THE long task I set myself in writing the six volumes of the Second World War will now appear in an abridged form for the use of those who wish to know what happened without being cumbered with too much detail, especially military detail.
This gives me an opportunity to look back and express my views on some of the major events of the last twelve years.
When I left Potsdam on the 25th of July, 1945, I certainly expected that the election figures would leave me a reasonable majority, and it was startling to be confronted with the facts. Entirely absorbed as I had been in the prosecution of the war and the situation at its victorious close, I did not understand what had taken place in the British Isles. Otherwise, I thought and still think I could have arranged things differently. Above all, the opinion in the mass of the Army, after so many signs of good will, was a great surprise to me. The election results and figures were an even greater surprise to Europe and America, and indeed to the U.S.S.R. They naturally thought that the steadfastness of the British peoples, having survived the grim ordeals of 1940 and having come triumphantly through the five years’ struggle, would remain unshaken, and that there would be no change of Government.
During the course of the Conference at Potsdam I had not so far sought to come to grips with Russia. Since Yalta she had behaved in an astonishing fashion. I had earnestly hoped that the Americans would not withdraw from the wide territories in Central Europe they had conquered before we met. This was the one card that the Allies held when the fighting stopped by which to arrange a level settlement. Britain sought nothing for herself, but I was sure she would view the vast advance which Russia was making in all directions as far exceeding what was fair. The Americans seemed quite unconscious of the situation, and the satellite states, as they came to be called, were occupied by Russian troops. Berlin was already in their hands, though Montgomery could have taken it had he been permitted. Vienna was Russian-held, and representatives of the Allies, even as individuals, were denied access to this key capital. As for the Balkans, Bulgaria and Roumania had already been conquered. Yugoslavia quivered under Tito, her famous patriotic leader. The Russians had occupied Prague with, as it seemed, the approval of the Americans. They held Poland, whose western boundary, it was agreed, should be moved into the heart of Europe at the expense of Germany. All these steps had in fact been taken by the Russians while their armies were still advancing. Yet the American view seemed to be that all this was a necessary part of the process of holding down Germany, and that the great national object of the United States was not to get drawn into siding too closely with Britain against Russia.
When the winter came along I went to the United States and remained in that country for several months. I visited the White House and the State Department. I there received an invitation to address the Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946. Mr. Truman had said he would himself preside. This was several months ahead, and I kept myself as fully informed as was possible. I made inquiries both at the White House and at the State Department in order to learn whether certain topics would cause embarrassment, and having been assured that I could say what I liked I devoted myself to the careful preparation of a speech. Meanwhile the dire situation with which the insatiable appetites of Russia and of international Communism were confronting us was at last beginning to make a strong impression in American circles. I showed the notes I had prepared to Mr. Byrnes, then Secretary of State, and found that he was very much in agreement with me. The President invited me to travel with him in his train the long night’s journey to Fulton. We had an enjoyable game of poker. That was the only topic which I remember. However, as I was quite sure that his Secretary of State had imparted my general line to the President, and he seemed quite happy about it, I decided to go ahead. One always has to be very careful about speeches which you make in other people’s countries. This is from what I said:
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organisation intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytising tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my war-time comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and good will in Britain—and I doubt not here also—towards the peoples of all the Russias, and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty, however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone—Greece with its immortal glories—is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russiandominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy.
Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at the claims which are being made upon them and at the pressure being exerted by the Moscow Government. An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist party in their zone of Occupied Germany by showing special favours to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the fighting last June, the American and British armies withdrew westwards, in accordance with an earlier Agreement, to a depth at some points of one hundred and fifty miles upon a front of nearly four hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies to occupy this vast expanse of territory which the Western Democracies had conquered.
If now the Soviet Government tries, by separate action, to build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious difficulties in the British and American zones, and will give the defeated Germans the power of putting themselves up to auction between the Soviets and the Western Democracies. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts—and facts they are—this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.
The audience listened with great attention, and the President and Mr. Byrnes both expressed their approval. The newspapers, however, were very varied in their comments. When the news reached Russia, it was ill received, and both Stalin and the Pravda responded as might be expected. The Pravda denounced me as “an anti-Soviet warmonger,” and said I was trying to destroy the United Nations. Stalin in a newspaper interview accused me of calling for war against the Soviet Union and compared me with Hitler. Questions were also asked in the House of Commons, to which Mr. Attlee, now Prime Minister, replied that the Government was not called upon to express any opinion on a speech delivered in another country by a private individual.
