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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 February 2009
By and large, the western world received the news of the Nazi-Soviet Pact (23 August 1939) with horror and a sick apprehension of what would come next. Quite different was the response of Guy Crouchback, the fictional hero of Evelyn Waugh's Sword of honour trilogy on the Second World War:
News that shook the politicians and young poets of a dozen capitals brought deep peace to one English heart [He had] expected his country to go to war in a panic, for the wrong reasons or for no reason at all, with the wrong allies, in pitiful weakness. But now, splendidly, everything had become clear. The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms. Whatever the outcome there was a place for him in that battle.
1 Waugh, Evelyn, Sword of honour, Boston-Toronto 1961, 14–15Google Scholar.
2 For the development of this hostility among the Catholics of England see Flint, James, ‘English Catholics and the Bolshevik revolution: the origins of Catholic anti-communism’, American Benedictine Review xlii (1991), 4–21Google Scholar.
3 Idem, ‘“Must God go Fascist?”: English Catholic opinion and the Spanish Civil War’, Church History lvi (1987), 364–74.
4 Moloney, Thomas, Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican: the role of Cardinal Hinsley, 1935–43, Tunbridge Wells 1985, 230Google Scholar.
5 Sower cxxv (10 1937), 190–1Google Scholar; cxxvi (Jan. 1938), 5–6.
6 The Tablet in early May acknowledged an opinion poll which reported that no less than 87% of the respondents had replied affirmatively to the question, ‘Are you in favour of a military alliance between Great Britain, France and Russia?’ To The Tablet such numbers made no difference, as the average citizen had nothing upon which to base an opinion except what was fed him by the media: ibid, clxxiii (6 May 1939), 571.
7 Catholic Herald, 24 Mar. 1939, 8.
8 Colosseum v (04–06 1939), 86–7Google Scholar. The July-Sept, issue, however, translated and printed two French articles offering greater or lesser approbation to an alliance with the Soviet Union.
9 Catholic Herald, 24 Mar. 1939, 6.
10 Ibid. 31 Mar. 1939, 8.
11 Universe, 31 Mar. 1939, 12.
12 Ibid. 14 Apr. 1939, 12.
13 Catholic Times lxxx (21 04 1939), 1Google Scholar.
14 Tablet clxxiii (22 04 1939), 508Google Scholar.
15 Ibid. 525–6.
16 Catholic Herald, 28 Apr. 1939, 8.
17 Catholic Times lxxx (28 04 1939), 14Google Scholar; (5 May 1939), 14; (12 May 1939), 14.
18 Ibid, lxxx (28 Apr. 1939), 12.
19 Month clxxiii (05 1939), 392–3Google Scholar. Injune the journal remarked ominously that many Catholics felt that a Soviet alliance ‘might raise grievous problems for themselves were they called upon to fight in such company’: ibid, clxxiii (June 1939), 487.
20 Universe, 28 Apr. 1939, 12. Kevin Hayes published an article in the American Jesuit journal, America, entitled ‘Uneasy England holds to Chamberlain: how the average English Catholic views the scene’, in which, while critical of the drift towards an unacceptable pact, he expressed gratitude that, in Chamberlain and Halifax, the nation was blessed with two statesmen attempting to govern by principles, Christian: America lxi (27 05 1939), 148–9Google Scholar.
21 Hinsley to Halifax, 1 May 1939, in Moloney, Thomas, Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican, 128Google Scholar.
22 Anthony Eden expressed concern about this time that Halifax actually regarded Soviet Russia as AntiChrist. A leading Foreign Office official assured him this was not so, but admitted the Foreign Secretary's definite mistrust of the regime, Moscow: The diplomatic diaries of Oliver Harvey, 1937–1940, ed. Harvey, John, London 1970Google Scholar, entry for 16 May 1939 at p. 290.
23 Halifax to Hinsley, 2 May 1939, in Moloney, , Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican, 129Google Scholar.
