1. How can you characterize George VI?

2. What were his occupations before he became king?

3. How did he and the Royal Family behave during ww II?

IN DECEMBER 1936, for the second time in two generations, a younger son succeeded to the British throne. But there was little resemblance between the situations of the two Georges; whereas King George V had 18 years of preparation for his future role, his son King George VI had kingship thrust upon him. Yet, in marked contrast to his abdicated elder brother, he was inspired by a strong sense of duty, and he had the support and encouragement of an exceptional consort.

Albert Frederick Arthur George, as he was christened, was born on 14 December 1895, at Sandringham. He had a traumatic childhood; not only did he suffer from gastric illnesses and weak legs, for which he was made to wear splints, but he stuttered badly, possibly as a result of his father's insistence that he should be forced to write with his right hand, though naturally left-handed. At the naval training colleges of Osborne and Dartmouth he showed little academic ability; he proved a courageous and conscientious young officer, however, and in 1916 he took part in the Battle of Jutland, as a sub-lieutenant. In 1917 his poor health obliged him to leave the navy, and he served in the Royal Naval Air Service for a spell before joining the newly-created Royal Air Force and qualifying as a pilot.

After a year at Trinity College, Cambridge, he began to play a part in public life. 'Bertie', as he was known to his family, was always overshadowed by his handsome, extrovert brother David, the heir to the throne, yet he acquired his own popularity among his father's subjects. As Duke of York he showed an interest in welfare projects and industrial conditions, and he set up the Duke of York's camps, which aimed to 'bring the different social classes together for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping and fireside singsongs. Bui the Duke's role in life seemed to take on a new meaning when he married a daughter of the Earl of Strathmore, lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, in April 1923 in Westminster Abbey.

The new Duchess of York won all hearts, from the severe old king's downwards. Her warm, outgoing personality – the result of a happy and informal childhood in Scotland – was allied to great strength of character, which enabled her to help her more diffident husband to overcome many of his problems, most notably the stammer which had always dogged him, making public speaking of any kind an ordeal. The Duchess helped to bring her husband closer to King George V and Queen Mary; and the family bonds were sealed by the birth of the Duke and Duchess's two children, the Princess Elizabeth in 1926 and the Princess Margaret Rose in 1930.

In 1936 the tranquillity of their family life was disrupted for ever by the abdication of Edward VIII. The Duke of York told his cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, 'This is absolutely terrible ... I'm quite unprepared for it', but added, 'I will do my best to clear up the inevitable mess'. He was crowned on the day set for his brother's coronation, 12 May 1937, and to emphasise the continuity of the royal line, took the name, not of Albert I, but of George VI.

George VI, like many of his subjects, at first shared Neville Chamberlain's hopes that war with Germany might be avoided. But as it became clear that there could be no peaceful settlement, the King dedicated himself to the war effort, and in the spring of 1939 he and Queen Elizabeth went on an official visit to the United States, to ensure American friendship in the coming conflict.

'Today we are at war again, and I am no longer a midshipman in the Royal Navy’, the King wrote in his diary on 3 September 1939. But though he could not take part in the action, as he had in the First World War, at Jutland, he had a still more valuable role to play. He and the Queen worked tirelessly and bravely: they stayed in London despite the Blitz, and when Buckingham Palace was bombed, the Queen commented cheerfully that she was glad, as 'it makes me feel I can look the East End in the face'. As well as visiting bomb victims, factories and countless Home Guard units in Britain, the King flew to North Africa, and went to Malta; he wished to sail with his forces on D-Day, but was overridden. When the war in Europe came to an end at last, on 8 May 1945, the crowds in London flocked to Buckingham Palace, where the King and royal family came out again and again onto the balcony, to share in the nation's joy. The Princesses were allowed to go down and mingle, unrecognised, with the cheering, singing throng.

In the early days of the war, George VI had been cool towards Winston Churchill, but he had soon forged a deep bond with the great Prime Minister. It was the same with the post-war Labour leader, Clement Attlee; after a slow start, the King came to like Attlee, though no socialist himself.

