Rounding Off a Couple of Last Week's Debates

In the hope of rounding off two discussions from last week, I had better reply to ‘Ernest’,  and to ‘William’ who posted on the War and on the Miliband matter . I was away at the Cheltenham Festival (of which more later), for much of Saturday and Sunday and have only just found the time to examine these properly.

 

I have (as I sometimes do) interleaved my responses to what ‘Ernest’ and ‘William’ say, in their original posts, marking my replies ***

 

First ‘Ernest’

 

He begins’ The string of events from April 1939 to June 1940 was of course disastrous for the Allies.’

 

***I respond, he says ‘of course’, but why, why, why ,why does he treat what happened as inevitable?  There was no ‘of course’. It was our active choice to make the Polish guarantee, so placing ourselves in the hands of Colonel Joszef Beck, the Polish Foreign Minister (not, by all accounts , a nice or reliable man). Colonel Beck , with our guarantee in his pocket, could determine when, how and whether we entered the conflict. Far from underlining our concern, the guarantee tied our hands. We could, of course, have intervened at any point in continental affairs had we thought it possible or worthwhile, without this guarantee. But with the guarantee, we lost the freedom to decide when or if we did so. This is an amazing, rash voluntary squandering of a crucial, irreplaceable sovereign power. I can think of no parallel in human history, of a major country giving to a minor, far-away nation whose interests were by no means the same as its own, such power over its fate and future.

 

 

He continues ‘Stalemate was the best that could have been expected anyway.’

***Was it? Fluidity and freedom of  action were available had we chosen. Stalemate is the blockage of a game already begun, by an inability to move on both sides. The question here is, why begin a game which we certainly couldn’t win, in the first place? We were more able to move, and act independently, without a guarantee.

 

Ernest ‘The guarantee to Poland was conceived as a deterrent, but should war have broken out as a result, all that could have been hoped for was a cessation of German expansion in the interim and an eventual negotiated truce, in the hope that neither side had an appetite for a rehash of 1915-18.’

 

***I am baffled by this vague, groundless speculation. Contemporary documents show that the British chiefs of staff, and their political masters, knew perfectly well that the guarantee was militarily worthless. Not that it needed any great intelligence skills to compute this. Likewise, the German leadership, who were well aware of the feebleness of our land forces, and of the defensive nature of the French Army. I believe Frederick the Great said that diplomacy without weapons was like music without instruments. It is a good summary of our actions at this time. It could only have been a *deterrent* if the country supposed to be ‘deterred’ had any reason to fear that we would or could act upon it. They knew (and so did we) that we couldn’t. Halifax, I think, conceived it to polish his reputation as a moral figure among his friends in London, and to soothe his wounded pride after the occupation of Prague. Alas, the Polish government (alone in Europe) believed that it was a serious promise, and did not understand that it wasn’t until after Warsaw had been bombed and its armed forces rolled up in weeks by German and Russian armies, without Britain or France lifting a digit to help.

 

 

 

Ernest continues ‘ A limited war would have been preferable in their view to continued serial German expansion.’

***Really? Most politicians, who know what it costs and what its dangers are, seek to avoid war at all costs and are aware that it cannot be ‘limited’. Once begun, it will invariably spread, and be very difficult to end. If 1914 taught nothing else,  it taught that. I ask again, why should Britain be worried by German expansion into areas where we never have had, did not then have,  and still do not  have any important interests, political, commercial or diplomatic.’

 

Ernest again : ‘Since war wasn't engaged from a position of superiority, I do think PH has a strong case that this was a foolhardy endeavour, in lieu of which Germany would in the near term have continued to swell and become, in landmass terms, roughly the Central Powers reconstituted (less the Ottomans). This in itself wouldn't have been catastrophic.’

 

***Some progress here, but…

 

…Ernest won’t give up : ‘ But the idea that Germany would have been done with Poland after the ceding of Danzig is not borne out by the land-grab of March 1939.’

 

****I have never speculated on Germany’s eventual attitude towards Poland, though the actual German governance of Poland, chaotic and wasteful as well as cruel and stupid,  after the 1940 invasion suggests a distinct lack of interest in large parts of that country, and efforts mainly confined to re-Germanising those bits which had been German or Austrian before 1914. What certainly seems evident is that it wasn’t an urgent matter. Taylor’s reading of Hitler’s policies – that each grab was an opportunist one, taken at short notice and aided by the clumsiness of his opponents and not according to any great plan, seems sound to me.  If ‘Ernest’ hasn’t read his ‘Origins, he should. It explodes all kinds of conventional-wisdom stuff. After the cession of the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia’s generally artificial, fissile nature became obvious (as it demonstrated again after 1989).  The Slovakian breakaway left a hopeless rump behind. Its takeover by Hitler was no doubt regrettable, and would prove very regrettable for the Jews of the region, once the extermination campaign got under way after 1941 . But it is hard to see it as a reason for Britain to sacrifice her empire.

