Prodded by a recent conversation with my eldest brother who is a UKIP (UK Independence Party) member, on the subject of British nationalism, I recently put the pieces of a puzzle together concerning the dramatic events of 1940 that I want to try out on the readers of samizdata. (Apologies in advance to all those who see the only puzzle as being how long it took me to puzzle out the obvious.)
At the risk of publicising my own slow-wittedness, it has always puzzled me that British nationalists these days almost to a man now worship the ground that Winston Churchill walked on, because he saved Britain in 1940, despite the fact that Churchill himself wasn’t a British nationalist.
Preliminary digression. Did Churchill actually save Britain in 1940? I tend to accept the orthodox view that Churchill did indeed save my country, and that it really was one of our finer hours.
The case against how Churchill behaved in 1940 is that an accommodation with Hitler was there for the taking, which would have been less harmful to British interests than even the events that subsequently unfolded, and certainly than any events that looked at all likely in 1940 if we did fight on.
As to that, I’ve always been fond of the words spoken by Ralph Richardson in the early stages of the film The Battle of Britain. Richardson plays a British diplomat who is squaring up to his German equivalent, played by Curt Jurgens. The Jurgens character speaks of how the Fuhrer is willing to offer “guarantees” to Britain. Replies Richardson: “Experience shows that Herr Hitler’s guarantees guarantee nothing.” Exactly so. The case for not trying to accommodate Hitler in 1940 in one pithy sentence.
(I’ve heard it said that this is also the basic case against Saddam Hussein. The man simply can’t be relied upon to refrain from what he has promised to refrain from. He is therefore not, and never can be, a member of the club of Heads of State who, no matter what they may do to their subjects, can at least be relied upon to tell the truth to fellow club members.)
Well I’m not entirely sure about that. Maybe there was a good deal going which Churchill spurned. But this I do know. Churchill was, as I say, not a British nationalist. He was an Anglospherist.
Chruchill’s mother was an American. In his youth Churchill roamed the earth in the service of the British Empire and of his own fame and glory. When the time came for him to write his historical magnum opus, he called it The History of the English Speaking Peoples.
It was Churchill’s political adversaries, like Chamberlain and like Halifax (his rival in 1940 for the British Prime Ministership), who were the real British nationalists. It was they who spoke to each other in 1940 of the beauties of the English countryside and of how it was now threatened with being turned into scorched earth. Churchill was willing to fight, and they were not. And as soon as Churchill got into power, he orated about blood on the beaches and set about organising an anti-German resistance-to-the-death scorched-British-earth policy, for the “defence” of Britain. Some defence.
Churchill was able to do this because Britain, for him, was not the ultimate point. Britain was, in the end, merely a slab of territory near the front line in the fight. And it was, ultimately, expendable. I’m not saying that Churchill wanted to expend it, that he would have been happy if it had been expended. Far from it. But in the final analysis he did not regard Britain as the ultimate object being defended. The object being defended was the Anglosphere, and the Anglosphere would continue (and Churchill with it) to confront Hitler even if Britain had been conquered in 1940. The Anglosphere could still eventually be persuaded to take a military stand against Hitler, which sooner or later, Churchill believed, it would have had to, despite whatever guarantees it might have received in the meantime (see Ralph Richardson above).
This is why Churchill was willing to bet Britain in 1940. For this was a bet which, ultimately, he was willing to contemplate losing. The Halifax tendency could not bear the thought of losing such a bet, and even to take the risk of losing it was, for them, an unendurable folly. I think that as ironies go, this is a pretty big one. To repeat it: the nationalists couldn�t defend their nation. The non-nationalist could. And I think it says something about the sentiments of the British people that they followed Churchill so contentedly in 1940. Maybe they even got all this at the time, and realised that if they squared up to Hitler on behalf of “civilisation”, they could get the best possible outcome for their nation, whereas if they merely fought for their nation, the fight would make no sense and they would lose everything.
And maybe Halifax himself also got this. He didn’t press his case in 1940. He stepped aside and allowed Churchill to fight his war.
It’s a game theory point, I think. It’s like the oft repeated observation that the soldiers who are willing to die in battle are, paradoxically, more likely to survive than the soldiers who will, when things get desperate, try to run away.
Britain stood firm in 1940, and thus made it possible for Anglosphere allies to carry on fighting also (in the USA’s case it allowed other non-nationalists to inveigle their nation into the conflict), and eventually to use Britain as the launching pad for the final attack on Germany.
As a general observation it seems to me that the twentieth century has been an era of pseudo-nationalism, that is to say of people like Churchill (and like FDR). The twentieth century’s nationalists, time and again, under cross examination so to speak (i.e. in a crisis), turned out to be people who were ultimately willing to risk any rational definition of the national interest of the nation they claimed to be serving, in the service instead of multinational or even global ends. The communists weren’t the only ones doing this. Almost everyone was. Partly they did it out of ideological conviction. But partly they did it because, paradoxically, it made them more effective “nationalists”.
