On Friday 10 April, Eden saw Churchill after Cabinet: ‘We spoke of [the] American plan. He feared [the British] General Staff would say “Yes” and make this a pretext for doing much less elsewhere.’ After a long day’s work, ‘mainly concerned with trying to save India from the Japs’, including two Chiefs of Staff meetings, Brooke drove down to Chequers with Pound and Portal for dinner with Marshall, Hopkins and Churchill. ‘We were kept up till 2am doing a world survey, but little useful work,’ he recorded. After the war, Brooke recalled being ‘amused at Marshall’s reactions to Winston’s late hours, he was evidently not used to being kept out of his bed till the small hours of the morning and not enjoying it much!’ Marshall used to say that no important decision was ever taken after four o’clock in the afternoon, but he soon learned that Churchill thought otherwise.26 He was also astonished at the level of access that Brooke had with the Prime Minister, saying that he frequently did not see Roosevelt for a month or even six weeks. This prompted Brooke to note with feeling: ‘I was fortunate if I did not see Winston for 6 hours.’27
The Modicum visit brought Churchill and Marshall into close contact over a long period, allowing the general to observe the Prime Minister’s habits closely. He admired Churchill’s gift for language, of course, as well as ‘his knowledge and sense of history, his splendid contempt for the enemy, his capacity for boldness’. Yet, according to Pogue, Marshall was also ‘appalled’ by Churchill’s ‘swift changes of plans, a flexibility that brought chaos in planning, a daring that brushed aside careful details’. Most of all he ‘dreaded’ Churchill’s influence on Roosevelt, who he said ‘also delighted in the dramatic and the unexpected, and who was determined, now that he was in the war, to strike a sudden and vital blow at the Nazis’.28 It was very commendable, but where would it fall?
On Saturday 11 April, three days into the visit, Hopkins cabled Roosevelt to say that discussions with Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff were progressing well. He complained that ‘my underwear is itching like the devil’, which was probably more information than the President needed. The Buckinghamshire countryside led him to eulogize about how ‘It’s only when you see that country in spring that you begin to understand why the English have written the best goddam poetry in the world.’ It was a calm weekend, although Mrs Churchill was feeling exhausted and they again stayed up till the early hours.
Unfortunately a telegram from Roosevelt about Stafford Cripps’ mission to India arrived at 3 o’clock on Sunday morning. Cripps was attempting to secure Indian political support for the Allied war effort, in return for full autonomy after the war, but the President thought that large measures of Indian self-government should be accorded while the war was still being fought. Churchill told Hopkins that he ‘refused to be responsible for a policy which would throw the whole subcontinent of India into utter confusion while the Japanese invader was at its gates’.29 Churchill deeply resented Roosevelt’s attempted interference in imperial matters, and did not mind making that clear. Hopkins’ scribbled notes also indicate that Churchill threatened to resign ‘if that would do any good in assuaging American public opinion’ with regard to India, an absurd notion on so many levels that it can safely be put down to one of Churchill’s late-night rodomontades.
Churchill’s late nights had tired out Hopkins, who anyway suffered from anaemia. ‘Please put Hopkins to bed and keep him there under 24-hour guard by Army or Marine Corps,’ Roosevelt joked in a telegram to Marshall later that day. ‘Ask the King for additional assistance if required on this job.’ Brooke got away from Chequers in time to spend the day pruning roses at home, and playing with his daughter Kathleen, nicknamed ‘Pooks’. That afternoon, Marshall telephoned McNarney, his deputy in Washington, to say that Churchill had ‘indicated that he had virtually accepted in toto the proposals I submitted to him, and that the Defense Cabinet Committee would undoubtedly approve. I regard this as acquiescence in principle. We must now get to business and arrange the details.’30
McNarney duly told the President that Marshall’s message ‘indicates good progress’, adding that the general was due to sit with the full Cabinet on Monday the 13th and the Cabinet’s Defence Committee the next day, but already ‘Naval Person [that is, Churchill] told me he accepts our proposal.’31 Considering how opposed Brooke had been on the morning of 9 April to two of the three proposals–Roundup and Sledgehammer–it was surprising that Marshall had taken Churchill’s word as representing ‘acquiescence in principle’ to the proposals ‘in toto’. Perhaps there was as much an element of self-delusion by Marshall as there was dissembling by the British.
