MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IN my early equestrian days I was taught that it was on reaching the bottom of the hill that the horse stumbled. While actually engaged upon the steep descent the noble animal would proceed with skill and caution, watching with tense and staring eyes for those pitfalls which lurk on hill sides, placing each hoof as sedately as any mule upon the chosen area of safety, climbing down with front legs tentative and back legs braced. But on reaching the bottom of the hill this cautious conduct would suddenly be aban- doned ; with a snort of pleasure the horse would resume his normal methods of progress, and it was at that psychological stage that care-
lessness intervened and the accident occurred. I do not know whether there is any truth in this theory ; the habit I acquired of gathering the reins . tighter as the bottom of the hill was reached, of uttering phrases of warning to the horse, may have preserved me from any such experience ; but it is certainly true that with animals as with human beings there comes a slackening of will- power, a decline in carefulness, when once the immediate strain and danger are relaxed. Something of this sort is certainly happening to the temper of the British people in this April of 1944. There was a time in 1940 when mass invasion appeared a probability and when it was not in the least fanciful to picture the panzer divisions churning through the hedgerows of Kent or Essex. There was a time when our ships were being sunk all round us and when the spectre of starvation flung its shadow across the land. There was a time when it seemed possible that our whole industrial life might be dislocated by aerial bombardment and our communications reduced to tattered shreds. There was a time when our faith in victory was little more than a tense and deliberate form of belief and when in logic it was undeniable that Germany had conquered the world. And our temper during those grim phases was uniform, equable, cool. That, as Mr. Churchill so resonantly forecast, was our finest hour.
* * * * Those days have passed. Invasion, if it comes at all, will come only as an isolated act of disturbance, a spasmodic episode. We have regained, to all intents and purposes, the mastery of the seas. However much we may still have to suffer from the air, such bombardment cannot now prove decisive. The invincible armies of Germany have been captured in Africa and in Russia sent tumbling across eight hundred miles of mud. From the west have arrived armies larger than anything conceived ; from the east advance armies more victorious than any of us could have hoped ; the whole of Europe is in turmoil and the Mediterranean has' been cleared ; in the West and in the South our air forces are piling up towards supremacy ; and throughout Germany is creeping the cold fog of despair. Yet having almost reached our difficult journey's end, seeing before us the slope which leads from the black mountain towards the starred valleys of peace, our bodies ache with sudden weariness and we begin to unravel the taut hawser of our will:- " Aye ; the gods too, whom mortals deem so wise, Are nothing clearer than some winged dream."
* * * *
Our enemies, as is natural, observe these symptoms of weariness, these signs of carelessness, with relief. The only hope that is now left to them is the hope that at the moment of victory the United Nations may stumble on the path and that divergencies of past policy and temperament may develop into Present differences of intent. For their own purposes they exaggerate and exploit the slight symptoms of allied disunity that have appeared. They inter-- pret as signs of weakness or discouragement what are in fact indica- tions of confidence and health. Inevitably, of course, in this fifth year of war the accumulation of countless petty inconveniences must create a mood of irritability. As the vast opportunities of the future become clearer to us, our attention may be momentarily diverted by different theories as to how those opportunities should be grasped. The faith and loyalty which bound us close together in the hour of danger is apt to loosen when the danger has receded. It may well be that our present acceptance of aerial bombardment is less heroic than it was in 1940 or in 1941, when moral indigna- tion was added to our fortitude. It may well be that the varied conceptions of diplomatic procedure held in London, Washington ands Moscow may at times lead to complaints and recriminations which suggest a greater disunity than in fact exists. And it is certainly true that in this breathless pause before the thunder-storm, in these anxious days when we -cast our gaze to heaven and wait for the first heavy drops that proclaim the coming fury, a state of nervousness exists which tempts us at moments to behave strangely. Yet when the curtain goes up upon the last act of this tremendous drama we shall cease, all of us, to cough and. fidget in the galleries and stalls.
* * * *
It is unfortunate, none the less, that at this difficult moment the House of Commons should have indulged in a mood of care- lessness and that the young Tories (who form such a vivid and valuable element in our parliamentary life) should have followed the maenads to the hills. The pulse of the Mother of Parliaments, which, during the dark years, throbbed with so firm and slow a beat, became for a few hours last week a trifle intermittent. It was but a momentary flutter and blood pressure has now returned to normal. Nor do such flurried incidents, in fact, do harm ; on the one hand, they demonstrate that Parliament is composed of human beings intent on maintaining their individuality and their independence ; on the other hand, they furnish occasions to prove the essential unity of purpose with which the House of Commons is inspired. Dr. Goebbels, who is a shrewd man, has fully realised this fact ; he has not, upon his home service, exploited the incident which was provoked. He knows full well that although a section of the German people might be encouraged to hear that Mr. Chur- chill's Government had been defeated upon a clause of the Educa- tion Bill, the vast majority of Germans will reflect in envy upon how fortunate we are to possess this means of expression. Again and again have I observed how Dr. Goebbels refrains from in- forming his people of attacks and criticisms made against Mr. Churchill in the House of Commons, since he knows that for every German who might be cheered by the thought that the great war minister was being weakened there will be a thousand Germans who will murmur " If only we bad a similar opportunity to attack the administration for the failure of the medical services upon the Eastern front!" It is not correct, therefore, to assert that' the incidents of last week will damage either the prestige of Parliament or the position of Mr. Churchill abroad ; a contrary effect, as Dr. Goebbels knows, will be created. It is upon our own public opinion that the effects may be bad.
* * * *
It will be bad in this way. In the present war we have been exposed to dangers greater than any we have encountered since the Napoleonic wars. We have been preserved from these dangers, partly by the fortitude and energies of our own people, and partly by the fact that these great qualities were fused and enhanced by the personality of a single man. The faith, the courage and the genius which Mr. Churchill displayed during the black years not only raised the British people above themselves, but flung the thunderbolt of character, thus generated into daring and successful action. When the danger was imminent, we surrendered ourselves unreservedly to the leadership of this humane and pugnacious man : now that the danger is passing we begin to whine and whisper round his heels. Gratitude is not, perhaps, a political quality ; but ingratitude such as this makes the mind turn dark. It is untrue, it is unfair, to suggest that he has met these criticisms with anything but the utmost temperance and good humour. But were the British people, in the hour of victory, to forget what they owe to Winston Churchill, then, assuredly, we should lose the high repute that we have won.
Previous page
