Churchill's Secret War

by Denniston, Robin

  The political group had made good progress too, and both parties reassembled for a huge dinner, ‘tottering off to our sleeping cars’ at 1.00 a.m.30

  Churchill had been working on his ‘Morning Thoughts’ for some days, as we have seen; he finished them in the saloon-car of his train at Adana on 31 January.31 They gave a vision of postwar Europe, with three or more blocs. Turkey’s highest security lay in becoming a ‘victorious belligerent’. Churchill remained ‘in love with his idea’.32

  The conference was due to conclude that same day. Drafts were prepared and approved, but the proceedings were by no means over, and it could well be said that Churchill may have overstayed his welcome: he certainly said he was in no hurry to go while the soldiers were still talking to each other. He thought he would return to Cairo via Cyprus to see some of his old comrades in arms there, but changed his mind after lunch and said he must get to Cairo to telegraph Roosevelt, Stalin and the War Cabinet in London.

  Hurried goodbyes were exchanged at the level crossing, and the large and well-fed party proceeded by car from the train to the aerodrome where one of the aircraft failed to take off and slewed off the runway into the mud. Getting it out took hours of manoeuvring supervised in part by Churchill himself. By 17.40 hours the party was in the air, but whither? That was the next question. It was too late to get to Cairo in daylight so Jacob’s proposal that they stay another night on Turkish soil was accepted, and back they went to the level crossing and the train. I·nönü left at 20.00 hours having better things to do than prolong the goodbyes: ‘He was most charming and might have been saying goodbye to his dearest friends.’ At dinner that night the politicians changed places with the soldiers and Chakmak was with Cadogan and Hugessen while Sukru Saraçoğlu dined with the British generals. Eventually the Turkish train steamed off at 11.00. Numan Menemencioğlu, the foreign minister, was so exhausted that he sensibly went to bed before dinner.33 The British party left Turkey the next morning, some members no doubt with a hangover. Churchill reported to Deputy Prime Minister Attlee from Cyprus.34

  This description of the Adana Conference has used eyewitness accounts. Access to contemporaneous BJs was denied to Churchill in this, as in other, foreign trips. Their inadvertent disclosure to the Turkish leadership on the train would not only have undermined Churchill’s protestations of friendship but might have seriously affected I·nönü’s commitment to join the Allies at some time in the future.

  The PM in Danger

  Lacking BJs, this account of the Adana Conference, as already stated, is based on first-hand reports. But it is only right to quote the official historian, whose paragraph on Adana requires little change in the light of recent releases of documents:

  From Cairo the Prime Minister flew to Adana on 30 January 1943 accompanied by the C.I.G.S and by Sir Alexander Cadogan from the Foreign Office. Friendly meetings took place with the Turkish President, Mr. I·nönü, the Prime Minister, Mr. Saraçoğlu and Marshal Chakmak. Arrangements were made to increase supplies of British and American equipment to Turkey and Mr. Churchill was able to assure the authorities of the readiness of anti-aircraft and anti-tank units and of divisions of the 9th Army to come to Turkey’s help, particularly now that the German threat from the North was much less. But the Turks, conscious that Russian and British successes might lead to a desperate venture by the Germans to reach oil by the middle road through Turkey, were not prepared to risk encouraging such action by granting them the use of airfields from which to attack the Romanian oilfields.35

  What exactly had been achieved? According to Cadogan there never were men so resolutely disinclined to be drawn into a war as the Turkish leaders:

  When the conversation began to veer towards anything like practical action on their part it seemed that they found more than usual difficulty in hearing what was said. The Turks had already showed themselves to be co-operative in allowing the British to build up stores on Turkish soil . . . It became plain that [the Turks] looked upon Russia as the principal threat. Perhaps Mr. Churchill, in his heart of hearts, did not disagree . . . Saraçoğlu was evidently not convinced by the Prime Minister’s evocation of the international organisation which was to restrain aggression, or by his assertion that he had never known the Soviet Union to break an engagement. Turkey, said Saraçoğlu, was looking for something more ‘real’. All the defeated countries would become Bolshevik or Slav if Germany was beaten. The Pensées Matinales claimed that the new world organisation would embody the spirit, but lack the weaknesses of the League . . . The military men agreed on increased supplies of modern weapons to Turkey. This was the only practical result of the Adana Conference . . . Turkey’s determination to cling to her neutral position and keep her forces intact against Russia was well known to the Germans from the intercepts.36