There were lighter moments at Chequers that Sunday morning also. Hopkins had asked Wedemeyer to have two crates of fresh food put on the Clipper in Bermuda to present to Churchill and the request had duly gone down the command chain. Churchill, accompanied by Hopkins and Marshall, went to watch the gardener carefully prise open the crate and to see ‘what precious gift had been brought him’. Some pineapples, perhaps, or paw-paw, or some other delicious, exotic tropical fruit? It turned out to be Brussels sprouts, one of the vegetables in plentiful supply in England. ‘Churchill started to laugh, and soon everyone joined in.’
Churchill telegraphed Roosevelt about the Marshall Memorandum that Sunday, to say that he had ‘read with earnest attention your masterly document about future of the war and the great operations proposed. I am in entire agreement in principle with all you propose, and so are the Chiefs of Staff.’ His sole proviso was that ‘We must of course meet day-to-day emergencies in the east and west while preparing for the main stroke.’ Although he stated that the whole matter was going to be discussed by the Defence Committee on the evening of Tuesday the 14th, to which ‘Harry and Marshall’ were of course invited, Churchill concluded: ‘I have no doubt that I shall be able to send you our complete agreement. I may say that I thought the proposals made for an interim operation in certain contingencies this year met the difficulties and uncertainties in an absolutely sound manner. If, as our experts believe, we can carry this whole plan through successfully, it will be one of the grand events in all the history of the war.’32
This was at best disingenuous, because as the Chiefs of Staff meeting on the morning of 9 April showed, the British experts plainly did not believe that Sledgehammer, the ‘interim operation’ referred to, could be carried through successfully in 1942. Although Churchill had not been present, having been in conclave with Hopkins at the time, he must have known this, having been in regular and close contact with Brooke since then. Churchill’s seeming wholehearted endorsement of the Marshall Memorandum in its entirety stored up great–and largely unnecessary–problems later on.
Monday 13 April brought three meetings of the Chiefs of Staff and Cabinet, each dedicated to ‘trying to frame a reply for Marshall’. These took up most of the day, and Brooke only got away after 8 p.m., when he had Marshall to dine with him. ‘The more I see of him the more I like him,’ he noted at the time. Yet after the war Brooke added this damning assessment of that dinner: ‘There was a great charm and dignity about Marshall which could not fail to appeal to one. A big man and a very great gentleman, who inspired trust, but did not impress me by the ability of his brain.’33 Since this was written several years later, long after Brooke had got to know Marshall very well indeed, it must be taken as his considered appraisal.
Marshall had meanwhile heard the reservations that Brooke and others had about the cross-Channel proposals, telegraphing McNarney that his Memorandum would be accepted in principle, ‘but relative to avoidance of future dispersions particularly of planes, such acceptance will have to be considerably and continuously bolstered by firmness of our stand.’ He concluded perceptively that ‘Virtually everyone agrees with us in principle but many if not most hold reservations regarding this or that.’
Marshall attended the Chiefs of Staff meeting the next morning, Tuesday 14 April, at which Brooke handed him a document giving their detailed reply to his Memorandum. As Mar
shall had surmised, it was favourable overall but contained strong caveats. They agreed with his 1943 timetable, while stating that any action in 1942 would need to await developments on the Russian front, and that India and the Middle East would have to be made safe before anything else. Marshall then said that ‘within the next three or four months we were very likely to find ourselves in the position when we were forced to take action on the Continent,’ and this ‘might be either because we might not be able to hold back while the Russians were being driven back or borne down, or because a favourable opportunity had presented itself’.34 At the time everyone assumed that the Manichean struggle between Nazism and Communism must come to a swift and decisive conclusion; it seemed unlikely to anyone that the conflict might still be going on a full three years later.
