I issued to the nation the following message, with which this account may close:
26 July 45
The decision of the British people has been recorded in the votes counted to-day. I have therefore laid down the charge which was placed upon me in darker times. I regret that I have not been permitted to finish the work against Japan. For this however all plans and preparations have been made, and the results may come much quicker than we have hitherto been entitled to expect. Immense responsibilities abroad and at home fall upon the new Government, and we must all hope that they will be successful in bearing them.
It only remains for me to express to the British people, for whom I have acted in these perilous years, my profound gratitude for the unflinching, unswerving support which they have given me during my task, and for the many expressions of kindness which they have shown towards their servant.
FINIS
EPILOGUE
July 1945–February 1957
EPILOGUE
THE long task I set myself in writing the six volumes of the Second World War will now appear in an abridged form for the use of those who wish to know what happened without being cumbered with too much detail, especially military detail.
This gives me an opportunity to look back and express my views on some of the major events of the last twelve years.
When I left Potsdam on the 25th of July, 1945, I certainly expected that the election figures would leave me a reasonable majority, and it was startling to be confronted with the facts. Entirely absorbed as I had been in the prosecution of the war and the situation at its victorious close, I did not understand what had taken place in the British Isles. Otherwise, I thought and still think I could have arranged things differently. Above all, the opinion in the mass of the Army, after so many signs of good will, was a great surprise to me. The election results and figures were an even greater surprise to Europe and America, and indeed to the U.S.S.R. They naturally thought that the steadfastness of the British peoples, having survived the grim ordeals of 1940 and having come triumphantly through the five years’ struggle, would remain unshaken, and that there would be no change of Government.
During the course of the Conference at Potsdam I had not so far sought to come to grips with Russia. Since Yalta she had behaved in an astonishing fashion. I had earnestly hoped that the Americans would not withdraw from the wide territories in Central Europe they had conquered before we met. This was the one card that the Allies held when the fighting stopped by which to arrange a level settlement. Britain sought nothing for herself, but I was sure she would view the vast advance which Russia was making in all directions as far exceeding what was fair. The Americans seemed quite unconscious of the situation, and the satellite states, as they came to be called, were occupied by Russian troops. Berlin was already in their hands, though Montgomery could have taken it had he been permitted. Vienna was Russian-held, and representatives of the Allies, even as individuals, were denied access to this key capital. As for the Balkans, Bulgaria and Roumania had already been conquered. Yugoslavia quivered under Tito, her famous patriotic leader. The Russians had occupied Prague with, as it seemed, the approval of the Americans. They held Poland, whose western boundary, it was agreed, should be moved into the heart of Europe at the expense of Germany. All these steps had in fact been taken by the Russians while their armies were still advancing. Yet the American view seemed to be that all this was a necessary part of the process of holding down Germany, and that the great national object of the United States was not to get drawn into siding too closely with Britain against Russia.
When the winter came along I went to the United States and remained in that country for several months. I visited the White House and the State Department. I there received an invitation to address the Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946. Mr. Truman had said he would himself preside. This was several months ahead, and I kept myself as fully informed as was possible. I made inquiries both at the White House and at the State Department in order to learn whether certain topics would cause embarrassment, and having been assured that I could say what I liked I devoted myself to the careful preparation of a speech. Meanwhile the dire situation with which the insatiable appetites of Russia and of international Communism were confronting us was at last beginning to make a strong impression in American circles. I showed the notes I had prepared to Mr. Byrnes, then Secretary of State, and found that he was very much in agreement with me. The President invited me to travel with him in his train the long night’s journey to Fulton. We had an enjoyable game of poker. That was the only topic which I remember. However, as I was quite sure that his Secretary of State had imparted my general line to the President, and he seemed quite happy about it, I decided to go ahead. One always has to be very careful about speeches which you make in other people’s countries. This is from what I said:
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organisation intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytising tendencies. I have a strong admiration and regard for the valiant Russian people and for my war-time comrade, Marshal Stalin. There is deep sympathy and good will in Britain—and I doubt not here also—towards the peoples of all the Russias, and a resolve to persevere through many differences and rebuffs in establishing lasting friendships. We understand the Russian need to be secure on her western frontiers by the removal of all possibility of German aggression. We welcome Russia to her rightful place among the leading nations of the world. We welcome her flag upon the seas. Above all, we welcome constant, frequent and growing contacts between the Russian people and our own people on both sides of the Atlantic. It is my duty, however, for I am sure you would wish me to state the facts as I see them to you, to place before you certain facts about the present position in Europe.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow. Athens alone—Greece with its immortal glories—is free to decide its future at an election under British, American and French observation. The Russiandominated Polish Government has been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed-of are now taking place. The Communist parties, which were very small in all these Eastern States of Europe, have been raised to pre-eminence and power far beyond their numbers and are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control. Police governments are prevailing in nearly every case, and so far, except in Czechoslovakia, there is no true democracy.
