The Second World War

by Winston S. Churchill

  Meanwhile the devastating attack on Japan had continued from the air and the sea. By the end of July the Japanese Navy had virtually ceased to exist. The homeland was in chaos and on the verge of collapse, The professional diplomats were convinced that only immediate surrender under the authority of the Emperor could save Japan from complete disintegration, but power still lay almost entirely in the hands of a military clique determined to commit the nation to mass suicide rather than accept defeat. The appalling destruction confronting them made no impression on this fanatical hierarchy, who continued to profess belief in some miracle which would turn the scale in their favour.

  In several lengthy talks with the President alone, or with his advisers present, I discussed what to do. I dwelt upon the tremendous cost in American and to a smaller extent in British life if we enforced “unconditional surrender” upon the Japanese. It was for him to consider whether this might not be expressed in some other way, so that we got all the essentials for future peace and security and yet left them some show of saving their military honour and some assurance of their national existence, after they had complied with all safeguards necessary for the conqueror. The President replied bluntly that he did not think the Japanese had any military honour after Pearl Harbour. I contented myself with saying that at any rate they had something for which they were ready to face certain death in very large numbers, and this might not be so important to us as it was to them. He then became quite sympathetic, and spoke, as had Mr. Stimson, of the terrible responsibilities that rested upon him for the unlimited effusion of American blood.

  Eventually it was decided to send an ultimatum calling for an immediate unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Japan. This document was published on July 26. Its terms were rejected by the military rulers of Japan, and the United States Air Force made its plans accordingly to cast one atomic bomb on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki. We agreed to give every chance to the inhabitants. The procedure was developed in detail. In order to minimise the loss of life eleven Japanese cities were warned by leaflets on July 27 that they would be subjected to intensive air bombardment. Next day six of them were attacked. Twelve more were warned on July 31, and four were bombed on August 1. The last warning was given on August 5. By then the Superfortresses claimed to have dropped a million and a half leaflets every day and three million copies of the ultimatum. The first atomic bomb was not cast till August 6.

  On August 9 the Hiroshima bomb was followed by a second, this time on the city of Nagasaki. Next day, despite an insurrection by some military extremists, the Japanese Government agreed to accept the ultimatum, provided this did not prejudice the prerogative of the Emperor as a sovereign ruler. The Allied Fleets entered Tokyo Bay, and on the morning of September 2 the formal instrument of surrender was signed on board the United States battleship Missouri. Russia had declared war on August 8, only a week before the enemy’s collapse. None the less she claimed her full rights as a belligerent.

  It would be a mistake to suppose that the fate of Japan was settled by the atomic bomb. Her defeat was certain before the first bomb fell, and was brought about by overwhelming maritime power. This alone had made it possible to seize ocean bases from which to launch the final attack and force her metropolitan Army to capitulate without striking a blow. Her shipping had been destroyed. She had entered the war with over five and a half million tons, later much augmented by captures and new construction, but her convoy system and escorts were inadequate and ill-organised. Over eight and a half million tons of Japanese shipping were sunk, of which five million fell to submarines. We, an island Power, equally dependent on the sea, can read the lesson and understand our own fate had we failed to master the U-boats.

  Frustration was the fate of this final Conference of “the Three.” I shall not attempt to describe all the questions which were raised though not settled at our various meetings. I content myself with telling the tale, so far as I was then aware of it, of the atomic bomb and outlining the terrible issue of the German-Polish frontiers. These events dwell with us to-day.

  We had agreed at Yalta that Russia should advance her western frontier into Poland as far as the Curzon Line. We had always recognised that Poland in her turn should receive substantial accessions of German territory. The question was, how much? How far into Germany should she go? There had been much disagreement. Stalin had wanted to extend the western frontier of Poland along the river Oder to where it joined the Western Neisse; Roosevelt, Eden, and I had insisted it should stop at the Eastern Neisse. All three heads of Governments had publicly bound themselves at Yalta to consult the Polish Government, and to leave it to the Peace Conference for final settlement. This was the best we had been able to do. But in July 1945 we faced a new situation. Russia had advanced her frontier to the Curzon Line. This meant, as Roosevelt and I had realised, that the three or four million Poles who lived on the wrong side of the line would have to be moved to the west. Now we were confronted with something much worse. The Soviet-dominated Government of Poland had also pressed forward, not to the Eastern Neisse, but to the Western. Much of this territory was inhabited by Germans, and although several millions had fled many had stayed behind. What was to be done with them? Moving three or four million Poles was bad enough. Were we to move more than eight million Germans as well? Even if such a transfer could be contemplated, there was not enough food for them in what was left of Germany. Much of Germany’s grain came from the very land which the Poles had seized, and if this was denied us the Western Allies would be left with wrecked industrial zones and a starved and swollen population. For the future peace of Europe here was a wrong beside which Alsace-Lorraine and the Danzig Corridor were trifles. One day the Germans would want their territory back, and the Poles would not be able to stop them.

