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V.S-W. TO H.N.         2nd April, 1941        Sissinghurst

Your letter made almost unbearable reading, partly because I had expected it to be about Virginia and was genuinely surprised. I cannot bear you to be unhappy, especially about me. But, darling, honestly there is no need for you to be. I have a very happy nature really, and only get into moods of despair occasionally. It is silly and selfish of me to say I mind the war, when so many people are suffering from it so infmitely more, but one does mind watching the downfall of all the things one cared about, and then I am perpetually haunted by the terror that something might happen to you (really haunted to a morbid degree) and I suppose that that does constitute a strain. You see, I love you so. I suppose I pray for your safety six times a day.

I don't quite see what you mean by my eccentricity. I can't see that I am eccentric in the least, unless liking to live here is eccentric, but lots of people have been recluses by nature (which I suppose I am), and not being in sympathy with the modern world, one's natural avoidance deepens. It is a form of escapism.

You have always been more sweet to me than I could describe, and I quite certainly don't wish that I had married anybody else ! Your coming down here yesterday touched me so deeply. We are funny people, though, you and I: it was Virginia's death that brought you, and yet we never mentioned it.

Your story about the taxi makes my blood run cold. If anything happened to you, I should never get over it. In fact, I don't think I should go on living.

H.N. To v.s-w.           3rd April, 1941         Ministry of Information

I got a nice long letter from you today and you seem less wretched. Of course I came down because of Virginia. But I saw no reason to mention the thing. There was nothing that could be said. I just wanted to be with you. I hate it so. It is horrible to see her picture in the papers. My heart absolutely aches with sympathy for Leonard.

V.S-W. TO H.N. 8th April, 1941

I went to see Vanessa [Bell] yesterday at Charleston. She could not have been nicer and told me all about it. Rather to my dismay, she said that Leonard wanted to see me. So I went to Monk's House. He was having his tea—just one tea-cup on the table where they always had tea. The house was full of his flowers, and all Virginia's things lying about as usual. He said, let us go somewhere more comfortable', and took me up to her sitting-room. There was her needle-work on a chair and all her coloured wools hanging over a sort of little towel-horse which she had had made for them. Her thimble on the table. Her scribbling block with her writing on it. The window from which one can see the river. I said, 'Leonard, I do not like your being here alone like this'. He turned those piercing blue eyes on me and said, 'It is the only thing to do.' I saw then that he was right. But it must take some courage. He talked about the whole thing perfectly calmly and in great detail, shirking nothing. Some phrases bit. He said, 'When we couldn't find her anywhere, I went up to a derelict house which she was fond of in the Downs, called Mad Misery, but she wasn't there.' I remember her telling me about Mad Misery and saying that she would take me there one day. They have been dragging the river, but are now giving up the search. As the river is tidal, she has probably been carried out to sea. I hope so. I hope they will never find her. She could swim. I knew this because of a story she once told me about Rupert Brooke at Cambridge, when they were both very young, and he took off all his clothes and plunged naked into a moonlit pool, and she thought she must do likewise; so she did, although very shy, and they swam about together. But it appears that when she went to drown herself, she was wearing big gum-boots (which she seldom did because she hated them), and if those had filled with water, they would have dragged her down. Also she may have weighted her pockets with stones. The river is banked up with stones. The only thing that puzzles them is that they never found her hat floating. But Vanessa thinks it had an elastic to keep it on, so went down with her.

In the month of April the Germans threw the British out of Greece and Cyrenaica, and in May they won Crete. The Allied successes in East Africa and Iraq, and the sinking of the 'Bismarck', were poor consolations for two disastrous months. Morale at home, weakened by renewed air-raids on London and provincial cities, showed signs of strain.

The Greek debacle was due to the quick collapse of Yugoslavia, which capitulated on 1 7th April. The left flank of the Allied line in northern Greece was thereby exposed to a German outflanking movement through the Monastir gap, and the Greek army in Albania and Eastern Macedonia was surrounded. This left the Commonwealth force offour Divisions to face almost alone a German army of fifteen, including four armoured Divisions. They retreated slowly towards Athens, but the decision to evacuate the country was made in principle on 21st April to save Greece from needless devastation. The last men got clear of southern Greek ports on the 29th. Of the 53,000 British and Commonwealth troops landed in Greece, 41,000 were taken off by the Navy, most of them to Crete.

