As so often in hard-fought compromises between Staffs, the key detail was to be found towards the end, almost in the small print. Under paragraph C subsection 4 it stated: ‘That it be understood that a commitment to [Torch] renders Roundup in all probability impracticable of successful operation in 1943 and therefore that we have definitely accepted a defensive encircling line of action for the Continental European theatre, except as to air operations and blockade.’72
That might sound like Brooke’s strategy, but there was a catch, one that Michael Howard has even likened to a Faustian compact made between the British Chiefs of Staff and the Americans. CCS 94 seemed to imply that Churchill’s original WW1 document from the Arcadia Conference had now been officially superseded, and that instead of Germany First, the phrase ‘defensive encircling line of action’ meant that the Americans could now also concentrate more on the Pacific. This rogue interpretation seemed to be supported by the specific provision in CCS 94 for the transfer of fifteen US aircraft groups–about 800 planes–‘for the purpose of furthering offensive operations in the Pacific’. (They were to prove invaluable for the conquest of Guadalcanal.)
The US Navy soon professed to believe that CCS 94 now rendered the Germany First policy, as delineated in Churchill’s WW1 document, obsolete. On 11 August Dill warned the Chiefs of Staff that CCS 94 ‘gives to American Naval Staff the extra emphasis on the Pacific theatre they have always wanted and intend to maintain’, and that in Washington it was now being ‘quoted verbatim as the present “Bible”’. That same day Dill wrote to Marshall about this interpretation of strategic holy writ, saying: ‘At present our Chiefs of Staff quote WW1 as the Bible whereas some of your people, I think, look upon CCS 94 as the Revised Version.’73
Marshall’s reply was direct; in his view CCS 94 did indeed revise WW1 by diverting the air groups to the Pacific and by instituting Torch, which would, ‘in my opinion, definitely preclude the offensive operations against Germany that were contemplated in WW1’. Meanwhile, Brooke wrote to Dill to say that the reference in CCS 94 to ‘a defensive encircling line of action’ only meant that a longer prelude was needed before the cross-Channel assault than the one ‘that we had in mind when we accepted the Bolero plan’. So whose interpretation of CCS 94 was to prevail? If it was Admiral King’s, it would lead to a very different war from that of Sir Alan Brooke.
At the time, however, CCS 94 looked to Brooke very much like victory over Sledgehammer and at 4.30 p.m. he took it to Churchill, who immediately approved it, seeing that it gave the green light to his beloved Torch operation. Yet at the 5 p.m. Cabinet, in Brooke’s words: ‘From the start things went wrong!’ Usually a lapdog over grand strategy, suddenly the Cabinet expressed their doubts, and argued over perceived flaws in the deal. ‘I perspired heavily in my attempts to pull things straight,’ Brooke recalled, ‘and was engaged in heated arguments with Eden and Cripps with most of Cabinet taking sides.’ This was an unexpected development, and for Brooke–who had spent seven hours in discussion with Marshall on 22 July–a most unwelcome one. He was infuriated to have politicians such as Attlee, Lyttelton and A. V. Alexander, who had not attended the Combined Chiefs of Staff meetings, threatening to wreck the agreement at the last moment. In the end CCS 94 was passed without a word being altered, after Churchill had thrown his considerable weight behind Brooke. ‘Any changes would have been fatal,’ Brooke believed, because ‘the Americans have gone a long way to meet us, and I should have to ask them for more.’