I had another speech to deliver a few days later in New York, where I was the guest of the Mayor and civic authorities. All round the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, at the dinner where it was delivered, were marching pickets of Communists, and I was somewhat surprised to learn that Mr. Dean Acheson, the Under-Secretary of State, was not coming. When Mr. John Winant heard of this change of plan in Washington in the afternoon, he caught a train to New York and arrived in the middle of dinner to support me, and made a most friendly speech. I expressed myself as follows:
When I spoke at Fulton ten days ago I felt it was necessary for someone in an unofficial position to speak in arresting terms about the present plight of the world. I do not wish to withdraw or modify a single word. I was invited to give my counsel freely in this free country and I am sure that the hope which I expressed for the increasing association of our two countries will come to pass, not because of any speech which may be made, but because of the tides that flow in human affairs and in the course of the unfolding destiny of the world. The only question which in my opinion is open is whether the necessary harmony of thought and action between the American and British peoples will be reached in a sufficiently plain and clear manner and in good time to prevent a new world struggle or whether it will come about, as it has done before, only in the course of that struggle.…
… Let me declare, however, that the progress and freedom of all the peoples of the world, under a reign of law enforced by a world organisation, will not come to pass, nor will the age of plenty begin, without the persistent, faithful, and above all fearless exertions of the British and American systems of society.
The agitation in the newspapers and the general interest, and even excitement, continued to grow.
I spent the early autumn of 1946 painting in a lovely villa by the Lake of Geneva with Mont Blanc over the water in the background. When it became time to go I paid a very pleasant visit to Zurich University, and made them a speech about the tragedy of Europe and the plight to which she had been reduced, and I urged the foundation of a kind of United States of Europe, or as much of it as could be done.
I was very glad to read in the newspapers two days ago that my friend President Truman had expressed his interest and sympathy with this great design. There is no reason why a regional organisation should in any way conflict with the world organisation of the United Nations. On the contrary, I believe that the larger synthesis will only survive if it is founded upon coherent natural groupings. There is already a natural grouping in the Western Hemisphere. We British have our own Commonwealth of Nations. These do not weaken, on the contrary they strengthen, the world organisation. They are in fact its main support. And why should there not be a European group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this turbulent and mighty continent and why should it not take its rightful place with other great groupings in shaping the destinies of men? In order that this should be accomplished there must be an act of faith in which millions of families speaking many languages must consciously take part.
We all know that the two world wars through which we have passed arose out of the vain passion of a newly-united Germany to play the dominating part in the world.… Germany must be deprived of the power to rearm and make another aggressive war. But when all this has been done, as it will be done, as it is being done, there must be an end to retribution. There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called “a blessed act of oblivion”. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past. If Europe is to be saved from infinite misery, and indeed from final doom, there must be an act of faith in the European family and an act of oblivion against all the crimes and follies of the past.
… I am now going to say something that will astonish you. The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral leadership of Europe. There can be no revival os Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important. Small nations will count as much as large ones and gain their honour by their contribution to the common cause. The ancient states and principalities of Germany, freely joined together for mutual convenience in a federal system, might each take their individual place among the United States of Europe. I shall not try to make a detailed programme for hundreds of millions of people who want to be happy and free, prosperous and safe, who wish to enjoy the four freedoms of which the great President Roosevelt spoke, and live in accordance with the principles embodied in the Atlantic Charter. If this is their wish, they have only to say so, and means can certainly be found, and machinery erected, to carry that wish into full fruition.
But I must give you a warning. Time may be short. At present there is a breathing space. The cannon have ceased firing. The fighting has stopped; but the dangers have not stopped. If we are to form the United States of Europe or whatever name or form it may take, we must begin now.
Thus ran my thoughts in 1946. To tortured France, lately occupied and humiliated, the spectacle of close association with her finally vanquished executioner seemed at first unthinkable. By degrees, however, the flow of European fraternity was restored in French veins, and natural Gallic pliant good sense overcame the bitterness of the past.
I have always held, and hold, the valiant Russian people in high regard. But their shadow loomed disastrously over the post-war scene. There was no visible limit to the harm they might do. Intent on victory over the Axis Powers, Britain and America had laid no sufficient plans for the fate and future of occupied Europe. We had gone to war in defence not only of the independence of smaller countries but to proclaim and endorse the individual rights and freedoms on which this greater morality is based. Soviet Russia had other and less disinterested aims. Her grip tightened on the territories her armies had overrun. In all the satellite states behind the Iron Curtain, coalition governments had been set up, including Communists. It was hoped that democracy in some form would be preserved. But in one country after another the Communists seized the key posts, harried and suppressed the other political parties, and drove their leaders into exile. There were trials and purges. Roumania, Hungary, and Bulgaria were soon engulfed. At Yalta and Potsdam I had fought hard for Poland, but it was in vain. In Czechoslovakia a sudden coup was carried out by the Communist Ministers, which sharply alerted world opinion. Freedom was crushed within and free intercourse with the West was forbidden. Thanks largely to Britain, Greece remained precariously independent. With British and later American aid, she fought a long civil war against the insurgent Communists. When all had been said and done, and after the long agonies and efforts of the Second World War, it seemed that half Europe had merely exchanged one despot for another.
Today, these points seem commonplace. The prolonged and not altogether unsuccessful struggle to halt the destroying tide of Russian and Russian-inspired incursion has become part of our daily lives. Indeed, as always with a good cause, it has sometimes been necessary to temper enthusiasm and to disregard opportunism. But it was not easy at the time to turn from the contemplation of a great and exhausting victory over one tyranny to the prospect of a tedious and expensive campaign against another.
