As the weeks passed after Yalta it became clear that the Soviet Government was doing nothing to carry out our agreements about broadening the Polish Government to include all Polish parties and both sides. Molotov steadily refused to give an opinion about the Poles we mentioned, and not one of them was allowed to come even to a preliminary round-table discussion. He had offered to allow us to send observers to Poland, and had been disconcerted by the readiness and speed with which we had accepted, arguing, among other things, that it might affect the prestige of the Lublin Provisional Government. No progress of any kind was made in the talks at Moscow. Time was on the side of the Russians and their Polish adherents, who were fastening their grip upon the country by all kinds of severe measures, which they did not wish outside observers to see. Every day’s delay was a gain to these hard forces.
On the very evening when I was speaking in the House of Commons upon the results of our labours at Yalta the first violation by the Russians both of the spirit and letter of our agreements took place in Roumania. We were all committed by the Declaration on Liberated Europe, so recently signed, to see that both free elections and democratic Governments were established in the countries occupied by Allied armies. On February 27 Vyshinsky, who had appeared in Bucharest without warning on the previous day, demanded an audience of King Michael and insisted that he should dismiss the all-party Government which had been formed after the royal coup d’état of August 1944 and had led to the expulsion of the Germans from Roumania. The young monarch, backed by his Foreign Minister, Visoianu, resisted these demands until the following day. Vyshinsky called again, and, brushing aside the King’s request at least to be allowed to consult the leaders of the political parties, banged his fist on the table, shouted for an immediate acquiescence, and walked out of the room, slamming the door. At the same time Soviet tanks and troops deployed in the streets of the capital, and on March 6 a Soviet-nominated Administration took office.
I was deeply disturbed by this news, which was to prove a pattern of things to come, but we were hampered in our protests because Eden and I during our October visit to Moscow had recognised that Russia should have a largely predominant voice in Roumania and Bulgaria while we took the lead in Greece. Stalin had kept very strictly to this understanding during the six weeks’ fighting against the Communists and E.L.A.S. in the city of Athens, in spite of the fact that all this was most disagreeable to him and those around him. Peace had now been restored, and, though many difficulties lay before us, I hoped that in a few months we should be able to hold free, unfettered elections, preferably under British, American, and Russian supervision, and that thereafter a constitution and Government would be erected on the indisputable will of the Greek people.
But in the two Black Sea Balkan countries Stalin was now pursuing the opposite course, and one which was absolutely contrary to all democratic ideas. He had subscribed on paper to the principles of Yalta, and now they were being trampled down in Roumania. But if I pressed him too much he might say, “I did not interfere with your action in Greece; why do you not give me the same latitude in Roumania?” Neither side would convince the other, and having regard to my personal relations with Stalin, I was sure it would be a mistake to embark on such an argument. I nevertheless felt we should tell him of our distress at the forceful installation of a Communist minority Government. I was particularly afraid it might lead to an indiscriminate purge of anti-Communist Roumanians, who would be accused of Fascism much on the lines of what had been happening in Bulgaria.
Meanwhile, the deadlock over Poland continued. All through March I was engaged in tense correspondence with Mr. Roosevelt, but although I had no exact information about his state of health I had the feeling that, except for occasional flashes of courage and insight, the telegrams he was sending us were not his own. The Soviet policy became daily more plain, as also did the use they were making of their unbridled and unobserved control of Poland. They asked that Poland should be represented at the forthcoming United Nations Conference at San Francisco only by the Lublin Government. When the Western Powers would not agree the Soviets refused to let Molotov attend. This threatened to make all progress at San Francisco, and even the Conference itself, impossible. Molotov persisted that the Yalta communiqué merely meant adding a few other Poles to the existing Administration of Russian puppets, and that these puppets should be consulted first. He maintained his right to veto Mikolajczyk and any other Poles we might suggest, and pretended he had insufficient information about the names we had put forward long before. It was as plain as a pikestaff that his tactics were to drag the business out while the Lublin Committee consolidated their power. Negotiations by our Ambassadors held no promise of an honest Polish settlement. They merely meant that our communications would be side-tracked and time would be wasted on finding formulæ which did not decide vital points.
