March 1, 2015

Finest Hour 157, Winter 2012-13

Page 22

By Richard C. Marsh


In 2010, an item of particular interest was offered at a Christie’s auction in New York City. Dated 24 November 1945, it comprised a one-page letter on Chartwell letterhead (typed at 28 Hyde Park Gate) to Ava, Lady Anderson, signed by Winston Churchill; and a four-page carbon copy of a letter WSC had written ten days earlier to the French statesman Pierre Flandin.1 The seller was Steve Forbes and the letter was from the collection of his late father Malcolm.

Churchill was writing Lady Anderson about Pierre Flandin, then on trial for his life as a Vichy collaborator, and enclosing a copy of a letter he had sent Flandin for use in his defense. “I do not expect it will make me very popular in France,” Churchill wrote Ava, “but I know you will be in sympathy with it.”

2024 International Churchill Conference

Join us for the 41st International Churchill Conference. London | October 2024
More

Knowing that his words might spare the man’s life, Churchill had written Flandin: “For many years I regarded you as a strong friend of the Franco-British Entente, and you were the French statesman with whom I had the closest personal contacts before the War.” Churchill recalls Flandin’s eagerness to take joint action with the British against Hitler’s occupation of the Rhineland in 1936 and, less favorably, Flandin’s support of the Munich capitulation in 1938.

The spare description in Christie’s catalogue left many unanswered questions. What were the “personal contacts” that Churchill had with Flandin before the war? Why was he defending him now? Who was Ava Anderson, and why would she be sympathetic to aiding Flandin in his time of peril? I scheduled a trip to New York, where I was fortunate enough to bid successfully on this letter. I was excited because by then I had done my research and, to paraphrase Paul Harvey, I knew “the rest of the story.”

Flandin’s Lost Cause

To answer the questions we must turn the clock back to the 1930s, Churchill’s  “wilderness years,” when he held no cabinet positions2 and was out of favor with his party—initially because of his stand against Indian self-rule and later for his criticism of the British government’s failure to rearm against the threat of Hitler’s Germany.

Pierre Etienne Flandin (1889-1958), a conservative politician of the Third Republic, leader of the Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD), had been France’s prime minister from November 1934 to December 1935. He served in a number of Cabinet positions and was foreign minister when Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland in March 1936. In December 1940, Vichy’s head of state, Marshal Pétain, appointed Flandin foreign minister and vice-premier to replace Pierre Laval, but he was quickly ousted, by François Darlan, in January 1941.

Churchill had welcomed Flandin’s appointment as Vichy foreign minister, thinking he would be a moderating influence, and indeed he did stop a Vichy plan to attack a Free French garrison in Chad. But the Germans mistrusted Flandin and refused to deal with him, which had the effect of Darlan taking his place. That did not prevent Flandin’s arrest by the Free French in Algiers in 1943 and his 1945 trial for collaboration. Thus Churchill wrote:

When in the middle of December 1940, I learned that you had joined the Vichy Government, I was glad. I thought to myself “here is a friend of England in a high position in the Vichy Government, and I am sure that this will lessen the danger of that Government declaring formal war on us.” I also thought it only too probable that you would not last long, and that the Germans would have you out. This is exactly what happened, at the beginning of February.

The “personal contacts” Churchill alludes to apparently began with a 15 November 1934 telegram of congratulations from Winston and Clementine Churchill when Flandin had become prime minister.3 They met personally in London at a Foreign Office banquet on 1 February 1935.4 A stream of correspondence followed, including Churchill’s condolences on May 6th, when Flandin and his wife suffered a car accident which contributed in part to his resigning the premiership; and a July 13th letter when WSC warned, “I fear greatly the dangers which menace both our countries and indeed what is still called civilization.”5 Five months later on December 10th, Churchill and his wife lunched with Flandin in Paris.6

As prime minister, Churchill was distressed when Flandin was arrested by the Free French in December 1943, writing his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden: “I am of the opinion that for the French Committee to proceed against him would be proof that they are unfit to be considered in any way to be the trustees of France but rather that they are small, ambitious intriguers endeavouring to improve their position by maltreating unpopular figures.”7

The PM personally voiced his concerns about Flandin’s arrest to General de Gaulle in Marrakesh on 12 January 1944, when he bluntly said, “…if they were going to draw the line of impurity at Flandin, they would be making so wide a schism in France that the resultant friction in any territory that might be liberated would hamper our military operations and was therefore a matter of concern to us.”8

Despite Churchill’s objection, Flandin remained in prison until July 1945, when he was permitted to go to a nursing home.9 Now it was November, Flandin was on trial for his life, and Churchill hastened to intervene again on his behalf. “It is for you and your legal advisers,” he cautioned the Frenchman, “to judge whether the reading of this letter [in court] will be serviceable to you, or not.”

