Churchill 1940-1945: Under Friendly Fire

by Walter Reid

  George VI reacted to the news of the Battle of the Kasserine Pass by saying it looked as if the British ‘would have to do all the fighting’. Churchill replied that ‘The enemy made a great mistake if they think that all the troops we have there are in the same green state as our United States friends’.6

  Needless to say, the Americans saw their contribution in a different light. The American press attributed victories in North Africa, and later in Italy, to their own boys, and quite soon there was a feeling that, as so often in the past, straightforward and innocent Americans were being taken advantage of by the wily and self-interested British. Senators reported that the Administration had been ‘out-manoeuvred at every point [in relation to Lend-Lease] by the selfish but efficient agents of Britain’. Britain was criticised for not conducting operations in the east and for taking over territory won by Americans; Britain was not using her oil reserves in the Middle East, but making use of free American resources; Britain was putting her own labels on goods that were being sent to Russia.7

  But British troops were still the largest element by far in the Allied forces. By 23 January 1943 Eighth Army had entered Tripoli. It was Eighth Army that reached the Mareth Line causing Rommel to pull off the offensive that had been fought at the Kasserine Pass, and it was Montgomery who broke the Mareth Line in PUGILIST on 19/20 March 1943. Brian Horrocks’s X Corps swung round the Matmata Hills, and the Mareth Line was no longer a defensive feature. Rommel flew to Germany to try to persuade Hitler to abandon Tunisia. His request was denied and he was placed on sick leave; but even after his departure the Tunisian campaign was no walkover. On 30 April, for instance, the battle was called off temporarily because of the strength of the German resistance. The Battle of Tunisia proved harder to win than had been expected, but its eventual outcome was not really in doubt. The last Germans surrendered on 13 May 1943.

  35

  Casablanca

  Nineteen forty-three opened with Churchill in a much more secure position politically and militarily than he had been a year earlier. He had delivered victories in the Western Desert, and American commitment to the joint enterprise could be seen in the Allied landings in French North Africa. It was very much his achievement that the next great Allied conference could be held on soil recovered from the Axis.

  The drawback about allies is that they have to be consulted, and the drawback about very powerful allies is that what they think tends to prevail. Averell Harriman noticed that by the time of the Casablanca meeting, on many issues ‘Roosevelt and Churchill did not march to the same drumbeat’ and the theme of the first half of 1943 for Churchill was often one of frustration in his attempts to bend the Americans to his will. In the end he was usually able to ensure that his arguments were accepted, or at least received serious consideration, albeit at the cost of much effort. But Casablanca was a turning point, and at none of the subsequent conferences did Britain play the same role as she had at Placentia Bay, ARCADIA and the Second Washington Conference.

  Despite family fears, which they did not communicate to him, that long-distance flying might precipitate a heart attack, Churchill set off at the beginning of January for the meeting with Roosevelt. He took the Chiefs of Staff plus Mountbatten and the Joint Planners. The American Joint Chiefs of Staff accompanied Roosevelt. Harold Macmillan gave a good account in his diary of the domestic arrangements for the conference:

  The Emperor of the East’s villa [the PM’s] was guarded by a guard of Marines, but otherwise things were fairly simple. His curious routine of spending the great part of the day in bed and all the night up made it a little trying for his staff. I have never seen him in better form. He ate and drank enormously all the time, settled huge problems, played bagatelle and bezique by the hour, and generally enjoyed himself. The only other member of the government present was [Lord] Leathers, and the PM had nobody except his secretaries and so on.

  The Emperor of the West’s villa [the President’s] was difficult of access. If you approached it by night, searchlights were thrown upon you and the hoard of what I believe are called G-men … drew revolvers and covered you. With difficulty you could get access, and then everything was easy. The Court favourites, Averell Harriman and Harry Hopkins, were in attendance as well as the two sons who act as aides and, tragic as it seems, almost as male nurses to this extraordinary figure.1

  Again the British outnumbered the Americans. At one meeting of the Combined Chiefs there were nine British to five Americans and when HUSKY, the invasion of Sicily, was discussed there were seven to four.

