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Lawrie McFarlane: When the ‘Holy Fox’ took on the Bulldog

Last Sunday, 80 years ago to the day, Edward Wood, a man you might know by another name, attempted to bring down Britain’s newly appointed prime minister, Winston Churchill.
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Lord Halifax and Winston Churchill in 1938.

Last Sunday, 80 years ago to the day, Edward Wood, a man you might know by another name, attempted to bring down Britain’s newly appointed prime minister, Winston Churchill.

That man’s other name was Lord Halifax, Churchill’s foreign secretary and an appeasement disciple who lived on after Neville Chamberlain’s administration collapsed. The crisis he provoked lasted several days, during which he threatened to resign if he didn’t get his way.

This might very well have been the end of Churchill’s premiership, just 18 days old. Chamberlain had desperately wanted Halifax to succeed him. So did King George VI. So did nearly every senior member of the Tory establishment.

Churchill was seen by his own party as a renegade, lacking in judgment, self-aggrandizing, a man who had crossed the floor of the House twice (from the Conservatives to the Liberals then back again to the Tories.)

He had, in the parlance of the day, not only “ratted” but “re-ratted.” Most of his colleagues would have given anything to be rid of him. He was greeted with silence from the Tory benches when he first entered the house as prime minster (Chamberlain, in contrast, was cheered).

So why did Halifax’s scheme fail?

First, I have to concede I have seen no mention of this “scheme” in the dozens of books on that era that have come my way. There is, however, supporting evidence for this explanation of the foreign secretary’s slippery behaviour, and it better fits the known facts than any I’ve seen.

But first, some background. When Chamberlain resigned after an ugly House of Commons debate on the war, he tried several times to persuade Halifax to step forward. So did the king.

Each time Halifax declined, yet this was not unprecedented. Years earlier he had accepted the Vice-royalty of India only after first refusing it. He had also “reluctantly” agreed to take on the foreign office after first turning that down too. His supporters had reason to keep pressing him.

But this time Halifax would not take yes for an answer. He gave as his main reason that sitting in the Upper House as a peer, he would be excluded from the Commons where the war had to be managed.

But he also mentioned to friends, in several cryptic remarks, that he did not see how he could be an effective prime minister with Churchill in his cabinet, and not only present, but necessarily in a leading role, as was politically unavoidable.

Halifax was a quiet and orderly man, believed to have avoided any hint of scandal in a long parliamentary career. Whether the latter was true is uncertain.

As a 60-year old married man, he was carrying on an affair with Baba Curzon, a young woman half his age. It seems clear from letters between the two that the arrangement was more than platonic (though Scottish courts might have ruled the matter “not proven”).

In any event, Halifax knew himself no match for the thrusting, at times bullying Churchill. He would be, so he told Baba, a mere cypher.

Notably however, Halifax had also confided to his inner circle that he “knew he could do it,” i.e. be prime minister. Just not with Churchill at his heels day and night.

Now the first of his excuses for begging off was visible nonsense. He had been assured by Chamberlain, the Labour party leaders (who also wanted him) and the king, that legislation could be rushed through parliament putting his peerage in abeyance. It had been done once before.

The second excuse — that Churchill would make his life a daily hell — comes closer to the truth. And this is the genesis of the proposition that the foreign secretary embarked on a scheme to get rid of the man who stood in his way.

As France collapsed, his method was this. He proposed that Britain approach Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, to see if the “Duce” would ask Adolf Hitler what conditions he would demand if Britain sued for peace.

His argument appeared simple, though it was anything but. Where was the harm, he asked, in at least finding out what terms might be offered? If they were injurious, Britain would fight on.

If they were acceptable he, Halifax, could see no reason to continue the war and face the dreadful destruction already raining down on the Low Countries, France, and before that Poland and Czechoslovakia.

But here was the catch (and, I believe, the point.) Either way, the prime minister was finished.

If Britain accepted whatever terms were offered, it would mean the end of Churchill, whose position in the country was based on standing up to Hitler.

This is the man who had promised “no more parleys,” who was to rouse his countrymen to fight on the beaches, and whose soldiers, fighter pilots and sailors were daily putting their lives on the line. Meanwhile he’s going behind their backs and conducting secret peace talks with Hitler?

On the other hand, if the terms were refused, Hitler and Mussolini would certainly publicize the fact that an approach had been made. Would Halifax deny it, or in self-defence, implicate the prime minister who, stalling for time, had given his reluctant (and as it turned out stop-gap) consent? Either way, the disclosure would have been ruinous.

In other words, however such talks turned out, Churchill was done for. He survived by taking the discussion out of the war cabinet, where Halifax and Chamberlain dominated, and presenting the matter to a broader group of junior ministers.

Here there was near-unanimous agreement, backed by the Labour members — it was a coalition government — that no such proposal could even be considered.

Churchill reported this back, and Halifax relented.

But wasn’t this merely a foreign secretary doing his duty to explore every avenue? I don’t believe so.

No reasonable person could imagine that even if Hitler had offered reasonable terms, he would subsequently have kept his word. He never had before.

Halifax must have known this. He was counting on a momentary surge of relief from the British people that they would be spared the horrors of war.

Then Churchill would be gone, and Halifax could reign peacefully in his place. Such, I believe, was the true motive guiding the man his colleagues called “the Holy Fox.” Holy because he was an upstanding church-goer. “Fox” speaks for itself.

jalmcfarlane@shaw.ca