods could come to fruition in 1940. At least a year stood
between us and practical relief. By the time we were ready to go into action
with our new apparatus and methods, the enemy attack they were designed
to meet came suddenly to an end, and for nearly three years we enjoyed
almost complete immunity from it. Critics have therefore been disposed to
underrate the value of these efforts, which could only be proved by major
trial, and in any case in no way obstructed other developments in the same
sphere.
* * * * *
By itself beam-distortion was not enough. Once having hit the correct target,
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it was easy for the German bombers, unless they were confused by our
?Starfish? decoy fires, to return again to the glow of the fires they had lit the
night before. Somehow they must be clawed down. For this we developed two
new devices, rockets and aerial mines. By fitting our antiaircraft batteries with
radar, it was possible to predict the position of an enemy aircraft accurately
enough, provided it continued to fly in a straight line at the same speed; but
this is hardly what experienced pilots do. Of course they zigzagged or
?weaved,? and this meant that in the twenty or thirty seconds between firing
the gun and the explosion of the shell they might well be half a mile or so
from the predicted point.
A wide yet intense burst of fire round the predicted point was an answer.
Combinations of a hundred guns would have been excellent, if the guns could
have been produced and the batteries manned and all put in the right place at
the right time. This was beyond human power to achieve. But a very simple,
cheap alternative was available in the rocket, or, as it had been called for
secrecy, the Unrotated Projectile (U.P.). Even before the war Dr. Crow, in the
days of the Air Defence Research Committee, had developed two-inch and
three-inch rockets which could reach almost as high as our anti-aircraft guns.
The three-inch rocket carried a much more powerful warhead than a threeinch
shell. It was not so accurate. On the other hand, rocket projectors had
the inestimable advantage that they could be made very quickly and easily in
enormous numbers without burdening our hard-driven gun factories.
Thousands of these U.P. projectors were made, and some millions of rounds
of ammunition. General Sir Frederick Pile, an officer of great distinction, who
was in command of our anti-aircraft ground defences throughout the war, and
who was singularly free from the distaste for novel devices so often found in
professional soldiers, welcomed this accession to his strength. He formed
these weapons into huge batteries of ninety-six projectors each, manned
largely by the Home Guard, which could produce a concentrated volume of
fire far beyond the power of anti-aircraft artillery.
I worked in increasing intimacy throughout the war with General Pile, and
always found him ingenious and serviceable in the highest degree. He was at
his best not only in these days of expansion, when his command rose to a
peak of over three hundred thousand men and women and twenty-four
hundred guns, apart from the rockets, but also in the period which followed
after the air attack on Britain had been beaten off. Here was a time when his
task was to liberate the largest possible numbers of men from static defence
383
by batteries, and, without diminishing the potential fire-power, to substitute
the largest proportion of women and Home Guard for regulars and
technicians. But this is a story which must be told in its proper place.
The task of General Pile?s command was not merely helped by the work of our
scientists; as the battle developed, their aid was the foundation on which all
stood. In the daylight attacks of the Battle of Britain, the guns had accounted
for two hundred and ninety-six enemy aircraft, and probably destroyed or
damaged seventy-four more. But the night raids gave them new problems
which, with their existing equipment of only searchlights and sound locators,
could not be surmounted. In four months from October 1 only about seventy
aircraft were destroyed. Radar came to the rescue. The first of these sets for
directing gunfire was used in October, and Mr. Bevin and I spent most of the
night watching them. The searchlight beams were not fitted till December.
However, much training and experience were needed in their use, and many
modifications and refinements in the sets themselves were found necessary.
Great efforts were made in all this wide field, and the spring of 1941 brought
a full reward.
During the attacks on London in the first two weeks of May ? the last of the
German offensive ? over seventy aircraft were destroyed, or more than the
four winter months had yielded. Of course, in the meanwhile the number of
guns had grown. In December there had been 1450 heavy guns and 650 light;
in May there were 1687 heavy guns, 790 light, with about 40 rocket
batteries.1 But the great increase in the effectiveness of our gun defences was
due in its origin to the new inventions and technical improvements which the
scientists put into the soldiers? hands, and of which the soldiers made such
good use.
