APPREHENSION for the future and many perplexities filled my mind as I moved about among the cheering crowds of Londoners in their hour of well-won rejoicing after all they had gone through. The Hitler peril, with its ordeals and privations, seemed to most of them to have vanished in a blaze of glory. The tremendous foe they had fought for more than five years had surrendered unconditionally. All that remained for the three victorious Powers was to make a just and durable peace, guarded by a World Instrument, to bring the soldiers home to their longing loved ones, and to enter upon a Golden Age of prosperity and progress. No more, and surely, thought their peoples, no less.
However, there was another side to the picture. Japan was still unconquered. The atomic bomb was still unborn. The world was in confusion. The main bond of common danger which had united the Great Allies had vanished overnight. The Soviet menace, to my eyes, had already replaced the Nazi foe. But no comradeship against it existed. At home the foundations of national unity, upon which the war-time Government had stood so firmly, were also gone. Our strength, which had overcome so many storms, would no longer continue in the sunshine. How then could we reach that final settlement which alone could reward the toils and sufferings of the struggle? I could not rid my mind of the fear that the victorious armies of democracy would soon disperse and that the real and hardest test still lay before us. I had seen it all before. I remembered that other joy-day nearly thirty years before, when I had driven with my wife from the Ministry of Munitions through similar multitudes convulsed with enthusiasm to Downing Street to congratulate the Prime Minister. Then, as at this time, I understood the world situation as a whole. But then at least there was no mighty army that we need fear.
My prime thought was a meeting of the three Great Powers and I hoped that President Truman would come through London on his way. As will be seen, very different ideas were being pressed upon the new President from influential quarters in Washington. The sort of mood and outlook which had been noticed at Yalta had been strengthened. The United States, it was argued, must be careful not to let herself be drawn into any antagonism with Soviet Russia. This, it was thought, would stimulate British ambition and would make a new gulf in Europe. The right policy, on the other hand, should be for the United States to stand between Britain and Russia as a friendly mediator, or even arbiter, trying to reduce their differences about Poland or Austria and make things settle down into a quiet and happy peace, enabling American forces to be concentrated against Japan. These pressures must have been very strong upon Truman. His natural instinct, as his historic actions have shown, may well have been different. I could not of course measure the forces at work in the brain-centre of our closest Ally, though I was soon conscious of them. I could only feel the vast manifestation of Soviet and Russian imperialism rolling forward over helpless lands.
Obviously the first aim must be a conference with Stalin. Within three days of the German surrender I cabled the President that we should invite him to a conference. “Meanwhile I earnestly hope that the American front will not recede from the now agreed tactical lines.* He replied at once that he would rather have Stalin propose the meeting, and he hoped our Ambassadors would induce him to suggest it. Mr. Truman then declared that he and I ought to go to the meeting separately, so as to avoid any suspicion of “ganging up”. When the Conference ended he hoped to visit England if his duties in America permitted. I did not fail to notice the difference of view which this telegram conveyed, but I accepted the procedure he proposed.
In these same days I also sent what may be called the “Iron Curtain” telegram to President Truman. Of all the public documents I have written on this issue I would rather be judged by this.
I am profoundly concerned about the European situation. I learn that half the American Air Force in Europe has already begun to move to the Pacific theatre. The newspapers are full of the great movements of the American armies out of Europe. Our armies also are, under previous arrangements, likely to undergo a marked reduction. The Canadian Army will certainly leave. The French are weak and difficult to deal with. Anyone can see that in a very short space of time our armed power on the Continent will have vanished, except for moderate forces to hold down Germany.
2. Meanwhile what is to happen about Russia? I have always worked for friendship with Russia, but, like you, I feel deep anxiety because of their misrepresentation of the Yalta decisions, their attitude towards Poland, their overwhelming influence in the Balkans, excepting Greece, the difficulties they make about Vienna, the combination of Russian power and the territories under their control or occupied, coupled with the Communist technique in so many other countries, and above all their power to maintain very large armies in the field for a long time. What will be the position in a year or two, when the British and American Armies have melted and the French has not yet been formed on any major scale, when we may have a handful of divisions, mostly French, and when Russia may choose to keep two or three hundred on active service?
