Churchill Defiant: Fighting On 1945–1955

In reaction to Churchill’s call for the rebuilding of Germany and the formation of a ‘United States of Europe’, Moscow radio accused him of seeking to unite the continent in preparation for war. When Churchill went on to ask publicly why the Soviets were maintaining so many troops on a war footing in the occupied territories of Europe, Stalin called him the worst threat to peace in Europe.

Churchill was already under heavy fire from Moscow when he turned up in Paris to discuss the situation in Europe with US Secretary of State Byrnes, who was there for the peace conference. Frustrated by his inability to extract the information from his own Government, Churchill was eager to be brought up to date on current thinking in Washington. He also wanted to maintain his personal contacts with the Americans. Bevin, for his part, could not see why. Was Churchill’s party not out of power? What business did he have in Paris? To the acute irritation both of the Labour Government and of certain of his Conservative colleagues, Churchill seemed to be running some sort of high-flying, out-of-control, one-man foreign policy shop. Official negotiations with Molotov continued to drag, and the British Foreign Secretary was furious at the prospect of Churchill, who had not been invited to participate, doing or saying anything in the course of his short stay to complicate matters.

In anticipation of Churchill’s arrival in Paris, there had been much agitated discussion within the British delegation about how best to cope. Bevin worried that allowing Churchill to stay at the embassy would seem to confer Government approval on his private talks with Byrnes and other officials, when in fact Britain had no control over anything he said. Duff Cooper, the British Ambassador, successfully argued for accommodating him there, the better to manage him. Afterwards, the Ambassador wrote of his fellow Conservative’s whirlwind visit with a mixture of amusement and annoyance (clearly more of the former than the latter), ‘Having possibly endangered international relations and having certainly caused immense inconvenience to a large number of people, he seemed thoroughly to enjoy himself, was with difficulty induced to go to bed soon after midnight and left at 10 a.m. the next morning in high spirits.’

A year after Churchill returned from his Italian holiday, he had reason to be high-spirited. Though out of office, he had handily regained influence. Though Britain had a new Government, he regularly managed to upstage it. Whether or not one sympathized with his arguments in Fulton and Zurich, there could be no denying that he had framed the international debate on such matters as Soviet expansionism and European reconstruction and unification. At the first annual Conservative Party conference since the war, held in Blackpool in October 1946, Churchill avowed that while it would be easy ‘to retire gracefully’, the situation in Europe was so serious and what might be to come so grave that it was his ‘duty’ to carry on. As he approached his seventy-second birthday, he spoke with assurance of turning out the socialists and he remained confident of his ability to secure the peace if only he could get back to the table with Stalin.

Still, there was growing dissatisfaction in Conservative quarters with a leader who was absent much of the time, travelling, speaking, writing, and collecting awards. A fresh round of defeats in the December by-elections intensified Conservatives’ hunger for a leader willing to devote his energies to remaking the party. It was a measure of how much the tide had begun to turn against Churchill that the Conservative Chief Whip, James Stuart, went to Cranborne to discuss the need for a change of leadership. Though at the end of 1946 Stuart remained distinctly unimpressed by Eden, he had sadly concluded that Churchill’s spotty attendance in the House of Commons was making the conduct of business almost impossible. In conversation with Cranborne, Stuart proposed to speak to Churchill. He wanted him to revive his plan to hand over the Opposition leadership in the Commons to Eden while retaining the broader leadership of the party. At least that way, someone other than Churchill would have real authority to lead in the House. Stuart judged that Churchill might be more amenable to sharing power now that he was so effectively influencing international opinion. Cranborne was a good deal less optimistic about what amounted to a first approach to Churchill by his colleagues, on Eden’s behalf. Nevertheless, he gave the mission his blessing. It was a mission that few would have taken on willingly, but Stuart, a raffish Scot, had a reputation for fearlessness. The very fact that someone unaffiliated with the Eden faction was prepared to make the proposal might signal to Churchill that it was indeed time to think about going.