However well King George VI fulfilled his unlooked-for role as King and Emperor, there was no doubt that it took its toll of his health. In 1947 he undertook a royal tour of South Africa and Rhodesia, saw his daughter and heir the Princess Elizabeth married to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, and presided over a momentous event, the granting of independence to India and the newly-created Pakistan. The appearance of normality was kept up, but in the following year after celebrating his Silver Wedding anniversary with the Queen, he became very ill with arterio-sclerosis, which was undoubtedly worsened by strain.

The last Emperor of India lived to open the Festival of Britain, in 1951, and see the birth of his daughter's heir Prince Charles and his granddaughter Princess Anne, but by the beginning of 1952 he was fatally ill with cancer, and he died in his sleep, at Sandringham, early on 6 February. He had magnificently, 'cleared up the mess' created by his elder brother's abdication, and he created a stable, secure monarchy. (J.Ross)

Britain in World War II.

Task 30. Find answers to the questions:

1. What was the policy of Neville Chamberlain towards Fascist Germany?

2. Which actions of Germany led to the declaration of war by Britain?

3. How did World War II begin?

4. Which countries were Britain’s allies?

5. Which countries were Britain’s enemies?

6. What period of the war was called phoney war, why was it called so?

7. What event brought the USA into the war?

8. How was Scotland affected by the war?

Task 31. Make a chronological table of the events of WW II.

The American and European depressions hit defeated Germany hard, making it a natural breeding-place for conflicting ideologies. Fear of the spread of Communism, and resentment against the harsh terms of the Versailles treaty which saddled them with blame for the war, turned many Germans towards the loudly patriotic, militaristic National Socialist Party — Nazis for short — led by Adolf Hitler.

Hitler was Austrian born but had served with the German army during the war, twice winning the Iron Cross. He fostered the idea that Germany had not really lost the war but had been 'stabbed in the back'. Like so many demagogues, he found scapegoats on whom to pin responsibility for all the ills that had befallen the country: in this case the Communists and, above all, the Jews.

After being appointed chancellor by President Hindenburg in 1933, he imposed a one-party regime, murdering rivals within his own ranks and persecuting those who did not vociferously applaud his methods. He set up a secret police, a caucus of bullies and torturers, and began to segregate Jews and deprive them of their rights as citizens. His concentration camps were ultimately responsible for the slaughter of over six million Jews from Germany and the countries which the Nazis were soon to overrun.

Hitler's intentions were made clear in his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle), but the one-time Allies, reluctant to rearm, persuaded themselves that basically he meant well, that a reinvigorated Germany was a good thing for Europe, and that each of his territorial demands would be the last. The menace of Soviet Russia worried businessmen and politicians far more than did the well-disciplined Nazi state.

In 1936 German troops reoccupied the Rhineland, which had been under French and British supervision until declared a permanently demilitarised zone. At the same time Italy, under the totalitarian regime of the Duce (Leader) Mussolini and his Fascists, was seizing Abyssinia and defying the feeble protests of the League of Nations. Mussolini and Hitler allied in a European 'Axis', and rehearsed ground troops and air forces in the Spanish Civil War, against the day when they would play their parts in a more widespread conflict. Indiscriminate bombing and machine-gunning of civilians shocked the world; but still nobody was prepared to take strong counter-measures. Winston Churchill warned of the dangers of German rearmament and German ambitions, but he was out of office and out of favour. 'Appeasement' was the watchword: if we made concessions to the aggressors, they would somehow become less aggressive.

In 1938 Hitler went ahead with plans to unify all German-speaking peoples into one glorious Reich which should last a thousand years. He annexed Austria, and then demanded that 'oppressed' Germans in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia should be liberated. His attitude became so fierce that Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, flew to Germany to attempt a settlement before a Central European war broke out. Britain and America had been instrumental in establishing independent Czechoslovakia; but America was now pursuing an isolationist policy, and Chamberlain was reluctant to involve Britain in 'a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing'.

The Czechs had a well-equipped army ready for action. But when Hitler and Chamberlain, together with Daladier of France and Mussolini of Italy, reached agreement at Munich in September 1938, it was obvious that nobody was going to help the young republic, and Czechoslovakia surrendered some of its richest land to Germany, on the assurance that the purely Czech and Slovak regions would remain untouched. Chamberlain flew back to London and waved a piece of paper signed by Hitler and himself which represented, he assured cheering crowds and newsreel cameras, 'peace with honour — peace in our time'.

