I saw Cripps on Wednesday, the first time I had actually spoken to him. Rather well impressed. He was more approachable and easy-going than I had expected, and quite ready to answer questions. Though aged 53 some of his movements are almost boyish. On the other hand he has decidedly a red nose. [I saw him in one of the reception rooms, or whatever they are called, off the House of Lords. Some interesting old prints on the walls, coronets on the chairs and on the ashtrays, but everything with the vaguely decayed look that all Parliamentary institutions now have. A string of non-descript people waiting to see Cripps. As I waited trying to talk to his secretary, a phrase I always remember on these occasions came into my mind – “shivering in ante-rooms”. In eighteenth-century biographies you always read about people waiting on their patrons and “shivering in anterooms”. It is one of those ready made phrases like “leave no stone unturned”, and yet how true it is as soon as you get anywhere near politics, o even the more expensive kinds of journalism.]
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Another gas warning (in Churchill’s speech) last night. I suppose we shall be using it before many weeks are over.
According to W. [1] a real Anglo-Russian alliance is to be signed up and the Russian delegates are already in London. I don’t believe this.
People do not seem pleased about Madagascar [1] as they did about Syria, [2] perhaps not grasping equally well its strategical significance, but more, I think, for want of a suitable propaganda buildup beforehand. [In the case of Syria the obviousness of the danger, the continual stories about German infiltration, and the long uncertainty as to whether the Government would act, gave people the impression that it was public opinion which had forced the decision. For all I know it may ever have done so, to some extent. No similar preparation in this case.] As soon as it became clear that Singapore was in danger I pointed out that we might have to seize Madagascar and had better begin the buildup in our Indian newsletters. I was somewhat choked off even then, and some weeks back a directive came, I suppose from the Foreign Office, that Madagascar was not to be mentioned. Reason given (after the British troops had landed) “So as not to give the show away”. Result, the seizure of Madagascar can be represented all over Asia as a piece of imperialist grabbing.
[Much speculation about the meaning of Hitler’s speech yesterday. In general it gives an impression of pessimism. Beaverbrook’s invasion speech is variously interpreted, at its face value, as a pep talk for the Americans, as something to persuade the Russians that we are not leaving them in the lurch, and as the beginning of an attack on Churchill (who may be forced into opposing offensive action). Nowadays, whatever is said or done, one looks instantly for hidden motives and assumes that words mean anything except what they appear to mean.]
U.S. airmen making a forced landing on Russian soil after bombing Tokio have been interned. According to the Japanese wireless the Russians are expediting the movement of Japanese agents across Russia from Sweden (and hence from Germany) to Japan. [If true, this is a new development, this traffic having been stopped at the time when Germany attacked the USSR.]
Tokio bombed, or supposed to have been bombed, yesterday. [1] Hitherto this comes only from Japanese and German sources. Nowadays one takes it so much for granted that everyone is lying that a report of this kind is never believed until confirmed by both sides. Even an admission by the enemy that his capital had been bombed might for some reason or other be a lie.
No question that Cripp’s speeches etc. have caused a lot of offence, ie. in India. Outside India I doubt whether many people blame the British government for the breakdown. One trouble at the moment is the tactless utterances of Americans who for years have been blahing about “Indian freedom” and British Imperialism, and have suddenly had their eyes opened to the fact that the Indian intelligentsia don’t want independence, ie. responsibility. Nehru is making provocative speeches to the effect that all the English are the same, of whatever political party, and also trying to make trouble between Britain and the USA by alleging that the USA has done all the real fighting. At the same time he reiterates at intervals that he is not pro-Japanese and Congress will defend India to the last. The BBC thereupon picks out these passages from his speeches and broadcasts them without mentioning the anti-British passages, whereat Nehru complains (quite justly) that he has been misrepresented.
Heard a “Jew joke” on the stage at the Players’ theatre last night – a mild one, and told by a Jew, but still slightly anti-Jew in tendency. [1] More Second Front rumours. The date this time is given as October 20th, an unlikely date, being a Tuesday. It seems pretty clear that something is going to happen in West or North-west Africa however.
