.
In the Anglo-American capitals there was optimism that the fighting in Europe could be over soon and originally the purpose of the conference had been to begin discussions on the post-war future of Germany. But if the Prime Minister had thought his disagreements with ROOSEVELT would be a strain he had not bargained on the Polish factor.
Without another word Premier Mick had left the British plane when it had touched down from the Moscow trip and twenty four hours later the news of the Teheran deal began seeping out. Enraged, Eden with a newspaper headline on his desk that read ‘Roosevelt initiative gives Poland to the Russians’, had carpeted the Pole and told him that the Teheran agreements were secret agreements between the alliance governments to which he had gotten a simple response; the Polish Government had not been consulted on this violation of its territory which went against its treaties with Her Majesty’s Government, it could thus not be bound by an agreement made without it and in violation of other agreements, alternatively, the Polish Government was a recognized allied Government and could refuse the involuntary surrender of so much sovereign territory “Either way, Foreign Secretary the secrecy clause cannot in any way bind us at present” And with that Premier Mick had left an open-mouthed Eden standing and had gone to his cabinet and subsequently directly to the media. By the time Churchill arrived in Quebec Roosevelt had already faced the first domestic headlines decrying his deal with Joseph Stalin, headlines which also suggested that he had kept this deal secret from Churchill. The Canadian public and some of its dignitaries who adored Churchill, had given the US leader a frosty reception. The fact that his train had secretly stopped off at the house of Lucy Rutherford, his mistress for lunch en route, before collecting Eleanor had bolstered his mood temporarily but it would not last.
It was a bad way to get started and Roosevelt compounded their differences when he invited Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau to present a drastic plan designed to de-industrialize Germany, forcibly if necessary, after her defeat and turn her into a pastoral and agricultural nation. Churchill had turned beetroot by the time the Secretary of the Treasury had finished outlining his plans. Morgenthau then got 5 minutes of the Prime minister’s sarcasm and anger, which ended, “So let me repeat that while I am all for containing Germany’s power and disarming her to a level where she cannot pose a threat to any of her neighbours, I will not chain myself and my country to the corpse of a dead Germany. You cannot indict a whole nation. The actions by the new administration in Berlin show that your desire to indict a whole nation is based on false assumptions and I will not let that happen as long as the dark red shadow of Moscow hangs over Europe, ready to exploit any opportunity you seem intent on creating by giving them a third of Poland before negotiations have started. This plan is unnatural, un-Christian, and unnecessary.”[82]
After that there was really very little purpose to continue. Morgenthau sputtered some sweeping comments about German militarism being a genetic thing but had been silenced by both Churchill and Roosevelt who knew he had let his New Deal Treasury Secretary go too far. The meeting adjourned until the evening when Roosevelt tried to present the Morgenthau concept in a more palatable way to Churchill. Both sides made an effort not to provoke an open breach, with the President dropping Morgenthau’s scheme in the face of persistent British opposition and Churchill offering to send the main British fleet to the Pacific to assist in operations against Japan. Long into the evening they talked but in the end they had to confront their differences. Churchill argued that to destroy Germany would only lay the seeds for the next war by creating opportunity for Russia. “I do not want to be left alone in Europe with a bear.” Roosevelt dismissed this concern and returned time and again to the common declarations in favour of unconditional surrender of Germany. Any other post-war settlements he maintained would be sorted out by the United Nations that would be launched before the end of the year by the victorious nations. When Roosevelt did so for the third time, Churchill lost his cool and slapped the Polish issue onto the table with a sharpness he later regretted, he was tired and so put it plainly: “Mr President my people are exhausted from four years of war. Yours have had two. There is a rapidly fading willingness and ability to justify to continuation of military operations against an opponent who has formally asked for terms. If we expend lives and treasure to annihilate Germany as in the mad scheme proposed by your cabinet member, Her Majesty’s Government would be working to undermine a wide range of historical interests and create a strategic situation where we would soon face another conflict not of our doing. We need to force Germany’s surrender, on that we agree. But we then will need a viable Germany as one of the counter-weights against Soviet dominance of Europe. And we need to do this even more so since you yourself, without consulting any ally, appear to have moved the western border of the Soviet Union 250 kilometers westwards on a whim. I cannot understand, nor explain to my cabinet colleagues how you could give away a third of Poland before negotiations over a post war settlement had even formally started. This is not an issue of pro-polish sentiment, this is our Government, taking into account the new realities of modern war technology, seeking to keep the next potential foe far from our gates.” “Winston, Uncle Joe only wants security for his people.” The President waved a tired hand, the cabin’s poor lighting hiding his pale features. But Churchill was not to be deterred, “another example outside of Europe is the contribution Commonwealth troops are making on the Burmese frontier, fighting in a most unhealthy country under the worst possible conditions to guard your supply line over the Himalayas into the very over-rated China. A very large part of our forces are being possible redeployed to suit American rather than British objectives and the rest is under American command. These are delicate and serious matters to be handled between friends in careful patient and personal discussion. [83]
“That may be his immediate objective, Mr President, but it happens to give him a historical opportunity to move Russia’s sphere of influence westward in a manner that threatens the balance of power on the continent and the political workings of half of Europe. With such an imbalance, such opportunity it is only a matter of time until he or any other Bolshevik leader tries his hand. It has been a reality under which Her Majesty’s Government has laboured for more than 500 years and it will in all likelihood be that way for another 500. My people, like Uncle Joe, need security.”