In March 1939 the Germans marched into the heart of Czechoslovakia, and Hitler himself slept in Prague Castle.

Britain had by now begun rearming. A warning system of aerial attack, the new and highly secret radar, was installed along the eastern coastline. Conscription was introduced within a few weeks of Hitler's invasion, and Britain and France gave guarantees to Poland, against which the Fuhrer was now making his familiar menacing noises.

Late in August, to the dismay of diplomats who had been trying to establish an Anglo-Soviet entente, Germany and Russia signed a non-aggression pact which, it was learned later, included secret clauses for the division of Poland and spheres of influence in eastern Europe.

Confident that Britain's guarantee would prove as flimsy as her actions over Abyssinia and Czechoslovakia, Hitler invaded Poland on 1st September 1939. On 3rd September, Neville Chamberlain broadcast an announcement to the nation that Britain and France were now at war with Germany.

The phoney war

Once again a British Expeditionary Force was sent to France, sheltering behind the massive fortifications of the French defence barrier, the Maginot Line.

For about seven months little happened along this second-generation Western Front. No practical help could be sent to Poland, which was carved up between Russia and Germany. Russia invaded Finland, and at one point Britain seemed on the verge of taking on Russia as well as the Nazis; but the Finnish War was soon over, and still Hitler made no move towards France. He wanted no war of attrition such as he had experienced for himself in the 1914-18 trenches, and hoped the Allies might compromise as they had so often compromised before. Britain and France were equally reluctant to start shooting, and the RAF contented itself with drop­ping propaganda leaflets on the enemy. American reporters described it as a 'phoney war'.

In April 1940, shortly after Chamberlain's boast that Hitler had 'missed the bus', the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway, partly to safeguard their supply routes of Swedish ore and partly to establish Norwegian bases from which to break the British naval blockade. A British expedition to Narvik fought gallantly and succeeded in capturing the town, but was withdrawn eleven days later because of the German attack on the Benelux countries and on northern France.

Chamberlain's half-hearted prosecution of the war provoked Labour members into a vote of censure, and one of his own party denounced him in the scathing words of Oliver Cromwell long ago: 'Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!'

National unity could be achieved only by a coalition government. Labour and the Liberals refused to serve under Chamberlain. On 13th May a new prime minister, Winston Churchill, rose in the House of Commons and offered the country 'nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat'.

Clement Attlee, leader of the Labour Party, came into the Cabinet, and by an inspired stroke Churchill made Ernest Bevin minister of Labour. Bevin recruited workers for the factories, stepped up coal production with his conscripted 'Bevin boys', and with his knowledge of the working men among whom he had been raised was able to cajole, bully and organise manpower into ever-increasing productivity throughout the war. At the same time Lord Beaverbrook, as minister of Aircraft Production, forced up the output of fighters.

It was none too soon. On 10th May 1940 Hitler had launched his blitzkrieg (lightning war) against Belgium and Holland, bombing Rotterdam almost into extinction and, as in 1914, going round the French fortifications instead of wasting lives on a direct assault. An attempted British and French advance was blocked in Belgium, and by 19th May General Gort, British commander-in-chief, was forced to retreat to the sea. Troops assembled at Dunkirk waited under merciless dive-bombing attacks to be taken off the beaches. The task was not left to the navy alone. Ferryboats, fishing-boats, pleasure craft of every kind rushed out of every creek and harbour. A public house on Felixstowe docks was later to be renamed The Little Ships in honour of this patchwork flotilla, whose 600 vessels, added to 200 naval craft, rescued more than 338,000 men.

The invasion was called off, the air attack switched to terror bombing raids on London and other cities. Much that was beautiful was destroyed; but so was the prestige of the Luftwaffe.

Fighting was eventually to spread over nearly all Europe, Asia and North Africa, and to threaten Australasia. Italy entered the war on 11th June 1940, hoping for juicy pickings, but proved more of a liability than an asset to her Axis partner. Germany invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. The Afrika Korps came to the aid of Italian forces in East and North Africa and pushed the British back into Egypt. Convoys to Malta were unceasingly attacked from the air.

