Underneath the lantern, By the barrack gate
Darling I remember, The way you used to wait.
‘Twas there that you whispered tenderly, That you loved me, You’d always be
My Lili of the lamplight, My own Lili Marlene. 

Epping and Woodford

Churchill represented the Essex constituencies of Epping and Woodford forty years, from 1924 to 1964. (In 1945 they were subdivided and he stood for Woodford.) Through his retirement in 1964, that was more than half his adult life. In about a year, we mark the centenary of his first election there. Richard Cohen, who lives in Loughton, is developing a suitable celebration—of which more anon.

Mr. Cohen kindly sends me a lecture by Allen Packwood, around the 90th anniversary of Churchill’s election. Many who labor in the Churchill vineyard know Mr. Packwood as head of the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge. Collectively we are all in his debt for vast assistance in researches large and small. Speaking in 2015, Allen explained how much the Essex seat had meant to WSC:

Churchill was never really a party politician. He always strove to be a national figure. He may not have been highly involved in local affairs, preferring to leave such matters to his efficient local team…. But he did bring national issues to Epping and Woodford. If anything, even more to Woodford after the war, for when he came here it was as one of the most famous men of his age…

Woodford handily elected Churchill in 1945, but in the General Election his Conservative Party was thrown out. Only temporarily sidetracked, he came back as a scintillating Leader of the Opposition. Recalling his postwar appearances in Essex, Mr. Packwood reminded me of the wartime song Lili Marlene, and an anecdote by Sir Fitzroy Maclean.

Lili Marlene

Written 1915 by Hans Leip (1893–1983), but not well known until 1941, Lili Marlene was first recorded in 1939 by Lale Andersen, a Swedish singer popular in Berlin cabarets. Two years later it was broadcast as a filler between news programs by the troop station Deutsche Soldatensender in occupied Belgrade. It was an instant sensation among German troops from Norway to Africa. But that was just the beginning.

In 1942, soldiers of the British 8th Army in North Africa heard Lili on the German wireless. A 1944 BBC video takes up the story, related by Denis Johnston:

On 4 July 1942 the 8th Army held the line at El Alamein. There weren’t many radios up forward near the battle area, except probably the one in our recording truck. We used to turn on the news every night and listen to it…. Chaps would come in from all over the desert, like birds coming in around a lighthouse. They’d sit and listen. You’d see the glow from their cigarettes and pipes, and the little glow from the radio dial. After the news was over, we’d switch over to the “Messages Home” programme from Germany. And before long it would go Ompa, Ompa—and there was Marlene…. The 8th Army swept on, capturing on its way 800 miles of desert, 75,000 prisoners, 5000 tanks, 1000 guns, and the famous enemy song of Lili Marlene.

The captured tune

Suddenly a German war ballad became the 8th Army battle song, copyright El Alamein, 1942. The BBC wrote its own lyrics, sung by Jewish refugee Lucy Mannheim and beamed right at Berlin….

Your men is dead I hear it. It graves the Russian snow,
Yes die you must I fear it, For Hitler wills it so.
Oh could we only meet once more, Our country free of shame and war,
And stand beneath the lantern. We two— Lili Marlene

Führer I thank and greet you, For you are good and wise
Widows and orphans meet you, With hollow silent eyes,
Hitler, the man of blood and fear, Hang him up on the lantern here
Hang him up from the lantern! Oh Führer —Lili Marlene

German propaganda minister Josef Goebbels was incensed. After a lame attempt at a more martial version, he banned Lili Marlene from the radio, ordering Lale Andersen never to sing it again. It didn’t matter. German troops continued to sing it, listening surreptitiously to BBC broadcasts. (Dame Vera Lynn recorded a less grim version.)

“Pleasing to the ear…”

Churchill returned to speak in Essex in October 1946. Allen Packwood related an appearance unrecorded in the Complete Speeches. This was at a private dinner at the King’s Head Public House in Chigwell. (On the menu was trifle “garnished with the outline of a cigar.”) Mr. Packwood found this account in a local newspaper:

Whilst he was having his dinner, the patrons in the bar below regaled him with many of the songs which became famous during the war years, including “Roll Out the Barrel,” “Hanging Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line,” and last but not least “Lili Marlene.” The former German army song was apparently the most pleasing to the ear of Mr. Churchill, for he was heard to observe that its “capture from the enemy was one of the most satisfactory features of our victory in North Africa.”

