Crusade in Europe
Page 58
While walking through the Kremlin grounds we passed the largest-caliber gun I have ever seen; the inside diameter of the barrel appeared to be over thirty inches. It was an eighteenth-century relic. As we walked away from it my son musingly remarked, “I suppose that was the weapon which, two hundred years ago, made future wars too horrible to contemplate.”
On the night before we left Moscow the American ambassador gave a reception for the visiting party. It was a stag affair and Russian guests were mainly individuals from the Foreign Office and the armed services. There were the usual toasts, followed by a supper, in the midst of which the ambassador received an urgent call to come to the Foreign Office at once. Suspecting that he might obtain news of a Japanese surrender, momentarily expected, Mr. Harriman asked me to do my best to hold all the guests until he returned. This proved to be quite a task because the ambassador was kept at the Foreign Office much longer than he had anticipated. However, by enlisting help from a number of American friends who devised new toasts, some of them even set to the tunes of the orchestra, we managed to entertain the guests and keep the bulk of them until Mr. Harriman returned.
He walked to the middle of the room and announced the Japanese surrender, which brought a joyous shout of approval from all the Americans present.6 But I noted that old Marshal Budenny, who was standing at my side, did not seem to exhibit any great enthusiasm. I asked him whether he was not glad the war was over and he replied, “Oh yes, but we should have kept going until we had killed a lot more of those insolent Japanese.” The marshal seemed to be a most congenial, humane, and hospitable type but at the same time he seemed to have no concern that even one day’s continuance of war meant death or wounds for additional hundreds of Russian citizens.
During the war I had heard much of the magnificent defense of Leningrad in 1941 and 1942. I expressed a desire to visit that city briefly. In the siege of Leningrad 350,000 civilians, according to the Russian records, died of starvation. Many more were killed and wounded. These figures were constantly recited to our visiting party by civilian officials of Leningrad who joined the military commanders to act as our local hosts. The extraordinary suffering of the population and the length of time that the city endured the rigors and privations of the battle combined to make the operation one of the memorable sieges of history; certainly it is without parallel in modern times. All of us were struck by the fact that in speaking of Leningrad’s losses every citizen did so with a tone of pride and satisfaction in his voice. The pride, of course, was understandable in view of the heroic endurance that had defeated the enemy at that vital point; but it was more difficult to grasp the reasons for satisfaction, even though it was explained to us that the city, by paying such a tremendous price, had proved itself “worthy of Mother Russia.”
The mayor of the city had us for luncheon with a number of civil and military leaders of the region. Russian artists were there to entertain us. We listened to vocal and instrumental music, to dramatic recitations—which, of course, we could not understand—and watched some beautiful dancing. I remarked to my host that I was struck by the universal respect for artists in Russia and the extraordinary appreciation that everyone, from highest to lowest, seemed to have for art in all its forms. My host replied that any Russian would cheerfully go hungry all week if by doing so he could, on Sunday, visit an art gallery, a football game, or the ballet.
During the toasting period at the Leningrad luncheon my son, who had heretofore escaped the ordeal, was called upon by Marshal Zhukov for a toast. Later John told me that during the entire visit he had been fearing such a challenge and had prepared himself for it as well as he could. He rose to his feet and after remarking that as a young lieutenant he was not accustomed to associate with marshals of the Soviet Union, mayors of great cities, and five-star generals, he said in effect: “I have been in Russia several days and have listened to many toasts. I have heard the virtues of every Allied ruler, every prominent marshal, general, admiral, and air commander toasted. I have yet to hear a toast to the most important Russian in World War II. Gentlemen, will you please drink with me to the common soldier of the great Red Army.”
His toast was greeted with greater enthusiasm and shouts of approval than any other I heard during the days when we heard so many. Marshal Zhukov was particularly pleased and said to me that he and I must be getting old when we had to wait for a young lieutenant to remind us “who really won the war.”
The return trip from Leningrad to Berlin became unpleasant when the weather turned bad. During our flights through Russia our agreements required us to use a Russian navigator. Their navigators seemed quite skillful in orienting themselves by terrain features in the countryside, with which they were very familiar. Apparently, they were not so proficient in celestial navigation and would never give us authority to fly at a greater height than would permit them to see the ground. On this particular trip the ceiling dropped so low that, finally, we were skimming along at treetop level in our four-engine transport. This was too much for my pilot, Major Larry Hansen, who pretended for a moment that he could not understand the broken English of the Russian navigator, and quickly pulled the ship up to the top of the clouds. From then on we had a normal and easy flight to Berlin.
