The Queen Mother Part 15
The groaning nations; when the impious rule,
By will or by established ordinance,
Their own dire agents, and constrain the good
To acts which they abhor; though I bewail
This triumph, yet the pity of my heart
Prevents me not from owning that the law,
By which mankind now suffers, is most just.
For by superior energies; more strict
Affiance with each other; faith more firm
In their unhallowed principles; the bad
Have fairly earned a victory o'er the weak,
The vacillating, inconsistent good.
It was the relevance of the last three lines which particularly struck her, she recalled many years later. Churchill treasured the gift, had it framed and kept it thereafter.63 Through these contacts with the country's leaders, and through her own increasingly full programme, she was developing stronger views and a clearer concept of her own role. It was one which was wholly in support of her husband, but also much more active and independent than that of Queen Mary in the First World War. In part, this reflected the expansion of the role of women in general. It was also due to her own personality: she was less retiring than her mother-in-law, and more confident that she could make her own contribution without overstepping the mark as the sovereign's consort. Lastly, it was undoubtedly due to others' appreciation of her effectiveness in boosting morale and winning public support for whatever cause she took up. At the same time she was determined to make her own views known, and not to be taken for granted.
Thus, following the success of her broadcast to the women of the Empire, she was in frequent demand to make speeches and send messages. In February 1940 the Minister of Health, Walter Elliot, drafted an announcement on evacuation policy and, in the hope of boosting public support, he added a statement that the Queen would be sending a message of appreciation to all householders who took in evacuee children. Unfortunately, however, he had failed to consult the Queen herself in time, and earned a rebuke from her: she thought it wrong that her name should be a.s.sociated with a government measure in advance of its adoption. 'You are a good Scotsman, and will appreciate my caution I hope.' Nevertheless she approved the message, which was sent to more than 320,000 households.64 A moral dilemma arose for her over another request. The American Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation asked her, as patron of the British YWCA, to broadcast to their National Convention in April 1940 on the eighty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the YWCA. Alec Hardinge cautioned that a broadcast by her might be taken by Americans as propaganda for the Allied cause, but she discounted this, and was anxious to accept. Then, however, she learned from the King that Britain was about to mine neutral Norway's territorial waters in order to stop the export of oil and other vital supplies to Germany. The Queen realized the necessity of this. 'We've got to beat the Germans,' she wrote;65 but she also understood that sinking ships in neutral territorial waters might anger other neutral countries the United States included and she feared that her broadcast at this time might add fuel to the fire, as well as making her look hypocritical. She consulted Lord Halifax who replied that he understood her qualms but a.s.sured her that the mine-laying off Norway was justified.66 She did make her speech but in a less conspicuous form than originally proposed. It was addressed not direct to the American YWCA, but to an anniversary celebration at the British YWCA headquarters on 13 April, from which it was broadcast. 'Never, I suppose, has the a.s.sociation had a more responsible part to play in the world than today,' she declared. 'Christian standards and values are being challenged at all points, and a purely material conception of life offered in their places.' It was for younger members to take up the challenge, as individual witnesses to the eternal truths and as one great fellowship, pledged to Christian ideals.67 She made no direct reference to the war, but her words reflected her view of the threat to Christianity which the war represented. There seem to have been no diplomatic repercussions.
The episode ill.u.s.trates the inner conflict she shared with other Christian idealists before and since in times of war. Hardinge had been concerned, a year earlier, that she made judgements purely on the morality of an action without regard to its consequences.68 Once war broke out she was as determined as any of her compatriots that it must be won; but she continued to believe that Christian values must be upheld and dishonourable conduct by the enemy should not be repaid in kind.69 *
IT WAS JUST under three years since the Coronation. Now the Phoney War or Sitzkrieg finally ended and within weeks real war brought Britain to the edge of disaster. On 9 April Hitler swooped on Denmark and attacked Norway. Norway resisted, and declared war on Germany; Britain promised all the help in her power, but the British naval and expeditionary forces were unable to protect their ally against the coordinated German a.s.sault. By 4 May almost all Norway was in German hands.
This shocking, sudden defeat released months of pent-up frustration with the government's lackl.u.s.tre performance. It was now clear beyond argument that Neville Chamberlain could not be a war leader. He was a man of peace who could never seek victory; he hated making any decision that might cause casualties on either side. At the same time he was right to fear that Britain's conscript army, only two years old, was not well trained enough to take on the Wehrmacht. The disaster in Norway proved the point. On 7 May the Commons began a pa.s.sionate two-day debate on Norway which ended with so many Conservative MPs deserting their Prime Minister that his position became untenable. In a stunning rebuke, the Conservative backbencher Leo Amery adopted Cromwell's words to the Long Parliament: 'You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of G.o.d, go!' The King and Queen, still loyal to Chamberlain, were dismayed.70 On 10 May Hitler's troops poured into Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Given the emergency, Chamberlain was determined to remain as prime minister at the head of a national government, but the Labour Party refused to serve under him. That afternoon, he went to Buckingham Palace to offer his resignation. Chamberlain recommended that the King send for Churchill. The King did so. Churchill still aroused considerable suspicion, not least because of his attempt to use the abdication crisis to secure his own advancement and to undercut Stanley Baldwin.