  Cadogan was referring here to Goebbels’ notes on the diplomatic intercepts passed to him by the Forschungsamt in 1942–43. One such note reads:

  Other intercepted diplomatic reports from Ankara proved that Turkey intended to hang grimly on to her neutral position until the war is over if possible. The main reason given is that Turkish statesmen realise the necessity of maintaining their armed forces intact at the end of the war, in order to be able to ward off possible encroachments by the Soviet Union.

  Goebbels later learnt from his intercepts that at Adana Churchill proposed a three-way partition of Europe – into Southern, Northern and Central blocs: ‘Churchill has put it to the Turks that he has no intention of destroying the Third Reich. But of course one knows just how much to believe of these Churchillian protestations.’37

  Churchill himself came away from the discussions believing that ‘the Turks have come a long way towards us’.38 But Deringil quotes Erkin as saying: ‘At Adana and in the months that followed the Turks and British had not spoken the same language.’39 At the FO Turkish politesse was taken at face value as a ‘change of heart’ and it took months of mutual exasperation before officials there acknowledged that their policy had failed. But Eden minuted to his officials, ‘As the department know I never liked the Adana meeting or the Adana policy.’40

  The immediate aftermath was suffused with vague noises of camaraderie. Stalin sent a message from the Kremlin via ambassador Ivan Maisky:

  I received your message of the impending meeting with the President of Turkey. I will be very grateful to you for information on the results of the conversation. The importance of this meeting is clear to me. Of course your wish will be respected and we will not deny the rumours that you have gone to Moscow.41

  Churchill’s doctor, Sir Charles Wilson, recorded his patient’s delight at the results he had achieved at Adana: ‘He will bring Turkey into the war and is in great heart.’ Churchill told him this was ‘about the best day’s work I have ever done’.42 Jacob’s diary shows Churchill revelling in the thought that he had outmanoeuvred the rest of the War Cabinet, displaying a pettiness that his subsequent detractors seem to have overlooked. Alanbrooke was later to note in his diary:

  The PM was a great success, and the day ended on the whole successfully . . . On our arrival at Adana the Turkish foreign minister . . . told me how delighted the whole of Turkey was at this visit by the PM. I asked him how this could be, since the visit was being kept as a matter of first-class secrecy and nobody could know that he had arrived. To this he replied: ‘How could you keep an event of that kind secret? Of course everybody knows about it.’43

  Hugessen noted that Churchill and I·nönü did practically all the talking. Churchill:

  . . . played all the right cards at the right time . . . His conduct of the business was brilliant . . . All the cards which had been put into his hands were played at exactly the right moment and with the fullest effect . . . Really a triumph.

  Hugessen wrote this on 3 February, adding that, ‘I hear the Germans are flabbergasted and really frightened that Turkey was coming in on our side at once.’44

  Until DIR was released to the public in 1994 historians of the war were
unaware of the dangers the British Prime Minister was in. The day after the conference closed, on 1 February, Charles Wilson, Churchill’s doctor companion, noticed inexplicable arguments about whether the party should fly home immediately, and by a new route, or whether to continue as planned via Cairo. By that time Churchill may have known that plans to assassinate him had been intercepted in London.45 On the same day a Tangier to Berlin message was intercepted by Bletchley Park of which the gist is as follows:

  Parsifal. According to reports here Churchill went from Ankara direct to Cyprus and then on to Egypt. From there he will probably go by airline direct to Gibraltar via Algiers and on to England, probably breaking his journey at Lisbon. MUH will try through TONI to get people to Algiers and Casablanca in time. As it takes at least five days to get people across the frontier, it appears doubtful whether Churchill can still be reached.

