Churchill Reports

In the next secret debate in the House of Commons, Winston Churchill faces a showdown on his conduct of the campaign in Greece. On Sunday he stepped up to a microphone to report to the people of Britain and the U.S. about it and about how the war was going. When he finished, most of the people of both countries were satisfied with Winston Churchill, anyhow.

"In their mortal peril," said a grave and sorrowful Churchill, "the Greeks turned to us for succor. . . . They declared they would fight for their native soil . . . even if we left them to their fate. But we could not do that. There are rules against that kind of thing. . . . An act of shame would deprive us of . . . respect . . . and thus would sap the vitals of our strength."

For the first time Churchill revealed how small were the forces in Egypt from which General Sir Archibald Wavell had to spare troops for the Greek campaign. "In none of his successive victories could General Wavell . . . bring into action at one time more than two divisions, or about 30,000 men. . . .* We knew of course that the forces we could send to Greece would not by themselves alone be sufficient." But he had hoped, said Winston Churchill, that Turkey might be drawn in with Greece and Yugoslavia to help meet the German invasion. "How nearly that came off will be known some day."

Then he turned the full force of his scorn on Germany's partner: "This whipped jackal, Mussolini, who to save his own skin made all Italy a vassal State of Hitler's Empire, comes frisking up at the side of the German tiger with yelpings not only of appetite . . . but even of triumph." A realist as always when he meets reversals, Churchill minced no words in describing Britain's peril. "You know I never try to make out that defeats are victories. . . . It is certain that fresh dangers . . . may come upon us in the Mediterranean."

Just what those dangers were, not only in the Mediterranean but elsewhere, was all too evident this week. Turkey, already under a German diplomatic attack, soon would have to choose whether to fight a hopeless war or let Nazi troops pass through on their way to the Mosul oil fields. Vichy was under pressure to help Germany in Africa (see p. 30). Pressure was expected in Spain for help in an attack on Gibraltar, perhaps on Portugal as well. Japan was making bold gestures toward Singapore, where British reinforcements were rushed (see p. 30). Against all these threats Winston Churchill could only balance the remote chance of acquiring Russia as an ally. Once more he uttered a solemn warning to Joseph Stalin: "The Germans may lay their hands . . . upon the granaries of the Ukraine and the oil wells of the Caucasus."

He reiterated his faith in the war's outcome. "In order to win this war [Hitler] must either conquer this island by invasion or he must cut the ocean life line which joins us to the U.S. . . . With every week that passes we grow stronger on the sea." The real battle confronting Britain, he reminded his hearers, was the Battle of the Atlantic. "We have got to win on salt water just as decisively as we had to win the Battle of Britain last August and September in the air." And he paid his respects to Franklin Roosevelt, who last week decided to send U.S. Navy patrols to scout the Atlantic.

"No prudent and far-seeing man," said Churchill, "can doubt that the eventual and total defeat of Hitler and Mussolini is certain. . . . There are less than 70,000,000 malignant Huns, some of whom are curable and others killable. . . . The people of the British Empire and the U.S. number 200,000,000. . . . They have more wealth, more technical resources, and they make more steel than the whole of the rest of the world put together."

Answering the lines from Longfellow that Mr. Roosevelt scribbled out and sent him last winter by Wendell Willkie (TIME, Feb. 17), Britain's classical Prime Minister ended with a few lines from a poem by Arthur Hugh Clough (subject of Matthew Arnold's poem Thyrsis). Quoted Winston Churchill:

. . . Not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!

But westward, look, the land is bright!

If Prime Minister Churchill was disturbed about the ordeal to come when he defends his acts in Parliament, he gave no sign of it. He had no reason to fear any serious threat against his power, for his prestige with the British people was impregnable.

Wrote the London News-Chronicle's perceptive Columnist A. J. Cummings one day last week: "I wonder sometimes whether Mr. Churchill is fully aware of the strength of his popular authority in this country. Confidence in his leadership transcends all partisanship. So deep-rooted is it that if he thought it desirable he could sack every member of his Government without provoking a successful Party revolt."

Said another Briton, Socialist Harold Laski: "His hold over the . . . people in a time of adversity is greater, if anything, than his influence in hours of triumph. . . . He has made himself the first Englishman of our time."

The fact was that for good or ill last week Winston Churchill had become Britain's Man of World War II. His strength was Britain's strength, his weaknesses her weaknesses.

* The total force in Egypt and Libya must of course have been larger, for in such an operation several men are needed along the lines of supply for every man at the front.

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