By Churchill's own account, 'His Majesty received me most graciously and bade me sit down. He looked at me searchingly and quizzically for some moments and then said: "I suppose you don't know why I have sent for you?" Adopting his mood, I replied "Sir, I simply couldn't imagine why." He laughed and said "I want you to form a Government." I said I would certainly do so.'71 The King wrote in his diary: 'He was full of fire & determination to carry out the duties of Prime Minister.'72 The Queen wrote Chamberlain a warm letter: 'I can never tell you in words how much we owe you. During these last desperate & unhappy years, you have been a great support & comfort to us both, and we felt so safe with the knowledge that your wisdom and high purpose were there at our hand ... Although one knew that carnage had to come, it is hard to sit here and think of those splendid young men being sacrificed to Hitler. You did all you could to stave off such agony and you were right.'73 She never changed her opinion of Chamberlain. Asked many years later if history had been unkind to him, she said, 'Yes. I think he was a good man. I think he really tried. And whatever people say, it gave us that year. Because, as usual, they had practically got rid of the army. So that gave us one year to rearm, and build a few aeroplanes.'74 Queen Mary wrote to the King to commiserate on the loss of a prime minister in whom he had confidence '& were able to talk to as a friend, whereas W. is so uncertain! Let us hope & pray all may be for the best in the end.'75 The next few weeks were probably the most dangerous Britain would face in the entire twentieth century. The King had still to appreciate Churchill. 'I cannot yet think of Winston as PM,' he wrote in his diary on 11 May.76 But it was not long before he and the Queen came to realize that Churchill was far from 'uncertain'.
The new Prime Minister immediately began to rally a nation adrift. He invited the Labour leader Clement Attlee, Chamberlain and the Liberal leader Sir Archibald Sinclair to join his government. In the first of many epic speeches to the Commons and on the BBC he warned on 13 May, 'We are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history ... I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." ' Britain's policy, he declared, 'is to wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that G.o.d can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpa.s.sed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.'77 Such resolution was tested at once; May 1940 was merciless. The speed at which European powers and thrones collapsed before the onslaught of the Germans and their allies was terrifying. Denmark and Norway were followed by the fall of Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium and then Britain's most significant ally of all, France.
Hitler tried to capture the royal families of Europe. On 13 May the King was woken at 5 a.m. by an unprecedented telephone call another monarch beseeching help. Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands 'begged' him to send the Royal Air Force to help defend her country, which was being overrun by the Germans. The King pa.s.sed her request on to everyone concerned. 'It is not often one is rung up at that hour, and especially by a Queen. But in these days anything might happen, & far worse things too.'78 Queen Wilhelmina immediately fled her palace, only narrowly avoiding capture by German forces sent to seize her. Braving German bombs, she managed to get to the Hook of Holland and aboard the British destroyer Hereward which happened still to be there. She hoped to be taken to the south of Holland where her troops were still resisting. But the speed of German advances made that impossible and the Hereward carried her to Harwich instead. With great reluctance she went by train to London.
The King hurried to Liverpool Street station to greet the Dutch monarch and bring her to Buckingham Palace. The doughty Queen had little more than the clothes she was wearing, and a tin hat.79 On 15 May came the news that the Dutch army had surrendered. The Queen did everything she could to make the royal refugee comfortable in the now rather spartan Palace, until Queen Wilhelmina moved to a house in Eaton Square at the end of the month. Princess Juliana, her daughter, had arrived in England with her husband and children on the same day as her mother. Princess Irene, the infant daughter of Princess Juliana, was to have been baptized in Amsterdam. Queen Elizabeth suggested that the ceremony take place instead in the chapel at Buckingham Palace where her own daughters had been christened.80 Soon afterwards Princess Juliana and her family left for Canada, where they lived for the rest of the war. From there the Princess wrote to thank the Queen for all the comforting hospitality she had given them, 'culminating in the very lovely atmosphere you made for little Irene's christening'.81 After the Dutch, the Norwegians King Haakon VII, the King's uncle by marriage, and his son Crown Prince Olav were the next to arrive. For almost two months they had been hunted around their country but had evaded capture. When King Haakon finally realized that the Germans had seized every village and every fjord of his kingdom, he too decided to leave and, with his son, was secreted aboard a British ship. On 10 June the King met them at Euston station and took them to Buckingham Palace.
The Queen was very fond of both father and son, and welcomed them. But she was concerned about the extra strain that the royal refugees placed upon the depleted staff. Later she remembered that in one air raid she had to step over the rec.u.mbent King and his son, 'both snoring away' on the floor of the Palace shelter. 'It really was too peculiar!'82 She tried to find them another home as 'tho' we love having them, it is rather a bore never to be alone'.83 Eventually they took Lord Harewood's house in Green Street, Mayfair.
As Europe collapsed, 'there was an appalling feeling of apprehension in the Palace. And the most wonderful comradeship,' one lady in waiting recalled. The Queen remained calm.84 Since the beginning of the year she had carried out some fifty-five engagements in London and the south-east, both on her own and with the King, as well as visiting Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Midlands, Lancashire and Dorset for more engagements. She went to see her regiments when she could, inspecting the Queen's Bays in Dorset on 14 May, but the emphasis in her programme was on women, and civilian organizations.
The news from the continent grew daily worse. The German army attacked through the narrow lanes of the Ardennes and crossed the River Meuse, which the French had thought impa.s.sable. By 15 May the French army was retreating helter-skelter and the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, telephoned Churchill to tell him that the battle was lost and the road to Paris was open to the Germans.
