Closing the Ring (64 page)

Prime Minister to President Roosevelt

16 Jan. 44

My recollection is clear that nothing was said at Teheran about “one-third,” but that a promise was made to meet the Russian claim put forward at Moscow to have transferred to them one battleship, one cruiser, eight destroyers, four submarines, and forty thousand tons of merchant shipping.

2. On the other hand, the main difficulties raised by the Chiefs of Staff are solid, and I think it very likely that once Stalin is convinced of our intentions and our good faith he will leave us to handle the matter in the smoothest and swiftest way possible.

3. I suggest therefore that we now signal him jointly to the following effect.

(i) … The Combined Chiefs of Staff … think it would be dangerous to our triple interests actually to carry out any transfer or to say anything about it to the Italians at present. Nevertheless, if after full consideration you desire us to proceed, we will make a secret approach to Badoglio with a view to concluding the necessary arrangements. … These would have to be on the lines that Italian ships selected should be sailed to a suitable Allied port, where they would be collected by Russian crews, who would sail into Russian Northern ports which are the only ones now open where any refitting necessary could be undertaken.

(ii) We are however very conscious of the dangers of this course, and have therefore decided to propose the following alternative:

The British battleship
Royal Sovereign
has recently completed refit in the United States. She is fitted with radar for all types of armament. Great Britain has also a cruiser available. His Majesty’s Government are willing, for their part, that these vessels should be taken over during February at British ports by Soviet crews and sailed to North Russian ports. You could then make such alterations as you find necessary for Arctic conditions. These vessels would be temporarily transferred on loan to the Soviet Government, and would fly the Soviet flag until, without prejudice to the military operations, the necessary transfer of Italian vessels could be arranged.

(iii) If events should take a favourable turn with Turks and the Straits become open, the vessels would be ready to operate if desired in the Black Sea. We hope you will very carefully consider this alternative, which we think is in every way superior to first proposal.

4. If you could find the cruiser instead of our having to do so, we should be relieved. We cannot do anything about the eight destroyers, but perhaps you may be able to supply this need. Otherwise we must say we have absolutely not got them until after “Overlord” and “Anvil.” As to the forty thousand tons of merchant shipping, I should think that with your great supply and vastly improved sinkings you might supply these, but we should be willing to share fifty-fifty.

5. I hope, my dear friend, you will consider all these possibilities and let me know how you feel. In my opinion Stalin will be moved in a favourable manner by this handsome proposal. At any rate, it shows our faith and our good will. I doubt whether, having this alternative before him, he will press for the premature raising of the Italian problem, but we shall have done the right thing.

*  *  * *  *

This alternative was accepted by the President. The Americans undertook themselves to furnish a cruiser, and the whole matter was presented to Stalin substantially in the form I suggested in a joint telegram from the President and me on January 23. Stalin’s reply, when it came later, was as follows:

Premier Stalin to Prime Minister and President Roosevelt

29 Jan. 44

I received on January 23 both your joint messages, signed by you, Mr. Prime Minister, and you, Mr. President, regarding the question of the handing over of Italian shipping for the use of the Soviet Union.

I must say that, after your joint affirmative reply at Teheran to the question which I raised of the handing over to the Soviet Union of Italian shipping by the end of January 1944, I considered this question settled, and the thought never entered my mind of the possibility of any kind of reconsideration of this decision, which was taken and agreed between the three of us. All the more so since, as we agreed at the time, this question was to be completely settled with the Italians. Now I see that this is not so, and that nothing has even been mentioned to the Italians on the subject.

In order however not to complicate this question, which is of such great importance for our common struggle against Germany, the Soviet Government is prepared to accept your proposal regarding the dispatch from British ports to the U.S.S.R. of the battleship
Royal Sovereign
and one cruiser, and regarding the temporary use of these vessels by the Naval High Command of the U.S.S.R. until such time as the appropriate Italian shipping is made available to the Soviet Union. Similarly, we shall be prepared to accept from the U.S.A. and Great Britain forty thousand tons of merchant shipping, which will also be used by us until such time as a similar tonnage of Italian shipping is handed over to us. It is important that there should be no delays now regarding the matter, and that all the shipping indicated should be handed over to us during the month of February.

In your reply however there is no mention of the handing over to the Soviet Union of eight Italian destroyers and four submarines, to the handing over of which to the Soviet Union at the end of January you, Mr. Prime Minister, and you, Mr. President, agreed in Teheran. Meanwhile, for the Soviet Union this very question of destroyers and submarines, without which the handing over of one battleship and one cruiser has no significance, is of capital importance. You understand yourselves that a cruiser and a battleship are powerless without escorting destroyers. Since the whole of Italy’s Fleet is under your control, to carry out the decision which was taken at Teheran to hand over for the use of the Soviet Union eight destroyers and four submarines out of that Fleet should present no difficulties. I am agreeable [literally, “I agree”] that, instead of Italian destroyers and submarines, a similar number of American or British destroyers and submarines should be handed over to the Soviet Union for our use. Moreover, the question of the handing over of destroyers and submarines cannot be postponed, but must be settled at one and the same time with the handing over of the battleship and cruiser, as was definitely agreed between us at Teheran.

  Eventually the matter was settled as I hoped, although there was a good deal of correspondence, not all of a pleasant character, about it with our Soviet Ally The
Royal Sovereign
and the American cruiser were handed over as proposed. There was an inevitable delay about the destroyers till after the “Overlord” operation was complete. The Admiralty sweetened this pill by lending Russia four of our modern submarines.
As is well known, the Soviets after the war faithfully returned the ships, and arrangements were made to transfer vessels from the Italian Fleet in a manner acceptable to all concerned.

