Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (16 page)

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4. Meanwhile Halifax has been asked to raise this
matter with the State Department on the above lines.

The first reactions of the State Department were cool. Mr.

Hull was nervous of any suggestion that “might appear to savour of the creation or acceptance of the idea of spheres of influence.”

On June 8 I sent the following message to Lord Halifax in Washington:

Prime

Minister

to

8 June 44

Lord

Halifax

(Washington)

There is no question of spheres of influence. We all
have to act together, but someone must be playing the
hand. It seems reasonable that the Russians should
deal with the Rumanians and Bulgarians, upon whom
their armies are impinging, and that we should deal with
the Greeks, who are in our assigned theatre, who are
our old allies, and for whom we sacrificed 40,000 men
in 1941. I have reason to believe that the President is in
entire agreement with the line I am taking about
Greece. The same is true of Yugoslavia. I keep him
constantly informed, but on the whole we, His Majesty’s
Government, are playing the hand, and have to be very
careful to play it agreeably with the Russians. No fate
could be worse for any country than to be subjected in
these times to decisions reached by triangular or
quadrangular telegraphing. By the time you have got
one thing settled three others have gone astray.

Moreover, events move very rapidly in these countries.

2. On the other hand, we follow the lead of the
United States in South America as far as possible, as
long as it is not a question of our beef and mutton. On
this we naturally develop strong views on account of
the little we get.

On June 11 Mr. Roosevelt cabled:

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99

President Roosevelt

11 June 44

to Prime Minister

… Briefly, we acknowledge that the military
responsible Government in any given territory will
inevitably make decisions required by military
developments, but are convinced that the natural
tendency for such decisions to extend to other than
military fields would be strengthened by an agreement
of the type suggested. In our opinion, this would
certainly result in the persistence of differences
between you and the Soviets and in the division of the
Balkan region into spheres of influence despite the
declared intention to limit the arrangement to military
matters.

We believe efforts should preferably be made to
establish consultative machinery to dispel misunderstandings and restrain the tendency toward the
development of exclusive spheres.

Prime Minister to

11 June 44

President Roosevelt

I am much concerned to receive your message.

Action is paralysed if everybody is to consult everybody
else about everything before it is taken. Events will
always outstrip the changing situations in these Balkan
regions. Somebody must have the power to plan and
act. A Consultative Committee would be a mere
obstruction, always overridden in any case of
emergency by direct interchanges between you and
me, or either of us and Stalin.

2. See, now, what happened at Easter. We were
able to cope with this mutiny of the Greek forces
entirely in accordance with your own views. This was
because I was able to give constant orders to the
military commanders, who at the beginning advocated
conciliation, and above all no use or even threat of
force. Very little life was lost. The Greek situation has
been immensely improved, and, if firmness is
maintained, will be rescued from confusion and
disaster. The Russians are ready to let us take the lead
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100

in the Greek business, which means that E.A.M. and all
its malice can be controlled by the national forces of
Greece. Otherwise civil war and ruin to the land you
care about so much. I always reported to you, and I
always will report to you. You shall see every telegram I
send. I think you might trust me in this.

3. If in these difficulties we had had to consult other
Powers and a set of triangular or quadrangular
telegrams got started the only result would have been
chaos or impotence.

4. It seems to me, considering the Russians are
about to invade Rumania in great force and are going
to help Rumania recapture part of Transylvania from
Hungary, provided the Rumanians play, which they
may, considering all that, it would be a good thing to
follow the Soviet leadership, considering that neither
you nor we have any troops there at all and that they
will probably do what they like anyhow. Moreover, I
thought their terms, apart from indemnity, very sensible,
and even generous. The Rumanian Army has inflicted
many injuries upon the Soviet troops, and went into the
war against Russia with glee. I see no difficulty
whatever in our addressing the Russians at any time on
any subject, but please let them go ahead upon the
lines agreed as they are doing all the work.

5. Similarly with us in Greece. We are an old ally of
Greece. We had 40,000 casualties in trying to defend
Greece against Hitler, not counting Crete. The Greek
King and the Greek Government have placed
themselves under our protection. They are at present
domiciled in Egypt. They may very likely move to the
Lebanon, which would be a better atmosphere than
Cairo. Not only did we lose the 40,000 men above
mentioned in helping Greece, but a vast mass of
shipping and warships, and by denuding Cyrenaica to
help Greece we also lost the whole of Wavell’s
conquests in Cyrenaica. These were heavy blows to us
in those days. Your telegrams to me in the recent crisis
worked wonders. We were entirely agreed, and the
result is entirely satisfactory. Why is all this effective
direction to be broken up into a committee of mediocre
officials such as we are littering about the world? Why
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can you and I not keep this in our own hands,
considering how we see eye to eye about so much of it?