It [1] has flopped after all. I don’t regard this as final, however. Listened-in to Cripp’s speech coming from Delhi, which we were re-broadcasting for England etc. These transmissions which we occasionally listen-in to from Delhi are our only clue as to how our own broadcasts sound in India. Always very bad quality and a great deal of background noise which it is impossible to take out in recordings. [The speech good in the earlier part and plain-speaking enough to cause, I should think, a lot of offence. In the later part it rather moved off into the breezy uplands vein.] It is a curious fact that in the more exalted passages in his speeches Cripps seems to have caught certain inflexions of voice from Churchill. This may point to the fact – which would explain his having undertaken this mission when only having such bad terms to offer – that he is at present much under Churchill’s personal influence.
British naval losses in the last 3 or 4 days: 2 cruisers and an aircraft carrier sunk, 1 destroyer wrecked. [1] Axis losses: 1 cruiser sunk.
[Yesterday had a look at the bit of the by-pass road which is being built between Uxbridge and Denham. Amazed at the enormous scale of the undertaking. West of Uxbridge is the valley of the Colne, and over this the road runs on a viaduct of brick and concrete pillars, the viaduct being I suppose ¼ mile long. After that it runs on a raised embankment. Each of these pillars is 20 feet high or thereabouts, about 15 by 10 feet thick, and there are two of them every fifteen yards or so. I should say each pillar would use 40,000 bricks, exclusive of foundations, and exclusive of the concrete running above, which must use up tons of steel and concrete for every yard of road. Stupendous quantities of steel (for reinforcing) lying about, also huge slabs of granite. Building this viaduct alone must be a job comparable, in the amount of labour it uses up, to building a good-sized warship. And the by-pass is very unlikely to be of any use till after the war, even if finished by that time. Meanwhile there is a labour shortage everywhere. Apparently the people who sell bricks are all-powerful. (Cf. the useless surface-shelters, which even when they were being put up were being put up were pronounced to be useless by everyone who knew anything about building, and the unnecessary repairs to uninhabited private houses which are going on all over London). Evidently when a scandal passes a certain magnitude it becomes invisible.]
Cripp’s decision to stay an extra week in India is taken as a good omen. Otherwise not much to be hopeful about. Gandhi is deliberately making trouble, [sending telegrams of condolence to Bose’s [1] family on the report of his death, then telegrams of congratulations when it turned out that the report was untrue. Also urging Indians not to adopt the scorched earth policy if India is invaded]. Impossible to be quite sure what his game is. Those who are anti-Gandhi allege that he has the worst kind of (Indian) capitalist interests behind him, and it is a fact that he usually seems to be staying at the mansion of some kind of millionaire [or other. This is not necessarily incompatible with his alleged saintliness. His pacifism may be genuine, however. In the bad period of 1940 he also urged non-resistance in England, should England be invaded]. I do not know whether Gandhi or Buchman [2] is the nearest equivalent to Rasputin in our time.
Greatly depressed by the apparent failure of the Cripps mission. Most of the Indians seem down in the mouth about it too. Even the ones who hate England want a solution, I think. [I believe, however, that in spite of the “take it or leave it” with which our government started off, the terms will actually be modified, perhaps in response to pressure at this end.] Some think the Russians are behind the Cripps plan and that this accounts for Cripps’s confidence in putting forward something so apparently uninviting. Since they are not in the war against Japan the Russians cannot have any official attitude about the Indian affair, but they may serve out a directive to their followers, for whom it will get round to other pro-Russians. No sign yet from the English Communist party, whose behaviour might give a clue to the Russian attitude. It is on this kind of guesswork that we have to frame our propaganda, no clear or useful directive ever being handed out from above.
News of the terms Cripps took to India supposed to be bursting tomorrow. Meanwhile only rumours, all plausible but completely incompatible with one another. The best-supported – that India is to be offered a treaty similar to the Egyptian one. K.S.S [1] who is our fairly embittered enemy, considers this would be accepted if Indians were given the Ministries of Defence, Finance and Internal Affairs. All the Indians here, after a week or two of gloom, much more optimistic, seeming to have smelt out somehow (perhaps by studying long faces in the India Office) that the terms are not so bad after all
Empson tells me that there is a strict ban by the Foreign Office on any suggestion that Japan is going to attack the USSR. So this subject is being studiously avoided in the Far Eastern broadcasts while being pushed all the time in the India broadcasts. They haven’t yet got onto the fact that we are saying this, we haven’t been warned and don’t officially know about the ban, and are making the best of our opportunity while it lasts. The same chaos everywhere on the propaganda front. [E.g. Horizon was nearly stopped from getting its extra paper to print copies for export on the strength of my article on Kipling (all well at the last moment because Harold Nicholson [1] and Duff Cooper [2] intervened), at the same time as the BBC asked me to write a “feature” based on the article.]