I was sure that the only way to stop Molotov was to send Stalin a personal message, and I therefore appealed to the President in the hope that we could address Stalin jointly on the highest level. A lengthy correspondence followed between us, but at this critical time Roosevelt’s health and strength had faded. In my long telegrams I thought I was talking to my trusted friend and colleague as I had done all these years. I was no longer being fully heard by him. I did not know how ill he was, or I might have felt it cruel to press him. The President’s devoted aides were anxious to keep their knowledge of his condition within the narrowest circle, and various hands drafted in combination the answers which were sent in his name. To these, as his life ebbed, Roosevelt could only give general guidance and approval. This was an heroic effort. The tendency of the State Department was naturally to avoid bringing matters to a head while the President was physically so frail and to leave the burden on the Ambassadors in Moscow. Harry Hopkins, who might have given personal help, was himself seriously ailing, and frequently absent or uninvited. These were costly weeks for all.
All this time a far more bitter and important interchange was taking place between the British and American Governments and the Soviets on a very different issue. The advance of the Soviet armies, Alexander’s victories in Italy, the failure of their counter-stroke in the Ardennes, and Eisenhower’s march to the Rhine had convinced all but Hitler and his closest followers that surrender was imminent and unavoidable. The question was, surrender to whom? Germany could no longer make war on two fronts. Peace with the Soviets was evidently impossible. The rulers of Germany were too familiar with totalitarian oppression to invite its importation from the East. There remained the Allies in the West. Might it not be possible, they argued, to make a bargain with Great Britain and the United States? If a truce could be made in the West they could concentrate their troops against the Soviet advance. Hitler alone was obstinate. The Third Reich was finished and he would die with it. But several of his followers tried to make secret approaches to the English-speaking Allies. All these proposals were of course rejected. Our terms were unconditional surrender on all fronts. At the same time our commanders in the field were always fully authorised to accept purely military capitulations of the enemy forces which opposed them, and an attempt to arrange this while we were fighting on the Rhine led to a harsh exchange between the Russians and the President, whom I supported.
In February General Karl Wolff, the commander of the S.S. in Italy, had got into touch through Italian intermediaries with the American Intelligence Service in Switzerland. It was decided to examine the credentials of the persons involved, and the link was given the code-name “Crossword”. On March 8 General Wolff himself appeared at Zürich, and met Mr. Allen Dulles, the head of the American organisation. Wolff was bluntly told that there was no question of negotiations, and that if the matter were pursued it could only be on the basis of unconditional surrender. This information was speedily conveyed to Allied Headquarters in Italy and to the American, British, and Soviet Governments. On March 15 the British and American Chiefs of Staff at Caserta arrived in Switzerland in disguise, and four days later, on March 19, a second exploratory meeting was held with General Wolff.
I realised at once that the Soviet Government might be suspicious of a separate military surrender in the South, which would enable our armies to advance against reduced opposition to Vienna and beyond, or indeed towards the Elbe or Berlin. Moreover, as all our fronts round Germany were part of the whole Allied war the Russians would naturally be affected by anything done on any one of them. If any contacts were made with the enemy, formal or informal, they ought to be told in good time. This rule was scrupulously followed. On March 12 the British Ambassador in Moscow had informed the Soviet Government of this link with the German emissaries, and said that no contact would be made until we received the Russian reply. There was at no stage any question of concealing anything from the Russians. The Allied representatives then in Switzerland even explored ways of smuggling a Russian officer in to join them if the Soviet Government wished to send someone. This however proved impractical, and on March 13 the Russians were informed that if “Crossword” proved to be of serious import we would welcome their representatives at Alexander’s headquarters. Three days later Molotov informed the British Ambassador in Moscow that the Soviet Government found the attitude of the British Government “entirely inexplicable and incomprehensible in denying facilities to the Russians to send the representative to Berne”. A similar communication was passed to the American Ambassador.