The German airborne assault on Crete began on loth May, and although the Navy prevented a single enemy soldier landing on the island from the sea, German air superiority gradually overcame resistance, and a further evacuation began on 27th May. 16,500 men returned safely to Egypt, but 13,000 others were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The Germans, too, suffered severely. Their victory had been so costly that the Airborne Division, the only one they had, was never able to go into action again.

It fell to Harold Nicolson during Duff Cooper's illness to direct much of the Ministry of Information's policy during this unhappy period. The Ministry was in trouble. The Service Departments claimed the right to issue their own communiques, and the B.B.C. was also largely free from control by the Ministry which existed for no other purpose than to coordinate British information policy. It was therefore constantly held to blame for other people's errors of judgement. Harold Nicolson handled this difficult situation skilfully in the House of Commons, but he was depressed by the unfairness of much of the criticism directed against his Department, and by the lack of full support from the Prime Minister, to whom information policy was of small interest or importance. The treatment of the Rudolf Hess incident is one example of this. Harold Nicolson was also worried by personal financial troubles. He gave up smoking for 34 days in an effort to economise.

DIARY            4th April, 1941

 The Libyan news is worse than I had supposed. I see a newspaper outside the Underground bearing the ominous headline, 'British troops evacuate Benghazi'. At the Executive Board we have a serious inquest upon the handling of the Libyan news. The optimistic cornmuniques put out from Cairo during the last three days had not prepared the public for the dreadful shock of the Benghazi evacuation. It will have a very bad effect everywhere. People will feel, 'We can beat the Wops, but the Huns are irresistible'. The only way to meet this would be by stark and full information. But we have very meagre information and Cairo has dressed those slight pudenda in the most foolish and unnecessary frills such as 'A mere propaganda victory', `Our light covering forces', or 'General Wavell can be counted on to choose his own battleground'. The fact is that we have been taken by surprise and badly beaten, and that there is little to stop the Germans from getting to Sollum. The only thing that might assuage public opinion is to tell them that this has happened because we sent our army to Greece. But we are not allowed to say that. We do two things. We send an urgent telegram to Anthony Eden asking him to let us publish the facts about our landing in Greece. And we decide that the War Office must send out to Cairo somebody who has some idea of public feeling here and will stop them putting out these idiotic communiques.

After dinner I find a taxi under the wet April moon. Poor old battered London slides past me as I drive to the Ministry. I think of our armies in Greece and Libya and Abyssinia under the same slim moon. I think of the bodies of Virginia and Robert Byron[1]. tossing in the sea. War assuredly is the ugliest of all things. I think of old women panting under a mass of cement and brick—panting in terror and death.

‘More brain Oh Lord, more brain: else we shall mar utterly that fair garden we might win’[2]

DIARY                        9th April, 1941

 I go down to the House to hear Winston make his statement [on the invasion of Greece]. It had been devised as a motion congratulating the fighting Services on their victories, and I remember a few days ago how Winston promised that he would say to us, 'Fly your flags in celebration.' These victories are now dust and ashes.

The P.M. comes in at 11.56 and is greeted with cheers. He sits between Greenwood and Attlee, scowls at the notes in his hand, pulls out a gold pencil and scribbles an addition to the last sheet. He then gets up to speak in a grim and obstinate voice. He throws out news incidentally. We have taken Massawa.[3] The Germans entered Salonika at 4 am. this morning. At this news there is a silent wince of pain throughout the House. He discloses that the U.S.A. have given us their revenue cutters. His peroration implies that we are done without American help. He indulges in a few flights of oratory. There is a little joke about the boa-constrictor, and a little joke about the revenue cutters having previously been used for prohibition. But he evidently feels that even graver news is ahead of us. The House is sad and glum.

DIARY                        13th April, 1941

It looks as if the Germans have isolated our force at Tobruk, and got round them to Bardia. This is most disturbing, since, as far as I can gather, all our forces are at Tobruk, and if they isolate that, then they have nothing in front of them.[4] In the Balkans the news is better. The Yugoslays seem to be snipping some of the fingers of the German advance. They are rallying and counter-attacking. But Libya is the main preoccupation and Libya is bad indeed. We cannot trust Egypt, and Iraq has already gone.[5] Turkey will not stand up to a bad strategic position, and we may lose Egypt and all that this implies.

