In the course of one of my later talks with Stalin I said, “Lord Beaver-brook has told me that when he was on his mission to Moscow in October 1941 you asked him, ‘What did Churchill mean by saying in Parliament that he had given me warnings of the impending German attack?’ I was of course,” said I, “referring to the telegram I sent you in April ’41,” and I produced the telegram which Sir Stafford Cripps had tardily delivered. When it was read and translated to him Stalin shrugged his shoulders. “I remember it. I did not need any warnings. I knew war would come, but I thought I might gain another six months or so.” In the common cause I refrained from asking what would have happened to us all if we had gone down for ever while he was giving Hitler so much valuable material, time, and aid.
As soon as I could I gave a more formal account of the banquet to Mr. Attlee and the President.
The dinner passed off in a very friendly atmosphere and the usual Russian ceremonies. Wavell made an excellent speech in Russian. I proposed Stalin’s health, and Alexander Cadogan proposed death and damnation to the Nazis. Though I sat on Stalin’s right I got no opportunity of talking about serious things. Stalin and I were photographed together, also with Harriman. Stalin made quite a long speech proposing the “Intelligence Service”, in the course of which he made a curious reference to the Dardanelles in 1915, saying that the British had won and the Germans and Turks were already retreating, but we did not know because the intelligence was faulty. This picture, though inaccurate, was evidently meant to be complimentary to me.
2. I left about 1.30 a.m., as I was afraid we should be drawn into a lengthy film and was fatigued. When I said good-bye to Stalin he said that any differences that existed were only of method. I said we would try to remove even those differences by deeds. After a cordial handshake I then took my departure, and got some way down the crowded room, but he hurried after me and accompanied me an immense distance through corridors and staircases to the front door, where we again shook hands.
3. Perhaps in my account to you of the Thursday night meeting I took too gloomy a view. I feel I must make full allowance for the really grievous disappointment which they feel here that we can do nothing more to help them in their immense struggle. In the upshot they have swallowed this bitter pill. Everything for us now turns on hastening “Torch” and defeating Rommel.
I had been offended by many things which had been said at our conferences. I made every allowance for the strain under which the Soviet leaders lay, with their vast front flaming and bleeding along nearly 2,000 miles, and the Germans but fifty miles from Moscow and advancing towards the Caspian Sea. The technical military discussions had not gone well. Our generals had asked all sorts of questions to which their Soviet colleagues were not authorised to give answers. The only Soviet demand was for “A Second Front NOW”. In the end Brooke was rather blunt, and the military conference came to a somewhat abrupt conclusion.
We were to start at dawn on the 16th. On the evening before I went at seven o’clock to say good-bye to Stalin. We had a useful and important talk. I asked particularly whether he would be able to hold the Caucasus mountain passes, and also prevent the Germans reaching the Caspian, taking the oilfields round Baku, with all that meant, and then driving southwards through Turkey or Persia. He spread out the map, and then said with quiet confidence. “We shall stop them. They will not cross the mountains.” He added, “There are rumours that the Turks will attack us in Turkestan. If they do I shall be able to deal with them as well.” I said there was no danger of this. The Turks meant to keep out, and would certainly not quarrel with England.
Our hour’s conversation drew to its close, and I got up to say goodbye. Stalin seemed suddenly embarrassed, and said in a more cordial tone than he had yet used with me, “You are leaving at daybreak. Why should we not go to my house and have some drinks?” I said that I was in principle always in favour of such a policy. So he led the way through many passages and rooms till we came out into a still roadway within the Kremlin, and in a couple of hundred yards gained the apartment where he lived. He showed me his own rooms, which were of moderate size, simple, dignified, and four in number—a dining-room, working room, bedroom, and a large bathroom. Presently there appeared, first a very aged housekeeper and later a handsome red-haired girl, who kissed her father dutifully. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, as if, so I thought, to convey, “You see, even we Bolsheviks have family life.” Stalin’s daughter started laying the table, and in a short time the housekeeper appeared with a few dishes. Meanwhile Stalin had been uncorking various bottles, which began to make an imposing array. Then he said, “Why should we not have Molotov? He is worrying about the communiqué. We could settle it here. There is one thing about Molotov—he can drink.” I then realised that there was to be a dinner. I had planned to dine at State Villa Number Seven, where General Anders, the Polish commander, was awaiting me, but I told my new and excellent interpreter, Major Birse, to telephone that I should not be back till after midnight. Presently Molotov arrived. We sat down, and, with the two interpreters, were five in number. Major Birse had lived twenty years in Moscow, and got on very well with the Marshal, with whom he for some time kept up a running conversation, in which I could not share.
