1950, in Parliament
I come to the wider aspects of our military affairs. The decision to form a front in Europe against a possible further invasion by Soviet Russia and its satellite States was at once grave for us and also imperative. There was a school of thought in the United States which held that Western Europe was indefensible and that the only lines where a Soviet-satellite advance could be held were the Channel and the Pyrenees. I am very glad that this view has been decisively rejected by the United States, by ourselves and by all the Powers concerned in the Brussels Treaty and the Atlantic Pact.
I find it necessary to say, however. speaking personally, giving my own opinion, that this long front cannot be successfully defended without the active aid of Western Germany. For more than 40 years—and what years!—I have worked with France. Britain and France must stand together primarily united in Europe. United they will be strong enough to extend their hands to Germany. Germany is at present disarmed and forbidden to keep any military force. Just beyond her eastern frontier lies the enormous military array of the Soviet and its satellite States, far exceeding in troops, in armour and in air power all that the other Allies have got. We are unable to offer any assurance to the Germans that they may not be overrun by a Soviet and satellite invasion.
Seven or eight millions of refugees from the East have already been received and succoured in Western Germany. In all the circumstances this is a marvellous feat. Another quarter of a million are now being or about to be driven across the Polish and Czech frontiers. The mighty mass of the Russian armies and their satellites lies, like a fearful cloud, upon the German people. The Allies 1289 cannot give them any direct protection. Their homes, their villages, their cities might be overrun by an Eastern deluge and, no doubt, all Germans who have peen prominent in resisting Communism or are working for reconciliation with the Western democracies would pay the final forfeit.
We have no guarantee to give except to engage in a general war which, after wrecking what is left of European civilisation, would no doubt end ultimately in the defeat of the Soviets, but which might begin by the Communist enslavement of Western Germany, and not only of Western Germany. If the Germans are neither to have a guarantee of defence nor to be allowed to make a contribution to the general framework of defence they must console themselves, as they are doing, by the fact that they have no military expense to bear—nothing like the £800 million we are now voting or the contributions of the French and other treaty Powers, or the far greater sums provided by the United States. They are free from all that.
The Germans may also comfort themselves with the important advantages which this relief from taxation gives to German commercial competition in all the markets of the world, growing and spreading with every month that passes. I cannot feel that this is a good way to do things, or that we should let them drift on their course. I say without hesitation that the effective defence of the European frontiers cannot be achieved if the German contribution is excluded from the thoughts of those who are responsible.