Churchill's Secret War

by Denniston, Robin

  In mid-June Kurihara summed up his view of Turkish policy towards both Axis and Allies. The Turkish press was worried about German defensiveness: ‘There was a tendency towards friendship for England manifest after Adana, but this was thought to be less marked. The press were instructed to be less anti-Axis. Turkey was becoming politer towards Germany again.’ However an Oshima despatch on the war situation reported the view of ‘the contact you know of’ that possibly the main allied offensive will be in the Eastern Mediterranean through the Dardanelles, the coercion of Turkey, to threaten Romania and Bulgaria through the Black Sea. [Churchill sidelined.] All Axis powers retain respect for the British navy – as friend or enemy.90

  This was a very productive period for Berkeley Street. The overwhelming interest of the neutral diplomatic world in events in the Mediterranean ensured that Turkey would continue to dominate the BJs. Churchill annotated many of them, and sent some to Eden for comment. But earlier in this chapter the question was raised whether our new knowledge of BJs in mid-1943 would require the rewriting of the history of Turco-British relations. BJs, as is clear from the foregoing pages, acted as a spur to Churchill, the FO and the COS. Their recent reappearance as HW1 in the PRO enables the historian to focus on the different ways in which neutral diplomats reacted to events in the Mediterranean, but requires little rewriting of the record. The official military historian’s account of Adana, already quoted, admirably sums up the situation and requires no revision.

  The love/hate affair between Turkey and Churchill with his intercepts and Eden with his secretariat at the FO can now be seen to be the main feature in the months after Adana. It persisted, but this time instead of the FO it would be the services ministries and Eisenhower who would effectively block Churchill’s private war against Hitler, to be waged off Turkish waters, and possibly even on Turkish soil, with the object of bringing Turkey into the war. The Dodecanese debacle coupled with the arrival of Cicero at Hugessen’s residence in the early autumn of 1943, provide the flavour of the next chapter.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Churchill’s ‘Island Prizes Lost’ Revisited

  The inhabitants [of Bodrum] took part in the evacuation of British forces from Cos. They all remembered the pellmell retreat and the awe inspired by German power.

  Selim Deringil, Turkish Foreign Policy during World War Two, p. 215.

  Preparations for the Dodecanese Assault

  This chapter relates both Allied and Axis preparations for the fighting in the Aegean in October 1943, to the cause, course and consequences of the Dodecanese campaign and the manner in which British policy in the eastern Mediterranean reflected the differing understanding of both service and diplomatic intercepts shown by the COS, the FO and the PM.

  For Churchill this phase of the war was unbearably distressing, as he reveals in ‘Island Prizes Lost’ in volume 5 (Closing the Ring) of his history of the war. All other historians of the Dodecanese disaster have used this chapter as a prime source.

  Churchill knew from reading BJs that the surrender of Italy gave the Allies ‘the chance of gaining important prizes in the Aegean at very small cost and effort’. His determination to pick up these treasures was thwarted mainly by the United States’ Chiefs of Staff who redirected the landing craft needed in the Dodecanese to India, insisted on withholding both troops and ships for the eastern Mediterranean, and saw any resurgent Balkan initiative sponsored by Churchill as yet another attempt to postpone or avoid Operation ‘Overlord’. Gen Wilson’s handling of the situation from faraway Cairo was also criticised. In all this Eisenhower’s reluctance to back Churchill’s initiative was compounded by Tedder’s unwillingness to send air support to the islands while the invasion of mainland Italy was in full swing, and by a change of command in the British navy (John Cunningham taking on the Mediterranean from his cousin Andrew) which resulted in poor naval co-ordination and support of British invading troops already outmanoeuvred by the Germans who rediscovered their earlier skills at combined operations at the personal insistence of Hitler. The Führer believed the Allies planned, and had the resources, to mount a successful Balkan Front from Turkey, giving the Anglo-Saxons credit for an invasion scheme which never existed except in the mind of Churchill. The Dodecanese can thus be presented as something of a personal contest between the two warlords, won by Hitler, which disrupted Churchill’s immediate plans to involve Turkey in the war. By the summer of 1943, he wrote:

  . . . the command of the Aegean by air and by sea was within our reach. The effect of this might be decisive upon Turkey, at the time deeply moved by the Italian collapse. My parleys with the Turks were intended to prepare the way for her entry into the war in Autumn 1943 . . . This did not happen because of unfortunate events in the Aegean.1

  This chapter uses Churchill’s own anguished account of what happened in the Dodecanese, as does the official military historian’s chapter on the same subject.2 It remains definitive, despite the recent access to Boniface enjoyed by more recent war historians, one of whom, Prof Hinsley, draws on Enigma/Fish intercepts substantially when retelling the story of the campaign.3 At the start of his exposition of the Dodecanese imbroglio Molony quotes Churchill’s brief to the COS of 2 August 1943:

  Here is a business of great consequence to be thrust forward by every means . . . I hope the Staffs will be able to stimulate action which may gain immense prizes at little cost though not at little risk.

  Churchill’s archaic rhetoric may have been a subconscious smokescreen to conceal his lurking conviction that the risks were unquantifiable and the chances of success, given the other Mediterranean priorities, extremely doubtful. Molony adds that the Germans ‘largely through war’s extraordinary chance . . . won a resounding tactical success but no long-term advantage’.

  Prof Hinsley’s account is based, as already noted, on his exclusive access to the DIR/C archive. The influence of Enigma messages when delivered in time for appropriate reactions, is compellingly demonstrated: British success against enemy shipping, for instance, was directly derived from timely Ultra. But growing delays in W/T communications, doubtful interpretations of enemy intentions and the non-availability of combat-worthy aircraft led to inadequate (or ‘unsatisfactory’ in the word used by the Enigma translator in Hut 4 and also by Churchill) British resistance to well-mounted enemy combined operations. Hinsley’s account of the Dodecanese echoes that of Molony, Howard and Roskill and is a classic statement not just of the usefulness of sigint to the Allies at the time, but of the smallness of the changes needed to the historical record already in place.4

  The intelligence historians were faced with two problems common to all the official histories dealing with the last years of the war: the massive volume of data available; and the difficulty of avoiding duplication with the Grand Strategy and Theatre series.5

  A major miscalculation by the C-in-C ME as to German strength and intentions in the area was caused by the very success of the Allied deception operation codenamed ‘Mincemeat’ in persuading the enemy that the Allied plan for Operation ‘Husky’ was a project for a major landing in the Aegean. The Germans thereby believed in an Allied invasion of the Balkans in the summer of 1943 and transferred extra troops, ships, aircraft and guns and ammunition to this front thus making it more hazardous and ultimately impossible for Wilson’s pared-down operation against the Dodecanese to succeed.

  Churchill’s plan for Turkey was to get her into the war that autumn. Operations in the Dodecanese were planned in late November 1942 as a preliminary step. But skilled Turkish delaying tactics as well as British reverses off the Turkish coast aborted the plan. As far back as 7 February 1941 the War Office had speculated on Hitler’s intentions in south-east Europe, noting that ‘his object in attacking Turkey would be to advance ultimately through Anatolia to Egypt’, adding that if Great Britain ‘is defeated by invasion this will prove unnecessary’.6

  By 27 November 1942 the tide had turned and the Joint Intelligence Committee now considered opportunit
ies for Allied action in the Balkans from Turkey.7 At Casablanca in January 1943 an Allied strategy that promoted action in the Mediterranean at the expense of the war in the Far East was accepted and Wilson was directed by the COS to prepare for amphibious operations in the eastern Mediterranean on 12 February 1943. The next month the Joint Planners considered what should follow the projected invasion of Sicily and the plan to bring Turkey into the war, codenamed ‘Hardihood’, was discussed on 20 April. By 7 July Kurihara reported the Ankara view that, because a second front in the west would involve heavy casualties, there would be no second front, either in the Balkans or in France that year, and therefore no change in Turkish neutrality. The Anglo-Saxons ‘cannot lay hands on Europe’ and ‘. . . in a state of semi-paralysis have set about exerting themselves to win over Turkey . . .’8 A visit by King George VI was offered as a carrot; I·nönü’s answer was ‘no’.