Before he left, Churchill asked them to sing it one more time, and tapped along heartily with his cane. “It is a wonderful image,” Mr. Packwood commented. Indeed so. Lili Marlene was the war prize of His Majesty’s 8th Army.

For some reason, the story reminds me of another great leader and enemy song—years before. After victory in the American Civil War, to general surprise and some grumbling, President Lincoln ordered that Washington bands play Dixie. He said, “I always thought it was a dandy tune.” And, like Lili Marlene, Dixie too had a separate set of lyrics on the Union side.

Fitzroy Maclean remembers Lili

 Video

“The True Story of Lili Marlene,” BBC, 1944

Further reading

N.B. March 2021: The original post contains author Clark’s response, which is about the most cordial reply to a grumpy review I’ve ever read. He kindly takes heed of my criticisms and says he will attend to them in the paperback in due course. RML

Churchill’s Britain abridged

I did want to like this book. Having hosted ten tours of Churchill’s Britain, we’ve long hoped for a comprehensive travel guide to all the places in what Lady Soames called “The Saga.” But some improvements are needed to this one, to make it truly helpful.

The first thing one notices is: no photos. How can a book discuss Churchill’s Britain without depicting it? There is no admission information on places open to the public. The index is unhelpful. It lists names but not venues—not even London or Chartwell. To find, say, Ditchley, you have to know it’s in Oxfordshire. (Its map location is buried in the gutter—the maps are double-page spreads.) When you do get to what you want, you find that coverage is often sparse. Woodstock is there for Blenheim Palace; but nothing about its famous haunt the Bear Hotel, or Lord Randolph Churchill’s constituency, which drew young Winston’s close interest.

Churchill’s Britain says the West Country holds few places of interest. Yet a 1996 Churchill tour spent four days there, visiting places associated with Marlboroughs and Churchills. They included Round Chimneys, birthplace of the first Sir Winston; Little Churchill Farm, where the family had its earliest beginnings; Great Trill, birthplace of the First Duke of Marlborough; Ashe House, where Sir Winston thought the Duke was born; and other private homes and churches. Churchill’s Britain does mention Plymouth and Bristol University. Portland gets half a page, but omits the drama of Churchill sending the King’s ships to sea before the 1914 war.

Churchill’s London

London, to which Churchill’s Britain devotes 100 pages, receives good coverage but many omissions. I couldn’t find the Albert Hall or Guildhall, though lesser speech sites are included. In Hyde Park, we find nothing on the old London Magazine (right).

The two London chapters are organized by postal code: SW1 and “everything else.” So to find Winston’s nanny’s grave, you must know the City of London Cemetery is in NW12. From his office at Ministry of Munitions (Hotel Métropole), Churchill gazed with ominous thoughts on Armistice Day 1918. Where is it in Churchill’s Britain? You’ll find it if you can find “Northumberland Avenue” (not in the index).

Clubs and Eateries

Here too is the National Liberal Club (actually on Whitehall Place), celebrated haunt of the young Winston. A more precise account of this and nearby venues is on Hillsdale’s walking tour of Churchill’s Whitehall. The book omits most of Sir Winston’s clubs: Boodles, Bucks, the Reform, the Athenaeum. I could not find the Savoy Hotel’s Pinafore Room, home of The Other Club.

Whitehall is well covered, but omits the former Carlton Hotel (now New Zealand House), where WSC dined on the eve of war in 1914, and Ho Chi Minh cooked his vegetables. Included is the Foreign Office, where he didn’t serve, but not the Colonial Office, where he did. To its credit, Churchill’s Britain contains most of WSC’s residences (so long as you know the postal code), missing only four or five.

Round the Island

The 2019 Hillsdale College cruise circumnavigated Churchill’s Britain, passing or visiting many historic locations. The book omits several key ones. In Broadstairs, Kent, young Marigold Churchill died and WSC observed the planning for D-Day. Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough, Yorkshire were shelled by the Germans 1914, causing Churchill’s violent reaction. All go unmentioned.

Creditably Churchill’s Britain addresses all four of Churchill’s Parliamentary constituencies: Oldham, Manchester North West, Dundee and Epping/Woodford. But the discussion of Woodford (1945-64) mainly involves its underwhelming statue of him, not his long career there. The book misses St. Margaret’s Bay, near Dover, where a fine Nemon statue broods over the Channel. Statues are not the book’s forte, and are unindexed. Fortunately, there are good books on Churchill as MP for Dundee and Woodford.

