Derek Pennington: The German Peace

Following the allied defeat at Dunkirk, the French were now completely demoralised and in disarray. They were also suffering from poor leadership, both military and political.

With their now familiar combination of air superiority, amour mobility, and sheer aggression, the German forces quickly overwhelmed what was left of the French forces. They entered Paris unopposed on 11 June. A stunning victory for German arms!

The same day, Germany’s supposed ally, Italy, now that their dictator, Benito Mussolini, was sure the war was being resolved in Germany’s favour, also declared war on Britain and France. The Italian forces attacked across the common border with France but were initially repulsed. Eventually the Italians managed to occupy a small area of French territory at a cost to them of four thousand casualties. The French suffered only two hundred killed.

Mussolini was pleased with this meagre result. He had earlier declared that, ‘I need a few thousand dead Italian soldiers to give me a seat at the peace conference as a man who has fought.’ A sad example of politician’s callous disregard for the lives of their own soldiers.

A week earlier, in a desperate attempt to keep the French fighting, Winston Churchill had flown to France for a meeting of the Anglo-French War Council, which was still pretending to function. Here he made the bizarre suggestion of a Franco-British Union. One unified nation to carry on the war against Germany.

The idea was ridiculed by the French. Marshall Philippe Petain believed the war was already lost and commented that a union with Britain would be akin to “marriage with a corpse.” The commander of the French forces, General Weygand, pronounced his belief that, “following the fall of France, Britain will soon have its neck wrung like a chicken by the Germans.”

The comments of these two ‘leaders’ was indicative, with some few exceptions, of what was happening among the French leadership. Organised French resistance and spirit had collapsed.

On 14 June German army commanders met with French officials to present the terms of an armistice that Germany was prepared to offer France.

Yet another newly formed French government, this one under the elderly Marshall Petain, had no real options left to them. With a bitter taste in their mouths, they accepted the offered proposals. The armistice was scheduled to be signed on 16 June.

The battle for France was over.

Prime Minister Churchill had received word on 11 June, that Paris had fallen. He was in a black mood. He knew that the French Government, wherever it was, would sue for peace. In his mind the battle for France was over. He must now start thinking of a future Battle for Britain. A battle his armies were ill prepared for, since losing the bulk of their troops and equipment at Dunkirk.

To make matters worse, there was more bad news. He had also just been informed of Italy’s declaration of war on Britain and France. An action he considered cowardly in the extreme.

Neither of these two events had been unexpected, and he was preparing a speech that he would deliver to the House of Commons that evening. He wasn’t looking forward to it, even though he thought the speech one of the best he had ever written. It was meant to be a morale booster. It would include such quotes as, ‘We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them in the hills, we will fight them on the landing grounds’ …. It would end with, ‘We shall never surrender.’

In his own office, Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, was deep in thought. So much had happened this very day that he was somewhat bemused.

Halifax was fifty nine years old. A member of the British aristocracy whose family traced their roots back nearly nine hundred years.

Prior to the German occupation of Czechoslovakia he had been one of the architects of the policy of appeasement, anxious to avoid war at any cost. Now, in view of German aggression over the past two years, he had been forced to moderate his previous, somewhat pacifist, views. He had been Foreign Secretary since early 1938.

In earlier years he had clashed with Churchill on various issues at different times. He was frequently exasperated by Churchill’s style of doing business. In recent days these two had again become embroiled in many heated discussions as France teetered towards defeat.

Halifax had been pushing the idea of trying to make an honourable peace with Germany by approaching Italy and using the Italian’s close relationship with Germany to see if any acceptable terms could be negotiated. Churchill overruled him after several stormy meetings of the war cabinet. Both of them had fought to bring the war cabinet to their own particular point of view. Fortunately for Britain, Churchill prevailed and it was he who had held a wavering cabinet together. He was implacably opposed to negotiating with Herr Hitler.

Halifax acquiesced. He would live to fight another day!

Now, Halifax, with a hint of a smile on his face, said to himself “Things have changed somewhat.”

He had received the news of the fall of France with resignation. It had been expected, even if it was unsettling. Italy’s declaration of war had angered him. Like everybody else, he considered it a cowardly act committed only when Mussolini was certain France was already beaten, and after Britain had suffered a major defeat. America’s President Roosevelt said of it, “The hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of his neighbour.”

After receiving this news, Halifax was bracing himself for yet another fight with Churchill over the need to find a way to peace.

Then out of the blue something totally unexpected had happened!

Almost simultaneously, ‘ It must have been pre-arranged,’ he acknowledged to himself, three diplomatic notes were delivered to him. One each from the United States, the Swiss, and the Portuguese Ambassadors.

They each said much the same thing. The new German Foreign Minister — Baron Werner von Altendorf — on behalf of his country, urgently requested a meeting with the British Foreign Secretary to discuss a resolution of the current situation between their two countries. Included with the notes was an interesting document. Halifax read it with astonishment.

Nobody was aware that there was a new German Foreign minister. ‘ What the hell happened to the old foreign minister, von Ribbentrop,’ he asked himself. He knew Baron von Altendorf slightly from some years ago, and as far as he could recall he was a gentleman of the old school and not particularly pro-Nazi.

“Curious,” he said out loud. “Never did like von Ribbentrop anyway. Bloody jumped up champagne salesman.” He was referring to the German’s involvement in the wine trade in earlier years.

Each of the neutral ambassadors had also added ‘their strongest recommendation’ that Britain agrees to the German request. Provisional arrangements had already been made in secret by the Portuguese Government for a venue. Portugal was neutral in the conflict that had engulfed most of Western Europe.

Halifax had barely finished reading the notes and the enclosed document when his telephone rang. His personal secretary said the United States Ambassador was on the line.

“Highly unusual,” muttered Halifax, as he accepted the call.

The US Ambassador since 1937 was Joseph Kennedy. An arrogant man with whom many sections of the British Establishment did not have good relations. It was believed he was not particularly pro-British and he had argued against the United States giving military and economic aid to Britain. Secretly he would not have been unhappy to see Britain humbled Germany.

Yet the same man greatly enjoyed, as Ambassador, his lofty position in London high society, which was in stark contrast to his relatively ‘outsider’ position in his home town of Boston in the USA.