* * * * *
By the middle of 1941, when at last the rocket batteries began to come into
service in substantial numbers, air attack had much diminished, so that they
had few chances of proving themselves. But when they did come into action,
the number of rounds needed to bring down an aircraft was little more than
that required by the enormously more costly and scanty anti-aircraft guns, of
which we were so short. The rockets were good in themselves, and also an
addition to our other means of defence.
384
Shells or rockets alike are, of course, only effective if they reach the right spot
and explode at the right moment. Efforts were therefore made to produce
aerial mines suspended on long wires floating down on parachutes which
could be laid in the path of the enemy air squadrons. It was impossible to
pack these into shells. But a rocket, with much thinner walls, has more room.
A certain amount of three-inch rocket ammunition, which could lay an aerial
minefield on wires seven hundred feet long at heights up to twenty thousand
feet, was made and held ready for use against mass attacks on London. The
advantage of such minefields over shell-fire is, of course, that they remain
lethal for anything up to a minute. For wherever the wing hits the wire, it pulls
up the mine until it reaches the aircraft and explodes. There is thus no need
for exact fuze -setting, as with ordinary shells.
Aerial mines could, of course, be placed in position by rockets laid by aircraft,
or simply raised on small balloons. The last method was ardently supported by
the Admiralty. In fact, however, the rockets were never brought into action on
any considerable scale. By the time they were manufactured in large numbers,
mass attacks by bombers had ceased. Nevertheless, it was surprising and
fortunate that the Germans did not develop this counter to our mass-bombing
raids in the last three years of the war. Even a few minelaying aircraft would
have been able to lay and maintain a minefield over any German city, which
would have taken a toll of our bombers the more deadly as numbers grew.
* * * * *
There was another important aspect. In 1940, the dive-bomber seemed to be
a deadly threat to our ships and key-factories. One might think that aircraft
diving on a ship would be easy to shoot down, as the gunner can aim straight
at them without making allowance for their motion. But an aeroplane end on
is a very small target and a contact fuze will work only in the rare event of a
direct hit. To set a time fuze so that the shell explodes at the exact moment
when it is passing the aircraft is almost impossible. An error in timing of onetenth
of a second causes a miss of many hundreds of feet. It therefore
seemed worth while to try to make a fuze which would detonate automatically
when the projectile passed near to the target, whether it actually hit it or not.
As there is little space in the head of a shell, the roomier head of the threeinch
rocket was attractive. While I was still at the Admiralty in 1940 we
385
pressed this idea. Photo-electric (P.E.) cells were used which produced an
electrical impulse whenever there was a change of light, such as the shade of
the enemy plane. By February, 1940, we had a model which I took to the
Cabinet, and showed my colleagues after one of our meetings. When a
matchbox was thrown past the fuze, it winked perceptibly with its
demonstration lamp. The cluster of Ministers who gathered round, including
the Prime Minister, were powerfully impressed. But there is a long road
between a grimacing model and an armed mass-production robot. We worked
hard at the production of the so-called P.E. fuzes, but here again by the time
they were ready in any quantity, our danger and their hour had for the
moment passed.
Attempts were made in 1941 to design a similar proximity fuze, using a tiny
radar set arranged to explode the warhead when the projectile passed near
the aircraft. Successful preliminary experiments were made, but before this
fuze was developed in England, the Americans, to whom we imparted our
knowledge, actually succeeded not only in perfecting the instrument but in
reducing its size so much that the whole thing could be put into the head not
merely of a rocket but of a shell. These so-called ?Proximity Fuzes, ? made in
the United States, were used in great numbers in the last year of the war, and
proved potent against the small unmanned aircraft (V-1) with which we were
assailed in 1944, and also in the Pacific against Japanese aircraft.
* * * * *
The final phase of ?The Wizard War? was, of course, the radar developments
and inventions required for our counter-attack upon Germany. These
suggested themselves to some extent from our own experiences and
defensive efforts. The part they played will be described in future volumes. In
September, 1940, we had nearly nine long months ahead of us of heavy
battering and suffering before the tide was to turn. It may be claimed that
while struggling, not without success, against the perils of the hour, we bent
our thoughts steadily upon the future when better times might come.