Scotland

The Scottish coverage is somewhat uneven. Dirleton, East Lothian, an Asquith residence where Churchill was offered the Admiralty, goes unmentioned. Nevertheless there’s room for a mythical, story involving another Asquith abode, Slains Castle. Here, we are told, Violet Asquith nearly died of grief when she heard that Winston was going to marry that “ornamental sideboard,” Clementine Hozier. Peter Clark doesn’t, however, fall for the canard that the despairing Violet tried to throw herself from the cliffs.

Clementine’s ancestral home, Airlie Castle, is omitted, and other Scottish connections. A book more about people than places should include WSC’s friend Molly, Duchess of Buccleuch, who once informed him that Chamberlain was coming to speak.  “It doesn’t matter where you put [his podium],” Churchill advised her, “as long as he has the sun in his eyes and the wind in his teeth.”

Edinburgh needs more attention for Churchill’s early drive for devolution (long before it was fashionable); his visits to Scottish statesmen; the German Fleet surrender in 1919; his Freedom of the City in 1946. In Dundee, the story turns mainly on how he was pushed out of office by a Prohibitionist in 1922—never mind that he won five previous elections, one joyfully described by Luigi Barzini. Scapa Flow in the Orkneys is barely mentioned, with nothing about the tragic sinking of HMS Royal Oak, and how the Churchill Barriers prevented further attacks.

Still room for more

Martin Gilbert, on our second Churchill Tour, spoke of “Churchill’s London,” a lecture happily still online. Stefan Buczacki, in the Churchill Companion, admirably listed all of Churchill’s residences, owned, leased and borrowed. Sir Martin had long wanted to publish a book entitled, Churchill’s London in Maps and Photographs. Alas he didn’t have the time, and a truly comprehensive guide to Churchill’s Britain remains to be written. Peter Clark has opened the case for one, and may yet be heard from again.

Prominently quoted in this context is a remark Churchill made to de Gaulle—at least according to de Gaulle—in Unity, his 1942-44 war memoirs: “…each time we must choose between Europe and the open sea, we shall always choose the open sea.”

Nothing to do with the EU

Warren Kimball’s Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence (III, 169), nicely clears up this quotation. Churchill was referring to de Gaulle, not to anything resembling today’s EU. He wrote to Roosevelt on 7 June 1944: “I think it would be a great pity if you and he [de Gaulle] did not meet. I do not see why I have all the luck.” In his remark about the “open sea,” he was criticizing the intransigent attitude of de Gaulle’s Free French, and stating his intention to side with Roosevelt. Kimball writes:

In a letter…to General Marshall, [Eisenhower] commented that only two groups remained in France: “one is the Vichy gang, and the other [is] characterized by unreasoning admiration for de Gaulle.” In the original draft Eisenhower had put it even more strongly, asserting that the second group “seems almost idolatrous in its worship of de Gaulle” (Eisenhower Papers, III 1867-68).

Even de Gaulle recalled the phrases, though he surmised that Churchill’s passion was aimed primarily at the ears of his British associates: “Each time we must choose between Europe and the open sea, we shall always choose the open sea. Each time I must choose between you and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt.” (de Gaulle, Unity, 153).

More definitive…

Reader Kevin Ruane (@KevinRuane2) directed me to something Churchill said which would seem more to the point. In a memo to his cabinet on 29 November 1951, Churchill addressed the question of Britain  joining the Schuman Plan, a single authority to control the production of steel and coal in France and West Germany, open to other European countries to join:

Our attitude towards further economic developments on the Schuman lines resembles that which we adopt about the European Army. We help, we dedicate, we play a part, but we are not merged with and do not forfeit our insular or commonwealth character. Our first object is the unity and consolidation of the British Commonwealth….Our second, “the fraternal association” of the English-speaking world; and third, United Europe, to which we are a separate closely- and specially-related ally and friend. (National Archives, CAB129/48C(51)32.)

“European pensioners”

In John Charmley’s Churchill’s Grand Alliance, the above is followed by a statement from Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden: “It is only when plans for uniting Europe take a federal form that we ourselves cannot take part, because we cannot subordinate ourselves or the control of British policy to federal authorities” (Charmley, 250).

