Threshold of War

by Heinrichs, Waldo;

  Yet Russia was not like the other campaigns. The vastness, the unending stretches of flat plain, became awesome and disturbing. Curzio Malaparte captures the oppressive sense of space creeping into the exhilaration of rapid conquest in his description of a German column bedding down at night:

  Then the wind rises—a moist cold wind that fills one’s bones with an immense numbing weariness. The wind that sweeps this Ukrainian plateau is laden with the scent of a thousand herbs and plants. From the darkness of the fields comes a ceaseless crackle as the moisture of the night causes the sunflowers to droop on their long, wrinkled stalks. All about us the corn makes a soft rustling sound, like the rustle of a silk gown. A great murmur rises through the dark countryside which is filled with the sound of slow breathing, of deep sighs.19

  In spite of the stunning success of the Panzer columns, results of the first month’s fighting fell far short of German expectations. Most significant were the instances of tenacious Russian resistance, even counterattacks. Pockets of surrounded Red Army troops held out; guerrilla warfare began along the lengthening German supply lines. No less, German intelligence had underestimated the quality of Russian arms and the amount of war industry within reach of the initial German thrusts. Critical were German supply deficiencies. The fast forces carried adequate supplies only for their first deep penetrations into the Soviet Union. After some 300 miles the tanks had to pause for resupply and for the infantry to catch up. Lacking sufficient motor transport of its own, the German army scrounged among stocks of defeated countries, gathering over 2,000 different kinds of vehicles requiring over a million spare parts for Army Group Center alone. The different track widths of Russian and European railroads, the muddled German army system of supply control, the lack of hard-surface roads in Russia, the weather, and lack of motor oil began to slow the advance. Within the month half of Army Group South’s trucks were out of action.20

  A further problem was the lack of any clear-cut strategic consensus, leading to growing differences among the generals and between them and Hitler as to which of the three army groups and which of the objectives—capture of the great cities or destruction of the Red Army—should be given priority. As the front widened, leaving flanks hanging in the air, the distance between tank columns and foot soldiers lengthened. The Dvina-Smolensk-Dneiper line was attained, but fighting continued west of it and the high season of campaigning slipped by.

  This vast distant drama of space and time captured American attention. After banner headlines June 23 and 24, the New York Herald Tribune maintained average daily headlines four columns wide during July. Since both sides denied foreign newsmen access to the front and manipulated the facts of fighting in a “war of communiqués,” only the sketchiest of pictures of the tide of battle emerged, with gross exaggerations of enemy casualties and prisoners taken. Yet with all the distortion and dimness, the titanic proportions of the struggle were apparent.

  The first feeling was one of relief and not a little glee. Ambassador Grew expressed a common belief when he said the new war was “the best thing that could have happened. Dog eat dog. Let the Nazis and the Communists so weaken each other that the democracies will soon gain the upper hand or at least will be released from their dire peril.” Stimson reported to the president the view of the War Department that Germany would have to postpone invasion of Britain and slack off on plans and campaigns elsewhere. It could not interfere with the forthcoming American occupation of Iceland. The door was now open, he advised, for the president to lead the way into winning the Battle of the Atlantic. Harry Hopkins was reported to have said that the war would further scatter German forces and complicate the German position. Vichy officials conveyed a more sanguine view. They had thought Germany could get what it wanted without war. Failure to do so was an indication of weakness, that Germany feared American participation, even that it had lost the war. Now was America’s chance to act, said one French official.21

  President Roosevelt was among the optimists. It is impossible to say whether or not he shared the general view that Hitler would make demands and Stalin would submit, but once the invasion began he took a consistently positive view of developments. “Now comes this Russian diversion,” he wrote Leahy on June 26. “If it is more than just that it will mean the liberation of Europe from Nazi domination…” At the same time, inclined to view Soviet policy as more pragmatic than ideological, he did not think the democracies needed to worry about Russian domination of Europe. He could see no “intellectually satisfying” explanation for Hitler’s attack, he told Lord Halifax on July 7. If the main purpose was to gain world sympathy by war on Communist Russia, then Hitler’s sense of public psychology was wrong and he had made “his first big political miscalculation,” while the free world had gained precious time.22

  Just how much time was anyone’s guess. The Berlin embassy reported German predictions that Russian resistance would be crushed by August 1. British intelligence anticipated that the Germans would reach the Moscow-Rostov line in three weeks. A British informant of the embassy in Moscow estimated on June 30 that they would reach Moscow in five days. Ambassador Steinhardt believed Moscow would fall in much less than sixty days; Sir Stafford Cripps, the British ambassador, saw not less than sixty. The War Department predicted from one to three months. Military intelligence measured German progress by comparing daily advances with those in France in 1940, Stimson objecting that the conditions were different.23 Estimates fluctuated even day to day, but a trend emerged. In the first week the universal view was dark. The main question, said General Marshall, was whether the Russians would manage to withdraw and avoid encirclement. The Germans had struck early enough so that the crops were too green to burn. Ultimately, he said, the area between Moscow and the Black Sea was the key to Russia. To the chief of staff, the Russians, lacking high officers of quality, were showing no signs of skillful maneuver. In the first days of July, Stimson was more discouraged than ever by the progress of the “German Moloch.”24