Flandin had no doubt of the value of Churchill’s letter, and reaped a bonus: the letter was presented to the French court by Randolph Churchill, representing his father and adding his own favorable testimony. It had its effect when the collaboration charges were dismissed in January and Flandin was released from custody. But he was not altogether exonerated: the court declared him ineligible ever to serve in the French Assembly.10

Churchill was pleased that the worst had been avoided, and wrote in his war memoirs that Randolph “had seen much of Flandin during the African Campaign….and I am glad to think his advocacy, and also [my] letter, were not without influence. Weakness is not treason, though it be equally disastrous.”11

Ava’s Devotion

The only person to whom Churchill thought to send a copy of his Flandin letter was Ava, Lady Anderson (1896-1974), wife of John Anderson. Named to the peerage as Viscount Waverley in 1952, Anderson, who lent his name to the famous World War II “Anderson Shelter,” had served as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in Churchill’s wartime coalition. But why did Churchill copy Ava? The reason was that she had played a vital role in the mid-1930s story of France and Flandin.

Daughter of the historian J.E.C. Bodley (1853-1925), Ava had married Ralph Follett Wigram (1890-1936) in 1925. They had one child, Charles Edward Thomas (1929-1951), who was handicapped, possibly with Down’s Syndrome or cerebral palsy. Ralph died on 31 December 1936; Ava married John Anderson five years later.12

Through Ralph, whom he admired, Churchill and Ava became friends. During the mid-1930s Wigram was counselor and head of the Central Department at the Foreign Office, which dealt with Nazi Germany. Churchill was the primary proponent of British rearmament. Wigram knew the truth, and beginning in 1934 supported Churchill’s efforts by supplying him with secret information, primarily about German air strength. With it, Churchill assailed the government’s lack of preparedness.

In this age of “WikiLeaks” it is interesting to note that Sir Robert Vansittart, head of the Foreign Office at the time, apparently knew and approved of Wigram providing information to Churchill. Moreover, Wigram’s activity may not have been illegal since Churchill, although not a minister, was still a privy counselor, and probably entitled to sensitive material. Legal or not, Churchill’s access to and use of this information was a major irritant to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and his successor, Neville Chamberlain.

Churchill obtained information regarding German rearmament from many sources, including Flandin. On 7 March 1936, he wrote Flandin seeking French estimates of German air strength and details of French military expenditures. The Frenchman replied the next day, enclosing the information.13 But it was Germany’s occupation of the Rhineland on 7 March 1936, in violation of both the Versailles and Locarno Treaties, that flung Churchill, Flandin, and the Wigrams together in common cause.

Hitler’s action was not entirely unanticipated. Flandin had traveled to London in the last week of January 1936, ostensibly to attend George V’s state funeral but also to meet with Foreign Secretary Eden and Prime Minister Baldwin about the likely crisis. Flandin wanted to know what Great Britain would do if Hitler attempted to seize the Rhineland. To his consternation, neither Englishman would provide a definitive response.14

On March 9th, two days after the Rhineland was occupied, Eden flew to Paris with Lord Halifax and Wigram to meet with Flandin and other French officials. Flandin wanted immediate action including, if necessary, ejection of the Germans from the Rhineland by force, together with sanctions against the aggressor. Eden opposed using force but agreed to reconvene their meeting in London a few days later. Although Wigram was merely a civil servant, he vehemently agreed with Flandin and had a private word with him. Meanwhile the League of Nations’ Council moved its meeting on the crisis from Geneva to London.15

Returning to England on the evening of March 11th, Wigram immediately drove to Chartwell. After listening to his report, Churchill decided he must talk to Flandin before anyone in the government saw him. At 8:30 the next morning, at his London flat in Morpeth Mansions, WSC met with Flandin, who said he intended to propose a simultaneous mobilization of French and British forces.