  31—s.w.w.

  It remains for me only to mention some of the social and personal contacts which relieved our sombre debates. Each of the three great delegations entertained the other two. First was the United States. When it came to my turn I proposed the toast of “The Leader of the Opposition”, adding, “whoever he may be”. Mr. Attlee, whom I had invited to the Conference in accordance with my conviction that every head of Government in periods of crisis should have a deputy who knows everything and can thus preserve continuity should accidents occur, was much amused by this. So indeed were the company. The Soviets’ dinner was equally agreeable, and a very fine concert, at which leading Russian artistes performed, carried the proceedings so late that I slipped away.

  It fell to me to give the final banquet on the night of the 23rd. I planned this on a larger scale, inviting the chief commanders as well as the delegates. I placed the President on my right and Stalin on my left. There were many speeches, and Stalin, without even ensuring that all the waiters and orderlies had left the room, proposed that our next meeting should be in Tokyo. There was no doubt that the Russian declaration of war upon Japan would come at any moment, and already their large armies were massed upon the frontier ready to overrun the much weaker Japanese front line in Manchuria. To lighten the proceedings we changed places from time to time, and the President sat opposite me. I had another very friendly talk with Stalin, who was in the best of tempers and seemed to have no inkling of the momentous information about the new bomb the President had given me. He spoke with enthusiasm about the Russian intervention against Japan, and seemed to expect a good many months of war, which Russia would wage on an ever-increasing scale, governed only by the Trans-Siberian Railway.

  Then a very odd thing happened. My formidable guest got up from his seat with the bill-of-fare card in his hand and went round the table collecting the signatures of many of those who were present. I never thought to see him as an autograph-hunter! When he came back to me I wrote my name as he desired, and we both looked at each other and laughed. Stalin’s eyes twinkled with mirth and good humour. I have mentioned before how the toasts at these banquets were always drunk by the Soviet representatives out of tiny glasses, and Sta
lin had never varied from this practice. But now I thought I would take him on a step. So I filled a small-sized claret glass with brandy for him and another for myself. I looked at him significantly. We both drained our glasses at a stroke and gazed approvingly at one another. After a pause Stalin said, “If you find it impossible to give us a fortified position in the Marmora, could we not have a base at Dedeagatch?” I contented myself with saying, “I will always support Russia in her claim to the freedom of the seas all the year round.”

  Next day, July 24, after our plenary meeting had ended and we all got up from the round table and stood about in twos and threes before dispersing, I saw the President go up to Stalin, and the two conversed alone with only their interpreters. I was perhaps five yards away, and I watched with the closest attention the momentous talk. I knew what the President was going to do. What was vital to measure was its effect on Stalin. I can see it all as if it were yesterday. He seemed to be delighted. A new bomb! Of extraordinary power! Probably decisive on the whole Japanese war! What a bit of luck! This was my impression at the moment, and I was sure he had no idea of the significance of what he was being told. Evidently in his intense toils and stresses the atomic bomb had played no part. If he had had the slightest idea of the revolution in world affairs which was in progress his reactions would have been obvious. Nothing would have been easier than for him to say, “Thank you so much for telling me about your new bomb. I of course have no technical knowledge. May I send my expert in these nuclear sciences to see your expert to-morrow morning?” But his face remained gay and genial and the talk between these two potentates soon came to an end. As we were waiting for our cars I found myself near Truman. “How did it go?” I asked. “He never asked a question,” he replied.

  On the morning of the 25th the Conference met again. This was the last meeting I attended. I urged once more that Poland’s western frontier could not be settled without taking into account the million and a quarter Germans who were still in the area, and the President emphasised that any Peace Treaty could only be ratified with the advice and consent of the Senate. We must, he said, find a solution which he could honestly recommend to the American people. I said that if the Poles were allowed to assume the position of a fifth occupying Power without arrangements being made for spreading the food produced in Germany equally over the whole German population, and without our agreeing about reparations or war booty, the Conference would have failed. This network of problems lay at the very heart of our work, and so far we had come to no agreement. The wrangle went on. Stalin said that getting coal and metal from the Ruhr was more important than food. I said they would have to be bartered against supplies from the East. How else could the miners win coal? “They have imported food from abroad before, and can do so again,” was the answer. And how could they pay reparations? “There is still a good deal of fat left in Germany,” was the grim reply. I refused to accept starvation in the Ruhr because the Poles held all the grain-lands in the east. Britain herself was short of coal. “Then use German prisoners in the mines; that is what I am doing,” said Stalin. “There are forty thousand German troops still in Norway, and you can get them from there.” “We are exporting our own coal,” I said, “to France, Holland and Belgium. Why should the Poles sell coal to Sweden while Britain is denying herself for the liberated countries?” “But that is Russian coal,” Stalin answered. “Our position is even more difficult than yours. We lost over five million men in the war, and we are desperately short of labour.” I put my point once again. “We will send coal from the Ruhr to Poland or anywhere else providing we get in exchange food for the miners who produce it.”