3. An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind. There seems little doubt that the whole of the regions east of the line Lübeck–Trieste–Corfu will soon be completely in their hands. To this must be added the further enormous area conquered by the American armies between Eisenach and the Elbe, which will, I suppose, in a few weeks be occupied, when the Americans retreat, by the Russian power. All kinds of arrangements will have to be made by General Eisenhower to prevent another immense flight of the German population westward as this enormous Muscovite advance into the centre of Europe takes place. And then the curtain will descend again to a very large extent, if not entirely. Thus a broad band of many hundreds of miles of Russian-occupied territory will isolate us from Poland.
4. Meanwhile the attention of our peoples will be occupied in inflicting severities upon Germany, which is ruined and prostrate, and it would be open to the Russians in a very short time to advance if they chose to the waters of the North Sea and the Atlantic.
5. Surely it is vital now to come to an understanding with Russia, or see where we are with her, before we weaken our armies mortally or retire to the zones of occupation. This can only be done by a personal meeting. I should be most grateful for your opinion and advice. Of course we may take the view that Russia will behave impeccably, and no doubt that offers the most convenient solution. To sum up, this issue of a settlement with Russia before our strength has gone seems to me to dwarf all others.
A week passed before I heard again from Mr. Truman on the major issues. Then on May 22 he cabled that he had asked Mr. Joseph E. Davies to come to see me before the Triple Conference, about a number of matters he preferred not to handle by cable.
Mr. Davies had been the American Ambassador in Russia before the war, and was known to be most sympathetic to the régime. He had in fact written a book on his mission to Moscow which was also produced as a film which seemed in many ways to palliate the Soviet system. I of course made immediate arrangements to receive him, and he spent the night of the 26th at Chequers. I had a very long talk with him. The crux of what he had to propose was that the President should meet Stalin first somewhere in Europe before he saw me. I was indeed astonished at this suggestion. I had not liked the President’s use in his earlier message of the term “ganging up” as applied to any meeting between him and me. Britain and the United States were united by bonds of principle and by agreement upon policy in many directions, and we were both at profound difference with the Soviets on many of the greatest issues. For the President and the British Prime Minister to talk together upon this common ground, as we had so often done in Roosevelt’s day, could not now deserve the disparaging expression “ganging up”. On the other hand, for the President to by-pass Great Britain and meet the head of the Soviet State alone would have been, not indeed a case of “ganging up”—for that was impossible—but an attempt to reach a single-handed understanding with Russia on the main issues upon which we and the Americans were united. I would not agree in any circumstances to what seemed to be an affront, however unintentional, to our country after its faithful service in the cause of freedom from the first day of the war. I objected to the implicit idea that the new disputes now opening with the Soviets lay between Britain and Russia. The United States was as fully concerned and committed as ourselves. I made this quite clear to Mr. Davies in our conversation, which also ranged over the whole field of Eastern and Southern European affairs, and in order that there should be no misconception I drafted and gave him a formal minute in this sense. The President received it in a kindly and understanding spirit, and I was very glad to learn that all was well and that the justice of our view was not unrecognised by our cherished friends.
About the same time as President Truman sent Mr. Davies to see me he had asked Harry Hopkins to go as his special envoy to Moscow to make another attempt to reach a working agreement on the Polish question. Although far from well, Hopkins set out gallantly for Moscow. His friendship for Russia was well known, and he received a most friendly welcome. Certainly for the first time some progress was made. Stalin agreed to invite Mikolajczyk and two of his colleagues to Moscow from London for consultation, in conformity with our interpretation of the Yalta agreement. He also agreed to invite some important non-Lublin Poles from inside Poland.
In a telegram to me the President said he felt this was a very encouraging, positive stage in the negotiations. Most of the arrested Polish leaders were apparently only charged with operating illegal radio transmitters, and Hopkins was pressing Stalin to grant them an amnesty so that consultations could be conducted in the most favourable atmosphere possible. He asked me to urge Mikolajczyk to accept Stalin’s invitation. I persuaded Mikolajczyk to go to Moscow, and in the upshot a new Polish Provisional Government was set up. At Truman’s request this was recognised by both Britain and the United States on July 5.