  The American embassy in Moscow, affected by tremors of fear at the capital and making plans for evacuation, was consistently gloomy. German progress seemed less than expected July 2, but more because of German caution than Soviet resistance. On July 3 it reported the German offensive “completely successful” and a week later nuanced that estimate slightly on the negative side: German losses were indeed severe and Russian resistance “considerably greater” than the Germans expected, but even so there was no evidence “that the German offensive has encountered any serious setbacks.” Meanwhile, as women and children began to leave Moscow, the embassy reported fears of a huge German envelopment of the city. On July 17, German fast forces were understood to be within 75 miles of Moscow. On July 19, Soviet troops and supplies were said to be moving east of Moscow. On July 22 the city was bombed for the first time. Steinhardt’s view of Russian resistance was more negative than that of his Japanese colleague, who spoke of serious German difficulties.25

  Outside Russia as the mists lifted slightly in July, the idea of a short war began to fade. On June 30 the American embassy in Berlin noted that the Germans were facing “stubborn and even desperate opposition and enormous tactical difficulties.” Even German propaganda spoke of fanatical Soviet resistance. The American legation in Switzerland gave high and indeed exaggerated figures for German losses (one million casualties in the first three weeks, for example). Its sources reported that the German General Staff had grossly underestimated Soviet fighting capacity and leadership, and that the invasion was running behind schedule. Vichy officials believed that Hitler had made a “serious psychological error” in expecting the Russian people to rise.26 London was encouraged: the Germans would have to postpone an invasion of the island, even though only temporarily. At the Foreign Office a German defeat by Russia even entered the realm of the conceivable. The battle in Russia, wrote one prognosticator, might well be an epic of war, dimming Britain’s lonely struggle and reviving the Russian “mystique.”27 That sort of thinking w
ould have seemed madly optimistic to American officials, but if A. A. Berle is at all representative, they began to doubt a German invasion of Britain and to accept that German casualties were greater than anticipated and progress less. But, Berle added, “no living being can tell what will wash out of this.”28 The one big change in American perceptions of the conflict at the end of the first month was the realization that Germany faced a costly and difficult struggle.

  Summing up one month of the war, the New York Times pointed out that Hitler had unleashed “the eternal war” between Teuton and Slav. The Germans recklessly engaged themselves with their “natural enemy” in battle of “unprecedented ferocity.” Six hundred miles into Russia the invaders were only on the margins, and the supposedly “annihilated” Red Army kept reforming itself. “Nazi tanks go where the Golden Horde once ruled but the dust and mud may swallow them up too.”29

  Now that war had come, Soviet-American relations looked entirely different from the way they had looked before June 22 when the question was appeasement or war. Now the posture of cool reserve urged by the European Division seemed quite mistaken, at least to the White House. Churchill, knowing that every day of Soviet resistance postponed a German invasion just that much, made an immediate offer of cooperation and assistance. The American statement of policy, made by Acting Secretary Welles at a press conference June 23, was by no means comradely. It dwelt on German treachery (and the implicit folly of relying on non-aggression pacts with Hitler) and on American revulsion for Soviet denial of freedom of worship. Soviet Communist dictatorship was just as alien to the American people as Nazi dictatorship. But the issue at the moment facing a “realistic America,” the statement continued, was the defeat of Hitler’s plan of world conquest and “any defense against Hitlerism, any rallying of the forces opposing Hitlerism, from whatever source these forces may spring” enhanced American security.30 This was not an offer of aid to the Soviet Union, but it sought to prepare the way by urging Americans to set aside their profound aversion to that nation and consider their national interest. Despite the icy tone it went substantially beyond the posture American diplomats recommended before the German attack.

  In subsequent weeks Roosevelt took a number of steps to implement the offer. He exempted the Soviet Union from the order freezing assets. He ruled against invoking the neutrality act and inclusion of Soviet ports in combat areas. A number of minor problems were resolved and one difficult one was buried: the Soviet embassy was firmly told not to raise the issue of the American sequestering of Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian ships. The State Department set up machinery for expediting Soviet orders and investigated means of payment.31 On July 10 the president, who always seemed one step ahead of informed opinion on the possibility of prolonged and prolonging Soviet resistance, saw Soviet Ambassador Oumansky for the first time in 1941. Just in was an encouraging report from London on the Russian fighting. He promised to fill the most urgently needed Soviet requests, provided the British approved and they could be shipped to reach the front before October 1 and the onset of winter. The more machines the Germans used up in Russia, he added, the more certain and rapid the German defeat, since German production was not as great as supposed.32 Clearly the president was moving to aid the Russians, indeed accelerating and setting the pace in the administration. Even so, he was covering his bets: what could be sent immediately was not necessarily what the Russians were asking for (machine tools, gasoline refineries, explosives plants), and he had not given Soviet requirements priority over all other demands.