  On 20 July Wilson developed three versions of the planned operation in the eastern Mediterranean, to be known as ‘Accolade’ and in early August opted for an opportunist ‘quick’ assault in the wake of the Italian collapse. Throughout August Wilson’s quick plan was thwarted by Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower and ACM Sir Arthur Tedder, neither of whom had access to Dedip.9 On the 12th Eisenhower, Alexander and Tedder revised their recent commitment to ‘Accolade’ and a week later the ‘Quadrant’ Conference (14–24 August) limited Churchill’s freedom of action in the Dodecanese. Despite this Wilson signalled on 23 August that he was loading the ‘Accolade’ task force (the 26th Indian Brigade at Suez) and on the 31st Wilson was forced to tell the Supreme Commander that, ‘Any enterprise against Rhodes or Crete except as unopposed walk-in is now impossible.’10

  Hitler was challenged by the Italian collapse to save the situation in the eastern Mediterranean. He had not lost all the initiative after the battle of Stalingrad, because thanks to Manstein’s spring 1943 victories, he was able to launch the Kursk initiative on 5 July, disastrous though it proved.11 He had been waiting (as had the neutrals) ever since for a combined Allied war strategy to emerge, to exploit the fall of Italy. Alanbrooke blamed himself for failing to convince the Americans to exploit the Mediterranean. Churchill, who had always backed this project, pressurised him remorselessly. If only Alanbrooke had done so, perhaps Crete and Rhodes would have been taken and the gateway to the Danube opened.12 The Balkan Front never happened, partly because there was no agreed Allied policy in the Mediterranean, or any other area, except the unconditional surrender of Germany, and how that was to be achieved depended on the when and how of the second front in the west. Stalin knew this, and so did Churchill and Roosevelt, though the former exercised his ingenuity and persuasiveness over the months to postpone D-Day until the chances of victory were significantly increased. Playing the Turkey card, therefore, was his main offering to the strategic debates of 1943. The aftermath of Adana had left Turco-Allied relations in disarray, although protestations of friendship alternated with mutual criticism.

  The British ambassador Hugessen was entrusted with the thankless task of mitigating Turkish resentment at the non-arrival of the promised matériel, of neutralising the effect on diplomatic opinion of the British failure to stop Turkey selling chrome to Germany, and of keeping a watchful eye, through intercepts, through agents via SOE and SIS and via some good service attachés stationed in Ankara, on the progress of the war on the Eastern Front and its effect on Turkish views about whether and who to join. It was a bad day for him when on 13 July he interviewed Eleysa Basna for the job of being his personal kavass, or valet. Basna was nicknamed ‘Cicero’ by von Papen.13 Cicero joined the staff at the British Residency sometime in August, by which time the success of the Allied landings in Sicily was alarming the Turks.14 Kurihara reported to Tokyo from Ankara that Turkey respected the power of the Axis and had refused to let the Allies set up repair shops and store goods in Turkey. Churchill marked this intercept for the FS (foreign secretary) to see. Eden commented on the FO view:

  We too read our Tunis victories as discouraging the Turks, because their previous attitude may have deterred Germany from attacking Russia . . . . Now they have no such excuse.

  Churchill optimistically expected the invasion of Sicily would speedily lead to the collapse of Italy, and ‘this should fix the moment for putting the strongest pressure on Turkey to act in accordance with the spirit of the alliance.’15 The view in Kuibyshev was rather different. There the Turkish military attaché reported a second front was vital, with ‘various parts of Europe, especially France, being the optimum points; thus Germany would withdraw forces from the Eastern Front and so Germany would be defeated by Russia’. He was right, but it was to take nearly two more years.16

  Diplomatic intercepts played a key role in Churchill’s handling, or mishandling, of the Dodecanese campaign. October and November saw the British defeated by German troops in the Aegean in a disaster regarded by the press at the time as of the same order as the Dieppe raid and the Cretan campaign of 1941.17 It was a smallish sideshow, so far as the Americans, who gave no help, were concerned. But it was an important strand not only in Churchill’s personal war strategy but also in Hitler’s, who insisted his forces retain Rhodes whatever the cost, partly to pin down a number of non-existent British divisions which he had been deceived into locating in the area, and partly because it was generally expected that the Allies would build on their North African success by invading Italy and establishing a Balkan Front to the east.

