Chapter 148, London, 19 October 1941
Butler was enjoying a pleasant enough afternoon. There was little to trouble him at the Foreign Office and so he had declared that he had a headache and retired home to read the papers and to enjoy an evening free from the endless red boxes. His staff were used to this petulant behaviour, and with a grumpy Sir Alec Cadogan “holding the fort” Butler had slipped away to his apartment in Lambeth.
He flicked through the newspapers, noting with dismay that the Beaverbrook press had definitely, to use a Halifax hunting metaphor, “got the scent of the quarry” and were trying to exploit weaknesses in the Government. They were cruelly mocking Templewood’s faltering Industrial strategy (though Stanley’s economic policies were applauded) and were savage in their portrayal of Butler and his attempts at diplomacy. Butler was chillingly reminded of two years ago, 1939, where he and the other Foreign Office ministers had felt the inevitable slide to war. Chamberlain had been swiftly and completely overtaken by the dramatic events and the press hysteria. And now, laughing at the silence coming from the Foreign Office, they sought to bring pressure upon Halifax.
And the stupid bloody thing is that I can never win. If I act I am portrayed as weak, if I don’t act I am again portrayed as weak. He felt that he had been wronged by the increasingly vocal hawks in the Party, and their powerful friends. The funny thing, and Butler’s last hope, was that there was no war that Britain could possibly enter in to. The Germans and the Russians would kill each other regardless of whether Eden sent the BEF in. The Italians were seemingly well-behaved, listening either to British reason or German bullying (Butler didn’t care which one it was). And in the Far East, despite the press prophecies of looming cataclysm, the Japanese were still serenely friendly to the Empire and to America.
The phone rang and Butler wandered over, picking it up with a heavy sigh. “Butler here,” he said drowsily, stifling a yawn.
“Foreign Secretary,” the clipped tones of Sir Alec Cadogan, Permanent Under Secretary, stated coolly. “I thought you would like to know that I’ve just taken a call from Sir Robert Craigie.”
Butler struggled to place the name, then remembered that Craigie was British Ambassador to Japan. “Whashap,” he coughed, “what’s happened?”
“Well, it appears that there’s been a change of Government over there. There’s a new Prime Minister.”
“Christ,” Butler said with some feeling. “What do we know?”
“Not a lot” Cadogan said bluntly. Butler could imagine him, squiting over his glasses as the messages came in. “But the Prime Minister has got wind of it. One of our chaps let the secret out when he was taking some routine stuff over there. I’m sorry,” he added the last bit with a hint of feeling.
“We’d better let Menzies know. Can’t help to have the Head of Intelligence unawares and all that. I’ll give you a call when I get back from dinner.”
“Dinner? Foreign Secretary, might I enquire where you are dining?” Cadogan’s tone was terse. Butler imagined him rubbing his tired eyes.
“Yes, I have been invited to dinner by Lincoln’s Inn and I bloody well intend to go.”
“In which case I shall tell the Prime Minister that he can bloody well wait,” Cadogan said acidly, but Butler had already hung up.
Not far away, Major-General Menzies sank his head in his hands. He had failed, utterly and totally, to see that a change in the Japanese Government was looming. As he looked out over the fading sun and the wintry London streets he cursed his staff for relying on Craigie’s telephone call to pass on the news. He had this evening, he realised, to turn this intelligence disaster into something of value to the Government.
“Cullen,” he muttered to a civil servant, “call Downing Street and arrange a briefing to the PM. Butler and Dill too I should think. Get through to the Embassy in Tokyo; I need a brief to deliver tomorrow!”
The evening was spent in anxious preparation. Whilst Halifax and Butler snored in their beds the Combined Intelligence Staff hurried to arm their boss with the information necessary to see him appear confident. By daybreak, when a fresh, if apprehensive Menzies entered his office he had a crisp, newly printed assessment to deliver. Nodding in satisfaction, Menzies looked at his watch. He had an hour to learn his lines.
“Pway gentlemen, be seated,” Halifax said as he, Butler, Eden Dill and Templewood (there at Halifax’s insistence as he grew increasingly worried over the loyalty of his Cabinet) gathered in the Cabinet Room. It was a little past nine in the morning, and the air outside was bright and crisp. Halifax, normally so parsimonious, was feeling the bitter autmumnal cold and so had ordered Cole to light a coal fire. Halifax looked down at his copy of the CIS Report. “Major Genewal Menzies,” he said crisply.