The United Nations Organisation was still very young, but already it was clear that its defects might prove grave enough to vitiate the purposes for which it was created. At any rate it could not provide quickly and effectively the union and the armed forces which Free Europe and the United States needed for self-preservation. At Fulton I had suggested that the United Nations Organisation should forthwith be equipped with an international armed force. But both for the immediate future and the long term I had urged the continuation of the special Anglo-American relationship which has been one of the main themes of my political life.
Neither the sure prevention of war nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.… It should carry with it a continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all Naval and Air Force bases in the possession of either country all over the world.… The United States has already a permanent Defence Agreement with the Dominion of Canada.… this principle should be extended to all British Commonwealths with full reciprocity.
The next three years were to see the unfolding of a design that approached but has not yet attained this ideal.
I do not wish to claim a monopoly of credit for these conceptions. One of the advantages of being in Opposition is that one can outdistance in imagination those whose fortune it is to put plans into practical effect. The British Government, much inspired by the stouthearted and wise Mr. Ernest Bevin, took the lead in rebuilding something of the Concert of Europe, at least in what was left of Europe. Initial thoughts were mainly of the dangers of a resurrected Germany. In 1947 Britain and France signed the Treaty of Dunkirk binding each to come to the other’s assistance if there was another German attack. But already the grim realities of the present were overshadowing the fears of the past. After many months of diplomatic activity the Brussels Treaty was signed in 1948. France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, the Belgians and Luxembourg undertook to assist one another against aggression, from whatever quarter it might come. Germany was not mentioned. Moreover, the beginnings of a military organisation were set up under the chairmanship of Field-Marshal Montgomery to assess the resources available for defence and to draw up a plan with what little was available. This became known as the Western Union. I endorsed these measures, but vehemently hoped that the United States, without whose aid they would be woefully incomplete, would soon be brought into the association. We were fortunate at the time to have in the American Secretary of State the far-sighted and devoted General Marshall, with whom we had worked in closest comradeship and confidence in the war years. Within the limits imposed by American Congressional and public opinion, President Truman and he sought to add weight to what was being done in Europe. The efforts on both sides of the Atlantic bore fruit, and in April 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, in which for the first time in history the United States bound herself, subject always to the constitutional prerogative of Congress, to aid her allies if they were attacked. The European signatories, besides the Brussels Treaty Powers, included Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Italy and Portugal. Canada also acceded to the Treaty, thereby giving additional proof to the faith we in Britain have always entertained of her friendship and loyalty.
The work that followed was complex. It resulted in the setting up of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, headed by a military planning staff under General Eisenhower at Versailles. From the efforts of the Supreme Headquarters Atlantic Powers Europe, or SHAPE as it was called, there gradually grew a sober confidence that invasion from the East could be met by an effective resistance. Certainly in its early stages the Atlantic Treaty achieved more by being than by doing. It gave renewed confidence to Europe, particularly to the territories near Soviet Russia and the satellites. This was marked by a recession in the Communist parties in the threatened countries, and by a resurgence of healthy national vigour in Western Germany.
The association of Germany with the Atlantic Treaty remained in the forefront of Western plans. But it was very difficult to overcome French fears of a revived German army, and the topic was a fruitful one for the misguided as well as the mischievous. Within the space of seventy years the French had been invaded three times from across the Rhine. It was hard to forget Sedan, the blood-bath at Verdun, the collapse in 1940, the long, grinding occupation of the Second World War, which had sundered so many loyalties, and in which Frenchman had fought Frenchman. In Britain I was conscious of a wide hostility to giving weapons, even under the strictest safeguards, to the new German Republic. But it was unlikely that a Soviet invasion of Western Europe could ever be repulsed without the help of the Germans. Many schemes were tried and failed. The French had taken the lead in the closer integration of Western Europe in civil matters, and they sponsored a scheme for a European army with a common uniform, into which German units would be merged without risk to their neighbours. I did not care for this idea. A sludgy amalgam of half a dozen nationalities would find it difficult to share common loyalties and the trust which is essential among comrades in battle. It was not for some years that the final simplicity of a direct German contribution through a national army to the strength of the West was achieved. Even today little has been done to put it into effect. I myself have never seen the disadvantage of making friends with your enemy when the war is over, with all that that implies in co-operation against an outside menace.
Side by side with these developments, many of them lying only in the paper sphere, the United States continued to manifest her determination to assist Europe, and thus herself. Long before the Atlantic Treaty was signed American aircraft were stationed in East Anglia in substantial numbers. Here was a most practical deterrent. Alas, the splendid structure of the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff, who had been the architects of so much of our victorious war planning, had been dismantled at American instigation. Nothing has subsequently equalled it, and the best of the NATO arrangements are but a poor shadow of the fraternal and closely knit organisation that formerly existed.
The crucial test came in June 1948 when the Russians cut off Berlin from the outside world. Their object was to incorporate the whole of Berlin in the Communist state which they had promoted in Eastern Germany. It seemed that Britain, France and America must either abandon the city or try to force supply convoys in from Western Germany, as was their legitimate right. Fortunately a solution was found which avoided many perils. The Airlift began, and by February 1949 over a million tons of supplies had been flown in by American and British aircraft during the preceding eight months of the blockade. This original conception was highly successful. In due course the Russians had to yield, and they were forced to abandon the blockade entirely.