On 16 May German troops broke through the Maginot Line, the supposedly impregnable fortifications along France's eastern border. The British Expeditionary Force in Belgium and northern France was under real threat of being cut off from the sea by the German advance. Churchill broadcast a warning that 'the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall'.85 The position of the British troops in France became even more perilous when on 25 May King Leopold of the Belgians surrendered and made the fateful choice to stay with his people rather than follow his government into exile. This decision aroused horror in London, where a united European front against the n.a.z.is was considered essential, and the King wrote to Leopold, whom he liked, expressing his great concern. King Leopold would not change his mind.
On 26 May the King and Queen, together with Queen Wilhelmina, attended a service at Westminster Abbey as part of a National Day of Prayer. Across the country millions gathered; the Archbishop of Canterbury called the war 'a mighty conflict against the powers of evil'.
The country was praying first of all for a miracle to rescue the British troops encircled near Dunkirk. That prayer was granted. Hitler delayed his Panzer attack on the BEF and the remnants of French and Belgian units. And the Channel was like a merciful mill pond. Between 26 May and 5 June an extraordinary flotilla of British vessels, including many yachts and other 'small ships', managed to rescue more than 300,000 British and French soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk. Day by day the King wrote in his diary the numbers of men brought off the beaches so far 80,000 by 30 May, 133,000 British soldiers and 11,000 Frenchmen by 31 May, 224,000 British and 111,000 French by Wednesday 5 June. The Queen went to visit some of the first wounded soldiers to return at a Ministry of Health emergency hospital.86 The Queen was relieved that Arthur Penn's nephew Eric got off the beaches. 'I can only say with all my heart Thank G.o.d.'87 But among the troops who did not reach Dunkirk was the 1st Battalion The Black Watch, in which her nephew John Elphinstone was serving. They were forced to surrender near Abbeville, after fierce fighting with the Germans. Only nine men and one officer got away. The Queen was deeply concerned; eventually the news came that John Elphinstone had been captured. He spent almost five years in prisoner-of-war camps, including Colditz.88*
Deliverance aside, Dunkirk was a shocking defeat, and while the evacuation was taking place the War Cabinet even discussed whether Britain should take up a suggestion that Mussolini might negotiate an overall peace. On 28 May Halifax and Chamberlain argued that all options should be considered. This was a critical moment in British history. Churchill listened to the proposals for a negotiated settlement, but said he thought that the chances of Hitler offering 'decent terms' were a thousand to one against. He declared that 'nations which went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished.' To a meeting of other ministers he expressed the same feelings 'If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.'89 'In response to this Macbethian challenge,' wrote the war historian John Keegan, 'Cabinet ministers, Conservative, Liberal and Labour alike, jumped from their seats to pummel him on the back.'90 Churchill himself later wrote that if he had faltered at that moment 'I should have been hurled out of office.'91 Churchill's furious determination was crucial. On 4 June, warning the House of Commons that Britain faced imminent invasion, he declared, 'We shall go on to the end ... we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.' From now on, the flame of British patriotism, lit by Churchill and tended a.s.siduously by the King and Queen, burned through years of setbacks and tragedy with astonishing resilience.
Meanwhile, under German onslaught, the French had withdrawn most of their troops and were re-forming to await an attack on the Somme. Churchill made four flights to France to encourage resistance, and the King sent President Lebrun a telegram sympathizing with French losses and exhorting France to continue the struggle. Over the next week the French army launched an attack on a broad front in northern France, and appealed for more help; the British prepared to send out two more divisions, including the 1st Canadian Division. On 8 June the King and Queen went to see the Canadians at Aldershot; the King recorded that Canada was fielding the only division with all its equipment and artillery. Then, as the German armies poured across France and bombed Paris for the first time, French resistance faltered.
Everywhere the news was terrible. On 10 June Italy declared war on the Allies and immediately bombed the British island of Malta. On 12 June Churchill reported to the King that the French were outnumbered three to one and might have to surrender very soon. However, as the King noted, 'A young General de Gaulle is ready to carry on a "war of columns", mobile units against German tanks. Marshal Petain is a defeatist, & says all is lost. Aged 84.'92 On Friday 14 June, the day on which the Germans entered an undefended and almost deserted Paris, the Queen broadcast in French a message of encouragement to the women of France. 'Je voudrais ce soir dire aux femmes de France, de cette France heroique et glorieuse qui defend, en ce moment, non seulement son propre sol, mais les libertes du monde entier, les sentiments d'affection, et d'admiration, que leurs souffrances et leur courage eveillent en nos coeurs,' she began. She praised the ardour with which the French army was fighting, but her thoughts were primarily with the women who were watching in anguish the immense struggle in which their sons, husbands and brothers were engaged. 'Pour moi qui ai toujours tant aime la France, je souffre aujourd'hui comme vous.' She recalled the enthusiasm and generosity with which she and the King had been received in Paris in 1938 and she saluted the sacrifices Frenchwomen were now prepared to make to save their country. 'Une nation qui a, pour la defendre, de tels hommes, et pour l'aimer, de telles femmes, doit, tot ou tard, forcer la victoire' a nation defended by such men and loved by such women must sooner or later attain victory.
