Winston's War: Churchill, 1940-1945

by Max Hastings

  The Americans indeed showed no interest in diplomatic brinkmanship with the Kremlin. Though Roosevelt was persuaded to send a last challenging missive to Stalin about Poland, Washington would precipitate no confrontation. When Heinrich Himmler sought to parley with the Western Allies, Churchill reported the fact to Stalin, who had dispatched a stream of angry and indeed insulting cables to London and Washington about U.S. negotiations in Switzerland with SS general Karl Wolff, concerning a German surrender in Italy. Now, the Russian leader sent a notably emollient message to Churchill: “Knowing you, I had no doubt that you would act in just this way.”

  The prime minister found the cable waiting in Downing Street on returning from dinner with the French ambassador on the night of April 25. It prompted a spasm of maudlin goodwill towards Stalin. Jock Colville noted in dismay that Churchill, not entirely sober, sat for ninety minutes in the Annexe, talking enthusiastically to Brendan Bracken about the cable, and then spent a further ninety minutes doing the same before the young private secretary: “His vanity was astonishing1080 and I am glad U[ncle] J[oe] does not know what effect a few kind words, after so many harsh ones, might well have on our policy towards Russia … No work was done and I felt both irritated and slightly disgusted by this exhibition of susceptibility to flattery. It was nearly 5 am when I got to bed.” Three days later, Churchill cabled Stalin, offering a further olive branch: “I have been much disturbed at the misunderstanding1081 that has grown up between us on the Crimea agreement about Poland.” There was no misunderstanding, of course. Stalin was bent upon asserting Soviet hegemony over Poland, and that was an end of the matter.

  Back in December 1941, when Eden cabled Churchill from Moscow urging the necessity for acceptance of Russia’s demands for recognition of its pre-Barbarossa 1941 frontiers, the prime minister replied: “When you say that ‘nothing we and the US can do or say will affect the situation at the end of the war,’ you are making a very large assumption about the conditions which will then prevail. No one can foresee how the balance of power will lie, or where the winning armies will stand. It seems probable however that the US and the British Empire, far from being exhausted, will be the most powerful armed and economic bloc the world has ever seen, and that the Soviet Union will need our aid for reconstruction far more than we shall need theirs.” By 1945, the frustration of such hopes was plain. The Soviets were vastly stronger, the British much weaker, than Churchill had anticipated. The U.S. commitment to perceived common Anglo-American interests, in Europe or anywhere else, was more tenuous than it had ever been.

  In the cold light of day, the prime minister understood this. On May 4 he wrote to Eden, then in San Francisco for the inaugural meeting of the United Nations, about the evolving situation in eastern Europe as he saw it:

  I fear terrible things have happened1082 during the Russian advance through Germany to the Elbe. The proposed withdrawal of the United States Army to the occupational lines which were arranged … would mean a tide of Russian domination sweeping forward 120 miles on a front of 200 or 400 miles. This would be an event which, if it occurred, would be one of the most melancholy in history. After it was over and the territory occupied by the Russians, Poland would be completely engulfed and buried deep in Russian-occupied lands … The Russian frontier would run from the North Cape in Norway … across the Baltic to a point just east of Lubeck … half-way across [Austria] to the Izonzo river behind which Tito and Russia will claim everything to the east. Thus the territories under Russian control would include the Baltic Provinces, all of Germany to the occupational line, all Czechoslovakia, a large part of Austria, the whole of Yugoslavia, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, until Greece in her present tottering condition is reached … This constitutes an event in the history of Europe to which there has been no parallel … All these matters can only be settled before the United States Armies in Europe are weakened … It is to this early and speedy showdown and settlement with Russia that we must now turn our hopes. Meanwhile I am against weakening our claim against Russia on behalf of Poland in any way.

  The Allies now found themselves in a bewildering and uncharted new world; Roosevelt was gone. Following the vast shock of his death on April 12, Churchill briefly entertained the notion of flying to Washington for the funeral. Finally, he decided that he was needed in London, an outcome that was also probably influenced by personal disinclination. The prime minister’s enthusiasm for the president had waned dramatically. There had been so many slights. Some were relatively trivial, such as a March decision by Washington to halt meat exports to Britain. Some were more serious, such as the imposition of draconian curbs on postwar British civil aviation in accordance with the terms of Lend-Lease. Above all, of course, there was American unilateralism on eastern European issues. Roosevelt’s greatness was not in doubt, least of all in the mind of Churchill. But it had been deployed in the service of the United States, and only incidentally and reluctantly in the interests of the British Empire or even of Europe. “We have moved a long way,”1083 wrote Moran in February, “since Winston, speaking of Roosevelt, said to me in the garden at Marrakesh ‘I love that man.’”