Economic assistance to the allies was also vital. We in Britain had spent so much money in the war that, even if the greatest skill and economy had been exercised, we would have been very hard pressed. In spite of a huge American loan the position was getting ever more serious. The rest of Europe was also suffering in varying degrees. General Marshall gave his name to a remarkable plan for economic aid and mutual co-operation among sixteen free European countries. The benefits were offered to the Soviet bloc, but were refused. The Organisation for European and Economic Co-operation has rendered the greatest service to us all. But without the massive dollar aid provided by the American administration, in spite of some hostility on the part of Congress, Europe might well have foundered into ruin and misery in which the seeds of Communism would have grown at a deadly pace. General Marshall’s decision was on the highest level of statesmanship, and it was a source of great pleasure, but not surprise, to me that my old friend should have presided in America over the two great enterprises of the Marshall Plan and the Atlantic Treaty.
There was another aspect to our conceptions and hopes for the unifying and strengthening of Europe against external aggression and internal subversion. The ideas that I had opened at Fulton were translated to a great extent into reality through governmental action and the chain of treaties and official organisations which I have briefly described. It was also important for more far-reaching conceptions of the final ideal of a United Europe to find a forum in which they could be discussed and examined. Many distinguished European statesmen and leaders of thought held the same views, and in 1947 the European Movement was launched to devote itself to the propagation of the theme of European unity and the examination of ways in which it could gradually be put into effect. I say gradually. There were many different opinions among those concerned, and some wanted to go faster than others. In large enterprises it is a mistake to try to settle everything at once. In matters of this kind it was not possible to plan movements as in a military operation. We were not acting in the field of force, but in the domain of opinion. I several times stressed my views on this point. It was of importance that when the inevitable lulls, delays and obstacles occurred we should not be considered to have abandoned our ultimate goal. Moreover, I did not wish to compete with governments in the executive sphere. The task was to build up moral, cultural, sentimental and social unities and affinities throughout Europe.
The European Movement gained greatly in vigour and strength and played a substantial part in governmental thinking. General Marshall referred to the concept as one of the reasons which had led him to his plan for economic aid to Europe. The culmination of the many discussions that took place came in the creation of the Council of Europe in 1949, with its seat at Strasbourg. With varying fortunes and shades of publicity much useful work was done at Strasbourg. There are those who are disappointed that the rapid creation of a federation of European States did not ensue, but there is every justification for a slow and empirical approach. Such weighty matters cannot be imposed on the people from above, however brilliant the planning. They must grow gradually from genuine and widely held convictions. Thus the Council of Europe is serving its purpose and playing an honourable part in a great enterprise.
As the stark and glaring background to all our cogitations on defence lay man’s final possession of the perfected means of human destruction: the atomic weapon and its monstrous child, the hydrogen bomb. In the early days of the war Britain and the United States had agreed to pool their knowledge, and experiments in nuclear research, and the fruits of years of discovery by the English pioneer physicists were offered as a priceless contribution to the vast and most secret joint enterprise set on foot in the United States and Canada. Those who created the weapons possessed for a few years the monopoly of a power which might in less scrupulous hands have been used to dominate and enslave the entire world. They proved themselves worthy of their responsibilities, but secrets were soon disclosed to the Soviet Union which greatly helped Russian scientists in their researches. Henceforward most of the accepted theories of strategy were seen to be out of date, and a new undreamed-of balance of power was created, a balance based on the ownership of the means of mutual extermination.
At the end of the war I felt reasonably content that the best possible arrangement had been made in the agreement which I concluded with President Roosevelt in Quebec in 1943. Therein Britain and America affirmed that they would never use the weapon against each other, that they would not use it against third parties without each other’s approval, that they would not communicate information on the subject to third parties except by mutual consent, and that they would exchange information on technical developments. I do not think that one could have asked for more.
However, in 1946 a measure was passed by the American Congress which most severely curtailed any chance of the United States providing us with information. Senator McMahon, who sponsored the Bill, was at the time unaware of the Quebec Agreement, and he informed me in 1952 that if he had seen it there would have been no McMahon Act. The British Socialist Government certainly made some sort of a protest, but they felt unable to press it home and they did not insist on the revelation of the Quebec Agreement, at least to the McMahon Committee, which would have vindicated our position and perhaps saved us many years of wearisome and expensive research and development. Thus, deprived of our share of the knowledge to which we had a most certain right, Britain had to fall back on her own resources. The Socialist Government thereupon devoted vast sums to research, but it was not until 1952 that we were able to explode our first atomic bomb. The relative stages of research and development remain unknown, but experimental explosions are not the sole criterion, and we may perhaps in some ways claim to have outdistanced even the United States. But research is one thing, production and possession another.
It was in this, then, the American possession or preponderance of nuclear weapons, that the surest foundation of our hopes for peace lay. The armies of the Western Powers were of comparative insignificance when faced with the innumerable Russian divisions that could be deployed from the Baltic to the Yugoslav frontier. But the certain knowledge that an advance on land would unleash the devouring destruction of strategic air attack was and is the most certain of deterrents.
