Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (115 page)

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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.

Prime

Minister

to

9 June 45

President Truman

While I have agreed in principle to our triple meeting
in Berlin on July 15, I hope you will agree with me that
the British, American, and Russian delegations shall
have entirely separate quarters assigned to them and
have their own guards, and that there shall be a fourth
place prepared in which we meet to confer. I could not
accept, as at Yalta, the principle that we go to Berlin,
over which it is agreed we are to have triple, or, with the
French, quadruple parity, merely as guests of the
Soviet Government and armies. We should provide
everything for ourselves and be able to meet on equal
terms. I should like to know how you stand about this.

Stalin agreed that the delegations should be housed as I proposed. Each would have its own closed territory, under a régime regulated at the discretion of its head. The palace of the German Crown Prince in Potsdam would be used for the joint sessions. There was a good airfield hard by.

I have already mentioned how strongly I felt that every head of Government in periods of crisis should have a deputy who knows everything and can thus preserve continuity should accidents occur. During the war-time Parliament, with its large Conservative majority, I had always looked upon Mr. Eden as my successor, and had, when invited, so advised the King. But now a new Parliament had been Triumph and Tragedy

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elected and the results were as yet unknown. I therefore felt it right to invite the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Attlee, to attend the Conference at Potsdam, so that there should be no break in his knowledge of affairs. On June 15 I wrote to him:

Prime Minister to

15 June 45

Mr. Attlee

I now send you a formal invitation to come with us to
the forthcoming tripartite Conference in the near future.

Since I announced this intention to Parliament I
observe that a statement was made last night by
Professor Harold Laski, the chairman of the Labour
Party, in which he said, “It is of course essential that if
Mr. Attlee attends this gathering he shall do so in the
rôle of an observer only.”

His Majesty’s Government must of course bear the
responsibility for all decisions, but my idea was that you
should come as a friend and counsellor, and help us on
all the subjects on which we have been so long agreed,
and have been known to be agreed by public
declaration. In practice I thought the British delegation
would work just as they did at San Francisco, except
that, as I have already stated, you would not have
official responsibility to the Crown otherwise than as a
Privy Counsellor.

Merely to come as a mute observer would, I think,
be derogatory to your position as the Leader of your
party, and I should not have a right to throw this burden
upon you in such circumstances.

I hope however I may have your assurance that you
accept my invitation.

Mr. Attlee accepted the invitation in a letter in which he said he had consulted his principal colleagues in the House of Commons, and that they agreed that my offer should be accepted on the basis set out in his letter. Mr. Attlee added

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that there was never any suggestion that he should go as a mere observer. The Conference was called “Terminal.”

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 an earlier 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 Triumph and Tragedy

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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 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, Rumania, and Bulgaria have been reduced to satellite States under totalitarian Communist rule. Austria is denied all settlement. 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. Only the atomic bomb stretches its sinister shield before us. The danger of a third World War, under conditions at the outset of grave disadvantage except in this new terrible weapon, 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: Triumph and Tragedy

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Prime

Minister

to

4 June 45

President Truman

I am sure you understand the reason why I am
anxious for an earlier date, say the 3d 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.

I reinforced this argument by referring to the high-handed behaviour of the Russians in Vienna.

Prime

Minister

to

9 June 45

President Truman

Our missions to Vienna have been ordered by
Marshal Tolbukin to leave by 10th or 11th June. They
have not been allowed to see anything outside the strict
city limits, and only one airfield can be permitted for the
Allies. Here is the capital of Austria, which by
agreement is to be divided, like the country itself, into
four zones; but no one has any power there except the
Russians, and not even ordinary diplomatic rights are
allowed. If we give way in this matter we must regard
Austria as in the Sovietised half of Europe.

2. On the other hand, the Russians demand the
withdrawal of the American and British forces in
Germany to the occupation line, fixed so long ago in
circumstances so different, and Berlin of course is so
far completely Sovietised.

3. Would it not be better to refuse to withdraw on the
main European front until a settlement has been
reached about Austria? Surely at the very least the

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whole agreement about zones should be carried out at
the same time?

4. A telegram has been despatched to the State
Department showing the actual situation of our
missions in Vienna, which, as ordered, will, I presume,
depart on June 10 or 11, after making their protests.

Two days later I minuted to the Foreign Office, which in Mr.

Eden’s absence in Washington I at this time directed:
Prime Minister to

11 June 45

Foreign Office

I am still hoping that the retreat of the American
centre to the occupation line can be staved off till “the
Three” meet, and I take the view that large movements
to enable France to assume her agreed part of her
zone will stimulate the Russian demand to occupy the
heart of Germany. Of course at any moment the
Americans may give way to the Russian demand, and
we shall have to conform. That will be the moment for
making this partial arrangement with the French [about
their zone], but not before, even if delay causes some
inconvenience in the redeployments. We ought not to
let ourselves be hurried into a decision which touches
issues so vast and fateful. There is no objection to the
matter being considered by the British Chiefs of Staff
meanwhile.

On June 12 the President replied to my message of June 4.

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 Triumph and Tragedy

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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.