24 Conclusions of meetings of the Cabinet, 3 May 1939, PRO, CAB 23/99/129. Crown copyright material in the PRO is reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
25 Feiling, Keith, The life of Neville Chamberlain, London 1970, 403CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 The diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, O.M., 1938–1345, ed. Dilks, David, New York 1971, entry for 20 May 1939 at p. 182Google Scholar. Cadogan was the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
27 Feiling, , Chamberlain, 408Google Scholar.
28 Conclusions of meetings of the Cabinet, 24 May 1939, PRO, CAB 23/99/277.
29 Actes el documents du Saint Siege relatifs a la seconde guerre mondiale, Vatican 1965–, i. 160Google Scholar.
30 Tablet clxxiii (29 04 1939) 556–7Google Scholar. Lunn himself had been strongly sympathetic to the Nationalist cause in Spain, writing a series of articles on ‘The Unpopular Front’ in The Tablet during April–May 1937.
31 Ibid, clxxiii (6 May 1939), 591. The venerable Dublin Review, always published in London notwithstanding its name, printed an extended article by Dingle entitled ‘The European riddle’. There he admitted the natural repugnance which most in Great Britain would feel over ‘attempting to salvage Christian civilization in alliance with the only power in the world which is officially atheist’. But he went on to reiterate that ‘a doctrinal objection to an alliance with the Soviet Union is untenable’: ibid ccv (July 1939), 68.
32 Tablet clxxiii (20 05 1939), 661Google Scholar.
33 Ibid, clxxiii (13 May 1939), 621.
34 Ibid, clxxiii (20 May 1939), 661.
35 Ibid, clxxiii (27 May 1939), 690.
36 Ibid, clxxiii (7 June 1939), 722.
37 Ibid, clxxiii (24 June 1939), 822.
38 Catholic Times lxxx (26 05 1939), 12Google Scholar.
39 He had written to the Tablet that, among other problems, a pact with Russia ‘would weaken our moral case against Germany’ and create a situation where the ‘democracies would be allied with a dictatorship more hostile to religion than Nazi Germany’: ibid, clxxiii (13 May 1939), 621.
40 Catholic Times lxxx (28 07 1939), 13Google Scholar.
41 Ibid.
42 Blackfriars xx (05 1939), 452–3Google Scholar.
43 Sower cxxxii (05–09 1939), 123–4Google Scholar. ‘Soldiers of the Crescent’ refers to the Moorish troops from north Africa who constituted a significant portion of the Spanish Nationalist armies, especially in the early stages of the civil war.
44 Catholic Worker xlvii (04 1939), 8Google Scholar.
45 Ibid, xlix (June 1939), 4.
46 Catholic Herald, 23 June 1939, 6.
47 Ibid. 12 May 1939, 8. A writer in the American Catholic journal, Commonweal, reached a similar conclusion about the dilemma of European Catholics in the eventuality of an alliance with the Soviets: ‘There is no answer yet available from a moral authority which has reckoned with all the factors involved’: Lynd, Albert, ‘Russia and the “crisis”’, Commonweal xxx (23 06 1939), 235Google Scholar.
48 Blackfriars xx (06 1939), 453–4Google Scholar - The reference was to the 1937 papal encyclical on Communism, Divini redemptoris, 58.
49 By way of contrast, A, Bishop John. Duffy of Buffalo stated his public opposition to any alliance with Russia, for fear that a foreign war would turn the United States into a ‘dictatorship of the left’: America lx (6 05 1939), 84Google Scholar.