For a time, when the United States was the sole effective possessor of nuclear weapons, there had been a chance of a general and permanent settlement with the Soviet Union. But it is not the nature of democracies to use their advantages in threatening or dictatorial ways. Certainly the state of opinion that prevailed in those years would not have tolerated anything in the way of rough words to our late ally, though this might well have forestalled many unpleasant developments. Instead the United States, with our support, chose a most reasonable and liberal attitude to the problems of controlling the use of nuclear weapons. Soviet opposition to efficient methods of supervision brought this to nothing. In former days no country could hope to build up in secret military forces vast enough to overwhelm a neighbour. Now the means of destruction of many millions can be concealed in the space of a few cubic yards.
Every aspect of military and political planning was altered by these developments. The vast bases needed to sustain the armies of the two world wars have become the most vulnerable of targets. All the workshops and stores on the Suez Canal, which had fed the Eighth Army in the desert, could vanish in a flash at the stroke of a single aircraft. Harbours, even when guarded by anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes, could become the graveyard of the fleets they had once protected. The evacuation of non-combatants from the cities was a practical proposition even in the days of highly developed bombing methods in the last war. Now, desirable though they may be, such measures are a mere palliative to the flaring ruin of nuclear attack. The whole structure of defence had to be altered to meet the new situation. Conventional forces were still needed to keep order in our possessions, and to fight what people call the small wars, but we could not afford enough of them because nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them were so expensive.
The nuclear age transformed the relations between the Great Powers. For a time I doubted whether the Kremlin accurately realised what would happen to their country in the event of war. It seemed possible that they neither knew the full effect of the atomic missiles nor how efficient were the means of delivering them. It even occurred to me that an announced but peaceful aerial demonstration over the main Soviet cities, coupled with the outlining to the Soviet leaders of some of our newest inventions, would produce in them a more friendly and sober attitude. Of course such a gesture could not have been accompanied by any formal demands, or it would have taken on the appearance of a threat and ultimatum. But Russian production of these weapons and the remarkable strides of their air force have long since removed the point of this idea. Their military and political leaders must now be well aware of what each of us could do to the other.
Hopes of more friendly contacts with Russia remained much in my mind, and the death of Stalin in March 1953 seemed to bring a chance. I was again Prime Minister. I regarded Stalin’s death as a milestone in Russian history. His tyranny had brought fearful suffering to his own country and to much else of the world. In their fight against Hitler, the Russian peoples had built up an immense good will in the West, not least of all in the United States. All this had been impaired. In the dark politics of the Kremlin, none could tell who would take Stalin’s place. Fourteen men and 180,000,000 people lost their master. The Soviet leaders must not be judged too harshly. Three times in the space of just over a century Russia has been invaded by Europe. Borodino, Tannenberg and Stalingrad are not to be forgotten easily. Napoleon’s onslaught is still remembered. Imperial and Nazi Germany were not forgiven. But security can never be achieved in isolation. Stalin tried not only to shield the Soviet Republics behind an iron curtain, military, political and cultural. He also attempted to construct an outpost line of satellite states, deep in Central Europe, harshly controlled from Moscow, subservient to the economic needs of the Soviet Union and forbidden all contact or communion with the free world, or even with each other. No one can believe that this will last for ever. Hungary has paid a terrible forfeit. But to all thinking men, certain hopeful features of the present situation must surely be clear. The doctrine of Communism is slowly being separated from the Russian military machine. Nations will continue to rebel against the Soviet Colonial Empire, not because it is Communist, but because it is alien and oppressive. An arms race, even conducted with nuclear weapons and guided missiles, will bring no security or even peace of mind to the great powers which dominate the land masses of Asia and North America, or to the countries which lie between them. I make no plea for disarmament. Disarmament is a consequence and a manifestation of free intercourse between free peoples. It is the mind which controls the weapon, and it is to the minds of the peoples of Russia and her associates that the free nations should address themselves.
But after Stalin’s death it seemed that a milder climate might prevail. At all events it merited investigating, and I so expressed myself in the House of Commons on May 11, 1953. An entirely informal conference between the heads of the leading powers might succeed where repeated acrimonious exchanges at lower levels had failed. I made it plain that this could not be accompanied by any relaxation of the comradeship and preparations of the free nations, for any slackening of our defence efforts would paralyse every beneficial tendency towards peace. This is true today. What I sought was never fully accomplished. Nevertheless for a time a gentler breeze seemed to blow upon our affairs. Further opportunities will doubtless present themselves, and they must not be neglected.
It is not my purpose to attempt to assign blame in any quarter for the many disagreeable things that have occurred since 1945. Certainly those who were responsible in Great Britain for the direction of our affairs in the years that followed the war were beset by the most complex and malignant problems both at home and abroad. The methods by which they chose to solve them were often forced upon them by circumstances or by pre-determined doctrinaire policies, and their results were not always felicitous either for Britain or the free world.
