Three Days in May - a review and historical perspective

I went down to Whitehall last night, a stone's throw from the seat of Government power, to see a play which dramatised on one of the most crucial, but little-known, strategic decisions of The Second World War.

The theatre, Trafalgar Studios, was modern by central London standards - for once there was adequate leg room. And although fairly short and with no fancy sets, the acting and the sheer enormity of the subject matter being acted out made it worth the £30 ticket.

In a nutshell the play tells the story of Winston's Churchill's first (and arguably most important) battle of WW2. Having just succeeded Chamberlain as Prime Minister he is faced with the surrender of Belgium, the immiment capitulation of France and the retreat of the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) to Dunkirk with the long-shot of an evaucation of some kind the only military option left. Welcome to the job, Winston. But that's not all: some of his senior - and very influential - cabinet colleagues are pushing to sign up to a French plan to sue for peace with Hitler. Realising the hopelesness of the Allied position in France and the inevitability of German victory, the argument is championed by Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary: namely,  use Mussolini as an intermediary to negotiate terms with Hitler as Britain's best chance of preservation.

This production has to battle against 20-20 hindsight, but it does so extremely well; not just through Warren Clarke, who captures Churchill's growl and cantankerousness brilliantly, but equally through Jeremy Clyde's wonderful portrayal of Halifax. Overlooked and almost forgotten by history, Halifax (or the 'Holy Fox' as he was known due to his piety and love of hunting) was the Prime Minister who never was; and the high priest of appeasement.

Which Prime Minister?

After the defeat of Poland, the discrediting of appeasement and the debacle in Norway in 1940 Chamberlain stepped aside. The Conservative party and the King (George VI) both favoured Halifax to be the new Prime Minister. But the British people, sensing that the nation needed a lion, favoured Churchill. However Hallifax was offered the top job. Astonishingly exhe declined, citing his memebership of the House of Lords as the main obstacle. He could still have taken it, however. It surely is one of the most fateful decisions in all of history - with an appeaser as Prime Minsiter in 1940, what would the world be like now?

But the play focussed on what the world would have been like if Halifax had got his way when he accepted the post of Foreign Secretary in Churchill's wartime Coalition Government. The majority of the play is set around a simple table, where the protagonists argue about what to do: they are Churchill, Halifax, Chamberlain (who is now serving under Churchill in another remarkable swapping of fortunes), and Labour party members Attlee (who would become PM himself in 1945) and Greenwood. The battle lines are drawn: Churchill, Attlee and Greenwood want no truck with the French plan and want to fight on; Halifax and Chamberlain want to at least give it a go.

History

"History will be kind to me," Churchill once said. "For I intend to write it." And write it he did, with his own epic History of the Second World War. However, he glossed over just how divided the Cabinet was in the dark days of May 1940 when the British position seemed hopeless. Far from being united in a fight to the finish, the senior cabinet strongly considered suing for peace. In other words, giving up and cutting a deal with Hitler.

It sounds extraordinary now, but the main players had no idea how history would turn out. Halifax's character in this play is so eloquent and persuasive that he skewers Churchill's flighty rhetoric with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. Where Churchill blusters and rails, Halifax argues with a lawyer's tongue and an aristocrat's air. Sitting up there, 2 rows from the back and trying to forget history and judge the arguments on merit, he came across to me as more persuasive than Churchill.

The Competing Arguments

Halifax argument in a nutshell was this: Germany has won in France, that is acknowledged. Belgium is beaten, France will soon be beaten, Britain will be alone. Since the 'miracle' of Dunkirk has yet to happen and so cannot be assumed, Britain will at in possession of at best a shattered and near-toothless army; but worse, German aircraft outnumber British ones 4 to 1, and Chief of the Imperial Staff General Dill comes in to tell them that night raids on the Midland's aircraft factories could degrade Britain's capacity to defend against invasion. Without the United States or other allies entering the war there is no hope of defeating Germany now that they will control the coastline of France and all the industries of the conquered territories.

So Halifax says: why not try to extract terms now, while Britain at least has some cards to play? Because in three months time the situation - with Britain isolated and friendless - will be a far worse one from which to negotiate. Of course, Halifax purrs, if the terms offered by Hitler are outrageous and unacceptable we will fight on. Of course! He's not saying give up our way of life, just find a better way to preserve it. But why not at least give the French plan a go? Perhaps Halifax had read Mein Kampf and concluded that Hitler's main aims were in the east....after all, had not Britain and France declared war on Germany and not the other way round? Halifax wants to achieve a peace that will preserve Britain's cities from bombing and, as he puts it, 'our women and children too'. Of course, suing for peace now will leave Germany supreme in Europe. But what can Britain realistically do about that now? All be herself? Better to accept German continental dominance if Britain can keep her way of life, her Empire and her citizens safe.