  Now, Churchill had to deal with the wholly unknown figure of Harry Truman. In the first weeks of the new president’s tenure, though his inexperience was manifest, there were welcome indications that he was ready to deal much more toughly with the Russians than had Roosevelt in his last months. But no more than his predecessor was the newcomer at the White House willing to risk an armed clash with the Soviet Union for the sake of Poland or any other eastern European nation. At this stage, Washington believed, there was no virtue in empty posturing when the Red Army stood on the Elbe. Nor did Churchill’s combativeness towards Moscow find much resonance among his own people. For four years, the British had embraced the Russians as heroes and comrades-in-arms, ignorant of the absence of reciprocal enthusiasm. Beyond a few score men and women at the summit of the British war machine, little was known of Soviet perfidy and savagery. No more in Britain than in the United States was there any stomach for a Churchillian crusade against a new enemy.

  VE Day was proclaimed on May 8, 1945. On the afternoon of the seventh, the Chiefs of Staff gathered at Downing Street for a moment of celebration. Churchill himself set out a tray and glasses, then toasted Brooke, Portal and Cunningham as “the architects of victory.” Ismay wrote in his memoirs: “I hoped that they would raise their glasses1084 to the chief who had been the master-planner; but perhaps they were too moved to trust their voices.” This was disingenuous. Brooke and Cunningham, if not Portal, nursed complex emotions towards the prime minister. Others, including Ismay and the Downing Street staff, forgave rough handling, amid their love and admiration for Churchill. The field marshal and the admiral found this more difficult. Brooke wrote on May 7: “I can’t feel thrilled, my main sensation1085 is one of infinite mental weariness! A sort of brain lethargy which refuses to register highlights, and remains on an even dull flat tone.” The next day he added, with some bitterness: “There is no doubt that the public has never understood1086 what the Chiefs of Staff have been doing in the running of this war … The PM has never enlightened them much, and has never once in all his speeches referred to the Chiefs of Staff.” A few months earlier, Brooke had written of Churchill: “Without him England was lost for a certainty1087, with him England has been on the verge of disaster again and again. And with it all no recognition hardly at all for those who help him except the occasional crumb intended to prevent the dog straying too far from the table.”

  Brooke was envious of the greater power and fame enjoyed by Marshall, his American counterpart. A man of considerable vanity, he overrated his own talents, and was ungenerous in his estimate of Churchill’s. But a significant part of his achievement as CIGS—and it was a remarkable achievement—lay in his willingness to fight Churchill day or night when he believed him wrong. While Brooke was a cautious soldier who might not have prospered as a field commander, he had provided a superb foil for the p
rime minister, preserving him from many misfortunes. His contribution to Britain’s war effort had been substantial. Like the hedgehog, in 1942–43 he understood one big thing: that the Allies must not prematurely engage large elements of the Wehrmacht. He was unable to accept that the price of serving a towering historical figure was to be obscured by his shadow.

  Clementine was visiting Russia on behalf of the Red Cross on VE Day, much to the sorrow of both Churchills. At three p.m., the prime minister broadcast to the British people: “Yesterday morning at 2.41am at Headquarters, General Jodl, the representative of the German High Command, and Grand Admiral Doenitz, the designated head of the German State, signed the act of unconditional surrender of all German land, sea and air forces in Europe to the Allied Expeditionary Force, and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command … The German war is therefore at an end.” He recalled Britain’s lonely struggle, and the gradual accession of great allies: “Finally almost the whole world was combined against the evil-doers, who are now prostrate before us. We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued … We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King.” His secretaries and staff lined the garden of Downing Street to clap him to his car. He grinned, responding, “Thank you so much, thank you so much.” Then he drove to the House of Commons, to repeat to MPs the speech which he had made to the nation.

  A few grumblers muttered that they would have liked to hear from him some expression of gratitude to the Deity. It is interesting to speculate whether Churchill offered any private expression of indebtedness to a higher power at that afternoon’s Commons Service of Thanksgiving at St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Jock Colville believed that the events of the war, especially the Battle of Britain, moved Churchill a considerable distance from defiant atheism towards faith. The prime minister once remarked to Colville that he could not help wondering whether the government above might be a constitutional monarchy, “in which case there was always a possibility1088 that the Almighty might have occasion to send for him.”

  From a balcony in Whitehall that evening, Churchill addressed the vast, cheering crowd: “My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole. We were the first, in this ancient island, to draw the sword against tyranny …” The crowd sang “Land of Hope and Glory” and “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” as Churchill returned to the Downing Street Annexe, to spend the rest of the evening with Lord Camrose, proprietor of the Daily Telegraph. In his company, the prime minister cast aside the exuberance of the afternoon, once more rehearsing his dismay about Soviet barbarism in the east. At 1:15 a.m., when Camrose left, Churchill returned to his secretaries and papers.

  Pravda asserted triumphantly that “the significance of the link-up of the Red Army1089 and the allied Anglo-American forces is as great politically as militarily. It offers further proof that provocations by Hitler’s people designed to destroy the solidarity and brotherhood-in-arms between ourselves and our allies … have failed.” Yet Churchill spent the first days of European peace plunged in deepest gloom about the fate of Poland. On May 13, he cabled Truman:

  Our armed power on the continent is in rapid decline. Meanwhile what is to happen about Russia[?] I have always worked for friendship with Russia but, like you, I feel deep anxiety because of their misinterpretation of the Yalta decisions, their attitude towards Poland, their overwhelming influence in the Balkans excepting Greece, the difficulties they make about Vienna … and above all their power to maintain very large armies in the field for a long time.