On the 21st our Ambassador in Moscow was instructed to inform the Soviet Government yet again that the only object of the meetings was to make sure that the Germans had authority to negotiate a military surrender and to invite Russian delegates to Allied headquarters at Caserta. This he did. Next day Molotov handed him a written reply, which contained the following expressions:
“In Berne for two weeks, behind the backs of the Soviet Union, which is bearing the brunt of the war against Germany, negotiations have been going on between the representatives of the German military command on the one hand and representatives of the English and American commands on the other.”
Sir Archibald Clark Kerr naturally explained that the Soviets had misunderstood what had occurred and that these “negotiations” were no more than an attempt to test the credentials and authority of General Wolff. Molotov’s comment was blunt and insulting. “In this instance,” he wrote, “the Soviet Government sees not a misunderstanding but something worse.” He attacked the Americans just as bitterly.
In the face of so astonishing a charge it seemed to me that silence was better than a contest in abuse, but at the same time it was necessary to warn our military commanders in the West. I accordingly showed Molotov’s insulting letter both to Montgomery and to Eisenhower, with whom I at this time was watching the crossing of the Rhine.
General Eisenhower was much upset, and seemed deeply stirred with anger at what he considered most unjust and unfounded charges about our good faith. He said that as a military commander he would accept the unconditional surrender of any body of enemy troops on his front, from a company to the entire Army, that he regarded this as a purely military matter, and that he had full authority to accept such a surrender without asking anybody’s opinion. If however political matters arose he would immediately consult the Governments. He feared that if the Russians were brought into a possible surrender of Kesselring’s forces what could be settled by himself in an hour might be prolonged for three or four weeks, with heavy losses to our troops. He made it clear that he would insist upon all the troops under the officer making the surrender laying down their arms and standing still until they received further orders, so that there would be no chance of their being transferred across Germany to withstand the Russians. At the same time he would advance through these surrendered troops as fast as possible to the East.
I thought myself that these matters should be left to his discretion, and that the Governments should only intervene if any political issues arose. I did not see why we should break our hearts if, owing to a mass surrender in the West, we got to the Elbe, or even farther, before Stalin. Jock Colville reminds me that I said to him that evening, “I hardly like to consider dismembering Germany until my doubts about Russia’s intentions have been cleared away.”
On April 5 I received from the President the startling text of his interchanges with Stalin:
“You are absolutely right”, wrote Stalin, “that, in connection with the affair regarding negotiations of the Anglo-American command with the German command, somewhere in Berne or some other place, ‘has developed an atmosphere of fear and distrust deserving regrets’.
“You insist that there have been no negotiations yet. It may be assumed that you have not yet been fully informed.… My military colleagues do not have any doubts that the negotiations have taken place, and that they have ended in an agreement with the Germans, on the basis of which the German commander on the Western Front, Marshal Kesselring, has agreed to open the front and permit the Anglo-American troops to advance to the east, and the Anglo-Americans have promised in return to ease for the Germans the peace terms.
“As a result of this at the present moment the Germans on the Western Front in fact have ceased the war against England and the United States. At the same time the Germans continue the war with Russia, the Ally of England and the United States.…”
This accusation angered the President deeply. His strength did not allow him to draft his own reply. General Marshall framed the answer, with Roosevelt’s approval. It certainly did not lack vigour.
“… With a confidence in your belief in my personal reliability,” he retorted, “and in my determination to bring about together with you an unconditional surrender of the Nazis, it is astonishing that a belief seems to have reached the Soviet Government that I have entered into an agreement with the enemy without first obtaining your full agreement. Finally I would say this: it would be one of the great tragedies of history if at the very moment of the victory now within our grasp such distrust, such lack of faith, should prejudice the entire undertaking after the colossal losses of life, material, and treasure involved.
