Montgomery also had not been idle. As soon as he recognized the threat to his rear, he had swung Horrocks’s XXX Corps round into a blocking position on the north-west bank of the Meuse to secure the bridges. This happened to coincide perfectly with Eisenhower’s plan to prepare the Meuse bridges for demolition, to prevent the Germans from seizing them.
As soon as he heard from Eisenhower that he was to take over First US Army, Montgomery left for Spa. He arrived in Hodges’s headquarters, according to one of his own staff officers, ‘like Christ come to clean the temple’. Hodges appears at first to have been in a state of shock, incapable of taking a decision. It transpired that he and Bradley had not been in touch for two days, proving that Eisenhower had been right to call in Monty.
What Patton called his ‘chestnut pulling expedition’ would be ready to start, as he had told Eisenhower, on 22 December. ‘We should get well into the guts of the enemy and cut his supply lines,’ he wrote to his wife. ‘Destiny sent for me in a hurry when things got tight. Perhaps God saved me for this effort.’
Yet already events were turning in the Americans’ favour through determination and bravery. On the northern shoulder of the breakthrough, V Corps, commanded by Eisenhower’s old friend ‘Gee’ Gerow, was defending the Elsenborn Ridge with a mixture of infantry, tank destroyers, engineers and above all artillery. They managed to fight off the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitler Jugend during the night of 20 December and the following day. Altogether, some 782 German corpses were found in front of their positions.
Montgomery failed to acknowledge the extraordinary resilience and bravery of those American units holding the shoulders of the breakthrough. Instead he focused only on the mess he found at First Army and his role in clearing it up. Field Marshal Brooke was dreading how he would behave on finally receiving the command he wanted, and Montgomery confirmed his worst fears.
In a meeting with Bradley on Christmas Day, Montgomery said that things had gone wrong since Normandy because his advice had not been followed. A seething Bradley listened in silence. With his armour-plated conceit, Montgomery assumed as he had in Normandy that silence implied agreement with everything he said.
Bradley had gone to see Montgomery to persuade him to launch his counter-attack as soon as possible. But in this case Montgomery was almost certainly right to delay. Patton’s rapid reaction had taken the Germans aback, but by attacking with just three divisions, instead of the six Eisenhower had wanted, he extended the Battle for Bastogne rather than ending it. Montgomery, in his deliberate way, wanted to seal the bulge, and then smash it. He would not give a date, since he needed to be sure of good weather for the Allied air forces to attack.
The weather had deteriorated even more, greatly restricting air operations. Apart from a bombing raid on Trier which included Harris’s Bomber Command, little had been achieved, and this was not from lack of trying or cooperation. Coningham, the New Zealander who now commanded the RAF’s Second Tactical Air Force, got on extremely well with Quesada. The skies only began to clear on 23 December. Two days later came ‘a clear cold Christmas, lovely weather for killing Germans’, as Patton wrote in his diary. The air forces did not waste the opportunity. P-47 Thunderbolts and RAF Typhoons established a co-ordinated campaign of ground attacks, while the fighters dealt with 900 Luftwaffe sorties on the first day. Allied supremacy was rapidly established. Within a week, the Luftwaffe could put up no more than 200.
Quesada’s IX Tactical Air Command was greatly admired by American ground forces for its panache, but it had acquired a reputation for bad navigation and target recognition. In October when called in to attack specific positions on the Westwall in Germany, not a single aircraft found the target. One even flattened the Belgian mining village of Genk, causing eighty civilian casualties. The 30th Division was hit hard when it reached Malmedy. This was the thirteenth time since landing in Normandy that it had been attacked by its own aircraft, and GIs even started to refer to the Ninth as ‘the American Luftwaffe’. This rather underlined the German army joke since Normandy that ‘if it’s British, we duck; if it’s American everybody ducks; and if it’s the Luftwaffe nobody ducks’.
