This section has sought to set the stage for Churchill’s use of Turkish diplomatic messages starting in the autumn of 1941.
DIR/C on Stream: September 1941
Governmental thinking and decision-making grew to rely on regular information from Boniface, for the COS, and diplomatic messages, for the FO, as soon as the likelihood of a German victory had receded – in fact by the spring of 1942. To appreciate the growing importance to government of sigint it is necessary to revert to its source at Bletchley Park (BP), where both Ultra and diplomatic decrypts were handled from 3 September 1939 until February 1942.
BP had grown considerably by September 1941. Two years after its establishment there, with the number of Enigma solutions growing exponentially, with complex new procedures improvised out of necessity, and with the beginnings of an Anglo-American sigint co-operative, the complexity of its activities outstripped the experience of those who administered it. Reflecting the pre-war constitution and priorities of GCCS, these were FO civilians and ex-service officers who had been trained for cryptanalysis and who still coupled their new administrative responsibilities, as the head of GCCS or as the heads of its sections, with the role of cryptanalyst.3
A management crisis, highlighted by a now famous letter asking Churchill for more manpower resources, and delivered to him personally by Stewart Milner-Barry, on behalf of Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman and Hugh Alexander in October 1941, beset Bletchley Park during that autumn,4 by which time Churchill had been receiving a certain amount of signals intelligence. The supply was intermittent and limited in those early days – though Churchill may have expected a flood. Arrangements for reporting and handling the intelligence were distinctly informal and some reports may not have been retained (with no record of disposal). Moreover, in those days of invasion scares, an effort was made to minimise holdings of sensitive documents.5
Research into the provision of diplomatic decrypts to the FO, the MEW and Churchill in June 1942 suggests strongly that they were all receiving many diplomatic decrypts to and from Ankara from the very early days of the war, and before.6 Government ministers, including Churchill, had been reading Turkey-based diplomatic intercepts since 1922.7 Further, one should not overlook the ‘because it is there’ factor in assessing the importance of Turkish diplomatic messages to Churchill. A list of GCCS’s diplomatic interception facilities dated 6 June 1942 is remarkable not only for its comprehensive coverage of diplomatic material but also for the indication that the material from Turkey was ‘full cover’, i.e. complete, and to be provided (alone of sending stations except France and Colonies to French Colonies8) not by wireless interception but, as has been shown, by clandestine scrutiny by Cable & Wireless Co Ltd.
All other targeted countries sent their messages by W/T, which were intercepted by some ten stations in Britain and abroad. These would be morse, enciphered, perhaps doubly enciphered, and in need not only of decrypting but of translating before assessment was possible. This in turn meant that recipients of BJs had unrestricted access to messages from Ankara. From there the ambassadors of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and Britain, as well as many Balkan and South American states and Iberia reported to their foreign ministries on Turkish reactions to ‘Barbarossa’, Pearl Harbor, Mussolini’s misfortunes, Hitler’s talks with Antonescu of Romania and the North African campaign.
However, many of the most valuable messages came to Ankara from neutral capitals where Turkish ambassadors were stationed. The list in Appendix 2 shows that Ankara-bound traffic from France and Germany was intercepted at Denmark Hill, from Persia and Italy at Sandridge, and from Switzerland at Brora, in north-east Scotland, and St Albans. This leaves unclear who intercepted Ankara-bound traffic from other leading suppliers of significant and reliable messages – neutral ambassadors in Tokyo, the Balkan capitals and Kuibyshev.9 There is plenty of such material in DIR, but how and whence it arrived, usually in very good order with few ‘garbled’ or ‘corrupt’ groups, from these other originating centres is unclear. The point to stress is that the very quality and quantity of the Ankara-sourced material might have induced regular readers in the Southern Department, and Churchill, to take a particular interest in Turkish foreign policy – on a ‘because it is there’ basis.