From the propaganda point of view, all that the country really wants is some assurance of how victory is to be achieved. They are bored by talks about the righteousness of our cause and our eventual triumph. What they want are facts indicating how we are to beat the Germans. I have no idea at all how we are to give them those facts. Fundamentally (although they are unaware of the fact) the British public have lost confidence in the power of the sea. Norway was a nasty knock, but Libya was a nastier knock. 'How', they ask, 'was Germany able to land four divisions in Libya?' There are many explanations of this feat but none of them really disposes of the question, `But if they can land four divisions in Libya, what prevents them obtaining mastery of Africa and Asia?' I see no ostensible answer to that terrible question. At the back of my mind there always hums and buzzes Darlan's reply to someone who suggested that we might win in the end. He asked his interlocutor what justified that assumption. He spoke of our naval supremacy. Darlan replied, `Mais ca—c'est de la folie pure.' The events of the Balkans and Libya may confirm that theory. I have no doubt that we shall win in the end. But we shall have to learn the new technique, the secret of mobile warfare, and only when we have learnt it (as we shall learn it) will the efficacy of our sea-power be brought to bear. Meanwhile, as in last July, I wake up with terror in the dawn.

DIARY                        16th April, 1941

Dine with Sibyl [Colefax] at the Dorchester. I get away as early as I can, but have to walk the whole way back to the Ministry. There is a hot blitz on. To the south, round about Westminster, there is a gale of fire, as red as an Egyptian dawn. To the north there is another fire which I subsequently see at closer quarters. The stump of the spire of Langham Place church is outlined against pink smoke. I walk on under the guns and flares and the droning of the 'planes. I fall over a brick and break my glasses. I limp into the Ministry to be told that we have sunk a large convoy between Sicily and Tripoli. This is the news we wanted.

After typing this I go to bed. I get off to sleep all right, but the blitz gets worse and worse, and the night shrieks and jabbers like an African jungle. I have never heard such a variety of sounds—the whistle of the descending bombs, the crash of anti-aircraft, the dull thud of walls collapsing, the sharp taps of incendiaries falling all around. The British Museum opposite my window turns rose-red in the light of a fire in the University. Every now and then it turns sharp white when a magnesium flare descends. Then rose-red again. It goes on all night and I sleep fitfully.[6]

DIARY            21st April, 1941

We are evacuating from Greece. The Americans will take this badly and there is a wave of defeatism sweeping that continent. Lindbergh has been proclaiming that we are in a desperate position. I confess that my mind goes back to my last talk with Maisky when he said, 'You cannot stand another Norway.' Another Norway is now upon us, and the news from Spain is equally bad.[7] Hitler is evidently determined to turn us out of the Mediterranean.

DIARY                        7th May, 1941

A Civil Defence Committee at the Cabinet Offices. Herbert Morrison is worried about the effect of the provincial raids on morale. He keeps on underlining the fact that the people cannot stand this intensive bombing indefinitely and that sooner or later the morale of other towns will go, even as Plymouth's has gone. To the House. Lloyd George makes a speech. Very gloomy and realistic he is, pointing a forefinger constantly and speaking about 'dark chasms'. His main theme is that the public must be told the truth. Of course in one way it was a damaging speech, since he made it abundantly clear that we were in danger of being starved and defeated. But from another point of view my pride swelled to think that nowhere else except in our own beloved House of Commons could such a speech have been made and received with calm and even with welcome. When he criticised the Prime Minister he gazed across at him with a firm aggressive chin of combat and opposition, but his little eyes twinkled with admiration and (I am not in the least exaggerating) with love. It was a good day for Parliament. After lunch I return to the House. Winston is speaking as I enter. He holds the House from the very first moment. He stands there in his black conventional suit with the huge watch-chain. He is very amusing. He is very frank. At moments I have a nasty feeling that he is being a trifle too optimistic. He is very strong, for instance, about Egypt and our position in the Mediterranean. He attacks Hore Belisha mercilessly. The vote of confidence is given 447 to 3. Pretty good. As Winston goes out of the Chamber towards the Members' Lobby, there is a spontaneous burst of cheering which is taken up outside. He looks pleased. I then go to the annual meeting of the London Region of the League of Nations Union. I am being divested of my Presidency and it goes to Violet Bonham Carter who makes a fine speech. Very dear and logical. Then I call in for a few minutes at a film I wanted to see. Then have a late dinner with Peter Quennell at Olivelli's and return to the Ministry to work a bit. I am happy about the House today. Members are a bit defeatist. But Winston cheers them up. Yesterday it was rather like a hen-coop of wet hens: today they all strutted about like bantams.