The granting of independence to the Indian subcontinent had long been in the forefront of British political thought. I had contributed a good deal to the subject in the years between the wars. Supported by seventy Conservative members, I had fought it in its early stages with all my strength. When I was at the head of the Coalition Government I was induced to modify my former views. Undoubtedly we came out of the desperate world struggle committed to Dominion status for India, including the right to secede from the Commonwealth. I thought however that the method of setting up the new Government should have given the great majority of the Indian people the power and the right to choose freely for themselves. I believed that a constitutional conference in which all the real elements of strength in India could participate would have shown us the way to produce a truly representative self-governing India which would adhere to the British Empire. The “untouchables”, the Rajahs, the loyalists, of whom hundreds of millions existed, and many other different, vital, living interests, would all have had their share in the new scheme. It must be remembered that in the last year of the war we had had a revolt of the extremists in the Indian Congress party which was put down without difficulty, and with very little loss of life. The British Socialist Party took a violently factional view. They believed that the advantage lay in the granting of self-government within the shortest space of time. And they gave it without hesitation—almost identifiably—to the forces which we had vanquished so easily. Within two years of the end of the war they had achieved their purpose. On the 18th of August, 1947, Indian independence was declared. All efforts to preserve the unity of India had broken down, and Pakistan became a separate state. Four hundred million inhabitants of the subcontinent, mainly divided between Moslem and Hindu, flung themselves at one another. Two centuries of British rule in India were followed by greater bloodshed and loss of life than had ever occurred during our ameliorating tenure. In spite of the efforts of the Boundary Commission, the lines drawn between India and Pakistan were inevitably and devastatingly cruel to the areas through which the new frontiers passed. The result was a series of massacres arising out of the interchange of Moslem and Hindu population which may have run into four or five hundred thousand men, women and children. The vast majority of these were harmless people whose only fault lay in their religion.
Fortunately at the head of the larger of the two new states erected on this bloody foundation was a man of singular qualities. Nehru had languished for years in jail or other forms of confinement. He now emerged as the leader of a tiny minority of the foes of British rule, largely free alike from two of the worst faults of human nature, Hate and Fear. Gandhi, who had so long led the cause of Indian independence, was murdered by a fanatic shortly after Nehru’s installation as head of the Government. Jinnah presided over the Moslem state, Pakistan. We are on easy terms with the two Republics which have come into being. Their leaders attend the meetings of the Commonwealth, and their power for good or evil in Asia and the world is undeniable. I will not attempt to prejudge the future.
In the year of Indian independence Burma was also severed from the Commonwealth. It had been the main theatre of land operations in the war in the Far East, and we had put forward a major effort to recover it from the Japanese, who had driven us out in 1942. The Nationalist elements, most of whom at some stage in the war to achieve their aims had collaborated with the Japanese invaders against the Allies, were established in the government of the country. Their control was far from full, and to this day the Burmese Government’s writ runs but incompletely through its territories. They too, however, are a firmly established entity with whom our relations are friendly, and where the long and honourable tradition of British authority and its legacies of justice and order have borne fruit.
Both in India and Burma the conflict between Communism and the Free World was of relative unimportance in the immediate post-war years. Certainly Russia rejoiced at every sign of the diminution of our influence in the world and sought by all the means in her power to expedite and bedevil the birth of the new nations. She did great mischief in Indo-China and Malaya. On the whole, however, her interest was more concentrated on China, where amid confusion and slaughter a new pattern was emerging. The régime of Chiang Kai-shek, our friend and ally in the war, was gradually losing its hold. The United States attempted by every means short of armed intervention to halt the advance of Communism. But the Chinese Government carried within it the seeds of its own destruction. In spite of many years of resistance to the Japanese, the corruption and inefficiency of its sprawling system encouraged and supported the advance of the Communist armies. The process was slow, but by the end of 1949 all was over. The “People’s Government,” as it is called, henceforth ruled in Peking, and controlled the whole Chinese mainland. Chiang Kai-shek fled to Formosa, where his independence was secured by the American fleet and Air Force. Thus the world’s most populous state passed into Communist hands and it will no doubt wield an effective force in world affairs. In this period the influence of China was mainly exerted in Korea, and in Indo-China. The wrangles over her admission to the United Nations have demonstrated one of the many weaknesses of that organisation, and China’s traditional friendship with America has been suspended.
In the next year Communist attempts to harass the West, to exploit Nationalist feeling in Asia and to seize upon exposed salients culminated in the peninsula of Korea. Previously their efforts had been less direct. In Indo-China the principal opponent of the French, Ho Chi Minh, had indeed been Moscow-trained, but material support for his guerrillas had not been on a large scale. In Malaya comparatively few terrorists, by murdering planters and loyal Malays and Chinese, had tied down disproportionate forces to restore order. But they, too, in general owed only their training, ideology and moral support to the Communist States.
