The Second World War

by Winston S. Churchill

  At about noon we landed at the Kalamaki airfield, which was guarded by about two thousand British airmen, all well armed and active. Here were Field-Marshal Alexander, Mr. Leeper, and Mr. Macmillan. They came on board the plane, and we spent nearly three hours in hard discussion of the whole position, military and political. We were, I think, in complete agreement at the end, and about the immediate steps to be taken.

  I and my party were to sleep on board the Ajax, anchored off the Piraeus, the famous light cruiser of the Plate River battle, which now seemed a long time ago. The road was reported clear, and with an escort of several armoured cars we traversed the few miles without incident. We boarded the Ajax before darkness fell, and I realised for the first time that it was Christmas Day. All preparations had been made by the ship’s company for a jolly evening, and we certainly disturbed them as little as possible.

  The sailors had a plan for a dozen of them to be dressed up in every kind of costume and disguise, as Chinese, Negroes, Red Indians, Cockneys, clowns—all to serenade the officers and warrant officers, and generally inaugurate revels suitable to the occasion. The Archbishop and his attendants arrived—an enormous tall figure in the robes and high hat of a dignitary of the Greek Church. The two parties met. The sailors thought he was part of their show of which they had not been told, and danced around him enthusiastically. The Archbishop thought this motley gang was a premeditated insult, and might well have departed to the shore but for the timely arrival of the captain, who, after some embarrassment, explained matters satisfactorily. Meanwhile I waited, wondering what had happened. But all ended happily.

  He spoke with great bitterness against the atrocities of E.L.A.S. and the dark, sinister hand behind E.A.M. Listening to him, it was impossible to doubt that he greatly feared the Communist, or Trotskyite as he called it, combination in Greek affairs. He told us that he had issued an encyclical condemning E.L.A.S. for taking eight thousand hostages, middle-class people, many of them Egyptians, and shooting a few every day, and that he had said that he would report these matters to the Press of the world if the women were not released. Generally he impressed me with a good deal of confidence. He was a magnificent figure, and he immediately accepted the proposal of being chairman of the conference, which was to be held next day, to which E.L.A.S. were invited to send their representatives.

  On the morning of the 26th, “Boxing Day”, I set out for the Embassy. I remember that three or four shells from the fighting which was going on a mile away on our left raised spouts of water fairly near the Ajax as we were about to go ashore. Here an armoured car and military escort awaited us. We rumbled along the road to the Embassy without any trouble. I again met the Archbishop, on whom we were about to stake so much. He agreed to all that was proposed. We planned the procedure at the conference to be held in the afternoon. I was already convinced that he was the outstanding figure in the Greek turmoil. Among other things, I had learned that he had been a champion wrestler before he entered the Orthodox Church.

  About six o’clock that evening, the conference opened in the Greek Foreign Office. We took our seats in a large, bleak room after darkness fell. The winter is cold in Athens. There was no heating, and a few hurricane lamps cast a dim light upon the scene. I sat on the Archbishop’s right, with Mr. Eden, and Field-Marshal Alexander was on his left. Mr. MacVeagh, the American Ambassador, M. Baelen, the French Minister, and the Soviet military representative had all accepted our invitation. The three Communist leaders were late. It was not their fault. There had been prolonged bickering at the outposts. After half an hour we began our work, and I was already speaking when they entered the room. They were presentable figures in British battle dress.

  “It is better,” I told them, “to let every effort be made to remake Greece as a factor in the victory, and to do it now. We do not intend to obstruct your deliberations. We British, and other representatives of the great united victorious Powers, will leave you Greeks to your own discussions under this most eminent and most venerable citizen, and we shall not trouble you unless you send for us again.… My hope is however that the conference which begins here this afternoon in Athens will restore Greece once again to her fame and power among the Allies and the peace-loving peoples of the world, will secure the Greek frontiers from any danger from the north, and will enable every Greek to make the best of himself and the best of his country before the eyes of the whole world.…”

  Alexander added a sharp touch that Greek troops should be fighting in Italy and not against British troops in Greece.

  Once we had broken the ice and got the Greeks, who had done such terrible injuries to each other, to parley round the table under the presidency of the Archbishop, and the formal speeches had been made, the British members of the conference withdrew.

  Bitter and animated discussions between the Greek parties occupied all the following day. At 5.30 that evening I had a final discussion with the Archbishop. As the result of his conversations with the E.L.A.S. delegates it was agreed I should ask the King of Greece to make him Regent. He would set about forming a new Government without any Communist members. We undertook to carry on the fighting in full vigour until either E.L.A.S. accepted a truce or the Athens area was clear of them. I told him that we could not undertake any military task beyond Athens and Attica, but that we would try to keep British forces in Greece until the Greek National Army was formed.

  On the following morning, December 28, Mr. Eden and I left by air. I had no chance to say good-bye to M. Papandreou before leaving. He was about to resign, and was a serious loser by the whole business. I asked our Ambassador to keep in friendly touch with him. On December 29 we arrived back in London. Mr. Eden and I sat up with the King of Greece till 4.30 in the morning, at the end of which time His Majesty agreed not to return to Greece unless summoned by a free and fair expression of the national will, and to appoint the Archbishop as Regent during the emergency. I sent the royal announcement at once to Mr. Leeper and the Archbishop replied to the King accepting his mandate as Regent. There was a new and living Greek Government. On January 3 General Plastiras, a vehement Republican, who was the leader of the Army revolt against King Constantine in 1922, became Prime Minister.