DIARY                        8th May, 1941

The cold is incredible. It is like February. The barrage-balloons have returned to an irritating inflexibility with their noses pointing northeast and their little fins trailing behind. This is the eighth day of my renunciation of smoking. It gets more difficult instead of less difficult. But I do observe that it is a thought which suggests a pang rather than a pang which suggests a thought. Thus an aching tooth twitches into consciousness and says, `I have tooth-ache.' But this nicotine hunger is only stimulated by some outside occurrence such as the sight of someone else smoking or an advertisement for Craven A.[8] Then the pang lights up. Apart from that it is a vague feeling of something missing, as if one had had no breakfast. I go to the House for questions. They want us to divulge the whole story of our sinkings in the Atlantic. As a matter of fact, we have only lost some 3 per cent of American supplies. But the Germans imagine that they have sunk some 40 per cent. Far be it from us to tell them. I reply accordingly.

Home Planning Committee. We discuss the possible decline of morale. It is true that nobody actually speaks of the possibility of defeat or surrender but this silence is a bad sign of repression. I fear that people will jump at any escape which makes cowardice appear respectable, and that the Oxford Group with their 'moral rearmament' may be the channel of sublimation. We must be very careful about all that. Morale is good—but it is rather like the Emperor's clothes.

DIARY                        14th May, 1941

Defence Committee. There is the usual complaint that the newspapers will insist upon publishing defence details. The present grumble is that they say that half the House of Commons remains intact.[9] Walter Elliot is very keen that the House should now sit in St Stephen's Chapel. That, after all, is the historic place.[10] But the Prime Minister, when I suggest it to him, says, 'Too narrow. It would not do at all. We must have the Royal Gallery.'

I lunch with the Prime Minister and Mrs Churchill in the flat which has been constructed fcr them in the Office of Works. It is not very large, but it is well done and comfortable. Winston has brought some of his pictures in and the general effect is very gay. Winston sits there beaming, with his ugly watch-chain and his ugly ring. I try to get directives from him about Hess,[11] but he will go no further than to say that we must not make a hero of him. We have white wine and port and brandy and hors d'oeuvre and mutton. All rather sparse. Winston had been seeing the film Comrade X2[12] and simply loved it. I told him that Maisky had tried to get it suppressed. He was overjoyed that it had not been. He is in a good purring mood. We discussed whether it would be a good thing to give bombed towns some decoration on the analogy of the French practice in the last war when they gave the Legion of Honour to Rheims and other towns. 'Winston snorted loudly, 'Legion of Honour? They have the ribbon today and the enamel cross. But where is the honour? Gone ! Gone !'—and then a wide despairing gesture—`GONE!'

DIARY                        16th May, 1941

I go to see the ruins of the old Chamber. It is impossible to get through the Members' Lobby which is a mass of twisted girders. So I went up by the staircase to the Ladies' Gallery and then suddenly, when I turned the corridor, there was the open air and a sort of Tintern Abbey gaping before me. The little Ministers' rooms to right and left of the Speaker's Lobby were still intact, but from there onwards there was absolutely nothing. No sign of anything but murs calcines and twisted girders.

Duff is in a depressed mood. He had managed yesterday to persuade the P.M. that we must put out some directive about our attitude towards Rudolf Hess. Then Winston says, 'We must think this over. Come back at midnight and we shall discuss it again.' But when he gets back he finds Max Beaverbrook[13] there, and Max persuades Winston not to make any statement at all. Now this is bad, since the belief will get around that we are hiding something and we shall be blamed in this Ministry. The real fact is that we cannot get maximum propaganda value out of this incident both at home and abroad. I feel a terrible lack of central authority in all this. Then today Max has a luncheon for the editors and lobby correspondents. He tells them that Hess had come over to explain to the Duke of Hamilton that we are beaten and had better give way. This is not going to help matters.

