The Private Papers of Hore-Belisha, ed. J.S. Munney

[p022] The Private Papers of Hore-Belisha, Collins. 30s. by R. J. Minney. In 1937 Hore-Belisha stepped out of his seat at the Ministry of Trans- port, where he had achieved much fame for initiating pedestrian cross- ings, to a much more serious post: that of Secretary of State for War. Mr. Minney, Belisha’s biographer, seeks to restore Belisha’s name to the public. In particular, Minney sets out to show that Belisha played a great part in improving the Armed Forces from 1937 to 1940 so that Britain could be prepared for war.

[p023] Belisha’s diary reveals quite clearly that in spite of all the manoeuvres of Chamberlain with Hitler, ‘the Munich appeasement policy’, etc., the tuling class of this country—and Belisha representing them — were consciously preparing for a second world war. Belisha took to his new post en- thusiastically. He really felt he was the man destined to prepare the country for war. He looked at the Army and saw (in his own words) the necessity for ‘the elimination of the 1914-18 mentality which consists in regarding the whole role for which the army is being prepared as a repetition of its task in the last war... .” Belisha set about improving the conditions of both soldiers and officers. Pay of regulars was in- creased, barracks were improved. food was made more edible, higher pensions were offered to long-serving soldiers and officers: all’ the reforms which have since been called by the Fleet Street scribes ‘the democratiza- tion of the army’. That this was all done with the sole aim of defending British im- perialist possessions escapes Mr. Minney. who seeks to put Belisha in the light of a great British patriot— ‘defending Democracy and Good against the evils of Hitler’, Belisha also set about the vital task of increased mechanization of the armed forces. Right from the beginning he met opposition from the Army Brass. They did not like his changes. They felt that his measures for improving conditions were ‘mollycoddling the soldiers’. Belisha got Chamberlain, the premier, to agree to the sacking of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Deverell, and the Adjutant- General, Knox, by forcing their resignations. Lord Gort, a younger man, was made the new CIGS. The Army Council—the heads of the Imperialist Army—chafed under this blatant interference by the Cabinet in their personnel and never forgot the man primarily responsible. In April, 1939, Belisha forced through peace-time conscription. The war clouds were gathering. This measure was only _ half- heartedly opposed by the Labour Party. It pleased the big capitalists very much. Lord Nuffield, the motor magnate, met Belisha on the 26th May. 1939, and Belisha records: LABOUR REVIE W--October-November, 1960 ‘We walked round the garden and Nuffield told me how tremendously impressed he was by the fine spirit of the nation in the way it had ac- cepted conscription and he wanted to make a contribution as a recognition. fn the most modest and casual way he said he was prepared to give £1,500,000._ He might have been giving away a sixpence. . . . And so Minney takes us via Belisha’s diary to the outbreak of war and to the final forcing of resig- nation on Belisha in the same way as in 1937 he had forced Deverell’s resignation. Ostensibly, it was over a dispute between Belisha and certain army high-ups concerning the strength of pill-box defences in France—or rather a misunderstanding about the de- Fences. But Belisha suffered from an enormous egotism: his belief in his own destiny made him blind to the rumblings occurring under his very nose. Even Minney, who is a great hero-worshipper of Belisha, is obliged fo say: ‘It is surprising that the hostile atmosphere at GHQ to which the Prime Minister referred ‘and of which men like Westrop and others were fully aware, should not have been sensed by Hore-Belisha during either of his two visits to France, for he made no note of it in his diary’. On January 5, 1940, Belisha te- signed after being told by Chamber- lain that the army leaders did not want him and that he thought Belisha’s resignation was in the ‘best interests of the nation’. Belisha te- fused an alternative post at the Board of Trade. Loyal to the capital- ist class, his speech in the Commons did not reveal the real reasons for the resignation. However, the Even- ing Standard cartoon by Low, de- picted a party of Colonel Blimps throwing swords at Belisha’s picture and saying: ‘Gad, Sir—our greatest victory of the war’. H. FINCH. For the Charter