On 13 December 1951, Churchill agreed with Eden’s formulation. He wrote to Conservative delegation to the European Consultative Assembly. His note suggests that the Labour Party, then as now, was generally hostile to Britain within Europe. From The Churchill Documents, Vol. 31, 1951-1965, forthcoming from Hillsdale College Press, 2019…

We seem in fact to have succumbed to the Socialist Party hostility to United Europe. I take the full blame because I did not feel able either to go there myself or send a message. You know my views about the particular kind of European Army into which the French are trying to force us. We must consider very carefully together how to deal with the certainly unfavourable reaction in American opinion. They would like us to fall into the general line of European pensioners which we have no intention of doing.

Churchill’s 1951 statements clearly arrays him against Britain joining a “federal system.” But what kind of system? The concepts and forms of 1951 are not those of today.  It may tempting and even supporting to suggest this proves Churchill would be pro-Brexit. But it is not dispositive. Neither Europe nor the British Commonwealth are what they were then.

Again on 11 May 1953 Churchill told the House of Commons: “We are not members of the European Defence Community, nor do we intend to be merged in a federal European system. We feel we have a special relationship to both.”

Then is not now

Let’s also clear up the story bandied about by the other side of the EU debate, from Field Marshal Montgomery, who wrote that Churchill in 1962 was “protesting against Britain’s proposed entry into the Common Market” (then the EEC, predecessor to the EU). Montgomery’s statement not only took advantage of a private conversation with an old and ailing friend; it also misrepresented Churchill’s views. Sir Winston’s daughter Lady Soames wrote: “What I remember clearly is that not only my father, but all of us—particularly my mother—were outraged by Monty’s behaviour, and he was roundly rebuked.” (For more detail see Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 8, Never Despair, Hillsdale College Press, 2013, 1337.)

* * *

In his memoir, Long Sunset, Sir Winston’s longtime private secretary Sir Anthony Montague Browne wrote that Montgomery, while not entirely inventing Churchill’s remark, was seriously misinterpreting the old man’s opinion. Consulting no one, Montague Browne immediately released to the press a statement of Churchill’s views on the subject in a private, unpublished letter to his Woodford constituency chairman, Mrs. Moss, in August 1961.” Extracting from Churchill’s statement, on pages 273-74 of Long Sunset:

For many years, I have believed that measures to promote European unity were ultimately essential to the well-being of the West. In a speech at Zurich in 1946, I urged the creation of the European Family, and I am sometimes given credit for stimulating the ideals of European unity which led to the formation of the economic and the other two communities. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the key to these endeavours lay in partnership between France and Germany.

…They, together with Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, are welding themselves into an organic whole, stronger and more dynamic than the sum of its parts. We might well play a great part in these developments to the profit not only of ourselves, but of our European friends also…. I think that the Government are right to apply to join the European Economic Community, not because I am yet convinced that we shall be able to join, but because there appears to be no other way by which we can find out exactly whether the conditions of membership are acceptable.

Fence-sitting

Montague Browne admitted that this was “a fence-sitting letter,” with fairly mild opinions. But it “took the heat off and pacified” both the Euro-skeptics and the Euro-enthusiasts. “Now the whole scenario is so out of date as to render the letter irrelevant….”

Churchill held more stock in the “Special Relationship” with the United States than what was then the European Community, Sir Anthony said, but he did not think they were mutually exclusive: “Moreover, the British Commonwealth, or at least the old Commonwealth, was not then the charade it has now become….If Britain had taken the initiative before the Treaty of Rome in 1957 things might have been different.”

Futile speculation

In fairness, it has been pointed out to me by a respected historian that Montgomery was telling the truth. But Churchill’s remarks were about the EEC, not the EU, or anything like it. Thus, on the matter of Britain remaining in or leaving the EU, they are non-sequitur.

These passages represent Churchill’s ultimate views on European Unity, or Union. The EEC began as a free trade agreement, providing practical and benificent commercial arrangements for member nations. It has morphed into something entirely different. The British electorate voted accorcdingly.

So let’s stop all this futile speculation over how Winston Churchill would view the Brexit debate. That was then, this is now. It is impossible to know how today’s choices before Great Britain vis-à-vis the European Union would be viewed by Churchill. And to quote Sir Anthony: “improper use should not be made of him.”