§ LORD ADDISON, who had given Notice that he would ask His Majesty's Government if they would make a statement on the war situation, and also move for Papers, said: My Lords, I desire to ask the question standing in my name.
§ LORD MOYNEMy Lords, since Parliament adjourned interest has been centred throughout the world on the greatest battle which has ever been seen and which is now raging on a front of 1800 miles from Murmansk to the Black Sea. Little was known in peace time about the war machine of Soviet Russia, but all the world must now be amazed at the resolution in defence and the determination in counter-attack which show not only brilliant leadership in control of vast Armies but unsurpassed military qualities in the Russian people. The details of the fighting are necessarily hidden from us, but judging from the 6 communiqués the carnage sustained by both sides must be on such an appalling and stupendous scale as paralyses the human imagination. Although the Nazis boasted that they would be in Moscow within three weeks, fighting has now raged without interruption for eleven weeks, and it shows the poor appreciation which Dr. Goebbels must have of the intelligence of German listeners that he now announces on the wireless that operations are proceeding according to plan. Based on the French experience, the Nazis doubtless expected, when they took practically the whole of their armoured might to the Eastern front, that the great mobility of their mechanised columns would permit of such vast concentrations of overwhelming force at weak points as the defenders would not be able to meet in time, and that they would thus be able to achieve decisions by envelopment or penetration. The advantage of the offensive in surprise has, however, been answered by new tactics of defence. Vast reserves seem to have been skilfully used to avoid the offering of exposed flanks and to enable the evacuation of dangerous salients to take place. Great areas have indeed been given up, but defence in depth has foiled the expected military rewards for penetration, and the armoured spearheads have been burnt up in the ferocity of irregular bands of resistance.
The evacuation of such large tracts of country has necessarily involved great losses of material and productive power. His Majesty's Government have already done much by sparing what can ill be spared from our resources in armament to sustain the Russian effort by the quick furnishing of military supplies. The United States, which has been adapting its vast productive resources to warlike needs, is co-operating with us in these measures. Plans are being urgently developed in America for this purpose, and as soon as their delegation under Mr. Averell Harriman is ready with all their technical assistance and information, they will be joined in Russia by a British Mission of experts under Lord Beaver-brook, to co-ordinate the supplies of the munitions of war and the materials needed in the Russian armament factories, many of which, fortunately, are far behind the line. In the present struggle our Ally is not only facing the savage hordes of Hitler. Not content with a contingent from Italy, which Hitler may or may not 7 still include among his Herrenvolk, slaves are being used not only to labour but to fight. Rumanians and Finns have already been driven to the slaughter, and their fate offers an object lesson of what awaits subject races in Hitler's New Order.
While the main battle is raging in the East, our Air Force is attacking the enemy with ever-growing intensity in the West. Month by month the weight of bombs dropped on the vital points of Germany has steadily increased, and no retaliation has lately been attempted for the terrific battering which the Nazis are suffering. In certain quarters, however, impatience is being shown that we are not doing more to help Russia. I cannot, of course, discuss future plans, but I would only say of some of the advice that is given us that it would in no way help Russia in her struggle if we were to commit some folly and court a military disaster. In this matter we may hope to learn lessons from history. In spite of the transformation of the weapons and conditions of warfare, however much the factors have changed, the principles demonstrated in the Napoleonic wars remain unshaken. Geography will still govern national strategy. Scorched earth and the prospect of a Russian winter are likely to be as effective to-day as they were in 1812. Sea power again, as then, will prove to be our winning stake. Conditions are not unlike those which followed the Battle of Trafalgar. We then took advantage of British sea power to hit where the enemy was least able to retaliate. To-day we are applying the same lessons but substituting the Middle East for the Peninsular war.