  Roosevelt came to Casablanca more determined than ever to improve the lot of the downtrodden subject races. He made some facile points about the conditions of the native inhabitants of Bathurst in the British colony of Gambia, where he had broken his journey to the conference. His regard for the Churchill family was not increased when Randolph arrived. Elliot Roosevelt had already met Churchill’s son in England and had been overwhelmed by him, but it was the first time that the President had met his bombastic self-confidence. His reaction was mainly one of quiet amusement and he was kinder than he might have been: ‘It must be wonderful to have so few misgivings’.2

  As at Placentia Bay, the British came with their positions and arguments thoroughly rehearsed. It was a polished and professional affair. Brooke and his fellow Chiefs worked as a team and knew their briefs and they were supported by a 6,000-ton headquarters and communications ship moored nearby, filled with staff who could rerun figures and make adjustments in the light of developments in the discussions. All this tended, as it was meant to, to ensure that British arguments prevailed. It was impressive, but it also fed the suspicions of those such as the American Secretary for War, Stimson, who were ready to see guileless and innocent Yanks being outmanoeuvred by devious and selfish Limeys. One US planner said, ‘All of us in keeping score counted Casablanca as lost.’3 The British paid later for these victories.

  But even now the Americans were getting their act together – Marshall and King, not natural allies, came to realise that they must cooperate to avoid being outmanoeuvred by the British. And the Combined Chiefs as a whole realised that they had to assert themselves against the two political bosses. At meetings prior to and including Casablanca, they had been obliged to acquiesce in what they considered to be the meddling of President and Prime Minister. At Casablanca they achieved some successes, largely by fixing matters behind their chiefs’ backs – something Churchill would accuse Brooke of, and which Brooke would hotly deny. The negotiations that had led to the abandonment of ROUNDUP and the adoption of TORCH, for instance, were largely effected by Churchill and Roosevelt with intermediary activity by Hopkins.

  The great debate at the conference was on whether there should be a continuing Mediterranean Strategy, as Brooke argued, or an immediate switch to invasion, as the Americans wanted. In view of the suggestion that Churchill was always delaying the Second Front in defiance of the view of the Chiefs of Staff, it is interesting that at Casablanca quite the opposite was true.4 Churchill tended to side with the Americans and argue for closing down TORCH and pressing on with ROUNDUP, ignoring arguments for pushing on to Italy and Turkey from Brooke, who was in the middle of his Mediterranean period; even by end of December 1942 he had become determined that operations should be continued in the Mediterranean theatre throughout 1943, undisturbed by a landing in France unless there were signs that Germany was breaking up. His innate conservatism contrasted with Churchill’s impatience, reflected in a Directive that he had issued to the Chiefs, ordering a halt in the Mediterranean in June, and a switch to preparation for invasion. Brooke and the War Office retorted that the PM would ruin everything by premature invasion, that there was neither enough shipping nor enough landing craft and that anyway the Germans were too strong in France. He even argued for capitalising on the opportunities in the Balkans, as Churchill would do a year later.

  But for the moment (and it was a fairly brief moment) Churchill was for invasion. He was unconvin
ced by the suspicious multiplicity of arguments that were directed against his position. Montgomery was also coming to the conclusion that it might be worth facing up to the cost of invasion. The Prime Minister was thwarted by a neat manoeuvre by the Chiefs, who won tacit acceptance of the Mediterranean Strategy by playing on the internal fault-line in the American position, and making concessions regarding the Pacific. A paper drawn up by Air Marshals Portal and Slessor and accepted by the Americans authorised continuation of operations in the Pacific and Far East, but only provided that in the opinion of the Combined Chiefs these operations did not imperil the chances of defeating Germany in 1943. This renewed pledge of Germany First implied continuation in the Mediterranean theatre in 1943 as there was now no time to mount a major offensive elsewhere. This satisfied both King and Marshall. At Dill’s insistence, the document did not go to Prime Minister or President: ‘You know as well as I do what a mess they would make of it’.