  This message was sent by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). TONI is identified as an Islamic militant whose organisation had already attempted to assassinate Giraud, French General Officer Commanding Mediterranean. MUH (abbreviation for Muhamet) is alias for Peter Schulze, the 28-year-old second press attaché at the German Legation in Tangier. The timing of Churchill’s intended assassination shows the attempt would certainly fail but Attlee, the Deputy Prime Minister, took immediate action on being shown an intercepted telegram of which the text is as follows:

  Hans Peter Schulze, head of German S.D. repeat S.D. in Tangier is trying to arrange attack on Churchill repeat Churchill probably at Algiers and/or Casablanca. Attempt if any would be made through agents of Sidi Abdelhalek Torres repeat Sidi Abdelhalek Torres leader of native nationalist reform party in Tangier. Also through agents of Sherif Ibrahim El Wasani repeat Sherif Ibrahim El Wasani, founder of Oficina [sic] nationalista in Tangier. Arrange inform governor immediately as Chiefs of Staff here are also wiring him. Informed. Extinguish.46

  He reported to Churchill as follows:

  CLEAR THE LINE

  1) C reports a communication from Germans in Tangier to Berlin which show that your itinerary, i.e. Algiers, Gibraltar, England, has been accurately forecasted and that attempts are going to be made to bump you off.

  2) We have studied possibilities very carefully and I and my colleagues, supported by the Chiefs of Staff, consider that it would be unwise for you to adhere to your present programme.

  3) We regard it as essential in the national interest [‘we strongly recommend’ crossed out] that you cut out visits to both Algiers and Gibraltar and proceed to England, stopping only at Marrakesh.

  4) We have taken following action:–

  (i) warned Gibraltar that present plan may be changed, but that in case you adhere to it special precautions are to be instituted;

  (ii) requested Eisenhower to make arrangements for your reception and safety at Marrakesh early tomorrow and lay on communications. At the same time, all possible security measures are to be instituted at Algiers in case present plan is adhered to.

  This section has shown how the War Cabinet reacted effectively to intercepted signals intelligence. The actual danger to Churchill was more apparent than real, and his pneumonia on return to London provided a more cogent reason for the sense of anticlimax which followed the Adana Conference.

  Aftermath

  Churchill telegraphed Stalin to ask him to state that he had been kept fully informed of events at Adana, and said, ‘the Turks have come a long way towards us’, to which Stalin replied chillingly: ‘Of course I have no objection to you making a statement that I was kept informed on the Anglo-Turkish meeting, although I cannot say that the information was very full.’47 Adm Howard Kelly in Ankara earned grudging praise from the Southern Department’s Pierson Dixon when he commented that ‘an Imperialist Russia is much more frightening to the Turks than a thoroughgoing Communist Russia’. And the PM wrote tersely ‘Yes’ to a request that the Turkish officers and NCOs in training with the British should be fully subsidised by their hosts.

  The FO circulated a ‘Most Secret’ memorandum early in February48 summarising the Adana conversation under three headings: A) present, B) war future, C) postwar future.

  Under A) there was ‘the underlying suggestion that Turkey might come into the war either through being attacked or on her own initiative and in her own interests, or at least stretch her neutrality to a very wide extent in our interests.’ On B) Turkey might be attacked by Germany to obtain oil or as part of a Drang nach Osten [push to the east] effort. ‘It was on this basis that our proposals for completing Turkey’s defences were based.’ The prime minister is then credited with three hypotheses: 1)The destruction of Italy and the capture of Tunis would lead to action in the ‘western Balkans’ and therefore the need for Turkish security was paramount. Coupled with these was the Russian advance, precipitating a crisis in the summer. 2) Turkey might allow Britain to use her airfields to bomb Romanian oil installations; 3) Turkey might invade Bulgaria. But Churchill asked ‘for no engagement. Turkey must decide for herself. She should not act until it was in her interests and those of the Grand Coalition to do so.’ Menemencioğlu remarked that this ‘was extremely reasonable’.

