Their Finest Hour (73 page)

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Bardia was our next objective. Within its perimeter, seventeen miles in extent, was the greater part of four more Italian divisions. The defences comprised a continuous anti-tank ditch and wire obstacles with concrete block-houses at intervals, and behind this was a second line of fortifications. The storming of this considerable stronghold required preparation. The 7th Armoured Division prevented all enemy escape to the north and northwest. For the assault there were available the 6th Australian Division, the 16th British Infantry Brigade, the 7th Battalion Royal Tank Regiment (twenty-six tanks), one machine-gun battalion, one field and one medium regiment of corps artillery.

To complete this episode of desert victory, I shall intrude upon the New Year. The attack opened early on January 3. One Australian battalion, covered by a strong artillery concentration, seized and held a lodgment in the western perimeter. Behind them engineers filled in the anti-tank ditch. Two Australian brigades carried on the attack and swept east and southeastward. They sang at that time a song they had brought with them from Australia which soon spread to Britain.

Have you heard of the wonderful wizard,
The wonderful Wizard of Oz,
And he is a wonderful wizard,
If ever a wizard there was.

This tune always reminds me of these buoyant days. By the afternoon of the 4th, British tanks – “Matildas,” as they were named – supported by infantry, entered Bardia, and by the 5th all the defenders had surrendered. Forty-five thousand prisoners and 462 guns were taken.

By next day, January 6, Tobruk in its turn had been isolated by the 7th Armoured Division, and on the 7th the leading Australian brigade stood before its eastern defences. Here the perimeter was twenty-seven miles long and similar to that of Bardia, except that the anti-tank ditch at many points was not deep enough to be effective. The garrison consisted of one complete infantry division, a corps headquarters, and a mass of remnants from the forward areas. It was not possible to launch the assault till January 21, when, under a strong barrage, another Australian brigade pierced the perimeter on its southern face. The two other brigades of the division entered the bridgehead thus formed, swinging off to left and right. By nightfall one-third of the defended area was in our hands, and early next morning all resistance ceased. The prisoners amounted to nearly 30,000, with 236 guns. The Desert Army had in five weeks advanced over two hundred miles of waterless and foodless space, had taken by assault two strongly fortified seaports with permanent air and marine defences, and captured 113,000 prisoners and over 700 guns. The great Italian army which had invaded and hoped to conquer Egypt scarcely existed as a military force, and only the imperious difficulties of distance and supplies delayed an indefinite British advance to the west.

Throughout these operations vigorous support was provided by the Fleet. Bardia and Tobruk were in turn heavily bombarded from the sea, and the Fleet Air Arm played its part in the battle on land. Above all, the Navy sustained the Army in its advance by handling about three thousand tons of supplies a day for the forward troops, besides maintaining an invaluable ferry service for personnel through the captured ports. Our victorious army was also greatly indebted for their success to the mastery which the Royal Air Force gained over the Regia Aeronautica. Although in inferior numbers, the aggressiveness of our pilots soon established a complete moral ascendancy that gave them the freedom of the air. Our attacks on enemy airfields reaped a rich reward, and hundreds of their aircraft were later found wrecked and abandoned.

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It is always interesting to see the reactions of the other side. The reader is already acquainted with Count Ciano, and should not be too hard on weak people who follow easily into wrong courses the temptations of affluence and office. Those who have successfully resisted all such temptations should form the tribunal. When Ciano faced the firing-squad he paid his debts to the full. Villains are made of a different texture. We must not however imagine that it is better to be a rare villain than a Ciano or one of the multitudinous potential Cianos.

We have the Ciano diaries, jotted down each day.
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The diary:

December
8: Nothing new.

December
9: Intrigues against Badoglio.

December 10: News of the attack on Sidi Barrani comes like a thunderbolt. At first it doesn’t seem serious, but subsequent telegrams from Graziani confirm that we have had a licking.

Ciano saw his father-in-law twice on this day and found him very calm. “He comments on the event with impersonal objectivity … being more preoccupied with Graziani’s prestige.” On the 11th it was known in the inner circle at Rome that four Italian divisions must be considered destroyed, and, even worse, Graziani dwelt upon the daring and design of the enemy rather than upon any counter-measures of his own. Mussolini maintained his composure. “He maintains that the many painful days through which we are living must be inevitable in the changing fortunes of every war.” If the British stopped at the frontier nothing serious would have happened. If, on the contrary, they reached Tobruk, “he thinks the situation would verge on the tragic.” In the evening the Duce learned that five divisions had been “pulverised” in two days. Evidently there was something wrong with this army!

On December 13 a “catastrophic telegram” came from Graziani. He contemplated retiring as far as Tripoli, “in order to keep the flag flying on that fortress at least.” He was indignant that he should have been forced into so hazardous an advance upon Egypt by Rommel’s undue influence on Mussolini. He complained that he had been forced into a struggle between “a flea and an elephant.” Apparently the flea had devoured a large portion of the elephant. On the 15th, Ciano was himself by no means sure that the English would be content to stop at the frontier, and records his opinion in that sense. Graziani, in default of military deeds, served up to his master bitter recriminations. Mussolini remarked, perhaps with some justice, “Here is another man with whom I cannot get angry, because I despise him.” He still hoped that the British advance would be stopped at least at Derna.

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I had kept the House daily informed of our progress in the desert, and on December 19, I made a long statement on the general war position. I described the improvement of our home defence and urged increasing vigilance. We must expect a continuance of the air attacks, and the organisation of shelters, the improvement of sanitation, and the endeavour to mitigate the extremely bad conditions under which people had to get their night’s rest was the first task of the Government at home. “The Air-Raid Precautions, the Home Office, and the Ministry of Health are just as much in the front line as are the armoured columns which are chasing the Italians about the Libyan Desert.”