At Cairo, in 1943, President Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-shek and I had recorded our determination that Korea should be free and independent. At the end of the war the country had been liberated from the Japanese and occupied by American troops to the south and Russian to the north. Two separate Korean states were set up, and relations between them became increasingly strained and embittered. The 38th parallel formed an uneasy frontier, and the two States were very much like Eastern and Western Germany. Efforts by the United Nations to reunite the country had been frustrated by Soviet opposition. Tension and border incidents grew. On the 25th of June, 1950, North Korean forces invaded South Korea and advanced with great rapidity. The United Nations called on the aggressors to withdraw, and asked all member states to help. That the Soviet veto in the Security Council did not on this occasion render impotent the United Nations’ intentions was due to good fortune. The faults of the system remained to be exploited again and again in later years. On this occasion the United Nations merely provided the framework in which the effective action of the United States was cast.
These bare facts encompass a momentous and historic decision by President Truman. Within the briefest interval of the news of the invasion, he had reached the conclusion that only immediate intervention by the armed forces of the United States could meet the situation. They were the nearest to the scene as well as by far the most numerous, but this was not the point. As he has said in his memoirs, “I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores. If this were allowed to go unchallenged it would mean a third world war.” His celerity, wisdom and courage in this crisis make him worthy, in my estimation, to be numbered among the greatest of American Presidents. In Britain the Government endorsed and sustained the Americans, and made offer of naval units. By December British ground forces were also in Korea. In the House of Commons on the 5th of July the Opposition supported Mr. Attlee, then Prime Minister, and I myself as its leader said that I was “fully able to associate myself with … his broad conclusion that the action which had been taken by the United States gives on the whole the best chance of maintaining the peace of the world.” The Left Wing of the Socialist Party, true to their traditions, alone stood out from the courage and wisdom of what was being done.
The course of the war was difficult, bloody and frustrating. American and Allied troops halted the Northern invaders, and the intervention of the Air Forces began to prove effective. General MacArthur acted with vigour and dash, and by the 14th of March, 1951, Seoul, capital of South Korea, was recaptured. Two months later the 38th parallel was crossed. Meanwhile, Chinese “volunteers” began to arrive in massive quantities. Reinforcements poured in from across the Yalu river, where the vast Chinese manpower was formed into indifferently equipped but numerically formidable armies. The American generals found it difficult to tolerate the existence of the “privileged sanctuary” beyond the Manchurian frontier. Here also lay the bases of Soviet-made jet aircraft which intervened repeatedly in the fighting. Pressure grew for permission to attack Chinese territory from the air. President Truman, however, stood firm and in a much publicised series of disagreements with General MacArthur resisted this most dangerous step. “The Reds,” he has said, “were probing for weaknesses in our armour; we had to meet their thrust without getting embroiled in a world-wide war.” I myself followed with some anxiety the same train of thought. On the 30th of November I pointed out to the House of Commons: “It is in Europe that the world cause will be decided. It is there that the mortal danger lies.” I forbore from pressing my views too strongly lest they should be construed as criticism of United States commanders and hamper their efforts or weaken the ties that bound our fates together. British and Commonwealth forces made a small though robust contribution, but America carried almost the whole burden and paid for it with almost a hundred thousand casualties.
I will not dwell on the pendulum of military success and failure in Korea. The outcome can scarcely be thought of as satisfactory. However, South Korea remained independent and free, the aggressor suffered a costly repulse and, most important of all, the United States showed that she was not afraid to use armed force in defence of freedom, even in so remote an outpost.
Elsewhere in the continent of Asia the Western empires crumbled. Our allies the Dutch had been hustled out of the East Indies, which they had made a model of effective administration. The French endured years of frustrating and debilitating warfare in Indo-China, where casualties absorbed more officers in each year than the output of their military college at St. Cyr. Communist armies, mightily reinforced from China, gradually won control of the north of the country. In spite of heroic episodes of resistance, the French were compelled to leave this great and populous area. After long and painstaking negotiation something was saved from the wreckage of their hopes. Three states, South Viet-Nam, Laos and Cambodia, came into existence, their independence assured, their future uncertain. North Viet-Nam, like North Korea, maintained a separate Communist Government. Partition was once more the answer in the conflict of Communist and Western interests. All these new countries were rent by factions within and overshadowed by their gigantic neighbour to the north.
The changes in Asia are immeasurable. Perhaps they were inevitable. If a note of regret is to be found in this brief account, let it not be supposed that it is in hostility to the right of Asian peoples to self-determination, or a reflection on their present standing and integrity. But the means by which the present situation was reached give pause. Was so much bloodshed necessary? Without the haste engendered by foreign pressure and the loss of influence inherent in our early defeats in the Far Eastern war, might progress to the same end have been happier, and the end itself more stable?
A great part of the Second World War had run its course to defend the land-bridge where Africa and Asia meet, to maintain our oil supplies and guard the Suez Canal. In the process the Middle Eastern countries, and notably Egypt, had enjoyed the advantage of protection from German and Italian invasion at no cost to themselves. There followed a further increase in the number of independent states that existed in the former domains of the Ottoman Empire. The departure of the French from Syria and the Lebanon was bitter to them but inevitable. No one can claim that we ourselves have derived any advantage there. Throughout this region the world has witnessed a surge of nationalist feeling, the consequences of which have yet to run their course. From Indonesia to Morocco the Moslem peoples are in ferment. Their assertiveness has confronted the Western powers, and especially those with overseas responsibilities, with problems of peculiar difficulty. Amid jubilant cries for self-government and independence, it is easy to forget the many substantial benefits that have been conferred by Western rule. It is also hard to replace the orderliness which the Colonial powers exercised over these large areas by a stable new system of sovereign states.
