My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyservices of the Crown, they should obey their orders, and, in particular, obey the rulesof their service. . . . We have said a hundred times that if the life of Britain werethreatened we would fight again. . . .' (September 1, 1939).This line was pursued consistently, for instance: '(1) We want peace and do ouroutmost to persuade the British people to declare their will for peace. (2) We aredetermined by every means in our power to ensure that the life and safety of Britainshall be preserved by proper defences until that peace can be made' (March 14, 1940).We conducted a campaign in favour of a negotiated peace throughout the country atsome of the largest and most enthusiastic public meetings I have ever addressed. Thiswas a surprise to me, for MacDonald had often related his experiences in opposing theFirst World War and described the violent break-up of his meetings and the universalunpopularity he incurred. I was expecting the same reception of our campaign, but atthat time we were still in the phoney war period and the atmosphere was totallydifferent to the beginning of the first war. I remembered well the surging enthusiasmof the London crowds for war in 1914, but nothing of the kind was apparent in 1939.On the contrary, large crowds not only listened, but cheered our demands fornegotiated peace, which in our requirement would leave every inch of British territoryintact. However, two by-elections at which we tested opinion in improvisedcampaigns resulted in very small votes: the overwhelming majority of the people wasundoubtedly in favour of the war.Our principles led us to declare that if British soil were ever invaded we wouldimmediately stop our peace campaign and fight the enemy. This was, of course, ourfirm intention, and I knew our resolve would be followed by all our members. Afterthe collapse of the Low Countries and on the eve of the invasion of France, we issuedthe following statement: 'According to the Press, stories concerning the invasion ofBritain are being circulated. ... In such an event every member of British Union wouldbe at the disposal of the nation. Every one of us would resist the foreign invader withall that is in us. However rotten the existing government, and however much wedetested its policies, we would throw ourselves into the effort of a united nation untilthe foreigner was driven from our soil. In such a situation no doubt exists concerningthe attitude of British Union' (May 9, 1940). A fortnight after these words werepublished we were arrested.It may be objected that our attitude was impractical because if we were going to fighteffectively we should have undergone some preliminary training instead of occupyingourselves with a speaking campaign, and there is some force in this point. I feltpersonally that I should be at least as effective as most of those who had enjoyed theadvantage of Home Guard training then to be seen in remarkable progress throughoutthe countryside. I had reached marksman standard in the army and kept up practiceafterwards with a nice collection of weapons which I still possessed; also I had my olduniform, which would still fit me. So I felt no personal dilemma in this respect. As forour members, the mass of our young membership was in the forces by May 1940, aswe encouraged those of military age to join, while the peace campaign was mostlyconducted by men who had fought in the first war, with the assistance of relativelyfew young men who were specialists in the organisation of meetings and generalpropaganda.335 of 424