  Continuous fighting in Athens during December at last drove the insurgents from the capital, and by mid-January British troops controlled all Attica. The Communists could do nothing against our men in open country, and a truce was signed on January 11.

  Thus ended the six weeks’ struggle for Athens, and, as it ultimately proved, for the freedom of Greece from Communist subjugation. When three million men were fighting on either side on the Western Front and vast American forces were deployed against Japan in the Pacific the spasms of Greece may seem petty, but nevertheless they stood at the nerve-centre of power, law, and freedom in the Western world. It is odd, looking back on these events, now that some years have passed, to see how completely the policy for which I and my colleagues fought so stubbornly has been justified by events. Myself, I never had any doubts about it, for I saw quite plainly that Communism would be the peril civilisation would have to face after the defeat of Nazism and Fascism. It did not fall to us to end the task in Greece. I little thought however at the end of 1944 that the State Department, supported by overwhelming American opinion, would in little more than two years not only adopt and carry on the course we had opened but would make vehement and costly exertions, even of a military character, to bring it to fruition. If Greece has escaped the fate of Czechoslovakia and survives to-day as one of the free nations, it is due not only to British action in 1944 but to the steadfast efforts of what was presently to become the united strength of the English-speaking world.

  CHAPTER XXII

  MALTA AND YALTA: PLANS FOR WORLD PEACE

  AT the end of January 1945 Hitler’s armies were virtually compressed within their own territory, save for a brittle hold in Hungary and in Northern Italy, but the political situation, at any rate in Eastern Europe, was by no means so satisfac
tory. A precarious tranquillity had indeed been achieved in Greece, and it seemed that a free democratic Government, founded on universal suffrage and secret ballot, might be established there within a reasonable time. But Roumania and Bulgaria had passed into the grip of Soviet military occupation, Hungary and Yugoslavia lay in the shadow of the battlefield, and Poland, though liberated from the Germans, had merely exchanged one conqueror for another. The informal and temporary arrangement which I had made with Stalin during my October visit to Moscow could not, and so far as I was concerned was never intended to, govern or affect the future of these wide regions once Germany was defeated.

  The whole shape and structure of post-war Europe clamoured for review. When the Nazis were beaten, how was Germany to be treated? What aid could we expect from the Soviet Union in the final overthrow of Japan? And once our military aims were achieved what measures and what organisation could the three great Allies provide for the future peace and good governance of the world? The discussions at Dumbarton Oaks had ended in partial disagreement. So, in a smaller but no less vital sphere, had the negotiations between the Soviet-sponsored “Lublin Poles” and their compatriots from London which Mr. Eden and I had with much difficulty promoted during our visit to the Kremlin in October 1944. An arid correspondence between the President and Stalin, of which Mr. Roosevelt had kept me informed, had accompanied the secession of M. Mikolajczyk from his colleagues in London, while on January 5, contrary to the wishes of both the United States and Great Britain, the Soviets had recognised the Lublin Committee as the Provisional Government of Poland.

  The President was fully convinced of the need for another meeting of “the Three”, and after some urging on my part he also agreed that we should have a preliminary conference of our own at Malta. The reader will remember the anxieties which I had expressed about our operations in North-West Europe in my telegram to the President of December 6.* These still weighed with me. The British and American Chiefs of Staff had great need for discussion before we met the Soviets, and on January 29, 1945, I accordingly left Northolt in the Skymaster given to me by General Arnold. My daughter Sarah and the official party, together with Mr. Martin and Mr. Rowan, my private secretaries, and Commander Thompson, travelled with me. The rest of my personal staff and some departmental officials travelled in two other planes. We arrived at Malta just before dawn on January 30, and there I learnt that one of these two aircraft had crashed near Pantelleria. Only three of the crew and two passengers survived.

  On the morning of February 2 the Presidential party, on board the U.S.S. Quincy, steamed into Valletta harbour. It was a warm day, and under a cloudless sky I watched the scene from the deck of H.M.S. Orion. As the American cruiser steamed slowly past us towards her berth alongside the quay wall I could see the figure of the President seated on the bridge, and we waved to each other. With the escort of Spitfires overhead, the salutes, and the bands of the ships’ companies in the harbour playing “The Star-spangled Banner”, it was a splendid scene. I lunched on board the Quincy, and at six o’clock that evening we had our first formal meeting in the President’s cabin. Here we reviewed the report of the Combined Chiefs of Staff and the military discussions which had been taking place in Malta during the previous three days. Our Staffs had done a remarkable piece of work. Their discussions had centred principally round Eisenhower’s plans for carrying his forces up to and across the Rhine. There were differences of opinion on the subject, which are related in another chapter.* The opportunity was of course taken to review the whole span of the war, including the war against the U-boats, the future campaigns in South-East Asia and the Pacific, and the Mediterranean situation. We reluctantly agreed to withdraw two divisions from Greece as soon as they could be spared, but I made it clear that we should not be obliged to do this until the Greek Government had built up its own military forces. Three divisions were also to be withdrawn from Italy to reinforce North-West Europe, but I stressed that it would be unwise to make any significant withdrawal of amphibious forces. It was very important to follow up any German surrender in Italy, and I told the President that we ought to occupy as much of Austria as possible, as it was “undesirable that more of Western Europe than necessary should be occupied by the Russians.”† In all the military matters a large measure of agreement was reached, and the discussions had the useful result that the Combined Chiefs of Staff were aware of their respective points of view before engaging in talks with their Russian counterparts.