On 1 January 1945, the Luftwaffe, on Göring’s order, made a maximum effort, with 800 fighters from all over Germany coming in to attack Allied airfields. To achieve surprise they were to come in at tree-top level, under Allied radar cover. But the extreme secrecy precautions imposed on Operation Bodenplatte (Baseplate) meant that many pilots were insufficiently briefed and German flak units were not notified. It is estimated that nearly a hundred aircraft were shot down by their own anti-aircraft batteries. Overall the Allies lost about 150 aircraft while the Luftwaffe lost close to 300, with 214 pilots killed or taken prisoner. It was the Luftwaffe’s final humiliation. Allied air power was now unchallenged.
With the encirclement of Bastogne finally broken on 27 December 1944, Montgomery came under pressure to launch his counter-attack by 3 January. But the field marshal remained obsessed with command issues. Brooke was right to be uneasy, for Monty began to lecture Eisenhower again in the same tones as he had used with Bradley. ‘It looks to me’, Brooke wrote in his diary, ‘as if Monty, with his usual lack of tact, has been rubbing into Ike the results of not having listened to Monty’s advice! Too much of “I told you so” to assist in creating the required friendly relations between them.’ Once again Eisenhower failed to be tough with him, and this prompted Montgomery to write him a disastrous follow-up letter, laying down the law on strategy and insisting that he should be given command over Bradley’s 12th Army Group as well.
General Marshall had also been provoked by the way the British press played Montgomery’s refrain, calling for a virtually independent command. He therefore wrote to Eisenhower urging him to make no concessions. This, combined with Montgomery’s letter, prompted Eisenhower to draft a signal to the combined chiefs of staff which basically said that unless Montgomery was replaced, preferably by Alexander, then he would resign. Montgomery’s chief of staff, de Guingand, heard of this ulti matum. He persuaded Eisenhower to hold back for twenty-four hours and went straight to Montgomery with an apology already drafted, which asked Eisenhower to tear up his previous letter. Montgomery had been put back in his box, but only for the moment.
Eisenhower’s use of Patton’s Third Army created a number of side-effects further south. Devers had to take over part of Patton’s front. This would mean shifting troops from the south and withdrawing from Strasbourg to straighten the line. De Gaulle, who had not been consulted, objected angrily when he heard. The idea of giving up Strasbourg just over a month after liberating it would threaten the very stability of his government. The political implications were far more significant than Eisenhower had realized.
On 3 January, at Churchill’s urging, a conference was held at Eisenhower’s headquarters in Versailles with de Gaulle, Churchill and Brooke. Eisenhower conceded that Strasbourg would be held after all, and de Gaulle was so carried away that he immediately drafted a communiqué. His chef de cabinet, Gaston Palewski, took it round to the British embassy to show it first to Duff Cooper, the British ambassador. This vainglorious announcement ‘suggested that de Gaulle had summoned a military conference which the Prime Minister and Eisenhower had been allowed to attend’. Duff Cooper managed to persuade Palewski to tone it down.
Bastogne might have been relieved and resupplied by air, but once the Germans had acknowledged that they could not even reach the Meuse, it became the focus for their attacks. Hitler, meanwhile, had decided to launch another offensive in Alsace codenamed North Wind. It was not much more than a diversion and achieved little.
Montgomery’s counter-attack was finally launched on 3 January. The fighting was tough, and was not helped by heavy snow, but the outcome was hardly in doubt. Four days later, the battle of Montgomery’s ego broke out again when he held a press conference. Churchill had given permission, because Montgomery promised him that it would improve Allied unity. It had absolutely the oppos
ite effect. Montgomery, although paying tribute to the fighting qualities of the American soldier and emphasizing his loyalty to Eisenhower, implied that he had run the battle almost single-handedly and that there had been a massive British contribution. Churchill and Brooke were horrified, and immediately ‘discussed all the evils of Monty’s press interview’. Churchill made a statement to Parliament emphasizing that it had been an American battle, and that the British contribution had been minimal. But the damage to Allied relations had been done.
The Anglo-American alliance also suffered during this period due to events in south-eastern Europe, and Churchill’s determination to preserve Greece from Communist rule. The collapse of German power in the region, accelerated by the advance of the Red Army into Romania and Hungary in October, brought civil war out into the open. Greece was yet another example of the Second World War merging into a latent third world war.