“Frankly, I cannot avoid a feeling of bitter resentment toward your informers, whoever they are, for such vile misrepresentations of my actions or those of my trusted subordinates.”
I was deeply struck by this last sentence, which I print in italics. I felt that although Mr. Roosevelt did not draft the whole message he might well have added this final stroke himself. It looked like an addition or summing up, and it seemed like Roosevelt himself in anger.
I wrote at once to him and to Stalin and a few days later got the semblance of an apology from the Russian dictator. “I would minimise the general Soviet problem as much as possible,” the President cabled to me on April 12, “because these problems, in one form or another, seem to arise every day, and most of them straighten out, as in the case of the Berne meeting. We must be firm, however, and our course thus far is correct.”
President Roosevelt died suddenly that afternoon on Thursday, April 12, 1945, at Warm Springs, Georgia. He was sixty-three. While he was having his portrait painted, he suddenly collapsed, and died a few hours later without regaining consciousness. When I received these tidings early in the morning of Friday, the 13th, I felt as if I had been struck a physical blow. My relations with this shining personality had played so large a part in the long, terrible years we had worked together. Now they had come to an end, and I was overpowered by a sense of deep and irreparable loss. I went down to the House of Commons, which met at eleven o’clock, and in a few sentences proposed that we should pay our respects to the memory of our great friend by immediately adjourning. This unprecedented step on the occasion of the death of the head of a foreign State was in accordance with the unanimous wish of the Members, who filed slowly out of the chamber after a sitting which had lasted only eight minutes.
My first impulse was to fly over to the funeral, and I had already ordered an aeroplane. Lord Halifax telegraphed that both Hopkins and Stettinius were much moved by my thought of possibly coming over, and both warmly agreed with my judgment of the immense effect for good that would be produced. Mr. Truman had asked him to say how greatly he would personally value the opportunity of meeting me as early as possible. His idea was that after the funeral I might have had two or three days’ talk with him.
Much pressure was however put on me not to leave the country at this most critical and difficult moment, and I yielded to the wishes of my friends. In the after-light I regret that I did not adopt the new President’s suggestion. I had never met him, and I feel that there were many points on which personal talks would have been of the greatest value, especially if they had been spread over several days and were not hurried or formalised. It seemed to me extraordinary, especially during the last few months, that Roosevelt had not made his deputy and potential successor thoroughly acquainted with the whole story and brought him into the decisions which were being taken. This proved of grave disadvantage to our affairs. There is no comparison between reading about events afterwards and living through them from hour to hour. In Mr. Eden I had a colleague who knew everything and could at any moment take over the entire direction, although I was myself in good health and full activity. But the Vice-President of the United States steps at a bound from a position where he has little information and less power into supreme authority. How could Mr. Truman know and weigh the issues at stake at this climax of the war? Everything that we have learnt about him since shows him to be a resolute and fearless man, capable of taking the greatest decisions. In these early months his position was one of extreme difficulty, and did not enable him to bring his outstanding qualities fully into action.
Mr. Truman’s first political act which concerned us was to take up the Polish question from the point where it stood when Roosevelt died, only forty-eight hours earlier. He proposed a joint declaration by us both to Stalin. The document in which this was set forth must of course have been far advanced in preparation by the State Department at the moment when the new President succeeded. Nevertheless it is remarkable that he felt able so promptly to commit himself to it amid the formalities of assuming office and the funeral of his predecessor.
He admitted that Stalin’s attitude was not very hopeful, but felt we should “have another go,” and he accordingly proposed telling Stalin that our Ambassadors in Moscow had agreed without question to the three leaders of the Warsaw Government being invited to Moscow for consultation and assuring him we had never denied they would play a prominent part in forming the new Provisional Government of National Unity. Our Ambassadors were not demanding the right to invite an unlimited number of Poles from abroad and from within Poland. The real issue was whether the Warsaw Government could veto individual candidates for consultation, and in our opinion the Yalta agreement did not entitle them to do so.