To Stuart’s relief, Churchill responded calmly to the suggestion that he had already done so much for his country that he could retire and enjoy the rest of his life without regrets. Still, when Stuart proposed that for the good of the party Churchill consider reviving his plan to share the leadership with Eden, Churchill would not hear of it. Churchill explained that great events were pending, though not immediately, and that he wanted to be in a position to handle them himself. His answer went to the heart of what power meant to Churchill. Through the years, he had often suggested that office and title meant nothing to him; what appealed to him was the opportunity to direct events and to shape the future. And so, he made it clear to Stuart, it was now.

On a lighter note, Churchill addressed his colleagues’ concerns about whether he was still up to the burdens of the Opposition leadership by informing Stuart that he meant to install a bed in his room at the House of Commons. He assured the vastly amused Chief Whip that this would allow him to take naps there and no one need worry that he would be too tired to attend. Churchill insisted that Eden could wait a little longer to enter his inheritance and that Eden knew he was devoted to him. At the end of the hour, Stuart, veering between laughter and tears of frustration, had got absolutely nowhere. The most he could say was that at least the old lion had not bitten off his head.

For Cranborne, the news that Stuart had failed was unwelcome but not unexpected. By the end of 1946, he had explored what seemed like every option: he had prodded Eden to approach Churchill on his own; he had volunteered to organize a cabal; he had suggested to Eden that he abandon his role as designated heir and fight for power in the House; he had given the nod to the Chief Whip to act on Eden’s behalf. Nothing had worked.

Cranborne lamented that Eden was ‘rapidly losing ground’. He reckoned that the only way Eden could re-establish himself was ‘by some resolute step, such as he took when he resigned in 1938. That got him the reputation of a strong man, but he cannot live on this one incident in his career forever.’ It was a disturbing assessment of the man Cranborne still hoped to make the next prime minister of Great Britain. Cranborne insisted that if Eden wanted to be perceived as a leader he had better begin to act like one; until Eden made his move, there was nothing anyone else could do for him. In the interval, Churchill clearly meant to hold on to the party leadership ‘at all costs’. For one thing, Cranborne reflected, Churchill liked power. For another, Churchill was convinced that ‘like Lord Chatham he can save England & no one else can’. Cranborne did not intend the comparison to the aged, ailing eighteenth-century statesman who pushed himself to the limits of his physical endurance, collapsed on the floor of Parliament, and died soon afterwards to be flattering. Nevertheless, Cranborne recognized that part of what made Churchill an especially formidable opponent in any attempt to challenge his leadership was that he really did think he was the one man to save his country.

Still, at that point there was no rational reason to believe that Churchill could ever be prime minister again. Labour remained overwhelmingly popular, and the wisdom continued to be that the Conservatives could not hope to recapture Number Ten for at least two five-year election cycles. For all that Churchill had accomplished since he left office, the arithmetic continued to be against him.

VIII Plots and Plotters Hyde Park Gate, 1947 (#litres_trial_promo)

The downstairs rooms of the house in Hyde Park Gate were dark and unbearably cold. It was Sunday, 16 February 1947, and ordinarily the Churchills would have been at Chartwell, but they had decided to stay in London on account of the heavy snow and freezing temperatures. Since the last week of January, Britain had been suffering the most brutal weather conditions anyone could recall. Government mismanagement of the recently nationalized mines had left the country without a sufficient supply of coal. The power system was at breaking point and heavy restrictions were in effect. Clementine Churchill had secured a doctor’s certificate to allow her husband’s bedroom to be minimally heated. Even so, as the use of electricity was prohibited from 9 a.m. until noon and again from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. on pain of a heavy fine or imprisonment, she had also arranged to have Winston’s bed moved near the window so he could work by natural light.

Churchill liked his comforts, and one might have expected to find him in a petulant mood. On the contrary, the former prime minister, propped up against a mountain of pillows, his elbows resting on sponge pads on either side of his bed table, was sunshine itself. It is unattractive to gloat over other people’s misfortunes, especially when one is poised to profit from them; but under the circumstances, who could blame him? After the Labour landslide he had argued that, like it or not, the Opposition would have to wait upon events. Those events had come in force. The Government was blaming its troubles on an act of God. For Churchill, the arctic weather was a godsend. Suddenly, it seemed as if Labour might indeed be vulnerable at the next general election.

