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Authors: Sir Martin Gilbert
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Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, Belgium and Holland (and within a few weeks in Yugoslavia and Greece; and within three months throughout the western Soviet Union): “Will the many countries which are being held down by the German Army and Gestapo learn to like the Germans more or will they like them less as the years pass by?”
Churchill’s final question, which was in two parts, drew attention to the centrality of raw materials in war-making: “Is it true,” he asked, “that the production of steel in the United States during 1941 will be seventy-five million tons, and in Great Britain about twelve and a half, making a total of nearly ninety million tons? If Germany should happen to be defeated, as she was last time, will not the seven million tons steel production of Japan be inadequate for a single-handed war?”
Churchill ended his message to Matsuoka: “From the answer to these questions may spring the avoidance by Japan of a serious catastrophe, and a marked improvement in the relations between Japan and the two great sea Powers of the West.” To give added weight to his points, Churchill approved a British bombing raid on Berlin the night Matsuoka would be there. As a result, Matsuoka heard Joachim von Ribbentrop—his German opposite number—express confidence in the defeat of Britain while the two men and their staffs were sitting in an air raid shelter listening to the thud, thud, thud of British bombs above them. Five months later, after Matsuoka had been replaced as Foreign Minister, Churchill asked the British ambassador to Japan to show the new Foreign Minister his “warning letter,” commenting: “It will read better now than it did then.”
Another message that Churchill was keen to see sent, six months later, was also to Japan. His intention was yet again to try to deter Japan from entering the war. He wanted this particular letter to be sent by Roosevelt, and—a week before Pearl Harbor—gave Roosevelt his ideas of what the message should contain. Basing himself on the experience of Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936, when Britain and France declined to take a firm stand to force the Germans to remove their troops, Churchill urged Roosevelt to send a clear message to Japan of what the consequences of any Japanese aggression against American, British or Dutch possessions in the Far East would be.
“It seems to me,” Churchill wrote to the President, “that one important method remains unused in averting war between Japan and our two countries, namely, a plain declaration, secret or public, as may be thought best, that any further act of aggression by Japan”— which had already occupied French Indo-China—“will lead immediately to the gravest consequences. I realize your constitutional difficulties, but it would be tragic if Japan drifted into war by encroachment without having before her fairly and squarely the dire character of a further aggressive step. I beg you to consider whether, at the moment which you judge right, which may be very near, you should not say that ‘any further Japanese aggression would compel you to place the gravest issues before Congress,’ or words to that effect.” Churchill told the President that if he agreed to send such a message to Japan, in an effort to deter war, Britain “would of course make a similar declaration or share in a joint declaration, and in any case arrangements are being made to synchronize our action with yours.”
Churchill ended his letter to Roosevelt on a personal note. “Forgive me, my dear friend, for presuming to press such a course upon you, but I am convinced that it might make all the difference and prevent a melancholy extension of the war.” No such American message was sent. At that very moment, the Japanese fleet was already in its final stages of preparation for the torpedo bomb attack on Pearl Harbor and an amphibious landing against the British in Malaya. Churchill did not know these
Churchill’s final question, which was in two parts, drew attention to the centrality of raw materials in war-making: “Is it true,” he asked, “that the production of steel in the United States during 1941 will be seventy-five million tons, and in Great Britain about twelve and a half, making a total of nearly ninety million tons? If Germany should happen to be defeated, as she was last time, will not the seven million tons steel production of Japan be inadequate for a single-handed war?”
Churchill ended his message to Matsuoka: “From the answer to these questions may spring the avoidance by Japan of a serious catastrophe, and a marked improvement in the relations between Japan and the two great sea Powers of the West.” To give added weight to his points, Churchill approved a British bombing raid on Berlin the night Matsuoka would be there. As a result, Matsuoka heard Joachim von Ribbentrop—his German opposite number—express confidence in the defeat of Britain while the two men and their staffs were sitting in an air raid shelter listening to the thud, thud, thud of British bombs above them. Five months later, after Matsuoka had been replaced as Foreign Minister, Churchill asked the British ambassador to Japan to show the new Foreign Minister his “warning letter,” commenting: “It will read better now than it did then.”
Another message that Churchill was keen to see sent, six months later, was also to Japan. His intention was yet again to try to deter Japan from entering the war. He wanted this particular letter to be sent by Roosevelt, and—a week before Pearl Harbor—gave Roosevelt his ideas of what the message should contain. Basing himself on the experience of Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936, when Britain and France declined to take a firm stand to force the Germans to remove their troops, Churchill urged Roosevelt to send a clear message to Japan of what the consequences of any Japanese aggression against American, British or Dutch possessions in the Far East would be.
“It seems to me,” Churchill wrote to the President, “that one important method remains unused in averting war between Japan and our two countries, namely, a plain declaration, secret or public, as may be thought best, that any further act of aggression by Japan”— which had already occupied French Indo-China—“will lead immediately to the gravest consequences. I realize your constitutional difficulties, but it would be tragic if Japan drifted into war by encroachment without having before her fairly and squarely the dire character of a further aggressive step. I beg you to consider whether, at the moment which you judge right, which may be very near, you should not say that ‘any further Japanese aggression would compel you to place the gravest issues before Congress,’ or words to that effect.” Churchill told the President that if he agreed to send such a message to Japan, in an effort to deter war, Britain “would of course make a similar declaration or share in a joint declaration, and in any case arrangements are being made to synchronize our action with yours.”
Churchill ended his letter to Roosevelt on a personal note. “Forgive me, my dear friend, for presuming to press such a course upon you, but I am convinced that it might make all the difference and prevent a melancholy extension of the war.” No such American message was sent. At that very moment, the Japanese fleet was already in its final stages of preparation for the torpedo bomb attack on Pearl Harbor and an amphibious landing against the British in Malaya. Churchill did not know these
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