The terrible suffering of the occupation, with starvation and economic collapse, had led to a dramatic radicalization of a population which had been socially conservative before the war. It was this instinctive shift to the left, often without any clear ideological bent, which contributed to the widespread support for EAM-ELAS. Although Communist led, EAM was full of political contradictions reflecting many different points of view, especially when it came to ideas on socialism and liberty. Land reform and female emancipation were two of the most hotly debated questions. The only general basis of agreement was that the traditional political system, and especially the monarchy, was now irrelevant to the problems which Greece faced. Even the Communist leaders were split and uncertain whether to follow a democratic route to power or to impose it by force of arms.
Several months before Churchill’s ‘naughty’ agreement, Stalin had sent a military mission to the Greece. It was told to warn the Greek Communist Party, the KKE, ‘to face geopolitical realities and cooperate with the British’. This fact alone goes a long way to explaining why Stalin must have had to hide his amusement when he studied Churchill’s ‘percentage agreement’ in his office in the Kremlin.
Despite Stalin’s warning, anti-British emotions ran high in EAM-ELAS because of Churchill’s support for King George II, who was determined to return to Greece as soon as the Germans left. British SOE officers managed early in the year to negotiate an end to the fighting between EAM-ELAS and the non-Communist EDES. Then in April 1944 EAM announced ‘revolutionary elections’ in an attempt to gain a sort of governmental legitimacy. The elections, needless to say, made sure that only EAM candidates could win. George Papandreou rejected approaches from EAM to act as a figurehead, for he did not want to be a figleaf for a movement manipulated from behind by the Communists. Instead he became head of the Greek government-in-exile in Cairo. Other politicians of the centre left, however, were persuaded to take part.
EAM-ELAS intensified its repression against any who disagreed with it, depicting them as traitors or enemies of the people. Many were executed. The collaborationist government in Athens, with the encouragement of the Germans, had recruited Security Battalions to attack EAM-ELAS. Its terror was answered with counter-terror. In Athens, ELAS urban guerrillas on one side and the Security Battalions and Gendarmerie on the other fought a dirty war which exploded in March. Many of the ELAS fighters rounded up were sent back to Germany for forced labour. The Security Battalions tried to rehabilitate themselves as the German departure became imminent. Prisoners were allowed to escape more frequently. Messages were also sent to Cairo to assure the Greek government-in-exile and the British that the Security Battalions would not resist the country’s liberation, but would welcome it.
In early September peace feelers were extended to EAM-ELAS, which rejected them even though most people were longing for an end to the violence. Street battles resumed. German forces still in Greece dreaded being cut off by the Red Army advances to their north, and non-German troops forced into the Wehrmacht began to desert in large numbers. The withdrawal began at the beginning of October and many of the worst collaborators fled north as well to avoid being massacred by andartes, the Greek guerrillas. EAM-ELAS tried to impose order where it could, if only to justify its role as a government in waiting, but conditions varied enormously from place to place. On 12 October the last Germans withdrew from Athens, having removed the swastika flag which flew from the Acropolis. Exuberant crowds filled the streets as a large EAM-ELAS demonstration took place chanting ‘Laokratia’ – ‘People’s Rule’.
British troops from Lieutenant General Ronald Scobie’s III Corps were greeted effusively when they arrived soon afterwards. But British policy towards Greece was conditioned partly by Churchill’s monarchical sympathies, by ignorance of the occupation and the resulting political realities, and most of all by the prime minister’s intention to keep Greece out of the Soviet sphere of interest. George Papandreou, who headed a government of national unity that at first included some EAM members, also appointed to his administration noted right-wingers with connections to the Security Battalions. Churchill was in no mood to compromise, especially after his agreement with Stalin. He gave Scobie, not the most politically sensitive of officers, strict directions to react strongly in the event of any attacks on British troops. On 2 December, the EAM members of the government resigned in protest at orders to disarm the andartes. The government was planning to form a National Guard, many of whose members would be recruited from the hated Security Battalions. At a mass demonstration called by EAM the next day in Syntagma Square, police opened fire, either out of nervousness or in response to shots fired. The left claimed that it had been a deliberate provocation to force a fight. Police stations in the city were attacked. British troops were unharmed, but Scobie sent in his troops to secure the city. ELAS gunmen opened fire. Fighting escalated and, as the situation got out of hand, RAF Beaufighters and Spitfires were sent in to strafe ELAS positions, a catastrophic misjudgement. ELAS began mass killings of ‘reactionary’ families in the city, and seized hostages in both Athens and Salonika.