Finally, she spoke of her recent conversations with wounded French soldiers who had come over from Dunkirk, and whom she had visited at the Wellhouse Emergency Hospital on 6 June. She had talked to each in French, and asked how they were feeling. All, even the most severely wounded, she said, had replied almost gaily with one short phrase: 'ca va.' She was sure that the time would come when the two peoples, British and French, would be able to exchange the same words: 'Maintenant, ca va.'93 The Queen had been helped to draft the speech by the anglophile French writer Andre Maurois, who had been Churchill's interpreter on the Western Front in 1916, and was in unhappy exile in London.94 After the broadcast Maurois wrote to her praising the way she had delivered it.95 He acknowledged that the broadcast probably came too late to help stiffen French resolve not to surrender. But he felt that it would give his countrymen hope for the future. The British government was sufficiently impressed for Anthony Eden, who was foreign secretary once again, to write to the Queen in January 1941 asking her to make another, similar broadcast (although in the event the idea was shelved), as her message had 'created a profound impression in France'.96 The day after the Queen's broadcast, General Charles de Gaulle arrived in Britain and set himself at the head of a campaign to rally French forces outside France, shortly to become the Free French movement. On 22 June the French government surrendered. Britain was now on her own and the prospects were terrible Churchill warned Roosevelt that if Britain were defeated, 'you may have a United States of Europe under n.a.z.i command far more numerous, far stronger, far better armed than the New World.'97 In response to a sympathetic letter from Eleanor Roosevelt,98 the Queen wrote, Sometimes one's heart seems near breaking under the stress of so much sorrow and anxiety. When we think of our gallant young men being sacrificed to the terrible machine that Germany has created, I think that anger perhaps predominates, but when we think of their valour, their determination and their great grand spirit, pride and joy are uppermost.
We are all prepared to sacrifice everything in the fight to save freedom, and the curious thing is, that already many false values are going, and life is becoming simpler and greater every day.99 Despair would have been understandable. But the country's solitary stand gave rise to a single-minded determination and, almost, elation. The King wrote to Queen Mary, 'Personally I feel happier now that we have no allies to be polite to & pamper.'100 Many British people appeared to agree with this sentiment. Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, Air Officer Commanding Fighter Command, remarked 'Thank G.o.d we're alone now' he would no longer have to deploy his limited number of fighters over the continent.
Churchill, knowing how vital the battle in the air would be, had appointed his friend Max Beaverbrook, the newspaper proprietor, to be minister for aircraft production. By the middle of June Beaverbrook had managed to raise the number of aircraft being manufactured every week from 245 to 363.101 In the Commons on 19 June Churchill made two more of his historic declarations, announcing that the Battle of France was over and he now expected the Battle of Britain to begin. 'Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation,' he insisted. 'Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour." '102 Such rhetoric induced optimism which seemed astonishing if not downright foolish to onlookers abroad. As the New Yorker's London correspondent Mollie Panter-Downes wrote, 'It would be difficult for an impartial observer to decide today whether the British are the bravest or merely the most stupid people in the world.'103 Brave or stupid, in these circ.u.mstances it was entirely proper that the bond between King and Prime Minister grew ever stronger. One impediment had long since gone. 'I am getting to know Winston better, & I feel that we are beginning to understand each other,' the King wrote to Queen Mary. 'His silly att.i.tude over D. in 1936 is quite over ... Winston is definitely the right man at the helm at the moment.'104 Churchill had indeed reconsidered his initial support of King Edward VIII. Malcolm MacDonald later recalled a conversation during the Battle of Britain when Churchill told him that 'King George and Queen Elizabeth are a far finer, more popular and more inspiringly helpful pair than the other would have been. We could not have a better King and Queen in Britain's most perilous hour.'105 The King began to look forward keenly to their weekly meetings, and by the autumn of 1940 these had changed from formal audiences into private Tuesday lunches. The Queen was generally present.*
Churchill commented that the intimacy which developed between him and the King was unprecedented since the days of Queen Anne and his own ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough.106 Just as unprecedented, however, was the presence of the Queen at these private conversations between the King and his Prime Minister. The King's diary does not record any interventions by the Queen. Nevertheless she said, many years later, that she felt very much a part of a team with the King, and he 'got on terribly well, like a house on fire', with Churchill.107 By now the King and Queen symbolized resistance to Hitler not only in Britain but also in all the occupied nations of Europe.
Britons were now organizing to resist invasion. In the south-east, there was widespread fear of Germans parachuting or gliding down from the skies, perhaps even disguised as nuns. Locals sabotaged possible landing sites: golf courses, sports fields, downland and fields were scattered with junk old cars, old cookers, ploughs, tree trunks anything to prevent an aircraft from touching down. Road signs were removed, so as not to a.s.sist any enemy who did arrive. The names of villages and even railway stations were taken down.108 The government had called for all able-bodied men between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five who were not already engaged in the war effort to step forward and become Local Defence Volunteers. (Thus was born the Home Guard, eventually to be portrayed as 'Dad's Army', in the affectionate television series which became one of Queen Elizabeth's favourite programmes in later years.) Immediately, over a quarter of a million people offered their services and began to gather in pubs and meeting rooms across the country to discuss how they could serve. By the end of June the 'force' had grown to a million and a half. Men and boys began to drill with broomsticks instead of rifles, pitchforks instead of anti-aircraft guns.