During our hours on the plane Marshal Zhukov and I frequently discussed the campaigns of the war. Because of his special position for several years in the Red Army he had had a longer experience as a responsible leader in great battles than any other man of our time. It seems that he was habitually sent to whatever Russian sector appeared at the moment to be the decisive one. By his descriptions of the composition of the Russian Army, of the terrain over which it fought, and of his reasons for his strategic decisions, it was clear that he was an accomplished soldier.
The marshal was astonished when I told him that each of our divisions, with its reinforcing battalions, was maintained at a strength of 17,000. He said that he tried to maintain his divisions at about 8000, but that frequently, in a long campaign, some would be depleted to a strength of 3000 to 4000.
Highly illuminating to me was his description of the Russian method of attacking through mine fields. The German mine fields, covered by defensive fire, were tactical obstacles that caused us many casualties and delays. It was always a laborious business to break through them, even though our technicians invented every conceivable kind of mechanical appliance to destroy mines safely. Marshal Zhukov gave me a matter-of-fact statement of his practice, which was, roughly, “There are two kinds of mines; one is the personnel mine and the other is the vehicular mine. When we come to a mine field our infantry attacks exactly as if it were not there. The losses we get from personnel mines we consider only equal to those we would have gotten from machine guns and artillery if the Germans had chosen to defend that particular area with strong bodies of troops instead of with mine fields. The attacking infantry does not set off the vehicular mines, so after they have penetrated to the far side of the field they form a bridgehead, after which the engineers come up and dig out channels through which our vehicles can go.”
I had a vivid picture of what would happen to any American or British commander if he pursued such tactics, and I had an even more vivid picture of what the men in any one of our divisions would have had to say about the matter had we attempted to make such a practice a part of our tactical doctrine. Americans assess the cost of war in terms of human lives, the Russians in the over-all drain on the nation. The Russians clearly understood the value of morale, but for its development and maintenance they apparently depended upon overall success and upon patriotism, possibly fanaticism.
As far as I could see, Zhukov had given little concern to methods that we considered vitally important to the maintenance of morale among American troops: systematic rotation of units, facilities for recreation, short leaves and furloughs, and, above all, the development of techniques to avoid exposure of men to unnecessary battlefield risks, all of which, although common practices in our Army, seemed to be larg
ely unknown in his.
However, he agreed with me that destruction of enemy morale must always be the aim of the high command. To this end nothing is so useful as the attainment of strategic surprise; a surprise that suddenly places our own forces in position to threaten the enemy’s ability to continue the war, at least in an important area. This effect is heightened when accompanied by the tactical surprise that arouses the fear in the enemy’s front-line units that they are about to be destroyed. Time after time in the campaigns in the Mediterranean and in Europe we successfully achieved surprise in either the strategic or tactical field, sometimes in both. We suffered tactical surprise in the strength and timing of the German attack in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. In this instance, however, the probability and the general location were foreseen to the extent that reaction had been planned and could be effectively executed. Nevertheless, the early effect on morale of front-line troops was noticeable.
The basic differences between American and Russian attitudes in the handling of men were illustrated on another occasion. While talking to a Russian general I mentioned the difficult problem that was imposed upon us at various periods of the war by the need to care for so many German prisoners. I remarked that they were fed the same rations as were our own soldiers. In the greatest astonishment he asked, “Why did you do that?” I said, “Well, in the first place my country was required to do so by the terms of the Geneva Convention. In the second place the German had some thousands of American and British prisoners and I did not want to give Hitler the excuse or justification for treating our prisoners more harshly than he was already doing.” Again the Russian seemed astounded at my attitude and he said, “But what did you care about men the Germans had captured? They had surrendered and could not fight any more.” However, these statements did not necessarily mean that the Russians were cruel or were innately indifferent to human life.
The experience of Russia in World War II was a harsh one. The year 1941 saw the entire western portion of that country overrun by the Nazis. From the region of the Volga westward, almost everything was destroyed. When we flew into Russia, in 1945, Idid not see a house standing between the western borders of the country and the area around Moscow. Through this overrun region, Marshal Zhukov told me, so many numbers of women, children, and old men had been killed that the Russian Government would never be able to estimate the total. Some of their great cities had been laid waste and until November 1942 there seemed to be little hope that their desperate defense could hold off the enemy until their industries could be rehabilitated and the Western Allies could get into the war in force.
All this would have embittered any people; it would have been completely astonishing if the Russians had not had a more direct and personal vindictiveness toward the Germans and a sterner attitude toward the realities of war than was the case in countries far removed from the scene of hostilities.