Nor had Churchill, Brooke or the War Cabinet spotted the problem with CCS 94 of which Dill was later to warn. Instead the discussion centred on the effect of Operation Torch on the timing of Roundup, with emphasis being put on whether planning for both could proceed concurrently. Brooke said there was ‘complete unanimity’ between the British and American Staffs over CCS 94, and thus, theoretically at least, over the future course of the war. Yet Marshall might have been surprised to hear Brooke claim that ‘Both the British and the United States Chiefs of Staffs believed that it was unlikely Roundup would be carried out in 1943, and that…Operation Torch therefore held the field,’ since CCS 94 had a target date for Roundup as ‘before July 1943’ in its very first paragraph. ‘A very trying week,’ concluded Brooke after the Cabinet sceptics finally piped down, ‘but it is satisfactory to think that we have got just what we wanted out of the USA Chiefs.’74
In Washington, Stimson tried to make a last-ditch protest against Torch, but all the President did was good-naturedly to offer to wager him on how the operation would turn out, which the War Secretary accepted. If either Stimson or Marshall had been commander-in-chief, Sledgehammer or Roundup would have been launched in 1942 or 1943. Asked later whether he thought the war could have been ended sooner, Stimson stuck to the formulation that ‘if he were faced with the problems of 1942, he would argue again as he had then.’ So his answer was yes.
Meanwhile Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Pound’s representative on the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington, was vociferously in favour of Torch, arguing that ‘It would go a long way toward relieving our shipping problem once the short route through the Mediterranean was gained.’ He also believed it would ‘jeopardize the whole of Rommel’s forces and relieve anxiety about Malta. It would shake Italy to the core and rouse the occupied countries.’75 He was to be proved right on all fronts.
That night the Admiralty gave a dinner for the Americans in the Painted Hall of Wren’s baroque architectural masterpiece, the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich, where Nelson had lain before his state funeral. The chief guests were taken there by launch from Whitehall, possibly in order to show them how badly the City of London had suffered in the Blitz. After dinner, Churchill and Hopkins sang around the piano, which was played by the First Lord of the Admiralty, A. V. Alexander. ‘One of the highlights’, John Martin told his parents, ‘was Admiral Stark singing “Annie Laurie” solo. Even the grim Admiral King thawed.’
One who had not thawed was the American Ambassador Gil Winant, who had seen Eden that day and ‘was very critical of us’ for abandoning Sledgehammer. The Foreign Secretary reminded him ‘that his people did not suggest anything before October’ that could be useful to the Eastern Front. ‘He had no arguments, but was obstinate,’ recorded Eden. ‘I have never seen Winant so put out. He dislikes Gymnast.’76 Eden was right, however: the Americans had not offered enough divisions or planes to be able to insist on Sledgehammer taking place. With Roundup, it would be different.
The British Commonwealth had already been fighting in North Africa for two-and-a-half years, and as the historian Sebastian Haffner put it, if the Americans ‘did not want to wait until they could wage their own war in two or three years’ time–and America is an impatient country–they had no choice but to join in Britain’s war as it stood and reinforce her with their initially slender but gradually increasing military resources.’77 Furthermore, as Handy told the SOOHP, ‘You’ve got to remember that the British were our principal ally and as a matter of fact were the only ones putting anything worthwhile into it’ (a statement that might have surprised Stalin). ‘They had the RAF and that was pretty good and they had some British divisions and they had the Royal Navy and we had to fight the war with them.’78
On Saturday 25 July, Churchill and Brooke were back at Chequers, where Marshall, King, Hopkins and Harriman were shown Oliver Cromwell’s death mask and a ring that had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth I. The Americans then left by special train for Scotland, from where they flew back to the USA. The Britons meanwhile first watched the movie The Younger Mr Pitt (which became one of Churchill’s favourites: it was a propaganda film, the great orator Pitt, played by Robert Donat, representing Churchill, and Napoleon, played by Herbert Lom, representing Hitler, with costumes by Cecil Beaton). They then discussed the visit before getting to bed at 2.45 a.m., in Brooke’s words ‘Dog tired and grateful this week is over.’
Although it had indeed been a successful week for the British in terms of getting
what they needed out of Marshall, there was a heavy price to pay in terms of American suspicion, as well as the–possibly deliberate–ambiguity of CCS 94. As late as August, Marshall was complaining that Torch ‘represented an abandonment of the strategy agreed in April’, and of course he was right.79 The change of Allied policy from attacking Cherbourg in France to attacking Casablanca in Africa, swivelling the whole focus of grand strategy 1,150 miles to the south, cannot but have rankled with Marshall. Even ten months later, walking to a meeting together in Washington, he told Brooke: ‘I find it very hard even now not to look upon your North African strategy with a jaundiced eye!!’80 Considering that even the US Secretary of War had bet the President that the American invasion of Morocco would fail–something that would surely have forced his resignation if known publicly–there was much ground to be made up.
