The Gathering Storm, Winston Churchill

Aunque la manera más objetiva de conocer la Historia es a través de las obras de los estudiosos de la materia, gente que ha contrastado documentos, que ha entrevistado a testigos y participantes, ha organizado toda esa información y finalmente ha derivado unas conclusiones, para poder entender la Historia es además necesario saber cómo pensaban sus actores principales. Y para ello nada mejor que leer las propias memorias de cada uno de ellos. En esta ocasión he empezado a leer la colección de seis volúmenes que Winston Churchill dedica a ofrecer su punto de vista del mayor conflicto armado de la historia de la humanidad.

El primero de estos seis tomos, The Gathering Storm, recoge los acontecimientos desde el final de la Primera Guerra Mundial hasta los sucesos del 10 de mayo de 1940, fecha en que el rey Jorge VI otorga los poderes de Primer Ministro a Churchill. No es para nada una lectura ligera, más bien todo lo contrario. Se trata de una exhaustiva reconstrucción de todo lo que sucedió durante ese intervalo de tiempo, una recopilación de correspondencias, discursos y debates que fueron teniendo lugar, siempre desde el punto de vista de Churchill, que durante los compases iniciales de la guerra ocupó el cargo de Primer Lord del Almirantazgo. Esto provoca que la información referente a los movimientos, comunicaciones y alternativas militares de la Marina sea extremadamente detallada (incluídas un par de reconstrucciones de batallas navales) mientras que otros campos, como los movimientos del Ejército de Tierra en el escenario de la guerra en Noruega, sean mencionados bastante más de pasada.

Pero principalmente, y por encima de todo, The Gathering Storm es un enorme os lo dije de 800 páginas. Es innegable que Winston Churchill identificó desde los primeros compases la amenaza que suponía Alemania bajo el mandato de Hitler y realizó un gran esfuerzo por hacer que esas opiniones calasen en la Cámara de los Lores, que paso a paso iba desaprovechando las oportunidades (como recogía el texto que copié ya por aquí) que surgían de neutralizar la amenaza nazi sin grandes derramamientos de sangre. Por supuesto Churchill hace muchas afirmaciones que es necesario coger con pinzas, ya que no se trata de un texto imparcial. Además, debido a los años en que está escrito, la cantidad de material clasificado de todos los frentes era tan extensa que muchos de los datos a los que tienen hoy acceso los historiadores eran por aquel entonces totalmente inaccesibles. 

Sin embargo el valor de The Gathering Storm para entender la sucesión de acontecimientos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y la forma de pensar de uno de sus principales actores es innegable. No comparto el posicionamiento político de Churchill, me desagradó mucho el trozo de capítulo que dedica a la Guerra Civil Española (en la cual se posicionaba a título personal a favor del bando Nacional porque el Republicano era para él una banda de asesinos comunistas y anarquistas que trataban de sembrar el caos en el país mientras que Franco pretendía restablecer la normalidad) pero reconozco el genio de este hombre. ¡Yo quiero un político como él en el gobierno!

The Gathering Storm

In this sad tale of wrong judgments formed by well-meaning and capable people we now reach our climax. Thath we should all have come to this pass makes those responsible, however honourable their motives, blameworthy before history. Look back and see what we had successively accepted or thrown away: a Germany disarmed by solemn treaty; a Germany rearmed in violation of a solemn treaty; air superiority or even air parity cast away; the Rhineland forcibly occupied and the Siegfried Line built or building; the Berlin-Rome Axis established; Austria devoured and digested by the Reich; Czechoslovakia deserted and ruined by the Munich Pact; its fortress line in German hands; its mighty arsenal of Skoda henceforward making munitions for the German armies; President Roosevelt’s effort to stabilise or bring to a head the European situation by the intervention of the United States waved aside with one hand, and Soviet Russia’s undoubted willingness to join the Western Powers and go all lengths to save Czechoslovakia ignored on the other; the services of thirty-five Czech divisions against the still unripened German Army cast away, when Great Britain could herself supply only two to strengthen the front in France – all gone with the wind.

And now, when every one of these aids and advantages has been squandered and thrown away, Great Britain advances, leading France by the hand, to guarantee the integrity of Poland – of that very Poland which with hyena appetite had only six months before joined in the pillage and destruction of the Czechoslovak State. There was sense in fighting for Czechoslovakia in 1938 when the German Army could scarcely put half a dozen trained divisions on the Western Front, when the French with nearly sixty or seventy divisions could most certainly have rolled forward across the Rhine or into the Ruhr. But this had been judged unreasonable, rash, below the level of modern intellectual thought and morality. Yet now at last the two Western Democracies declared themselves ready to stake their lives upon the territorial integrity of Poland. History, which we are told is mainly the record of the crimes, follies, and miseries of mankind, may be scoured and ransacked to find a parallel to this sudden and complete reversal of five or six years’ policy of easy-going placatory appeasement, and its transformation almost overnight into a readiness to accept an obviously imminent war on far worse conditions and on the greatest scale.

Moreover, how could we protect Poland and make good our guarantee? Only by declaring war upon Germany and attacking a stronger Western Wall and a more powerful German Army than those from which we had recoiled in September 1938. Here is a line of milestones to disaster. Here is a catalogue of surrenders, at first when all was easy and later when things were harder, to the ever-growing German power. But now at last was the end of British and French submission. Here was decision at last, taken at the worst possible moment and on the least satisfactory ground, which must surely lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of people. Here was the righteous cause deliberately and with a refinement of inverted artistry committed to mortal battle after its assets and advantages had been so improvidently squandered. Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worst case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

The Gathering Storm [pags. 311-312] - Winston Churchill