Hitler, apparently such a rabid German nationalist, proved himself willing, Churchill-like, to sacrifice Germany itself on the altar of his peculiar vision of how the world ought to be, the difference being that in this case the sacrifice actually happened. He died believing that his country had betrayed him, and his countrymen spent the last few months of his life realising that he was betraying them.
Now I’m sure that, for many samizdata readers, all this is very obvious. But I have grown up in a world in which British nationalists who were willing retrospectively to support Halifax rather than Churchill (or even to sympathise with Halifax!) could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but in which regular British nationalists simply took it for granted that Winston Churchill was one of them. It was the slowly dawning realisation that Churchill was not one of them, combined with the fact that Churchill had nevertheless served British national interests so very well (assuming you go along with Ralph Richardson, as most Brits do nowadays), that I found myself having to explain. What was going on? It seemed like a contradiction. Now I see that the contradiction is actually the explanation.
I hope I have not bored everyone by rediscovering the obvious, but to me all this came as something of a revelation. But that’s samizdata for you. You don’t have to be interested by everything here, just interested every so often.
Bravo, Brian. I won’t say that this is so seminal or profound, because I’ve heard similar before. But it is extremely well sorted and stated.
You portrayed the issue in a one dimensional way – as – say – a German nationalist (Hitler) agains a British nationalist – Churchill. Much more than that was involved – moral values, freedom, decency, respect of the law, civilisation against barbarianism.
The Halifax position was wrong not because of it’s nationalism but because it involved recognizing and making terms with Evil. Churchill stood firm on the high moral ground, and the British people understood this and stood with him. Nationalism wasn’t the issue.
But for some, Jacob, nationalism was indeed the issue. Chamberlain was not taking a ‘moral’ position when he waved that piece of paper and said ‘Peace in our time’, he was taking a position on what was the narrow BRITISH national interest, at least in the manner in which he saw it. His view was in effect ‘To hell with the Czechs and Slovaks… Britain is best served by not confronting Hitler’.
That, dear Jacob, was pure unadulterated Nationalism unfetered by tiresome notions of right and wrong.
The German’s offensive in Russia in the Fall and Winter of 1941 was a near run thing. The German’s expended forces in North Africa, Greece, and Crete against the Brits. In addition they had to leave occupation forces in Norway, France, and the Benelux. These forces, equaling 15 to 20 Infantry division plus the two panzer divisions of the Afrika Korps and especially 7th Airborne Division would have made a decisive contribution to Typhoon, the Winter push on Moscow. Moscow was the literal center of the Soviet Empire. Without the ability to shift reserves and supplies through Moscow from North to South via railroad, their position would have been untenable. Germany, strengthened by the raw materials and oil of the Russian heartland and it’s manpower boosted by the millions of Volga Germans, could not be defeated in Europe.
Very well written. But I think the British were more concerned about what was the right thing to do. As an example the Falklands war could have been avoided. The Falklands were not required to the British way to life or political power except for the fact they were one of us.
It would have been much cheaper to give each person a huge pile of cash and forget about it all. But the Anglosphere realized that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. Hence the invasion of the islands.
I feel that one of the best qualities of the Anglosphere is a concern for justice no matter what it costs.
Churchill is close to being considered a god (with a capital “G”?) in the US.
He seemed to be the only person of substance to recognize the need to challenge Hitler – not to save Britain, as such, but to save the Anglo-Saxon heritage Britain represented.
While his colleagues hoped and worked for peace – NOW – Churchill realized -correctly- that conciliation was not possible with that adversary.
I think Brian takes too narrow a view, a materialist view common to libertarians. As nationalists, Halifax et. al. valued the land, its prosperity and peace.
I believe Churchill as a nationalist valued Britain’s honor. While not knowable, I believe he would have preferred Britain’s destruction over dealing with Hitler.
Also, regarding the folly of making deals with Hitler, why is Brian “… not entirely sure about that” ? Given the result for most of Hitler’s non-German partners, the burden of proof should be on those advocating deals with Hitler.
Chamberlain, the nationalist, resigned because the policy of appeasing Hitler had failed. This gave rise to the party that said Hitler can’t be appeased – he has to be opposed.
That’s where Churchill comes in and marshalls the British people to fight the monstrous evil that Hitler was.
It’s hard to judge the impact of a decision taken in 1940 through a prism that includes the history of the past 60 years.
What are you talking about? Britain is not beaches and countryside and hardware. It is a culture, a set of values, a way of interacting with other people. Churchill, and the British people, valued that Britain, and because they valued it, in the last resort they did not give a shit about the other. The most important of those values were shared by the whole Anglosphere, which is why Churchill valued the Anglosphere too, and why they valued Britain.