In Windsor Castle Owen Morshead became the head of the Castle's Home Guard. He wrote to Queen Mary to tell her how the King and Queen were coping and said that they had talked to the night patrols in the Castle, which was a great encouragement to them. He thought the King 'seemed rather oppressed and tired sick of reading & reading the endless stream of Cabinet papers and war reports sent daily to him, and waiting & waiting. It is a misfortune for him in these days that he has to know so much of what is going on where ignorance is bliss. Happily the Queen is a perpetual tonic, with her sunny and buoyant nature.'109 The King and Queen were determined to protect themselves. Both of them took shooting lessons (the King was already an accomplished shot) and the King carried a rifle as well as a revolver in his car. Joseph Kennedy noted in his diary a story told him by Brendan Bracken, now a minister in the government. On one of Churchill's weekly visits to the King at Buckingham Palace he found him in the garden shooting at a target with a rifle. The King told his Prime Minister that 'if the Germans were coming, he was at least going to get his German and Churchill said if he felt that way about it, he would get him a Tommy Gun so he could kill a lot of Germans and he is getting him one'.110*
The Queen was equally resolute. She told Harold Nicolson that she was taking instruction every morning in firing a revolver. 'I shall not go down like the others,' she said. 'I should die if I had to leave.'111 Nicolson was much cheered by her pluck and the resolution and good sense of both King and Queen. He wrote to his wife Vita, 'he was so gay and she so calm. They did me all the good in the world ... We shall win. I know that. I have no doubts at all.'112 Through these months thousands of children were being evacuated from the major cities in antic.i.p.ation of German bombing. Most were sent to the country but others, especially children of the well-to-do, were dispatched for safety to the United States or to the Dominions. The King and Queen had discussed with Churchill the threat to their own children; on 18 June the King had asked Churchill if he thought the Princesses would be a liability in the event of invasion. 'No,' the Prime Minister replied.113 The Queen had no doubts. She made it clear that evacuation was not what she wanted for herself or for her children. She has been often quoted (though the precise moment is obscure) as saying, 'The children could not go without me, I could not possibly leave the King, and the King would never go.'
That being so, the security of the Royal Family was a major concern. On one occasion, King Haakon asked the King what would happen if German parachutists suddenly descended into the grounds of the Palace. The King's biographer explained what happened next: Obligingly King George pressed the alarm signal and, together with the Queen, they went into the garden to watch the result. There followed an anti-climax; nothing happened at all. An anxious equerry, dispatched to make inquiries, returned with the report that the officer of the guard had been informed by the police sergeant on duty that no attack was pending 'as he had heard nothing of it'. Police co-operation having been obtained, a number of guardsmen entered the gardens at the double and, to the horror of King Haakon but the vast amus.e.m.e.nt of the King and Queen, proceeded to thrash the undergrowth in the manner of beaters at a shoot rather than of men engaged in the pursuit of a dangerous enemy. As a result of this incident precautions were revised and strengthened.114 The most important of these was the Coats Mission, a hand-picked body of officers and men from the Brigade of Guards and the Household Cavalry who, equipped with armoured cars, stood always ready to spirit the King and Queen into a secret place of safety in the country should the Germans really threaten them.115*
At Buckingham Palace the first royal air-raid shelter was somewhat amateurish and probably afforded little or no protection against a direct hit. It was a bas.e.m.e.nt room which had been used by the housekeeper. The ceiling was reinforced by steel girders and there were steel shutters across the high window. The furniture was somewhat eclectic it included gilt chairs, a regency settee and a large Victorian mahogany table. The shelter was decorated with many of the valuable small Dutch landscapes which had been brought downstairs. Hating the shelter as she did, the Queen said later that she had developed an unreasonable dislike for these little scenes of cows and bridges over ca.n.a.ls.116 There were emergency steps to reach the window, axes on the wall, oil lamps, electric torches, a bottle of smelling salts and a pile of glossy magazines to help while away the hours. In the room next door, the Household took shelter they were blessed with a piano, but the King was not amused when one of the refugee courtiers attempted a rousing singsong. The Queen's dressers and other staff had another nearby room, to which many of the Palace's priceless clocks had been moved for safe keeping. Their loud ticking provided a useful distraction to those awaiting bombardment. Rats provided another, less welcome diversion.117 Throughout that summer, as daily dogfights took place across the skies, the Queen continued her visits to troops, hospitals, voluntary services, factories, aerodromes and training centres, carrying out more than twenty solo engagements in June and July and another ten jointly with the King. On 31 July she visited the Free French troops under the leadership of General de Gaulle at Olympia. De Gaulle did not prove an easy ally, but he soon became something of a favourite with her. On the same day she went to see another group of French soldiers, waiting to be repatriated, at White City. A Breton soldier to whom she spoke was impressed by her calm and smiling face, and wrote afterwards, 'cette Reine ne peut pas etre vaincue car elle est la justice meme et la vraie conception de la vie democratique.'118 For the first time in their married life there was no holiday in Scotland that year, and the Queen celebrated her birthday on 4 August in a low-key manner.
INEVITABLY HITLER'S dash across Europe led to new, more serious concerns with regard to the Duke of Windsor. With the approval of the British Military Mission to which he was attached, he left Paris as the Germans advanced in May; he and the d.u.c.h.ess paused briefly in the south of France before having to flee the advancing Germans into Spain on the night of 20 June.
Berlin had ambitions for the Duke. Ribbentrop, the former Amba.s.sador to London and now the German Foreign Minister, knew that the Duke had been sympathetic to Germany and that he considered the war unnecessary. The fascist government of General Franco was aligned with Berlin and the Germans now tried to have the Duke detained in Spain. Churchill, concerned, telegraphed the Duke asking him to move at once to neutral Lisbon, whence a flying boat would carry him and the d.u.c.h.ess back to England. The Duke's reply ignored the fact that Churchill was leading Britain in its most perilous hour he insisted that before he returned he be given guarantees that he and the d.u.c.h.ess would be royally treated in England, and would be extended regular invitations to Buckingham Palace. To badger the Prime Minister on such matters at a time when Britain faced imminent invasion was, as his biographer put it, 'conduct that cannot be condoned'.119 The Windsors did then move on to Lisbon, but even there they were subject to German conspiracies. Ribbentrop first sent men to flatter the Duke with praise and promises and then an SS officer with the mission to cajole and if necessary force the Duke back to Spain. At Buckingham Palace Alec Hardinge made notes on an intelligence report: 'Germans expect a.s.sistance from Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Windsor. Latter desiring at any price to become Queen. Germans have been negotiating with her since June 27th.'120 Churchill then devised the idea of getting the couple far from German reach by making the Duke governor of the Bahamas. The Royal Family were not keen the King wrote to his mother, 'I at once said that "she" would be an obstacle as D's wife.' But none of the family wanted the Windsors in England at this time and, as the King put it to Queen Mary, 'it was imperative to get him away from Lisbon.'121 Queen Mary was equally unenthusiastic but she replied, 'Under the circ.u.mstances I think this is the best arrangement for D.'122 The Queen, perhaps, had the greatest misgivings, and she expressed them very clearly in a handwritten memorandum. Although she knew that the appointment had already been decided, she asked Alec Hardinge to send her notes to the Colonial Secretary, Lord Lloyd. The language she used about the d.u.c.h.ess was strong, and undoubtedly reflected the feelings that she had harboured since 1936. But her views on the Windsors' suitability for public office were shared not only throughout the Royal Family* and Household, but also by members of the public, some of whose letters criticizing the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess she sent on to Lord Lloyd.123 She wrote that she was certain that, if the Duke was made governor of the Bahamas, 'a very difficult situation will arise over his wife.' Home and marriage ties were 'sacred' to the average Briton and the fact that the d.u.c.h.ess 'has three husbands alive, will not be pleasing to the good people of the Islands'. Britons were used to 'looking up' to the King's representatives, but 'The d.u.c.h.ess of Windsor is looked upon as the lowest of the low it will be the first lowering of the standard hitherto set, and may lead to unimaginable troubles, if a Governor's wife such as she, is to lead and set an example to the Bahamas.' Her objections, she stressed, were 'on moral grounds, but in this world of broken promises and lowered standards, who is to keep a high standard of honour, but the British Empire ... These few words are written from the point of view of general policy they are not personal. I feel strongly that such an appointment may lead to great troubles.' She thought, moreover, that it would displease the Americans, which might be dangerous.124 Hardinge told her that he knew that Lord Lloyd, like most others, shared her views, but thought the appointment was a lesser evil than the only alternative the Windsors' return to Britain. 'I think that she will do harm wherever she is but there is less scope for it in a place like the Bahamas than elsewhere and the native population probably will not understand what it is all about!'125 The Duke had new demands. He insisted that his former servants be released from active service to accompany him to the Bahamas and that he and the d.u.c.h.ess be allowed to visit New York en route. Churchill absolutely refused to allow the second request but eventually and reluctantly agreed that one valet be discharged in order to return to him. Even then the Windsors' departure was still not certain. The Germans made sure that the Duke was told that the British Secret Service were planning to a.s.sa.s.sinate him on the voyage and that he would be far safer under the German wing in Spain. It took another visit from the redoubtable Walter Monckton to convince him to leave; he and the d.u.c.h.ess finally set sail on 1 August.126 The extent to which the Duke would ever have co-operated with the n.a.z.is cannot be known. On one occasion, the King wrote, 'Winston told me that D.'s ideas and his pro-n.a.z.i leanings would have been impossible during the crisis of the last three years.'127 That was undoubtedly true, but does not in itself imply treasonable intent. The considered view of the Duke's biographer, Philip Ziegler, is that 'there seems little doubt that he did think Britain was likely to lose the war and that, in such a case, he believed he might have a role to play.' Despite all this, Ziegler concluded that in the awful event of a German victory the Duke's belief in the British meant that 'he could not have allowed himself to rule by favour of the Germans over a sullen and resentful people.'128 *
AS THE DUKE and d.u.c.h.ess sailed west, the next stage of Hitler's a.s.sault began with the unprecedented, indeed revolutionary use of air power to break Britain's will and ability to resist a seaborne invasion. The campaign had begun in early July with bombing raids on south-coast ports, and gathered in intensity, spreading through the south-east and on to London. Having given up hope of forcing Britain to the conference table, Hitler knew that no invasion could take place until the Germans controlled the air over Britain and the English Channel. He flung the ma.s.s of the Luftwaffe against London itself. For ten days the bright and sunny skies over south-eastern England were filled with the roar of warfare as wave after wave of German bombers growled across the coast towards London and young men in their Spitfires and Hurricanes rose up to shoot them down.
This new phase of the Battle of Britain was deadly. On 8 August the Luftwaffe began a systematic attack on airfields and aircraft factories, and managed to bomb many of them out of action. In the last week of August and the first week of September 1940 there were 600 enemy aircraft attacking Britain every day. In those two weeks, the RAF lost 290 aircraft. On the night of 7 September, 200 German bombers broke through the RAF defences and hit London, killing 300 people and injuring over 1,300 more in the next few hours. The docks in the East End were set alight and hundreds of fires attracted swarm after swarm of enemy aircraft. That night, to add to the horror, the Chiefs of Staff issued the code word 'CROMWELL'. An invasion was thought to be imminent.
And so it went on every night by the middle of the month more than 2,000 civilians had been killed and 8,000 wounded, most in London itself. The courage of 'the few' in the RAF was extraordinary and gave Britain an essential victory their resistance to the Luftwaffe until the equinox gales arrived in the fourth week of September meant that Hitler had had to postpone Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain. Nonetheless, the bombing continued week after week and London was raided again and again and again.
