WEBVTT - Churchill’s The Second World War, Part Twenty-Five 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:09.440 Every week. Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:14.120 to discuss great books, great men, and great ideas. This 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:19.320 is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:25.680 More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio. 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.360 Morning glory. Good evening, Grace America, I'm Hugh Hewitt. That 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.279 music means the Hillsdale dialogue is underway. Doctor Larry Arnn 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.519 is my guest this week as we plunge into this book, 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:46.480 which is the Finest Hour volume two of Winston Churchill's 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.239 memoir of the Second World War. And I have the 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:54.040 modern paperback edition. There are many, many different editions. So 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.160 the pages that I reference may not be the pages 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.810 that you reference. But doctor, aren't we read every page 0:01:02.010 --> 0:01:05.250 of the Gathering Storm because it was so apropos of 0:01:05.250 --> 0:01:06.850 the time we live in. I don't know if we'll 0:01:06.850 --> 0:01:08.690 do every page in the finest hour. I'm not sure. 0:01:08.690 --> 0:01:11.530 We'll do volume three, four, five and six. But why 0:01:11.530 --> 0:01:14.730 is the finest hour different and unique and important among 0:01:14.730 --> 0:01:16.730 the other five volumes of memoirs? 0:01:18.170 --> 0:01:21.050 Well, it's the peak. It's one of the turning points. 0:01:21.170 --> 0:01:25.690 Solzhenitsyn has written a series of, of, uh, history books, 0:01:25.690 --> 0:01:31.369 one of which still in the translation process. Uh, and 0:01:31.410 --> 0:01:34.690 he wrote about what he called nots. Uh, that is 0:01:34.690 --> 0:01:39.009 to say, places where history comes together and everything changes. 0:01:39.569 --> 0:01:43.209 And those, those nots tend to form around events that 0:01:43.209 --> 0:01:46.009 are very narrowly run, right? That it could have gone 0:01:46.010 --> 0:01:49.930 the other way. And so one of those happened in 0:01:50.370 --> 0:01:55.890 May through September of 1940. Uh, and the finest hour 0:01:55.930 --> 0:01:58.810 is that period of time. It actually extends until the 0:01:58.950 --> 0:02:05.750 middle of 1941. Because beginning on May the 10th, the 0:02:05.790 --> 0:02:09.950 Second World War broke out on September 3rd, 1939, when 0:02:09.950 --> 0:02:15.990 Hitler and the Soviet Union attacked Poland and they worked 0:02:15.990 --> 0:02:19.990 on Poland from September until May of the next year, 1940. 0:02:20.310 --> 0:02:24.910 And they destroyed it also Finland. And, uh, right toward 0:02:24.910 --> 0:02:29.310 the end we talked about this. Hitler attacked Norway. So 0:02:29.310 --> 0:02:31.550 the war was spreading. But May the 10th was the 0:02:31.550 --> 0:02:38.390 big day. Uh, that's when the Wehrmacht turned its blitzkrieg 0:02:38.389 --> 0:02:44.230 machine west, and they attacked Belgium and France, and they 0:02:44.230 --> 0:02:48.350 did it in an innovative way, somewhat alike, but mostly 0:02:48.350 --> 0:02:50.510 different from the way they did the same thing in 0:02:50.510 --> 0:02:53.230 1914 to start the First World War. 0:02:53.910 --> 0:02:57.230 But without the French. This time, the theme of the book. 0:02:57.270 --> 0:02:59.480 And I want to tell people that because it's on 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:03.200 the first page, Churchill wrote it. Theme of the volume 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.919 how the British people held the fort alone till those 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.560 who hitherto had been half blind were half ready. He's 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:12.920 still not going to let anyone forget that they were 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.920 not ready when he was called upon to to save 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:17.519 the world. 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.360 Yeah, they were not. Britain was not ready and France 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.320 was really not ready. And we were not ready. And 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.880 we of course, didn't get into it for quite some time. 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.200 But the way they came to be alone was that 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:36.440 against every expectation. There's no modern equivalent of this. Hitler 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:41.160 conquered France in six weeks and destroyed a 3 or 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.880 4 million man army in that amount of time and 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.720 drove the British off the continent. They got most of 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.560 their soldiers away. Many French soldiers to almost none of 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.440 their equipment, and that was the only army Britain had. 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:00.300 And so when Churchill says alone, that's what he means. 