HL Deb 13 September 1939 vol 114 cc1047-55

3.33 p.m.

LORD MOTTISTONE

My Lords, I gave notice yesterday to the Foreign Secretary that I thought it would be wise to raise a point to which everyone in this country is directing his attention so that the intention of His Majesy's Government and of the French Government could be made perfectly clear. I know many of your Lordships appreciate my reason for doing this. It is that the public is puzzled to know whether as a nation, and the French nation likewise, we do in fact stand by the declaration made before the outbreak of war by our two Governments, and without doubt approved by both peoples, as to the conduct of war if war should come. The question is whether the declaration of war on Germany has altered the statement therein made. With your Lordships' permission I will read the document which will take about two and a half minutes to read but which may save two hundred years of misery if we are fortunate enough to be able to carry it out. It is the most remarkable document to which any countries have ever set their names.

At the time it was published nobody noticed it, and if the question is asked "Why do not our aeroplanes drop bombs instead of pamphlets?" here is the answer in this document. It is because we promised that we would not. The most reverend Primate in his moving speech said that amongst the many things we were fighting for was the pledged word. Here is our pledged word. It is the joint Anglo-French Declaration sent to President Roosevelt through our Ambassador at Washington, before the declaration of war: The Governments of the United Kingdom and France solemnly and publicly affirm their intention should a war be forced upon them to conduct hostilities with a firm desire to spare the civilian population and to preserve in every way possible those monuments of human achievement which are treasured in all civilised countries. In this spirit they have welcomed with deep satisfaction President Roosevelt's appeal on the subject of bombing from the air. Fully sympathising with the humanitarian sentiments by which that appeal was inspired they have replied to it in similar terms. They had indeed some time ago sent explicit instructions to the commanders of their armed forces prohibiting the bombardment whether from the air, or the sea, or by artillery on land of any except strictly military objectives in the narrowest sense of the word. Bombardment by artillery on land will exclude objectives which have no strictly defined military importance, in particular large urban areas situated outside the battle zone. They will furthermore make every effort to avoid the destruction of localities or buildings which are of value to civilisation. As regards the use of naval forces, including submarines, the two Governments will abide strictly by the rules laid down in the Submarine Protocol of 1936 which have been accepted by nearly all civilised nations. Further they will only employ their aircraft against merchant shipping at sea in conformity with the recognised rules applicable to the exercise of maritime belligerent rights by warships. Finally, the two Allied Governments reaffirm their intention to abide by the terms of the Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibiting the use in war of asphyxiating or poisonous or other gases and of bacteriological methods of warfare. An inquiry will be addressed to the German Government as to whether they are prepared to give an assurance to the same effect. It will of course be understood that in the event of the enemy not observing any of the restrictions which the Governments of the United Kingdom and France have thus imposed on the operations of their armed forces these Governments reserve the right to take all such action as they may consider appropriate. Now everyone will have observed that our Air Force, with its wide power of movement, has again and again flown over the enemy's territory, and instead of dropping bombs has dropped leaflets. The reason they have done so is that, through the President of the United States, the Government promised the whole civilised world that they would not begin atrocities.

May I say that, of course, we do not do this from fear of the ultimate consequences, because it must be apparent to anyone that if atrocity war is to be carried on by bombing from the air, in the long run the advantage must be on the side of this country and its Empire? Not only because of its manufacturing power but because of its geographical position it can continue to manufacture aircraft in places which no enemy aircraft can reach within a very long period of time. Therefore not in the least is it from fear, but it is, I am sure, a wise decision. The matter was put to me by a very eminent man, a member of your Lordships' House, in this way: "Once you begin this you are on a slippery slope." Once you begin deserting this document—which I know His Majesty's Government have no intention of deserting—and say: "Ah well, there is a little factory in that little town, we will bomb that town and destroy it," you go on from that to bombing a larger town, and from that to bombing a city, and ultimately to the mutual destruction of the Capitals of the countries. And all, please observe, for no possible advantage. Warfare can only be of value to the aggressor if he is enabled to enter the territory of the enemy and impose his will. This mutual destruction can have no effect on the result of the war.