  Very little entered the supply pipeline to Russia that first month — only $6.5 million worth of goods—as a result of the president’s overtures. In fact the United States and the Soviet Union were just coming face to face with the problems of supply: the remoteness of the Soviet Union, the lack of transport and communication, American public opposition to including the Soviet Union in Lend-Lease, disinclination to reveal production and weapons secrets to the Soviets, refusal of the Soviets to help in establishing priorities by explaining the use intended for the goods, and lack of specificity in Soviet orders. One fundamental problem underlay all difficulties: allocation of the limited output immediately available among Great Britain, the Soviet Union, the American armed forces, and other friendly nations. The president required a system for doing so, beyond that a review of strategic priorities in the light of the new situation, and beyond that an estimate of how much American war production would be required to defeat the nation’s enemies. July 9 he ordered the War Department to begin this study of arms requirements, working from the battlefield back to the factory, the results of which were known as the Victory Program.33 Not so much the German attack as Russian resistance opened entirely new vistas of war and policy for the United States.

  The American perspective on the future of Europe was changing. A central question of July was how to deal with the emerging alliance between Great Britain and the Soviet Union. In spite of its predicament, Moscow lost no time in asserting its interest in a boundary with Poland not far removed from that of the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939. Various reports and remarks roused suspicions at the State Department that Britain would accede to such demands as an inducement for Russia to continue the war. In conversation with Welles, for example, Lord Halifax had encouraged the idea of accepting Russian domain over the Baltic republics, to the disgust of Berle, who saw this as the old Foreign Office practice of engaging in “polite dishonor” when it served British interests. In the same vein, an Associated Press dispatch carried a statement by the head of the Yugoslav government-in-exile that Britain and the United States had guaranteed not to dismember Yugoslavia at the end of the war and that Britain had promised Trieste to Yugoslavia. A declaration by Eden promising independence to recently captured Syria, formerly a French mandate of the League of Nations, suggested British unilateral commitments in the Middle East as well. Further cause of American concern was evidence that Britain was taking the lead in organizing the governments-in-exile of occupied Europe for gathering, sharing, transporting, and distributing food and raw materials when they were liberated. Granting humanitarian intent, Berle also saw a British effort “to channelize the trade and economics of this area through London when the war is over” and to exclude the United States.34

  Negotiations were indeed under way between Moscow and London. Stalin was insisting on a formal understanding between the two nations for mutual assistance and no separate peace. He was not asking the British for territorial commitments, and the British, though anxious to close, were keeping Washington fully informed. The British were also mediating for an agreement between the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet Union. Here the main issue was territorial. The Poles wanted Soviet recognition of Poland’s prewar boundary defined by the Treaty of Riga of 1921 when Polish forces supplied from the West had driven the Bolsheviks far to the east of the boundary considered ethnographically Polish by the Paris Peace Conference. The Soviet Union was prepared to renounce the Nazi-Soviet Pact of course and revert to an ethnographic frontier, but in fact the two boundaries were much closer to each other than to the Riga line. The Poles in fear sought American intervention to secure the larger interwar Poland. Stalin also wanted to set up national committees of Poles, Czechs, and Yugoslavs in the Soviet Union, giving rise to concern that these might become Soviet-sponsored shadow governments competing with the exile regimes in London.35

  On July 14 the president, warned by Berle, cabled Churchill that it was much too early to make territorial or economic commitments. He referred to rumors of “trades or deals” which the British were alleged to be making, citing as examples the “stupid” stories about Yugoslavia and reminding Churchill of the “serious trouble” such promises to Italians and others caused in 1919. He dwelt on the virtues of plebiscite and wondered whether, Croat and Serb hating each other so, it might not be applied in Yugoslavia. Behind the banter this was a sharp and disagreeable message. No wonder Churchill did not answer it personally. Implicitly it
raised a question about every European frontier and political understanding. It was in effect the “general caveat” Berle had called for, a Roosevelt restatement of the non-recognition policy.36

  So a sudden storm arose in British-American relations. American policymakers were immediately reminded of the secret treaties which so bedeviled Wilson’s diplomacy in World War I. At the Foreign Office, British officials drew on the same historical analogy but with the opposite fear, that Roosevelt, like Wilson, saw himself as world peacemaker.37 The price of an independent policy was exclusion from the councils of those engaged together, with all the suspicion thereby engendered. This was particularly the case for the United States now that two great powers, Britain and Russia, were collaborating.

  The problem posed by the new rhythms of European diplomacy was not confined to bureaucratic definitions of national interest. Roosevelt feared that, in setting precedents for postwar settlements, Britain might undermine the political foundations upon which the anti-Axis forces could most effectively wage war and which he required to lead the American people into war if necessary. Not that he or the American public had a clear idea of the sort of peace they wanted. Certain Wilsonian principles were basic: self-determination, non-use of force in international disputes, non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, freedom of trade, and so forth. How these principles might apply to specific situations neither the president nor the State Department was ready to say. Recognizing that European frontier definitions tended to divide Americans, the president was exceedingly reluctant to make commitments at this stage and was greatly disturbed over the possibility of being presented with faits accomplis. Any agreement diminishing the national estate of an occupied country would equally diminish its will to engage in resistance against the Nazi conqueror. The president’s object was to keep public expectations high by keeping political issues open.