Researching the history of Bletchley Park in those months, the reasons for the lack of DIR become clear. By September 1941 ‘Barbarossa’ had come and gone. The FO had failed to predict Hitler’s onslaught on the Soviet Union, despite the information the BJs carried. On the contrary, both the FO and the COS thought Hitler would mount a Balkan offensive through Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey to cut off Allied oil supplies, isolate Egypt and threaten the route to India and the Dominions. The British persisted in that view long after Enigma and the intercepts showed that Hitler would mount only a defensive campaign in the Balkans, to protect the southern flank of his great drive into the Ukraine, while maintaining his option to invade Britain, despite the bold determination of the German naval chiefs that the Balkan drive of 1940 should be consummated by a major thrust eastwards to join up with the Japanese in the Red Sea.10 Evidence for pre-knowledge of ‘Barbarossa’ is harder to evaluate, and was probably more apparent to the War Office than the FO. It is equally difficult to guess how much the British learnt from signals intelligence about Turkey’s plans to stay neutral in 1941 since few BJs have yet been released. But presuming the FO had access to them in roughly similar quantities and quality as in subsequent war years, Turkey would have continued to preoccupy the Southern Department.
Churchill, however, went further: it was he (as has been shown) who ordered Dill to order Gen James Marshall-Cornwall to leave his operational command, awaiting a German invasion of the British Isles, to persuade the Turks to join the war on the Allied side. And it was he who urged Eden to make his two fruitless visits to talk to the Turks in the spring of 1941.11 The FO, in the person of Sir Alexander Cadogan, told Churchill on 6 April 1941 that Turkey had an obligation under the Balkan Pact to come to the assistance of Yugoslavia if she was attacked by Germany, but if Turkey did not look on this as a casus belli ‘it was not worth trying further’.12 Though the Southern Department and the War Office shared broadly similar attitudes towards Turkey, only Churchill saw that some activity – any activity – was better than nothing.
Across the Atlantic the Americans were furious that Turkey was still supplying chromite to Germany.13 Their reaction was to cut down on Lease-Lend supplies to Turkey. The FO took a different view, because the British wanted to save their dwindling gold reserves by supplying Turkey with American matériel, and knew there was no way of playing the Turkey hand without also providing her with massive amounts of equipment and expertise in the use of the new weaponry. But the technicians supplied to Turkey by Allied firms were reluctant to go in case Turkey was invaded by Germany; and the home-based companies needed their services anyhow. Despite all this, the close Turco-British relationship was everywhere apparent. Turkish air officer cadets learnt to fly from British airfields, alongside Belgian, Polish, French and Dutch cadets. The British ran the Turkish air force and German spies regularly reported to von Papen on British officials organising the extension of Turkish runways.
In Ankara, Ambassador Hugessen was entrusted with the important and delicate task of keeping the Turks sweet. He had a hard act to follow in that his predecessor in the job, the popular and powerful Sir Percy Loraine, had been an intimate friend of Kemal Atatürk. Loraine’s pre-war briefings to the FO on the importance to Britain of Turkey’s friendship had been so influential in determining FO Southern Department policy that another British diplomat had fantasised in print that Atatürk would appoint Loraine as his successor in the presidency instead of his old protégé and companion in arms, Ismet I·nönü.14
However, neither Loraine nor Hugessen nor anyone else at the British Embassy bothered to explore the hinterland of Anatolia to report on the actual socio-economic state of the country whose alliance they sought. Had they done so Churchill mi
ght well have followed Hitler in deciding against further pressure. Conditions remained primitive in the extreme. Though the Turks suspected Hitler of planning to cross their country to get to Egypt, they would keep out of the war unless and until they were actually invaded; and then they would fight the invader to the death. On 27 August Churchill wrote to Lt-Gen Sir Leslie Hollis of his defence staff – for the COS – about the staff conversations with the Turks: ‘A good start has been made in recommending a rapprochement [between Turkey and the Soviets]. We do not mean to push the Turks into the war against their better judgment. Turkey will become a partner in the immense resources of the British empire and the USA.’ But Ismay minuted that the Turks had taken fright.15
Warlike friendships were being offered to Turkey by all sides. On 1 September 1941 Churchill wrote to Roosevelt that the recent Russo-British invasion of Persia served the purpose of encouraging ‘Turkey to stand as a solid block against German passage into Syria and Palestine’. Roosevelt disliked his allies’ activities in Persia intensely, as did the Turks. Britain was going to make Persia a puppet ‘and get all the wealth for nothing’.16 ‘Would a similar fate await Turkey?’17 ‘The genuineness of British friendship can always be measured by the degree to which their interest is involved.’ The Turkish ambassador in London commented, ‘neutrality no longer has any meaning . . . Britain will occupy Persia so we should be on the same side.’