AIR DEFENCE GREAT BRITAIN
386
387
My Appeal for Fifty American Destroyers ? Lord Lothian?s Helpfulness ? My
Telegram to President Roosevelt of July 31 ? Our Offer to Lease Bases in the
West Indies ? My Objections to Bargaining About the Fleet ? Further
Telegram to the President of August 15 ? The President ?s Statement ? My
Speech in Parliament of August 20 ? Telegram to the President of August 22
? And of August 25 ? And of August 27 ? Our Final Offer ? My Assurance
About the Fleet of August 31 ? Statement to Parliament of September 5.
O N MAY 15, as already narrated, I had in my first telegram to President
Roosevelt after becoming Prime Minister asked for ?the loan of forty or fifty of
your older destroyers to bridge the gap between what we have now and the
large new construction we put in hand at the beginning of the war. This time
next year we shall have plenty, but if in the interval Italy comes in against us
with another hundred submarines we may be strained to breaking-point.? I
recurred to this in my cable of June 11, after Italy had already declared war
upon us. ?Nothing is so important as for us to have the thirty or forty old
destroyers you have already had reconditioned. We can fit them very rapidly
with our Asdics? . The next six months are vital.? At the end of July, when we
were alone and already engaged in the fateful air battle, with the prospect of
imminent invasion behind it, I renewed my request. I was well aware of the
President?s good will and of his difficulties. For that
reason I had endeavoured to put before him, in the blunt terms of various
messages, the perilous position which the United States would occupy if
British resistance collapsed and Hitler became master of Europe, with all its
5
The United States Destroyers
and
West Indian Bases
388
dockyards and navies, less what we had been able to destroy or disable.
* * * * *
It was evident as this discussion proceeded that the telegrams I had sent in
June, dwelling on the grave consequences to the United States which might
follow from the successful invasion and subjugation of the British Islands,
played a considerable part in high American circles. Assurances were
requested from Washington that the British Fleet would in no circumstances
be handed over to the Germans. We were very ready to give these assurances
in the most solemn form. As we were ready to die, they cost nothing. I did
not, however, wish, at this time, on what might be the eve of invasion and at
the height of the air battle, to encourage the Germans with the idea that such
contingencies had ever entered our minds. Moreover, by the end of August
our position was vastly improved. The whole Regular Army was re-formed,
and to a considerable extent rearmed. The Home Guard had come into active
life. We were inflicting heavy losses on the German Air Force, and were far
more than holding our own. Every argument about invasion that had given me
confidence in June and July was doubled before September.
* * * * *
We had at this time in Washington a singularly gifted and influential
Ambassador. I had known Philip Kerr, who had now succeeded as Marquess of
Lothian, from the old days of Lloyd George in 1919 and before, and we had
differed much and often from Versailles to Munich and later. As the tension of
events mounted, not only did Lothian develop a broad comprehension of the
scene, but his eye penetrated deeply. He had pondered on the grave
implications of the messages I had sent to the President during the collapse of
France about the possible fate of the British Fleet if England were invaded and
conquered. In this he moved with the ruling minds in Washington, who were
deeply perturbed, not only by sympathy for Britain and her cause, but
naturally even more by anxiety for the life and safety of the United States.
Lothian was worried by the last words of my speech in the House of Commons
on June 4, when I had said, ?We shall never surrender, and even if, which I
do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated
and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the
British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until, in God?s good time, the New
389
World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the
liberation of the Old.? He thought these words had given encouragement ?to
those who believed that, even though Great Britain went under, the Fleet
would somehow cross the Atlantic to them.? The reader is aware of the
different language I had been using behind the scenes. I had explained my
position at the time to the Foreign Secretary and to the Ambassador.
My last words in speech were of course addressed primarily to
Germany and Italy, to whom the idea of a war of continents and
a long war are at present obnoxious; also to [thearmoured divisions with two or three infantry
divisions have advanced through gap and large masses hurrying
forward behind them. Two great dangers therefore threaten. First
that B.E.F. will be largely left in the air to make a difficult
disengagement and retreat to the old line. Secondly, that the
German thrust will wear down the French resistance before it can
be fully gathered.