Therefore I ask the Government whether they can give us two answers. The first is, whether the German Government did in fact reply to this, and if so, did they give the same promise to the President of the United States as we ourselves gave just before the declaration of war? The next question is, do they adhere absolutely to this document which I have ventured to read to your Lordships' House? To me it seems the Soldier's Bible. This is his charter, by which he knows that he is fighting with clean hands in a good cause. Who began the atrocities? history may ask. The answer is "Not we, nor will we ever begin, not even if we thought that by breaking our word here we would win certain victory. What would it profit us if we gained the whole world and lost our own souls? We stand pat on this, that under no circumstances will we break this pledged word." If that be said, we can go forward, I think, in confidence, knowing full well that right is on our side, and while we condemn the German Government and their system, we can look forward without undue bitterness to the day when we may live at peace with the German people. I beg to ask the Foreign Secretary the questions of which I have given him notice.

3.42 p.m.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for having given me information that he intended to ask this question this afternoon in your Lordships' House, and I think it is in my power to give him a short, but I hope reasonably comprehensive, reply on the matters that he has raised. All war must of necessity be a brutal and bloody business, and, in the full sense of the word, quite obviously what is sometimes called the humanising of war is impossible. At the same time, we all know that from the earliest times efforts have been made, and on the whole perhaps not unsuccessfully, to try to mitigate some at least of the worst horrors of war, and the nations have come together trying to do that by the institution of codes referring to this and that in a great variety of ways. It is also quite obvious that with the advance of science, and the extension of the range of old weapons and the invention of new weapons, and also the fusion of all the activities of a nation, military, civil and industrial, into one gigantic war effort, the distinction to be drawn between combatant and non-combatant becomes vastly more difficult to draw in these days, and to maintain. None the less, I agree with what was implicit in the noble Lord's speech, that certain broad distinctions can, and might, to be drawn, and we, in that document which the noble Lord quoted to your Lordships, did our best publicly to lay down the lines on which such a distinction might be made, in response to the appeal made to us and to other Governments by the President of the United States.

That was an attitude that in common with the French Government we adopted, for the general reason to which I have referred—namely, the desire, so far as was possible, to protect the civilian population. That declaration, published on September 3, represents the considered policy of His Majesty's Government and of the French Government, who made it in the hope that it would be observed by all parties in the present war; but your Lordships will have noticed that the last paragraph which the noble Lord read provides that if the enemy does not observe any of the restrictions which the Governments of the United Kingdom and of France have imposed on the operations of their armed forces, these Governments reserve the right to take all such action as they may consider necessary. That is still our position.

Your Lordships may have seen reports of an announcement made by the German High Command in the course of this morning, of their intention to bomb and shell open towns, villages and hamlets in Poland, in order to crush resistance by the civilian population. Of that announcement, of which I in common with your Lordships have seen the published report, we have as yet no official confirmation, but I would say this. First of all, if it is true, it would seem to be in direct contradiction of the statement of purpose expressed by the German Chancellor in his Reichstag speech, when he disclaimed any desire to make war on women and children; and in the second place, whatever may be the rights of a belligerent army as against franc-tireurs, there can, I imagine, be no sort of justification for what must be indiscriminate bombardment, whether from the land or from the air, of the civilian population. As I have said, the restrictions that His Majesty's Government have imposed upon the operations of their own forces were based upon the condition of similar restraint being observed by their opponents, and His Majesty's Government must hold themselves completely free, if such restraint is not in fact observed, to take such action as they may deem appropriate.

LORD MOTTISTONE

I am most grateful to the noble Viscount for having given us the information that he has, that the Government stand by their declaration. But the noble Viscount omitted to give one piece of information for which I asked—namely, did Germany in fact agree to this request of President Roosevelt, which was addressed also to our Government and to the French Government? I do not know whether he can give us that information.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

So far as my information goes, which may not be complete, I think I am right in saying that the reply of the German Government to President Roosevelt merely covered the question of gas, and that what I stated as to the professed intention of the German Government with regard to air bombardment was, if I remember rightly, based, and I think only based, upon Herr Hitler's statement to the Reichstag.

3.50 p.m.