  A series of further crucial decisions was made. Tunisia would be succeeded by an attack on Sicily. Although shipping constraints made it impossible to bring sufficient fresh troops from America to support a major cross-Channel landing, there would be a limited raid on the Cherbourg Peninsula, with a possibility of establishing a bridgehead if all went well. Germany was to be convinced that the assault on Fortress Europe was going to take place in 1943: to that end there would be landings on Brittany, Norway and the Pas-de-Calais, all of which would also take pressure off Russia.

  The Combined Chiefs had come into their own, but their great days did not last long and from mid 1944 the organisation was more or less moribund, its meetings sporadic. Even now, and with a Mediterranean Strategy accepted in return for the Pacific deal, there were strong disagreements about its implementation. The Americans soon wanted to abandon the attack on Sicily, in favour of one on Sardinia, for example; and Sicily, if Sicily it was to be, should be the end of the Mediterranean operations in Marshall’s view; Brooke wanted to spring on from Sicily to Italy.

  36

  De Gaulle at Casablanca

  The Casablanca Conference had to deal with many major issues. A minor objective, though still important, was to effect a reconciliation between Giraud and de Gaulle and to establish some sort of working relationship between them. De Gaulle was slow to appear on the scene and Churchill professed not to know why. The Americans found it very amusing that the British were unable to bring the bride to the wedding, and they enjoyed the joke quite openly.1 Secretly they were quite certain that de Gaulle was entirely under the control of Churchill, who was holding him back simply to enhance his importance.

  In reality Churchill had no such control over the British protégé. When he met the American fiancé at Casablanca, the Prime Minister asked Giraud if he had heard from de Gaulle. Giraud said he had not. Churchill replied, ‘Neither have I. It’s astonishing. He ought to be here. I gave him all the means to come. He is being pig-headed, naturally. A tough customer, your friend de Gaulle’.2

  Roosevelt was unsympathetic about de Gaulle’s absence: ‘Who pays for de Gaulle’s food?’ Churchill: ‘Well, the British do’. Roosevelt: ‘Why don’t you stop his food and maybe he will come?’3 The President’s enquiry was not entirely flippant: he could not understand the licence the British gave to one very dispensable Frenchmen among many, and de Gaulle’s demeanour at Casablanca reinforced him in a prejudice that was never dispelled.

  Eventually, after a fairly stiff telegram from Churchill and much diplomacy by Eden, the general sulkily agreed to go to Morocco – because Roosevelt had asked him. He would not, he said, have gone for Churchill alone. At Casablanca de Gaulle continued to sulk and it was only after Harold Macmillan called on him that he agreed to go and visit Churchill in his nearby villa. The general was fuming. He took exception to the fact that, on what he regarded as French soil, he was surrounded by American bayonets. Churchill had no time for this nonsense. It was on this occasion that he told de Gaulle, ‘Si vous m’obstaclerez, je vous liquiderai!’ [or in a good but inaccurate alternative version: ‘Si vous m’opposerez, je vous getriderai!’]. De Gaulle was equally rude. He told Churchill that it was not appropriate that they should be seriously discussing proposals that could only seem acceptable to American sergeant majors.

  It was bad enough for de Gaulle to find himself escorted around what he regarded as his own country by American troops: it was as well that he did not know that when he met Roosevelt at his villa the gallery above the room in which they met was filled by a secret service detail with tommy guns: they even stood behind the curtains in the room itself.4

  De Gaulle’s final interview was in Churchill’s recollection ‘the roughest of all our wartime encounters’. Prime Minister and President were desperate that an amicable communiqué should be signed by de Gaulle and Giraud, and Churchill threatened that if de Gaulle did not sign it he would be denounced ‘in the Commons and on the radio’. There was no agreement and no communiqué, but there were two handshakes for the press photographers between Giraud and de Gaulle, and this had to satisfy Roosevelt and Churchill. Neither then nor later did de Gaulle understand the importance of pragmatic compromise. He remained always unrealistic, pedantic and uncooperative. He saw himself not as a person, but as the representative of France. When Clementine Churchill told him, ‘General, you must not hate your friends more than your enemies’, de Gaulle replied, ‘France has no friends – only interests’. The amenities and decencies of personal relationships and friendships that normally oil diplomatic relations were absent. Nations did not have friendships; France did not make jokes.