The revelation of official ineptitude in miscalculating both the amount of coal needed to sustain Britain that winter and the productive capabilities of the mines shattered public confidence in the socialists. Popular disappointment was so enormous because the expectations of a better material life after the war had been un -realistically high. The continuous snowfall paralysed the already feeble economy, and, rightly or not, many Britons blamed Number Ten for the stalled train lines, business closings, mass unemployment, food and water shortages, long sluggish queues, and overall discomfort and deprivation. They also blamed the Government for their nation’s abruptly diminished place in the world when, in the midst of the crisis, Britain made it clear that it could no longer afford to keep up its military commitments in Greece and Turkey.

In March the snow and ice gave way to pounding rains and catastrophic floods. Again the economic consequences were devastating, and again the Government struggled to cope. Churchill asked the House of Commons for a vote of censure. The Conservatives were still vastly outnumbered and, as he knew it must, the vote on 12 March went against him, but this time anti-Government sentiment was more pervasive than before. He had the support of Liberals and some in -dependent MPs, and there was fierce disagreement among the Labour members about how best to respond to the crisis. The day after the vote in Parliament, both Macmillan and Butler confidently suggested to a large and enthusiastic Conservative meeting in London that a new general election could be in the offing sooner than anyone had thought. If the economy continued to deteriorate and the socialists persisted in fighting among themselves, the Government might be brought down even before 1950.

Conceivably, the coal crisis had gained Churchill five years or more – no small gift to an old man. But the events that had caused him to smell Attlee’s blood also made it seem more urgent than ever to his Tory adversaries to dislodge him lest he still be in place when a new election was called. It had been one thing for him to cling to his job when the party had no realistic chance of being returned to power. But everything had changed, and beginning in late February, there was a flurry of small private meetings of Conservatives, most but not all of them Edenites, anxious to see Churchill go.

When Churchill absented himself in June for five weeks after a long-postponed hernia operation that had been troubled by complications, his opponents thought they might have caught a whiff of his blood as well. After all, the announcement had lately been made of Churchill’s deal to be paid more than a million dollars for the US book and serial rights to his war memoirs, the first volume of which was scheduled for publication in 1948. Researchers and other staff had been hired, permission to draw on his official wartime papers had with much difficulty been obtained, and work on the text was under way. Given the deadline and Churchill’s always precarious finances, not to mention his health, might he not be amenable to a plea that it really would be best for everyone if he stepped aside sooner rather than later?

Eight senior Conservatives gathered in the upstairs drawing room of the Tory MP Harry Crookshank to select an emissary to make the case to Churchill. Crookshank, who had been castrated by a burst shell during the First World War, lived with his mother in Knightsbridge. Eden, notably, skipped the meeting on the grounds that his direct participation in a plot to install him would be awkward. But, though he had previously vowed to do no more until Eden acted, Bobbety Cranborne – who had become the 5th Marquess of Salisbury on the death of his father in April – was again a key player in the machinations.Why did Salisbury (as Cranborne was now known) stick with Eden when he perceived his flaws so clearly? Quite simply, in Salisbury’s view there was no other viable candidate. He was opposed to Butler because of his history as an appeaser in the 1930s. Nor was he prepared to back Macmillan, whom he disliked and distrusted. Salisbury’s wife, whose opinions meant much to him, was also no fan of Macmillan’s. The reasons for Lady Salisbury’s antipathy were strange and complicated. Early in her marriage, she had lost interest in Bobbety and began to have affairs with other men. Her husband’s rise to political prominence rekindled her interest, and she became fiercely possessive of him. She even resented his lifelong affection for his sister, Mary, Duchess of Devonshire, with whom Macmillan, who was married to the Duke’s sister, enjoyed a close, confiding friendship as well. Macmillan’s association with ‘Moucher’ Devonshire doomed him in Betty Salisbury’s unforgiving eyes.