10
The Most Perilous Moment of the War: ‘I am convinced that man is mad’ July–November 1942
It is well that we should avoid unwarranted complacency and remind ourselves that if we did win the last war it was not without moments of extreme peril.
Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke at a Unionist luncheon in Belfast, 19491
No sooner had one great argument between the British and Americans ended than the next ones began, primarily over the issues of where, when and how to carry out Operation Torch. Marshall wanted to land on the Atlantic coast near Casablanca, and gradually move eastwards along the coast towards Algiers, whereas Brooke wanted to land at Casablanca and Algiers but also further east too, indeed as far to the east as possible, in order swiftly to gain control of the vital channel between Tunisia and Sicily, over which the Afrika Korps was resupplied. The final compromise, which was to attack at eight points along the North and North-west African coast, three near Casablanca, two near Oran and three near Algiers–but nothing further eastwards–came about only once Roosevelt and Churchill intervened.2
‘No staff officer as far as I know, certainly none in the Operations Division, recommended the North African operation,’ recalled General Hull, ‘but they supported it completely once the decision had been made.’ When it came to departmental unanimity, or group-think, the OPD was even more monolithic than the British Planners. Even thirty years later, speaking to the SOOHP, Generals Hull and Handy had views so similar on almost every aspect of personality and strategy that they might have been Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
On the debate with the British Chiefs of Staff, Hull said the Joint Chiefs of Staff ‘insisted on going to the west coast of Africa because we wanted a foot toward the home base so that at least we could get out of there and we couldn’t see [ourselves] throwing everything into the Mediterranean. The Germans could have gone right down to Gibraltar most any time they wanted to…We were scared to death they would come down there even after we went into North Africa.’ It was the reason that the US 3rd Division was held back from the Tunisian campaign until almost the last moment. The Straits of Gibraltar, only 8 miles wide, Handy said, provided ‘a focal point for the German subs, too’.3
There was also the question of who was going to command Operation Torch. In CCS 94 the British had accepted that this would be an American. After a long talk with Marshall on 30 July, Dill telegraphed Churchill and Brooke urging that Marshall himself was ‘clearly the man for the job, and I believe he would accept. Equally clearly, he cannot be spared from here at present, but Eisenhower could well act with his authority.’ Because Roosevelt had not yet approached Marshall–which Dill thought ‘may be due to the President’s fear of losing him’–and the self-effacing general did not wish to canvass for the job, Marshall wanted Churchill and Brooke to initiate discussions. Dill warned that the ‘risk of whittling’ forces away to the Pacific ‘may still exist’, but the President was ‘entirely sound on this point’.4
Roosevelt might well have been sound, but there was a very definite whittling away of resources towards the Pacific going on. Although the Commander-in-Chief made grand strategy, he could not effectively prevent the US Navy pursuing a de facto Japan First-Equal policy, and for the rest of 1942 ‘resources flowed as fast to the Pacific–where the struggle for the Solomon Islands had begun in August–as they did to the Mediterranean, while those to the UK died to a trickle.’5 Guadalcanal was invaded on 7 August and fierce fighting ensued there until February.
Dill also thought it wise, since Sledgehammer was now moribund, for the Americans ‘to delegate the planning and preparations for Sledgehammer to someone else, obviously a Britisher’, so that Eisenhower could concentrate entirely on Torch.6 (The term ‘Britisher’ is not one Britons use, making this cable from Dill sound all the more like one initiated by Marshall, unless it was meant facetiously or jokingly, or Dill really had gone as native as some in the War Office thought.) Churchill ordered the lines to Washington to be cleared for a ‘most secret, most immediate cipher telegram’ to Dill, which stated: ‘I am sure that the President’s wish is full steam ahead Torch at earliest possible moment. We regard this as decided absolutely with overriding priority. No one here is thinking of anything else. You should ask to see the President urgently.’ Dill replied that the President had ‘issued orders for full steam ahead’ on Torch, adding that the Americans believed that Torch made Roundup impossible before 1944. This might have been chagrin on Marshall’s part, or perhaps Themistoclean foresight in already spotting the way that 1943 would be spent following up Torch in places far from the beaches of north-western France.