Churchill was cautious. He was still hoping to be invited to join the government. In his “detached private position,” he said, he could do little, other than guide the Frenchman to those in the government who shared his view, such as Alfred Duff Cooper. To facilitate such introductions Churchill hosted a dinner for Flandin the same evening.16

Churchill left the dinner early to plead Flandin’s case before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee.17 Meanwhile, in a controversial act for a civil servant, Wigram called a press conference at his home at Lord North Street for Flandin to speak to the press.

Flandin waxed eloquent before the reporters: “Today the whole world, and especially the small nations, turn their eyes toward England. If England will act now, she can lead Europe. You will have a policy, all the world will follow you, and you will thus prevent war. It is your last chance. If you do not stop Germany now, all is over.”

The French statesman predicted that even if Britain reached a fragile understanding with the Nazis, it would not last. If Hitler was not stopped “by force today, war is inevitable.” The reporters returned to Fleet Street and wrote accounts of Flandin’s appeal—which were promptly buried by their editors.18

All was for naught. Baldwin informed Flandin that his Cabinet would not consent to participation in any operation against Germany. Churchill wrote later: “According to Flandin, Mr. Baldwin then said: ‘You may be right, but if there is even one chance in a hundred that war would follow from your police operation, I have not the right to commit England.’ And after a pause he added: ‘England is not in a state to go to war.’”19

Flandin’s failed mission was a pivotal event. “There was no doubt that superior strength still lay with the Allies of the former War,” Churchill wrote. “They had only to act to win. Although we did not know what was passing between Hitler and his generals, it was evident that overwhelming force lay on our side.”20 If France and Great Britain had evicted the Germans from the Rhineland by force, the Nazi regime would have been weakened and perhaps even overthrown. The course of events could have been dramatically different if Flandin had persuaded Baldwin to join with France to confront Hitler.

His spirit broken, Flandin returned to France. The Rhineland crisis was also a traumatic blow to Ralph Wigram—a mortal blow as Churchill later recalled:

“After the French Delegation had left,” wrote his wife to me, “Ralph came back and sat down in a corner of the room where he had never sat before and said to me, ‘War is now inevitable, and it will be the most terrible war there has ever been. I don’t think I shall see it, but you will. Wait now for the bombs on this little house.” I was frightened at his words, and he went on, “All my work these many years has been no use. I am a failure. I have failed to make the people here realize what is at stake. I am not strong enough, I suppose. I have not been able to make them understand. Winston has always, always understood, and he is strong and will go on to the end.”

My friend never seemed to recover from his shock. He took it too much to heart. After all one can always go on doing what one believes to be his duty, and running ever greater risks till knocked out. Wigram’s profound comprehension reacted on his sensitive nature unduly. His untimely death in December 1936 was an irreparable loss to the Foreign Office, and played its part in the miserable decline of our fortunes.21

Ralph Wigram died suddenly on the last day of the year. Some television dramas have depicted his death as a suicide, and there is some support for that view, primarily based on the fact that Wigram’s parents did not attend his funeral.22 However, Wigram was in poor health with infantile paralysis, and his death certificate listed the cause as a pulmonary hemorrhage.

Churchill was deeply saddened by the loss of his friend, writing to Clementine on 2 January 1937: “I was deeply shocked and grieved to learn from Vansittart by chance on the telephone that poor Ralph Wigram died suddenly on New Year’s Eve in his wife’s arms. I thought him a grand fellow. A bright steady flame burning in a broken lamp, which guided us towards safety and honour.”23 Ava Wigram wrote Winston that same day: “He adored you so and always said you were the greatest Englishman alive.”24

Churchill attended the funeral at Cuckfield Parish Church in Sussex, and afterwards gave a luncheon at Chartwell for the mourners, including Vansittart and Brendan Bracken.25 Vansittart’s eulogy appeared in The Times for 2 January 1937:

I worked with him for seventeen years and like all those privileged to witness his example of bravery, loyalty, and selfless simplicity, I never ceased to admire his prodigious memory, his prodigious industry, the astonishing ability and fertility that came to him so naturally from the complete mastery of every subject he touched. He extorted extraordinary feats of endurance from his frail body. He was a man, and a first class man. I speak for his service in saying that I never prized a fellow labourer more than this shining comrade and I shall never mourn one more.26

So there is “the rest of the story.” It follows that Churchill, with his sense of loyalty, would have thought to send a copy of his Flandin letter to Ava, recalling the crisis which, probably more than any other, guaranteed Hitler’s continued aggressions and the Second World War. Fortunately for me, the cataloguers did not seem to realize just how important these documents were.