Orders given to defend Paris at all costs, but archives of the Quai
d?Orsay already burning in the garden. I consider the next two,
three, or four days decisive for Paris and probably for the French
Army. Therefore the question we must face is whether we can
give further aid in fighters above four squadrons, for which the
French are very grateful, and whether a larger part of our longrange
heavy bombers should be employed tomorrow and the
following nights upon the German masses crossing the Meuse
and flowing into the Bulge. Even so results cannot be
55
guaranteed; but the French resistance may be broken up as
rapidly as that of Poland unless this battle of the Bulge is won. I
personally feel that we should send squadrons of fighters
demanded (i.e., six more) tomorrow, and, concentrating all
available French and British aviation, dominate the air above the
Bulge for the next two or three days, not for any local purpose,
but to give the last chance to the French Army to rally its bravery
and strength. It would not be good historically if their requests
were denied and their ruin resulted. Also night bombardment by
a strong force of heavy bombers can no doubt be arranged. It
looks as if the enemy was by now fully extended both in the air
and tanks. We must not underrate the increasing difficulties of his
advance if strongly counter-attacked. I imagine that if all fails
here we could still shift what is left of our own air striking force to
assist the B.E.F. should it be forced to withdraw. I again
emphasise the mortal gravity of the hour, and express my opinion
as above. Kindly inform me what you will do. Dill agrees. I must
have answer by midnight in order to encourage the French.
Telephone to Ismay at Embassy in Hindustani.
The reply came at about 11.30. The Cabinet said ?Yes.? I immediately took
Ismay off with me in a car to M. Reynaud?s flat. We found it more or less in
darkness. After an interval M. Reynaud emerged from his bedroom in his
dressing-gown and I told him the favourable news. Ten fighter squadrons! I
then persuaded him to send for M. Daladier, who was duly summoned and
brought to the flat to hear the decision of the British Cabinet. In this way I
hoped to revive the spirits of our French friends, as much as our limited
means allowed. Daladier never spoke a word. He rose slowly from his chair
and wrung my hand. I got back to the Embassy about 2 A.M., and slept well,
though the cannon fire in petty aeroplane raids made one roll over from time
to time. In the morning I flew home, and, in spite of other preoccupations,
pressed on with construction of the second level of the new Government.
56
57
The Battle Crisis Grows ? The Local Defence Volunteers ? Reinforcements
from the East ? My Telegrams to President Roosevelt of May 18 and May 20
? General Gamelin?s Final Order No. 12, May 19 ? General Weygand
Appointed ? French Cabinet Changes ? First Orders to the Little Ships, May
20 ? ?Operation Dynamo? ? Weygand Tours the Front ? Billotte Killed in a
Motor Accident ? French Failure to Grapple with German Armour ? Ironside?s
Report, May 21 ? Parliament Votes Extraordinary Powers to the Government
? My Second Visit to Paris ? Weygand?s Plan ? Peril of the Northern Armies
? Fighting Round Arras ? Correspondence with M. Reynaud ? Sir John Dill
Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
T HE WAR CABINET met at 10 A.M. on the 17th, and I gave them an account
of my visit to Paris, and of the situation so far as I could measure it.
I said I had told the French that unless they made a supreme effort we should
not be justified in accepting the grave risk to the safety of our country that we
were incurring by the despatch of the additional fighter squadrons to France. I
felt that the question of air reinforcements was one of the gravest that a
British Cabinet had ever had to face. It was claimed that the German air
losses had been four or five times our own, but I had been told that the
French had only one-quarter of their fighter aircraft left. On this day Gamelin
thought the situation ?lost,? and is reported to have said: ?I will guarantee the
safety of Paris only for today, tomorrow [the 18thimprove as war becomes more probable and vice versa.? 5 This was perhaps
a somewhat disdainful epitome. There were many other thoughts in my mind besides those
of becoming once again a Minister. All the same, I understood the Prime Minister's outlook.
He knew, if there was war, he would have to come to me, and he believed rightly that I
would answer the call. On the other hand, he feared that Hitler would regard my entry into
the Government as a hostile manifestation, and that it would thus wipe out all remaining
chances of peace. This was a natural, but a wrong view. None the less, one can hardly
blame Mr. Chamberlain for not wishing to bring so tremendous and delicate a situation to a
head for the sake of including any particular Member of the House of Commons in his
Government.