We actually sat at this table from 8.30 p.m. till 2.30 the next morning, which, with my previous interview, made a total of more than seven hours. The dinner was evidently improvised on the spur of the moment, but gradually more and more food arrived. We pecked and picked, as seemed to be the Russian fashion, at a long succession of choice dishes, and sipped a variety of excellent wines. Molotov assumed his most affable manner, and Stalin, to make things go, chaffed him unmercifully.
Presently we talked about the convoys to Russia. This led him to make a rough and rude remark about the almost total destruction of an Arctic convoy in June.
“Mr. Stalin asks,” said Pavlov, with some hesitation, “has the British Navy no sense of glory?” I answered, “You must take it from me that what was done was right. I really do know a lot about the Navy and sea-war.” “Meaning,” said Stalin, “that I know nothing.” “Russia is a land animal,” I said; “the British are sea animals.” He fell silent and recovered his good-humour. I turned the talk on to Molotov. “Was the Marshal aware that his Foreign Secretary on his recent visit to Washington had said he was determined to pay a visit to New York entirely by himself, and that the delay in his return was not due to any defect in the aeroplane, but because he was off on his own?”
Although almost anything can be said in fun at a Russian dinner, Molotov looked rather serious at this. But Stalin’s face lit with merriment as he said:
“It was not to New York he went. He went to Chicago, where the other gangsters live.”
Relations having thus been entirely restored, the talk ran on. I opened the question of a British landing in Norway, with Russian support, and explained how, if we could take the North Cape in the winter and destroy the Germans there, the path of the convoys would henceforward be open. This idea was always, as has been seen, one of my favourite plans. Stalin seemed much attracted by it, and, after talking of ways and means, we agreed we must do it if possible.
It was now past midnight, and Cadogan had not appeared with the draft of the communiqué.
“Tell me,” I asked, “have the stresses of this war been as bad to you personally as carrying through the policy of the Collective Farms?”
This subject immediately roused the Marshal.
“Oh, no,” he said, “the Collective Farm policy was a terrible struggle.”
“I thought you would have found it bad,” said I, “because you were not dealing with a few score thousands of aristocrats or big landowners, but with millions of small men.”
“Ten millions,” he said, holding up his hands. “It was fearful. Four years it lasted. It was absolutely necessary for Russia, if we were to avoid periodic famines, to plough the land with tractors. We must mechanise our agriculture. When we gave tractors to the
peasants they were all spoiled in a few months. Only Collective Farms with workshops could handle tractors. We took the greatest trouble to explain it to the peasants. It was no use arguing with them. After you have said all you can to a peasant he says he must go home and consult his wife, and he must consult his herder.” This last was a new expression to me in this connection.
“After he has talked it over with them he always answers that he does not want the Collective Farm and he would rather do without the tractors.”
“These were what you call Kulaks?”
“Yes,” he said, but he did not repeat the word. After a pause, “It was all very bad and difficult—but necessary.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Oh, well,” he said, “many of them agreed to come in with us. Some of them were given land of their own to cultivate in the province of Tomsk or the province of Irkutsk or farther north, but the great bulk were very unpopular and were wiped out by their labourers.”