Roosevelt was clearly taken aback by the directness and for a moment the silence hung in the air between them. “Winston, you do not understand, the constraints I face.” But Churchill was too seasoned a politician to know that Roosevelt was resorting to a tired old tactic. He just shook his head and held up his hand. “Mr President, I regret the severity but not the substance of my outburst. You must know that in the eyes of many of my colleagues and some of our allies, this seemingly unilateral action on your part has shaken most if not all of the trust many have had in the United States. And I beg you to leave it there, for it has done irreparable harm to the trust many of the leaders of the smaller European powers placed in us. We are allies and therefore we must be honest with ourselves, and we must be able to disagree on certain issues.”
In response he got an angel-tongued lecture about the way the United Nations would work from the American President. That night the ‘special relationship’ that Churchill had always proclaimed existed between the two men, was damaged irrevocably for both had talked past each other; Roosevelt musing about the new world order in which Russia would cooperate to promote peace and human rights across the world and Churchill who had talked realpolitik. BY now, however, their relationship had drifted to a level where they could disagree on some large matter, but the policy question would seem to be soothed by personal words and , often, affectionate companionship. To the amazement of the press there was only a brief communiqué that blandly stated that the leaders had continued their discussions on the various ways by which German and Japanese surrender would be accomplished and the shape of the post-wa
r world. The few bland sentences that followed left lots of column space for the Polish agitation about the betrayal at of the Polish people by Roosevelt at Teheran. Roosevelt’s Republican challenger for the Presidency Thomas Dewey briefly tried to run with the issue but was brought to heel by a sharp phone call from George Marshall who reminded him, that irrespective of what he thought of the agreement that the US had agreed in Teheran to keep the terms secret. It was a call that angered Marshall who resented having to clean up the President’s political mess. But the notion that Roosevelt was soft on Communism had formally entered the US election campaign. And Dewey did know that there were Polish-American constituencies he could now appeal to in a way that had been impossible before.
And the special relationship between Britain and the US that Churchill had so cherished began to crumble. Already unhappy over the Curzon betrayal as the press was calling it, the British cabinet was aghast at the proposals contained in the Morgenthau plan which Roosevelt had introduced into the debate. The President had also vetoed any role for France in the forthcoming occupation of Germany, further raising concerns that Britain would be left to shoulder a bigger burden. More ominously some of the British delegation reported back that they had found the American counterparts very interested in carving up not just the political post war Europe but also its economic arrangements. There had been proposals to give American civil aviation companies dominant roles in formerly imperial markets, American exporters preferential positions in British dominions. For those ideologically sufficiently paranoid about American post war ambitions, and they still existed the upper ranks of the British labour party and thus the cabinet, there were enough worrying details to begin painting a gloomy picture. But there was worse to come.
September 19
Helsinki
The photographers flashes briefly illuminated the small hall in which the Finnish Government delegation signed the papers for the Armistice with their Russian foes. The Soviet delegation was small and non-descript. Molotov choose not to grace the event with his presence. The Finns had twice in less than a decade demonstrated that they were among the toughest enemies the Russians had; but they were also one of the world’s smallest nations. They had thrown their lot in with Hitler when he had attacked Russia in 1941 and now the retreating Wehrmacht had to leave them to their own devices. The retreat from Norway and out of parts of the Baltic states had made this move inevitable and the Finnish leader Field Marshall von Mannerheim had agreed to armistice talks in late August after the Soviet Leningrad Front had broken through the Mannerheim defensive line in less than ten days. Originally the discussions had focussed only territorial concessions that the Finns had wrung from the Soviets at the time of the October Revolution. And initially Stalin had been prepared to let it go at that provided Finland demilitarised some of its key fortresses and bases.
But the Finns fell victim to the dictators paranoia. Uncertain of Anglo-American intentions now that the American and British press were openly criticising the deal he had reached with Roosevelt over the Curzon line, he pushed harder than he needed to and by the time the Red Army stopped advancing, and the Red Air Force stopped bombing Helsinki, the Finns had agreed to Soviet access to all their key naval bases and the demobilization of 80% of their army. In the second week of September, a reluctant Stalin finally accepted that he would not get the Finns to fight the Germans, so additional territory taking Leningrad out of the range of even the most long-range Finnish artillery would have to do. The very prominent arrival of a Red Fleet flottila at Hango naval base on what effectively was the border between Finnish and Swedish territorial waters made a large impact in Stockholm. Where previously Swedish authorities had turned a blind eye to the informal peace feelers the unofficial German delegations had been trying to hold, they now actively prevailed on the business community to encourage their British contacts to get serious in talking peace. Swedish neutrality depended on a balance of power among her neighbours and with a Russian fleet right next door, The possibility of Russian designs on Norway and almost certain Russian dominance of the Baltic states, Stockholm needed options.
