A World at Arms (121 page)

The preparations for the preliminary conference included agenda proposals by the three powers, information for the Soviet Union on the decisions about “Overlord” reached at Quebec,
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and some discussions
about the location of the meeting itself. The decision on this last point presumably pleased the Soviet Union: the representatives would meet in Moscow.
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For twelve days, October 19-30, 1943, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden accompanied by General Ismay and others, United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull
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with a delegation which included the newly designated head of the United States military mission in Moscow, General John Deane, as well as the new Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman, met with Molotov, who served as chairman of the conference, a number of Soviet military and diplomatic officials, and, on separate occasions, with Stalin. The Americans especially wanted a Four Power Declaration on wartime cooperation until the surrender of their enemies and on cooperation in the establishment of a post-war international organization. This proposal involved not only Soviet adhesion to the unconditional surrender formula but a major step toward the establishment of the United Nations as well as the inclusion of China as one of the major powers, both points on which Roosevelt and Hull placed great emphasis in their view of the future. The first of these was, with some hesitations, acceptable to both Britain and the Soviet Union while the latter met with strong objections from both. The British and Russians simply refused to accept the American vision of a future for China as one of the world’s major powers, and the Russians had the added concern about the reaction of Japan to any Soviet step at that time which could be seen as associating them with Britain and the United States in the Pacific War. This last subject will come up again in several ways, but at the conference, London and Moscow eventually yielded to American insistence and agreed that the Chinese Ambassador in Moscow could be a signer for his government.

If the British and Russians were brought around on this point with great reluctance, the Americans came to agree, perhaps even more reluctantly, to some minimal recognition of the French National Committee of Liberation, as de Gaulle called his provisional government, in the face of Roosevelt’s and Hull’s objections to him and at Eden’s constant insistence (sometimes without support from his Prime Minister). No agreement could be reached on the best way to handle the differences which had developed in Iran in connection with the delivery of supplies across that country to the Soviet Union, but the serious tension between Britain and the Soviet Union over the Arctic convoys was eased a little. On the future treatment of Germany, there was agreement on the need to force a surrender and to disarm and denazify the country. As to its future, there was no agreement on borders, reparation policies,
or whether the country should be broken up-“dismembered” was the wartime term–or maintained as a smaller unit. As for Italy, that country might work its passage to the side of the Allies by a real contribution in the war, while a council on which the Soviet Union would be represented would advise the Allied military commander in the area. The Soviets wanted a share of the Italian navy and merchant fleet, a point on which the American and British promised agreement which was reached later by the turning over of American and British ships equivalent to what the Soviet Union had requested.

The effort of the Americans to begin serious negotiations on post-war economic relations was met by evasion from the British and Soviet representatives, a most extraordinary form of obtuseness on the part of both powers which would come back to haunt them when, with the end of hostilities in 1945, Lend-Lease ended as provided in the relevant American legislation, legislation which the authorities in both London and Moscow neglected to read.

There was general agreement, reflected in a public pronouncement, that Austria would be separated from Germany again. This was more an effort to stimulate opposition to the Berlin regime in Austria and in German military formations recruited in Austria as well as to show that Germany could not keep its pre-war gains than a recognition of the fact that, while included in Germany, many Austrians had come to realize that they were not Germans after all. It was also announced that war criminals would be tried for the atrocities they committed, with those of local relevance being sent back to the scene of the crimes and those with a broader array of offenses being punished by a joint decision of the Allies, the hope being that this proclamation might discourage at least some Germans from further atrocities as they could see the war turning against the Axis. The three powers also promised to inform each other of peace feelers from the enemy powers, a point of special significance at a time when the satellites of Germany were trying to find a way out of the war without risking the wrath of the Germans, a ridiculous undertaking as the Italian experience might have taught any leader in Helsinki, Budapest, Bukarest or Sofia with eyes and brains.

At the suggestion of the British, who had changed their views on this subject several times, the pre-conference Soviet proposal for a commission to oversee Italy and any other liberated and occupied areas was met by the establishment of the European Advisory Commission (EAC), which was to meet in London (as distinct from the Committee for Italy which began in Algiers), but for which neither Russians nor Americans ever developed great enthusiasm.

The fundamental military divergence between the Allies also appeared
to be solved.
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The American and British military representatives outlined the planned “Overlord” operation for the spring of 1944, the subordination of the Mediterranean campaign to it, and–in practice always the most critical point of all–the planned transfer of seven divisions from the Mediterranean to the United Kingdom. Several aspects of the discussions on this must be mentioned. The Soviet representatives, who were obviously pleased by what they heard, suggested, however, that the Allies try to get Turkey and Sweden to enter the war. These projects would have involved diversions from “Overlord” into the Eastern Mediterranean and Scandinavia, both old favorites of Churchill’s and both strongly opposed by the Americans.