0:04:00.540 --> 0:04:05.820 At that moment, Hitler was master of Western Europe, into 0:04:05.980 --> 0:04:11.380 Central Europe, bordering Eastern Europe and over into Poland. And 0:04:11.380 --> 0:04:14.620 he was allies with the Soviet Union, the other great 0:04:14.620 --> 0:04:18.859 remaining independent power in Europe. And between them they had 0:04:18.860 --> 0:04:22.860 complete control of the continent, where most of the power 0:04:22.860 --> 0:04:25.060 and people in the world lived at that time. 0:04:25.380 --> 0:04:29.339 Now, the first three chapters are on the government, but 0:04:29.380 --> 0:04:32.060 the chapter two and three, which I think will probably 0:04:32.060 --> 0:04:34.940 spend the most time on, is about the collapse of 0:04:34.940 --> 0:04:38.779 the French. As Churchill puts it, 4 or 5 millions 0:04:38.779 --> 0:04:42.180 of men met each other in the first shock of 0:04:42.180 --> 0:04:45.460 the most merciless of all the wars of which record 0:04:45.500 --> 0:04:48.339 has been kept. I think we do have. Bill Bennett 0:04:48.339 --> 0:04:51.659 used to say we have trouble with numbers in this age. 0:04:51.980 --> 0:04:54.580 That's a lot of soldiers fighting, a lot of soldiers. 0:04:54.580 --> 0:04:57.029 That's a lot of tanks and airplanes in the air. 0:04:57.230 --> 0:05:01.190 That's an immense undertaking that we see in movies by 0:05:01.190 --> 0:05:03.870 little bits, and we read books about it. But the 0:05:03.870 --> 0:05:06.590 idea of 4 or 5 million men and all the 0:05:06.589 --> 0:05:11.110 tanks in the army clashing across Europe is really something. 0:05:11.670 --> 0:05:15.350 I hope we never see it again. Kind of extraordinary 0:05:15.350 --> 0:05:16.870 to have had to have lived through. 0:05:17.589 --> 0:05:21.790 Yeah. It it it was the Second World War was, uh, 0:05:22.230 --> 0:05:25.350 much bigger. I mean, the First World War was unprecedented. 0:05:25.550 --> 0:05:28.990 And the cost of it and the fighting conditions were 0:05:29.390 --> 0:05:34.469 unprecedentedly bad. The Second World War was much bigger, much bigger, 0:05:34.790 --> 0:05:39.910 and went on longer. And, uh, casualties were much higher, 0:05:40.150 --> 0:05:45.310 although not, uh, British casualties. They, their casualties were about 0:05:45.310 --> 0:05:48.950 half what they were in the First World War. And 0:05:48.950 --> 0:05:52.750 that was partly because technology was which war was fought 0:05:52.790 --> 0:05:56.810 had changed very much. Maneuver and tanks instead of trenches, 0:05:57.250 --> 0:06:00.490 and partly because Churchill was in charge and he was 0:06:00.490 --> 0:06:04.730 always looking for a way to spare life. Uh, but 0:06:05.130 --> 0:06:07.170 it was a terrible thing. And of course, it was 0:06:07.170 --> 0:06:10.290 a complete astonishment because Britain, you know, first of all, 0:06:10.290 --> 0:06:15.090 it was a controversial decision. It was controversial to Churchill 0:06:16.050 --> 0:06:21.330 to ally with France and send an expeditionary force onto 0:06:21.330 --> 0:06:24.570 the continent. They'd done that before in the world, in 0:06:24.610 --> 0:06:27.529 the wars of Marlborough and others, but they were always 0:06:27.529 --> 0:06:29.890 reluctant to do it because they're a great naval power 0:06:29.890 --> 0:06:32.770 and they have the channel to protect them. But now 0:06:32.770 --> 0:06:36.450 it's the airplane time, right? And that means, you know, 0:06:36.490 --> 0:06:40.050 Britain can get bombed soon. It would be. And the 0:06:40.050 --> 0:06:43.089 Navy might not even be able to operate safely in 0:06:43.130 --> 0:06:46.450 the channel with air power, as proved to be true 0:06:46.490 --> 0:06:48.330 until they got air superiority. 0:06:49.370 --> 0:06:52.130 So there's a curious part, Larry, at the beginning of 0:06:52.130 --> 0:06:53.969 the book, I got to ask you this question very 0:06:53.970 --> 0:06:58.300 beginning of volume two. Churchill almost breaks the fourth plane 0:06:58.300 --> 0:07:00.860 and is talking to the millions of Americans. This book 0:07:00.860 --> 0:07:04.260 comes out in 48 or 49. It's a huge bestseller. 0:07:04.380 --> 0:07:06.860 Everybody wants to read about the war in which they 0:07:06.900 --> 0:07:09.940 have been involved, or their family's been touched. And he 0:07:09.940 --> 0:07:13.100 spends the first few pages making sure that at least 0:07:13.100 --> 0:07:16.860 the American reader and certainly the British reader understand who 0:07:16.860 --> 0:07:20.059 did what. And he writes he doesn't want to insult 0:07:20.060 --> 0:07:22.300 the United States, but he writes, it is in the 0:07:22.300 --> 0:07:26.340 combined interest of the English speaking world, and that would 0:07:26.340 --> 0:07:29.860 include Australia and New Zealand and Canada, that the magnitude 0:07:29.860 --> 0:07:33.300 of the British war making effort should be known and realized. 0:07:33.540 --> 0:07:35.700 And he goes on to point out that until July 0:07:35.700 --> 0:07:39.700 of 1944, which is five years after this thing gets started, 0:07:39.820 --> 0:07:42.940 Britain and her empire had a substantially larger number of 0:07:42.940 --> 0:07:46.260 divisions in contact with the enemy than the United States. 0:07:46.460 --> 0:07:48.900 And then he goes through the casualties. The British lost 0:07:48.900 --> 0:07:55.920 303,000 men, the dominions the Empire lost 109,000 men. They 0:07:55.920 --> 0:08:00.280 lost 60,500 civilians in the air raids in the Battle 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:05.280 of Britain. They lost 30,000 merchant and fisherman. And he says, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.680 compare that to the United States, which lost all over 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.640 the world, 322,000. Why does he do that? 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:19.160 Well, by the time he's writing this book, uh, and indeed, 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.600 before the Second World War, we had become the greatest 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.679 reserve of power in the world. And he. And we 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.480 rescued them. It took the British standing alone for us 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.199 to get a chance to do that, but we rescued them. 