  That night the exodus began. Transport planes took off at ten-minute intervals to carry some seven hundred persons, forming the British and American delegations, over fourteen hundred miles to the airfield of Saki, in the Crimea. I boarded my plane after dinner, and went to bed. After a long and cold flight we landed on the airfield, which was under deep snow. My plane was ahead of Mr. Roosevelt’s, and we stood for a while awaiting him. When he was carried down the lift from the “Sacred Cow” he looked frail and ill. Together we inspected the guards of honour, the President sitting in an open car, while I walked beside him.

  Presently we set off on a long drive from Saki to Yalta. Lord Moran and Mr. Martin came with me in my car. The journey took us nearly eight hours, and the road was often lined by Russian soldiers, some of them women, standing shoulder to shoulder in the village streets and on the main bridges and mountain passes, and at other points in separate detachments. As we crossed the mountains and descended towards the Black Sea we suddenly passed into warm and brilliant sunshine and a most genial climate.

  The Soviet headquarters at Yalta were in the Yusupov Palace, and from this centre Stalin and Molotov and their generals carried on the government of Russia and the control of their immense front, now in violent action. President Roosevelt was given the even more splendid Livadia Palace, close at hand, and it was here, in order to spare him physical inconvenience, that all our plenary meetings were held. This exhausted the undamaged accommodation. I and the principal members of the British delegation were assigned a very large villa about five miles away which had been built in the early nineteenth century by an English architect for a Russian Prince Vorontzov, one-time Imperial Ambassador to the Court of St. James. The rest of our delegation were put up in two rest-houses about twenty minutes away, five or six people sleeping in a room, including high-ranking officers, but no one seemed to mind. The Germans had evacuated the neighbourhood only ten months earlier, and the surrounding buildings had been badly damaged. We were warned that the area had not been completely cleared of mines, except for the grounds of the villa, which were, as usual, heavily patrolled by Russian guards. Over a thousand men had been at work on the scene before our arrival. Windows and doors had been repaired, and furniture and stores brought down from Moscow.

  The setting of our abode was impressive. Behind the villa, half Gothic and half Moorish in style, rose the mountains, covered in snow, culminating in the highest peak in the Crimea. Before us lay the dark expanse of the Black Sea, severe, but still agreeable and warm even at this time of the year. Carved white lions guarded the entrance to the house, and beyond the courtyard lay a fine park with sub-tropical plants and cypresses. In the dining-room I recognised the two paintings hanging each side of the fireplace as copies of family portraits of the Herberts at Wilton. It appeared that Prince Vorontzov had married a daughter of the family, and had brought these pictures back with him from England. Every effort was made by our hosts to ensure our comfort, and every chance remark was noted with kindly attention. On one occasion Portal had admired a large glass tank with plants growing in it, and remarked that it contained no fish. Two days later a consignment of goldfish arrived. Another time somebody said casually that there was no lemon-peel in the cocktails. The next day a lemon tree loaded with fruit was growing in the hall. All must have come by air from far away.

  The first plenary meeting of the Conference started at a quarterpast four on the afternoon of February 5. The discussion opened on the future of Germany. I had of course pondered this problem, an
d had thus addressed Mr. Eden a month before:

  Treatment of Germany after the war. It is much too soon for us to decide these enormous questions. Obviously, when the German organised resistance has ceased the first stage will be one of severe military control. This may well last for many months, or perhaps for a year or two, if the German underground movement is active.… I have been struck at every point where I have sounded opinion at the depth of the feeling that would be aroused by a policy of “putting poor Germany on her legs again”. I am also well aware of the arguments about “not having a poisoned community in the heart of Europe”. I do suggest that, with all the work we have on our hands at the present moment, we should not anticipate these very grievous discussions and schisms, as they may become. We have a new Parliament to consider, whose opinions we cannot foretell.

  I shall myself prefer to concentrate upon the practical issues which will occupy the next two or three years, rather than argue about the long-term relationship of Germany to Europe.… It is a mistake to try to write out on little pieces of paper what the vast emotions of an outraged and quivering world will be either immediately after the struggle is over or when the inevitable cold fit follows the hot. These awe-inspiring tides of feeling dominate most people’s minds, and independent figures tend to become not only lonely but futile. Guidance in these mundane matters is granted to us only step by step, or at the utmost a step or two ahead. There is therefore wisdom in reserving one’s decisions as long as possible and until all the facts and forces that will be potent at the moment are revealed.

  29+ s.w.w.