  Bob Murphy, Eisenhower’s political adviser and FDR’s personal representative, acted as the best man and Harold Macmillan as the bridesmaid. They had more or less to push the respective spouses on to the terrace where Roosevelt and Churchill gave their press conference at the end of Casablanca.

  Murphy, like Hull and Roosevelt’s friend Admiral Leahy, was overtly anti-de Gaulle, and briefed the President accordingly. He was much impressed by Giraud and advised his boss that Giraud would make an ideal administrator. The advice was acceptable to the President who had for some reason formed the view that de Gaulle would never surrender the French colonies and indeed aimed at one-man rule in France. On balance, and more reasonably, the British thought de Gaulle preferable to Giraud. When Roosevelt actually met Giraud he liked the man, but disagreed with Murphy’s assessment of his ability.

  De Gaulle remained Britain’s protégé and Giraud America’s but Giraud was possibly more America’s protégé than de Gaulle was Britain’s. Britain never really knew what to make of Giraud. As a clerihew in the Daily Mail in May 1942 put it,

  I used to think General Giraud

  Was something of a hero.

  Now he’s gone to Vichy

  It all looks a bit fishy.

  America had taken even more trouble to get their man out of Vichy France than Britain had: he was extracted on a British submarine, but one flying an American flag, to the extent that a submarine flies a flag, and the extraction was made at Eisenhower’s request. Hopkins took quite a detailed note of the impression that Giraud made on him at Casablanca, and his views carried weight with the President. He was aware that the Frenchman was a Royalist and ‘probably a right winger in all his economic views’ but he thought that he had confidence, vigour and the will to fight. More importantly, Hopkins ‘[h]ad a feeling that he had made up his mind that he was going to do whatever the President wanted in Africa’.5 That was certainly something that no one would say of de Gaulle. Between the two principals de Gaulle became known as Churchill’s ‘problem child’ and later just ‘D’; Giraud was Roosevelt’s ‘problem child’ or ‘G’.

  The extent of the State Department’s infatuation with Vichy is shown by the draft letter which was given to Roosevelt to sign ahead of TORCH (the words in italics were deleted in the final version):

  My Dear Old Friend:

  I am sending this message to you not only as the Chef d’ État of the
United States to the Chef d’ État of the Republic of France, but also as one of your friends and comrades of the great days of 1918. May we both live to see France victorious again against the ancient enemy.

  When your government concluded, of necessity, the Armistice Convention in 1940, it was impossible for any of us to foresee the programme of systematic plunder which the German Reich would inflict on the French people.6

  As Minister Resident, Harold Macmillan had the unenviable responsibility of seeing that the marriage was consummated. Part of the difficulty between the two generals was ideological. De Gaulle, more than Giraud, wanted an elimination of anyone tainted by contact with Vichy. He was also strongly critical of Giraud’s slowness in repealing anti-Semitic laws in French North Africa. But there were personal conflicts too. Giraud rather stood on his rank as a five-star general, as opposed to the two-star de Gaulle. He did not want to be Foch to de Gaulle’s Clemenceau. When the French Committee for National Liberation, the FCNL, was formed, de Gaulle insisted that he be the Commissioner for Defence, with the Chiefs of Staff reporting to him – a flattering imitation of the Churchillian model. Giraud, as Commander-in-Chief, wanted no such limitation of his powers, and in the controversy which followed, de Gaulle tendered his resignation as co-President and also as a member of the Committee. Giraud had started to write a letter accepting the resignation when Macmillan discovered what had happened, and convinced him that it would be a disaster if de Gaulle were to go at such an early stage in the history of the FCNL. He could see in it the danger of a complete break-up of the representation of the French Empire. Fortunately for the sake of unity, his views were accepted.7