Turkey and Persia are both profoundly alarmed and disturbed at the claims which are being made upon them and at the pressure being exerted by the Moscow Government. An attempt is being made by the Russians in Berlin to build up a quasi-Communist party in their zone of Occupied Germany by showing special favours to groups of left-wing German leaders. At the end of the fighting last June, the American and British armies withdrew westwards, in accordance with an earlier Agreement, to a depth at some points of one hundred and fifty miles upon a front of nearly four hundred miles, in order to allow our Russian allies to occupy this vast expanse of territory which the Western Democracies had conquered.
If now the Soviet Government tries, by separate action, to build up a pro-Communist Germany in their areas, this will cause new serious difficulties in the British and American zones, and will give the defeated Germans the power of putting themselves up to auction between the Soviets and the Western Democracies. Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts—and
facts they are—this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.
The audience listened with great attention, and the President and Mr. Byrnes both expressed their approval. The newspapers, however, were very varied in their comments. When the news reached Russia, it was ill received, and both Stalin and the Pravda responded as might be expected. The Pravda denounced me as “an anti-Soviet warmonger,” and said I was trying to destroy the United Nations. Stalin in a newspaper interview accused me of calling for war against the Soviet Union and compared me with Hitler. Questions were also asked in the House of Commons, to which Mr. Attlee, now Prime Minister, replied that the Government was not called upon to express any opinion on a speech delivered in another country by a private individual.
I had another speech to deliver a few days later in New York, where I was the guest of the Mayor and civic authorities. All round the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, at the dinner where it was delivered, were marching pickets of Communists, and I was somewhat surprised to learn that Mr. Dean Acheson, the Under-Secretary of State, was not coming. When Mr. John Winant heard of this change of plan in Washington in the afternoon, he caught a train to New York and arrived in the middle of dinner to support me, and made a most friendly speech. I expressed myself as follows:
When I spoke at Fulton ten days ago I felt it was necessary for someone in an unofficial position to speak in arresting terms about the present plight of the world. I do not wish to withdraw or modify a single word. I was invited to give my counsel freely in this free country and I am sure that the hope which I expressed for the increasing association of our two countries will come to pass, not because of any speech which may be made, but because of the tides that flow in human affairs and in the course of the unfolding destiny of the world. The only question which in my opinion is open is whether the necessary harmony of thought and action between the American and British peoples will be reached in a sufficiently plain and clear manner and in good time to prevent a new world struggle or whether it will come about, as it has done before, only in the course of that struggle.…
… Let me declare, however, that the progress and freedom of all the peoples of the world, under a reign of law enforced by a world organisation, will not come to pass, nor will the age of plenty begin, without the persistent, faithful, and above all fearless exertions of the British and American systems of society.
The agitation in the newspapers and the general interest, and even excitement, continued to grow.
I spent the early autumn of 1946 painting in a lovely villa by the Lake of Geneva with Mont Blanc over the water in the background. When it became time to go I paid a very pleasant visit to Zurich University, and made them a speech about the tragedy of Europe and the plight to which she had been reduced, and I urged the foundation of a kind of United States of Europe, or as much of it as could be done.
I was very glad to read in the newspapers two days ago that my friend President Truman had expressed his interest and sympathy with this great design. There is no reason why a regional organisation should in any way conflict with the world organisation of the United Nations. On the contrary, I believe that the larger synthesis will only survive if it is founded upon coherent natural groupings. There is already a natural grouping in the Western Hemisphere. We British have our own Commonwealth of Nations. These do not weaken, on the contrary they strengthen, the world organisation. They are in fact its main support. And why should there not be a European group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this turbulent and mighty continent and why should it not take its rightful place with other great groupings in shaping the destinies of men? In order that this should be accomplished there must be an act of faith in which millions of families speaking many languages must consciously take part.
