PREDICTIONS OF DEVASTATION
Winstonm despite, being ignored by 99 per cent of Parliament, continued to persevere in his campaign to impress a complacent Parliament about the Nazi preparations for war, and also their enormity in persecutions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other minorities.
The House of Commons ignored him. He may have failed to get them to get in step with his thinking, but he disturbed them with the accuracy of his facts. In late 1934 Desmond Morton gave him a detailed analysis of the Nazi's air plans.
the British government had agreed to build up the Royal Air force by 1939, but Churchill wanted it much sooner than that year. He used Morton's information to bring a blistering speech in the house of Commons, painting a horrific picture of the effects of enemy bombing on London and other British cities. Winston predicted that a week of intense bombing of London would produce up to 40,000 people killed or injured.
Churchill actually received an ovation. His efforts to alert Parliament to the Nazi danger was gaining some ground; but Baldwin .... well he just denied the Nazi air machine was any where near the Royal Air Force.
In April 1935, another civil servant from the Foreign Office, Ralph Wigram came to Churchill at Chartwell, and brought with him some grave facts: the German aircraft factories were stepping up production in readiness for war. The following week Wigram returned again to Churchill with even more worrying facts; proof that the Luftwaffe already possessed a first-line strength of 800 aircraft, where Britain had only 453 in its RAF.
Surprisingly on May 22nd in a defence debate in the Commons, Stanley Baldwin, then the Lord President of the Council, confessed that his estimates had been wrong. Winston seemed to be making some progress.
IN June 1935 the ailing Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald resigned in favor of Baldwin.
There was no official position offered to Winston in the new Cabinet, but Baldwin did admire Churchill and offered him a place on the Air Defence Research Sub-Committee.
Winston accepted. At the first meeting on July 25th, Churchill was fascinated to learn details of a new facility for detecting enemy aircraft by radio-location. The first experiments with what would be called "radar" had been successful.
In a General Election on November 14th the Conservative Party was returned to power with a land-slide victory and majority of 280 seats in the House of Commons. Winston hoped....waited for a week, hoping he would be offered a place in Baldwin's government. He waited at Chartwell for that phone call, but it never came.
CHURCHILL ON WAR WITH NAZI GERMANY, MARCH 1936
"Germany ... fears no one. She is arming in a manner which has never been seen in German history. She is led by a handful of triumphant desperadoes ... Very soon they will have to choose ... a war which could have no other object and which, if successful, can have no other result than a Germanized Europe under Nazi control. Therefore, it seems to me that all the old conditions present themselves again, and that our national salvation depends upon out gathering once again all the forces of Europe to contain, to restrain and if necessary to frustrate German domination."
KEPT IN RESERVE
Winston had actually misread Baldwin's not offering Churchill a place in his government. Baldwin believed Churchill was destined for a much great and distinguished future. He had said, "I feel we should not give him a post at this stage ... If there is going to be a war - and no one can say that there is not - we must keep him fresh to be out war Prime Minister."
But Winston still played the thorn in the flesh of the government.
In March 1943, Winston had suggested that a Ministry of Defence should be created. Two years later in February 1936 it came into being. A Defence Minister was discussed; it did not go to Churchill but to Thomas Inskip. They wanted a man who would have no "axe to grind" or a desire to make for himself "a name" - Inskip fit the bill completely.
Neville Chamberlain commented: "Inskip would create no jealousies. He would excite no enthusiasm but he would involve us in no fresh perplexities."
By 1936 is was evident that a crisis in Europe was developing. Hilter had shocked everyone the year before about Germany rearmament. But no action had been taken against the Nazi regime. Hitler tested Britain and France on March 7th, when German troops marched in and garrisoned the Rhineland [the region between Germany and France that had been demilitarised in 1919]. Again no action was taken against Hilter and the Nazi regime.
"OUTRAGEOUS EVENTS"
Winston was very alarmed. He again predicted the Nazis were on the war path. He predicted that within 6 months the Nazis could invade France through Belgium and Holland. The Czechoslvakia, Austria, Poland and the Balkan and Baltic states would also be in peril of the threat of Hitler and his war machine. It was fortunate that more than six months would pass before Winston's prophecy came true.
Now Churchill's predictions were gradually gaining support, from serving officers and from MPs. Other Foreign Office officals were following Ralph Wigram's lead. In May 1936, they arranged for Churchill to address the Anti-Nazi League, which had formed to counter Nazi propaganda.
Ay the end of May 1937 would would succeed Baldwin as Prime Minister but Neville Chamberlain, another weak minded champion of appeasement.
Churchill told the pro-German Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, seventh Earl of Londonderry: "If I read the future aright, Hitler's government will confront Europe with a series of outrageous events and ever growing military might."
Winston was right on - bulls eye. The first event occurred March 12th 1938, with the Anchluss, the integration of Austria into Nazi Germany, which was forbidden by the Versailles Treaty.
Then Hitler began to make threats over the alleged mistreatment of ethnic Germans living in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.
It was six months after Anchluss, ON SEPTEMBER 29TH, THAT THE WEAK MINDED Neville Chamberlain and the French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier, went to Munich for two days of talks and negotiations with Hitler. The so-called "settlement" and signed piece of paper was hailed as a triumph of appeasement. The two Prime Minsiters agreed Hitler could have the Sudetenland without consulting the Czech government.
Chamberlain returned to England, to be greeted by crowds of people at Hendon airport as some hero, that had secured "peace in our time." He and they were soon to find out Hitler had pulled the wool over their eyes, was lying to their faces, laughing behind their backs.
Hitler had promised supposedly that the Sudetenland would be his last territorial demand.
It was less than six months later, on March 15th 1939, Nazi troops occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. After three more months Hilter pressured Poland with demands to return two territories taken from Germany after Word War 1. The two demands: Hilter wanted back the city of Danzig and the Polish Corridor which gave the land-locked Polish people access to the sea.
"WINSTON IS BACK"
It was the summer of 1939 and the newspapers in Britain had a campaign to bring Winston Churchill back into government. Some junior ministers demanded he be made War Minister. Chamberlain was not keen or pleased and hoped the movement would die out, and the Poles would concede the territories to Hitler; Chamberlain was still in his dream world. The Poles would not concede to Hitler.
Then to the amazement of the world, on August 23rd 1939, Nazi Germany and Communist Russia signed a non-aggression pact. Two ideologies fundamentally opposed to each other in every respect had it seemed become allies, and an even greater menace to the rest of Europe.
Chamberlain now with his hopes smashed and broken, was heartsick.
Two days later Britain signed a treaty of alliance with Poland, promising support if Nazi Germany attacked her. On the 1st of September 1939, German troops invaded Poland. It was a blitzkrieg through the country, scattering the Polish resistance. Britain and France demanded Germany withdraw; it fell on deaf ears. Chamberlain had only one course of action. In a radio broadcast at 11:15 AM, on Sunday the 3rd of September, he informed the British people that they were at war again with Germany.
The same day, Chamberlain offered Churchill a place in the War Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty. Very soon after this, the Board of Admiralty signalled all Royal Navy ships: "Winston is back!"
The days of Chamberlain as Prime Minister were also numbered.
Churchill's WILDERNESS YEARS WERE OVER, but the predictions of Winston had proved correct, what was so greatly feared was now a reality; Word War 2 had begun.
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It is with thanks that I give to the book of Brenda Ralph Lewis "Churchill - An Illustrated Life" where all these facts I've given on the life of Winston Churchill are taken from.
CHURCHILL ON THE MUNICH AGREEMENT, OCTOBER 5TH 1938
"Our loyal, brave people ... should know that there has been gross neglect and deficiency in our defences; they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war; the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: 'Thou are weighed in the balance and found wanting.' And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery or moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom."
THE FINEST HOUR
SO IMPORTANT I find that the life of Winston Churchill and Britain [eventually the USA] is in the history of the Anglo-Saxon people, during World War 2, I will bring you in some detail, the most important events, sometime in the future.
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