Meanwhile, Colonel-General Meretskov’s Karelian Front pushed into Norway, raising anxiety levels in that country as well. In the following weeks a number of US senators from three states with large Scandinavian populations called on their President.
September 20th
Baltic States
Ivan Borzov looked at his watch as he surveyed his BM –13 Katyusha trucks being loaded. Things were finally looking up again. The Finns were out of the war, they were once again advancing in the Baltic states and the Balkans were great news, with advances everywhere. Only in Poland where the advance units seemed to have received a hammering from the Germans who now had the support of some reactionary Poles, things were slow.
The supply system was finally getting organised, they actually had enough rockets for a sustained barrage again. Among the trees to the west the infantry units also looked as if they had actually slept and washed properly again as well. Everyone had marhorka and Narkoms rations
Of course the miserable Vlasik was again being insufferable blaming the delays on saboteurs back home. The reality was – even if Borzov did not know it – that the Lend-Lease shipments of US material were slowing down. The Soviet Army by now half ran on Dodge trucks and without sufficient new ones and spare parts things were not as mobile as they had been. Travelling on the back of a T-34 was for the attacking infantry, not something supply trains could do. It did not matter, they had consolidated their gains and would soon be moving again. The fact that the Germans now had Poles on their side would not make a difference.
Good God, can’t you see that the Russians are spreading across Europe like a tide; they have invaded Poland, and there is nothing to prevent them marching into Turkey and Greece
Churchill to Lord Moran, 1944
September 21th
London
Whitehall
Unusually the cabinet meeting started with a briefing by Alanbrooke who as CIGS stood alone at the head of a table, in full uniform, stick in hand pointing to a map of Europe behind him whenever he mentioned a place he believed the cabinet needed reminding of its location. He had a strange sense of history as the names of places rolled of his lips. Only twice did he have to consult his notes to ensure he got the location and the pronunciation right. Both were in Yugoslavia.
In France, the allied advance had finally resumed across the front after the confusion surrounding Patton’s charge. The Free French units remained stranded around Paris after the Americans had cut off their fuel supply. Apart from Alsas-Lorraine, allied troops now stood near the borders of the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland. In Italy the Germans had evacuated all units across the border but things were running smoothly there now that the Allies had taken a firm stance against the Italian underworld. Italian politics, he remarked with a brief nod to Churchill, were anyone’s guess. British units had also established a presence in parts of northern Yugoslavia and most key Greek harbour towns.
In the East the Soviets appeared to have run out of steam temporarily after bursting into the Balkans and pushing into Poland. Curiously they appeared to sandbagged in the Baltics apart from Finland whom they had forced rather harsh terms upon.
It was Greece to which the discussion turned. British units had landed in Greece almost before the Germans had properly gotten their evacuation underway only to find the country deeply divided between an anti-communist alliance that included everything from royalists to moderate socialists, and a communist led grouping - ELAS - which appeared to have national ambitions. Initially it had looked as if the situation could be resolved by political means but then tempers had flared and now there was talk of Russian supplies reaching ELAS units in northern Greece. Churchill very clearly remembered how Stalin had dismissed Greece as a British sphere of influence, as they listened to the briefings this no longer seemed to be the case.
In Greece, as elsewhere in occu
pied Europe, the political scene was fundamentally shaped by the events that had preceded the war, in this case the unpopular Metaxas dictatorship during the 1930s. The Axis conquest in 1941 had been so swift that it had left a near complete power vacuum into which new movements could seek to expand. Hitler and Mussolini had quarrelled over how to govern Greece while both tried to source raw materials, food and in Germany’s case, labour, from the occupied nation. With this as their primary objective, they had sought to govern Greece through the existing administrative machinery headed by an intentionally weak political leadership. The result for the first two years had been that the Greek bureaucracy, never impressive for its efficiency, ground to a halt under the pressure of Axis demands and was powerless to stop the country’s slide into hyperinflation and famine as the national economy crumbled. By the spring of 1942 nearly 40 000 citizens of Athens had starved to death. Such a city could no longer rule a nation. As traditional values and alliances succumbed to the depravations of hunger, Greek society, never united, divided along radical lines. The small communist party EAM, with its primarily urban base expanded, some said fled, to the countryside where it leadership survived the first few years in the form of almost feudal overlords of isolated remote mountain areas. From weak beginnings it had begun to mount a challenge to the occupation authorities efforts to confiscate food until a full scale insurgency had set in by late 1942. By late 1943 the occupation forces, by now all German after the Italian surrender, were restricted to key cities, strategic points and roads. And although the counter-guerrilla operations had successfully contained any challenge to the control of this urban and transport infrastructure, EAM and its military wing ELAS could by 1944 claim support from more than a million members. Although ELAS structures were generally locally-rooted, poorly organised and politically flexible in the face of peasant conservatism, the movement brought something new to Greek politics – its first mass movement; and it did control a large part of rural Greece.
The Valkyrie Option Page 42