 

To attempt a parallel with Danzig and the Sudeten matter is highly misleading. Poland without Danzig would not have been a rump state, nor would it have broken up into two separate states.  The ‘Plucky Little Poland’ myth tends to blind us to the facts I keep reiterating. In March 1939, Poland was one of Germany’s closest allies, had benefited from the carve-up of Czechoslovakia, and was  Judophobic and far from free. In the absence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (which, once again, was not inevitable) Hitler might well have been glad to maintain Poland (which hated the USSR, had unexpectedly beaten it in war in 1920, and lived in constant fear of a Soviet revenge)  as a glacis between him and the USSR, preferably with the Polish Armies concentrated on the Eastern frontier. 

 

Ernest continues: ‘ Also, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had so much else in it for both parties, that I can't see some permutation of it not taking shape.’

 

***Hmph, but it’s hard to see *how* it could take shape while the Polish-German non-aggression pact (which was destroyed by our guarantee)  was still in force. Stalin didn’t dismiss Litvinov and appoint Molotov until May 1939, after the Polish guarantee. The serious contacts with Ribbentrop didn’t take place till August, by which time Moscow was sure that Britain and France weren’t serious about talks with them, and weren’t reliable allies. Funny to think that we might have got an alliance with Stalin in 1939 by giving him a free hand in the Baltics, Bessarabia and Finland.  In the end, we had to pay him off with all these things, plus Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.  

 

Ernest : ‘It's when a Barbarossa comes into the picture that a huge threat to western security looms into view down the road. The resulting German super-state had the potential to match, or even eventually surpass, the USA in raw power.’

 

**Did it? Facts and figures to back this claim?

Ernest :’The six months it might have taken for an unhindered Germany to knock out the USSR (in the main) may not have been long enough a period to intervene in the west with decisive effect, even after a couple more years of preparation.’

 

**What does he mean ‘unhindered’. Germany could not have risked its Western frontier with an undefeated and heavily-armed France in its rear. Armed neutrality can hinder just as much as war. Also, without the Soviet supplies of oil and other materials (fruits of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)  which fuelled the 1940 Blitzkrieg (and which continued to be delivered right up to Barbarossa) , and which rendered Britain’s naval blockade ineffective, and without the gold resources which Germany had obtained by conquest of the Western European states (which under my theory would not have taken place), Germany would have been in great difficulty mounting such an invasion . The USSR would also have put up much stiffer resistance from the start, not being handicapped by Stalin’s refusal to believe that an invasion was possible, or even that it was taking place some hours after it had begun. Time travel is complicated. Lots of things change, when you alter something as big as the Polish guranatee, not just one.

 

Ernest : ‘Rearmament is not a one-way process, and the Germans had proved bloody-minded enough to risk the overheating of their peacetime economy to achieve this end. Forged in the humiliation over Czechoslovakia, the Apr 1939 guarantee might not have been timed wisely (1939 being too late for multinational intervention, and too early for Anglo-French success), but it was a calculated risk, much like Hitler's own diplomatic moves.

 

**I don’t think it was calculated at all. It was an emotional spasm, almost wholly bereft of calculation  or even thought. Taylor, as I recall, regards the German economic problems as a myth, and I believe many others agree with him.

 

Ernest :’Given the speed at which the power dynamics of the late 1930s were shifting, it's perhaps drawing too much on full hindsight to excoriate the politicians involved to such an extent for having got caught so flat-footed. I don't need to exaggerate the threat posed by Germany in the event of the USSR's capitulation.’

 

***Well, yes he does. He still has to show what barmy impulse would have led Germany to attack Britain when it had no political, diplomatic, economic, military or other reason to do so, and had its hands full holding down its new eastern possessions.