“Prime Minister, Sirs, as you aware there has been some change in the Government of Japan. Understandably, the report of Sir Robert Craigie was sketchy at best,” Menzies softened the blow of his failure by a deft dumping of the blame for the lack of information upon Craigie. “This assessment will flesh out the bones of developments over there. Sirs, it is rapidly becoming evident that Prime Minister Konoe has been replaced as Prime Minister. His replacement is Tojo.”
“Who is Tojo?” Templewood asked the question innocently, almost like a child.
Menzies raised a hand as he looked down at his notes. “If I may, Lord Templewood, I’m getting to that in a minute. As you know, Sirs, there has been rising tension between the United States and Japan in recent months. After the combined Anglo-American trading embargo the Japanese were in a difficult position, having only limited resources of their own. They therefore had to negotiate with the Americans.”
“And ourselves,” Butler added.
“Indeed Sir. The Prime Minister, Konoe, seems to have impressed everyone with his desire for peace. Our contacts in the American State Department have stated that their Ambassador over there, Grew, held him in high regard.”
“So what went wong?” Halifax wasn’t being obstinate: he was genuinely intrigued.
“It would appear that the hardliners in the military brought matters to a head. They have recently held some sort of meeting where the crises facing their country must have been discussed?”
“Must have been? You’re saying you don’t know?” That was Dill.
“Well Sir John, we know that Tojo Hideki, the Army Minister, is probably the one who spoke out. We can guess that he argued that a more robust approach to dealing with the Americans is what’s called for.”
“So we can expect a long list of demands, then,” Halifax said with a groan.
“Indeed My Lord. Prime Minister Konoe has resigned, probably as a result of whatever was decided at that meeting a few days ago, and the Emperor has appointed General Tojo.”
“Was he the obvious choice?”
“No Lord Templewood, that is what has taken us by surprise. Our agent in Tokyo had reckoned that a Prince Higashikuni would be appointed.”
Butler turned to look at Eden, who had been noticeably quiet throughout the discussions. “This could impact on their behaviour when you meet with them,” he said with a mocking tone to his voice.
Eden nodded. “It makes it all the more important for me to get to look ‘em in the eye.” His confident air silenced Butler.
Halifax was keen to move on to other matters. “Well, it appears to me that we need to have Cwaigie make an official call upon the new Pwime Minister. Let him know that Bwitain wishes peace.” He pointed a bony finger at Eden. “But you had better be pwepared for a twialling time in Washington,” he said with feeling.
“Oh I will,” Eden said defiantly. “Oh I will.”
[Game Effect] – All change in Japan as the British struggle to find out exactly what’s going on.
I recommend a recent update in Trekaddict’s “Against all the odds” for an alternative look at this thorny subject – Britain’s relations with Japan. Here, in the sorry tale that is KFM, the British are caught unawares as Tojo takes power and the future of the Pacific looks bleak indeed. Menzies and the Combined Intelligence Staff – supposedly tying together the leadership of MI5, MI6, the Foreign Office and others, essentially a slightly stronger version of the Joint Intelligence Committee, has made its first blunder. I wanted to show that nothing everything works well. Menzies has had some earlier successes, most notably in his assessment of the plight of the Dutch East Indies, but the change of government in Tokyo has caught him. To the credit of the Intel chaps, their centralised system means that information is quickly (ie overnight) acquired and cobbled together into a reasonable brief for the Chief of the Intelligence Staff (CIS) to present.
There are a hundred and one directions in which the Pacific situation might go. I am convinced that in this game the AI got it vaguely correct but will ‘window-dress’ it to reflect some of the finer points. But with Tojo coming to power, it all looks very bleak.
Trekaddict: Oh yes...
Kurt_Steiner: Well, sadly for the Itais it looks like being a choice between sitting in Rome enjoying the weather or getting slaughtered in the frozen wastes of Russia. Some choice!
TheExecuter: I think he does, and I think that wider still, Halifax is all over the place when it comes to his handling of the Japanese.