Many Turkey-sourced diplomatic messages were also being read by Hitler from September 1941 onwards.18 Hitler used them to pursue a moderate Turkish policy. As early as 1 March 1941 he had written to I·nönü that the German move in Bulgaria should not alarm Turkey as he had ordered his troops to keep well back from the frontier.19 His table talk showed him well briefed on domestic Balkan affairs.20 He decided early on that Turkey should not be invaded or forced into the war: the country’s benevolent neutrality suited him well, even when his egregious ambassador, Fritz von Papen, told him on 2 September that the Italians were expected to march through Turkey. But the Italians observed Turkish reactions to the Russo-British adventure in Persia: there would be revolts in former Turkish territories on the Persian borders, fomented to justify Russian intervention. Now that England was allied with Russia, the British-Turkish link was weakened, and the Turco-Axis link strengthened. Turkey would offer to mediate between Persia and the Allies.21 On 5 September Churchill told Soviet Ambassador Ivan Maisky that ‘some offensive action might be possible in the spring of 1942’, perhaps in conjunction with Turkey, who ‘would be encouraged to join with us as she saw our strength grow’. ‘No Balkan front,’ Churchill told Stalin, ‘could be opened without the help of Turkey.’22 A week later, Halder, the Wehrmacht Chief of Staff, noted that ‘things in Turkey are going our way’.23 Hitler told his dinner guests: ‘The Danube is the link with Turkey. Gerede has been called to Ankara . . . The fall of Sebastopol has caused great jubilation . . . Gerede may be appointed [Turkish] Foreign Minister. He is not a militant diplomat like Oshima but he is absolutely convinced that Turkey and Germany must go forward hand-in-hand.’24
In Britain the question arose, who should handle Turkey? Combined Forces HQ in the Middle East or the FO? Both urged their cases to Churchill, but he and the FO were at one on this issue at least: it must continue to be handled by the Southern Department, from London. In late September 1941 the War Cabinet wrote to GHQ ME:
Turkey occupies such an important position in our foreign policy that relations with that country must be directed from London . . . If Turkey came into the war the position would be radically different.25
The question recurred constantly, particularly when Churchill and Gen Sir Henry ‘Jumbo’ Maitland Wilson needed troops and equipment for the Dodecanese operation of autumn 1943. But since Turkey never passed from a political to a strategic relationship with the Allies, the Southern Department maintained its hold on Turkey, while in all material respects Churchill himself acted for them.
Following the invasion of Persia, the possibility of a move in Afghanistan presented itself to Churchill, when the influential Italian ambassador in Kabul reported that the government there was prepared ‘to grant anything the British cared to ask’. The PM sidelined this BJ heavily and ordered it sent to the ‘F Secy’ (sic) ‘to be returned to WSC’.26 The PM wrote to Eden:
You have an open door which you should force at the earliest moment . . . Let us get rid of [the ringleaders of the pro-Axis rebellion there] now while all this part of the world is under the impression of our Persian success.27
Eden then wrote to India about ‘secret information from reliable sources . . . the Afghans would grant any demand we might make . . . short of military occupation’. Using the same words of Churchill and the intercept, Eden was making little personal contribution to policy.
This accumulation of Turkish diplomatic messages culminated on 13 September28 when the well-informed Japanese ambassador in Ankara, Sho Kurihara, reported that the Allies ‘were forcing Turkey to join up with them’. British pressure had increased since the Allies went into Persia; but ‘Turkey would resist such pressure as they are afraid of Germany’.29 Pressure from a different point came from British insistence that Turkey should allow British ships through the Dardanelles so the Russian navy ‘can leave the Black Sea’.30 Churchill minuted to the First Sea Lord (Adm Sir Dudley Pound), ‘What is the Admiralty view? Would you like [the Russians] to get out or leave them to keep their command of the Black Sea till the end of their tether? Better have this looked at.’31
This section has linked the Turkish diplomatic messages received by Hitler as well as Churchill to the development of both Axis and Allied policies towards Turkey from September 1941 till September 1942. The next three months were to prove conclusive so far as Churchill’s grasp of the Turkish problem was concerned.
