by Walter Reid
Now he was on the spot in Cairo. After a fairly brief meeting with Churchill on 7 August, de Gaulle went off to negotiate with Casey, who had replaced Oliver Lyttelton as Minister of State, and to survey the problems arising from Syria. All that poor Casey wanted was to have elections in Syria, scarcely evidence of imperialist designs, but he received such savage treatment from de Gaulle that Churchill, who had decided to replace Spears with someone more acceptable to the Free French, now changed his mind. De Gaulle threatened to go to war with Britain and, not for the first time, to withdraw the Free French to Africa. His own account of the meetings with Churchill reveals some of the fury of the occasion. Churchill: ‘You claim to be France! You are not France! I do not recognise you as France!’1 Even the sanitised official record of the conversations show how bad things had become:
The Prime Minister said that they seemed still to be very far apart. There seemed little use to proceed further with the conversation. The General had been unsuccessful in winning the confidence of the Americans, who had also had hopes of working with him. He could not understand why the General did not try to make things go well. (The Foreign Secretary interjected that other allies did not find us so difficult to deal with.) General de Gaulle was his own worst enemy. The Prime Minister had hoped to work with him. Gradually, bit by bit, that hope had been destroyed. We carried a pretty heavy load on account of France. Things could not go on as they were.
By the end of the interview, despite his incandescent rage, Churchill told Eden that he was just ‘sorry for the man, he was such a fool’. Eden later said that ‘he had never seen anything like it in the way of rudeness since Ribbentrop’.2
De Gaulle never realised how close he came on occasions to being dropped. He was not indispensable, and America would have been delighted to see him go. Churchill felt attached to him, but that attachment could wear thin. British public opinion helped de Gaulle. So repeatedly did Eden. So did the War Cabinet: in May 1943 in Washington Churchill was ready to let the Frenchman go, and it was only a rebellion by the War Cabinet that saved him.3
Yet again, it was Churchill who took the trouble to repair the breach: at the end of October he sent Desmond Morton to de Gaulle’s headquarters at Carlton Gardens with emollient messages which did the trick nicely: the government soon learned that de Gaulle ‘had been very ému by what Major Morton had said to him’ and ‘was delighted at the Prime Minister having made this gesture and felt that the situation had improved remarkably’.4
But de Gaulle apart, Churchill’s morale had improved. After all the disappointments and dismissals in the Middle East, he had at last assembled a team that would remain in place for the rest of the war. He splashed in the Mediterranean surf before flying on to Teheran and then to Moscow.
The August visit to Moscow had been contemplated and discussed by Churchill and Roosevelt for some time. But behind the Prime Minister’s back the President had his own plans. He was already trying to cut Churchill out of his negotiations with the Russian leader, as he would do increasingly in the course of the war. He told Churchill in March 1942, ‘I think I can personally handle Stalin better than either your Foreign Office or my State Department. Stalin hates the guts of all your top people. He thinks he likes me better, and I hope he will continue to do so.’5 Later he was to say ‘Three’s a crowd. We can arrange for the Big Three to get together thereafter. Churchill will understand. I will take care of that.’
But Roosevelt’s heart was never in travels. It was Churchill who went east. His flight to Moscow involved a journey of 20,000 miles, not above cloud level, with no beds, only ‘shelves’. The aircraft was unheated and vibrated under the impulses of its piston engines. The 67-year-old Prime Minister’s discomfort was only slightly alleviated by a modified oxygen mask, which allowed him to smoke a cigar. General Macarthur said of it, ‘a flight of 20,000 through hostile and foreign skies may be the duty of young pilots, but for a Statesman burdened with the world’s cares it is an act of inspiring gallantry and valour’. Macarthur was no admirer of Churchill. This journey was merely part of many long, dangerous and exhausting travels that Churchill made in the course of the war, amounting in all to some 107,000 miles.