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.480 He wants to make the point that they are serious partners, 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.719 and also he wants to honour his country, which he got. 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.040 Victor Hanson in his very good book, The Second World Wars, 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.480 he calls it, because there were such huge theatres all 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:51.280 over the world and they operated independently, somewhat. He makes 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.530 the point that pound for pound, the British got the 0:08:54.530 --> 0:08:59.490 most out of themselves of any nation. They sacrificed so much, 0:08:59.610 --> 0:09:04.570 you know. And Churchill was just really good at organizing 0:09:04.570 --> 0:09:07.690 a war and fighting one, fighting it to win, fighting 0:09:07.690 --> 0:09:11.970 it as cheaply as possible. But here he simply outnumbered. 0:09:12.130 --> 0:09:16.850 And and so he's got to fight by every hook 0:09:16.890 --> 0:09:21.450 and crook to try to keep the nation alive. And, 0:09:21.490 --> 0:09:23.329 you know, we have to talk about the politics of 0:09:23.330 --> 0:09:26.730 this some, because there are deep things evident in the 0:09:26.730 --> 0:09:30.170 parts of this early book about what Churchill figured out 0:09:30.170 --> 0:09:33.610 over the course of his life about politics, because one 0:09:33.610 --> 0:09:34.130 of the things. 0:09:34.330 --> 0:09:39.050 There, because he's in our last segment, in the last 0:09:39.050 --> 0:09:45.250 chapter of Gathering Storm, Chamberlain steps down. Churchill steps up 0:09:45.250 --> 0:09:48.089 after playing his cards very nicely. He's now in charge 0:09:48.090 --> 0:09:52.130 of the whole thing. He has to keep the Conservative Party. 0:09:52.230 --> 0:09:55.150 He's got to keep Chamberlain in the government. He's got 0:09:55.190 --> 0:09:59.270 to keep Halifax a couple of other Appeasers, Simon and Hoare. 0:09:59.710 --> 0:10:02.870 And he's got to bring in the other party. It's 0:10:02.870 --> 0:10:07.070 a balancing act. It's a juggling act that, uh, we 0:10:07.110 --> 0:10:09.230 don't really know much about. That's not how we do 0:10:09.230 --> 0:10:11.830 our governments. But what a. 0:10:11.870 --> 0:10:14.510 Yeah. Well, he could, so he could he didn't have 0:10:14.510 --> 0:10:19.510 a term. Right. He could lose his job on any 0:10:19.550 --> 0:10:22.510 day in a vote of the House of Commons. And 0:10:22.510 --> 0:10:25.350 the conservatives had a majority of 120. And they were 0:10:25.350 --> 0:10:27.870 loyal to Chamberlain and Halifax, who had led them for 0:10:27.870 --> 0:10:32.910 a long time, and. And they were cool to Churchill. 0:10:33.150 --> 0:10:35.990 And remember that he could lose his job on any day, 0:10:35.990 --> 0:10:38.590 lose his job on any day. So I had to 0:10:38.590 --> 0:10:41.670 walk a very fine line. More on their finest hour 0:10:41.670 --> 0:10:47.270 with Doctor Larry Arnn. All things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu. All the dialogues@hughforhillsdale.com. 0:10:47.790 --> 0:10:50.470 Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hugh with Doctor Larry Arnn. 0:10:50.470 --> 0:10:53.160 We're talking about the finest hour by Winston Churchill and 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:57.040 his command by speech of the House of Commons, even 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:58.640 though it wasn't with him. Doctor arm. 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.440 Uh, in the very great speech, which is in this 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:06.480 volume when it's in the in the last volume, he says, uh, 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.760 I will say to my this house, as I've said 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.040 to my colleagues in the cabinet, I have nothing to 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:17.400 offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. Well, the first 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.400 paragraph of that, it's a very short speech, but the 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.120 first pair is only two paragraphs long. The first paragraph 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:28.319 is not so famous. And in the first paragraph he says, uh, 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:32.840 I've reorganized the cabinet over the weekend, and I'm sorry 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.360 that I didn't get to talk to some of the 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:41.280 people who have been fired. And then he goes into that, 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.800 as I've said to them, I say to you, nothing 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.280 but blood. He completely reorganized the cabinet in three days, 0:11:50.290 --> 0:11:53.329 And he had learned how to do that. First of all, 0:11:53.570 --> 0:11:56.209 there's a part of the American Constitution that he always 0:11:56.210 --> 0:12:00.850 admired unreservedly. He admired the whole thing. He usually subordinated 0:12:00.850 --> 0:12:06.209 to the British, but sometimes not the provision that there's 0:12:06.210 --> 0:12:09.490 a commander in chief, and that commander in chief is 0:12:09.490 --> 0:12:12.170 appointed by the people of the United States. And that 0:12:12.170 --> 0:12:16.329 means in America, war policy can be uniform. It can 0:12:16.330 --> 0:12:21.050 be united, can be unidirectional. And