Stanley Melbourne Bruce in London, 1938–41

Abstract

This article examines Stanley Melbourne Bruce's role as Australian high commissioner in London during the approach to the Second World War and the European War from 1939 to 1941. It argues that Bruce in this period was an influential high commissioner who strongly influenced Australian foreign policy and exercised some influence, albeit with limitations, on the British government. After 1933, Bruce had transformed the office of Australian high commissioner in London from a largely commercial position into one with real diplomatic influence. In the approach to war, Bruce tended to bolster the policy of appeasement on which the Chamberlain government was already decided and in the Phoney War his cautious arguments contributed to the delay of the Allied intervention in Norway. With the accession of Winston Churchill to the prime ministership in May 1940, Bruce lost some of the influence he had had with Neville Chamberlain and he was on the losing side of the argument inside the British Cabinet about the possibility of a negotiated peace in May–June 1940. Despite the limitations of his personal relationship with Churchill, he was nonetheless an influential voice with other British ministers and senior officials and with the US ambassador in London and key members of the Roosevelt administration. This equipped him to play an effective part in the emerging Anglo-American alliance and issues of post-war international reconstruction.

Notes

Hasluck, Government and the People, 227.

Edwards, ‘Rise and Fall’, 49.

The author has explored Bruce's role as high commissioner generally in the essay ‘Stanley Bruce at the Wartime Australian High Commission in London’, 149–69.

Edwards, Bruce of Melbourne; Stirling, Lord Bruce.

Eighth meeting of the Imperial Conference of 1926, CAB 32/56/E, Cabinet Office papers, The National Archives, London (TNA).

Inder, ‘Study in Anglo-Australian Relations’, 152.

Ibid., 153.

A good example of Bruce's influence over British policy in the 1930s was with Stanley Baldwin, the UK prime minister, over the abdication of Edward VIII.

Self, Neville Chamberlain, 236.

Mackenzie King to Peter C. Larkin, Canadian high commissioner in London, 12 Dec. 1924 quoted in Lloyd, Diplomacy with a Difference, 37–40.

Bruce to Menzies, 18 Oct. 1939, Documents on Australian Foreign Policy (DAFP), vol. 2, 347.

Lloyd, Diplomacy with a Difference, 38–39; Bird, Lyons, 236–37.

Bruce to Lyons, 18 Sept. 1938, M104, 6/2, National Archives of Australia, Canberra (NAA).

Circular cablegram B263, 24 Sept. 1938, CRS, A 981, Czechoslovakia 18 part 2, NAA.

Note of meeting of UK and dominions representatives, 26 Sept. 1938, DAFP, vol. 1, 460–62.

Reynolds, Summits, 72–75.

Bruce to Lyons, 7 Oct. 1938, DAFP, vol. 1, 491.

Mansergh, Commonwealth Experience, 281.

Note by Bruce, 27 Sept. 1938, M104, 6/2, NAA.

Ibid. Bill Jordan, the New Zealand high commissioner, was not at the meeting when Bruce proposed the request that MacDonald approach Chamberlain to invite Bruce to see the British prime minister. Jordan's attendance at these meetings was patchy at best and his participation when he did attend was even less spectacular. See Stewart's essay for more details.

Lyons to Chamberlain, 28 Sept. 1938, DAFP, vol. 1, 469; Bird, Lyons, 250–57.

Bruce to Lyons, 7 Oct. 1938, DAFP, vol. 1, 495.

Mansergh, Commonwealth Experience, 282.

Smuts letter, 6 April 1939 quoted in ibid., 283.

Whiskard to Dominions Office, 5 May 1939, DAFP, vol. 2, 104–05.

Bruce to Menzies, 24 Aug. 1939, ibid., 184.

Meeting of high commissioners, 26 Aug. 1939, DO 121/5, Dominion Office papers, TNA.

Roskill, ed., Hankey, vol. 3, 414.

Bruce to Chamberlain, 11 May 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 286; see also Ovendale, ‘Appeasement’, 185–205, ‘Why the British Dominions’, 269–96 and ‘Appeasement’; Andrews, Isolationism and Appeasement.

Stirling, Lord Bruce, 466.

Kersaudy, Norway 1940; Reynolds, Command, 121–22.

Cablegram no. 27, Bruce to Menzies, 11 Jan. 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 15–16.

Cablegram no. 28, Bruce to Menzies, 11 Jan. 1940, ibid., 17.

Menzies to Chamberlain, 12 Jan. 1940, and Bruce to Menzies, 12 Jan. 1940, ibid., 18–19.

Bruce to Menzies, 24 Jan. 1940, ibid., 44.