The advantages of sea power, however, do not give lightning results. I wonder whether there is full realization of the huge force which has been steadily building up, thanks to our sea power, in the Eastern Mediterranean theatre. It is no longer, as in Gallipoli, a matter of landing men with rifles and bandoliers of cartridges and a few guns, but ships have to go thousands of miles filled with huge freights of tanks, aeroplanes and equipment undreamt of in the furnishing of Armies twenty-five years ago. The small Egyptian garrison has grown into a great well-equipped Army, far outnumbering the Nazi forces which are marooned across the Mediterranean, far from their 8 bases, and only able to run the gauntlet of our sea and air power in carrying across their necessary supplies. Napoleon used to speak of the war in Spain as an open ulcer. During the year which has passed we have turned Hitler's eastern ulcer into a running sore. By means of our sea power and American munitions we hope that that sore will eventually develop into a mortal wound. Hitler recognises the vital importance of dominating the Eastern Mediterranean and he promised less than a year ago that he would drive us from Egypt by the month of May. It is worth looking back at the steps by which his dream was shattered and how we have turned from a defensive position to an active and successful initiative. First of all a force of 400,000, mainly Italians, has been destroyed in Africa. In spite of setbacks in Cyrenaica we have built up a position of overwhelming strength in the Nile valley. Working from that base, operations have been conducted which scattered the Nazi plans and timetable.
In March indications showed the intention on the part of the Central Powers to by-pass the Balkans and to strike at vital oil supplies through Turkey. Thanks to the heroism of the Greeks and General Simovitch's coup d'état in Belgrade this plan was defeated. I doubt whether we sufficiently appreciate what we owe to the Yugoslavs. Their young King has just come of age and we are glad to welcome him back among us. He is well known in England, where he spent several years at our schools. We hope that his exile will be short and that before long he will be back among his own people when they have regained the liberties which they have so well deserved by choosing the hard and cruel path of resistance. The battle of Greece and afterwards the battle of Crete cost Hitler three precious months of delay. His double deployment prevented his southward drive for the oil fields in time to enable him to carry out his great summer attack on Russia. The battle of Crete destroyed 6,000 of his highly trained air troops and many of his 'planes, so that he was able to send only insignificant help to the Vichy troops in Syria and to Rashid Ali in Iraq.
Rashid Ali never expected to fight us without Axis support, and although his treachery enabled him at first to outnumber the British forces at Habbaniyah, 9 our counter measures from Basra, from India and Palestine brought his revolution to an ignominious end. The conquest of Syria in five weeks with only an insignificant armoured force was a very remarkable performance in mobile warfare. It was achieved in co-operation with the Free French and will ensure at the earliest possible moment the fulfilment of Syrian aspirations to be an independent sovereign State. These two campaigns have been carried out with great speed and high military efficiency, and they have removed all anxiety about Iraq oil and pipe lines. They have also transformed the situation in our Colony of Cyprus, situated less than 100 miles from Syria, with all its aerodromes. Any Nazi attack now on that island would be at a hopeless disadvantage in respect of air warfare. To attempt to capture and hold Cyprus—a very great anxiety to us at the beginning of this year—against an Air Force organised in depth in Syria world now reverse the rôle that our troops played in Crete when they were in their turn confronted by an offensive organised in depth from innumerable Axis aerodromes on the mainland.
The most recent achievement of our Middle East forces has been to forestal the fifth column organisation which the Nazis had built up behind the Russian front in Iran. These operations have now enabled us to avert the stab in the back which was being prepared for the Russian Caucasus. They have secured Iranian oil from exploitation or sabotage by the Nazis and they have given us the opportunity of joining hands with Russia. We have no design whatever upon Iranian independence. On the contrary our occupation is the only possible and strong guarantee against her enslavement by the Nazis. Another advantage of the occupation is that it gives us the use of the railway which runs for five hundred miles from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea and it will enable us to deliver supplies right into the heart of Russia from the Volga basin. The advantage of this is difficult to over-estimate. Archangel is blocked by ice for many months each year, and the ice-free port of Vladivostok is nearly 7,000 miles by rail from the Russian front.
The exploitation of our sea power, which I have outlined, has been founded upon our growing success in the long-drawn 10 battle of the Atlantic. Nazi surface ships have never willingly taken the risk of equal combat with the British Navy. Instead they have developed still further their new technique of savagery upon the seas. To their other unspeakable invention in the last war of sinking ships without trace and with no thought for their civilian crews and passengers, they have added new techniques of savagery. Thanks to the courage of our Navy and Mercantile Marine and to our Air Forces, the oceans have been kept open in spite of magnetic mines, submarines and Nazi aircraft. Lately the pirates of the ocean have found their task increasingly dangerous owing to the development of the United States system of convoys.
No longer are we fighting according to established traditions. It is a matter of all-in wrestling and we cannot afford to tell our opponents of the most effective throws. The Admiralty have advised that it is against the public interest to publish such figures as would allow the Nazis to check the fantastic claims which have been made in turn for their various forms of sea warfare. I am therefore limited today to speaking in comparisons. Although our shipping offers more than twenty times the target of the German shipping, our submarines and our Air Forces, in the months of July and August, sank nearly three times as much Axis tonnage as the losses which were inflicted upon us in the same period. I think we should draw an encouraging message from the fact that so much coast-wise shipping is being ventured along the western coast of Europe by the Nazis. The perils of the sea are now preferred by them as a method of transport for the vital supplies of oil, petrol and military stores, which are needed in the occupied countries—those perils are preferred to the chaos in their land communications which has been wrought by the Royal Air Force. This is the only explanation of the long list of German tankers which, as you have seen, have been sunk by the efforts of our Air Force close to our own shores.
When the House adjourned we were on the eve of the meeting which has taken place between the Prime Minister and President Roosevelt. The United States had already made tremendous sacrifices to provide us with ever-increasing supplies of war material, and in all history no such generous 11 international contribution has ever been made as the Lease and Lend Act under which not only the munitions of war but also food and other necessities are pouring across the ocean to sustain us. Other urgent matters have recently arisen needing further co-operation between the United States and ourselves. First, methods of assisting Russia have had to be considered. Then there was the problem of Far-Eastern policy, especially with a view to checking the encroachment of Japan, and thus avoiding the spreading of the war to the Pacific. The value of the personal contact between the Prime Minister and President Roosevelt is incalculable. The manifesto which they subsequently issued lays down, in the broadest outlines, the principles for which the English-speaking peoples are so greatly striving. People will find varying merits in that document according to their own tastes and views. Speaking for myself, I am most deeply impressed by Points 4 and 8. In Point 4 it is set out that victors and vanquished are to have access on equal terms to the trade and raw, materials needed for their economic prosperity. Point 8 provides guarantees for further peace by the disarmament of aggressor nations. We then, surely, have learned the lessons of the last peace in that, while taking measures against another onslaught upon the civilised life of the world, we are now going to avoid the mistake of seeking to lay a foundation of reconstruction economically on misery and discontent.
Compared with a year ago, when we stood at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, a great transformation has taken place. After the loss of material in the evacuation of Dunkirk, we had little defence but in the wonderful courage of our Royal Air Force pilots and the resolution of our people, and we stood against a Power which was far ahead of us in mechanical equipment, a Power which had realised to what extent tanks, 'planes and tommy-guns could increase the murderous capacity of the human unit. A year ago we stood alone, but now the sympathy of the United States has taken such a practical turn that it is resulting in the pouring out of more and more munitions, and even Hitler's man-power is far surpassed by the vast human reservoir of Russia. Not only do we no longer fight alone Although the road in front of us 12 is still rough and long, the time factor is definitely in our favour now that Hitler's aggression has ranged at our side Powers whose potential strength and resources far exceed those of Germany and her slave nations.
§ LORD ADDISONMy Lords, the House will welcome the opportunity of listening to the statement of the noble Viscount and, so far as may be desired, of discussing the issues that it raises. Things move so fast these days that, although it is only a short time since the House met, the noble Lord has presented to us a succession of great relatively new-issues which have arisen in this short time. The first of them to which I would like to refer is the historic meeting in the Atlantic between the Prime Minister and President Roosevelt. In particular, I am glad that the noble Lord picked out the two sections of the agreement which he did. More than once in this House—and in the other, too—members have expressed anxiety for closer co-operation, with a view to the future, between the United States and ourselves; and the message which these parts of the agreement conveyed to the oppressed nations, and even to the inhabitants of Germany, is one which repeatedly members of all Parties have longed should be given some more definite form of expression.
Although we all recognise, of course, that at this stage the points are relatively in general terms—they are bound to be—I sincerely hope that the Government, through whatever machinery they may adopt, are taking as active steps as possible to bring this agreement and all that it implies before the minds of the people in Germany and in the oppressed States. A good many of us feel that as the war proceeds, and as the people in Germany become more and more depressed by their terrific losses in Russia and by the disappointments which they must be feeling at the failure of the Nazis to make good their many rosy promises, a good many of them, whose minds go back to the years from 1921 to 1924, will be fortified in some way in their endurance by the dread lest they have a repetition of the past Versailles experiences, so that while they will have lost faith in the discredited Nazi régime, they will still dread the horror of a repetition of those years. It is for the removal of that dread that this agreement between the British Prime 13 Minister and the President of the United States is so incalculably valuable. I hope that every possible step that can be taken will be adopted to make the moral of it known to the people in Germany, and so undermine that element of continued resistance. So far as the meeting itself was concerned it was another characteristic great act of the Prime Minister, and I can only say, in reply to what the noble Lord has said as to the unstinted generosity of the help which is now being afforded to us by the United States, that every citizen feels that he cannot exaggerate any expression of our thanks.
There is another feature of this meeting which is associated with the events in Russia and is, I think, of great importance. I myself have always looked back upon the Prime Minister's notable broadcast on that Sunday night when the Germans first invaded Russia as one of the greatest declarations of his career, so far as I am acquainted with it. It was an act of high courage. It must have given a creepy feeling to many a "Colonel Blimp"; but it is a very good thing that they should have creepy feelings administered to them. It does mean that this country recognises the fact that it is up to us, as the Atlantic agreement also recognises on behalf of the United States, to give the most unstinted help to the Russians in their heroic resistance to the Nazis. We know the geographical difficulties, and I am vary glad that the noble Lord administered a kindly chastisement to those glib prescribers of military activities who would tell us how best to help Russia. Alter all, the geography is there against us. As one who knew something of things in the last war, I sincerely hope that the Government will obstinately resist any glib prescriptions to try to make diversions which will be no real help. Russia wants the outpouring of American and British factories; and let us hope that as soon as possible the difficulties of geography will be overcome. As to how far they may be overcome by what has happened in Iran I am quite unable to express any opinion, because I am not sufficiently acquainted with the transport facilities which that country presents; but we do know that the transport of supplies is in itself a gigantic business and cannot be organised in a day or two.
14 I am very glad to hear that Lord Beaverbrook is to be the head of the Mission to Moscow. I do not know why there has been what appears to be some considerable delay in sending this Mission. I am not suggesting that there are not very good reasons for it, because we do know how many things have to be hammered out beforehand, but I think your Lordships will agree that, in heading this Mission, Lord Beaverbrook will speak for us and represent that dynamic energy which we are all glad the Government are contributing and which I feel sure our Russian Allies will deeply appreciate. The sooner the Mission get there and the sooner they get busy the better pleased we shall be.
I am coming in a moment or two to one other point affecting our war effort on the Home Front which would, I suppose, make possible the delivery of supplies to Russia, but before I mention that I think that this association, as well as the Atlantic agreement, means that not only are we to be associated in war but we have to find ways and means of being associated in the security of peace afterwards, because the most perplexing problem before the minds of all men of good will, I should think, in every part of the world now is: Having defeated Nazi Germany, how are we to secure that freedom from fear in the future for which we are all fighting? It is one of the most unimaginable problems civilization has ever been presented with. It means, surely, not only mere physical control but it means that the mind of the German people has got to be altered, the point of view has got to be changed, and rule by consent rather than force has got to enter into their conception of things. I should imagine that for many years past no young German has known anything of the version of history except what the Nazis allowed him to learn, and no children have ever had anything else except so far as their parents have surreptitiously told them a few of the truths of history. We shall be confronted after the war with a whole nation which has been drilled and dragooned in their minds to have points of view entirely foreign to the abandonment of war as an instrument of national policy, and it is a long row that we have to hoe before we can re-establish a reliable peace system in Europe. It is unthinkable that that great undertaking should be carried out with- 15 out the co-operation of the Soviet Republic. And I hope that China will be brought in also. This is not the time to discuss other aspects of this overwhelming set of problems, but, looking to the future, the Atlantic Charter and the cooperation of Russia give us great grounds for hope, as well as contribute to our success in the war.
I hope that the Government will not be long in rounding up the Nazis in Iran. What the diplomatic or other difficulties may be I do not know, but the sooner that the Nazis are placed in a suitable camp of some kind, with suitable confinement of their activities, the better we shall be pleased, and the greater will be our feeling of relief. I see that the noble Lord who represents the Foreign Office is present, and I have no doubt that he is of the same mind. We hope that rapid success will attend these operations.
I must say a few words on two matters affecting our Home Front, because they do affect the prosecution of the war, and the noble Lord opposite did not refer to them. There are two subjects of which I hope that the Government will not lose sight, because they affect our war effort. One is the exceedingly dangerous situation which is developing with regard to the fuel supplies of the homes of our people. It is very important indeed from the point of view of morale and of national cheerfulness that our people should be able to keep warm on winter nights. I do not know what the explanation is, but it seems to me that this matter has been very badly handled. We have a great deal of coal in this country. We used to export an enormous quantity, but the export market has almost disappeared. I am quite sure that the steps which have hitherto been taken are altogether inadequate; that is manifestly true. Winter is getting near, and, as affecting our war effort on the domestic side, few subjects are more important than this.
The other question which I wish to mention—also in a spirit of helpful criticism—is that of labour. The Ministry of Labour and National Service are, of course, presented with a series of difficulties of an almost unprecedented kind, but one does not feel as happy as one would like to feel about the steps which have hitherto been taken to make the best 16 use of our labour resources. More than once women have been invited to volunteer or have been told that they should join up, and in very many cases, as we all know, they have been disappointed, because there has been no suitable opening for them or because the machinery for dealing with them has not been ready. A long time ago agriculture was promised the reinforcement of ten thousand workers, but ten tens is nearer the figure that the Ministry of Labour have contributed. At all events, the reinforcement has been very disappointing, although happily from other sources much assistance has been given to the industry. This is a very vital matter from the point of view of our Home Front. What the object of the Government is in drafting so many men into the Army who, many of us frankly feel, could be more usefully employed elsewhere for a time—I am thinking not of the younger men but of the older ones—I do not know; it would perhaps be a fitting subject for further inquiry. The management of the distribution of labour, however, is still not on those efficient lines which many of us would like to see established. I shall not say more than that, but this is a very vital part of our war effort. Apart from these two domestic matters, I do not desire to mention any others, and I will conclude by expressing my appreciation to the noble Lord for the opportunity which his statement has afforded for this discussion.
THE MARQUESS OF CREWEMy Lords, I desire to join with other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, the Leader of the House, for the very clear and full statement with which he has favoured us. I think we may say that it expresses on the part of the Government a feeling not of exultation but of well-balanced confidence. Since the adjournment, a crowd of absorbing events has filled our newspapers, and these events have been fully dwelt on in the Government statement. One of the most important and interesting has been the attitude of the United States of America towards our joint effort. Reference has been made to the historic meeting in the Atlantic, and this will be recorded in the annals of the future side by side with the most important meetings of rulers and statesmen which are enumerated in history.
We all know that ever since the foundation of the American Republic there 17 has been a desire on their part to keep free from European entanglements, but during the present century that sentiment has been combated on two separate grounds. The first is the ground of those moral issues which appeal so strongly to the soul of the American people. We all remember how those feelings prompted the participation of the United States in the last Great War. In the present Great War the moral issues are still more clearly marked than they were then because, although in the last war German aggression was obvious, yet it was the kind of old-fashioned domineering aggression of which there have been so many instances in history, not the profound moral debasement which distinguishes the German conduct of this war. In the second place, there is also the more practical, direct interest of the United States in the fact that the whole Western Hemisphere is seriously threatened by the Nazi creed of domination of the whole world. What the final attitude of the United States may be in time to the Axis Powers is, we all feel, a matter for the United States themselves, and one on which no outside opinion ought to be expressed.
It is sometimes assumed, naturally assumed, by most of us, that the custom of entering hostilities without declaration of war is a new feature in international life, and it is therefore not uninteresting to note that about sixty years ago a pamphlet was issued by the Intelligence Department of the War Office on that very subject, entitled Hostilities without Declaration of War, drawn up under the editorship of a very distinguished officer, at that time Colonel, afterwards General, Maurice. In that paper it is shown that, between the years 1700 and 1870, there were upwards of one hundred cases in which hostile action was taken without any declaration of war, some of them no doubt intelligible, most of them without any kind of moral excuse. But surely in all that time there has been none more completely flagrant than the German attack on Russia. There was no conceivable provocation or excuse for it, and for that reason all of us, whatever our political views, whatever our judgment of the system of government in Russia, join in whole-hearted admiration of the resistance shown by the Russian people. We must all agree with one point which fell from the Leader of the 18 House in the course of his speech—admiration of the commanding strategy which enables the battle to be fought on a unified principle on a front of fifteen hundred miles, something far exceeding all that has been heard of in long combined operations of war in the past.
Then the noble Lord passed on to the events which have occurred in the Middle East. The Syrian Campaign was bound to be a matter of deep regret both to us and to the Free French Forces which took part in it. Nothing showed up more completely the utter futility and stupidity of the Vichy Government than the fact that they thought it possible to set up an organised resistance in Syria, which was not a French Colony but a Mandated Territory and which, in the course of a few years, would naturally have been handed over to a Government of its own. Indo-China has been, however, tamely surrendered without show of resistance, or apparently remonstrance, to practical occupation by a foreign Power. All that has happened in Iraq and Iran, joined to the occupation of Syria, represents, I should be inclined to think, the most important safeguard that has been obtained during all the operations of war so far. The fact that the main oil supplies of Europe and Asia has been, and will be, completely denied to Germany and to Italy in future is surely one of the most important successes so far attained.
We have all been admiring the prowess of the Army in the East, and we completely appreciate the feelings of those troops at home, both of British and Canadian Forces, who so far have not been able to take an active part in military operations but who are giving their time to intensive training and forming themselves into a force of the utmost efficiency, feeling, as I think they must feel, that the time will come when they too will be able to play a most important part in the prosecution of the war. We must all, I think, agree, though we look forward hopefully, that we cannot in any way foresee the end, and I am glad to know that more than one of His Majesty's Ministers have impressed on the minds of the public here that we must in no way allow ourselves to be lulled into a feeling of security either by the accounts which we have seen of successes abroad or by the comparative quietude which in most parts of the country we have been allowed lately to enjoy. That, I believe, applies 19 particularly to London, and those of us who happen to be specially concerned with London affairs are able to believe that the dwellers in London have in no way been deluded by any false hopes of permanent immunity from attack. On the contrary, they have been still more bracing themselves to meeting any further assaults and attempting to perfect the 20 methods of repelling them. I have no doubt that the majority of people here will be content with nothing short of a complete and absolute victory, but they are equally determined that that victory shall be used not in a spirit of blind desire for vengeance but with a desire to reach a future of justice both to the conquerors and to the conquered.
§ House adjourned.