Not only were there differences on this issue, but the Soviets were also very cool to the three practical proposals made by the Americans for improving cooperation in the war against Germany: shuttle bombing so that planes from British, Italian or North African bases could land in the Soviet Union and thus carry far heavier bomb loads; exchange of weather information to facilitate the Combined Bomber Offensive; and improved air transport connections between the Soviet Union and the United States and Great Britain. In the face of Soviet reluctance, little came of these three proposals; but the handling of these matters sheds an interesting light on Soviet unwillingness at military coordination.
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What is in some ways more puzzling is Stalin’s apparent willingness, now that the Americans had managed to get the British on record for a shift from the Mediterranean to “Overlord,” to waffle on that question himself. When, to the consternation of Eden and the horror of the Americans, Churchill instructed Eden to warn Stalin about the possibility that what Churchill asserted were difficulties in the Italian campaign might well force a postponement in the transfer of divisions from the Mediterranean and hence a postponement of “Overlord,” Stalin did not react with anger but instead said kind things about the Italian campaign which would have warmed the hearts of Churchill and Brooke.
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The real meaning of these very substantial modifications of prior Soviet positions is not easy to explain. It has been suggested that bringing in Sweden would provide cover toward the United States for a complete Soviet occupation of Finland,
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and that what Stalin really wanted in regard to Turkey was the halting of British and American arms deliveries to that country once it turned down the request to enter the war, but
these appear to me somewhat far-fetchedspeculations.
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Perhaps these curious aspects of the Moscow discussions merely reflect a far greater confidence of Stalin by late October 1943 in the ability of the Red Army to drive into Central Europe with or without a major land offensive against Germany from the West.
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This confidence was also reflected in the handling of questions concerning Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union had been insistent from the time of the German attack in 1941 that its boundaries, including the territory annexed under its earlier agreements with Germany, be recognized. The British had been willing to do that in 1941 but had been restrained by the American government. The British government in preparation for the Moscow Conference had approved Eden’s suggestion that they should agree to the Curzon Line, but try to obtain Lwow for Poland, while the Poles would get compensation from Germany. The Baltic States were perceived as lost; the Soviet-Romanian border of 1941 was considered acceptable; and so was the 1941 Soviet-Finnish border. Any Soviet demand for Petsamo was seen as in another category, because it had not been Soviet territory in June 1941, but the British were prepared to agree to this as well.
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The Americans had not altered their opposition to boundary commitments during the war, and Hull was not about to become involved in discussions of future governments in Eastern Europe at a time when the British and American governments were engaged in difficult disputes over the new government of Italy. With no prospect of any direct military role by Britain or the United States in Eastern Europe, there was little that either power could do to influence Soviet policy there.
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The British found themselves obliged to agree to a special treaty between the Czechoslovak government-in-exile and the Soviet Union (described as neighbors on the assumption that the Soviet Union would annex southeast Poland) and could secure no resumption of relations between the Polish government-in-exile and Moscow. Since the fate of Czechoslovakia-which yielded to Soviet territorial demands and otherwise cooperated with the Soviet Union-was to be exactly the same as that of Poland, whose government-in-exile resisted territorial concessions, the bitter debates which later ensued about Poland probably made no substantial difference, but this could hardly be anticipated in 1943.

Enough agreement, however, had been reached on other issues to make for a general sense of satisfaction with the conference. This was
marked in a special way by Stalin’s telling Hull, and Molotov informing Harriman at the end of the meetings, that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan after the defeat of Germany. All prior projects for U.S.-Soviet cooperation in case of a Japanese attack on the Soviet Union had foundered on Stalin’s opposition.
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Now Stalin had promised to join in against Japan; discussion of the price and circumstances would come later. For the Western Allies, here was a way of assuring that not only the fighting in Europe but also that in the Pacific would end within a reasonable time.

For the Americans the Four Power Agreement had a special significance. It not only marked a step in their effort to have China recognized as. one of the major powers but it promised hope that there would not be a repetition after World War II of what Roosevelt and Hull believed had gone wrong after World War I. The turn of the United States to isolation after 1918, and the repudiation of the peace treaties of 1919 and of the League, were major contributing factors to the subsequent outbreak of a second great war. This was an important aspect of their perception of what had gone wrong in the past as they had themselves experienced it, and they were very conscious of this as they looked ahead. If both Roosevelt and Hull attached much more importance to the anchoring of the United States, and especially of American public opinion, in a new international structure to be created at the end of the war, it was because they saw such a procedure as critical to the avoidance of a repetition of what they in common with many Americans had come to believe had gone wrong earlier.
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While in the subsequent preparations for the meeting of the big three some issues were resolved if with difficulty, one major question was fatefully left open. After numerous exchanges, Churchill and even more reluctantly Roosevelt agreed to have the meeting held in Teheran, which was as far as Stalin was willing to go from Soviet territory. Even more complicated was the way found to carry out Roosevelt’s desire to meet Chiang Kai-shek. Though increasingly disillusioned by what he heard about the corruption, ineffectiveness and military inefficiency of the Chinese Nationalist government, the President wanted to use a meeting to bolster the sagging morale of the Chinese and to pave the way for a larger role for that nation in the future. Chiang’s anti-imperialist views, which had dominated Kuomintang (KMT) policy in the 1920S, were consonant with American preferences; and if Roosevelt felt that his personal relations with Churchill could not stand further comments on the need for India to become self-governing, he could make the same point by public enhancement of a head of state who regularly praised Indian nationalist leaders in and out of British jails. As Roosevelt saw the future,
Britain’s imperial role in Asia was nearing its end, even if not as quickly as he expected Japan’s to be terminated; and China would assume a major role on the continent, serving at the same time as a counter–weight to excessive Soviet expansionism. That such ideas aroused no enthusiasm in London or Moscow is hardly surprising, and the resulting decision was for Roosevelt to meet Chiang in Cairo on the way to Teheran. Churchill and his advisors would also stop there and hold a preliminary meeting with the Americans, but with an entirely different purpose and with entirely different results.

As the major British book on the Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran Conferences puts it, the main purpose of the Cairo meeting