Brooke concluded that if Britain was ‘forced to undertake an operation on the Continent, it could only be on a small scale’.35 Marshall ought to have taken from this, as well as all the earlier discussions and the conversations over the various lunches and dinners, that there might have been a serious disagreement between Brooke and Churchill over future operations, yet he does not seem to have, or if he did he obviously thought that Churchill’s will must prevail. Mountbatten also pointed out the lack of landing craft, which was to become a central issue very soon. ‘Marshall, who has made a splendid impression here,’ Hopkins cabled Roosevelt, ‘has presented our case with moderation but with great force. I believe we will achieve not only agreement in principle but a real meeting of minds.’36
Welcoming Marshall and Hopkins to the crucial Defence Committee meeting at Downing Street at 10 p.m. that Tuesday evening were Churchill, Attlee, Eden, the Minister of Production Oliver Lyttelton, the First Lord of the Admiralty A. V. Alexander, the War Minister Sir James Grigg, the Air Minister Sir Archie Sinclair, Brooke, Pound, Portal, Ismay and Mountbatten, along with Hollis and Jacob from the secretariat. Churchill opened the meeting by saying that Hopkins and Marshall had brought over what he again called ‘a momentous proposal’, one that had been fully discussed and examined by the Staffs.
For himself, he had no hesitation in cordially adopting the plan. The conception underlying it accorded with the classic principles of war, namely, concentration against the main enemy. One broad reservation must however be made–it was essential to carry on the defence of India and the Middle East. We could not possibly face the loss of an army of six hundred thousand men and the whole manpower of India. Furthermore, Australia and the island bases connecting that country with the United States must not be allowed to fall, as this would inevitably prolong the war. This meant that we could not entirely lay aside everything in furtherance of the main object proposed by General Marshall.37
So far, therefore, the British had not made any direct criticisms of Roundup or Sledgehammer, but had only put their imperial self-interest first, as the Americans must have expected they would.
Marshall was the next to speak, saying that ‘It was a great relief for him to know that there was a basic agreement on general principles. All were in complete agreement as to what should be done in 1943.’ He mentioned a strong bombing offensive and the importance of occasional raids on the French coast, in order to raise morale and provide a battle-hardened nucleus of American troops. ‘The availability of troops presented no problem,’ he promised. ‘The main difficulties would be in providing the requisite tonnage, the landing craft, the aircraft and the naval escorts.’
The general then brought up the ‘two points of doubt’ which had arisen in his discussions with the British Chiefs of Staff. The first was whether the United States would contribute enough matériel to support Britain in the Middle East and India, and the second was the practicality of making ‘a landing on the Continent’ in 1942. ‘We might be compelled to do this, and we must, in any case, prepare for it,’ he said. He thought that air superiority would solve most of these problems, and this would come both from the Allied plane-building programme and from the Luftwaffe’s preoccupations in Russia.
He admitted that there had not been much time before he left the United States to study the problem of operations in 1942 and, on the data available, he had concluded that they could not be undertaken before September. ‘If they had to be done before then, the United States contribution would be modest,’ he admitted, ‘but whatever was available in the way of American forces over here at the time could be used to the full. The President had particularly emphasised that he wished his armed forces to share to the greatest extent possible in whatever might be undertaken.’
Marshall then discussed trebling production of landing craft by the United States, the defence of Australia and the south-west Pacific by the US Navy, the garrisoning of Iceland, and other projects that could be undertaken concomitant with Bolero, adding that full provision was being made for holding the Australia–Hawaii–Alaska line in the Pacific. He ended by using a legal analogy he was to return to in the future, stating that it was ‘essential that our main project, i.e. operations on the Continent, should not be reduced to the status of a “residual legatee” to whom nothing was left’. It was a powerful appeal, presented with the assurance of a man who had already practised it several times by then.