*  *  * *  *

Much as I should have liked, and much as I was pressed, to recuperate for another fortnight in this delectable asylum, I determined to be at home before the shock of Anzio occurred. On January 14, therefore, we all flew in beautiful weather to Gibraltar, where the
King George V
awaited me. I arrived early in the afternoon, and repaired again to the Convent. General Wilson, who had assumed his duties as Supreme Commander of the Mediterranean, and Admiral John Cunningham, the Naval Commander-in-Chief, had both arrived by air from Algiers, and we had an anxious but hopeful talk about the momentous operation for which we were all working. On the 15th, I joined the rest of my party, who were already on board the
King George V.
She made her way out of Algeciras Bay wide into the Atlantic, and thence to Plymouth. After a restful voyage, we were welcomed by the War Cabinet and Chiefs of Staff, who really seemed quite glad to see me back. I had been nearly two months away from England, and they had been through a lot of worry on account both of my illness and my activities. It was indeed a home-coming, and I felt deeply grateful to all these trusty friends and fellow-workers.

¹
Mr. Roosevelt grew Christmas trees at Hyde Park, and prided himself on this. He had sent me one.

²
See Volume I,
The Gathering Storm
, page 288.

9
Marshal Tito and Yugoslavia

Mihailovic and Tito___Importance of the Balkan Struggle___The Deakin and Maclean Missions___Growth of Partisan Strength after Italian Surrender___My Telegram to Roosevelt of October
23___
Bitter Quarrels Between Mihailovic and Tito___Three New Factors in Our Policy___Randolph to Join Maclean___Difficult Position of King Peter___My Letter to Tito of January
8, 1944___
His Reply___We Withdraw Our Liaison Officers from Mihailovic___My Account to Parliament of February
, 1944___
King Peter Dismisses the Puric Government___My Further Telegrams to Tito.

T
HE READER
must now go back to a fierce and sombre tale, which the main narrative has outstripped. Yugoslavia, since Hitler’s invasion and conquest in April 1941, had been the scene of fearful events. The spirited boy King took refuge in England with such of Prince Paul’s ministers and others as had defied the German assault. In the mountains there began again the fierce guerrilla with which the Serbs had resisted the Turks for centuries. General Mihailovic was its first and foremost champion, and round him rallied the surviving
élite
of Yugoslavia. In the vortex of world affairs their struggle was hardly noticeable. It belongs to the “unestimated sum of human pain.” Mihailovic suffered as a guerrilla leader from the fact that many of his followers were well-known people with relations and friends in Belgrade, and property and recognisable connections elsewhere. The Germans pursued a policy of murderous blackmail. They retaliated for guerrilla activities by shooting batches of four or five hundred selected people in Belgrade. Under this pressure Mihailovic drifted gradually into a posture where some of his commanders made accommodations with the German and Italian troops to be left alone in certain mountain areas in return for doing little or nothing against the enemy. Those who have triumphantly withstood such strains may brand his name, but history, more discriminating, should not erase it from the scroll of Serbian patriots. By the autumn of 1941, Serbian resistance to the German terror had become only a shadow. The national struggle could only be sustained by the innate valour of the common people. This however was not lacking.

A wild and furious war for existence against the Germans broke into flame among the partisans. Among these Tito stood forth, pre-eminent and soon dominant. Tito, as he called himself, was a Soviet-trained Communist who, until Russia was invaded by Hitler, and after Yugoslavia had been assailed, had fomented political strikes along the Dalmatian coast, in accordance with the general Comintern policy. But once he united in his breast and brain his Communist doctrine with his burning ardour for his native land in her extreme torment, he became a leader, with adherents who had little to lose but their lives, who were ready to die, and if to die to kill. This confronted the Germans with a problem which could not be solved by the mass executions of notables or persons of substance. They found themselves confronted by desperate men who had to be hunted down in their lairs. The partisans under Tito wrested weapons from German hands. They grew rapidly in numbers. No reprisals, however bloody, upon hostages or villages deterred them. For them it was death or freedom. Soon they began to inflict heavy injury upon the Germans and became masters of wide regions.

It was inevitable that the partisan movement should also come into savage quarrels with their fellow-countrymen, who were resisting half-heartedly or making bargains for immunity with the common foe. The partisans deliberately violated any agreements made with the enemy by the Cetniks—as the
followers of General Mihailovic were called. The Germans then shot Cetnik hostages and in revenge Cetniks gave the Germans information about the partisans. All this happened sporadically and uncontrollably in these wild mountain regions. It was a tragedy within a tragedy.

*  *  * *  *

I had followed these events amid other preoccupations so far as was possible. Except for a trickle of supplies dropped from aircraft, we were not able to help. Our headquarters in the Middle East was responsible for all operations in this theatre and maintained a system of agents and liaison officers with the followers of Mihailovic. When in the summer of 1943, we broke into Sicily and Italy, the Balkans and especially Yugoslavia never left my thoughts. Up till this point our missioners had only gone to the bands under Mihailovic, who represented the official resistance to the Germans and the Yugoslav Government in Cairo. In May 1943, we took a new departure. It was decided to send small parties of British officers and non-commissioned officers to establish contact with the Yugoslav partisans, in spite of the fact that cruel strife was proceeding between them and the Cetniks, and that Tito was waging war as a Communist, not only against the German invaders, but against the Serbian Monarchy and Mihailovic. At the end of that month, Captain Deakin, an Oxford don who had helped me for five years before the war in my literary work, was dropped by parachute from Cairo to set up a mission with Tito. Other British missions followed, and by June much evidence had accumulated. The Chiefs of Staff reported on June 6: “It is clear from information available to the War Office that the Cetniks are hopelessly compromised in their relations with the Axis in Herzegovina and Montenegro. During the recent fighting in the latter area, it has been the well-organised partisans rather than the Cetniks who have been holding down the Axis forces.”