Harold Macmillan, who was still minister resident in the Mediterranean, and Sir Rex Leeper, the British ambassador, persuaded Churchill that the King should not be allowed to return until a plebiscite had been held. With reluctance, the prime minister agreed to their suggestion of a regency by Archbishop Damaskinos. King George of the Hellenes was furious, opposing both a regency and the choice of Damaskinos. The American press began to condemn British policy in strong terms. With an often naive belief that resistance fighters against the Germans must be freedom-loving, it turned a blind eye to Tito’s murderous repression in Yugoslavia and also to Stalin’s violence against the Polish Home Army. American journalists proceeded to attack Churchill as an imperialist who ignored the Atlantic Charter on self-determination. Instead of the 5,000 British troops originally thought necessary to restore order in Greece, some 80,000 were allocated to disarm the andarte forces. Admiral King tried to veto the use of landing ships to transport more men from Italy to Greece.
Churchill also faced strong criticism in the House of Commons, but his passionate belief that only he could save Greece from Communism prompted him to fly to Athens on Christmas Eve. The city was a war zone, so he based himself aboard the cruiser HMS Ajax anchored off Phaleron. Archbishop Damaskinos, a tall and stately prelate in full Greek Orthodox canonicals, came aboard. Churchill, who had been very dubious about Damaskinos, was enchanted as soon as he met him. The next day Churchill, Anthony Eden, Macmillan and their party were ferried in armoured vehicles with a strong escort through the fighting to the British embassy. The building, as one historian noted, ‘resembled a besieged outpost during the Indian Mutiny’, where the ambassador’s wife ‘directed domestic operations with a courage and energy likewise worthy of a Victorian imperial drama’.
The conference to arrange a ceasefire began that afternoon in the Greek foreign office. With Damaskinos chairing the meeting, delegates from Greek factions joined them as well as American, French and Soviet representatives. Churchill buttonhole
d the Russian Colonel Gregori Popov and made it abundantly clear that he had enjoyed very fruitful talks with Generalissimo Stalin only a few weeks before. Popov had no option but to be duly impressed.
The assembly had to wait for the ELAS representatives, delayed at the entrance because of their reluctance to be relieved of their weapons. In the end the only person armed at the meeting was the prime minister, who had brought a small pistol in his pocket. Churchill shook hands with the ‘three shabby desperados’, as he described them afterwards. He opened the meeting with the statement that whether Greece was to be a monarchy or a republic was for Greeks alone to decide. After that, he and all the other non-Greeks rose and left the room to allow Damaskinos to proceed.
Churchill heard next day that the talks had been angry and even rowdy at times. The former dictator General Nikolaos Plastiras had at one point shouted at one of the Communist delegates: ‘Sit down, butcher!’ Damaskinos announced the resignation of Papandreou as prime minister and his replacement by General Plastiras, who then had to resign too when it emerged that he had offered to lead a collaborationist government during the occupation.
The fighting in Athens continued into the new year, when the andartes pulled out of the city, unable to prevail against the large British force. It was far from a glorious victory to install a far from liberal government. The Greek Civil War, with all its cruelties on both sides, would continue in one form or another until 1949. But Churchill’s obstinate intervention at least saved the country from the fate of its northern neighbours which suffered more than four decades of Communist tyranny.
Behind the Allied lines, Belgium too underwent severe unrest. The joy of liberation in September 1944 soured through the autumn into a mood of bitterness and resentment. The government-in-exile headed by Hubert Pierlot returned to Belgium and found itself incapable of dealing with the country’s problems. Half a million Belgians had been taken to Germany as forced labourers, so there was a severe shortage of manpower. Coal production was down to a tenth of the pre-war output, which meant constant cuts in the electricity supply. The rail network did not function, due partly to Allied bombing but also to sabotage undertaken by the Germans during their sudden withdrawal.
The Second World War Page 92