 

 Ernest : ‘As in a gangster film, France would pay the price for 1914-19. ‘

 

***Gangster film indeed. But was this so? Germany’s treatment of France after the 1940 defeat was greedy, because Germany had always sought to finance its wars by indemnities on its enemies rather than by taxation. It was (later) murderous towards Jews, because the murder of Jews everywhere he could get hold of them  was Hitler’s main aim in life after 1941 (whereas before that date he was content with persecution, cruelty and expulsion) .   But it was not especially vindictive, judged by the genocidal, extirpatory standards of German behaviour in the eastern lands where it was genuinely interested in conquest and colonisation. There is a reason for this difference,. Germany regarded France as a nuisance getting in the way of its ambitions, but did not have any interest in turning her into a subject province of Germany.

 

 

 Ernest: ‘As a general (golden) rule I think it's worth sticking up for allies with whom one shares enough in common, even if PH sounds more laissez-faire. As for the Empire, invasion might not have been in the cards, but being bullied internationally is not a desirable state of affairs if it can be helped. Worse, changes in the Nazi leadership, their need for Permanent War and the passage of time could have caused any residual Anglophilia to morph into something else.’

 

***I have never posited ‘Anglophilia’ as any kind of motive force in this. I don’t think Hitler’s personal feelings towards England or the English ever mattered in the slightest. It was just that he had no material interest in fighting us, and plenty of material interests in not doing so. As for being ‘worth’ …‘sticking up for ‘ …‘allies with whom one shares enough in common’, I am baffled by this school-playground idea of diplomacy. Worth what? An empire and all our riches and standing? ‘sticking up for ‘? How? What with?  And as for ‘allies with whom one shares enough in  common’, how is this commonality measured?  

 

As the Royal Navy discovered at Mers-el-Kebir, patriotic Frenchmen did not feel they had much in common with us when it mattered most. Admiral Gensoul turned down repeated offers of the most honourable possible exits from his dilemma, knowing that his alternative meant that his fleet would fall into German hands, and also knowing that if he did not take those exits, we would open fire on him.  Darlan loathed us – Churchill thought he had never forgiven us for Trafalgar.  Many French people hoped for our surrender after 1940.  It is recorded that some of the most vicious fighting of the war, in the Middle East, would involve Vichy units attacking British forces. De Gaulle could never get Fashoda (or Quebec) out of his head. Why exactly was it, or should it have been, in British interests to boost France in her doomed struggle to assert equality with Germany -  an equality which ceased to exist in 1870 and never had the slightest chance of being revived?

 

All this noble, sentimental alliance achieved was the defeat and occupation of France for the second time in 70 years, and our near-defeat and national degradation.

 

Merci bien les Rosbifs!  Merveilleux! So much for the soppy old Entente Cordiale, which ended with the Wehrmacht marching down the Champs Elysee. . A bit of hard-faced cynical ruthlessness might have left both countries intact, and incidentally avoided the most embarrassing and stupid Naval battle in history.

 

 

 

Then I turn to ‘William’, on the Miliband issue.

 

‘Mr Hitchens – I must say that it was never my intention to stir the hornet’s nest to quite this extent, but thank you for your response , I shall endeavour to clarify my position. I suppose what I was left wondering was whether you do or don’t believe that Miliband Senior hated Britain and was a threat to this country – I sort of felt that you didn’t think he did/was, but couldn’t be entirely sure .’

 

***I’ll stick to what I said. It seems quite clear to me.   But I must draw any reader’s attention to my point that many of the worst threats to Britain come from within the modern Conservative Party , and so to restrict fears about subversion of this country to a deceased Marxist, and one of his two non-Marxist sons,  is not just unwise but missing the point about the nature, extent and danger of that that threat. Especially if, by attacking a deceased Marxist, you contrive to suggest that this threat can be countered by, say, voting Tory.

 

‘William’ (first quoting me )‘ ‘’I never ‘strive’ to confound expectation’’ Fair enough, it just struck me as a possible explanation, since my (possibly lazy) assumption was that your position on this matter would be consistent with your very distinct conservative media identity.

 

***IT is entirely consistent with it, as I should have thought I had clearly explained in the article. I wonder if he has actually read it with any care.  I am, however, more conservative than most conservatives in the media, precisely because I am better-informed than most conservatives about the nature of the revolutionary menace, and know that it advances itself behind many disguises. It is easy enough to spot a Marxist professor, who writes Marxist books and adopts leftist causes It takes a bit of understanding to recognise that a Tory (or Blairite) Cabinet Minister is pursuing and achieving Marxist objectives by destroying national independence, encouraging mass immigration,  or forcing egalitarianism on our country.

 

William: ‘ The quotation I gave did indeed belong to another contributor and I included it generally to illustrate one of the main arguments advanced by defenders of Mr Miliband senior. This was poor (again, possibly lazy) form on my part as I should have attributed the quotation, and I hope you will accept my sincere apologies for this.’