In March, I had joined Mr. Eden and some thirty Conservative Members in tabling a
resolution for a National Government. During the summer, there arose a very considerable
stir in the country in favour of this, or at the least for my, and Mr. Eden's, inclusion in the
Cabinet. Sir Stafford Cripps, in his independent position, became deeply distressed about
the national danger. He visited me and various Ministers to urge the formation of what he
called an ?All-in Government.? I could do nothing; but Mr. Stanley, President of the Board
of Trade, was deeply moved. He wrote to the Prime Minister offering his own office if it
would facilitate a reconstruction.
Mr. Stanley to the Prime Minister. June 30, 1939.
271
I hesitate to write to you at a time like this when you are overwhelmed with
care and worry, and only the urgency of affairs is my excuse. I suppose we
all feel that the only chance of averting war this autumn is to bring home to
Hitler the certainty that we shall fulfil our obligations to Poland and that
aggression on his part must inevitably mean a general conflagration. All of
us, as well, must have been thinking whether there is any action we can
take which, without being so menacing as to invite reprisal, will be
sufficiently dramatic to command attention. I myself can think of nothing
which would be more effective, if it were found to be possible, than the
formation now of the sort of Government which inevitably we should form at
the outbreak of war. It would be a dramatic confirmation of the national
unity and determination and would, I imagine, not only have a great effect
in Germany, but also in the United States. It is also possible that, if at the
eleventh hour some possibility of a satisfactory settlement emerged, it would
be much easier for such a Government to be at all conciliatory. You, of
course, must yourself have considered the possibility and must be much
more conscious of possible difficulties than I could be, but I thought I would
write both to let you know my views and to assure you that, if you did
contemplate such a possibility, I? as I am sure all the rest of our colleagues?
would gladly serve in any position, however small, either inside or outside
the Government.
The Prime Minister contented himself with a formal acknowledgment.
As the weeks passed by, almost all the newspapers, led by the Daily
Telegraph (July 3), emphasised by the Manchester Guardian, reflected this
surge of opinion. I was surprised to see its daily recurrent and repeated
expression. Thousands of enormous posters were displayed for weeks on
end on metropolitan hoardings, ?Churchill Must Come Back.? Scores of
young volunteer men and women carried sandwich-board placards with
similar slogans up and down before the House of Commons. I had nothing
to do with such methods of agitation, but I should certainly have joined the
Government had I been invited. Here again my personal good fortune held,
and all else flowed out in its logical, natural, and horrible sequence.
272
Hitler Denounces the Anglo-German Naval Agreement ? And the Polish Non-Aggression
Pact ? The Soviet Proposal of a Three-Power Alliance ? Dilemma of the Border States ?
Soviet-German Contacts Grow ? The Dismissal of Litvinov ? Molotov ? Anglo-Soviet
Negotiations ? Debate of May 19 ? Mr. Lloyd-George's Speech ? My Statement on the
European Situation ? The Need of the Russian Alliance ? Too Late ? The ?Pact of Steel?
Between Germany and Italy ? Soviet Diplomatic Tactics.
W E HAVE REACHED THE PERIOD when all relations between Britain and Germany were at an
end. We now know, of course, that there never had been any true relationship between our
two countries since Hitler came into power. He had only hoped to persuade or frighten
Britain into giving him a free hand in Eastern Europe; and Mr. Chamberlain had cherished
the hope of appeasing and reforming him and leading him to grace. However, the time had
come when the last illusions of the British Government had been dispelled. The Cabinet
was at length convinced that Nazi Germany meant war, and the Prime Minister offered
guarantees and contracted alliances in every direction still open, regardless of whether we
could give any effective help to the countries concerned. To the Polish guarantee was
added a Rumanian guarantee, and to these an alliance with Turkey.
We must now recall the sad piece of paper which Mr. Chamberlain had got Hitler to sign at
Munich and which he waved triumphantly to the crowd when he quitted his airplane at
Heston. In this he had invoked the two bonds which he assumed existed between him and
Hitler and between Britain and Germany, namely, the Munich Agreement and the Anglo-
German Naval Treaty. The subjugation of Czechoslovakia had destroyed the first; Hitler
now brushed away the second.
