On April 29, when it seemed evident we were getting nowhere, I put my whole case to Stalin in a lengthy telegram of which the following paragraphs may be deemed material:
It is quite true that about Poland we have reached a definite line of action with the Americans. This is because we agree naturally upon the subject, and both sincerely feel that we have been rather illtreated … since the Crimea Conference. No doubt these things seem different when looked at from the opposite point of view. But we are absolutely agreed that the pledge we have given for a sovereign, free, independent Poland, with a Government fully and adequately representing all the democratic elements among Poles, is for us a matter of honour and duty. I do not think there is the slightest chance of any change in the attitude of our two Powers, and when we are agreed we are bound to say so. After all, we have joined with you, largely on my original initiative, early in 1944, in proclaiming the Polish-Russian frontier which you desired, namely, the Curzon Line, including Lvov for Russia. We think you ought to meet us with regard to the other half of the policy which you equally with us have proclaimed, namely, the sovereignty, independence, and freedom of Poland, provided it is a Poland friendly to Russia.…
Also, difficulties arise at the present moment because all sorts of stories are brought out of Poland which are eagerly listened to by many Members of Parliament, and which at any time may be violently raised in Parliament or the Press in spite of my deprecating such action, and on which M. Molotov will vouchsafe us no information at all in spite of repeated requests. For instance, there is the talk of the fifteen Poles who were said to have met the Russian authorities for discussion over four weeks ago … and there are many other statements of deportations, etc.* How can I contradict such complaints when you give me no information whatever and when neither I nor the Americans are allowed to send anyone into Poland to find out for themselves the true state of affairs? There is no part of our occupied or liberated territory into which you are not free to send delegations, and people do not see why you should have any reasons against similar visits by British delegations to foreign countries liberated by you.
There is not much comfort in looking into a future where you and the countries you dominate, plus the Communist Parties in many other States, are all drawn up on one side, and those who rally to the English-speaking nations and their associates or Dominions are on the other. It is quite obvious that their quarrel would tear the world to pieces and that all of us leading men on either side who had anything to do with that would be shamed before history. Even embarking on a long period of suspicions, of abuse and counter-abuse, and of opposing policies would be a disaster hampering the great developments of world prosperity for the masses which are attainable only by our trinity. I hope there is no word or phrase in this outpouring of my heart to you which unwittingly gives offence. If so, let me know. But do not, I beg you, my friend Stalin, underrate the divergences which are opening about matters which you may think are small to us but which are symbolic of the way the English-speaking democracies look at life.
The incident of the missing Poles mentioned in the second paragraph now requires to be recorded, although it carries us somewhat ahead of the general narrative. At the beginning of March 1945 the Polish Underground were invited by the Russian Political Police to send a delegation to Moscow to discuss the formation of a united Polish Government along the lines of the Yalta agreement. This was followed by a written guarantee of personal safety and it was understood that the party would later be allowed if the negotiations were successful to travel to London for talks with the Polish Government in exile. On March 27 General Leopold Okulicki, the successor of General Bor-Komorowski in command of the Underground Army, two other leaders, and an interpreter had a meeting in the suburbs of Warsaw with a Soviet representative. They were joined the following day by eleven leaders representing the major political parties in Poland. One other Polish leader was already in Russian hands. No one returned from the rendezvous. On April 6 the Polish Government in exile issued a statement in London giving the outline of this sinister episode. The most valuable representatives of the Polish Underground had disappeared without a trace in spite of the formal Russian offer of safe-conduct. Questions were asked in Parliament and stories have since spread of the shooting of local Polish leaders in the areas at this time occupied by the Soviet armies and particularly of one episode at Siedlce in Eastern Poland. It was not until May 4 that Molotov admitted at San Francisco that these men were being held in Russia, and an official Russian news agency stated next day that they were awaiting trial on charges of “diversionary tactics in the rear of the Red Army”.
On May 18 Stalin publicly denied that the arrested Polish leaders had ever been invited to Moscow and asserted that they were mere “diversionists” who would be dealt with according to “a law similar to the British Defence of the Realm Act”. The Soviet Government refused to move from this position. Nothing more was heard of the victims of the trap until the case against them opened on June 18. It was conducted in the usual Communist manner. The prisoners were accused of subversion, terrorism, and espionage, and all except one admitted wholly or in part the charges against them. Thirteen were found guilty, and sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from four months to ten years, and three were acquitted. This was in fact the judicial liquidation of the leadership of the Polish Underground which had fought so heroically against Hitler. The rank and file had already died in the ruins of Warsaw.
Meanwhile, I received a most disheartening reply from Stalin to the appeal I had made to him on April 29. It was dated May 5 and read as follows:
I am obliged to say that I cannot agree with the arguments which you advance in support of your position.… I am unable to share your views … in the passage where you suggest that the three Powers should supervise elections. Such supervision in relation to the people of an Allied State could not be regarded otherwise than as an insult to that people and a flagrant interference with its internal life. Such supervision is unnecessary in relation to the former satellite States which have subsequently declared war on Germany and joined the Allies, as has been shown by the experience of the elections which have taken place, for instance, in Finland; here elections have been held without any outside intervention and have led to constructive results.… Poland’s peculiar position as a neighbour State of the Soviet Union … demands that the future Polish Government should actively strive for friendly relations between Poland and the Soviet Union, which is likewise in the interests of all other peaceloving nations.… The United Nations are concerned that there should be a firm and lasting friendship between the Soviet Union and Poland. Consequently we cannot be satisfied that persons should be associated with the formation of the future Polish Government who, as you express it, “are not fundamentally anti-Soviet”, or that only those persons should be excluded from participation in this work who are in your opinion “extremely unfriendly towards Russia”. Neither of these criteria can satisfy us. We insist, and shall insist, that there should be brought into consultation on the formation of the future Polish Government only those persons who have actively shown a friendly attitude towards the Soviet Union and who are honestly and sincerely prepared to co-operate with the Soviet State.*
I must comment especially on [another] point of your message, in which you mention difficulties arising as a result of rumours of the arrest of fifteen Poles, of deportations and so forth.
As to this, I can inform you that the group of Poles to which you refer consists not of fifteen but of sixteen persons, and is headed by the well-known Polish general Okulicki. In view of his especially odious character the British Information Service is careful to be silent on the subject of this Polish general, who “disappeared” together with the fifteen other Poles who are said to have done likewise. But we do not propose to be silent on this subject. This party of sixteen individuals headed by General Okulicki was arrested by the military authorities on the Soviet front and is undergoing investigation in
Moscow. General Okulicki’s group, and especially the General himself, are accused of planning and carrying out diversionary acts in the rear of the Red Army, which resulted in the loss of over 100 fighters and officers ofthat Army, and are also accused of maintaining illegal wireless transmitting stations in the rear of our troops, which is contrary to law. All or some of them, according to the results of the investigation, will be handed over for trial. This is the manner in which it is necessary for the Red Army to defend its troops and its rear from diversionists and disturbers of order.
30 + s.w.w.
The British Information Service is disseminating rumours of the murder or shooting of Poles in Siedlce. These statements of the British Information Service are complete fabrications, and have evidently been suggested to it by [anti-Soviet] agents.…
It appears from your message that you are not prepared to regard the Polish Provisional Government as the foundation of the future Government of National Unity, and that you are not prepared to accord it its rightful position in that Government. I must say frankly that such an attitude excludes the possibility of an agreed solution of the Polish question.
I repeated this forbidding message to President Truman, with the following comment: “It seems to me that matters can hardly be carried further by correspondence, and that as soon as possible there should be a meeting of the three heads of Governments. Meanwhile we should hold firmly to the existing position obtained or being obtained by our armies in Yugoslavia, in Austria, in Czechoslovakia, on the main central United States front, and on the British front, reaching up to Lübeck, including Denmark.* …” On May 4 I drew the European scene as I saw it for Mr. Eden, who was at the San Francisco Conference, in daily touch with Stettinius and Molotov, and soon to revisit the President at Washington.
I consider that the Polish deadlock can now probably only be resolved at a conference between the three heads of Governments in some unshattered town in Germany, if such can be found. This should take place at latest at the beginning of July. I propose to telegraph a suggestion to President Truman about his visit here and the further indispensable meeting of the three major Powers.
2. The Polish problem may be easier to settle when set in relation to the now numerous outstanding questions of the utmost gravity which require urgent settlement with the Russians. I fear terrible things have happened during the Russian advance through Germany to the Elbe. The proposed withdrawal of the United States Army to the occupational lines which were arranged with the Russians and Americans in Quebec, and which were marked in yellow on the maps we studied there, would mean the tide of Russian domination sweeping forward 120 miles on a front of 300 or 400 miles. This would be an event which, if it occurred, would be one of the most melancholy in history. After it was over and the territory occupied by the Russians Poland would be completely engulfed and buried deep in Russian-occupied lands. What would in fact be the Russian frontier would run from the North Cape in Norway, along the Finnish-Swedish frontier, across the Baltic to a point just east of Lübeck, along the at present agreed line of occupation and along the frontier between Bavaria to Czechoslovakia to the frontiers of Austria, which is nominally to be in quadruple occupation, and halfway across that country to the Isonzo river, behind which Tito and Russia will claim everything to the east. Thus the territories under Russian control would include the Baltic provinces, all of Germany to the occupational line, all Czechoslovakia, a large part of Austria, the whole of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, until Greece in her present tottering condition is reached. It would include all the great capitals of Middle Europe, including Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, and Sofia. The position of Turkey and Constantinople will certainly come immediately into discussion.
3. This constitutes an event in the history of Europe to which there has been no parallel, and which has not been faced by the Allies in their long and hazardous struggle. The Russian demands on Germany for reparations alone will be such as to enable her to prolong the occupation almost indefinitely, at any rate for many years, during which time Poland will sink with many other States into the vast zone of Russian-controlled Europe, not necessarily economically Sovietised, but police-governed.
4. It is just about time that these formidable issues were examined between the principal Powers as a whole. We have several powerful bargaining counters on our side, the use of which might make for a peaceful agreement. First, the Allies ought not to retreat from their present positions to the occupational line until we are satisfied about Poland, and also about the temporary character of the Russian occupation of Germany, and the conditions to be established in the Russianised or Russian-controlled countries in the Danube valley, particularly Austria and Czechoslovakia, and the Balkans* Secondly, we may be able to please them about the exits from the Black Sea and the Baltic as part of a general statement. All these matters can only be settled before the United States armies in Europe are weakened. If they are not settled before the United States armies withdraw from Europe and the Western World folds up its war machines there are no prospects of a satisfactory solution and very little of preventing a third World War. It is to this early and speedy show-down and settlement with Russia that we must now turn our hopes. Meanwhile I am against weakening our claim against Russia on behalf of Poland in any way. I think it should stand where it was put in the telegrams from the President and me.
“Nothing,” I added the next day, “can save us from the great catastrophe but a meeting and a show-down as early as possible at some point in Germany which is under American and British control and affords reasonable accommodation.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE GERMAN SURRENDER
GLEAMING successes marked the end of our campaigns in the Mediterranean. In December Alexander had succeeded Wilson as Supreme Commander, while Mark Clark took command of the Fifteenth Army Group. After their strenuous efforts of the autumn our armies in Italy needed a pause to reorganise and restore their offensive power.
The long, obstinate, and unexpected German resistance on all fronts had made us and the Americans very short of artillery ammunition, and our hard experiences of winter campaigning in Italy forced us to postpone a general offensive till the spring. But the Allied Air Forces, under General Eaker, and later under General Cannon, used their thirty-to-one superiority in merciless attacks on the supply lines which nourished the German armies. The most important one, from Verona to the Brenner Pass, where Hitler and Mussolini used to meet in their happier days, was blocked in many places for nearly the whole of March. Other passes were often closed for weeks at a time, and two divisions being transferred to the Russian front were delayed almost a month.
The enemy had enough ammunition and supplies, but lacked fuel. Units were generally up to strength, and their spirit was high in spite of Hitler’s reverses on the Rhine and the Oder. The German High Command might have had little to fear had it not been for the dominance of our Air Forces, the fact that we had the initiative and could strike where we pleased, and their own ill-chosen defensive position, with the broad Po at their backs. They would have done better to yield Northern Italy and withdraw to the strong defences of the Adige, where they could have held us with much smaller forces, and sent troops to help their over-matched armies elsewhere, or have made a firm southern face for the National Redoubt in the Tyrol mountains, which Hitler may have had in mind as his “last ditch”.
But defeat south of the Po spelt disaster. This must have been obvious to Kesselring, and was doubtless one of the reasons for the negotiations recorded in the previous chapter. Hitler was of course the stumbling-block and when Vietinghoff, who succeeded Kesselring, proposed a tactical withdrawal he was thus rebuffed: “The Fuehrer expects, now as before, the utmost steadiness in the fulfilment of your present mission to defend every inch of the North Italian areas entrusted to your command.”
In the evening of April 9, after a day of mass air attacks and artillery bombardment, the Eighth Army attacked. By the 14th ther
e was good news all along the front. The Fifth Army, after a week of hard fighting, backed by the full weight of the Allied Air Forces, broke out from the mountains, crossed the main road west of Bologna, and struck north. On the 20th Vietinghoff, despite Hitler’s commands, ordered a withdrawal. It was too late. The Fifth Army pressed towards the Po, with the Tactical Air Force making havoc along the roads ahead. Trapped behind them were many thousand Germans, cut off from retreat, pouring into prisoners’ cages or being marched to the rear. We crossed the Po on a broad front at the heels of the enemy. All the permanent bridges had been destroyed by our Air Forces, and the ferries and temporary crossings were attacked with such effect that the enemy were thrown into confusion. The remnants who struggled across, leaving all their heavy equipment behind, were unable to reorganise on the far bank. The Allied armies pursued them to the Adige. Italian Partisans had long harassed the enemy in the mountains and their back areas. On April 25 the signal was given for a general rising and they made widespread attacks. In many cities and towns, notably Milan and Venice, they seized control. Surrenders in North-West Italy became wholesale. The garrison of Genoa, four thousand strong, gave themselves up to a British liaison officer and the Partisans.
THE INVASION OF GERMANY
There was a pause before the force of facts overcame German hesitancies, but on April 24 Wolff reappeared in Switzerland with full powers from Vietinghoff. Two plenipotentiaries were brought to Alexander’s headquarters, and on April 29 they signed the instrument of unconditional surrender in the presence of high British, American, and Russian officers. On May 2 nearly a million Germans surrendered as prisoners of war, and the war in Italy ended.
The Second World War Page 118