Churchill was devoted to Ava for the rest of his life, as she was to him.27 In 1935 she had taken a photograph of Ralph and Churchill walking in the grounds of Chartwell. Winston signed it and Ava framed it, with a press cutting of his “Finest Hour” speech of 18 June 1940. The photo stood at her bedside until her death in 1974.28

When her second husband, John Anderson, died in 1958, Churchill telephoned her to express his sympathy. After commiserating he was silent for awhile. Then he said, his voice breaking with emotion: “For Ralph Wigram grieve.”29


Mr. Marsh ([email protected]) is President of the Winston Churchill Society of Michigan.

Endnotes:

1. Reprinted in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. VIII, “Never Despair1945-1965 (London: Heinemann, 1988), 168-69. It was typed at the British Embassy, Paris when WSC was visiting the British ambassador, Alfred Duff Cooper.

2. Churchill’s tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer ended in June 1929 and he did not hold office again until he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty at the outbreak of World War II in September 1939. Throughout the 1930s he remained a private Member of Parliament representing Epping, Essex.

3. This telegram stated in part, “we beg of you to accept our sincere congratulations on the great task you have so bravely assumed.” Martin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Documents, Companion Vol. 12, The Wilderness Years1929-1935 (Hillsdale, 2009), 917.

4. WSC to Clementine Churchill, “Chartwell Bulletin No. 5,” 31 January 1935; ibid., 1065.

5. Ibid., 1167, 1215.

6. Ibid., 1338.

7. Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. VII, Road to Victory 1941-1945 (London: Heinemann, 1986), 616.

8. Ibid., 646.

9. Gilbert, “Never Despair,” 169, note 2.

10. Martin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Documents, Companion Vol. 12, The Wilderness Years 1929-1935 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 917, note 1.

11. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1, The Gathering Storm (London: Cassell, 1948), 154.

12. Martin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Documents, Companion Vol. 13, The Coming of War 1936-1939 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 523, notes 4 and 5. Changes in names and titles can create confusion. Ava was Ava Bodley until 1925, Ava Wigram in 1925-41, Lady Anderson in 1941-52; and the Viscountess Waverley from 1952 until her death. The confusion may have prevented Christie’s cataloguers from recognizing that she was married to Wigram during the time he, Churchill and Flandin fought for rearmament against the Nazi menace.

13. Ibid., 65-66, note 2.

14. William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, vol. 2, Alone 1932-1940 (Boston: Little Brown, 1988), 174.

15. Manchester, Alone, 183.

16. Ibid., 185. See also Richard M. Langworth, “Churchill and the Rhineland: What Did He Say and When Did He Say It?” Finest Hour 141, Winter 2008-09, 16-21.

17. Ibid., 185-86.

18. Ibid., 187-88.

19. Churchill, The Gathering Storm, 154.

20. Ibid., 152.

21. Ibid., 155.

22. Ava Wigram to WSC, 2 January 1937, in Gilbert, ed., Companion Vol. 13, 525. Wigram’s parents were Eustace Rochester and Mary Grace Wigram.

23. Ibid., 523.

24. Ibid., 525.

25. Ibid., 523.

26. Michael L. Roi, Alternative to Appeasement: Sir Robert Vansittart and Alliance Diplomacy, 1934-1937 (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1997), 167.

27. When Churchill was hospitalized after a hernia operation in June 1947, Ava sent him wild strawberries and cream, a special treat in highly rationed postwar Britain. See Gilbert, “Never Despair,” 339.

28. Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (London: Pimlico, 2004), photo opposite 184.

29. Richard M. Langworth, “Love Story: The Gathering Storm,” film review, Finest Hour 115, Summer 2002, 32-33.

A tribute, join us

#thinkchurchill

Subscribe

WANT MORE?

Get the Churchill Bulletin delivered to your inbox once a month.