Our joint message was sent on the 15th. Meanwhile M. Mikolajczyk confirmed that he accepted the Crimea decision on Poland, including the establishment of Poland’s eastern frontier on the Curzon Line, and I so informed Stalin. As I got no answer it may be assumed that the Dictator was for the moment content. Other points were open. Mr. Eden telegraphed from Washington that he and Stettinius agreed that we should renew our demand for the entry of observers into Poland, and that we should once more press the Soviet Government to hold up their negotiations for a treaty with the Lublin Poles. But shortly after deciding this news arrived that the treaty had been concluded.
On April 29, when it seemed evident we were getting nowhere, I put my whole case to Stalin in a lengthy telegram of which the following paragraphs may be deemed material:
It is quite true that about Poland we have reached a definite line of action with the Americans. This is because we agree naturally upon the subject, and both sincerely feel that we have been rather illtreated … since the Crimea Conference. No doubt these things seem different when looked at from the opposite point of view. But we are absolutely agreed that the pledge we have given for a sovereign, free, independent Poland, with a Government fully and adequately representing all the democratic elements among Poles, is for us a matter of honour and duty. I do not think there is the slightest chance of any change in the attitude of our two Powers, and when we are agreed we are bound to say so. After all, we have joined with you, largely on my original initiative, early in 1944, in proclaiming the Polish-Russian frontier which you desired, namely, the Curzon Line, including Lvov for Russia. We think you ought to meet us with regard to the other half of the policy which you equally with us have proclaimed, namely, the sovereignty, independence, and freedom of Poland, provided it is a Poland friendly to Russia.…
Also, difficulties arise at the present moment because all sorts of stories are brought out of Poland which are eagerly listened to by many Members of Parliament, and which at any time may be violently raised in Parliament or the Press in spite of my deprecating such action, and on which M. Molotov will vouchsafe us no information at all in spite of repeated requests. For instance, there is the talk of the fifteen Poles who were said to have met the Russian authorities for discussion over four weeks ago … and there are many other statements of deportations, etc.* How can I contradict such complaints when you give me no information whatever and when neither I nor the Americans are allowed to send anyone into Poland to find out for themselves the true state of affairs? There is no part of our occupied or liberated territory into which you are not free to send delegations, and people do not see why you should have any reasons against similar visits by British delegations to foreign countries liberated by you.
There is not much comfort in looking into a future where you and the countries you dominate, plus the Communist Parties in many other States, are all drawn up on one side, and those who rally to the English-speaking nations and their associates or Dominions are on the other. It is quite obvious that their quarrel would tear the world to pieces and that all of us leading men on either side who had anything to do with that would be shamed before history. Even embarking on a long period of suspicions, of abuse and counter-abuse, and of opposing policies would be a disaster hampering the great developments of world prosperity for the masses which are attainable only by our trinity. I hope there is no word or phrase in this outpouring of my heart to you which unwittingly gives offence. If so, let me know. But do not, I beg you, my friend Stalin, underrate the divergences which are opening about matters which you may think are small to us but which are symbolic of the way the English-speaking democracies look at life.
The incident of the missing Poles mentioned in the second paragraph now requires to be recorded, although it carries us somewhat ahead of the general narrative. At the beginning of March 1945 the Polish Underground were invited by the Russian Political Police to send a delegation to Moscow to discuss the formation of a united Polish Government along the lines of the Yalta agreement. This was followed by a written guarantee of personal safety and it was understood that the party would later be allowed if the negotiations were successful to travel to London for talks with the Polish Government in exile. On March 27 General Leopold Okulicki, the successor of General Bor-Komorowski in command of the Underground Army, two other leaders, and an interpreter had a meeting in the suburbs of Warsaw with a Soviet representative. They were joined the following day by eleven leaders representing the major political parties in Poland. One other Polish leader was already in Russian hands. No one returned from the rendezvous. On April 6 the Polish Government in exile issued a statement in London giving the outline of this sinister episode. The most valuable representatives of the Polish Underground had disappeared without a trace in spite of the formal Russian offer of safe-conduct. Questions were asked in Parliament and stories have since spread of the shooting of local Polish leaders in the areas at this time occupied by the Soviet armies and particularly of one episode at Siedlce in Eastern Poland. It was not until May 4 that Molotov admitted at San Francisco that these men were being held in Russia, and an official Russian news agency stated next day that they were awaiting trial on charges of “diversionary tactics in the rear of the Red Army”.