Cablegrams from Bruce to Menzies, 26 Jan. 1940, ibid., 50; see also note by Bruce of conversation with Sir Edmund Ironside, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, 7 Feb. 1940, ibid., 69.

Cablegrams Z4 and Z5 from Dominions Office to Whiskard, 8 and 14 Feb. 1940, CRS A1608, H41/1/2, NAA.

Cablegram Z8 from Dominions Office to Whiskard, 22 Feb. 1940, ibid.

Bruce to Menzies, 18 March 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 148–49.

Ibid., 151.

Addison, Road to 1945, 88; Roskill, ed., Hankey, vol. 3, 458: ‘It was in the main respect for Norwegian neutrality that caused the government to hesitate so long about the use of force. Yet the failure even to prepare against the German move still seems astonishing’; Stirling, Lord Bruce, 150.

Reynolds, Command, 122.

Note by Bruce of meeting with Hankey, 26 April 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 226; Bruce to Menzies, 28 April 1940, ibid., 234, ‘my own opinion remains unchanged that if immediately on German seizure Allies had concurrently attacked by sea … and by landings north and south we could have recaptured Trondheim’.

Note by Bruce of meeting of high commissioners, 26 April 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 225.

Parker, Second World War, 25.

Reynolds, Command, 125; Addison, Road to 1945, 87–95.

Menzies to Bruce, 8 May 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 270.

Lloyd, Diplomacy with a Difference, 65.

Note for file by Bruce, n.d. 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 520; note by Bruce, n.d. 1940, M103, Jan.–June 1940, NAA.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Note by Bruce of conversation with Churchill, 19 Dec. 1940, DAFP, vol. 4, 311.

Ibid.

Bruce to Menzies, 26 Sept. 1940, DAFP, vol. 4, 183; Reynolds, Command, 196–99.

Menzies to Bruce, 29 Sept. 1940, DAFP, vol. 4, 186.

Bruce to Menzies, 29 Sept. 1940, ibid.

Churchill to Menzies, 2 Oct. 1940, ibid., 196–97.

Note by Bruce of conversation with Churchill, 2 Oct. 940, ibid., 200; Stirling, Lord Bruce, 169.

Menzies to Bruce, 12 Dec. 1940, DAFP, vol. 4, 298–99.

See generally Day, Menzies and Churchill, 149.

Reynolds, ‘Churchill and the British “Decision”’, 166–67.

Addison, Road to 1945, 126.

Edwards, ‘S. M. Bruce, R. G. Menzies’, 1–14.

Reynolds, ‘Churchill and the British “Decision”’, 149.

Bruce to Menzies, 22 May 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 315.

Menzies to Churchill, 22 May 1940, ibid., 316.

Smuts to Menzies, 23 May 1940, ibid., 320. Smuts would later tell Menzies that the ‘valuable response [from Roosevelt] has justified your action’. Smuts to Menzies, 7 June 1940, ibid., 398.

Fraser to Menzies, 23 May 1940, ibid., 319.

Mackenzie King to Churchill, 24 May 1940, ibid., 328.

Churchill to Menzies, Mackenzie King, Fraser and Smuts, 24 May 1940, ibid., 323–24.

Menzies to Roosevelt, 26 May 1940, ibid., 332–33.

Bruce to Menzies, 27 May 1940, ibid., 335.

Churchill to Roosevelt, 27 Oct. 1940, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), vol. 3, 16.

Reynolds, ‘Churchill and the British “Decision”’, 153.

Bruce to Menzies, 30 May 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 358.

See generally Hudson, Casey.

Bruce to Casey, 31 May 1940, and Menzies to Bruce, 1 June 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 371, 374–75; Bridge, ed., A Delicate Mission, 54–56, diary entry, 5 June 1940.

Menzies to Bruce, 1 June 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 374.

Churchill to Roosevelt in cablegram from Kennedy to Hull, 15 June 1940, FRUS, vol. 3, 53.

Bruce to Casey, 6 June 1940, DAFP, vol. 3, 396. Pierrepont Moffat was US consul-general in Sydney from September 1935 to March 1937. For his time in Australia see Hooker, ed., Moffat Papers, 124–45.

Stirling, Lord Bruce, 357–58.

Note by Bruce of conversation with Winant, 22 May 1941, DAFP, vol. 4, 674.

Stirling, Lord Bruce, 170.

Woodward, British Policy, vol. 2, 198–210.

Reynolds, ‘Atlantic “Flop”’, 138.

Ibid., 129–46.

Lord Garner's assessment of Bruce to Stirling is particularly noteworthy. See Stirling, Lord Bruce, 432.

Reynolds, ‘Churchill and the British “Decision”’, 167.