Eighty Years Ago This Week

    Once again fate had intervened on Churchill’s side. Just as the final illness and death of Neville Chamberlain had allowed Churchill to consolidate his hold on political power, so the death of Lord Lothian, the British ambassador to the US, opened an opportunity for him to dismantle the last serious relics of the old regime that had held him back from power during the long miserable years of appeasement. The first piece of the jigsaw was to replace Lothian. Clearly the Washington embassy was the most critical of all Britain’s representations abroad and it was going to take an exceptional figure to fill the job. Churchill’s first choice was the former prime minister David Lloyd George but he pleaded ill-health; more likely Lloyd George’s dwindling hopes of being installed as a defeatist leader as part of a compromise peace with the Nazis was a more powerful factor. Churchill’s next choice was the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, the most conspicuous holdover from Chamberlain’s premie

Santa will not be bringing a blog post tomorrow so good (and not-so-good) children will have to wait for the weekend.    Merry Christmas to All

  The affairs of Vichy France took another sudden and mysterious turn. Prime minister Pierre Laval, who had been instrumental a few weeks before in arranging the meeting between Marshal Petain and Adolf Hitler, was dismissed and briefly imprisoned.   No explanation was ever given for either move, but contemporaries even suspected Laval of having plotted a coup against Petain. Whatever the immediate chain of events might have been, it is likely that the Marshal decided that Laval was just too pro-German. He was rapidly released at the request of the German ambassador, Otto Abetz, who had a very close relationship with Laval. Laval moved to Paris but continued to be a major figure in the world off Vichy. He was replaced as prime minister by Pierre-Etienne Flandin, an otherwise unremarkable politician of the Third Republic, with one claim to fame. After the Munich agreement of 1938 he had sent a personal telegram of congratulations to Hitler, who had replied welcoming the prospect of “col

  The continuing success of the Greek advance into Albania provoked a brief fit of nerves in Italy’s leadership. Mussolini himself contemplated seeking a truce but he was deterred by the more committed political Fascists, who spotted an opportunity to turn the military disaster of the Greek campaign to their advantage and to purge the armed forces of what they saw as disloyal conservatives. Italy’s professional military leaders paid the price for their lack of zeal; some had even showed reservations about the invasion of Greece. The army chief of staff, Badoglio the conqueror of Ethiopia, was sacked ; he had hoped that the Italian incursion would be limited to the seizure of the Greek port of Epirus and pessimistic on the full invasion on which Mussolini insisted. Roberto Farinacci, one of the most strident voices of the movement, had assailed Badoglio’s performance in his newspaper, Il Regime Fascista .  General de Vecchi, Governor of the Dodecanese, and one of the founders of the F

 https://tinyurl.com/y4mqtg2l  Catch this excellent podcast about the abdication from the History Channel which hosts me as their expert on the crisis

      The Italian navy attempted to repeat its success of mid November in forcing back a heavily escorted British convoy sent to reinforce Malta. This time the Royal Navy could call on far greater resources including Force H from Gibraltar under Admiral Somerville, including the old battleship HMS Ramillies , battlecruiser HMS Renown and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal . The Italian force was comparable in size, including the battleship Vittorio   Veneto ; shore-based aircraft evened out presence of the British carrier.   The resulting engagement was the inconclusive Battle of Cape Spartivento. The Italians were under orders to avoid fighting a powerful enemy force and withdrew when the size of the odds became apparent. No ships were sunk but one cruiser on each side was badly damaged. Churchill was furious that there had not been a more conclusive engagement and suspected Somerville of lack of aggression, partly because of his reluctance to attack the French fleet at Mers el-Kebir