Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (87 page)

If to sow distrust between us was the German intention
it has certainly for the moment been successful.

After quoting some of the more insulting phrases from Molotov’s letter I continued:

In the interests of Anglo-Russian relations His
Majesty’s Government decided not to make any reply to
this most wounding and unfounded charge, but to
ignore it. This is the reason for what you call in your
message to the President “the silence of the
British.”‘We thought it better to keep silent than to
respond to such a message as was sent by M. Molotov,
but you may be sure that we were astonished by it and
affronted that M. Molotov should impute such conduct
to us. This however in no way affected our instructions
to Field-Marshal Alexander to keep you fully informed.

6. Neither is it true that the initiative in this matter
came, as you state to the President, wholly from the
British. In fact the information given to Field-Marshal
Alexander that the German General Wolff wished to
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make a contact in Switzerland was brought to him by
an American agency.

7. There is no connection whatever between any
contacts at Berne or elsewhere with the total defeat of
the German armies on the Western Front. They have in
fact fought with great obstinacy, and inflicted upon us
and the American armies since the opening of our
February offensive up to March 28 upwards of 87,000

casualties. However, being outnumbered on the ground
and literally overwhelmed in the air by the vastly
superior Anglo-American Air Forces, which in the month
of March alone dropped over 200,000 tons of bombs on
Germany, the German armies in the West have been
decisively broken. The fact that they were outnumbered
on the ground in the West is due to the magnificent
attacks and weight of the Soviet armies.

8. With regard to the charges which you have made
in your message to the President of April 3, which also
asperse His Majesty’s Government, I associate myself
and my colleagues with the last sentence of the
President’s reply.

On April 7 Stalin replied to the President’s reproach.

Marshal

Stalin

to

7 Apr. 45

President Roosevelt

Your message of April 5 received.

In my message of April 3 the point at issue is not
that of integrity and trustworthiness. I have never
doubted your integrity and trustworthiness or Mr.

Churchill’s either. My point is that in the course of our
correspondence it has become evident that our views
differ on the point as to what is admissible and what is
inadmissible as between one ally and another. We
Russians think that in the present situation on the
fronts, when the enemy is faced with inevitable
surrender, if the representatives of any one ally ever
meet the Germans to discuss surrender the representatives of another ally should be afforded an opportunity
of participating in such a meeting. In any case, this is
absolutely essential if the ally in question asks for such
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536

participation. The Americans and British however think
differently and regard the Russian standpoint as wrong.

They have, accordingly, refused the Russians the right
to join in meeting the Germans in Switzerland. I have
already written you, and I think it should be repeated,
that in a similar situation the Russians would never
have denied the Americans and British the right to join
in such a meeting. I still think the Russian point of view
to be the only correct one, as it precludes all possibility
of mutual suspicions and makes it impossible for the
enemy to sow distrust between us.

2. It is difficult to admit that the lack of resistance by
the Germans on the Western Front is due solely to the
fact that they have been defeated. The Germans have
147 divisions on the Eastern Front. They could without
prejudicing their own position detach fifteen to twenty
divisions from the Eastern Front and transfer them to
reinforce their troops on the Western Front. Yet the
Germans have not done and are not doing this. They
are continuing to wage a crazy struggle with the
Russians for an insignificant railway station like
Zemlyanitsa in Czechoslovakia, which is as much use
to them as hot poultices to a corpse, and yet they yield
without the slightest resistance such important towns in
the centre of Germany as Osnabrück, Mannheim, and
Kassel. You will agree that such behaviour on the part
of the Germans is more than curious and unintelligible.

3. As regards my informants, I can assure you that
they are extremely honest and modest people who
discharge their duties conscientiously and have no
intention of offending anyone. We have very often put
these people to a practical test. Judge for yourselves.

Last February General Marshall sent the Soviet
General Staff a number of important reports, in which
he warned the Russians, on the basis of data in his
possession, that in March there would be two serious
counter-attacks by the Germans on the Eastern Front

— one would be aimed from Pomerania against Thorn
and the other from the region of Moravska Ostrava
against Lodz. In actual fact however it turned out that
the Germans’ main blow was being prepared and was
directed not in the directions above-mentioned, but in
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537

an entirely different area, namely, in the neighbourhood
of Lake Balaton, southwest of Budapest. It is common
knowledge now that in this area the Germans had
assembled up to thirty-five divisions, including eleven
tank divisions. This was one of the heaviest attacks of
the whole war, with such a large concentration of tank
forces. Marshal Tolbukhin was able to avoid a
catastrophe and subsequently inflict a smashing defeat
on the Germans, because, among other reasons, my
agents discovered, though somewhat tardily, this plan
of the Germans for a major attack and immediately
warned Marshal Tolbukhin. In this way I was able once
again to convince myself how conscientious and well-informed Soviet agents are….