Britain did not achieve 0:12:21.050 --> 0:12:24.010 that in the Second World War, the First World War. 0:12:24.410 --> 0:12:29.010 In the Second World War. Churchill organised that over the 0:12:29.010 --> 0:12:33.730 weekend and he thought about it for decades. And he 0:12:33.770 --> 0:12:38.809 mentions in this book where he learned the importance of that. 0:12:39.050 --> 0:12:41.290 He learned that in the First World War when he 0:12:41.290 --> 0:12:45.970 was advocating the Dardanelles, but he didn't have the authority 0:12:45.970 --> 0:12:48.690 to see it through. And he believed that if it 0:12:48.690 --> 0:12:54.790 had just been prosecuted consistently, it would have succeeded. Instead, 0:12:55.150 --> 0:12:58.150 the people who did have the authority abandoned it when 0:12:58.150 --> 0:13:02.310 it got tough and he suffered the consequences. And so 0:13:02.350 --> 0:13:07.510 he sets up his cabinet. So there's a small war cabinet. Uh, 0:13:07.830 --> 0:13:13.270 he appoints himself Minister of Defence, and that makes him 0:13:13.510 --> 0:13:17.270 in charge of the war ministries, all of them. And 0:13:17.270 --> 0:13:21.910 it makes him the chairman of the, uh, Chiefs of 0:13:21.910 --> 0:13:26.550 Staff Committee. That's all. The service heads, the serving officers, 0:13:26.590 --> 0:13:30.150 the supreme generals and admirals. And that meant that there 0:13:30.150 --> 0:13:34.950 were these three bodies. There's the the War Cabinet and 0:13:34.950 --> 0:13:41.430 there's the defence civilian establishment, and there's the United War Services. 0:13:41.670 --> 0:13:44.630 And Churchill is the only member of all three. 0:13:45.309 --> 0:13:48.670 It's kind of astonishing that he would sit there and 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:53.199 ask not only ask, but demand more and more power. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:57.160 He is going to run this war, and it's an 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.439 overwhelming amount of power that he's gathering into his hands. 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.760 But he's doing it, as you pointed out, quite conscientiously. 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:07.800 And they're down to five in the War Cabinet about 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:10.240 the War Cabinet. He writes, they were the only ones 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.080 who would have the right to have their heads cut 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.640 off on Tower Hill if we did not win. So 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.800 there are five people. But then about those five people, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.040 he writes a little bit later it was understood and 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.920 accepted that I, Churchill, should assume the general direction of 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.960 the war, subject to the support of the War Cabinet 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.440 in the House of Commons. The key change which occurred 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.800 on my taking over was, of course, the supervision and 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.240 direction of the Chiefs of Staff Committee by a Minister 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:42.240 of Defence with undefined powers. So it's all new in 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.880 British history. He's doing something new for a new exigency. 0:14:47.420 --> 0:14:52.940 Yeah. And he but also, by the way, something he 0:14:52.940 --> 0:14:57.620 had thought through for 25 years. Uh, you know, he 0:14:57.660 --> 0:15:01.100 suffered the absence of that to his cost in the 0:15:01.100 --> 0:15:06.100 First World War. And so he, he had reached a 0:15:06.100 --> 0:15:09.700 place in his life that he was the one who 0:15:09.700 --> 0:15:13.540 could do this. And of course, there's something controversial, controversial 0:15:13.580 --> 0:15:16.820 today about all of this and controversial. And that is 0:15:17.540 --> 0:15:20.260 he comes into power on the 10th of May 1940, 0:15:20.300 --> 0:15:23.420 the same day Hitler attacks to the West. And it's 0:15:23.420 --> 0:15:26.980 very important to to people to understand the drama of 0:15:26.980 --> 0:15:30.140 these days. He's writing about these days in this book. 0:15:31.180 --> 0:15:33.340 And the drama is that on the eighth and 9th 0:15:33.340 --> 0:15:37.340 of May, 1940, there is a debate over a motion 0:15:37.340 --> 0:15:41.660 of no confidence against Neville, Chamberlain and Churchill, and it 0:15:41.660 --> 0:15:47.510 was likely to succeed. And Churchill could surmise that if 0:15:47.510 --> 0:15:50.790 Chamberlain fell, he would be one of the two people 0:15:50.790 --> 0:15:55.270 who would be picked. Halifax the other one, Churchill spent 0:15:55.270 --> 0:16:01.230 those two days defending Neville Chamberlain the most fiercely and 0:16:01.230 --> 0:16:05.470 taking personal responsibility for the failures of the Chamber of 0:16:05.470 --> 0:16:12.830 Administration on his own shoulders. And that was, first of all, noble, right. 