He had the unpleasant task of confirming to Stalin, face to face in Moscow, what the Russian leader had already been told by telegram: the 1942 second front had been cancelled, and he would have to wait until 1943. After a hot bath he was driven to the Kremlin to draw a picture of a crocodile for Stalin, so that he could point out its soft underbelly. Throughout 1942 Russia was going to have to continue to bear the main burden of fighting the Germans. Between June 1941 and June 1944 93 per cent of German combat losses were inflicted by Russia. The account of the meeting that Churchill gave in his history was a prime example of his sanitisation of the record. It was a very difficult meeting indeed, and came very close to disaster.6
The atmosphere only relaxed a little when Churchill promised bombing of German cities on a vast scale.7 Bombing was to be Britain’s Second Front: as Churchill put it, bombing was paying Britain’s way. All the same, Stalin’s mood changed from day to day and he remained capable of accusing Britain of cowardice. Churchill responded, ‘I pardon that remark only on account of the bravery of the Russian troops’. He told Stalin that the 1942 Second Front would be in North Africa and that there would also be ‘a reconnaissance in force’ across the Channel that summer.
At this stage the full implications of TORCH were not fully appreciated. But military planners, American and British, both saw that TORCH would mean that there could not be a quick follow-up on the Atlantic coast on a significant scale. Churchill is usually thought to have been pro-TORCH at the expense of Atlantic landings, but he actually aired, though not with the Americans, the idea of closing down the Mediterranean operations at the end of June 1943 to allow for ROUNDUP in August.8
Conversely, although conventionally America is regarded as having been lukewarm about the Mediterranean, and impatient for a Second Front, as early as 11 November 1942, just days after the TORCH landings started, Roosevelt suggested ‘forward movements directed against Sardinia, Sicily, Italy, Greece and other Balkan areas’.9 Who was the Mediterranean strategist? In the event the North African campaign took much longer to complete than planned. It took six months to capture the Tunisian ports, and only four months were then left before the winter gales of 1943.
The Moscow visit followed a pattern which would be repeated in the course of the war: apparent rages on Stalin’s part, followed by conciliation; enormous consumption of food and alcohol; great bonhomie, which could be succeeded the following day by chilling coldness. Churchill sometimes erroneously attributed these changes of mood to instructions that Stalin had received from mysterious party bosses who, he thought, limited his freedom of movement. While Churchill was dictating replies to telegrams in his dacha on 13 August he was warned that the room was probably bugged. He broke off from his dictation to bellow some comments for the benefit of the hidden microphones and for transmission to Stalin: ‘The Russians, I am told, are not human beings at all. They are lower in the scale of nature than the orangutan. Now then let them take that down and translate it into Russian’.10 Some of his remarks were particularly ill chosen. He referred to Stalin as a peasant, and said he would not leave until he was in his pocket. Tedder warned him by scribbling a note, ‘Méfiez-vous’. Wise advice: at Teheran Stalin took great interest each morning in the previous evening’s transcripts11 and in October 1944 no less than sixteen microphones were found in the British villa in Moscow. What Stalin thought of it all is not known, except that he was astounded by the British lack of security. But the indiscretions may have contributed to the problems of what was in reality a very difficult series of meetings, which at one point looked liked ending very badly. Churchill came close to threatening to leave prematurely.
