An intimate glimpse of Churchill at War - Review

Colville ‘The Fringes of Power’ Vol 1

(Sir John Rupert Colville was 24 years old when he was seconded from the Foreign Office to the post of Assistant Private Secretary to the Prime Minister.)

This first volume of Colville’s diary begins when he is still in his Foreign Office post. There’s not much work for him as his diary entry for 11 Sept 1939 notes: ‘I arrived at the F.O. just before 11.00 and spent a busy day there.’ (p. 21) Three weeks later he is offered the chance to transfer to Downing Street as Assistant Private Secretary to Neville Chamberlain. He really wanted to be released from Whitehall in order to train as a fighter pilot but, since his masters refused to let him go, he accepted the Downing Street post.

Chamberlain was a self-contained man and made little impact on those around him: hence the diary does not fully take off until Churchill became Prime Minister in May 1940. From then on Colville’s diary is a masterful record of the exciting but chaotic world of working for Churchill. The Prime Minister lacked any sense of the need for routines and systems as he pursued his whim-based style of running the government. Colville’s quiet Foreign Office life with its measured hours is replaced by Churchill’s muddled paperwork, nocturnal disrespect for anything approaching office hours and a habit for endless redrafting of papers. But Colville is young and ambitious so he rises to Churchill’s demands and finds time to wine, dine and generally socialise with his enormous range of highly-connected friends and relations.

A few items of particular interest:

A common market?

In November 1939 Lord Halifax (Edward Wood), then Foreign Secretary, anticipated the Common Market (the EU’s forerunner) when he said that ‘When Germany has been defeated it will be vital … to establish some form of federation in Central and South-Eastern Europe, at least in the financial and economic sphere.’ Colville commented, ‘I am afraid, however, that the French tend to think these areas ought to be left to their hegemony’. (France did join in, though, when the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established in 1951.) (p. 53)

Baldwin and Churchill

In an editorial note written at the time of the publication of the diaries, Colville offers a fascinating glimpse into the relationship between Stanley Baldwin and Winston Churchill when Baldwin was Prime Minister for the second time (November 1924 - June 1929). According to Colville, Baldwin appointed Churchill to the Treasury ‘because he did not think Winston would be a success at the Treasury and his political future would be jeopardised.’ Colville adds that, true or not, Churchill believed this was the case. (p. 125)

The Green Curve.

In June 1940 Colville’s diary offers us a small curiosity: ‘As Winston went down to Chartwell at lunch-time there was little to do and I sat in the shade most of the afternoon in the garden at No. 10, reading a book of war stories called The Green Curve. Few readers would have pondered on the nature of this book but, since I feature it in my Be Very Afraid,! I was startled to find that a book written in 1909 was still in circulation. In Be Very Afraid I wrote:

‘This is one of the most realistic presentations of starvation in the various scare stories. Swinton’s readers would have read the story as applying to Britain, since no major power was more dependent on imported food. As both world wars showed, Britain is a tough prospect for an invader, but an easier prize for a blockader.’

(The Green Curve’s author, Major-General Sir Ernest Dunlop Swinton, was though a perceptive writer on defence and was one of the leading developers of the first tank.)

Fall of France

The collapse of France in June 1940 finds Churchill brooding on the consequences of France now being in German hands: ‘It seems to me [wrote WSC] the blockade is largely ruined, in which case the sole decisive weapon in our hands would be overwhelming air attack upon Germany.’ (p. 206). I wonder when Churchill realised that, devasting as aerial bombing proved to be, allied troops would have to fight their way to the heart of Berlin before Germany capitulated.

Waiting for the enemy to land

Another curious entry comes on 31 July 1940 as Britain hourly expected an invasion. Colville revealed to his diary that intelligence reports showed that ‘all [German] preparations have been made’ and that the imminent invasion would be primarily in the south and by parachutists. There were to be diversionary attacks on Hull, Scotland and Ireland. (p. 240) It is interesting to note that, on the day that Colville recorded these invasion fears, Hitler was in conference with Keitel, Jodl and Raeder for a discussion of the invasion plans.2 By the end of the day, Hitler’s grand plan was dead. Neither the army nor the navy was confident of success. (Curiously, the Luftwaffe was not represented at the meeting.)

Churchill in self-deprecating mood

In August 1940 Colville records a rare self-deprecating remark by Churchill at a lunch with the joint planners. ‘It was curious,’ he said, but in this war he had had no success but had received nothing but praise, whereas in the last war he had done several things which he thought were good and had got nothing but abuse for them.’ (p. 276)

Far-seeing

As early as December 1940 Churchill was thinking about a Germany beyond Hitler and the Nazis: ‘Germany existed before the Gestapo.’ He foresaw that, after the Allies had won, there would be ‘five great European nations: England [sic], France, Italy, Spain and Prussia.’ He correctly foresaw the British unwillingness to join with other nations: ‘The English speaking world would be apart from this.’ (p 271)

A hint of Ultra

One final curiosity is Colville’s recording of a possible leak of the secret of Ultra at the end of July in 1941: ‘Meanwhile Desmond [Morton3] has made the horrifying discovery that the press, or at any rate Lord Camrose+ and his staff, have found out about the most closely guarded secret of the war: namely the contents of those buff boxes which “C”! sends to the P.M.’ (p. 503)

Overall, after the short section when Colville was working for Chamberlain, the diary is a fascinating account of working at the heart of a wartime government. He proved to be a natural diarist, with his uninhibited recording of the vast numbers of people who interacted with the highest echelons of a government at war.

Notes

1. Swinton, E D. The Green Curve and Other Stories. Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1909.

2. See my Atlantic Nightmare, p. 106.

3. Desmond Morton was one of Churchill's personal assistants, with responsibility for the handling of all the Ultra messages.