0:16:14.870 --> 0:16:21.830 And effective. And I think it bore fruit because from 0:16:21.830 --> 0:16:25.670 that time until Neville Chamberlain died in November of that year, 0:16:25.670 --> 0:16:28.590 he had cancer. He didn't live very much longer than 0:16:28.590 --> 0:16:30.650 he had cancer on the eighth or 9th or 10th 0:16:30.650 --> 0:16:35.430 of May. Um, a friendship was born. And that friendship 0:16:35.430 --> 0:16:42.430 was important because on the 27th of May. See. So 0:16:42.430 --> 0:16:45.790 you're talking about May the 10th. The German attack starts 0:16:46.130 --> 0:16:51.930 and Churchill takes power. And 17 days later, Lexi. 13 0:16:51.930 --> 0:16:55.410 days later, it starts on the 23rd of May. It 0:16:55.410 --> 0:16:58.690 becomes apparent that France is going to fall and Britain 0:16:58.690 --> 0:17:00.530 is going to be alone and might not get its 0:17:00.530 --> 0:17:04.250 army back. And my wife's father was in that army 0:17:04.450 --> 0:17:07.890 and left Dunkirk Beach the last day anybody did. And 0:17:07.890 --> 0:17:11.930 I remember my wife was born after that I might 0:17:11.930 --> 0:17:18.450 not have ever met. Um, so these dramas are going on. 0:17:19.130 --> 0:17:23.770 And Mussolini not yet in the war, but Hitler henchman, 0:17:24.609 --> 0:17:28.210 a former British ally in the First World War and before, 0:17:28.930 --> 0:17:34.530 is appealing to open a peace conference. And, uh, if 0:17:34.530 --> 0:17:37.770 I remember correctly, Mussolini's son in law or nephew, I 0:17:37.770 --> 0:17:42.570 can't remember is the Italian ambassador, and he's talking to Halifax, 0:17:42.609 --> 0:17:46.899 the foreign minister. And remember, in the cabinet they are 0:17:46.940 --> 0:17:50.540 there because they have a constituency of their own and 0:17:50.540 --> 0:17:55.419 they have some force. And so on the 23rd of May, 0:17:55.460 --> 0:18:01.060 13 days later, Halifax begins bringing these appeals for a 0:18:01.060 --> 0:18:06.340 peace conference to the cabinet war cabinet to the War Cabinet, 0:18:06.340 --> 0:18:09.500 the whole cabinet. 25 others don't know that this is 0:18:09.500 --> 0:18:13.980 going on. And so the first day Churchill Temporizes find 0:18:13.980 --> 0:18:17.020 out what they say. Second day, third day, fourth day, 0:18:17.060 --> 0:18:21.580 fifth day. It gets to be the 28th. And Halifax 0:18:21.619 --> 0:18:28.060 is becoming insistent. Now, if Halifax or Chamberlain or both 0:18:28.060 --> 0:18:32.980 of them had resigned from the War Cabinet and the cabinet, 0:18:33.700 --> 0:18:39.300 then probably Churchill's government would have fallen. So he couldn't 0:18:39.300 --> 0:18:43.820 make them right. And, you know, remember, there are people 0:18:43.859 --> 0:18:46.160 writing today that it would have been better to have 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:49.240 made a piece at that time, because Britain did lose 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:53.520 its pre-eminence in the war through the course of this war. 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.320 Probably going to lose it anyway because we're a much 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.760 bigger country. But never mind. 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.960 Never mind. Don't go anywhere, America. Much more coming up. 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:09.040 All things Hillsdale are@hillsdale.edu, including Erika Kirk's commencement address at 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.520 the state, including all their video courses, hillsdale.edu, and of course, 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:19.080 all the prior dialogues@hughforhillsdale.com. Stay tuned. Welcome back America. I'm 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.640 Hugh Hewitt talking with doctor about all the internal debate 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.439 debates that go on, really about whether or not Churchill 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:27.080 ought to have made a separate peace. 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.000 So remember, there's second guessing about this going on to 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:36.600 this day. Well, Churchill doesn't say much for days. And 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:42.040 then he gets to the 28th and Halifax is pressing 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:46.770 and threatening slightly. We have the record of these conversations, 0:19:46.770 --> 0:19:51.850 by the way, and they're not candidly recited in this 0:19:51.850 --> 0:19:55.649 book that we're reading. Churchill does a remarkable thing. He 0:19:55.650 --> 0:19:59.250 calls on the at the moment, on the 28th of May, 0:19:59.290 --> 0:20:03.169 a meeting of the entire cabinet. And they don't know 0:20:03.170 --> 0:20:07.889 what's going on, and they don't really know the war situation. 0:20:08.490 --> 0:20:11.129 And Churchill gives them a speech of an hour. It's 0:20:11.130 --> 0:20:13.610 a rare speech that he did not write out in advance, 0:20:13.609 --> 0:20:17.010 but two guys were in the room and took detailed notes. Um, 0:20:17.770 --> 0:20:21.649 the best one, a labour minister, a left wing crazy 0:20:21.650 --> 0:20:25.250 named Hugh Dalton, who I always loved, Winston Churchill. And 0:20:25.250 --> 0:20:28.890 he wrote down copious notes. Right. And we know that 0:20:28.890 --> 0:20:31.690 Churchill for an hour described the war situation and said 0:20:31.690 --> 0:20:35.210 that it's very serious, said that we might have to 0:20:35.290 --> 0:20:37.770 try to get our army off France. And we don't 0:20:37.770 --> 0:20:40.690 know if we can do it. We still have a navy. 0:20:41.410 --> 0:20:44.830 The airplane problem will be the next battle. And then 0:20:44.830 --> 0:20:48.470 he says these words, which are more or less exact. 