He returned to Cairo on 17 August and on the following day he, Brooke and Alex went to Monty’s headquarters in the desert. Although Monty was not subject
ed to the same degree of harassment as Wavell and Auchinleck had been, and was insulated by the suave Alex, he was not immune from pressure. There was to be more pressure in the course of September, which Churchill later excised from his record of events, as also the serious setbacks at the outset of Alamein itself.12
On the following day, 19 August, the Dieppe raid, the ‘reconnaissance in force’ that Churchill had mentioned to Stalin, resulted in the loss by death, wounding or capture of 68 per cent of the largely Canadian forces involved. The raid had first been planned, as RUTTER, in early July. These plans were abandoned because security had been compromised and the weather was bad. They were subsequently revived by Mountbatten, possibly without top-level authorisation, and certainly without any very full discussion or any records being taken. Churchill’s concern was evident in a minute of 21 December in which he said ‘It would appear to a layman very much out of accord with the accepted principles of war to attack the strongly fortified town front without first securing the cliffs on either side, and to use our tanks in frontal assault off the beaches’.13
On 30 August, Rommel unleashed an attack on Montgomery, but did not break through the British defences at Alam Halfa Ridge, 15 miles south of east El Alamein. The battle of Alam Halfa was unequivocally a victory, but a defensive one from which Montgomery turned to plan the offensive which would open at Second Alamein in October. Poor Brooke had taken a brief holiday – the only one that year – and was peremptorily called to the telephone by Churchill to discuss Alexander’s latest signal. ‘ “You have not seen it! Do you mean to say you are out of touch with the strategic situation?” I replied, “I told you I was going grouse shooting today, and I’ve not yet solved how I am to remain in touch with the strategic situation whilst on a grouse butt.” ’ That was not good enough for Churchill and a contact officer rode through the night by motorcycle from Whitehall to Darlington with a copy of the signal.14
Montgomery opened his offensive from El Alamein on 23 October 1942. By now, Alexander had the benefit of the full text of the Enigma decrypts, which helped the British to know when to follow through. For all that, the outcome of the battle was very far from a foregone conclusion. There is some doubt whether the church bells rang out two days later to celebrate the victory of Second El Alamein, or were delayed on Brooke’s advice and against Churchill’s wishes until after the fall of Tunis;15 either way there was hard fighting before Tobruk fell on 13 November.
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Second Alamein and TORCH
Later Churchill was to say, ‘It may almost be said, “before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat” ’, but at the time the possibility of further defeats seemed very real – and not only on land: Britain still could not read the German submarine signals. On 24 November 1942, a month in which the highest tonnage of Allied shipping in any month in the war was lost, Churchill telegraphed to Stalin, ‘You who have so much land, may find it hard to realise that we can only live and fight in proportion to our sea communications’.
Montgomery’s critics have pointed out that the plans for Second Alamein were largely those that Auchinleck and Dorman-Smith had prepared, and that he delayed the start of the offensive for a month more than poor Auchinleck had proposed. The criticism is facile and misses the point: Montgomery had a great deal of organisation to put in place, changes to make, a new esprit to build up; and the army he used at Second Alamein was very different from the army with which the Auk had fought at First Alamein.
From Churchill’s perspective, however, the delay before the start of Second Alamein was exactly the sort of delay that Wavell and Auchinleck had insisted on, and he was as annoyed by it as he had been in the past. But he could not afford to dismiss another desert general, and when Monty hinted at resignation if he were not allowed an adequate gap between Alam Halfa and Second Alamein he admitted he was indulging in pure blackmail.1
That does not mean that he went out of his way to irritate Churchill – at least not until he was much more certain of his security of tenure. On the contrary, he took great pains to humour and cosset him. When the PM had visited Auchinleck in the desert because the Auk could not take time to come up to Cairo, he had endured considerable discomfort in the C-in-C’s fly-ridden wire cage, an unnecessary ordeal for a man of his years and distinction from which he escaped with relief to the amenities thoughtfully provided by the RAF. They had arranged to have an epicurean repast brought out into the desert from Shepheard’s Hotel.
Montgomery’s personal regime was even more abstemious that Auchinleck’s, but when Churchill visited him in the desert after Alam Halfa, the occasion was celebrated with the provision of every luxury that could mitigate the privations of war. Monty’s own caravan was handed over and placed close to the sea, to accommodate his guest’s well-known love of bathing. Wine and brandy flowed in the mess. The Prime Minister was indulged and spoiled. He enjoyed being ‘the man on the spot’, sharing in the making of history and the planning of victories. It was all very different from, say, the days of Wavell when the plans for O’Connor’s offensive were only disclosed to the War Cabinet when Eden happened to visit the Commander-in-Chief.
