LDV

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25.7.40 [George Orwell]

July 25, 2010 in air-raids, Canada, casualties, evacuation, Home Guard, LDV, Lloyd George, machine-gun nests, NCOs, Petain, Political, War-time by orwelldiaries

No news, really. . . . Various people who have sent their children to Canada are already regretting it[1]. . . . Casualties, i.e. fatal ones, from air-raids for last month were given out as about 340. If true, this is substantially less than the number of road deaths in the same period. . . . The L.D.V., now said to be 1,300,000 strong, is stopping recruiting and is to be renamed the Home Guard. There are rumours also that those acting as N.C.O’s are to be replaced by men from the regular army. This seems to indicate either that the authorities are beginning to take the L.D.V. seriously as a fighting force, or that they are afraid of it.

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30.6.40 [George Orwell]

June 30, 2010 in Crooms Hill, Cyril Connolly, hand-grenades, Italo Balbo, LDV, local defence squads, mouse, pacifists, parade, Political, Regent's Park, rifles, Senussi, Thetis, War-time, working class by orwelldiaries

This afternoon a parade in Regent’s Park[1] of the L.D.V.  of the whole “zone”, i.e. 12 platoons of theoretically about 60 men each (actually a little under strength at present.) Predominantly old soldiers and, allowing for the dreadful appearance that men drilling in mufti always present, not a bad lot. Perhaps 25 per cent are working class. If that percentage exists in the Regent’s Park area, it must be much higher in some others. What I do not yet know is whether there has been any tendency to avoid raising L.D.V. contingents in very poor districts where the whole direction would have to be in working-class hands. At present the whole organisation is in an anomalous and confused state which has many different possibilities. Already people are spontaneously forming local defence squads and hand-grenades are probably being manufactured by amateurs. The higher-ups are no doubt thoroughly frightened by these tendencies. . . . The general inspecting the parade was the usual senile imbecile, actually decrepit, and made one of the most uninspiring speeches I ever heard. The men, however, very ready to be inspired. Loud cheering at the news that rifles had arrived at last.

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24.6.40 [George Orwell]

June 24, 2010 in Canada, capitalists, Churchill, class, collaboration, conquest, demotic speech, Duff-Cooper, Eileen, England, Flandin, France, Frenbch, French Communists, German armistice, Gwen, Hitler, Laval, LDV, left, Manifesto of Plain Men, Mass Observation, News Chronicle, pacifist, patriots, Petain, Political, propaganda, red army, revolution, revolutionary government, revolutionary war, revolvers, Richard Acland, right, Russia, Spain, speeches, Stalin, Verdun, War-time, winter by orwelldiaries

The German armistice terms are much as expected. . . . What is interesting about the whole thing is the extent to which the traditional pattern of loyalties and honour is breaking down. Pétain, ironically enough, is the originator (at Verdun) of the phrase “ils ne passeront pas”, so long an anti-Fascist slogan. Twenty years ago any Frenchman who would have signed such an armistice would have had to be either an extreme leftwinger or an extreme pacifist, and even then there would have been misgivings. Now the people who are virtually changing sides in the middle of the war are the professional patriots. To Pétain, Laval[1], Flandin[2] and Co. the whole war must have seemed like a lunatic internecine struggle at the moment when your real enemy is waiting to slosh you. . . . It is therefore practically certain that high-up influences in England are preparing for a similar sell-out, and while e.g. — is at — there is no certainty that they won’t succeed even without the invasion of England. The one good thing about the whole business is that the bottom is being knocked out of Hitler’s pretence of being the poor man’s friend. The people actually willing to do a deal with him are bankers, generals, bishops, kings, big industrialists, etc., etc. . . . . Hitler is a leader of tremendous counterattack of the capitalist class, which is forming itself into a vast corporation, losing its privileges to some extent in doing so, but still retaining its power over the working class. When it comes to resisting such an attack as this, anyone who is of the capitalist class must be treacherous or half-treacherous, and will swallow the most fearful indignities rather than put up a real fight. . . . whichever way one looks, whether it is at the wider strategic aspects or the most petty details of local defence, one sees that any real struggle means revolution. Churchill evidently can’t see or won’t accept this, so he will have to go. But whether he goes in time to save England from conquest depends on how quickly the people at large can grasp the essentials. What I fear is that they will never move until it is too late.

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21.6.40 [George Orwell]

June 21, 2010 in Chiappe, drill, Hitler, LDV, officers, Paris Municipal Council, Political, War-time by orwelldiaries

No real news. I see from yesterday’s paper that Chiappe[1] has been elected president of the Paris Municipal Council, presumably under German pressure. So much for the claim that Hitler is the friend of the working classes, enemy of plutocracy, etc.

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20.6.40 [George Orwell]

June 20, 2010 in air raid, arm the people, army, Bevan, bomb, Chamberlain, Churchill, Colonel Blimp, Compton Mackenzie, Dunkirk, George Strauss, German invasion, Glasgow, Hebrides, Hitler, India, intellectuals, Italy, LDV, Lloyd George, Namsos, new statesman, Political, RAF, Rayner Heppenstall, retired colonels, revolutionary war, Richar Crossman, Scotland Yard, Spain, unblimping, War-time by orwelldiaries

Went to the office of the [New Statesman][1] to see what line they are taking about home defence. C.[2], who is now in reality the big noise there, was rather against the “arm the people” line and said that its dangers outweighed its possible advantages[3]. If a German invading force finds civilians armed it may commit such barbarities as will cow the people altogether and make everyone anxious to surrender. He said it was dangerous to count on ordinary people being courageous and instanced the case of some riot in Glasgow when a tank was driven round the town and everyone fled in the most cowardly way. The circumstances were different, however, because the people in that case were unarmed and, as always in internal strife, conscious of fighting with ropes round their necks… C. said that he thought Churchill, though a good man up to a point, was incapable of doing the necessary thing and turning this into a revolutionary war, and for that reason Chamberlain and Co. hesitated to bring the whole nation into the struggle. I don’t of course think Churchill sees it in quite the same colours as we do, but I don’t think he would jib at any step (e.g. equalisation of incomes, independence for India) which he thought necessary for winning the war. Of course it’s possible that today’s secret session may achieve enough to get Chamberlain and Co. out for good. I asked C. what hope he thought there was of this, and he said none at all. But I remember that the day the British began to evacuate Namsos[4] I asked Bevan and Strauss[5], who had just come from the House, what hope there was of this business unseating Chamberlain, and they also said none at all. Yet a week or so later the new government was formed[6].

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13.6.40 [George Orwell]

June 13, 2010 in Blackshirts, Bow, by-election, communists, Government, Home Guard, Lansbury, LDV, Local Defence Volunteers, Lord's, MCC, pacifists, Pioneers, Political, War-time by orwelldiaries

Yesterday to a group conference of the L.D.V.[1], held in the Committee Room at Lord’s…Last time I was at Lord’s must have been at the Eton-Harrow match in 1921. At that time I should have felt that to go into the Pavilion, not being a member of the M.C.C.[2], was on a par with pissing on the altar, and years later would have had some vague idea that it was a legal offence for which you could be prosecuted.

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