0:20:48.510 --> 0:20:50.710 He said, I've been thinking in these last few days 0:20:50.710 --> 0:20:53.190 whether it is part of my duty to open negotiations 0:20:53.190 --> 0:20:57.070 with that man, meaning Hitler, and I believe that if 0:20:57.070 --> 0:20:59.670 I were for a moment to consider parley or surrender, 0:21:00.070 --> 0:21:02.750 every one of you would rise up and tear me 0:21:02.790 --> 0:21:07.109 down from my place. If this island story is to 0:21:07.150 --> 0:21:10.110 end at last, let it end. When each of us 0:21:10.109 --> 0:21:14.190 in this room lies choking in his own blood upon 0:21:14.190 --> 0:21:18.510 the ground. He finished with that. And then they leaped 0:21:18.510 --> 0:21:23.990 up and cheered him, and there was a huge burst 0:21:24.030 --> 0:21:28.750 of feeling. Churchill calls it uncommon in the story of 0:21:28.790 --> 0:21:32.310 the of the cabinet. And then they get the War 0:21:32.350 --> 0:21:36.830 Cabinet back together, and Halifax says, yes, I think if 0:21:36.830 --> 0:21:40.189 we open negotiations at this stage, we'll be on a 0:21:40.190 --> 0:21:45.520 slippery slope. Well on that day. That remarkable maneuver in 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:49.680 those tremendous words are what kept Great Britain in the war, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:51.240 which is the reason. 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:56.600 By the slimmest of threads. Meanwhile, I want to make 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.080 sure in our ten minutes we tell people, I'm not 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:03.119 going to cover much of chapters two and three because 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:05.360 the collapse of the French army, it's very technical. It's 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:08.200 full of good maps. Churchill knows his maps. He knows 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.400 his war. What I take away is a civilian who's 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.720 not very good with maps. They literally fell apart. They 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:20.160 couldn't communicate. The French had millions of men strung out 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.880 over all of Europe, and they had no reserve. In fact, 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:27.560 Churchill writes at one point, rather startlingly, that he's almost 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:31.600 physically knocked over by the fact that the French don't 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:35.720 have a strategic reserve. I find that I understand what 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:39.720 a strategic reserve is. I'm astonished that they didn't have one. 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:40.359 Are you? 0:22:42.100 --> 0:22:45.140 Well, the chairman, first of all, the French French army 0:22:45.140 --> 0:22:50.379 wasn't in good nick at this time. But what the 0:22:50.380 --> 0:22:55.100 Germans did, the French and the British expected the attack 0:22:55.100 --> 0:22:57.859 to come up through Belgium, and that it could not 0:22:57.859 --> 0:23:05.419 come through a place, uh, south and west of the Maginot. 0:23:05.820 --> 0:23:08.180 Let me get my numbers right. Yeah. South and west 0:23:08.220 --> 0:23:11.900 of the Maginot Line. Because they built these big entrenchments, 0:23:12.220 --> 0:23:15.580 you know, to keep the Germans from coming again. And, uh. 0:23:15.940 --> 0:23:18.060 And they couldn't get in. What? South and west of 0:23:18.100 --> 0:23:20.740 that line is the Ardennes forest. And they held the 0:23:20.740 --> 0:23:23.980 view that the Germans couldn't come through that. Well, the 0:23:23.980 --> 0:23:29.980 Germans did. Uh, they were actually reinforced in that view because, uh, some, 0:23:29.980 --> 0:23:34.140 some imaginative people thought they might get tanks over those 0:23:34.140 --> 0:23:38.060 mountain roads, but they could never get enough fuel. And 0:23:38.060 --> 0:23:40.629 they forgot that they had gas stations all over France. 0:23:41.070 --> 0:23:46.390 And so the Germans did. Rommel and Guderian got a 0:23:46.390 --> 0:23:52.750 major tank army behind the French army and between the 0:23:52.750 --> 0:23:57.190 French army and Paris and its lines of supply. And 0:23:57.190 --> 0:24:01.629 they cut those lines of supply, and everything was confusion. 0:24:01.830 --> 0:24:04.669 And very bad to have forgotten the gas stations. We 0:24:04.710 --> 0:24:07.470 got to come back to that. Welcome back America. I'm 0:24:07.470 --> 0:24:11.230 Hugh Hewitt. I'm often amazed by Churchill's memoirs, really sometimes 0:24:11.230 --> 0:24:16.709 just surprised the amazing part. Larry the Winston Churchill. I 0:24:16.750 --> 0:24:20.990 cannot imagine anything like this today flew back and forth, 0:24:20.990 --> 0:24:24.990 I think at least three times into the teeth of 0:24:24.990 --> 0:24:27.830 the battle so that he could talk to the French 0:24:27.830 --> 0:24:32.790 who were there, stunned and forlorn and paralyzed to a 0:24:32.790 --> 0:24:36.190 large extent. They don't have a plant, but their bullets 0:24:36.190 --> 0:24:39.879 flying around. He's got ten hurricanes, but but he flies 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:41.920 back and forth. What do you make of that? That 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:45.600 would be considered foolish in this day and age? It 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.280 would be Yamamoto, right? You're you're bait for the Intel 0:24:49.280 --> 0:24:50.840 services to shoot you down. 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:54.359 Yeah. Well, yeah, the, uh, Andrew Robertson is very good. 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:58.480 Recent biography of Churchill Walking with Destiny goes through how 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:02.280 much Churchill traveled during the war. A multiple of all 0:25:02.280 --> 0:25:05.560 the other world leaders put together because he was keeping 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:08.960 a grand alliance. He called it together, and he went 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:12.200 three times to beg the French to fight to the last. 0:25:12.200 --> 0:25:16.080 And the French had had, uh, a treaty with Britain 0:25:16.080 --> 0:25:20.520 that they would do that. And they did break that treaty. Uh, 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:25.000 in one of the meetings, de Gaulle young he was 0:25:25.000 --> 0:25:29.959 one of the young European military commanders who understood the tank. 