Britain's wartime leader – and an agonising dilemma

The big question that faced Churchill:
Should we bomb the Swiss?

With the country on its knees an with the Battle of Britain raging in the skies above South East England, desperate Prime Minister Winston Churchill faced an agonising decision:

“Should I order the RAF to bomb neutral Switzerland?”

Gathering together his military advisers and pouring over a giant map of Europe in his War Room buried deep under Whitehall, he pointed to the black lines showing the railways sneaking through the Alps linking Germany with its ally Italy.

Growing intelligence from British agents in Switzerland, and from Swiss simpathisers, clearly showed the strategic importance of the three vital links between the Axis powers.

Two of them passed through Switzerland – over the Simplon and the Gothard. The third was the Brenner line from Austria. Churchill’s dilemma came to a head on January 26, 1941, and he knew he had to make a decision.

According to research carried out by a political historian in Geneva, Michael Bloch – who has been piecing together the events of that momentous time from Churchill’s personal archives – he sought the advice of both the Air Ministry and the War Office.

“We got to stop these transports at all costs,” he wrote, pointing out that 200,000 tonnes of coal were being carried to Italy every week, as well as massive quantities of oil.

But the service chiefs were not in favour of Churchill’s plan. The bombing could well provoke the German army to invade Switzerland, setting up a string of anti-aircraft guns to protect the railway lines and making the tiny country another satellite of the Third Reich.

The idea was dropped. The Swiss, who were very much in favour of the British throughout the war, were left in peace.

And Churchill himself paid tribute to them when the conflict was over.

“Of all the neutrals Switzerland has the greatest right to distinction,” he said. “She has been a democratic State,standing for freedom in self-defence among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side.”