On Sunday 8 September, Buckingham Palace itself received its first direct hit. A delayed-action bomb was dropped; it did not explode and next morning the King worked in his office above where it lay. In the middle of Monday night it went off, blowing out all the windows of his office and many others, and damaging the indoor swimming pool. Some of the Palace ceilings came down, but the main structure was not seriously affected.
During the week which followed, the King and Queen made their first visits to the devastated East End. They were given emotional welcomes by people picking through the rubble of their streets with extraordinary cheerfulness; they had lost everything but were still determined to try to rebuild their homes and their lives. The sight of their King and Queen walking among them and talking to many of them with obvious interest and concern was immensely rea.s.suring. The King wrote to his mother, 'we have seen some of the awful havoc which has been done in East London, & have talked to the people who are quite marvellous in the face of adversity. So cheerful about it all, & some have had very narrow escapes.'129 On the morning of 13 September the King and Queen themselves were nearly killed. In a deliberate attack, a German bomber emerged from low cloud, flew straight up the Mall and dropped a stick of bombs on the Palace. The Queen described what happened in a long letter to Queen Mary: My darling Mama I hardly know how to begin to tell you of the horrible attack on Buckingham Palace this morning Bertie & I arrived there at about to 11, and he & I went up to our poor windowless rooms to collect a few odds and ends.
There was an air raid in progress and she went to find the King to see if he was coming down to the shelter.
He asked me to take an eyelash out of his eye, and while I was battling with this task, Alec came into the room with a batch of papers in his hand. At this moment we heard the unmistakable whirr-whirr of a German plane. We said, 'ah a German', and before anything else could be said, there was the noise of aircraft diving at great speed, and then the scream of a bomb. It all happened so quickly, that we had only time to look foolishly at each other, when the scream hurtled past us, and exploded with a tremendous crash in the quadrangle.
I saw a great column of smoke & earth thrown up into the air, and then we all ducked like lightning into the corridor. There was another tremendous explosion, and we & our 2 pages who were outside the door, remained for a moment or two in the corridor away from the staircase, in case of flying gla.s.s. It is curious how one's instinct works at these moments of great danger, as quite without thinking, the urge was to get away from the windows. Everybody remained wonderfully calm, and we went down to the shelter. I went along to see if the housemaids were alright, and found them busy in their various shelters.
Then came a cry for 'bandages', and the first aid party, who had been training for over a year, rose magnificently to the occasion, and treated the 3 poor casualties calmly and correctly. They, poor men, were working below the Chapel, and how they survived I don't know.* Their whole workshop was a shambles, for the bomb had gone bang through the floor above them. My knees trembled a little bit for a minute or two after the explosions! But we both feel quite well today, tho' just a bit tired.
I was so pleased with the behaviour of our servants. They were really magnificent. I went along to the kitchen which, as you will remember, has a gla.s.s roof. I found the chef bustling about, and when I asked him if he was alright, he replied cheerfully that there had been un pet.i.t quelque chose dans le coin, un pet.i.t bruit, with a broad smile. The pet.i.t quelque chose was the bomb on the Chapel just next door! He was perfectly unmoved, and took the opportunity to tell me of his unshakeable conviction that France will rise again!130 The King and Queen decided to conceal how nearly they had died, even from Churchill. In the second volume of his memoirs, Their Finest Hour, Churchill wrote, 'Had the windows been closed instead of open, the whole of the gla.s.s would have splintered into the faces of the King and Queen, causing terrible injuries. So little did they make of it that even I ... never realised until long afterwards ... what had actually happened.' Their near-escape was not made public until after the end of the war.
On the day of the bombing, after lunch in their shelter, they drove again to the East End of London. The Queen was horrified and moved. 'The damage there is ghastly,' she told Queen Mary.
I really felt as if I was walking in a dead city, when we walked down a little empty street. All the houses evacuated and yet through the broken windows one saw all the poor little possessions, photographs, beds, just as they were left. At the end of the street is a school which was. .h.i.t, and collapsed on the top of 500 people waiting to be evacuated about 200 are still under the ruins. It does affect me seeing this terrible and senseless destruction I think that really I mind it much more than being bombed myself. The people are marvellous, and full of fight. One could not imagine that life could become so terrible. We must win in the end.
Darling Mama, I do hope that you will let me come & stay a day or two later. It is so sad being parted, as this War has parted families.
With my love, and prayers for your safety, ever darling Mama, your loving daughter in law Elizabeth PS Dear old BP is still standing and that is the main thing.131 But in one way the bombing of the Palace was helpful to the King and Queen and to the country. Some Members of Parliament had worried in the first days of the Blitz that, if the bombing was concentrated on working-cla.s.s areas, resentment would grow. The Queen said, famously and more than once, that she was glad that the Palace had been bombed because it meant that she could 'now look the East End in the face'.132 And it was true that it did help create a closer bond. The King told Queen Mary that he thought their visits to the bombed areas helped people 'who have lost their relations & homes, & we have both found a new bond with them as Buckingham Palace has been bombed as well as their homes, and n.o.body is immune.'133 The Queen now found that people would ask her how she felt about being attacked. A voluntary worker in one stricken area related that 'the first thing all the women say to her, as they try to salvage their own pathetic bundles of belongings from their ruined homes, is "Did the Queen lose all her pretty things too?" '134 On one such visit to south-east London, Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, was with them.