Churchill’s Turkey Hand: October–December 1941
Churchill’s advocacy of his Turkish policy was by now in full spate. On 17 September he wrote to Stalin, the very day British and Soviet troops entered Tehran after the Shah’s abdication: ‘The great prize is Turkey; if Turkey can be gained another powerful army will be available.’32 And two days later, on the 19th, he wrote to the COS on the ‘effect produced upon Turkey by our being able to add two divisions to the forces . . . thus appreciably increasing the chances of influencing the Turkish action’.33 The most immediate prize would be getting Turkey to resist German demands for passage of her troops through Anatolia. He added to Stalin on 21 September: ‘Effective help would come if Turkey could be induced to resist a German demand for the passage of troops, or, better still, if she should enter the war.’ The next day he was addressing the COS: ‘It would be well worth Great Britain and Russia revising their arrangements . . . in order to induce Turkey to come in on our side.’34 His reading of the Ankara material coincided with his wish to make a personal and sensational contribution to the war effort by a personal visit to Turkey.
But Turkey was pressing ahead with an agreement to supply chromite to Germany, in order to raise much needed foreign currency and also to maintain the balance of neutrality. US Secretary of State Cordell Hull was outraged and sent for the Turkish ambassador in Washington for an explanation.35 The demand was deftly passed to Ankara, but in London the Japanese chargé reported to Tokyo that ‘Turkey had given in to Germany’s vigorous demands. It seems that the British are not actually opposing this though it is against their wishes.’36 Dr Carl Clodius, the German trade negotiator, upstaged von Papen and conducted his business directly with the Turkish government.37 The Vichy French ambassador in Ankara (Massigli) learnt ‘. . . d’une bonne source j’ai reçu connaissance des négociations avec le gouvernement turc . . . Les négociations se derouleront dans une atmosphère cordiale.’ Clodius first approached the French, to ask the Turks under l’accord du 8 janvier 1940 to help Germany to get the chromite for steel refining.38 But this astonishing piece of diplomacy foundered since the accord provided chrome only for Britain and France, and Vichy France was now a
lmost hors de combat, not yet part of the Axis but scarcely neutral. Menemencioğlu himself left Istanbul for Ankara to lead the Turkish delegation:
The Germans will buy oil, maize, agricultural produce, tobacco, cotton. They will demand manganese, chrome and antimoine. They will make available 75 million Turkish pounds.39
In Berlin, Hitler realised that one strategic option, which included the invasion of Asiatic Turkey, had been aborted by the Royal Navy. The Japanese chargé in Berlin reported on the modest size of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The Wehrmacht was contemplating crossing from the Romanian and Bulgarian coasts:40
So Turkey’s position would be jeopardised . . . Britain would be compelled to thrust her fleet into the Black Sea and upset Germany’s landing scheme . . . If the German army attacks Turkey the British fleet would force the Straits and enter the Black Sea. As Germany is aware of this, Germany will not at present attack Turkey.41
On the same date Hugessen wrote to his friend Emrys Evans:
My main job is to diagnose how far the Turco-German treaty really represents a falling away from the previous stout-hearted policy. If one found oneself unexpectedly surrounded by Huns (as the Turks did in May) one would at least avoid all foolhardiness . . . they won’t throw all away for our beaux yeux. Clodius and co. have been here for about a fortnight. We put a big spoke in their wheel over chrome. I hear the Hun delegate is sick as mud.42
On 2 October the Greek chargé in Cairo reported to London:
The Turkish government is disquieted as German action appears imminent, whereas Turkey wishes to stay outside the ring and will . . . make many concessions, much more substantial than is generally supposed . . . The highest [Turkish army] officers exclude a [quarrel] with Germany . . . The Foreign Minister [Numan Menemencioğlu] anticipates a German attack . . . to justify non resistance he is putting forward various excuses, such as inadequacy of supplies of war material, and Britain failing to honour the Second Front in the West . . . He hopes that by the Spring Russia will be defeated and that the war will thus be brought to an end by negotiation before Turkey is compelled to take part in it.43
Churchill's Secret War Page 11