  What will be the position in a year or two, when the British and American armies have melted … and when Russia may choose to keep two or three hundred [divisions] on active service? An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front … Surely it is vital now to come to an understanding with Russia, or see where we are with her before we weaken our armies mortally, or retire to the zones of occupation. I should be most grateful for your opinion or advice … To sum up, this issue of a settlement with Russia before our strength has gone seems to me to dwarf all others.

  Truman answered: “From the present point of view1090, it is impossible to make a conjecture as to what the Soviets may do when Germany is under the small forces of occupation and the great part of such armies as we can maintain are fighting in the Orient against Japan.” The president agreed with Churchill that a tripartite meeting with Stalin had become urgently necessary.

  Yet what if talking to Stalin got nowhere, as was highly likely? Within days of Germany’s surrender, Britain’s prime minister astounded his Chiefs of Staff by enquiring whether Anglo-American forces might launch an offensive to drive back the Soviets by force of arms. Churchill was enthused by the robust attitude of Truman, whose tone suggested a new willingness to respond ruthlessly to Communist flouting of the Yalta terms. Brooke wrote after a War Cabinet meeting on May 13: “Winston delighted, he gives me1091 the feeling of already longing for another war! Even if it entailed fighting the Russians!” On the twenty-fourth, the prime minister instructed the Chiefs of Staff that, with the “Russian bear sprawled over Europe,”1092 they should consider the military possibilities of pushing the Red Army back eastwards before the Anglo-American armies were demobilised. He requested the planners to consider means to “impose upon Russia the will of the United States and British Empire” to secure “a square deal for Poland.” They were told to assume the full support of British and American public opinion, and were invited to assume that they could “count on the use of German manpower and what remains of German industrial capacity.” The target date for launching such an assault would be July 1, 1945.

  The Foreign Office—though not Eden himself—recoiled in horror from Churchill’s bellicosity. One of Moscow’s Whitehall informants swiftly conveyed tidings to Stalin of an instruction from London to Montgomery about contingency planning. Zhukov wrote in his memoirs:

  We received reliable information1093 that while the final campaign was still in progress Churchill sent a secret telegram to Marshal Montgomery instructing him carefully to collect German weapons and material and store them in such a way that would permit retrieving them easily in order to distribute among German units with which they would have to cooperate if the Soviet advance had continued. We had to make a harsh statement at the next session of the Allied Control Commission. We stressed that history knew few examples of such perfidy and betrayal of allies’ obligations and duty. We declared that we thought that British government and army leadership deserved the most serious condemnation. Montgomery attempted to refute the Soviet statement. His colleague American General [Lucius] Clay was silent. Apparently, he was familiar with this instruction by the British Prime Minister.

  Zhukov’s story was founded in a reality unacknowledged in detail in Britain until the relevant papers were released by the National Archive in 1998. Alan Brooke and his colleagues faithfully executed the prime minister’s wishes, to examine scenarios for initiating military action against the Russians. The report prepared by the War Cabinet Joint Planning Staff required feats of imagination from its creators unprecedented in Churchill’s premiership. In the preamble, the drafters stated their assumption that, in the event of hostilities between the Russians and the Western Allies, Russia would ally itself with Japan. “The overall or political object is to impose upon Russia1094 the will of the United States and British Empire.” Yet the planners immediately pointed out that the scope of any new conflict initiated by the Western powers would not thereafter be for them to determine: “Even though ‘the will’ of these two countries may be defined as no more than a square deal for Poland, that does not necessarily limit the military commitment. A quick success might induce the Russians to submit to our will … but it might not. T
hat is for the Russians to decide. If they want total war, they are in a position to have it.”

  The planners observed that even if an initial Western offensive was successful, the Russians could then adopt the same tactics they had employed with such success against the Germans, giving ground amid the seemingly infinite spaces of the Soviet Union: “There is virtually no limit to the distance to which it would be necessary for the Allies to penetrate into Russia in order to render further resistance impossible … To achieve the decisive defeat of Russia … would require … (a) the deployment in Europe of a large proportion of the vast resources of the United States [and] (b) the re-equipment and re-organisation of German manpower and of all the Western European allies.”

  The planners concluded that Western airpower could be used effectively against Soviet communications, but that “Russian industry is so dispersed that it is unlikely to be a profitable air target.” They proposed that 47 Anglo-American divisions might credibly be deployed in an offensive, 14 of these armoured. More than 40 divisions would have to be held back for defensive or occupation tasks. The Russians could meet an Allied thrust with 170 divisions of equivalent strength, 30 of them armoured. “It is difficult to assess to what extent our tactical air superiority and the superior handling of our forces will redress the balance, but the above odds would clearly render the launching of an offensive a hazardous undertaking.” The planners proposed two main thrusts, one on the northern axis Stettin-Schneidemühl-Bydgoszcz, the second in the south on an axis Leipzig-Poznań-Breslau. They concluded, “If we are to embark on war with Russia, we must be prepared to be committed to a total war, which will be both long and costly.”