The Grand Alliance (33 page)

Leathers volunteered his services to the Ministry of Shipping on the outbreak in 1939. We did not come much into contact while I was at the Admiralty, because his The Grand Alliance

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functions were specialised and subordinate. But now in 1941, in the stresses of the Battle of the Atlantic, and with the need for combining the management of our shipping with all the movements of our supplies by rail and road from our harried ports, he came more and more into my mind.

On May 8 I turned to him. After much discussion I remodelled the Ministries of Shipping and Transport into one integral machine. I placed Leathers at its head. To give him the necessary authority I created the office of Minister of War Transport. I was always shy of bringing people into high Ministerial positions in the House of Commons if they had not been brought up there for a good many years.

Experienced Members out of office may badger the newcomer, and he will always be unduly worried by the speeches he has to prepare and deliver. I therefore made a submission to the Crown that a peerage should be conferred upon the new Minister.

Henceforward to the end of the war Lord Leathers remained in complete control of the Ministry of War Transport, and his reputation grew with every one of the four years that passed. He won the confidence of the Chiefs of Staff and of all departments at home, and established intimate and excellent relations with the leading Americans in this vital sphere. With none was he more closely in harmony than with Mr. Lewis Douglas, of the United States Shipping Board, and later Ambassador in London. Leathers was an immense help to me in the conduct of the war. It was very rarely that he was unable to accomplish the hard tasks I set. Several times when all staff and departmental processes had failed to solve the problems of moving an extra division or transshipping it from British to American ships, or of meeting some other need, I made a personal

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appeal to him, and the difficulties seemed to disappear as if by magic.

I was able to tell the House in secret session on June 25

some encouraging facts about the clearance of goods from our ports.

I have never allowed the excuse to be pleaded of congestion at our ports, because, in spite of all our difficulties, we are in fact only handling and budgeting to handle about half the prewar traffic. Nonetheless, a great effort is being made. Inland sorting depots which enable the goods to be got away quickly from the air-raided quaysides into the country are recommended by the Select Committee. Six of these are in process of construction to serve our West Coast ports. The first will come into partial operation in September. To get the best out of the South Wales ports we are quadrupling the railway line from Newport to the Severn Tunnel: part of the quadrupled line is already in operation. Some of the transport bottlenecks are found at inland junctions on the western side of the Island, because a greater strain is being cast upon them than they were constructed to bear. These are being opened up. A considerable development of overside discharge at suitable anchorages has been organised, not only as a relief but as an alternative in case of very heavy attack.

A large expansion in our crane facilities is on foot, both to equip new emergency ports and to make existing port facilities more flexible under attack. In May alone a hundred and fifty mobile cranes were delivered from British factories and from the United States, as compared with the previous average of fifty in the last four months.

On all this I felt able to ask the House to approve stopping, as already ordered, the weekly publication of our tonnage The Grand Alliance

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losses, which had been of so much assistance to the enemy, but to which the press and Parliament attached fictitious importance. As has been mentioned, I had already given directions to this effect in April. “I have no doubt,” I now said, “there will be a howl, not only from the Germans, but from some well-meaning patriots of this Island. Let them howl. We have got to think of our sailors and merchant seamen, the lives of our countrymen and of the life of our country, now quivering in the balance of mortal peril.”

The House seemed greatly reassured by all this account, and gave me a full measure of support.

If we can resist [I said] or deter actual invasion this autumn, we ought to be able, on the present undertaking of the United States, to come through the year 1941. In 1942 we hope to be possessed of very definite air ascendancy, and to be able not only to carry our offensive bombing very heavily into Germany, but to redress to some extent the frightful strategic disadvantages we suffer from the present German control of the Atlantic seaports of Europe. If we can deny to the enemy or at least markedly neutralise the enemy-held Atlantic ports and airfields, there is no reason why the year 1942, in which the enormous American new building comes to hand, should not present us with less anxious ordeals than those we must now endure and come through.

I ended thus:

I will add only one other word. Let us not forget that the enemy has difficulties of his own; that some of these difficulties are obvious; that there may be others which are more apparent to him than to us; and that all the great struggles of history have been won by superior will-power wresting victory in the teeth of odds or upon the narrowest of margins.