 

**Willingly.

 

William : ‘My subsequent points related to this argument rather than yours specifically. ‘the more you love your country, the more critical you must be of it when it has gone wrong. The test of loyalty is elsewhere.’ Where then?

 

***AS I said, in such things as perilous service  in the armed forces of the country involved.

 

William : ‘How do we differentiate those who are merely hatefully criticising? ‘

 

***By their actions, the only thing on which a free country judges anyone.

 

William : ‘ I think there is a difference between criticising aspects of how your nation is governed, and criticising everything about it, the institutions which define it or its fundamental character, which was the Mail's charge. " He fails to notice that I spent quite a lot of it pointing out that the *Tory Party* and some of its senior figures hold views and pursue policies which are deeply hostile     to British society," Sorry, I fail to see the logic here - just because figures in the Tory party may be radical Lefties, doesn't prove that Miliband' s father wasn't,

 

***It was not advanced to *prove* that Ralph Miliband *wasn’t* anything. It was advanced to show that the frothing of shock-haired Marxist professors is rather less important than the executive actions of smooth Tory and New Labour ministers. Oh, think! Please think!  (claps despairing hand to brow)

 

It was advanced to point out that, in their actions, Tory and New Labour politicians, of the sort who have never been accused of ‘Hating Britain’, have repeatedly and effectively *acted* as if they do, destroying our national sovereignty, encouraging or failing to halt mass immigration on a scale that can only be described as subversive, imposing on us Marxist egalitarian polices, especially in education. If that is so, shouldn’t we more interested in it than in the dead father of a politician (whose son doesn’t agree with his father’s views) , a man who never held any power or ever did any material damage to this country that I have seen proved, and fought for it (voluntarily so far as I know) in war?

 

 

William (first quoting me): ‘ " then of course there’s the word ‘fanatical’, which has no objective definition known to me. " Well, according to Google dictionary it either means "Filled with excessive and single-minded zeal " or "obsessively concerned with something" , both of which work for me regarding RM.

 

***Well,  can William really not see that the words ‘excessive’ and ‘obsessive’ are both subjective (I rather think the word ‘zeal is too, but I’m open to arguments) , and not measurable objectively?  He’s just shunted the train 200 yards down the line, but not changed its shape or contents.

 

William : ‘Judging men by their actions is certainly handy, but taking into account their words as well is even more so.’

***Nothing to do with being ‘handy’. Actions are the only true or permissible test. In a free society we think and say what we like (short of incitement to violence).

 

 

William ‘Never mind all the stuff about bully-beef sandwiches hot, sweet, brown tea, and Vera Lynn, anyone of the era would have done that.’

 

**Would they? Did they? Auden and Isherwood (for example) fled to the USA.  Many Communists sabotaged the war effort in factories until Summer 1941. Quite a lot of people, I think he’ll find, didn’t exert themselves hugely to do their bit. Heard of the black market, has he? Or the spivs? Joining the Navy as a volunteer rates well above that.

 

 

William : ‘  I'm rather more interested in his recorded list of pet hates: respectability; good taste; "there will always be an England"; the respectable Sunday papers; the monarchy, the church, he was in favour of a planned economy;’

 

***This doesn’t seem to me to be a particularly terrifying set of views. Many perfectly patriotic people have held one or more of them. Now, active and practical support for joining the Euro, or unrestricted mass immigration,  that’s a serious charge.

 

William : ‘he wanted us to lose the Falklands war;’

 

**Did he? Can ‘William’ please provide chapter and verse for this claim?

 

William : ‘he didn't believe in nations, being committed to the internationale’

 

**I’m not quite sure what this means. He wore the uniform of the British Royal Navy, a national force, and served in it in a war against (among others) the nations of Germany, Japan and Italy. This seems to me to demonstrate a rather practical acceptance of and belief in the existence of nations, whatever songs he may have sung – and the ‘Internationale’ is much-favoured (privately) among today’s Blairite elite, and tends to be sung at their funerals. And then there’s Lord Heseltine’s musing that  ‘The nation states have had their day as powers. The world must be more ordered and centralised .  .  . it’s unstoppable and irreversible’ – the significance of which seems entirely to have escaped most of the people who read this article.

 

 

 

As for ‘William’ being the name of ‘William’. No doubt that is true, but without a surname attached it is, even so, the equivalent of a pseudonym, as he cannot be identified by it. Whereas all that I say is said openly by me under my own full name.