Addressing the Reichstag on April 28, he said:
Since England today, both through the press and officially, upholds
the view that Germany should be opposed in all circumstances, and
confirms this by the policy of encirclement known to us, the basis of
the Naval Treaty has been removed. I have therefore resolved to
send today a communication to this effect to the British
Government. This is to us not a matter of practical material
importance? for I still hope that we shall be able to avoid an
20
The Soviet Enigma
273
armaments race with England? but an action of self-respect. Should
the British Government, however, wish to enter once more into
negotiations with Germany on this problem, no one would be
happier than I at the prospect of still being able to come to a clear
and straightforward understanding.1
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which had been so marked a gain to Hitler at an
important and critical moment in his policy, was now represented by him as a favour to
Britain, the benefits of which would be withdrawn as a mark of German displeasure. The
Fuehrer held out the hope to the British Government that he might be willing to discuss the
naval problem further with His Majesty's Government, and he may even have expected that
his former dupes would persist in their policy of appeasement. To him it now mattered
nothing. He had Italy, and he had his air superiority; he had Austria and Czechoslovakia,
with all that implied. He had his Western Wall. In the purely naval sphere he had always
been building U-boats as fast as possible irrespective of any agreement. He had already as
a matter of form invoked his right to build a hundred per cent of the British numbers, but
this had not limited in the slightest degree the German U -boat construction programme. As
for the larger vessels, he could not nearly digest the generous allowance which had been
accorded to him by the Naval Agreement. He, therefore, made fine impudent play with
flinging it back in the face of the simpletons who made it.
In this same speech Hitler also denounced the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact. He
gave as his direct reason the Anglo-Polish Guarantee,
which would in certain circumstances compel Poland to take military
action against Germany in the event of a conflict between Germany
and any other Power, in which England in her turn would be
involved. This obligation is contrary to the agreement which I made
with Marshal Pilsudski some time ago. I therefore look upon the
agreement as having been unilaterally infringed by Poland and
thereby no longer in existence. I sent a communication to this effect
to the Polish Government.
After studying this speech at the time, I wrote in one of my articles:
It seems only too probable that the glare of Nazi Germany is now to be
turned onto Poland. Herr Hitler's speeches may or may not be a guide to his
intentions, but the salient object of last Friday's performance was obviously
to isolate Poland, to make the most plausible case against her, and to bring
intensive pressure upon her. The German Dictator seemed to suppose that
he could make the Anglo-Polish Agreement inoperative by focusing his
demands on Danzig and the Corridor. He apparently expects that those
274
elements in Great Britain which used to exclaim, ?Who would fight for
Czechoslovakia?? may now be induced to cry, ?Who would fight for Danzig
and the Corridor?? He does not seem to be conscious of the immense
change which has been wrought in British public opinion by his treacherous
breach of the Munich Agreement, and of the complete reversal of policy
which this outrage brought about in the British Government, and especially
in the Prime Minister.
The denunciation of the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 is an
extremely serious and menacing step. That pact had been reaffirmed as
recently as last January, when Ribbentrop visited Warsaw. Like the Anglo-
German Naval Treaty, it was negotiated at the wish of Herr Hitler. Like the
Naval Treaty, it gave marked advantages to Germany. Both agreements
eased Germany's position while she was weak. The Naval Agreement
amounted in fact to a condonation by Great Britain of a breach of the
military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, and thus stultified both the
decisions of the Stresa front and those which the Council of the League were
induced to take. The German-Polish Agreement enabled Nazi attention to be
concentrated first upon Austria and later upon Czechoslovakia, with ruinous
results to those unhappy countries. It temporarily weakened the relations
between France and Poland and prevented any solidarity of interests
growing up among the states of Eastern Europe. Now that it has served its
purpose for Germany, it is cast away by one-sided action. Poland is implicitly
informed that she is now in the zone of potential aggression.