On May 18 Stalin publicly denied that the arrested Polish leaders had ever been invited to Moscow and asserted that they were mere “diversionists” who would be dealt with according to “a law similar to the British Defence of the Realm Act”. The Soviet Government refused to move from this position. Nothing more was heard of the victims of the trap until the case against them opened on June 18. It was conducted in the usual Communist manner. The prisoners were accused of subversion, terrorism, and espionage, and all except one admitted wholly or in part the charges against them. Thirteen were found guilty, and sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from four months to ten years, and three were acquitted. This was in fact the judicial liquidation of the leadership of the Polish Underground which had fought so heroically against Hitler. The rank and file had already died in the ruins of Warsaw.
Meanwhile, I received a most disheartening reply from Stalin to the appeal I had made to him on April 29. It was dated May 5 and read as follows:
I am obliged to say that I cannot agree with the arguments which you advance in support of your position.… I am unable to share your views … in the passage where you suggest that the three Powers should supervise elections. Such supervision in relation to the people of an Allied State could not be regarded otherwise than as an insult to that people and a flagrant interference with its internal life. Such supervision is unnecessary in relation to the former satellite States which have subsequently declared war on Germany and joined the Allies, as has been shown by the experience of the elections which have taken place, for instance, in Finland; here elections have been held without any outside intervention and have led to constructive results.… Poland’s peculiar position as a neighbour State of the Soviet Union … demands that the future Polish Government should actively strive for friendly relations between Poland and the Soviet Union, which is likewise in the interests of all other peaceloving nations.… The United Nations are concerned that there should be a firm and lasting friendship between the Soviet Union and Poland. Consequently we cannot be satisfied that persons should be associated with the formation of the future Polish Government who, as you express it, “are not fundamentally anti-Soviet”, or that only those persons should be excluded from participation in this work who are in your opinion “extremely unfriendly towards Russia”. Neither of these criteria can satisfy us. We insist, and shall insist, that there should be brought into consultation on the formation of the future Polish Government only those persons who have actively shown a friendly attitude towards the Soviet Union and who are honestly and sincerely prepared to co-operate with the Soviet State.*
I must comment especially on [another] point of your message, in which you mention difficulties arising as a result of rumours of the arrest of fifteen Poles, of deportations and so forth.
As to this, I can inform you that the group of Poles to which you refer consists not of fifteen but of sixteen persons, and is headed by the well-known Polish general Okulicki. In view of his especially odious character the British Information Service is careful to be silent on the subject of this Polish general, who “disappeared” together with the fifteen other Poles who are said to have done likewise. But we do not propose to be silent on this subject. This party of sixteen individuals headed by General Okulicki was arrested by the military authorities on the Soviet front and is undergoing investigation in Moscow. General Okulicki’s group, and especially the General himself, are accused of planning and carrying out diversionary acts in the rear of the Red Army, which resulted in the loss of over 100 fighters and officers ofthat Army, and are also accused of maintaining illegal wireless transmitting stations in the rear of our troops, which is contrary to law. All or some of them, according to the results of the investigation, will be handed over for trial. This is the manner in which it is necessary for the Red Army to defend its troops and its rear from diversionists and disturbers of order.
30 + s.w.w.