Churchill cabled Roosevelt the next day, sending a copy to Brooke, to say that he would be grateful for an early decision about the commanders of Bolero, Sledgehammer, Roundup and Torch. ‘It would be agreeable to us if General Marshall were designated for the Supreme Command of Roundup and that in the meantime General Eisenhower should act as his deputy here.’ Meanwhile he would appoint General Alexander as the British Task Force commander to work under Eisenhower. ‘Both these men would work at Torch and General Eisenhower would also for the time being supervise the Bolero–Sledgehammer business,’ wrote Churchill. ‘It seems important to act quickly, as committees are too numerous and too slow.’7 Yet Roosevelt was curiously tardy in making a decision about Marshall and Torch–it was to happen again, in even slower motion, with Overlord–and Churchill got no direct reply to this request even though Roosevelt wanted action in North Africa before the mid-term elections less than four months hence.
Instead, that same day at 12.10 p.m., Roosevelt–who was weekending at Hyde Park–asked Hopkins to put a series of questions to Marshall, who drew up ‘a hasty reply’ that nevertheless neatly encapsulates the general’s strategic thinking at that time.8 When FDR asked whether there were any moves the United States could make that might favourably affect the situation in the Middle East, Marshall replied, ‘No, none that can affect the immediate situation.’ He argued that the maximum number of planes was already en route to Cairo and that any more could not be properly serviced by the American personnel there. ‘What is your personal opinion about the coming course of events?’ Marshall answered that G-2 (US Military Intelligence) estimated that Rommel would be in Cairo in one week, whereas US Army Operations thought two, with one week to refit before he undertook ‘the destruction of the remaining British forces’.
With prognostications as doleful as that, it was understandable that Marshall did not want to throw USAAF squadrons into the fray. His view was that he would be able to judge General Auchinleck’s position in the Western Desert better forty-eight hours hence, and that if the Auk could check Rommel the long German supply lines from Tunis might place the Afrika Korps in a difficult position. After discussing British plans to block the Suez Canal in the event of defeat–which Dill estimated would take six months to reopen–Marshall suggested that the defeated British would retreat to the upper Nile, Mosul, Basra, Palestine, Aden and Colombo, while the defence of the Iraqi oil fields from Rommel ‘would depend upon success of Russian defense in the North’.
To Roosevelt’s question a
bout whether America could hold Syria against Rommel, Marshall was frank. With the Mediterranean open to Germany but not the United States, the American Army would have to send nine divisions and about ten air groups, ‘an expansion far beyond our capacity’. As for defending Basra and the Black Sea, the Germans would be in a far better position than the Americans, who would have ‘long and vulnerable’ lines of communication through the Mediterranean. Consequently, ‘A major effort in this region would bleed us white.’ The conclusion was obvious: the United States could do nothing to prevent Rommel’s victory in the Western Desert from denying Middle Eastern oil to the Allies. For America, which took most of her oil from the western hemisphere, this would not be so dire; for Britain it was much more serious.
Marshall’s sober assessment of what would happen if Cairo fell was far too pessimistic about Auchinleck’s chances of preventing it happening. It nonetheless ought to have enthused Roosevelt all the more for the surprise attack on Rommel’s rear in the west and on his hundreds of miles of vulnerable supply lines in the east. Almost every can of petrol poured into panzers close to the Egyptian border had to be taken there by lorry down a very long coastal road through Libya. In the War Office, the Director of Military Operations, John Kennedy, noted that ‘Auchinleck is now on the last line of defence for Egypt. And in a war in which the defence has been so unsuccessful this is not a happy situation.’9 The Second World War had indeed been, at least until the battle that was about to begin at Stalingrad, a conflict where all the laurels had so far gone to those who took the offensive.
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