He also sent a copy of his telegram to me, together with the following personal message:

Marshal

Stalin

to

7 Apr. 45

Prime Minister

In my message of April 7 to the President, which I
am sending to you also, I have already replied to all the
fundamental points raised in your message regarding
the negotiations in Switzerland. On the other questions
raised in your message I consider it necessary to make
the following remarks.

1. Neither I nor Molotov had any intention of

“blackening” anyone. It is not a matter of wanting to

“blacken” anyone, but of our having developed differing
points of view as regards the rights and obligations of
an ally. You will see from my message to the President
that the Russian point of view on this question is the
correct one, as it guarantees each ally’s rights and
deprives the enemy of any possibility of sowing discord
between us.

2. My messages are personal and strictly confidential. This makes it possible to speak one’s mind clearly
and frankly. This is the advantage of confidential
communications. If however you are going to regard
every frank statement of mine as offensive it will make
this kind of communication very difficult. I can assure
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538

you that I had and have no intention of offending
anyone.

I passed this to Roosevelt, with the following comment:
Prime

Minister

to

11 Apr. 45

President Roosevelt

I have a feeling that this is about the best we are
going to get out of them, and certainly it is as near as
they can get to an apology. However, before considering any answer at all from His Majesty’s Government
please tell me how you think the matter should be
handled so that we may keep in line together.

The President answered next day that he was sending the following message to Stalin:

Thank you for your frank explanation of the Soviet
point of view of the Berne incident, which now appears
to have faded into the past without having accomplished any useful purpose.

There must not, in any event, be mutual distrust,
and minor misunderstandings of this character should
not arise in the future. I feel sure that when our armies
make contact in Germany and join in a fully co-ordinated offensive the Nazis’ armies will disintegrate.

And later:

President Roosevelt

12 Apr. 45

to Prime Minister

I would minimise the general Soviet problem as
much as possible, because these problems, in one
form or another, seem to arise every day, and most of
them straighten out, as in the case of the Berne
meeting.

We must be firm however, and our course thus far is
correct.

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8

Western Strategic Divergences

War and Politics — A Deadly Hiatus — Soviet
Ambition — Some Practical Points — Eisenhower’s Strategy — His Telegram to Stalin — Berlin,
Prague, and Vienna — My Minute to the Chiefs of
Staff of March
31 —
The American Riposte — My
Telegram to Eisenhower of March
31 —
And to the
President, April
1 —
Further Correspondence with
Eisenhower — The Rescue of Holland.

A
S A WAR waged by a coalition draws to its end political aspects have a mounting importance. In Washington especially longer and wider views should have prevailed. It is true that American thought is at least disinterested in matters which seem to relate to territorial acquisitions, but when wolves are about the shepherd must guard his flock, even if he does not himself care for mutton. At this time the points at issue did not seem to the United States Chiefs of Staff to be of capital importance. They were of course unnoticed by and unknown to the public, and were all soon swamped, and for the time being effaced by the flowing tide of victory. Nevertheless, as will not now be disputed, they played a dominating part in the destiny of Europe, and may well have denied us all the lasting peace for which we had fought so long and hard. We can now see the deadly hiatus which existed between the fading of President Roosevelt’s strength and the growth of President Truman’s grip of the vast world problem. In this melancholy void one President Triumph and Tragedy

540

could not act and the other could not know. Neither the military chiefs nor the State Department received the guidance they required. The former confined themselves to their professional sphere; the latter did not comprehend the issues involved. The indispensable political direction was lacking at the moment when it was most needed. The United States stood on the scene of victory, master of world fortunes, but without a true and coherent design. Britain, though still very powerful, could not act decisively alone. I could at this stage only warn and plead. Thus this climax of apparently measureless success was to me a most unhappy time. I moved amid cheering crowds, or sat at a table adorned with congratulations and blessings from every part of the Grand Alliance, with an aching heart and a mind oppressed by forebodings.