The British Information Service is disseminating rumours of the murder or shooting of Poles in Siedlce. These statements of the British Information Service are complete fabrications, and have evidently been suggested to it by [anti-Soviet] agents.…
It appears from your message that you are not prepared to regard the Polish Provisional Government as the foundation of the future Government of National Unity, and that you are not prepared to accord it its rightful position in that Government. I must say frankly that such an attitude excludes the possibility of an agreed solution of the Polish question.
I repeated this forbidding message to President Truman, with the following comment: “It seems to me that matters can hardly be carried further by correspondence, and that as soon as possible there should be a meeting of the three heads of Governments. Meanwhile we should hold firmly to the existing position obtained or being obtained by our armies in Yugoslavia, in Austria, in Czechoslovakia, on the main central United States front, and on the British front, reaching up to Lübeck, including Denmark.* …” On May 4 I drew the European scene as I saw it for Mr. Eden, who was at the San Francisco Conference, in daily touch with Stettinius and Molotov, and soon to revisit the President at Washington.
I consider that the Polish deadlock can now probably only be resolved at a conference between the three heads of Governments in some unshattered town in Germany, if such can be found. This should take place at latest at the beginning of July. I propose to telegraph a suggestion to President Truman about his visit here and the further indispensable meeting of the three major Powers.
2. The Polish problem may be easier to settle when set in relation to the now numerous outstanding questions of the utmost gravity which require urgent settlement with the Russians. I fear terrible things have happened during the Russian advance through Germany to the Elbe. The proposed withdrawal of the United States Army to the occupational lines which were arranged with the Russians and Americans in Quebec, and which were marked in yellow on the maps we studied there, would mean the tide of Russian domination sweeping forward 120 miles on a front of 300 or 400 miles. This would be an event which, if it occurred, would be one of the most melancholy in history. After it was over and the territory occupied by the Russians Poland would be completely engulfed and buried deep in Russian-occupied lands. What would in fact be the Russian frontier would run from the North Cape in Norway, along the Finnish-Swedish frontier, across the Baltic to a point just east of Lübeck, along the at present agreed line of occupation and along the frontier between Bavaria to Czechoslovakia to the frontiers of Austria, which is nominally to be in quadruple occupation, and halfway across that country to the Isonzo river, behind which Tito and Russia will claim everything to the east. Thus the territories under Russian control would include the Baltic provinces, all of Germany to the occupational line, all Czechoslovakia, a large part of Austria, the whole of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, until Greece in her present tottering condition is reached. It would include all the great capitals of Middle Europe, including Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia. The position of Turkey and Constantinople will certainly come immediately into discussion.
3. This constitutes an event in the history of Europe to which there has been no parallel, and which has not been faced by the Allies in their long and hazardous struggle. The Russian demands on Germany for reparations alone will be such as to enable her to prolong the occupation almost indefinitely, at any rate for many years, during which time Poland will sink with many other States into the vast zone of Russian-controlled Europe, not necessarily economically Sovietised, but police-governed.
4. It is just about time that these formidable issues were examined between the principal Powers as a whole. We have several powerful bargaining counters on our side, the use of which might make for a peaceful agreement. First, the Allies ought not to retreat from their present positions to the occupational line until we are satisfied about Poland, and also about the temporary character of the Russian occupation of Germany, and the conditions to be established in the Russianised or Russian-controlled countries in the Danube valley, particularly Austria and Czechoslovakia, and the Balkans* Secondly, we may be able to please them about the exits from the Black Sea and the Baltic as part of a general statement. All these matters can only be settled before the United States armies in Europe are weakened. If they are not settled before the United States armies withdraw from Europe and the Western World folds up its war machines there are no prospects of a satisfactory solution and very little of preventing a third World War. It is to this early and speedy show-down and settlement with Russia that we must now turn our hopes. Meanwhile I am against weakening our claim against Russia on behalf of Poland in any way. I think it should stand where it was put in the telegrams from the President and me.
“Nothing,” I added the next day, “can save us from the great catastrophe but a meeting and a show-down as early as possible at some point in Germany which is under American and British control and affords reasonable accommodation.”