The most intractable of all the difficulties that faced Britain in these regions was Palestine. Ever since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 I have been a faithful supporter of the Zionist cause. I never felt that the Arab countries had had anything from us but fair play. To Britain, and Britain alone, they owed their very existence as nations. We created them; British money and British advisers set the pace of their advance; British arms protected them. We had, and I hope have, many loyal and courageous friends in the area. The late King Abdullah was a most wise ruler. His assassination removed a chance of a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian tumult. King Ibn Saud was a most staunch ally. In Iraq I followed with admiration the sagacious and brave conduct of Nuri es-Said, who most faithfully served his monarch and led his country on a path of wisdom, unaffected by threats from without or foreign-bought clamour at home. Unfortunately these men were exceptions.
As mandatory power Great Britain was confronted with the tortuous problem of combining Jewish immigration to their national home and safeguarding the rights of the Arab inhabitants. Few of us could blame the Jewish people for their violent views on the subject. A race that has suffered the virtual extermination of its national existence cannot be expected to be entirely reasonable. But the activities of terrorists, who tried to gain their ends by the assassination of British officials and soldiers, were an odious act of ingratitude that left a profound impression. There is no country in the world less fit for a conflict with terrorism than Great Britain. This is not because of weakness or cowardice; it is because of restraint and virtue, and the way of life which we have lived in our successfully defended island. Stung by the murders in Palestine, abused by the Middle Eastern countries, and even by our allies, it was not unnatural that the British Government of the day should finally wash its hands of the problem and in 1948 leave the Jews to find their own salvation. The brief war that ensued dramatically dispelled the confidence of the Arab countries who closed in for an easy kill.
The infective violence of the birth of the State of Israel has sharpened the difficulties of the Middle East ever since. I look with admiration on the work done there in building up a nation, reclaiming the desert and receiving so many unfortunates from Jewish communities all over the world. But the outlook is sombre. The position of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs driven from their homes and existing precariously in the no-man’s-land created round Israel’s frontiers is cruel and dangerous. The frontiers of Israel flicker with murder and armed raids, and the Arab countries profess irreconcilable hostility to the new State. The more far-sighted Arab leaders cannot voice counsels of moderation without being howled down and threatened with assassination. It is a black and threatening scene of unlimited violence and folly. One thing is clear. Both honour and wisdom demand that the State of Israel should be preserved, and that this brave, dynamic and complex race should be allowed to live in peace with its neighbours. They can bring to the area an invaluable contribution of scientific knowledge, industriousness and productivity. They must be given an opportunity of doing so in the interest of the whole Middle East.
Before I complete this brief survey of the things that have struck me since the war, let us have a look at the United Nations. The machinery of international government may easily fail in its purpose. My idea as the end of the war approached was that the greatest minds and the greatest thoughts possessed by men should govern the world. This entailed, if all countries great and small were to be represented, that they must be graded. The spectacle presented by the United Nations is no more than a vain assertion of equality of influence and power which has no relation to the actual facts. The result is that a process of ingenious lobbying has attempted to take possession of the government of the world. I say attempted, because the vote of a country of a million or two inhabitants cannot decide or even sway the actions of powerful states. The United Nations in its present form has to cringe to dictatorships and bully the weak. Small states have no right to speak for the whole of mankind. They must accept, and they would accept, a more intimate but lower rank. The world should be ruled by the leading men of groups of countries formed geographically. The mere process of letting the groups shape themselves and not judging by their power or their numbers would tell its own tale.
I do not intend to suggest that all the efforts and sacrifices of Britain and her Allies recorded in the six volumes of my War Memoirs have come to nothing and led only to a state of affairs more dangerous and gloomy than at the beginning. On the contrary, I hold strongly to the belief that we have not tried in vain. Russia is becoming a great commercial country. Her people experience every day in growing vigour those complications and palliatives of human life that will render the schemes of Karl Marx more out of date and smaller in relation to world problems than they have ever been before. The natural forces are working with greater freedom and greater opportunity to fertilise and vary the thoughts and the power of individual men and women. They are far bigger and more pliant in the vast structure of a mighty empire than could ever have been conceived by Marx in his hovel. And when war is itself fenced about with mutual extermination it seems likely that it will be increasingly postponed. Quarrels between nations, or continents, or combinations of nations there will no doubt continually be. But in the main human society will grow in many forms not comprehended by a party machine. As long therefore as the free world holds together, and especially Britain and the United States, and maintains its strength, Russia will find that Peace and Plenty have more to offer than exterminatory war. The broadening of thought is a process which acquires momentum by seeking Opportunity-for-All who claim it. And it may well be if wisdom and patience are practised that Opportunity-for-All will conquer the minds and restrain the passions of Mankind.
WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
Chartwell,
Westerham,
Kent