LORD STRABOLGI

My Lords, we have just had a very important statement from the Foreign Secretary in reply to the noble Lord. I only had notice that this question was to be asked a little time ago, and have not had an opportunity of consulting my noble friends and my friends in another place, as to what attitude we should take towards this particular subject. But the matter is important because we are only in the early days of this war. Passions have not, on the whole, been aroused, and those of us who remember what happened in the last war will be well aware that, before very much longer, natural but bitter feelings will arise in people's minds and there will be demands for reprisals and demands for giving what is called "a taste of their own medicine" to our enemies and so on. Therefore this might be an opportunity for me, if I might be permitted, to make just one comment; and I believe here I am speaking the minds of my friends here and in another place on what has fallen from the Foreign Secretary.

In the first place, we have understood from the newspapers that already there have been deliberate attacks on the civil population in Poland, principally by means of aircraft, and what is known as "organised frightfulness" has been put into force. That has been stated in the newspapers, and I saw the answer made in another place on tins subject by the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, but the facts seem to speak for themselves. Already the campaign in Poland has led to a breach of undertakings of the kind, whether we refer to the original Hague Conventions or the other Conventions. Secondly, quite apart from the disgraceful case of the "Athenia," the submarine war at sea is not being conducted in accordance with signed treaties and conventions by the German Government. In certain cases, apparently, from the newspaper reports, our seamen have been permitted to take to the boats, and in one case, at least, a humane submarine Captain has helped them to find their way to land or to a rescuing neutral ship. But it has been laid down that open boats, far from land, are not a place of safety and do not comply with the terms of the Conventions. Certain of these sinkings have taken place a long way from shore. It is only because the weather has been abnormally fine for this time of year in the Atlantic that there has not been greater loss of life; and it should be put on record on every possible occasion that there have already been a number of these disgraceful breaches of the old-established law of the sea and of signed Conventions.

The second point I venture to make is this: with regard to reprisals, to us it is unthinkable that we should exercise reprisals of that kind at sea. Under no circumstances would we lower ourselves to break the old-established brotherhood and chivalry of the sea. But with regard to air attack, I notice that the Foreign Secretary reiterated the saving clause in the reply to the American President; and if our civil population is to be bombed, well, there are obviously a great many objects of military importance in Germany, fit targets for attack, but, because of their situation and the modern method of high-flying attack, it would be inevitable that there would be loss of civil life if they were attacked from the air. If we are going to be attacked in contravention of the pledges already given, and indeed of the laws of war, surely we are not going to tie our hands to attacking only those objects of military importance which lie so far from any civil habitation that there is no danger of hurting anyone. For example, the only one I can think of in Germany where that can be done is the Isle of Heligoland itself; perhaps the upper part of Heligoland, which is itself a fortress, could be attacked without hurting any civilians, who have been evacuated in any case. But there are few other objects of military importance where, in the event of an attack from the air, a good many of the civilian population are not bound to be injured or killed in the process.

Furthermore, if we do so tie our hands that we are not under any circumstances to make these attacks, we free our enemies from the immense efforts involved in what We call in this country Air Raid Precautions, with the consequent tying up of man power and material; and that would be, to them, a tremendous advantage. I believe I am interpreting the minds of my Party and also I believe of the great majority of the public when I say that, if illegal air warfare is going to be waged against us, we must have a free hand to wage it back without deliberately attacking the civil population but in such a way as to damage the economic and military strength of our opponents. I believe that there I am speaking for the Labour Party. We do not want to descend to the level of barbarism already reached in Germany, but at the same time we would not wish to tie the hands of our military commanders in the legitimate use of the air weapon, even if, in so doing, great loss and suffering were caused to the civil population of Germany.

Lastly, we hope that, however long and however hard this war is waged, our quarrel will remain with the present rulers who have seized power in Germany and with the system they represent, and not with the German people as a whole. That is, in a sentence, what at the present moment the Labour Party is discussing, and discussing with great sincerity and fervour.

3.56 p.m.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

My Lords, may I put to the noble Viscount a supplementary question in order to be clear on a point which is of great importance? In replying to a supplementary of my noble friend beside me, he said that the Germans had replied to the President of the United States on the question of gas. He did not say whether the German Government has specifically undertaken not to use poison gas or bacteriological warfare if other countries do the same.

VISCOUNT HALIFAX

I rather hesitate to answer precisely without the full terms of their reply before me, but, if the noble Lord will allow me, I would give him a more precise answer if the means might be devised to-morrow.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

Thank you.