There was a considerable pause. Then, “Not only have we vastly increased the food supply, but we have improved the quality of the grain beyond all measure. All kinds of grain used to be grown. Now no one is allowed to sow any but the standard Soviet grain from one end of our country to the other. If they do they are severely dealt with. This means another large increase in the food supply.”
I record as they come back to me these memories, and the strong impression I sustained at the moment of millions of men and women being blotted out or displaced for ever. A generation would no doubt come to whom their miseries were unknown, but it would be sure of having more to eat and bless Stalin’s name. I did not repeat Burke’s dictum, “If I cannot have reform without injustice, I will not have reform.” With the World War going on all round us it seemed vain to moralise aloud.
About 1 a.m. Cadogan arrived with the draft communiqué, and we set to work to put it into final form. A considerable sucking-pig was brought to the table. Hitherto Stalin had only tasted the dishes, but now it was half-past one in the morning and around his usual dinner hour. He invited Cadogan to join him in the conflict, and when my friend excused himself our host fell upon the victim single-handed. After this had been achieved he went abruptly into the next room to receive the reports from all sectors of the front, which were delivered to him from 2 a.m. onwards. It was about twenty minutes before he returned, and by that time we had the communiqué agreed. Finally, at 2.30 a.m. I said I must go. I had half an hour to drive to the villa, and as long to drive back to the airport. I had a splitting headache, which for me was very unusual. I still had General Anders to see. I begged Molotov not to come and see me off at dawn, for he was clearly tired out. He looked at me reproachfully, as if to say, “Do you really think I would fail to be there?”
We took off at 5.30 a.m. I was very glad to sleep in the plane, and I remember nothing of the landscape or journey till we reached the foot of the Caspian and began to climb over the Elburz Mountains. At Teheran I did not go to the Legation, but to the cool, quiet glades of the summer residence, high above the city. Here a great press of telegrams awaited me. I had planned a conference for the next day at Baghdad with most of our high authorities in Persia and Iraq, but I did not feel I could face the heat of Baghdad in the August noonday, and it was quite easy to change the venue to Cairo. I dined with the Legation party that night in the agreeable woodland, and was content to forget all cares till morning.
CHAPTER XVII
STRAIN AND SUSPENSE
ON August 19 I paid another visit to the Desert Front. I drove with Alexander in his car out from Cairo past the Pyramids, about 130 miles through the desert to the sea at Abusir. I was cheered by all he told me. As the shadows lengthened we reached Montgomery’s headquarters at Burg-el-Arab. Here the afterwards famous caravan was drawn up amid the sand-dunes by the sparkling waves. The General gave me his own wagon, divided between office and bedroom. After our long drive we all had a delicious bathe. “All the armies are bathing now at this hour all along the coast,” said Montgomery as we stood in our towels. He waved his arm to the westward. Three hundred yards away about a thousand of our men were disporting themselves on the beach. Although I knew the answer, I asked, “Why do the War Office go to the expense of sending out white bathing drawers for the troops? Surely this economy should be made.” They were in fact tanned and burnt to the darkest brown everywhere except where they wore their short pants.
How fashions change! When I marched to Omdurman forty-four years before the theory was that the African sun must at all costs be kept away from the skin. The rules were strict. Special spine-pads were buttoned on to the back of all our khaki coats. It was a military offence to appear without a pith helmet. We were advised to wear thick underclothing, following Arab custom enjoined by a thousand years of experience. Yet now half-way through the twentieth century many of the white soldiers went about their daily toil hatless and naked except for the equal of a loin cloth. Apparently it did them no harm. Though the process of changing from white to bronze took several weeks and gradual application, sunstroke and heatstroke were rare. I wonder how the doctors explain all this.
After we had dressed for dinner—my zip suit hardly takes a minute to put on—we gathered in Montgomery’s map wagon. There he gave us a masterly exposition of the situation, showing that in a few days he had firmly gripped the whole problem. He accurately predicted Rommel’s next attack, and explained his plans to meet it. All of which proved true and sound. He then described his plans for taking the offensive himself. He must however have six weeks to get the Eighth Army into order. He would re-form the divisions as integral tactical units. We must wait till the new divisions had taken their place at the front and until the Sherman tanks were broken in. Then there would be three Army Corps, each under an experienced officer, whom he and Alexander knew well. Above all the artillery would be used as had never been possible before in the Desert. He spoke of the end of September. I was disappointed at the date, but even this was dependent upon Rommel. Our information showed that a blow from him was imminent. I was myself already fully informed, and was well content that he should try a wide turning movement round our Desert Flank in order to reach Cairo, and that a manœuvre battle should be fought on «his communications.
At this time I thought much of Napoleon’s defeat in 1814. He too poised to strike at the communications, but the Allies marched straight on into an almost open Paris. I thought it of the highest importance that Cairo should be defended by every able-bodied man in uniform not required for the Eighth Army. Thus alone would the field army have full manœuvring freedom and be able to take risks in letting its flank be turned before striking. It was with great pleasure that I found we were all in agreement. Although I was always impatient for offensive action on our part at the earliest moment, I welcomed the prospect of Rommel breaking his teeth upon us before our main attack was launched. But should we have time to organise the defence of Cairo? Many signs pointed to the audacious commander who faced us only a dozen miles away striking his supreme blow before the end of August. Any day indeed, my friends said, he might make his bid for continued mastery. A fortnight or three weeks’ delay would be all to our good.
On August 20 we sallied forth early to see the prospective battlefield and the gallant troops who were to hold it. I was taken to the key point south-east of the Ruweisat Ridge. Here, amid the hard, rolling curves and creases of the desert, lay the mass of our armour, camouflaged, concealed, and dispersed, yet tactically concentrated. Here I met the young Brigadier Roberts, who at that time commanded the whole of our armoured force in this vital position. All our best tanks were under him. Montgomery explained to me the disposition of our artillery of all natures. Every crevice of the desert was packed with camouflaged concealed batteries. Three or four hundred guns would fire at the German armour before we hurled in our own.
Although of course no gatherings of troops could be allowed under the enemy’s continuous air reconnaissance, I saw a great many soldiers
that day, who greeted me with grins and cheers. I inspected my own regiment, the 4th Hussars, or as many of them as they dared to bring together—perhaps fifty or sixty—near the field cemetery, in which a number of their comrades had been newly buried. All this was moving, but with it all there grew a sense of the reviving ardour of the Army. Everybody said what a change there was since Montgomery had taken command. I could feel the truth of this with joy and comfort.
We were to lunch with Bernard Freyberg. My mind went back to a similar visit I had paid him in Flanders, at his battle-post in the valley of the Scarpe, a quarter of a century before, when he already commanded a brigade. Then he had blithely offered to take me for a walk along his outposts. But knowing him and knowing the line as I did I declined. Now it was the other way round. I certainly hoped to see at least a forward observation post of these splendid New Zealanders, who were in contact about five miles away. Alexander’s attitude showed he would not forbid but rather accompany the excursion. But Bernard Freyberg flatly refused to take the responsibility, and this was not a matter about which orders are usually given, even by the highest authority.
Instead we went into his sweltering mess tent, and were offered a luncheon, far more magnificent than the one I had eaten on the Scarpe. This was an August noonday in the Desert. The set piece of the meal was a scalding broth of tinned New Zealand oysters, to which I could do no more than was civil. Presently Montgomery, who had left us some time before, drove up. Freyberg went out to salute him, and told him his place had been kept and that he was expected to luncheon. But “Monty”, as he was already called, had, it appeared, made it a rule not to accept hospitality from any of his subordinate commanders. So he sat outside in his car eating an austere sandwich and drinking his lemonade with all formalities. Napoleon also might have stood aloof in the interests of discipline. Dur aux grands was one of his maxims. But he would certainly have had an excellent roast chicken, served him from his own fourgon. Marlborough would have entered and quaffed the good wine with his officers—Cromwell, I think, too. The technique varies, and the results seem to have been good in all these cases.
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