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:34.560 Patton was another. Rommel. And Guderian did, uh, and he 0:25:34.560 --> 0:25:37.760 was a junior, though Churchill noticed him there and noticed 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:39.260 that he had a lot of fire in his eyes 0:25:39.260 --> 0:25:43.580 and he sat bolt upright. Well, he's in these meetings, right. 0:25:43.619 --> 0:25:48.420 But we can also see that, um, the French are collapsing. 0:25:49.020 --> 0:25:52.340 They call out PTEN and vegan heroes of the First 0:25:52.340 --> 0:25:56.460 World War. PTEN was the commander at Verdun, the bloodiest 0:25:56.460 --> 0:26:00.100 battle in the West in the First World War. And 0:26:00.100 --> 0:26:03.940 they're trotted out and they're making policy now. PTEN would 0:26:03.980 --> 0:26:08.179 eventually be the president of the Vichy Republic under the 0:26:08.180 --> 0:26:13.540 German thumb. Uh, and at one point, uh, Churchill says, uh, 0:26:14.700 --> 0:26:18.660 you can consume two German Army corps in the streets 0:26:18.660 --> 0:26:22.220 of Paris. And Patton says, we've already given the order 0:26:22.260 --> 0:26:28.660 for the evacuation of Paris. And Churchill replies, Nations that 0:26:28.660 --> 0:26:32.260 die fighting rise up again. Those that surrender tamely are 0:26:32.260 --> 0:26:35.899 gone forever. And then. And now we have a record 0:26:35.900 --> 0:26:38.510 of this from a man named Edward Louis Spears, who 0:26:38.510 --> 0:26:40.670 was a very close friend of Churchill, and he was 0:26:40.670 --> 0:26:44.630 raised in France, and who was his French was excellent, 0:26:45.070 --> 0:26:48.990 and he was the liaison officer between the British and 0:26:48.990 --> 0:26:53.230 the French armies in both First and Second World Wars. 0:26:53.470 --> 0:26:56.149 And he wrote excellent books about them. The first one 0:26:56.150 --> 0:26:59.790 is called liaison 1914. The second one is called Assignment 0:26:59.790 --> 0:27:04.629 to Catastrophe, and he is the one there as a 0:27:04.630 --> 0:27:08.469 translator to record these conversations with the French. And he 0:27:08.470 --> 0:27:11.189 was in very close sympathy with Winston Churchill. He's a 0:27:11.190 --> 0:27:13.869 brilliant man. In fact, the first time he was elected 0:27:13.869 --> 0:27:17.990 to Parliament was the first time Churchill lost his parliamentary seat, 0:27:18.230 --> 0:27:22.070 and he immediately wrote to Churchill and offered Churchill his seat. 0:27:22.950 --> 0:27:27.150 So after Churchill said that about nations that die fighting Renault, 0:27:27.550 --> 0:27:30.430 who was a little better, although they were having one 0:27:30.430 --> 0:27:35.590 of these meetings in a in an apartment where Renault 0:27:35.630 --> 0:27:40.010 was hanging around with his mistress, and her nightgown was 0:27:40.010 --> 0:27:44.130 draped over one of the chairs. Uh, something that General 0:27:44.130 --> 0:27:50.570 Spears noticed. And Reynolds says he's the prime minister. He says. Well, 0:27:50.570 --> 0:27:54.170 if you will give us your Air force, we can 0:27:54.170 --> 0:28:00.290 carry on. And, uh, Spears records. He said that was 0:28:00.290 --> 0:28:04.250 a moment of danger, he says, because I knew Winston 0:28:04.250 --> 0:28:07.450 and I knew how generous he was, and I thought 0:28:07.450 --> 0:28:10.609 he might do that. And Churchill looked down for a 0:28:10.609 --> 0:28:13.930 minute and looked up and said, this is not the 0:28:13.930 --> 0:28:18.970 last battle. He says, they must kill us in our 0:28:18.970 --> 0:28:25.050 island or they cannot win. And Reynolds says, how will 0:28:25.050 --> 0:28:29.930 you stand up against the whole German war machine by yourself? 0:28:30.450 --> 0:28:34.450 And Churchill says, I haven't thought about it very hard yet, 0:28:34.690 --> 0:28:38.500 but I expect the plan will be to drown most 0:28:38.500 --> 0:28:40.580 of them on the way over and choke the rest 0:28:40.580 --> 0:28:42.340 of them to death on the beach. 0:28:43.860 --> 0:28:48.420 I want to close with one quick, one quick anecdote. Quote. 0:28:48.420 --> 0:28:52.340 I am a strong believer in transacting official business by 0:28:52.340 --> 0:28:57.580 the written word. In Churchill's own phrase, he underscores and 0:28:57.580 --> 0:29:01.340 italicizes written word. He knows he's got all this power. 0:29:01.340 --> 0:29:05.420 He does not want people speaking in his name unless 0:29:05.420 --> 0:29:08.620 they've been authorized by him to do so. Is that 0:29:08.620 --> 0:29:10.060 a practice you follow? 0:29:11.820 --> 0:29:16.860 Oh, yeah. Well, um. Sure. Um, but, you know, Churchill 0:29:16.860 --> 0:29:24.260 wrote a million emails, memos, and they're very good. They're tremendous. Um, uh, 0:29:24.580 --> 0:29:28.820 once in a while they're long. Uh, they are always 0:29:29.060 --> 0:29:33.820 well ordered and clear. Uh, he had a stamp he 0:29:33.820 --> 0:29:39.680 would put on things. Uh. Action this day. Uh, but. 0:29:39.960 --> 0:29:42.080 And if you wrote him and he did, most of 0:29:42.080 --> 0:29:47.600 his memos are very short. Uh, uh, and very precise 0:29:47.600 --> 0:29:50.240 and concise. Right at the point you can. They don't 0:29:50.240 --> 0:29:53.320 leave much room for ambiguity. If you gave him a 0:29:53.360 --> 0:29:57.600 long memo, he would do what, uh, Margaret Thatcher used 0:29:57.600 --> 0:30:01.480 to do. I knew her pretty well. And I was 0:30:01.480 --> 0:30:03.600 told that by several people who worked for her. If 0:30:03.640 --> 0:30:08.040 you handed her a multi-page memo while you were standing there, 0:30:08.240 --> 0:30:11.280 she would start reading the first page. And he would 0:30:11.320 --> 0:30:15.440 she would put the later pages in the wastebasket. Huh? 0:30:16.000 --> 0:30:19.960 Oh, brutal. Oh, that's a good message. And you'd pretty 0:30:19.960 --> 0:30:23.479 soon get one page memos. Uh, the statue of the 0:30:23.480 --> 0:30:26.480 Iron Lady is on Hillsdale's campus, by the way, and 0:30:26.480 --> 0:30:28.880 they have. We'll have to talk about that someday, doctor. 