  OCCUPATION ZONES IN GERMANY AND AUSTRIA, AS FINALLY APOPTED, JULY 1945

  This seemed to make Stalin pause. He said the whole problem needed consideration. I agreed, and said I only wanted to point out the difficulties in front of us. Here, so far as I am concerned, was the end of the matter.

  I take no responsibility beyond what is here set forth for any of the conclusions reached at Potsdam. During the course of the Conference I allowed differences that could not be adjusted either round the table or by the Foreign Ministers at their daily meetings to stand over. A formidable body of questions on which there was disagreement was in consequence piled upon the shelves. I intended, if I were returned by the electorate, as was generally expected, to come to grips with the Soviet Government on this catalogue of decisions. For instance, neither I nor Mr. Eden would ever have agreed to the Western Neisse being the frontier line. The line of the Oder and the Eastern Neisse had already been recognised as the Polish compensation for retiring to the Curzon Line, but the overrunning by the Russian armies of the territory up to and even beyond the Western Neisse was never and would never have been agreed to by any Government of which I was the head. Here was no point of principle only but rather an enormous matter of fact affecting about three additional millions of displaced people.

  There were many other matters on which it was right to confront the Soviet Government, and also the Poles, who, gulping down immense chunks of German territory, had obviously become their ardent puppets. All this negotiation was cut in twain and brought to an untimely conclusion by the result of the General Election. To say this is not to blame the Ministers of the Socialist Government, who were forced to go over without any serious preparation, and who naturally were unacquainted with the ideas and plans I had in view, namely, to have a show-down at the end of the Conference, and, if necessary, to have a public break rather than allow anything beyond the Oder and the Eastern Neisse to be ceded to Poland.

  THE FRONTIERS OF CENTRAL EUROPE

  However, the real time to deal with these issues was, as has been explained in earlier chapters, when the fronts of the mighty Allies faced each other in the field, and before the Americans, and to a lesser extent the British, made their vast retirement on a four-hundred-mile front to a depth in some places of 120 miles, thus giving the heart and a great mass of Germany over to the Russians. At that time I desired to have the matter settled before we had made this tremendous retirement and while the Allied armies were still in being. The American view was that we were committed to a definite line of occupation, and I held strongly that this line of occupation could only be taken up when we were satisfied that the whole front, from north to south, was being settled in accordance with the desires and spirit in which our engagements had been made. However, it was impossible to gather American support for this, and the Russians, pushing the Poles in front of them, wended on, driving the Germans before them and depopulating large areas of Germany, whose food supplies they had seized, while chasing a multitude of mouths into the overcrowded British and American zones. Even at Potsdam the matter might perhaps have been recovered, but the destruction of the British National Government and my removal from the scene at the time when I still had much influence and power rendered it impossible for satisfactory solutions to be reached.

  I flew home with my daughter Mary on the afternoon of July 25. My wife met me at Northolt, and we all dined quietly together.

  Excellent arrangements had been made by Captain Pim and the staff of the Map Room to present a continuous tale of election results as they came in next day. The latest view of the Conservative Central Office was that we should retain a substantial majority. I had not burdened myself unduly with the subject while occupied with the grave business of the Conference. On the whole I accepted the view of the party managers, and went to bed in the belief that the British people would wish me to continue my work. My hope was that it would be possible to reconstitute the National Coalition Government in the proportions of the new House of Commons. Thus slumber. However, just before dawn I woke suddenly with a sharp stab of almost physical pain. A hitherto subconscious conviction that we were beaten broke forth and dominated my mind. All the pressure of great events, on and against which I had mentally so long maintained my “flying speed”, would cease and I should fall. The power to shape the future would be denied me. The knowl
edge and experience I had gathered, the authority and goodwill I had gained in so many countries, would vanish. I was discontented at the prospect, and turned over at once to sleep again. I did not wake till nine o’clock, and when I went into the Map Room the first results had begun to come in. They were, as I now expected, unfavourable. By noon it was clear that the Socialists would have a majority. At luncheon my wife said to me, “It may well be a blessing in disguise.” I replied, “At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.”

  In ordinary circumstances I should have felt free to take a few days to wind up the affairs of the Government in the usual manner. Constitutionally I could have awaited the meeting of Parliament in a few days’ time, and taken my dismissal from the House of Commons. This would have enabled me to present before resignation the unconditional surrender of Japan to the nation. The need for Britain being immediately represented with proper authority at the Conference, where all the great issues we had discussed were now to come to a head, made all delay contrary to the public interest. Moreover, the verdict of the electors had been so overwhelmingly expressed that I did not wish to remain even for an hour responsible for their affairs. At seven o’clock therefore, having asked for an audience, I drove to the Palace, tendered my resignation to the King, and advised His Majesty to send for Mr. Attlee.