It is difficult to see what more we could have done. For five months the Soviets had fought every inch of the road. They had gained their object by delay. During all this time the Lublin Administration, under Bierut, sustained by the might of the Russian armies, had given them a complete control of Poland, enforced by the usual deportations and liquidations. They had denied us all the access for our observers which they had promised. All the Polish parties, except their own Communist puppets, were in a hopeless minority in the new recognised Polish Provisional Government. We were as far as ever from any real and fair attempt to obtain the will of the Polish nation by free elections. There was still a hope—and it was the only hope—that the meeting of “the Three”, now impending, would enable a genuine and honourable settlement to be achieved. So far only dust and ashes have been gathered, and these are all that remain to us to-day of Polish national freedom.
On June 1 President Truman told me that Marshal Stalin was agreeable to a meeting of what he called “the Three” in Berlin about July 15. I replied at once that I would gladly go to Berlin with a British delegation, but I thought that July 15, which Truman had suggested, was much too late for the urgent questions demanding attention between us, and that we should do an injury to world hopes and unity if we allowed personal or national requirements to stand in the way of an earlier meeting. “Although,” I cabled, “I am in the midst of a hotly contested election I would not consider my tasks here as comparable to a meeting between the three of us. If June 15 is not possible why not July 1, 2, or 3?” Mr. Truman replied that after full consideration July 15 was the earliest for him, and that arrangements were being made accordingly. Stalin did not wish to hasten the date. I could not press the matter further.
The main reason why I had been anxious to hasten the date of the meeting was of course the impending retirement of the American Army from the line which it had gained in the fighting to the zone prescribed in the occupation agreement. The story of the agreement about the zones and the arguments for and against changing them are recorded in the previous chapter. I feared that any day a decision might be taken in Washington to yield up this enormous area—400 miles long and 120 at its greatest depth. It contained many millions of Germans and Czechs. Its abandonment would place a broader gulf of territory between us and Poland, and practically end our power to influence her fate. The changed demeanour of Russia towards us, the constant breaches of the understandings reached at Yalta, the dart for Denmark, happily frustrated by Montgomery’s timely action, the encroachments in Austria, Marshal Tito’s menacing pressure at Trieste, all seemed to me and my advisers to create an entirely different situation from that in which the zones of occupation had been prescribed two years earlier. Surely all these issues should be considered as a whole, and now was the time. Now, while the British and American Armies and Air Forces were still a mighty armed power, and before they melted away under demobilisation and the heavy claims of the Japanese war—now, at the very latest, was the time for a general settlement.
A month earlier would have been better. But it was not yet too late. On the other hand, to give up the whole centre and heart of Germany—nay, the centre and key-stone of Europe—as an isolated act seemed to me to be a grave and improvident decision. If it were done at all it could only be as part of a general and lasting settlement. We should go to Potsdam with nothing to bargain with, and all the prospects of the future peace of Europe might well go by default. The matter however did not rest with me. Our own retirement to the occupation frontier was inconsiderable. The American Army was three millions to our one. All I could do was to plead, first, for advancing the date of the meeting of “the Three,” and, secondly, when that failed, to postpone the withdrawal until we could confront all our problems as a whole, together, face to face, and on equal terms.
How stands the scene after eight years have passed? The Russian occupation line in Europe runs from Lübeck to Linz. Czechoslovakia has been engulfed. The Baltic states, Poland, Roumania, and Bulgaria have been reduced to satellite States under totalitarian Communist rule. Yugoslavia has broken loose. Greece alone is saved. Our armies are gone, and it will be a long time before even sixty divisions can be once again assembled opposite Russian forces, which in armour and manpower are in overwhelming strength. This also takes no account of all that has happened in the Far East. The danger of a third World War, under conditions at the outset of grave disadvantage, casts its lurid shadow over the free nations of the world. Thus in the moment of victory was our best, and what might prove to have been our last, chance of durable world peace allowed composedly to fade away.* On June 4 I cabled to the President these words, which few would now dispute:
I am sure you understand the reason why I am anxious for an earlier date, say the 3rd or 4th [of July]. I view with profound misgivings the retreat of the American Army to our line of occupation in the central sector, thus bringing Soviet power into the heart of Western Europe and the descent of an iron curtain between us and everything to the eastward. I hoped that this retreat, if it has to be made, would be accompanied by the settlement of many great things which would be the true foundation of world peace. Nothing really important has been settled yet, and you and I will have to bear great responsibility for the future. I still hope therefore that the date will be advanced.