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9

Yugoslavia

PERILof Yugoslavia
—
The German Net Closes

— Colonel Donovan’s Mission to Belgrade,
January,
1941
— Pressure on the Regent
—

Hitler’s Offer of February
14
— Bulgaria Adheres
to the Tripartite Pact — Prince Paul at Berchtesgaden, March
5
— Yugoslavian Opposition
—

Attempts to Rally the Yugoslavs
—
Secret Pact
with Germany, March
25
— My Telegram of
March
26
— A Bloodless Revolution in Belgrade,
March
27
— Prince Paul Forced to Resign
—

Popular Enthusiasm — Hitler’s Rage — His
Decision to Crush Yugoslavia — Orders the
Destruction of Belgrade
—
His Telegram to
Mussolini — Dislocation of the German Plans
—

No Balkan Bloc
—
Hitler’s Threat to Hungary —

Treachery of the Chief of the Hungarian General
Staff — Mr. Eden’s Warning — Suicide of Count
Teleki, April
2
— My Hopes for Yugoslavia
—
And
for Turkey
—
My Message to Mr. Eden, March
28

— New Significance of Our Aid to Greece — My
Telegram to Australia, March
30
— The Yugoslav
Opportunity in Albania — Dill’s Mission to
Belgrade
—
Confusion and Paralysis
—
Dill’s
Report of April
4
— My Appeal and Warning —

The Soviet Gesture
—
Operation “Punishment,”

April
6-8
— The Uncomprehending Bear.

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T
HE MURDER of King Alexander of Yugoslavia in October, 1934, at Marseilles, which has already been mentioned, opened a period of disintegration for the Yugoslav State, and thereafter its independent position in Europe declined.

The political hostility of Fascist Italy and the economic advance of Hitlerite Germany into Southeast Europe had speeded this process. The decay of internal stability, the antagonism between Serb and Croat, sapped the strength of this Southern Slav State. Under the regency of Prince Paul, an amiable, artistic personage, the prestige of the monarchy waned. Doctor Machek, the leader of the Peasant Party of Croatia, pursued obstinately a policy of non-co-operation with the Government of Belgrade.

Extremist Croats, protected by Italy and Hungary, worked from bases abroad for the detachment of Croatia from Yugoslavia. The Belgrade Government turned away from cooperation with the Little Entente of Balkan Powers to follow a “realist” line of understanding with the Axis. The champion of this policy was M. Stoyadinovic, who signed the Italo-Yugoslav Pact of March 25, 1937. This attitude seemed to be justified by what happened at Munich the year after. Weakened internally by an alliance between the Croat Peasant Party and the Serb opposition, who were suspicious of the closer relations with Italy and Germany, Stoyadinovic was defeated in the elections, and in February, 1939, was forced to retire.

The new Prime Minister, Cvetkovic, and his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Markovic, sought to appease the swelling Axis power. In August, 1939, agreement with the Croats was reached and Machek entered the Belgrade Government. In the same month came the news of the Soviet-German Pact. In spite of ideological differences, the Serbs had always felt drawn by Slav instincts towards Russia. The Soviet attitude at the time of Munich had

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encouraged them to hope that the unity of Eastern Europe might still be maintained. Now the signing of the fateful pact seemed to deliver the Balkans at a stroke into Axis hands.

The fall of France in June, 1940, deprived the Southern Slavs of their traditional friend and protector. The Russians revealed their intentions about Rumania and occupied Bessarabia and Bukovina. At Vienna in August, 1940, Transylvania was awarded to Hungary by Germany and Italy. The net around Yugoslavia was closing. In November, 1940, Markovic first trod in secrecy the road to Berchtesgaden. He escaped without formally committing his country to the Axis side, but on December 12 a pact of amity was signed with the minor Axis partner, Hungary.

As these impressions grew they caused us concern. In this atmosphere Prince Paul carried the policy of neutrality to its limits. He feared particularly that any move by Yugoslavia or her neighbours might provoke the Germans into a southward advance into the Balkans.

Prime

Minister

to

14 Jan. 41

Foreign Secretary

The Cabinet today should consider these telegrams
from Belgrade about Prince Paul’s views. They leave
me unchanged. It is for the Greeks to say whether they
want Wavell to visit Athens or not. It is the Greeks who
must be the judges of the German reactions.

Secondly, if the Germans are coming south they will
not require pretexts. They are, it would seem, already
acting in pursuance of a carefully thought-out plan
which one can hardly assume will be hurried or delayed
in consequence of any minor movements of ours. The
evidence in our possession of the German movements
seems overwhelming. In the face of it Prince Paul’s
attitude looks like that of an unfortunate man in the
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