Churchill's argument, backed by his Labour colleagues, was morale-based, and therefore in some ways harder to make. He eschews strategic considerations in favour of uniting the nation and leading the world by example. Why, he asks, should the United States, or even for that matter the Dominions like Canada, send men to fight Hitler if everyone can see that the British don't really want to fight? If Britain is shown to be scared and itching to sue for peace?

Counterfactuals

Jeremey Clyde's portrayal of the arisocratic Halifax is of a haughty, aloof but intellectually brilliant man. It's a joy to watch. Can Churchill outmanoeuvre him? At stake is nothing less than the future of the world. Here we have to do a counterfactual: a Britain that withdraws from the war gives Hitler a completely free hand in Europe. We know that even while being hamstrung fighting Britain the Nazis conquered Greece and Yugoslavia and then invaded the Soviet Union, coming within a few miles of Moscow and an ace of victory before winter, Stalin's iron will and the sacrifices of the Soviet peoples turned them back. Without continued British resistance and the evenutal D-Day landings 4 years later it's hard to see Germany being crushed and forced into unconditional surrender. Without a British base how could the USA have even entered the European arena? It is truly a nightmare scenario.

But of course none of the characters in the play can really know this. Looked at from the point of view of 26-28 May 1940, it appears to makes little sense for Britain to continue. Indeed we know that Washington had already been told by the US Ambassador in London, the craven Joe Kennedy, that Britain was bound to surrender.

Astonishingly, in one of the opening scenes where Churchill receives the French Premier Raynaud to hear about the French plan, Churchill appears to waver. He openly talks about at least the possibility of buying off Mussolini with British Mediterranean possessions like Gibraltar and Malta in return for Il Duce  getting Britain a deal with Hitler. But by the time the cabinet meets, Churchill's mind is set: Britain must reject the plan and fight on.

This play is fascinating not just because of the superb acting performances and the dramatic tension but also because the audience really is made to understand that (a) the stakes are so high ('the tightest corner we've been in since 1066', as Chamberlain says) but also because (b) Halifax's arguments seem so seductive, so reasonable. No-one knows that the Soviet Union and the USA will join Britain in a mightly aliiance against Hitler just 2 years later. There seems no chance of that at all. So why not bargain while we can?

Chamberlain redeemed

The key player here is in fact Chamberlain. The two Labour members, Attlee and Greenwood, despise Halifax and Chamberlain as architects of appeasement and state the country wants to fight. "The guilty men of Munich" they call them. "Labour hates war," says Greenwood. "But it hates fascism more."

Churchill admits that without Chamberlain's support for his arguments he would not be able to carry the House of Commons, dominated by the Conservatives, with him; he would have to resign. And without Churchill, there would be no D-Day. We know that now. They didn't then. So Churuchill has to fight the most crucial battle he has ever fought: to persuade Chamberlain, the architect of appeasement, to back him and not his old friend Halifax.

Thus we see Churchill's 'rogue elephant' pitted against Halifax's mighty brain; the bulldozer against the surgeon. They are both trying to win Chamberlain over to their side. And it is Churchill who wins the day. In an episode which I think should really redeem Chamberlain's reputation, Chruchill reminds everyone of the truth that it was the Labour party which had been bashing the peace drum loudest in the inter-war years: the Hoare-Laval plan, the Rhineland, etc etc. If there are guilty men it should really be Prime Ministers Baldwin and MacDonald. Chamberlain was not a coward; he was naive. When he had to fight Hitler, he did. In the play his character argues - in my opinion correctly - that although Munich was a terrible mistake it did buy Britain more time to rearm; war in 1938 may have been even more disadvantageous for Britain than the battle in 1940. Or at least the case is arguable.

Chamberlain's character recalls Munich and how Hitler had looked into his eyes and deceived him. He tells Halifax that there will be 'no more Munichs'. Chamberlain backs Chruchill and resolves to fight. This should salvage his reputation at least somewhat; Chamberlain was not a pacifist, and he was not a coward.