We all know that the two world wars through which we have passed arose out of the vain passion of a newly-united Germany to play the dominating part in the world.… Germany must be deprived of the power to rearm and make another aggressive war. But when all this has been done, as it will be done, as it is being done, there must be an end to retribution. There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called “a blessed act of oblivion”. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past. If Europe is to be saved from infinite misery, and indeed from final doom, there must be an act of faith in the European family and an act of oblivion against all the crimes and follies of the past.
… I am now going to say something that will astonish you. The first step in the re-creation of the European family must be a partnership between France and Germany. In this way only can France recover the moral leadership of Europe. There can be no revival os Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany. The structure of the United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important. Small nations will count as much as large ones and gain their honour by their contribution to the common cause. The ancient states and principalities of Germany, freely joined together for mutual convenience in a federal system, might each take their individual place among the United States of Europe. I shall not try to make a detailed programme for hundreds of millions of people who want to be happy and free, prosperous and safe, who wish to enjoy the four freedoms of which the great President Roosevelt spoke, and live in accordance with the principles embodied in the Atlantic Charter. If this is their wish, they have only to say so, and means can certainly be found, and machinery erected, to carry that wish into full fruition.
But I must give you a warning. Time may be short. At present there is a breathing space. The cannon have ceased firing. The fighting has stopped; but the dangers have not stopped. If we are to form the United States of Europe or whatever name or form it may take, we must begin now.
Thus ran my thoughts in 1946. To tortured France, lately occupied and humiliated, the spectacle of close association with her finally vanquished executioner seemed at first unthinkable. By degrees, however, the flow of European fraternity was restored in French veins, and natural Gallic pliant good sense overcame the bitterness of the past.
I have always held, and hold, the valiant Russian people in high regard. But their shadow loomed disastrously over the post-war scene. There was no visible limit to the harm they might do. Intent on victory over the Axis Powers, Britain and America had laid no sufficient plans for the fate and future of occupied Europe. We had gone to war in defence not only of the independence of smaller countries but to proclaim and endorse the individual rights and freedoms on which this greater morality is based. Soviet Russia had other and less disinterested aims. Her grip tightened on the territories her armies had overrun. In all the satellite states behind the Iron Curtain, coalition governments had been set up, including Communists. It was hoped that democracy in some form would be preserved. But in one country after another the Communists seized the key posts, harried and suppressed the other political parties, and drove their leaders into exile. There were trials and purges. Roumania, Hungary, and Bulgaria were soon engulfed. At Yalta and Potsdam I had fought hard for Poland, but it was in vain. In Czechoslovakia a sudden coup was carried out by the Communist Ministers, which sharply alerted world opinion. Freedom was crushed within and free intercourse with the West was forbidden. Thanks largely to Britain, Greece remained precariously independent. With British and later American aid, she fought a long civil war against the insurgent Communists. When all had been said and done, and after the long agonies and efforts of the Second World War, it seemed that half Europe had merely exchanged one despot for another.
Today, these points seem commonplace. The prolonged and not altogether unsuccessful struggle to halt the destroying tide of Russian and Russian-inspired incursion has
become part of our daily lives. Indeed, as always with a good cause, it has sometimes been necessary to temper enthusiasm and to disregard opportunism. But it was not easy at the time to turn from the contemplation of a great and exhausting victory over one tyranny to the prospect of a tedious and expensive campaign against another.
The United Nations Organisation was still very young, but already it was clear that its defects might prove grave enough to vitiate the purposes for which it was created. At any rate it could not provide quickly and effectively the union and the armed forces which Free Europe and the United States needed for self-preservation. At Fulton I had suggested that the United Nations Organisation should forthwith be equipped with an international armed force. But both for the immediate future and the long term I had urged the continuation of the special Anglo-American relationship which has been one of the main themes of my political life.
Neither the sure prevention of war nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.… It should carry with it a continuance of the present facilities for mutual security by the joint use of all Naval and Air Force bases in the possession of either country all over the world.… The United States has already a permanent Defence Agreement with the Dominion of Canada.… this principle should be extended to all British Commonwealths with full reciprocity.
The next three years were to see the unfolding of a design that approached but has not yet attained this ideal.
The Second World War Page 123
