The sun was rising over OldDearPark in Richmond; its red face a clear sign of debauchery the night just ended. As the sun rose above the horizon its face turned pallid yellow reminding me of the look on my own face on the mornings-after-the-night-before.
But today was March 6th 2009. I was in euphoric mood. As I walked the tow path along the Thames in Richmond, peace and beauty surrounded me on all sides: thick frost covered the greyness of the gravel towpath and the already lush green grass along the river bank crunched under my boots; even the aeroplanes heading west towards Heathrow were fewer, quieter and somehow more friendly in the clear, pale blue skies and the crisp, cool air.
I was happy as a schoolboy; I wanted to jump for joy and to shout: I did it! I did it! I did it… I broke the barrier! Today I was seventy years old! I wanted to thumb my nose at the Great Reaper, at Providence… perhaps at the Creator himself! But I was also ready to say “thank you” and to show my appreciation for being still alive and able to gaze at the beauty of the world around me – if only I knew how. For in my short years of seventy I have forgotten how to pray; forgotten my childhood prayers; only phrases without a beginning or an end swam in my consciousness.
Was this moment a revelation? Was the Great Reaper already standing behind my shoulder mocking my joy? Perhaps… but this was no more than a fleeting thought; nothing could spoil this unique and wonderful moment. Only the cool breeze from the West gave a hint of change to come…
But the world will not remember 1939 for the reason of my birth.For, even as I was readying to enter this world, the cool breeze from the West had turned into gusts able to change the face of Europe. The “Gathering Storm” was on the horizon; Churchill saw it coming but Europe preferred to hide under an umbrella - Chamberlain’s umbrella of appeasement. A cloudburst and hail of steel and fire was soon to engulf the world.
And when I came, Europe was already a bubbling cauldron of rapacity. Hitler had absorbed Austria and the Sudetenland into the Greater German Reich and had his eye on Czechoslovakia; Poland had already taken Zaolzie.
The name of the Great Game played by France and Britain against Hitler’s Germany was appeasement while Hitler played brinkmanship. After all, France was sitting confidently on the impregnable Maginot line facing Germany while Britain believed in its own political skills honed in India and Africa. They believed in words – in Hitler’s words – and closed their eyes to his deeds.
And the Americans? Why, no one even mentioned them in Europe of 1939. After all, President Wilson had left his 14 commandments and the League of Nations to sort out Europe once and for all. France and Britain were to police German rearmament and resurgence – so why didn’t they do so? All that the USA wished for now was to live in splendid isolation some 4000 miles to the West, and they still had to mop up the detritus of the Great Crash of 1929. Anyway, why should the USA bother with the squabbling Europeans, with their colonialist and imperialist ambitions and their petty rivalries; why should they bother with the little Kings with big ambitions - of Italy, of Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, Belgium, Denmark, Greece - with the exception of Great Britain perhaps.
On 6th of March, the European Cauldron bubbled ominously. Little bubbles were coming up to the surface and burst with ambition and cockiness: Italy invaded Albania and now set its eyes on the Horn of Africa, Greece, and a foothold in the Adriatic; Hungary had its eye on Ruthenia; Romania would be content with a little part of Slovakia; Poland wanted a common border with Hungary… At the same time the British, French, Dutch, the Belgians and, of course Germany, wanted to hold on to their individual colonies wherever they were in the world.
So there were no bells of jubilation on my birth-day, only one ray of hope. Cardinal Pacelli had been elected Pope Pius XII. He knew Germany, and the Germans well - perhaps that is exactly why the Germans didn’t wish to see him in the Vatican. Could he calm Hitler’s ambition? In 2009 we know the answer.
By the time I could fully open my eyes for the first time on the 15th March, Hitler’s iron fist reached out of the cauldron and grabbed Bohemia and Moravia – the Czechs acquiesced without a fight. A day later, Hungary reached out and grabbed Ruthenia – Slovakia acquiesced without a fight. So Hitler grabbed the rump of Slovakia – not formally, but politically and militarily, and in the process so frightened Hungary that it acquiesced. Then he reached out and grabbed the port of Klaipeda – and Lithuania acquiesced.
Britain and France, and all Europe were utterly shocked and surprised by Hitler’s moves. For a moment Britain and France wondered whether they should perhaps add a dose of militarism into this Great Game, but appeasement is habit forming, and so it continued; only now the Vatican was also on the side of appeasement. And the USA? Its Ambassador to the UK at the time, Joe Kennedy, also advised appeasement. All Europe pushed Poland towards acquiescence to Hitler’s demands on the sovereignty of Poland and its nation. But Poland stood firm: it wouldn’t acquiesce, it would fight Hitler’s might, die if it had to.
But dark clouds were also gathering further east. One other player was watching on the sidelines – Stalin. Both sides wanted to engage him in the Great Game, but on their own side. And the enigmatic Stalin, the master of political cunning, duplicity and ruthlessness – bade his time.
Emboldened by his success in the brinkmanship game Hitler pushed his demands on Poland: expulsion of the League of Nations from Gdansk, Gdansk for the Reich, the Corridor to East Prussia, land along the Corridor to be ceded to Germany, and to send in his own SS troops to protect Polish borders! But unbelievably, this hated Polish nation had the audacity to refuse Hitler; to say NO! Not a step further! Over our dead bodies..! Hitler fumed. But pressure from the appeasers was high so Poland did not mobilize. The appeasers feared that mobilization could anger Hitler! That it could precipitate the invasion of Poland! And in the year 2009 we know what followed.
By the time I was able to sit in my pram, the wheels of the Nazi juggernaut had been set free. The appeasers had finally come to their senses and tried to weave a web of alliances to outsmart Hitler. They invited Stalin to join in anti Hitler coalition but to their shock and amazement on 23rd of August 1939, Ribbentrop and Molotov shook hands on a non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and in a separate, secret agreement they had already partitioned Poland between them! On 24/08/1939 Poland initiated partial mobilization; on 25/08 Great Britain and Poland signed a pact of mutual assistance in case of invasion by Germany; on 29/08 Poland started general mobilization. And still, France and Britain pushed Poland to acquiesce to Hitler’s demands!
Hitler heaved a sigh of relief and he heaved the Cauldron a little to the East - a miasma of malevolent German men and armaments poured across the Polish borders. Its name was blitzkrieg. And in the year 2009 we all know what followed... and how it all finally ended.
