Montana labor news., 1944-04-06
WINSTON CHURCHILL
THROUGH
BRITISH EYES
By SIR CHARLES MORGAN WEBB


By SIR CHARLES MORGAN WEBB
There are two E~nglands; the England
of Chamberlain and the England of
Churchill. the England Of appeasement
and the England of unconditional sur
render; the England Of peace, and Eng
land at war. Chamberlain was a typical
a personification Of the one, as Church
i'll is of the other.
After Munich, in october 1888, the
two Englands confronted each other. Did
the Munich Pact mean peace or war?
Were Hitler's promises that his terri
torial aims were completely satisfied,
and that he had no desire TO incorporate
Czechoslovakia into the German Reich,
worth the paper they were written on?
Would the German nation keep Hitler
to his undertakings? Was it to be peace
in our time? Or was it to be war to
the death?
England was not long in doubt. Scarce
ly was the ink Of the Munich Pact dry
than that document was contemptuously
torn into shreds. And what was worse.
the people of Germany hailed Hitler's
perfidy to England as a triumph of
craftsmanship. Belief in the civilization
Of Germany was the foundation Of peace
full England. That foundation crumbled
into dust in March 1888, when Czecho-
slovakia was occupied by German troops.
Peaceful England vanished into oblivion
Chamberlain became a blanched shadow
Of a shade.
Who was there to take his place, to
lead the tough, eager, confident, but
unarmed, England which had emerged
from its lengthy sleep? A forgotten
mani A man who had played a great
part in England's history as warrior,
statesman, author and orator, and yet
had been relegated to the shelf. Three
prime ministers, Ramsay Macdonald,
Stanley Baldwin. Neville Chamberlain,
had passed him by as a relic Of a past
age. In this they were in accord with
popular feeling in the country, which
disputed Winston C|hurchill's claim to sit
in parliament, until he found refuge in
an obscure constituency in Epping Forest.
Vainly from the back benches of par
lament had he tried to arouse somnolent
! England to the dangers looming ahead.
While England slept. he was regarded
as a war-monger, a Cassandra, a Jere-
miah, a discredited prophet of war. His
imprisoned oratory made no impression
on a nation whose philosophy was
summed up in the equally impassioned
prayer Peace in our time, o Lord"
But when England awoke, there was
no doubt who was to be her leader. With
popular acclaim, Chamberlain called his
most bitter critic from the icy isolation
Of a one-man opposition and placed him
at the head of the admiralty. Cham
berlain remained prime minister, the
nominal head of the government; but
the nation, now aroused, with one accord
turned to Winston Churchill as its
leader.
There was little he could do. Munich
had shown that neither France nor
Britain were prepared for war. Russia.
equally unprepared, had bought time by
a phony alliance with Hitler. The only
war that England could fight in 1889
was a phony war, and winston Churchill
was not the man to take a leading part
in a phony war.
But he was not idle. quietly, unosten-
~tatiously, almost secretly, he was in the
forefront of the immense efforts Of the
newly awakened England to arm herself
and prepare for the fight for existence
that was looming ahead.
And then the phony war suddenly
ceased. Norway, Denmark, Holland Bel
GUM and France paved the way to the
glorious tragedy Of Dunkirk. After nine
month Of war a totally unprepared Eng
lang was faced with invasion.
But by this time England and Win
ston Churchill had found each other
And not only England, Britain and the
Britains acros the seas, had discovered
anew a powerful and unique leader, who
not only p%ersonified their indomitabl6
will to win; but could also express in
language, whose ~eloquence lay in its
simplicity, their own thoughts, and ideas
and feelings in this strange new worlc
of strife and discord.
Britain does not subscribe to the stra-
tegic philosophy that defense will moi
win war" Her experience over many
centuries has demonstrated that defense
does win wars. Defense, if sufficiently
stubborn and prolonged, goads the enemy
into disastrous strategic MISTAKES. Pos
sibly the greatest military blunder OF al
time-Hitler's invasion of Russia-wal
directly due to Britain's unexpectedly
stubborn defense against the German
blitz Of 1940-41. A strategic error Of
almost equal magnitude, Japan's attach
on the United States, was indirectly due
TO her impotence that owing to the
stubborn defense against the attacks BY
Germany on Britain's sea communica-
: tons, the Asiatic dominions Of Britain
had not been isolated. Britain does noI
win wars. She -exasperates her enemies
into losing them.
This strategy Of the illimitable defen.
sive was clearly proclaimed by Winston