* * * * *
The British Government had to consider urgently the practical implications of the
guarantees given to Poland and to Rumania. Neither set of assurances had any military
value except within the framework of a general agreement with Russia. It was, therefore,
with this object that talks at last began in Moscow on April 15 between the British
Ambassador and M. Litvinov. Considering how the Soviet Government had hitherto been
treated, there was not much to be expected from them now. However, on April 16 they
made a formal offer, the text of which was not published, for the creation of a united front
of mutual assistance between Great Britain, France, and the U.S.S.R. The three Powers,
with Poland added if possible, were furthermore to guarantee those states in Central and
Eastern Europe which lay under the menace of German aggression. The obstacle to such
an agreement was the terror of these same border countries of receiving Soviet help in the
shape of Soviet armies marching through their territories to defend them from the
Germans, and incidentally incorporating them in the Soviet-Communist system of which
they were the most vehement opponents. Poland, Rumania, Finland, and the three Baltic
States did not know whether it was German aggression or Russian rescue that they
dreaded more. It was this hideous choice that paralysed British and French policy.
There can, however, be no doubt, even in the after light, that Britain and France should
275
have accepted the Russian offer, proclaimed the Triple Alliance, and left the method by
which it could be made effective in case of war to be adjusted between allies engaged
against a common foe. In such circumstances a different temper prevails. Allies in war are
inclined to defer a great deal to each other's wishes; the flail of battle beats upon the front,
and all kinds of expedients are welcomed which, in peace, would be abhorrent. It would
not be easy in a grand alliance, such as might have been developed, for one ally to enter
the territory of another unless invited.
But Mr. Chamberlain and the Foreign Office were baffled by this riddle of the Sphinx. When
events are moving at such speed and in such tremendous mass as at this juncture, it is
wise to take one step at a time. The alliance of Britain, France, and Russia would have
struck deep alarm into the heart of Germany in 1939, and no one can prove that war might
not even then have been averted. The next step could have been taken with superior
power on the side of the Allies. The initiative would have been regained by their diplomacy.
Hitler could afford neither to embark upon the war on two fronts, which he himself had so
deeply condemned, nor to sustain a check. It was a pity not to have placed him in this
awkward position, which might well have cost him his life. Statesmen are not called upon
only to settle easy questions. These often settle themselves. It is where the balance
quivers, and the proportions are veiled in mist, that the opportunity for world -saving
decisions presents itself. Having got ourselves into this awful plight of 1939, it was vital to
grasp the larger hope.
It is not even now possible to fix the moment when Stalin definitely abandoned all intention
of working with the Western Democracies and of coming to terms with Hitler. Indeed, it
seems probable that there never was such a moment. The publication in Nazi-Soviet
Relations, 1939?41, by the American State Department of a mass of documents captured
from the archives of the German Foreign Office gives us, however, a number of facts
hitherto unknown. Apparently something happened as early as February, 1939; but this
was almost certainly concerned with trading and commercial questions affected by the
status of Czechoslovakia, after Munich, which required discussion between the two
countries. The incorporation of Czechoslovakia in the Reich in mid-March magnified these
issues. Russia had some contracts with the Czechoslovak Government for munitions from
the Skoda Works. What was to happen to these contracts now that Skoda had become a
German arsenal?
On April 17, the State Secretary in the German Foreign Office, Weizsaecker, records that
the Russian Ambassador had visited him that day for the first time since he had presented
his credentials nearly a year before. He asked about the Skoda contracts, and Weizsaecker
pointed out that ?a favourable atmosphere for the delivery of war materials to Soviet Russia
was not exactly being created at present by reports of a Russian-British-French Air Pact and
the like.? On this the Soviet Ambassador turned at once from trade to politics, and asked
the State Secretary what he thought of German-Russian relations. Weizsaecker replied that
it appeared to him that ?the Russian press lately was not fully participating in the anti-
German tone of the American and some of the English papers.? On this the Soviet
Ambassador said, ?Ideological differences of opinion had hardly influenced the Russian-
276
Italian relationship, and they need not prove a stumbling-block to Germany either. Soviet
Russia had not exploited the present friction between Germany and the Western
Democracies against her, nor did she desire to do so. There exists for Russia no reason
why she should not live with Germany on a normal footing. And from normal, relations
might become better and better.?
We must regard this conversation as significant, especially in view of the simultaneous
discussions in Moscow