0:30:29.360 --> 0:30:34.970 Don't go anywhere, America. All things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu. All the hughforhillsdale.com. 0:30:35.450 --> 0:30:38.050 Welcome back America doctor. I'm finished by telling them what 0:30:38.050 --> 0:30:39.010 you were telling me off air. 0:30:39.050 --> 0:30:41.090 I was telling a student the other day because we 0:30:41.130 --> 0:30:43.570 were talking about how, you know, about the past, because 0:30:43.570 --> 0:30:45.490 there are all these crazy things being said about the past. 0:30:45.490 --> 0:30:47.290 And I said, well, the past, we know it because 0:30:47.290 --> 0:30:51.570 it's written down. Did you ever, I said, discover something 0:30:51.570 --> 0:30:54.650 that you wrote in high school, a paper or a letter? 0:30:54.650 --> 0:30:58.290 And they said, yeah, somebody, by the way, the other 0:30:58.290 --> 0:31:03.530 day presented me with my original correspondence with Martin Gilbert. Oh, 0:31:03.530 --> 0:31:09.170 I was in Claremont, and that starts in 1977, a 0:31:09.170 --> 0:31:11.490 long time ago. And the young man said, yeah, I 0:31:11.490 --> 0:31:13.530 did do that. And I said, and wasn't it a 0:31:13.530 --> 0:31:17.890 resting when you did that? Didn't you correct whatever memory 0:31:17.890 --> 0:31:21.370 you had of your time back then? Because you write 0:31:21.370 --> 0:31:24.290 it down. Right. And, and that means that, you know, 0:31:24.330 --> 0:31:27.610 and you know, the records of the college, the future 0:31:27.610 --> 0:31:31.810 archives of the college are today my working files. 0:31:32.050 --> 0:31:32.570 And, you. 0:31:32.570 --> 0:31:32.810 Know. 0:31:33.010 --> 0:31:35.590 Larry, We'll leave it here. But in evidence, when you 0:31:35.590 --> 0:31:38.590 teach evidence. I don't teach evidence, but I remember it. Uh, 0:31:38.590 --> 0:31:41.990 someone called written documents put into evidence. Are the past 0:31:42.030 --> 0:31:44.870 knocking at the door of the present, uh, demanding to 0:31:44.870 --> 0:31:50.150 be heard. And that's it. Demanding to be heard. Well. 0:31:51.230 --> 0:31:53.510 The day you write the thing you don't know about 0:31:53.510 --> 0:31:55.870 today yet, write the future, right? 0:31:56.190 --> 0:31:56.710 No. You don't. 0:31:56.750 --> 0:31:58.950 That's that's why that's how you write. You know, if 0:31:58.990 --> 0:32:02.830 you if you if you, uh, study with Martin Gilbert, 0:32:02.830 --> 0:32:07.030 you learn like it's such a blessing that Churchill wrote 0:32:07.030 --> 0:32:10.510 so much because you can, in fact, know what he 0:32:10.510 --> 0:32:14.030 was thinking. He wrote so much of it down and 0:32:14.030 --> 0:32:17.550 you can have it from the time Churchill followed a 0:32:17.550 --> 0:32:21.390 rule that he would not excoriate people for things they 0:32:21.390 --> 0:32:25.670 did unless he had taken a position on it himself 0:32:25.790 --> 0:32:29.070 at the time. And, uh, and that and, you know, 0:32:29.110 --> 0:32:31.430 he did take so many positions and they are written 0:32:31.430 --> 0:32:33.840 down and they are spoken in the House of Commons, 0:32:33.840 --> 0:32:37.080 and all that is written down verbatim. And that means 0:32:37.080 --> 0:32:40.360 you can know what he thought, but what he's writing 0:32:40.360 --> 0:32:45.760 about here is exactly connected to that. Right. In other words, uh, 0:32:46.000 --> 0:32:51.200 the the biographer of Hugh Hewitt will ask Betsy, where's 0:32:51.200 --> 0:32:54.760 the letters? And, you know, that's the first thing you 0:32:54.760 --> 0:33:00.080 ask for. Where's the papers? Your emails. Right. There's a 0:33:00.080 --> 0:33:02.720 million of them. Those are hard. They present challenges. 0:33:03.040 --> 0:33:04.360 Oh my goodness. Do they ever. 0:33:04.400 --> 0:33:09.000 By the way, the digital age, like most of our correspondents, Hugh, 0:33:09.160 --> 0:33:11.280 which is extensive, is an email. 0:33:11.400 --> 0:33:12.600 It's an email. Right? Yeah. 0:33:13.760 --> 0:33:16.640 Will that be around in 15 years? I hope so. 0:33:16.680 --> 0:33:22.160 The lawyer our attorney hopes not, but I hope so. And, uh, 0:33:23.080 --> 0:33:27.080 you know, it's, uh. But you see, in other words, uh, 0:33:27.160 --> 0:33:29.960 there's a danger that the effect of the digital age 0:33:30.280 --> 0:33:33.180 will be to cut us off from the past. In part, 0:33:33.380 --> 0:33:33.660 there will. 0:33:33.660 --> 0:33:37.380 Be no or fewer knocks at the door. Fewer. Doctor. 0:33:37.700 --> 0:33:40.219 Thank you. We will come back next week and we 0:33:40.220 --> 0:33:43.380 will talk about the amazing chapters four and five in 0:33:43.420 --> 0:33:46.500 this book, The rush to the sea, where Larry's father 0:33:46.500 --> 0:33:51.700 in law and 330 000 other brave and lucky souls 0:33:51.740 --> 0:33:56.020 get off of Europe as Rommel and Guderian surround them. 0:33:56.260 --> 0:33:58.940 Don't go anywhere. Adam. Thank you. Harley. Thank you general. 0:33:59.380 --> 0:34:00.940 Thank you. We'll talk to you next time on the 0:34:00.940 --> 0:34:02.340 next Hillsdale Dialogue. 0:34:06.620 --> 0:34:09.819 Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the 0:34:09.820 --> 0:34:18.500 Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find 0:34:18.500 --> 0:34:24.580 your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to hillsdale.edu.