On 22nd June 1941 Hitler could restrain himself no longer from the attempted fulfilment of his greatest dream. Counting on another surprise blitzkrieg, he invaded Russia, which he had always envisaged as a fertile living-space for the master race, with natives fit only to supply slave labour. Britain immediately offered Russia an alliance; and the USA, which had been supplying Britain with arms under a 'Lend-Lease' agreement, offered similar aid to the USSR.

Japan's desire for expansion and the urgent need for raw materials led her to inaugurate a lightning war of her own. On 7th December 1941 waves of Japanese planes from aircraft-carriers attacked the US Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, destroying or disabling nineteen ships and over a hundred aircraft. At the same time Japanese troops moved towards Malaya. Two British battleships, the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, set out to attack the invaders and were sunk by bombers. Hong Kong fell. Singapore, which Churchill had ordered must be defended to the last man, surrendered sixty thousand prisoners into Japanese hands in February 1942. Within a few months British and Dutch possessions were overrun. Advancing through Burma, the Japanese threatened India.

For once adhering scrupulously to a treaty — the Tripartite Pact of September 1940 between Germany, Italy and Japan — Hitler declared war on the United States. The USA was joined in its declaration of war on Japan by Britain, but decided first to work for the overthrow of Germany and Italy.

With American troops and increased American supplies reaching Britain, the tide began slowly to turn. In August 1942 General Alexander was given a handwritten directive by Churchill in Cairo: 'Your prime and main duty will be to take or destroy at the earliest opportunity the German-Italian army commanded by Field-Marshal Rommel together with all its supplies and establishments in Egypt and Libya.' Alexander held off until sufficient material had been built up, then entrusted the campaign to his Eighth Army commander, General Montgomery. At El Alamein, Montgomery laid down a massive artillery bombardment on 23rd October, followed by an armoured attack, and pursued the routed enemy some 1500 miles across the desert. In November, American and British forces under General Dwight Eisenhower landed in the north-west, assumed control of French Morocco and Algeria, and closed in on the Germans and Italians from the other side.

Churchill and President Roosevelt of the USA met at Casablanca in Morocco and agreed to stand out for unconditional surrender of the enemy. They also decided, in spite of appeals from the hard-pressed Russians for the opening of a Second Front in France, that it was more practicable at this stage to launch an operation from North Africa through Italy into 'the soft under-belly of Europe'.

In July 1943 Allied troops landed in Sicily, and by August had won the whole island. Mussolini was thrown out of office, and a new government hastily arranged an armistice on 3rd September, the day when the Allies set foot on the mainland. The Germans at once took over from the Italian army, freed the imprisoned Mussolini to set him up as head of a puppet government in northern Italy, and pinned the Allied forces down for several wearying months.

At the same time it could be said that the Allies were pinning down German troops, thereby easing pressure on the Russians. After a terrible siege, Stalingrad had been relieved, and as a tribute to the courage of its people King George VI sent Stalin a Sword of Honour. The Germans were being pushed back towards their own country. To finish the job, there must soon be an all-out thrust from the west.

The Second Front

Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met in Teheran in November 1943 to co-ordinate plans for a simultaneous squeeze on Germany. They talked also of post-war settlements. Churchill mistrusted Stalin; Roosevelt, anxious to show there was no western line-up against Russia, fell in with Stalin's wishes for a Second Front in France, with no diversions further east. Churchill's arguments were overruled. Thus the future of central and eastern European states was delivered into Stalin's hands.

Troops in Britain trained for 'D-day'. Bombers intensified their raids on German cities. Supplies of weapons dropped by parachute or smuggled in to Resistance fighters was stepped up, and sabotage against German-controlled installations in occupied countries increased.

On 6th June 1944 thousands of transports carried an invasion army under the supreme command of General Eisenhower to the Normandy beaches. The Germans, who had been fed with false information about a landing near Calais, rushed reinforcements to the area, but could not prevent the Allies forming a solid bridgehead. Prefabricated harbours were towed into position, and supplies flowed through, though it was essential to capture a major port soon: Cherbourg was the first target, Antwerp the ultimate one.

Sections of coastline remained in enemy hands long enough for the launching of Hitler's two pet secret weapons — the Vi flying bomb or 'doodle-bug', and the V2 rocket, which between them killed several thousand men, women and children in London and outlying districts, and were devastatingly used against Antwerp when it was taken.