Brooke spoke next, saying that the British Chiefs of Staff Committee had:
examined very carefully General Marshall’s proposals. They were in entire agreement with him on the project for 1943. Operations on the Continent in 1942 were governed by the measure of success achieved by the Germans in their campaign against Russia. If they were successful, we could clearly act less boldly. If, however, the Russians held the Germans, or had an even greater measure of success, our object should be to force the Germans to detach air forces from the Russian front. This could be done either by air operations or by the landing of troops, which would force heavy air battles.
Brooke then stated unequivocally that ‘The Chiefs of Staff entirely agreed that Germany was the real enemy. At the same time, it was essential to hold the Japanese and ensure that there was no junction between them and the Germans.’ He conjured up the by now familiar lurid scenario in which the Japanese won control of the Indian Ocean, allowing the Middle East to be gravely threatened and oil supplies prevented from going through the Persian Gulf. Under those circumstances, Germany would seize Persia’s oil, the southern route to Russia would be cut off, and Turkey would be isolated, destroying any hope of her joining the Allies, while Germany and Japan could exchange any hardware they needed. American assistance was thus vital to prevent Japan taking control of the western Indian Ocean. Churchill unsurprisingly agreed, readily acknowledging that Britain was ‘unable to cope unaided’ with the Japanese threat there.
This led to a discussion between Churchill, Brooke and Pound about the Indian Ocean, with the Americans as spectators, although that did not prevent Churchill from suggesting moves that involved their fleets, and even individual ships. If the new battleship USS North Carolina was to sail to the British naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, he posited, HMS Duke of York could be released for duty in the Indian Ocean. When Brooke said he ‘welcomed the idea of an offensive in Europe’ after measures had been taken ‘to prevent a collapse in the Indian Ocean’, which would require American assistance, he was of course asking for an open-ended commitment. This prompted Hopkins to warn the Committee that ‘If public opinion in America had its way, the weight of American effort would be directed against Japan. Nevertheless, after anxious discussion, the President and American military leaders had decided that it would be right to direct the forces of American arms against Germany.’ He explained that the Germany First policy had been adopted because the US High Command wanted to fight on land, at sea and in the air, as well as ‘in the most useful place, and in the place where they could attain superiority, and they were desirous above all of joining in an enterprise with the British’.38 He might have been more honest, if less comradely, if he had added that Roosevelt and Marshall realized how more difficult the task w
ould be if Britain lost to Germany during the time that it took for the United States to defeat Japan.
Attlee, Eden and Mountbatten then all had their say, before Churchill summed up, affirming that although the details of the cross-Channel plans still needed to be worked out, it was clear that there was ‘complete unanimity on the framework’. He would request help in the Indian Ocean, ‘without which the whole plan would be fatally compromised’, and rather grandly he acknowledged that ‘It would gradually be known that the English-speaking peoples were resolved on a great campaign for the liberation of Europe.’39
Although Churchill had inserted the Indian Ocean, and not the Middle East, into his caveat, the mention of the Indian Ocean only made sense in terms of the Middle East, and he had mentioned the Middle East unequivocally earlier on. Moreover Brooke had already inserted his several caveats about the Roundup operation. The way that matters stood, it did sound as though the British would be able to veto any cross-Channel operation until they were satisfied that both the Indian Ocean and the Middle East were safe from Japanese and German aggression, and the United States was fully committed to bringing about that seemingly Utopian state of affairs.
Marshall expressed confidence that the Indian Ocean theatre could be protected at the same time that Roundup was undertaken and Hopkins emphasized that once the decision had been taken to cross the Channel it would become the United States’ major contribution to the war effort and would therefore become irreversible. The Prime Minister then gave him a solemn assurance that the British would support the great enterprise energetically and unreservedly.
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