This Britain — as Churchill himself said in his ‘beaches’ speech — would have survived even defeat and invasion. It would not have survived accommodation with Germany in 1940. That is why Halifax’s view, so popular only months before, was incomprehensible to most Britons at that moment, while Churchill’s was exactly what they wanted to hear.
“Chamberlain was not taking a ‘moral’ position when he waved that piece of paper and said ‘Peace in our time’, he was taking a position on what was the narrow BRITISH national interest, at least in the manner in which he saw it.”
As more people than not saw it. IIRC, that piece of paper was wildly popular at the time.
“Germany, strengthened by the raw materials and oil of the Russian heartland and it’s manpower boosted by the millions of Volga Germans, could not be defeated in Europe.”
Make no mistake, the United States and her allies would have defeated that Hun bastard on the fucking Moon if that’s what was needed.
Perry,
“That, dear Jacob, was pure unadulterated Nationalism unfetered by tiresome notions of right and wrong.”
Precisely.
And that is why it was dead wrong.
Nationalism unfetered by tiresome notions of right and wrong is evil, is , in fact, nazism.
Brian’s explanation offends against the principle of parsimony (Occam’s razor).
All you need to say to explain 1940 is that both Churchill and the British generally saw clearly and rightly that Hitler was dangerous to them and not to be trusted so they opposed him. By that stage it was clear (“piece of paper” etc) to blind Freddy that Hitler’s promises were worthless so negotiation was not an option and his behaviour in Europe made clear that Britons would be at least enslaved and in many cases executed if he took them over. Their only real option therefore was to fight for their lives — which they did. Hitler’s known perfidy and brutality simply left them no realistic option — and they all saw that by that time.
Here’s a clear cut case of presentism – projecting current ideological concerns back to the past and establishing Churchill’s reputation as a mouthpiece for the Anglosphere.
Churchill’s primary concern, consistently voiced throughout the 1930s, was the survival of the Empire, including the metropole. The United States remained, in his eyes, a prop for ‘imperial overstretch’.
Churchill used cultural arguments to propose an alliance between GB and the US because he understood that the Empire was weakening. In Parliament, his involvement with the Diehards over the Government of India Act 1935 displayed his unwillingness to countenance internal reforms that would undermine imperial structures.
In 1940, Churchill understood that if Britain was conquered, her imperial credibility was at an end, her great power status ruined. That is why Britain had to fight.
On the issue of Churchill considering Britain to be ‘expendable’, there is no evidence in his political or strategic actions to substantiate this. Indeed, it is easier to make the opposite case through his actions in dispensing bases and gold to the US for lend-lease: that all this was ‘expendable’ before Britain herself.
Churchill was, first and foremost, a British imperialist. For those who would challenge this long-accepted interpretation, the onus is on them to cite political actions that provide evidence for their view that Churchill considered the British Empire secondary to the notion of an Anglo-Saxon civilisation.
“Churchill was, first and foremost, a British imperialist”
That is true but here is more than one issue involved.
Wasn’t Churchill also aware of and concerned about the murdurous and mad nature of the German threat ? I doubt that Halifax or Chamberlain loved the empire less than Churchill. They just failed to grasp the nature of their German enemy.
I think you are being a little unfair to Neville Chamberlain. Had he gone to war at Munich, I think there would have been a substantial peace party opposed to the war. As it was, he gave Hitler one last chance – but at the same time he promptly cranked up the re-armament, so that when he time came, we had the Spitfires – and the massive Spitfire production was due to Chamberlain. It was Chamberlain, not Churchill who declared war, and it was thanks to Chamberlain that the country was almost entirely united against Hitler.
I get the feeling it was not so much a war FOR nationalism or for the Empire – it was a war AGAINST thuggery and evil. And it was Neville Chamberlain who built this case
Love of nation can take many forms. A bit of perspective from, I believe, the popular historian John Keegan. From memory…
“The French so loved Paris that they could not bear to see it destroyed, and gave it to Hitler. Britain so loved London that they preferred its destruction over its surrender.”
Yes. I think history generally is grossly unfair to Chamberlain. At Munich he was merely being a good democratic leader and doing what almost everyone in Britain at that time wanted — “giving peace a chance”
>”The French so loved Paris that they could not bear to see it destroyed, and gave it to Hitler. Britain so loved London that they preferred its destruction over its surrender.”
Paris, or at least its central area, was comprehensively redesigned and redeveloped in the mid 19th century by Baron Georges Haussmann according to a centralist vision while London, with the exception of a small area around Regent’s Park and Regent Street, just growed since Roman times with piecemeal developed as opportunities arose.
London embodies a tradition of libertarian values just as Paris is the expression of a totalitarian vision. Which is more elegant? Which is larger?