I also thought it necessary to utter a warning about the sinkings in the Atlantic.

They still continue at a very disquieting level; not so bad as in the critical period of 1917, but still we must recognise the recrudescence of the danger, which a year ago we seemed to have mastered. We shall steadily increase, from now on, our resources in flotillas and other methods of defence, but we must regard
the keeping-open of this channel to the world against submarines and the long-distance aircraft, which are now attacking, as the first of all of our military tasks.

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I thought it the moment to address the Italian people by the broadcast, and on the night of December 23 I reminded them of the long friendship between Britain and Italy. Now we were at war.

… Our armies are tearing and will tear the African army to shreds and tatters…. What is all this about? What is all this for?

Italians, I will tell you the truth. It is all because of one man. One man and one man alone has ranged the Italian people in deadly struggle against the British Empire, and has deprived Italy of the sympathy and intimacy of the United States of America. That he is a great man I do not deny, but that after eighteen years of unbridled power he has led your country to the horrid verge of ruin can be denied by none. It is one man who, against the Crown and Royal Family of Italy, against the Pope and all the authority of the Vatican and of the Roman Catholic Church, against the wishes of the Italian people, who had no lust for this war, has arrayed the trustees and inheritors of ancient Rome upon the side of the ferocious pagan barbarians.

I read out the message I had sent to Mussolini on becoming Prime Minister and his reply of May 18, 1940, and I continued:

Where is it that the Duce has led his trusting people after eighteen years of dictatorial power? What hard choice is open to them now? It is to stand up to the battery of the whole British Empire on sea, in the air, and in Africa, and the vigorous counter-attack of the Greek nation; or, on the other hand, to call in Attila over the Brenner Pass with his hordes of ravenous soldiery and his gangs of Gestapo policemen to occupy, hold down, and protect the Italian people, for whom he and his Nazi followers cherish the most bitter and outspoken contempt that is on record between races.

There is where one man and one man only has led you; and there I leave this unfolding story until the day comes – as come it will – when the Italian nation will once more take a hand in shaping its own fortunes.

It is curious that on this same day Mussolini, speaking of the morale of the Italian Army, remarked to Ciano,
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“I must nevertheless recognise that the Italians of 1914 were better than these. It is not flattering for the regime, but that’s how it is.” And the next day, looking out of the window, “This snow and cold are very good. In this way our good-for-nothing Italians, this mediocre race, will be improved.” Such were the bitter and ungrateful reflections which the failure of the Italian Army in Libya and Albania had wrung from the heart of this dark figure after six months of aggressive war on what he had thought was the decadent British Empire.

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This was a time when events were so fluid that every possible stroke had to be studied beforehand, and thus the widest choice of action lay open to us. Our victory in Libya had already stimulated the revolt against Italy in Abyssinia. I was most anxious that the Emperor, Haile Selassie, should re-enter his country as he desired to do. The Foreign Office thought this step premature. I deferred to the judgment of the new Secretary of State, but the delay was short, and the Emperor, eager to run all risks, was soon back on his native soil.

(Action this day.) Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary and General Ismay, for C.O.S. Committee.

30.XII.40.

It would seem that every effort should be made to meet the Emperor of Ethiopia’s wishes. We have already, I understand, stopped our officers from entering the Galla country. It seems a pity to employ battalions of Ethiopian deserters, who might inflame the revolt, on mere road-making. We have sixty-four thousand troops in Kenya, where complete passivity reigns, so they surely could spare these road-makers. On the first point, I am strongly in favour of Haile Selassie entering Abyssinia. Whatever differences there may be between the various Abyssinian tribes, there can be no doubt that the return of the Emperor will be taken as a proof that the revolt has greatly increased, and will be linked up with the rumours of our victory in Libya.

I should be glad if a favourable answer could be drafted for me to send to the Emperor.

Prime Minister to Foreign Secretary.

31.XII.40.

One would think the Emperor would be the best judge of when to risk his life for his throne. In your Minute you speak of our being “stampeded into premature and possibly catastrophic action.” I do not wish at all to be “stampeded,” but I should like to know some of the reasons why nothing is to be done for some months yet by the Emperor. I should have hoped the telegram to him could have been more forthcoming, and the one to Sir Miles Lampson rather more positive. These are, however, only matters of emphasis, and if with your knowledge you are apprehensive of giving more clear guidance I do not press for alteration of the telegrams.

The question of what pledges we give to Haile Selassie about his restoration, and what are our ideas about the Italian position in East Africa, assuming that our operations prosper, as they may, is one which I was glad to hear from you this morning is receiving Foreign Office attention.

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Finally, I was most anxious to give Vichy its chance to profit by the favourable turn of events. There is no room in war for pique, spite, or rancour. The main objective must dominate all secondary causes of vexation. For some weeks past the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the General Staff of the War Office had been preparing an Expeditionary Force of six divisions, and making plans, if the French attitude should become favourable, to land in Morocco. We had the advantage of M. Dupuy, the Canadian representative at Vichy, as a channel of communication with Marshal Pétain. It was necessary to keep the United States informed; for I already sensed the President’s interest in Tangier, Casablanca, and indeed in the whole Atlantic seaboard of Africa, the German occupation of which by U-boat bases was held by the American military authorities to endanger the security of the United States. Accordingly, with the full approval of the Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet, the following message was sent by the hand of M. Dupuy to Vichy and notified by the Foreign Office to our Chargé d’Affaires in Washington.