DIARY                        21 May, 1941

I answer questions in the House, and then I meet Anthony Eden in Beaverbrook's room. The theme of our discussion is greater information and help for American correspondents, but the underlying theme is our publicity generally. We say that we shall be unable to carry on unless we are given greater powers over the Service Departments. Beaverbrook is on our side and so is Anthony. They end by drawing up a recommendation to the Cabinet which gives us much of what we want. Walter [Monckton] and I go away delighted. It is not clear what is happening in Crete.[14] Winston regards it as rather a crucial battle. 'Neither side', he says, 'can escape.' But the Germans are landing troops all the time by air and we seem unable to land troops by sea. Meanwhile we ought to be in Baghdad at any moment,[15] and Aosta plus five generals have surrendered.[16]

DIARY                        22nd May, 1941

Before midnight I am picked up by Kenneth Clark and we go to the B.B.C. where we are met by Ed Murrow.[17] Jane [Clark] comes with us. As usual she looks as smart and neat as a new pin. It is rather a curious experience. K. and I sit opposite each other and have earphones. Then we hear that we are linked up to New York and Kenneth starts doing his piece. He is opening the exhibition of British war artists in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. While he talks I listen on my earphones and can hear Kenneth talking opposite me, and a fraction of a second later, Kenneth saying the same thing from New York. The distance of 6,000 miles does not exactly give a time pause but merely a faint duplication of what I hear him say in London. I then do the same, and then we both listen to Halifax.

DIARY                        27th May, 1941

Winston gives the House the latest news. He says that the situation in Crete is none too good. He goes on to talk about the position in Libya and Iraq. To my great satisfaction he announces our naval losses in the Cretan campaign. And then he passes on to the battle of the Denmark Straits.[18] He does it beautifully. He builds up the whole picture from the moment when we heard that the Bismarck and the Prinz Eugen were driving westwards against our convoys to the moment when we came into contact with them and the Hood was sunk. After paying a tribute to the loss of these men, he passed on to the further pursuit. The Prinz Eugen had disappeared, but the Bismarck was followed closely and bombed. This bombing slowed down her escape, which by then was evidently directed towards some French port. Further arrangements were made to intercept her, but then the weather changed and visibility diminished, and by a sudden change of course the Bismarck managed to elude our vigilance. The whole House felt at that moment that Winston was about to break to us that the ship had escaped. There was a hush of despair. At dawn next morning (Winston continued) we again resumed contact. He told us how the Fleet Air Arm then fired torpedoes at the ship, destroying her steering gear and forcing her to go round and round in immense circles in the ocean. From all sides our fleet approached to destroy her. Such is the innate sporting feeling of the House that we all began to feel sorry for the Bismarck. The P.M. went on to say that our ships had established contact; that they had begun to fire; that their shells had not made any effect; and that the only hope was to fire torpedoes. 'That process', he said, 'is in action as I speak.' He then went on to speak about conscription in Northern Ireland and left the House with a sense of coitus interruptus. Hugh O'Neill rose to protest about his Ulster statement, and then Griffiths in his pompous way arose. 'Mr Speaker, I ask for your guidance. . . .' As he said this, I saw one of the secretaries in the official gallery make a violent sign with a small folded sheet to Brendan Bracken. He took the missive and passed it on to Winston. The latter rose at once and interrupted Griffiths. 'I crave your indulgence, Mr Speaker', he said, 'I have just received news that the Bismarck has been sunk.' Wild cheers, in which I do not join. Poor old Horace Rumbold is dead.[19] I loved that man.

DIARY                        29th May, 1941

Here is an instance of how one suffers from bad reporting. On Tuesday I deputised for Duff at the Advertisers' luncheon. I did not give a hand-out to the Press, since I am always afraid that the P.M. may read what one says and make a fuss. Then today when I entered Church House,[20] I bumped into him. There was a moment of silence as we climbed the stairs together, and then he said, 'I thee that you have thaid that I am about to propothe peathe terms.' I said, 'But what on earth made you think that?' He said, 'I read it in the newspapers. I read that you had said that if Hitler proposed peace, nobody would believe him, but that if I proposed peace, everyone would believe me.' 'That,' I said with some heat, 'is a false rendering of what I said.' 'I believe you', he said. 'I was only getting a rise out of you.' That is all very well. But somewhere he may be left with the feeling that I say indiscreet things. What I had really said was this: 'The German propaganda method is based upon seizing immediate advantages with complete disregard of the truth or of their credit. Our method is the slower and more long-term method of establishing confidence. At the moment, the Goebbels method is the more successful. In the end ours will prove decisive. For the moment will come when Hitler will sell his soul to be believed. He will wish to make a compromise peace in order to save himself from disaster. But nobody will believe him. Whereas if Winston Churchill made an offer to the world, 90 per cent of the world would know that this was sincere.' I do not really believe that Winston thought that I had said anything silly. But my word, how he scrutinises one's speeches.