While they were in Cairo Sir Charles Wilson, as Moran still was, fell mildly ill with the local stomach bug. The medical tables were turned, and Churchill loved it, telling everyone, ‘Sir Charles has been a terrible anxiety to us the whole time, but I hope we’ll get him through’.2
Monty had used his delay for constructive purposes and even if very much of the planning was taken over from his predecessors without acknowledgement, perhaps even denied, the kind of war the Eighth Army fought was never the same again. Monty was arrogant, cocksure, untruthful, ruthlessly ambitious and unpleasant in his dealings with senior fellow-officers, but he loved his vulgar showmanship, and it worked very well with most, if not all, of those on whom it was deployed. He put new heart and confidence into junior commanders and other ranks. Morale was transformed and a very tired and dispirited army was persuaded both that it was an effective fighting force and that lives would not be wasted. When Brooke revisited the Eighth Army he was astounded by the change he found.
At the same time Montgomery recognised the continuing limitations of his army, and took care not to demand too much of it. He sought, not with complete success, to address the persisting problem of integrating armour and infantry, and he curbed the proliferation of special units, insisting that divisions fought as divisions.
When all that is said, however, Second El Alamein was not immediately or self-evidently the turning point that it turned out to be, and Alex took a chance when he reported to Churchill on 6 November 1942: ‘General Alexander to Prime Minister. Ring out the bells! Prisoners estimated now at 20,000, tanks 350, guns 400, M.T. several thousand. Our advanced mobile forces are south of Mersa Matruh. Eighth Army is advancing.’
That was the stuff to give the PM, but Brooke was nearer the mark when he said of the battle, ‘It may be the turning-point of the War … or it may mean nothing’. While the fighting continued, the outcome seemed very much in doubt. It did not go in accordance with Montgomery’s Master Plan (though that was not acknowledged) and the breakout was postponed from day ten to day twelve. Churchill had been acutely concerned. ‘Haven’t we got a single general who can win even one battle?’ he shouted at Brooke, who thought he was going to be hit.
And all this was despite the fact that at Alamein as at Alam Halfa, Montgomery fought with a huge numerical superiority, particularly in tanks, and that Rommel was very far from well. At Alam Halfa, suffering from a swollen liver and an infection of his nose he could not even leave his truck.
But the appearance and presentation of events in warfare is often more potent than reality. Monty knew that, and so did Churchill. Although he wrote of Alamein as marking a turning point between a series of defeats and a series of victories, he omitted to mention that before Alamein Britain fought alone; after Alamein America fought alongside her. TORCH was launched on 8 Nove
mber, and as Rommel said, ‘This spelled the end of the Army in Africa’.3
But the importance of Second Alamein did not only appear in retrospect. Even at the time, it was recognised as significant. The nature of the Desert War had changed. Hitherto, lack of supplies had been responsible for the nature of warfare as well as for the victories and defeats. Movement between the Italian base at Benghazi and the British base of Alexandria could only be made along a narrow coastal strip. In Graziani’s original advance, an impressive thrust of about a thousand miles right up to the Egyptian border, Italian success was finally checked by lack of supply. The equally impressive British drive well into Libya failed for the same reason. Germany reinforced the Axis effort, and yet ultimately suffered in the same way. But in the course of 1942 the Italians had been expelled from the Mediterranean, which was now dominated by the Royal Navy, while the Royal Air Force, operating from Malta, largely controlled the air. Consequently, when Montgomery broke out at Second Alamein, although the quality of his armaments was inferior to Rommel’s, supply and support were infinitely better.
Just three days after the Alamein breakout, TORCH brought American and British troops on to the North African coast, to the west of the Germans. The full implications of TORCH were not clear in 1942, but there now existed the possibility of trapping Rommel between the Allied forces in French West Africa and the largely British forces in the Western Desert. For the moment, Rommel continued to fight an impressive series of rearguard actions, but Montgomery was able to continue westwards, capturing Sidi Barrani on 9 November and taking Benghazi on 20 November.
TORCH proceeded on the assumption that the Vichy authorities in French North Africa would welcome the Allies with open arms. In the event the Frenchmen on the spot showed as usual no great desire to be freed from the shackles of Vichy. There was fierce resistance in Oran and Morocco, in which the French navy played an enthusiastic part. In Algiers, on the other hand, the Resistance seized power and the Vichy commanders were handed over to the Allies on their arrival.