  Initially it was not Churchill but Wilson who sponsored the Dodecanese debacle. What use Wilson made of Boniface is not known but Churchill would have learnt not only of the build-up of enemy forces but the reason for the success of the British deception operation referred to earlier. So why did he press it? The clearest answer comes from his own directive to the COS: ‘at no little risk’. That, he certainly knew, was an understatement. Thirty years before he had flung imperial troops through the Dardanelles where they were mown down by Turkish bullets there.18 It might be thought that he was trying again, because an aggressive mode had to be sustained: victory would have brought substantial benefit to the Allies, including the possible acquisition of Turkey as an ally. Like Queen Victoria he was not interested in the possibilities of defeat: they did not exist. So he pressed on with the operation disregarding the intercepts which all pointed to Hitler’s determination to retain the islands, despite inferiority in numbers and the pessimism of his local commanders.

  Since 1940 Churchill’s instinct had played with a second front in the Balkans. In June 1941 ‘Barbarossa’ had put this on a back burner. But Turkey always hoped for an Allied invasion, from the Dodecanese and the Straits. The Turks did not realise that the Americans had no intention of deflecting their war effort to these remote regions and away from their primary areas of concern – the Far East, North Africa, Sicily and Italy, and, eventually, ‘Overlord’; while the British had neither the troops, the organisation nor the psychological energy to plan realistically for a Balkan thrust along the Danube to Vienna. The Balkan project withered at source from 1941 till D-Day when it died. But in September 1943 it bore bitter fruit in Wilson’s attempt to take over the islands from the Italians only to lose them to the Germans. Behind Wilson loomed both Alanbrooke and Churchill who maintained daily telegraphic contact with the C-in-C from 10 September to the end of November.19

  Hitler for his part insisted on his local commanders and in particular Lt-Gen Friedrich Müller maintaining the initiative despite poor weather, lack of back-up and the overwhelming demand for all resources, especially aircraft, on the Eastern Front. Müller’s island-hopping in the Dodecanese, first to rid them of the Italians, next to expel or kill British troops and terrorise the islanders, impress the neutrals and strengthen Hitler’s Eastern Front at its southernmost point, can be partly explained by two factors which the release of DIR newly establish.

  One, as has been shown, was the success of Dudley Clarke’s deception campaign in the eastern Mediterranean, which had established so
me ten (non-existent) Allied divisions in the Mediterranean, ostensibly in preparation for an invasion of the Balkans.20 Hitler believed that he needed to maintain aggressive pressure in the area to deflect a full-scale British invasion of the Balkans. The other was the reinstatement of Mussolini as German puppet. Hitler clung to his friendship with the Italian dictator – as much in bad times as in good – and this led him to believe in an Italian resorgimento which never happened. The ups and downs of Mussolini’s later career path were carefully monitored by neutral diplomats for whom he remained a pivotal figure in Mediterranean politics. Both factors influenced Hitler’s determined stance in the Aegean that autumn.

  Mussolini had been toppled from power on 25 July, replaced by Badoglio, who tried – from 3 August to 3 September – to conclude a separate peace with the Allies and remove Italy from the war. The BJs of the period comment on his failure to put together a credible administration. Italy’s surrender seemed imminent and the COS therefore decided to concentrate all resources on polishing off one third of the Axis. At the ‘Quadrant’ Conference the Americans recognised the psychological frailty of British military thinking. (The US Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson told Roosevelt just before ‘Quadrant’: ‘The shadows of Passchendaele and Dunkirk still hang too heavily over the imagination of the leaders of the [British] government.’21) The Americans saw in Churchill’s interest in recapturing the Dodecanese – particularly Rhodes – no more than an attempt to evade or postpone ‘Overlord’, while the COS knew that unless many German divisions were pinned down in Italy, ‘Overlord’ might prove a costly and terrible disaster – so neither group was keen to divert forces needed elsewhere to support Churchill, who saw in a Dodecanese venture an ideal opportunity to get Turkey in.