Even in their successful offensives they paid a terrible price for victory. The most costly form of warfare, and the one in which the diminishing power of the offensive soonest manifests itself, is the tactical advance by superior forces that gradually gains ground against a flexible and skillful defense. The enemy constantly readjusts his forces so as to compel successive and expensive attacks against the same troops in prepared positions and, as the maintenance factor begins seriously to enter the problem, the enemy may reverse original relative values in both moral and material strength. In the early Russian counteroffensives of the war Zhukov had been compelled to employ his armies in this expensive method. It was not until the final months of the war that the Soviets began, in a military sense, to gain the great rewards paid for by their earlier severe sacrifices. Proud of their victories, the Russians always remembered with bitterness their cost.
I know that in my personal reactions, as the months of conflict wore on, I grew constantly more bitter against the Germans, particularly the Hitler gang. On all sides there was always evidence of the destruction that Hitler’s ruthless ambition had brought about. Every battle, every skirmish, demanded its price in broken bodies and in the extinction of the lives of young Allied soldiers.
During the war hundreds of brokenhearted fathers, mothers, and sweethearts wrote me personal letters, begging for some hope that a loved one might still be alive, or, at the very least, for some additional detail as to the manner of his death. Every one of these I answered, and I know of no more effective means of developing an undying hatred of those responsible for aggressive war than to assume the obligation of attempting to express sympathy to families bereaved by it. Possibly, therefore, I had a more sympathetic understanding of the Russian attitude than would have been possible before the beginning of the war.
Marshal Zhukov showed little interest in measures that I thought, after Allied experience in North Africa and Europe, should be taken to protect the foot soldier and to increase his individual effectiveness. The efficiency of ground units is markedly affected by the success of a commander in getting his men onto the battle line without the fatigue of long and exhausting marches and under such conditions as to provide them protection from the sporadic fires that always harass the rear areas. Certain of our special formations habitually rode to battle in lightly armored vehicles and the percentage of losses among these, as compared to the percentage of losses among the fighting units of the normal infantry divisions, clearly indicated to me the desirability of devising ways and means whereby all troops could go into battle under similarly favorable circumstances. The Russians, however, viewed measures to protect the individual against fatigue and wounds as possibly too costly. Great victories, they seemed to think, inevitably require huge casualties.
To return the courtesy extended to me by the Russian Government, the American War Department, with the approval of President Truman, promptly invited Marshal Zhukov to pay a visit to America. An immediate acceptance was returned and we thought that the marshal would soon depart for the United States.7 He asked that General Clay or I go along with him so that he might have a friend in my country, just as he had accompanied me during my trip to Russia. I had to tell him that because of special circumstances and problems at the moment I could not do this, but I arranged for General Clay to go with him. Marshal Zhukov also asked if my son could accompany him as an aide. I told him that John would be honored to do so and that, moreover, I would be glad to send him in the Sunflower, the C-54 that I regularly used.8 This delighted him. He had already ridden through Russia in the plane and had great confidence in it and the crew. He said something to the interpreter which was given to me as, “With the general’s plane and the general’s son along, I know I shall be perfectly safe.”
Unfortunately the marshal soon fell ill. At the time there was some speculation as to whether it was diplomatic illness, but when I next saw him at a meeting of the Control Council in Berlin he gave the appearance of a man who had gone through a serious siege of ill-health. In any event this served to postpone his visit until the approach of winter weather and he then expressed a desire to go to our country in the spring.9 Before that time arrived the Russians had apparently no further interest in sending one of their marshals to spend a week or ten days in America.
I saw Marshal Zhukov for the last time November 7, 1945. It was a Soviet holiday, in honor of which he gave a large reception in Berlin, inviting to it the senior commanders and staff officers of all the Allies. The weather turned bad and flying was impossible. The other two commanders in chief canceled their engagements but, knowing that I was soon to be ordered home, I determined to attend the ceremony, although to do so I had to make a night trip by train, followed by a long automobile trip during the day.
When I arrived Marshal Zhukov, with his wife and a number of his senior assistants, was standing in the receiving line. He greeted me and then promptly deserted the receiving line. He took his wife by the arm, and the three of us, with an interpreter, retired to a comfortable room where were refreshments of all kinds. We talked for two hours.
The marshal seemed to be a firm believer in the Communist concept. He said that, as he saw it, the Soviet system of government was based upon idealism, and ours upon materialism. In expanding his idea of this difference he remarked—and introduced an apology because of his criticism—that he felt our system appealed to all that was selfish in people. He said that we induced a man to do things by telling him he might keep what he earned, might say what he pleased, and in every direction allowed him to be largely an undisciplined, unoriented entity within a great national complex.
He asked me to understand a system in which the attempt was made to substitute for such motivations the devotion of a man to the great national complex of which he formed a part. In spite of my complete repudiation of such contentions and my condemnation of all systems that involved dictatorship, there was no doubt in my mind that Marshal Zhukov was sincere.