Mr. Truman replied on June 12. He said that the tripartite agreement about the occupation of Germany, approved by President Roosevelt after “long consideration and detailed discussion” with me, made it impossible to delay the withdrawal of American troops from the Soviet Zone in order to press the settlement of other problems. The Allied Control Council could not begin to function until they left, and the military government exercised by the Allied Supreme Commander should be terminated without delay and divided between Eisenhower and Montgomery. He had been advised, he said, that it would harm our relations with the Soviet to postpone action until our meeting in July, and he accordingly proposed sending a message to Stalin.
This document suggested that we should at once instruct our armies to occupy their respective zones. He was ready to order all American troops to begin withdrawing from Germany on June 21. The military commanders should arrange for the simultaneous occupation of Berlin and for free access thereto by road, rail, and air from Frankfurt and Bremen for the United States forces. In Austria arrangements could be completed more quickly and satisfactorily by making the local commanders responsible for defining the zones both there and in Vienna, only referring to their Governments such matters as they were unable to resolve themselves.
This struck a knell in my breast. But I had no choice but to submit. There was nothing more that I could do. It must not be overlooked that Mr. Truman had not been concerned or consulted in the original fixing of the zones. The case as presented to him so soon after his accession to power was whether or not to depart from and in a sense repudiate the policy of the American and British Governments agreed under his illustrious predecessor. He was, I have no doubt, supported in his action by his advisers, military and civil. His responsibility at this point was limited to deciding whether circumstances had changed so fundamentally that an entirely different procedure should be adopted, with the likelihood of having to face accusations of breach of faith. Those who are only wise after the event should hold their peace.
On July 1 the United States and British Armies began their withdrawal to their allotted zones, followed by masses of refugees. Soviet Russia was established in the heart of Europe. This was a fateful milestone for mankind.
While all this was passing I was plunged into the turmoil of the General Election, which began in earnest in the first week of June. This month was therefore hard to live through. Strenuous motor tours to the greatest cities of England and Scotland, with three or four speeches a day to enormous and, it seemed, enthusiastic crowds, and, above all, four laboriously prepared broadcasts, consumed my time and strength. All the while I felt that much we had fought for in our long struggle in Europe was slipping away and that the hopes of an early and lasting peace were receding. The days were passed amid the clamour of multitudes, and when at night, tired out, I got back to my headquarters train, where a considerable staff and all the incoming telegrams awaited me, I had to toil for many hours. The incongruity of party excitement and clatter with the sombre background which filled my mind was in itself an affront to reality and proportion. I was glad indeed when polling day at last arrived and the ballot papers were safely sealed for three weeks in their boxes.
I was resolved to have a week of sunshine to myself before the Conference. On July 7, two days after polling day, I flew to Bordeaux with Mrs. Churchill and Mary, and found myself agreeably installed at General Brutinel’s villa near the Spanish frontier at Hendaye, with lovely bathing and beautiful surroundings. I spent most of the mornings in bed reading a very good account, by an excellent French writer, of the Bordeaux armistice and its tragic sequel at Oran. It was strange to revive my own memories of five years before and to learn of many things which I had not known at that time. In the afternoons I even sallied forth with my elaborate painting outfit, and found attractive subjects on the river Nive and the Bay of St. Jean de Luz. I found a gifted companion of the brush in Mrs. Nairn, the wife of the British Consul at Bordeaux, with whom I made friends at Marrakesh a year before. I dealt only with a few telegrams about the impending Conference, and strove to put party politics out of my head. And yet I must confess the mystery of the ballot-boxes and their contents had an ugly trick of knocking on the door and peering in at the windows. When the palette was spread and I had a paint-brush in my hand it was easy to drive these intruders away.
The Basque people were everywhere warm in their welcome. They had endured a long spell of German occupation and were joyful to breathe freely again. I did not need to prepare myself for the Conference, for I carried so much of it in my head, and was happy to cast it off, if only for these few fleeting days. The President was at sea in the United States cruiser Augusta, the same ship which had carried Roosevelt to our Atlantic meeting in 1941. On the 15th I motored through the forests to the Bordeaux airfield, and my Skymaster took me to Berlin.