Atlantic Friend: Yes and no. Legally Italy was awarded the right to what she liked to Syria and Lebanon, and whilst France still has Madagascar, Morrocco, Tunisia, Algeria, good old French Guina, and a couple of islands here and there, the loss of so much territory must smart. So France became Germany’s best friend and sent a hell of a lot of military units to Barbarossa – and actually the Finnish debacle aside I think that French support would have a huge impact on Germany’s chances. I have to confess that the possibility for covert support from Paris to her former colonies (maybe with the lure of some sort of reconciliation/French protection after the defeat of Italy) was something I had never even thought of. I smell a France update coming up and I would love to hear your views on what/who you’d like to see.
Nathan Madien: The impact of a few dozen divisions may help the Germans, but I see your point about Italy’s help hardly being essential!
Zhuge Liang: As I said above, I think that the British policy towards Japan has more problems than a Prince Phillip diplomatic visit. I agree – the Japanese would not be this forgiving, and after China, Indochina, Manchuria, the DEI, Halifax should really know better.
El Pip: Butler continues his decline, whilst Halifax’s decision was probably more wiliness – looking sharply at the negative domestic view of diplomatic involvement, rather than a change of ideology.
Bafflegab: I think that Halifax has to be pragmatic here – further diplomatic adventures would split the Party (Eden would resign for a start, and I think that Stanley and possibly Hankey would go) and with Halifax’s grip on power so tenuous he’d have to listen to the Cabinet. He is increasingly bound by the Party voice, and to be honest has done well to survive this far.
4077th: Well Sir, many thanks for the compliment. I, like you, find the man fascinating. Flawed, yes, but no worse than so many other politicians. As for Italy, as I’ve said I had to pretty much lead Italy in doing anything. Though she has one surprise left to play, in December.
DonnieBaseball: The lack of a war in the Med gives the RN a lot to be happy about. With enough capital ships to have an impressive presence in the Far East any Pacific War would be very different from the rather puny Force Z.
El Pip: I think that the death of John Smith probably ranks as one the biggest single nation-changing events in our recent history. Under Smith, who almost certainly would have won a decent enough majority in the 1997 election, I think that we would have seen a very different “noughties”. Certainly devolution, increased involvement in Europe and some form of “war on terror” would have happened, but Smith wouldn’t have gone for Iraq (I think) and would have probably argued with Clinton and Bush on a load of things. This link
http://theappallingstrangeness.blogspot.com/2006/05/what-if-prime-minister-john-smith.html has a good story on this.
Arilou: A good point: he wanted to give it a go, but after Munich and Milan mistakenly thought that he would have been listened to with respect.
Trekaddict: But would the US fight a war to defend the British Empire? And would Halifax support Roosevelt even if Britain wasn’t attacked?
MITSGS John: I’m not saying anything. But it’s on its way, soon.
Arilou: And here we have the tempting prospect of a Japanese deal with either the UK or US staying neutral whilst the Japanese go after the other. But would they be successful?
4077th: It’s a horrible dilemma – the loathsome PM or the rather oily Conservative. I’m leaning to the Conservatives as I could actually cry at the way in which Labour has emasculated this country. But as I’m basing my views on negative reasons – in that I’m voting for the “I’m not Gordon Brown” candidate rater than out of any real faith in Cameron. God help us all.
El Pip: I agree that the Japanese wouldn’t bother with any great attempt to separate the US/UK. They’re still only vaguely cooperative and are a long way from any workable alliance.
Atlantic Friend: Oh dear...
4077th: The “too little, too late” theme is correct. Both politically and militarily, the British are in trouble. The Empire is so obviously the weaker power to us, but is that how it comes across to the Japanese?
MITSGS John: Good point on the lack of carrier warfare – hmmn, going to think about this.
Gaiasabre11: You Sir, are a philosopher indeed.
DonnieBaseball: A good point, I wonder whether the Japanese aren’t heading that way anyway, but you may be correct.
Sir Humphrey: Many thanks!
El Pip: I’m really not sure. But this could really impact upon what’s looming over the horizon. Hmmn.
Nathan Madien: And there, Sir, you have hit upon my dilemma.
Sir Humphrey: I think that the Japs would try absolutely everything in a war against the US/UK.
Enewald: There’s life in the old lion yet!