6. To sum up, I propose that we agree that the
arrangements I set forth in my message of May 31 may
have a trial of three months, after which it must be
reviewed by the three Powers.

On June 13 the President agreed to this proposal, but added: “We must be careful to make it clear that we are not establishing any post-war spheres of influence.”

I shared his view, and replied the next day:
I am deeply grateful to you for your telegram. I have
asked the Foreign Secretary to convey the information
to Molotov and to make it clear that the reason for the
three months’ limit is in order that we should not
prejudge the question of establishing post-war spheres
of influence.

I reported the situation to the War Cabinet that afternoon, and it was agreed that, subject to the time-limit of three months, the Foreign Secretary should inform the Soviet Government that we accepted this general division of responsibility. This was done on June 19. The President however was not happy about the way we had acted, and I received a pained message saying “we were disturbed that your people took this matter up with us only after it had been put up to the Russians.” On June 23 accordingly I outlined to the President, in reply to his rebuke, the situation as I saw it from London.

Prime Minister to

23 June 44

President Roosevelt

The Russians are the only Power that can do
anything in Rumania, and I thought it was agreed
between you and me that on the basis of their
reasonable armistice terms, excepting indemnities, they
should try to give coherent direction to what happened
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there. In point of fact we have all three co-operated
closely in handling in Cairo the recent Rumanian peace-feelers. On the other hand, the Greek burden rests
almost entirely upon us, and has done so since we lost
40,000 men in a vain endeavour to help them in 1941.

Similarly, you have let us play the hand in Turkey, but
we have always consulted you on policy, and I think we
have been agreed on the line to be followed. It would
be quite easy for me, on the general principle of
slithering to the Left, which is so popular in foreign
policy, to let things rip, when the King of Greece would
probably be forced to abdicate and E.A.M. would work
a reign of terror in Greece, forcing the villagers and
many other classes to form Security Battalions under
German auspices to prevent utter anarchy. The only
way I can prevent this is by persuading the Russians to
quit boosting E.A.M. and ramming it forward with all
their force. Therefore I proposed to the Russians a
temporary working arrangement for the better conduct
of the war. This was only a proposal, and had to be
referred to you for your agreement.

2. I cannot admit that I have done anything wrong in
this matter. It would not be possible for three people in
different parts of the world to work together effectively if
no one of them may make any suggestion to either of
the others without simultaneously keeping the third
informed. A recent example of this is the message you
have sent quite properly to Uncle Joe about your
conversations with the Poles, of which as yet I have
heard nothing from you. I am not complaining at all of
this, because I know we are working for the general
theme and purposes, and I hope you will feel that has
been so in my conduct of the Greek affair.

3. I have also taken action to try to bring together a
union of the Tito forces with those in Serbia, and with
all adhering to the Royal Yugoslav Government, which
we have both recognised. You have been informed at
every stage of how we are bearing this heavy burden,
which at present rests mainly on us. Here again nothing
would be easier than to throw the King and the Royal
Yugoslav Government to the wolves and let a civil war
break out in Yugoslavia, to the joy of the Germans. I am

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struggling to bring order out of chaos in both cases and
concentrate all efforts against the common foe. I am
keeping you constantly informed, and I hope to have
your confidence and help within the spheres of action in
which initiative is assigned to us.

The President’s reply of June 27 settled this argument between friends. “It appears,” he said, “that both of us have inadvertently taken unilateral action in a direction that we both now agree to have been expedient for the time being.

It is essential that we should always be in agreement in matters bearing on our Allied war effort.”

I replied the same day: “You may be sure I shall always be looking to our agreement in all matters before, during, and after.”

The difficulties however continued on a governmental level.

The Russians insisted on consulting the Americans direct.

Another issue also claimed our attention. The Russian armies were now poised on the borders of Rumania. Here was Turkey’s last chance to enter the war on the Allied side, and her entry at this stage would have a potent influence on the future of Southeastern Europe. She now offered to go as far as breaking off relations with the Axis.