The Queen asked me about the morale of the people who had been bombed: when we were coming through a very slummy district a crowd gathered around the carriage and called out, 'Good Luck' and 'G.o.d Bless You' and 'Thank YMs for coming to see us'. I knew the district and had been there only a week before. I said, 'You asked me about morale. All these people have lost their homes.' The Queen was so touched she couldn't speak for a moment, I saw the tears come into her eyes and then she said, 'I think they're wonderful.'135 At one communal feeding centre, there was a moment, noted Woolton, at which 'a very dirty child' in its mother's arms grabbed at the Queen's pearls. A photographer ran around trying to get a picture but she had just moved away. Woolton, standing behind the Queen, murmured to her, 'Your Majesty, you've broken a press man's heart.' 'Without showing the slightest sign that she had heard,' Woolton recorded, 'she moved back into position for the baby again to play with her pearls, and so that the pressman could take his photograph. The incident was, in fact, the only thing recorded in the press!'136 Woolton appreciated the simplicity of both the King and Queen. 'They were so easy to talk to and to take round, and fell so readily into conversation with the people whom they were seeing, without any hesitation or affectation, or side. They were, in fact, very nice people, doing a very human job.'137*
That certainly was the impression they gave. After their trip to Bermondsey, the Chairman of the National Council of Girls' Clubs, Mrs Walter Elliot, wrote to the Queen's lady in waiting, 'Everyone in Bermondsey believed that Her Majesty came to see them because she had heard that there had been a direct hit on a shelter, and had wanted to help them. It is impossible to over-estimate what this visit has meant ... The people felt as if an angel had pa.s.sed through their midst. This must have been said often before, but it was the literal truth.'138 From Chicago the Queen received a poem which began: Be it said to your renown
That you wore your gayest gown
Your bravest smile, and stayed in Town
When London Bridge was burning down,
My fair lady.139
In fact her gowns in wartime were a constant worry. The King looked elegant in uniform throughout the war; the Queen had more difficulty deciding what she should wear. She knew that press photographs tended to reveal her plumpness rather than her clear skin, let alone her charm. Her dressmaker, Norman Hartnell, advised that she must stand out in the crowd and that since most of the people she mingled with would be darkly if not drably dressed, she should wear light colours. In his autobiography he recalled the problem of how she should appear when visiting the victims of the bombing. 'In black? Black does not appear in the rainbow of hope. Conscious of tradition, the Queen made a wise decision in adhering to the gentle colours, and even though they became muted into what one might call dusty pink, dusty blue and dusty lilac, she never wore green and she never wore black. She wished to convey the most comforting, encouraging and sympathetic note possible.'140 In such clothes, and often in high heels, she certainly stood out in the bombed streets. Her gentle ostentation was deliberate and it seems to have been effective. It was encouraging for people who had lost almost everything to see that the Queen still had her style.141 She was careful to abide by the rules for 'austerity' clothes the amount of material, the number of seams, the amount of adornment and width of collar and belt. For receptions at the Palace or the Castle more elegant dresses were needed, but restrictions still applied. Embroidery was forbidden, so Hartnell 're-tinted and re-arranged' dresses from pre-war years. Many of them were the clothes he had created for the Canadian tour. In one case he painted by hand garlands of lilac and green leaves on a voluminous white satin gown. The Queen also encouraged him to accept a Board of Trade request to design utility clothes for the public.142 *
THROUGHOUT THE Battle of Britain the King and Queen drove to London almost every day and slept at Windsor Castle with their daughters. A large dugout had been constructed for the Royal Family under the Brunswick Tower, at the northern corner of the East Terrace. The King and Queen did not like this hole in the ground (which was also quite far from their rooms) and from early September 1940 they usually slept on the ground floor of the Victoria Tower (now Queen's Tower) which had been protected outside by huge concrete frames filled with sand, while more extensive reinforcing works took place. The whole tower was clothed in scaffolding and a ten-inch raft of concrete, steel and asbestos was built across the roof, while the four rooms in the cellar were given added protection by constructing a four-feet-thick roof of concrete and girders across the ground floor. 'At least there we can sleep undisturbed, unless we are attacked by dive bombers,' the King wrote to Queen Mary. 'We still have the deep underground shelter to go to as a last resort, which is safe.'143 In the early days of the war, the inhabitants of the Castle were alerted to air raids not only by outside sirens but also by loud electric bells which clanged through the corridors. In one early air raid everyone made their way to their shelters everyone, that is, except the nine-year-old Princess Margaret. Then, according to Owen Morshead, 'After a little time Miss Crawford was sent like the dove out of the ark to retrieve her, and after threading her way along endless deserted pa.s.sages, she found the child still in her bedroom. She was on her knees before her chest of drawers, the room in disarray, hurriedly searching for a pair of knickers to go with her skirt.'144 Reminiscing later, Queen Elizabeth recalled that one of the Princesses' nannies always wore a nightcap to the shelter 'I think she thought it was to be decent in the war.' She herself wore a gown which Hartnell had made especially for air-raid nights, and he also made her a black-velvet case for her gas mask.145 Windsor was attacked on two consecutive nights in October 1940, although the Castle was not hit. This, the Queen wrote to her sister May, was 'the first time that the children had actually heard the whistle & scream of bombs. They were wonderful, & when I went to say good-night to Margaret in her bed, I said that I hoped she wasn't frightened etc, & she said "Mummy, it was just like when you take a photograph that doesn't come out all grey & blurred, & you see several hands & arms instead of one", & it is so true, really very much what one feels like.'146 After the raid, the Queen visited bombed areas of Windsor and followed up by sending blankets to some whose houses had been destroyed.