Short air raid alert about 11.30 this morning. No bombs or guns. The first time in 10 months that I had heard this sound. Inwardly rather frightened, and everyone else evidently the same, though studiously taking no notice and indeed not referring to the fact of there being a raid on until the All Clear had sounded.
I reopen this diary after an interval of about 6 months, the war being once again in a new phase.
I am now definitely an employee of the B.B.C.
Several of the papers are growing very restive because we are not doing more to help the U.S.S.R. I do not know whether any action, other than air-raids, is really intended, but if nothing is attempted, quite apart from the military and political consequences this may have, it is a disquieting symptom. For if we can’t make a land offensive now, when the Germans have 150 divisions busy in Russia, when the devil shall we be able to? I hear no rumours whatever about movements of troops, so apparently no expedition is being prepared at any rate from England. [1] The only new development is the beginning of Beaverbrook’s big drive for tanks, similar to his drive for planes last year. But this can’t bear fruit for some months, and where these tanks are to be used there is no hint. I can’t believe they want them for use against a German invasion. If the Germans were in a position to bring large numbers of armoured units here, i.e. if they had complete command of the sea and air, we should have lost the war already.
Post-tweeting 1940
War Secretary: List of 16779 miners serving in Home Forces "out-of-date". Names duplicated, some men discharged in 1928 http://t.co/U0acE4er4 weeks ago
Mr Nehru warns of crisis. "No chance whatever of any compromise between the British Government and Indian nationalism" http://t.co/cFXLEw504 weeks ago
Chiefs of Staff: Local Russian attacks and German counter-attacks continue without any
noteworthy territorial changes http://t.co/az5rWUib1 month ago
India Secretary: US to aid evacuation of Indians from Burma by running service between Dinjan in Assam and Myitkyina http://t.co/hltXZ02N1 month ago
Cabinet agrees "public ought to be told more about the positive achievements of the nation's War effort" http://t.co/38yTlHUn1 month ago
Minister of Information directed to circulate monthly reports to Cabinet on "the state of public morale" http://t.co/mNJkrTHr1 month ago
Colonial Office receiving reports of heavy Japanese bombing of Burmese capital Mandalay. Much of the city set alight1 month ago
Attlee to report on whether civilian anti-gas precautions are "more, or less, complete in Germany than in this country" http://t.co/EMs3SYjP1 month ago
Eden: Bomb explosion at Angora threatens relations between Russia and Turkey. Situation "somewhat disquieting" http://t.co/LXFTV3431 month ago
PM: "Important that we should make the Russians realise the extent of the risks" which
are being run in supplying them http://t.co/0Na0ahH51 month ago
Admiralty: Of the last convoy returning from Russia, one ship had been sunk by air action and two by U-boat http://t.co/AOVTI4xQ1 month ago
Air Chief: We raided Italy overnight "for the first time for several months". RAF targeted Turin where blackout relaxed http://t.co/eGhEZSKk1 month ago
Prime Minister welcomes Mr. Harry Hopkins and General George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the US Army to Cabinet meeting http://t.co/G4BV6R1W1 month ago
Joint Intelligence Committee: Japan's aims "peace in China", occupying Burma, "compelling us to dissipate our troops" http://t.co/Pb8rwaqy1 month ago
Joint Intelligence predicts no invasion of UK in 1942. Hitler characteristic "to try to defeat his enemies one by one" http://t.co/QynlQhik1 month ago
India Secretary: Serious problem arisen in Burma. Up to 1m Indians anxious to depart. Danger "there may be a stampede" http://t.co/Rg5O6oFb1 month ago
Foreign Secretary circulates drafts of proposed military and political treaties with Soviet Union http://t.co/0xhl0Fqj1 month ago
Information Minister reports "widespread decrease in confidence" on Home Front. "Prevalent sense of frustration" http://t.co/HVbsLhYs1 month ago
Morrison: Can release men from civil defence to industry & "replace defensive thinking by an offensive will to victory" http://t.co/mWbzmEtR1 month ago
Chancellor has "communicated to the War Cabinet full particulars of his financial proposals for the forthcoming Budget" http://t.co/C1LfyUap1 month ago