  Under C) postwar Russia was the most important factor. Churchill urged an international agreement but added: ‘If Russia attacked Turkey, we should arrange the best possible coalition against her and he would not hesitate to say so to Stalin.’ He also told the Turks of Roosevelt’s wish that Turkey should emerge from the war free and strong and independent. Finally the gist of Churchill’s ‘Morning Thoughts’ highlighted the various possibilities in the Balkans which might induce Turkey ‘to win her place in the Council of the Victors’.49

  In Ankara Saraçoğlu reported to the National Assembly on the outcome of Adana in what Clutton called ‘a very pretty speech. Never before, not even in the safe and palmy days of 1939 has the “Alliance” been so amorously intimate.’50 A week later Churchill spoke about Turkey in the House of Commons:

  Turkey is our ally. Turkey is our friend. We wish her well, and we wish to see her territory, rights and interests effectively preserved. We wish to see, in particular, warm and friendly relations established between Turkey and her great Russian Ally to the North-West, to whom we are bound by the 20 years Anglo-Russian Treaty. Whereas a little while ago it looked to superficial observers as if Turkey might be isolated by a German advance through the Caucasus on one side and by a German-Italian attack on Egypt on the other, a transformation has occurred. Turkey now finds on each side of her victorious Powers who are her friends. It will be interesting to see how the story unfolds chapter by chapter, and it would be very foolish to try to skip on too fast.

  These fine words were sent back in diplomatic cipher to many of the world’s capital cities, including Ankara, so Churchill found himself re-reading them in the BJ from Rustu Aras that Cable & Wireless had routinely intercepted and transmitted to Berkeley Street for processing, the day after they had been spoken.51

  The BJs were full of Adana from neutral diplomats in Berlin, Ankara, Rome, Lisbon, Madrid and Buenos Aires to their respective foreign ministries:

  une nouvelle offensive diplomatique et une de pousser les derniers neutres a entré dans la guerre . . . mais, a-t-il ajouté, je suis absolument sûr que les Turcs reprouvront en justifiant leur politique par le danger russe et la nécessité de faire la paîx en Europe.52

  The Japanese ambassador in Sofia reported that many Russians were entering Turkey, which would suggest joint Allied pressure.53 Two days later Kurihara reported to Tokyo the comments of the Polish commander, Gen Anders, that ‘there was strong anti-British but equally strong pro-American feeling throughout Russia’.54 He added that there was ‘serious tactical bankruptcy’ in Anglo-American war planning, which relied on saturation bombing and being no match militarily with the Axis and suffering heavy losses at sea; while the Portuguese ambassador in Ankara reported that the Adana meeting was to urge Turkey into the war – and it failed. The plan was to polish off Tunisia, occupy Crete and the
Dodecanese, attack the Balkans, occupy Thrace. Neutrality was a word to be avoided. It was likely that Turkey would gain time by pleading lack of armaments (PM marked this ‘important’ for Alanbrooke to read).55 Mussolini commented to his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano that the weakness of Britain was proved, if Churchill must go to the trouble of begging for Turkish help. He added: ‘Turkey is too important not to be exploited . . . I do not think Turkey has been neutralised as Berlin says.’56

  On 20 February the Japanese ambassador in Ankara noted that the many Allied spies in Turkey looked like a preparation for joint operations.57 From Berlin Oshima told Tokyo that ‘this was not the time to go out of one’s way to turn [Turkey] into an enemy’.58 The Turkish foreign ministry put out an anodyne account of Adana, talking of complete friendship and cordiality. ‘Churchill had observed the lack of mechanisation of the Turkish army. Churchill would put this right. Churchill praised Turkish foreign policy, and asked for no change in it.’59 Reports of Adana continued in the intercepts to and from the neutral capitals.

  Neutral diplomats were less aware of the continuing problems to Turkey of its determination to sell its chrome to both Axis and Allies. This remained an issue which continued before, during and after Adana.60 The Germans had failed to expedite sendings and the Americans sent ‘wild men’, in Clutton’s phrase, to ‘ginger up the chrome business’ by contacting the mine owners direct, and sabotaging Germany-bound chrome convoys.61 Clutton minuted that the Turkish mineowners hated the Germans like poison:

  . . . provided they received adequate compensation they wouldn’t mind if production suddenly ceased and wagons became derailed. The best way to stop the Germans getting chrome is to let the Turks do it.62

  But the mineowners were also on the losing end of the wealth tax: profits were down 60 per cent.