50 Tablet clxxiii (20 05 1939), 636Google Scholar.
51 Ibid, clxxiii (24 June 1939), 804.
52 Universe, 7 July 1939, 14.
53 Catholic Herald, 28 Apr. 1939, 8.
54 Universe, 26 May 1939, 8.
55 Catholic Times lxxx (14 04 1939), 12Google Scholar.
56 Sower cxxxii (07–09 1939), 123Google Scholar.
57 Tablet clxxiii (27 05 1939), 669Google Scholar.
58 Catholic Herald, 4 Aug. 1939, 6.
59 Documents of British foreign policy, London 1946–, 3rd ser. vii. 153Google Scholar.
60 Catholic Herald, i Sept. 1939, 6.
61 Month clxxiv (09 1939), 200Google Scholar.
62 Catholic Times lxxx (25 07 1939), 10Google Scholar.
63 Universe, 25 Aug. 1939, 12.
64 Catholic Herald, 25 Aug. 1939, 6.
65 Catholic Worker Hi (Sept. 1939), 1.
66 Universe, 25 Aug. 1939, 12.
67 Tablet clxxiv (26 07 1939), 265Google Scholar.
68 Universe, 1 Sept. 1939, 10.
69 Ibid. 12.
70 Ibid. 8 Sept. 1939, 10.
71 Catholic Times lxxx (8 09 1939), 8Google Scholar.
72 Macdonald, Gregory, ‘The cold hell of the north’, Catholic Times lxxx (8 09 1939), 7Google Scholar.
73 Tablet clxxiv (16 09 1939), 365Google Scholar.
74 Month clxxiv (10 1939), 291Google Scholar. Cardinal Hinsley would later speak of Poland having been ‘crucified between two thieves’: Moloney, , Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican, 172Google Scholar.
75 Month clxxiv (10 1939), 289–90Google Scholar. Commonweal printed an article by Jacques Maritain ‘To my American friends’, in which the philosopher looked at the same sad situation in a positive light. St Joan of Arc had prophesied that one day England and France would unite in a great enterprise. So they had in 1914, and now again in 1939, but this time, said Maritain, ‘the apocalyptic aspect has become manifest’. With the powers of evil so clearly on one side, ‘a single homicidal force’, and the powers of good on the other, Maritain did not hesitate to claim that ‘The salvation of Europe has begun’: Commonweal xxx (13 10 1939) 551–2Google Scholar.
76 Tablet clxxiv (30 09 1939), 414Google Scholar. Belloc, hating Germanic militarism and Russian Bolshevism, had long regarded the treatment of Catholic Poland as the test of whether his concept of Christendom could survive in the modern world: Wilson, A. N., Hilaire Belloc, New York 1984, 228–9Google Scholar.
77 Universe, 29 Sept. 1939, 10.
78 Catholic Worker liii (10 1939), 4Google Scholar.
79 Universe, 29 Sept. 1939, 10.
80 Catholic Herald, 29 Sept. 1939, 6.
81 Month clxxiv (11 1939), 373Google Scholar.
82 Moloney, , Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican, 135Google Scholar. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Foreign Office, with an eye to Spanish and Latin American opinion, desired the cardinal to make a statement rejecting Hitler's claim to be fighting for European civilisation. Hinsley complied, but he insisted upon referring to the papal condemnation of Communism along with that of National Socialism: ibid.–7.
83 Dublin Review ccvii (07 1940), 2–3Google Scholar.
84 On 4 May, Halifax had listed for Lord Camrose, editor of the Daily Telegraph, seven obstacles to alliance with Russia. Six concerned foreign nations; the other referred to ‘objections in this country, primarily from Roman Catholics’: Gilbert, Martin, Winston S. Churchill, V: 1922–1939, the prophet of truth, Boston 1977, 1068Google Scholar.
85 Although the French ambassador to London, trying to justify to his Soviet counterpart the deliberate pace of the British government in approaching an alliance, referred in a passing manner to ‘des résistances qui se manifestent dans certain secteurs de l'opinion publique’, his own evaluation of British public opinion ignored the fulminations of the Catholic press and spoke instead of a ‘quasi-unanimité’ of the people in favour of a Russian alliance: Corbin, Charles to Bonnet, Georges, 18, 19 05 1939, in Documents diplomatiques franfais 1932–1939, Paris 1963–, 2nd ser. xvi. 427, 455–7Google Scholar.
86 America lx (1 04 1939), 603Google Scholar. In the same issue, an article (pp. 605–6) by Thomas Davitt, ‘Can we ally with Russia in case of war?’ argued that a Soviet alliance would justify Catholic refusal to submit to conscription.
87 Waugh, , Sword of honour, 788Google Scholar.