The Red Army fought its way into Poland, Austria, and Germany itself, and was first to reach Berlin. Hitler, refusing the ignominy of falling into Russian hands, committed suicide in his Chancellery bunker on 30th April 1945, together with the mistress he had at the last moment made his wife. He knew that two days previously Mussolini had been captured by Italian partisans and executed along with his mistress. On 4th May German forces in north-west Germany, Holland and Denmark surrendered to Montgomery on Luneburg Heath. Admiral Donitz, whom Hitler had nominated as his successor, tried to reach agreement to surrender to the Western Allies while continuing the fight against Russia, but this was rejected. On 7th May he offered unconditional surrender.

On 8th May 1945, VE-day celebrated Victory in Europe. The war against Japan continued until, early in August, the Americans dropped an atomic bomb which killed eighty thousand people and destroyed the city of Hiroshima. A second bomb on Nagasaki hastened Japanese endeavours towards an armistice; and on 14th August 1945 the Second World War was ended. (Burke)

Scotland and the War

In the later 1940s, Scotland, with the rest of the United Kingdom, saw the introduction of the 'welfare state', achieved not without pains in the difficult post-war years, and which played a significant part in maintaining an all-British ethos. It also saw the results of the setting-up of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. It was a powerful engine for the regeneration of the Highlands. Unlike the other regional power boards, it had a specific social remit. On a smaller scale, it recalled Roosevelt's Tennessee Valley Authority scheme of the 1930s. By the mid-50s, virtually all of the Highlands and Islands were electrified. The process was completed just in time for the installation of the national television broadcasting network. The Hydro Electric Board is now Scottish Hydro plc, responsible not to the community but to its shareholders.

In the Second World War (1939-1945), Scotland suffered far less loss of life through fighting than it did in the trench carnage of the First World War (1914-1918). The relative length of the lists of names on village war memorials is an accurate guide. As in the First War, the country's strategic position, separating the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, was of great importance, particularly after the German occupation of Norway in 1940. The established naval bases at Rosyth, Invergordon, Scapa Flow and the Gareloch were enlarged. Loch Ewe became an assembly point for merchant convoys. But the most visible sign of war was the many military airstrips laid out on both the Eastern and Western coasts. Although the very first air raid of the war was made on Rosyth, Scotland suffered relatively little by way of air raids, compared to the cities of England, though in the Spring of 1941, there was serious damage and loss of life in Glasgow and the Clyde towns. Edinburgh, Leith, Dundee and Aberdeen also suffered air raids. Ironically, the war, which devastated other countries and peoples, brought a degree of prosperity and increased social welfare to Scotland. More land was taken in for agriculture and forestry. Food rationing and price controls actually improved the diet of many people; there was full employment, and a thriving black market in goods which were in short supply.

Another paradox of wartime conditions was a great upsurge in reading and education. Soldiers in camp, civilians unable to travel anywhere, all turned to books. The focus of writing and teaching was often on the shape of the world to come, after the victory of democracy over totalitarianism. A tide of books and pamphlets was released. Their chief message, evolved both from the privations of the 1930s and the sufferings of the war, was that change was vital, and that it was in the people's hands to deliver it. This helped to prepare the political landslide that returned a Labour government in 1945, with a mandate to restructure British society. (D.Ross)

The share-out

In spite of the League of Nations failure, the Allies had decided in principle on another international peace-keeping body, to be called the United Nations. But as soon as war was over it became clear that the victors were far from united. Countries liberated from the German yoke in eastern Europe now had a Russian yoke imposed on them. Communists in Poland refused to accept the Polish government-in-exile back from London, and set up their own Russian-dominated regime. The Russian-occupied zone of demilitarised Germany was soon reshaped as part of the Communist bloc. An 'iron curtain' was already falling between East and West Europe.

The last meeting of the three war leaders took place at Potsdam, near Berlin, shortly before the dropping of the A-bomb. Roosevelt was not present: he had died in April, and the new president was Harry Truman, who had none of Roosevelt's liking for Stalin. What the Russian dictator must have found bewildering was the disappearance of Winston Churchill in the full flush of victory and his replacement by Clement Attlee.

Part 5. Britain in post war Europe.

Welfare state

Task 32. Answer the following questions: