May 7, 2013

Finest Hour 151, Summer 2011

Page 60

Education – Finding Answers for National History Day

Finest Hour offers advice for students in academic competition on Teheran, Turkey, Postwar goals, Stalin Vs. Hitler, and the British attack on the French fleet at Oran.

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National History Day, usually in November, is an American academic competition for students in grades 6-12. Each year, more than half a million students construct both individual and group entries in one of five categories: Documentary, Exhibit, Paper, Performance or Website. Students then compete in a series of regional and state contests to proceed to the national contest. The mission of National History Day is to provide students with opportunities to learn historical content and develop research, thinking and communication skills through the study of history, and to provide educators with resources and training to enhance classroom teaching.

The theme for 2011 is “Debate and Diplomacy: Successes, Failures, and Consequences of History”—a rich field for Churchill studies. For more information see http://bit.ly/ifr5tb.

Teacher Barbi Binnig at Nimitz High School in Houston made a stimulating request on behalf of her students: “I have a few questions for the Teheran Conference and the attack at Oran. My students have done extensive research and would like to have different historical perspectives on their projects. Can you help?” We could certainly try.

Note to readers: This is one of scores of questions from teachers or students we try to answer, necessarily quickly, over the course of the year. It affords an interesting view of the material they run into. Omitted are many references to books and websites. We want students to draw their own conclusions on what they discover.

Teheran Conference

“We’ve read that at the Teheran summit in 1943, Churchill said that he felt like a ‘poor little donkey’ when sitting next to Stalin and Roosevelt. Did Churchill feel Britain was not as much of a ‘superpower’ when compared to America and Russia at the Teheran Conference? If so, why?”

• Yes. By late 1943, the U.S. and Soviet Union had the preponderant military forces and were in a military position that enabled them to exert greater influence over war strategy. Churchill referred to Britain as the “poor little English donkey” and “the only one…who knew the right way home” because he was convinced his proposals for future operations were the best ones on the table. There is much debate about this, of course. For Churchill’s view explained concisely see Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, available in paperback. This is really a standard reference for anyone interested in Churchill. It provides the full story and is entirely reliable with its facts.

Turkey as Ally

“Was there much debate or discussion about Turkey joining the Allies, or was it a brief topic of discussion?”

• There was no debate among the Allies, but it was Churchill’s initiative to persuade the Turks to join them. Turkey did not declare war officially until very late in the war, but as Martin Gilbert points out, they rendered an important service by cutting off their export of chrome, a strategic war material, to Germany. See the article “Churchill in Turkey 1943” in Finest Hour 126.

Postwar Goals

“We’ve read that Churchill wanted the world to be safe for at least fifty years, whereas Stalin aimed for fifteen or twenty years of peace. Do you think Churchill was optimistic, or did he formulate his goal after much thought and planned strategy?”

• If anyone was counting, it might have been only rhetorically. It would be wrong to assume that Stalin contemplated a war with the West a few years after Germany was defeated (although he declared to his foreign minister, Molotov, that he would fight if attacked, even if it meant “losing the revolution”).

Churchill said in his “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton in 1946: “I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.”

Your students might enjoy reading or hearing this famous and important speech. The text is on the Churchill Centre website and there is a link to the audio version from the BBC Archives: http://bit.ly/i19Afp.

Stalin and Hitler

“We’ve read that Churchill saw Russia in an almost similar way to the way he saw Hitler, the Allies’ common enemy. Why did he decide to have diplomatic relations with Stalin even though he viewed Russia negatively?”

• Churchill was a pragmatist. Before the war he saw Russia as a potential ally and Germany as the chief threat to other countries and the peace of Europe. Stalin’s regime was equally tyrannical, but until the war it had confined itself within its borders. While it had tried to export communism, it had not done so militarily until 1939.

In August 1939 the Soviets signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, and used it to gobble up the Baltic States and part of Poland. They congratulated Hitler for his victories and were still shipping vast quantities of goods to Germany when Hitler invaded Russia in June 1941. Thus Stalin had helped bring about the war in the first place.

Once Russia was attacked Churchill nevertheless welcomed Stalin as an ally and promised all possible aid to defeat what he saw as the greater threat. He hoped at Yalta that something good would come of the arrangements with Stalin, and something did: Stalin abided by his commitment not to undermine Greece, which he and Churchill had arranged at the famous “spheres of influence” talks in Moscow in 1942.

Both before and after the war, Churchill did not believe it accomplished anything to refuse diplomatic recognition. Over communist China in July 1952, for example, he said: “I was, I think, the first in this House to suggest, in November 1949, recognition of the Chinese Communists….I thought it would be a good thing to have diplomatic representation. But if you recognise anyone it does not necessarily mean that you like him.” (He then added an amusing reference to his political arch-enemy, Aneurin Bevan: “We all, for instance, recognise the Rt. Hon. Gentleman, the Member for Ebbw Vale.”)

Poland

“Once Poland lay in the Russian-Communist grip after WW2, did Churchill feel his relations with Stalin at the Teheran Conference were a mistake? Or did he expect Stalin to set up puppet governments?”

• It wasn’t so much Teheran as Yalta, which Churchill left believing he could trust Stalin, who had promised free elections in Poland. By the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 he had come to the conclusion, based on events in Poland, that Stalin had no such intention. He wrote in his memoirs that he would have had a “showdown” over Poland when he returned to Potsdam after the July 1945 British election; but his party lost that election, he was no longer Prime Minister, and he did not return to finish the conference.

Oran

In your opinion was the Royal Navy’s attack on the French fleet at Oran in July 1940 necessary?”

• Yes. See the review in Finest Hour 150, by Earl Baker, of a recent Oran TV documentary. Much more on this is in Martin Gilbert’s Churchill: A Life.

“What were the greatest successes resulting from Churchill’s order to destroy the French fleet?”

• Depriving Hitler of critical surface vessels and convincing the world, particularly the United States, that Britain was in the war to the death, and would never surrender.

“What were some failures?”

• Not putting the rest of the French fleet out of commission! (Of course there was a huge uproar in France, but after victory was won, most thoughtful Frenchmen forgave him.)

“There is debate regarding the claim that Churchill may have ordered the securing of the French fleet for political or ulterior motives. For example, some have claimed that Churchill needed aid from Roosevelt and ordered the attack to ‘impress’ Roosevelt.”

• Remember first that Churchill approached this problem hoping to avoid attacking his former ally. He instructed his admiral on the scene to offer a variety of peaceful means to keep the fleet out of German hands. The French admiral refused them all. Once an attack was the only alternative, he naturally hoped that it would impress Roosevelt. But his primary aim was to maintain naval superiority.

On sound military advice, he was convinced that Britain must secure the cream of the French Navy. The only place where Britain was not on the run in 1940 was at sea, and even there the shipping lifeline was precarious. Britain had to import half her food and much of her arms; without command of the seas she would starve.

“After the attack, the Conservative Party rallied around Churchill. Others have claimed that Churchill ordered the attack to gain political support.”

• It is true that the House of Commons roared its approval when he explained the reasons for the attack on the French fleet (see James Lancaster’s excerpt from the Nicolson diaries for 4 July 1940, page 58, lefthand column). But the Conservative Party and most others had rallied round him before then. The Conservative establishment was doubtful when he succeeded Chamberlain, whom most of them had admired and supported. But Churchill’s refusal to surrender or agree to an armistice after the fall of France, the “miracle” of Dunkirk, and the speeches he made to the country, put a large section of his party behind him by the end of June.

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