lines. The Executive claimed that such an action ‘might conceivably result not only in holding up [Italy’s] coal deliveries but also military supplies or even, in certain circumstances, offensives’. It would shake the foundations of the treaty between Italy and the Reich. Dalton was delighted. ‘So act!’ he told his staff. ‘I will gladly snap for this!’ 3
The plan was duly tabled with the Foreign Office and MI6. Both gave somewhat qualified support. MI6 regarded Switzerland as its own backyard and the FO pointed out that the operation might perhaps compromise Anglo-Swiss relations. The Swiss were protective of their tunnels, even if their railway had been an English idea. Moreover, both agencies had a general embargo on operations that might endanger Swiss neutrality. On 8 October 1940 it was nevertheless agreed that an SOE officer, John ‘Jock’ McCaffery, should be sent to reconnoitre.
McCaffery was a thirty-eight-year-old Glaswegian of Irish extraction. A Catholic who trained for the priesthood inRome and subsequently settled in Italy, he married, retrained as a teacher and ultimately found himself head of the British Council in the Ligurian port of Genoa. The Council peddled British culture and acted as a cover for intelligence operations. McCaffery, with his grasp of the intricacies of central European politics, was briefed to explore the practicality of the railway scheme, source explosives, and recruit Swiss railway workers. This took time. It was spring 1941 before the Scot had been sent to Switzerland, discovered quite how much dynamite would be needed, quite how closely the Swiss policed the tunnels, and quite how reluctant were the railway workers to blow up their own country’s infrastructure. By then the mood in London had also changed. The pressure on Italy had briefly eased because of Hitler’s momentous decision to invade the Balkans, the move that buttressed the Italian forces in Greece. The chance of detaching Mussolini’s state from the Axis had temporarily slipped away. At the same time, over the winter MI6 agents in Switzerland had unearthed a rich vein of intelligence. This London was loath to lose. In these circumstances the FO and MI6 confirmed that no exception was to be made to the general policy about compromising Swiss neutrality. Dalton stopped snapping.
Yet in other ways the passage of time played into the hands of the SOE. By the summer of 1941, the Executive had settled into its secret headquarters at 64 Baker Street in London’s West End, parachuted its first agents into France, and established a modus operandi. ‘SOE’s objects’, related its historian M. R. D. Foot, ‘included discovering where these outbursts [of resistance] were, encouraging them when they were feeble, arming their members as they grew, and coaxing them when they were strong into the channels of greatest common advantage to the allies.’ 4 Likewise, the more enterprising, courageous and resourceful inhabitants of the occupied countries had familiarised themselves with the Nazis and their agents and determined to get rid of them.
In the Alps, principal amongst the naysayers were the French in the west, and in the east the patriots and the partisans of Yugoslavia.
2
In France, as in all the occupied countries, resistance began in the form of virtually spontaneous and very largely incidental activity; only later did it coalesce into a unified, national resistance ‘movement’ of any substance.
Its figurehead was of course General de Gaulle. Born in Lille in French Flanders in 1890, Charles de Gaulle was an officer who had distinguished himself in the First World War in the trenches, in the thirties as an exponent of motorised warfare, and in combat once again during the brief period of fighting before the Fall of France in June 1940. In those torrid weeks he was promoted first to brigadier general, on 5 June 1940 to under-secretary of state for war. A fervent patriot, he was horrified by
The plan was duly tabled with the Foreign Office and MI6. Both gave somewhat qualified support. MI6 regarded Switzerland as its own backyard and the FO pointed out that the operation might perhaps compromise Anglo-Swiss relations. The Swiss were protective of their tunnels, even if their railway had been an English idea. Moreover, both agencies had a general embargo on operations that might endanger Swiss neutrality. On 8 October 1940 it was nevertheless agreed that an SOE officer, John ‘Jock’ McCaffery, should be sent to reconnoitre.
McCaffery was a thirty-eight-year-old Glaswegian of Irish extraction. A Catholic who trained for the priesthood inRome and subsequently settled in Italy, he married, retrained as a teacher and ultimately found himself head of the British Council in the Ligurian port of Genoa. The Council peddled British culture and acted as a cover for intelligence operations. McCaffery, with his grasp of the intricacies of central European politics, was briefed to explore the practicality of the railway scheme, source explosives, and recruit Swiss railway workers. This took time. It was spring 1941 before the Scot had been sent to Switzerland, discovered quite how much dynamite would be needed, quite how closely the Swiss policed the tunnels, and quite how reluctant were the railway workers to blow up their own country’s infrastructure. By then the mood in London had also changed. The pressure on Italy had briefly eased because of Hitler’s momentous decision to invade the Balkans, the move that buttressed the Italian forces in Greece. The chance of detaching Mussolini’s state from the Axis had temporarily slipped away. At the same time, over the winter MI6 agents in Switzerland had unearthed a rich vein of intelligence. This London was loath to lose. In these circumstances the FO and MI6 confirmed that no exception was to be made to the general policy about compromising Swiss neutrality. Dalton stopped snapping.
Yet in other ways the passage of time played into the hands of the SOE. By the summer of 1941, the Executive had settled into its secret headquarters at 64 Baker Street in London’s West End, parachuted its first agents into France, and established a modus operandi. ‘SOE’s objects’, related its historian M. R. D. Foot, ‘included discovering where these outbursts [of resistance] were, encouraging them when they were feeble, arming their members as they grew, and coaxing them when they were strong into the channels of greatest common advantage to the allies.’ 4 Likewise, the more enterprising, courageous and resourceful inhabitants of the occupied countries had familiarised themselves with the Nazis and their agents and determined to get rid of them.
In the Alps, principal amongst the naysayers were the French in the west, and in the east the patriots and the partisans of Yugoslavia.
2
In France, as in all the occupied countries, resistance began in the form of virtually spontaneous and very largely incidental activity; only later did it coalesce into a unified, national resistance ‘movement’ of any substance.
Its figurehead was of course General de Gaulle. Born in Lille in French Flanders in 1890, Charles de Gaulle was an officer who had distinguished himself in the First World War in the trenches, in the thirties as an exponent of motorised warfare, and in combat once again during the brief period of fighting before the Fall of France in June 1940. In those torrid weeks he was promoted first to brigadier general, on 5 June 1940 to under-secretary of state for war. A fervent patriot, he was horrified by
Similar Books