Though Salisbury would never have admitted as much, there was another compelling reason to keep coming back to Eden. Salisbury could never have pushed around Butler or Macmillan the way he did Eden. They would not have tolerated it. The very weakness that Salisbury deplored in Eden in some respects made him a most attractive candidate in others. If it was influence Salisbury hankered for, Eden was assuredly his man.

There was unanimous agreement among Crookshank’s guests that Churchill must go, but most were unwilling to face him. It was not just his epic temper that daunted them. If Churchill survived the putsch, the mission might be a career-destroyer for any ambitious Tory who consented to undertake it. Finally, James Stuart agreed to try – again.

Interestingly, Butler, who attended the Crookshank luncheon, also threw in his lot with a group of Labour members who, in the hope of saving their own hides should Attlee fall, aimed to bring down the Government themselves in favour of a coalition headed by Ernest Bevin. Because of the hard line he had taken on the Soviets, Attlee’s Foreign Secretary was perhaps the one Labour figure capable of commanding substantial Tory support. What was in it for Butler? As matters stood within the Conservative Party, his way to the top was blocked by a number of factors. One objection was that his résumé was too thin. Another, which threatened to be insurmountable, was that he had been too closely associated with the policy of appeasement when he served in the Chamberlain Government. Then, quite simply, there was the perception that the succession had long been fixed. Were Churchill to go, Eden was ready, as well as widely expected, to take his place. Should Butler be part of a coalition that bypassed Churchill, neither Churchill nor his designated heir would any longer stand in Butler’s way.

In July, Churchill returned from his convalescence to be greeted by applause from all parties – and by a whirligig of plots and plotters. He was sitting in his room at the House of Commons when Stuart came in. Stuart began by saying that he had a difficult task to perform and that he hoped Churchill would bear with him without being annoyed. When last they spoke of retirement, Churchill had reacted calmly, and Stuart hoped that might be the case again. He repeated what he had said previously about no other man having done more for his country than Churchill. Then he went on to report the view of their colleagues that the time had come for a change of leadership.

‘Oh, you’ve joined those who want to get rid of me, have you?’ Churchill exploded.

‘I haven’t in the least,’ Stuart protested, ‘but I suppose there is something to be said for the fact that change will have to take place sometime and you’re not quite as young as you were.’

Churchill responded by angrily banging the floor with his walking stick. With that emphatic gesture, he put an end to the cabal to unseat him in favour of Eden. The plotters acknowledged that Churchill was too beloved a figure, both within the Tory rank and file and the country at large, for there to be any public perception that party leaders had forced him out. If he went, it had at least to appear to be of his own accord. And he was unlikely to go anywhere at a moment when the premiership seemed achingly and unexpectedly within grasp.

Churchill was not supposed to have learned of the negotiations between Butler and other Tories, on the one side, and Attlee’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton, on the other, but there had been much open talk of them, including some indiscreet remarks by Butler’s wife. Sydney Butler could not resist broadcasting the news to at least one lunch partner that Churchill was about to have a ‘rude awakening’ when a coalition government was formed with someone other than himself at the top. In the end, however, it was Sydney’s husband who was in for a jolt when Churchill appeared unannounced on 31 July at a meeting of the 1922 Committee, the official Conservative organization for backbenchers. Without referring to Butler or the others by name, he put the plotters on notice that he knew of their machinations. Speaking as if it were a foregone conclusion that were there to be a coalition he would be at the head of it, Churchill warned against any such arrangement with Labour on the grounds that it would deprive the country of an effective alternative government. He made many of his listeners’ mouths water at the prospect of their party’s imminent return to full power if only they proceeded judiciously – under his leadership, of course. Why agree to share power, Churchill suggested, when Conservatives could have it all? Why indeed, many backbenchers concurred.

Having outmanoeuvred the conspirators in his own party, Churchill went on to leave no doubt in the minds of Britons that he and no other man would lead the Conservatives to victory. At a time when the Government was announcing stringent emergency measures that included longer working hours and extensive further rationing, Churchill publicly declared his intention to fight the next election on the matter of the economic crisis.