Supreme Commander (109 page)

On April 6 Montgomery made another effort to persuade Eisenhower to try to take Berlin. He said that after the British Second Army captured Hamburg and reached the Elbe it should advance both toward Luebeck and to the southeast toward Berlin. Montgomery felt this would hit the Germans from an unexpected direction “and should be comparatively easy.” Montgomery knew that Eisenhower did not feel Berlin had much value as an objective but said, “I would personally not agree with this; I consider that Berlin has definite value as an objective and I have no doubt whatever that the Russians think the same; but they may well pretend that this is not the case!!”

Eisenhower told Montgomery that his proposal for a double thrust from the Elbe was currently unfeasible, for it implied that Bradley would protect the right flank of Second Army. This was not what Eisenhower
wanted; Twenty-first Army Group’s responsibility was, on the contrary, to give security to Bradley’s left flank. “It is not his [Bradley’s] role to protect your southern flank,” Eisenhower said. “My directive is quite clear on this point.” Eisenhower admitted that Berlin had “political and psychological significance but of far greater importance will be the location of the remaining German forces.… It is on them that I am going to concentrate my attention.” He added that if he had a chance to take Berlin cheaply he would do so.
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With the Berlin question settled for the time being, it was imperative for Eisenhower to get some co-operation with the Russians under way. The danger was real and apparent—troops of the Red Army might bump into American or British soldiers and start shooting. The chances were great because of the unfamiliar uniforms and the language differences. Further, Bradley and Eisenhower had been given to understand that the Russians “had grown increasingly cocky and rash with each mile they advanced toward the west.” They were shooting everything in sight.

Early in February Eisenhower had discussed with Bradley the problem of avoiding an accidental clash in closing head on with the Russians. The two Americans agreed that prearranged recognition signals were not likely to work; they had even less faith in the use of radio contact because of the language barrier. What they needed was a visible geographic line of demarcation. At the time of the conversation the Russians had closed to the Oder-Neisse, SHAEF forces to the Rhine. The only major river between them was the Elbe, which ran north and south to Magdeburg, where it bent to the east. South of Magdeburg the Mulde River ran on nearly straight south to the Czech border. It could be used to continue the boundary. Eisenhower, from then on, had the Elbe-Mulde in mind as a demarcation line. It was an optimistic thought, for his forces were two hundred and fifty miles or more from the Elbe while the Russians were within a hundred miles; in Bradley’s words, “The Elbe River line looked almost hopelessly beyond the reach of our Allied forces.”
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Reaching agreement on a line of demarkation proved extraordinarily complex. Soviet, British, and United States airmen had been trying to work out solutions to the problems of bomb lines since June 1944, with little success. On the ground the matter was even more difficult because, in addition to such problems as language barriers and the absence of direct wire communication, there were the questions of the nature of lines of demarcation, procedure to follow when contact was imminent,
withdrawal of various troops to their proper zones of occupation, and the probable necessity of having to advance beyond an agreed line of demarcation for emergency military purposes. There was no effective liaison between the advancing forces, for although the Russians had some political contact with the Western Allies the Soviet government had consistently refused to allow the British and Americans to gain any significant knowledge of the Red Army’s military plans and operations. The United States and Great Britain maintained military missions in Moscow, but until Eisenhower began his direct communication with Stalin the military missions merely passed on general information of SHAEF’s operations; the amount of information the West received through the missions was infinitesimal.

In view of all these problems and, more important, in view of the rapidly changing military situation, Eisenhower knew it was obviously impractical to make any definite proposals on boundaries until he had a better idea as to where the two sides would actually meet. General agreements were, however, imperative. On April 5, therefore, he proposed that “both fronts should be free to advance until contact is imminent.” Stop lines might then be worked out by local commanders on the spot. Since this might bring the Western armies into the Russian Zone, he further proposed that, subject to operational necessity, either side would withdraw into its own zone at the request of the other.
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The British, just recovering from their shock over Montgomery’s secondary role, were furious. Churchill felt that Eisenhower’s proposal would throw away the best bargaining point the West would hold at the end of the war. He most definitely wanted Allied troops within the Russian Zone when the Germans surrendered, and he did not want them pulled out until he was certain Stalin would give something in return.
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He insisted that questions of withdrawal from the Russian Zone were governmental, not military matters, and had the British Chiefs of Staff suggest to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Eisenhower be directed that “On cessation of operations our respective armies will stand fast until they receive orders from their Governments.”
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The business of holding the other side’s territory for trading purposes, however, could work two ways, as the State Department was quick
to see. Officials of the European and Russian Affairs Divisions declared “that for governments to direct movement of troops definitely indicated political action and that such movements should remain a military consideration at least until SHAEF is dissolved and the ACC [Allied Control Commission] is set up.” The State Department feared that the British proposal might send the Russians racing over Germany in an attempt to acquire as many square miles as possible before the war ended. Officials of the War Department were thankful for this interpretation of the British proposal because it indicated that the Department of State preferred “a straight military solution to the problem”.
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The BCOS and the JCS directed Eisenhower to get an agreement with the Russians that would allow both sides to advance until contact was imminent. Division of responsibility would then be settled by army group commanders. The Russians were suspicious of the proposal, fearing that the West was trying to redraw the zonal boundaries, and demanded that Eisenhower clarify that point. He assured the Red Army leaders that these arrangements were tactical only, and on April 15 agreement was reached. The Combined Chiefs of Staff then instructed Eisenhower to make no major withdrawals without consulting his superiors. The policy was finally clear.
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The question of where to stop was not. Even with agreement reached, Eisenhower could not simply have his troops rushing forward until they bumped into the Russians. He attempted to work out a system of signals and markings through which the two sides could identify themselves and avoid firing on each other, but no one had much faith in them. On April 21, therefore, Eisenhower told the military missions to Moscow to tell the Soviets that he intended to stop on the Elbe-Mulde line. Thereafter he would turn his forces north and south.
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The Russians almost immediately agreed.
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Thus Eisenhower had turned down both Montgomery, who wanted his army group to have the leading role in the last campaign, and Churchill, who no longer argued about who was to do it but still wanted the AEF to get as far into the Russian Zone as possible, and certainly into Berlin. The differences in views were caused, in large part, by different perspectives. Montgomery was a field commander whose forces had won great victories in Africa, Italy, France, and Germany. He was proud of what his men had done and was convinced that they could achieve almost
anything he asked of them. They wanted to deliver the final blow, he wanted to see them do it, and he thought they could. Berlin was before them, the obvious objective. The Germans defending the capital were facing east, awaiting the Russian onslaught. Montgomery was confident he could take Berlin with one lightning thrust, and it seemed to him madness to hold his armies back.

Churchill’s concerns were wider. If Eisenhower’s responsibility was to defeat Germany, the Prime Minister’s was the security of Great Britain. This was a continuing problem and he had to take into account what Europe would be like once German military might had been eliminated. The most obvious fact then would be the presence in central Europe of a triumphant Red Army, backed by a state that had the sharpest possible ideological differences with the West and had already indicated deep suspicions of Western motives. Roosevelt had told Churchill that the Americans would not leave their troops in Europe for more than two years, and Britain was exhausted.

Under the circumstances Churchill wanted the West to emerge from the war in a strong position. The Americans were already preparing to redeploy forces to the Pacific; April 1945 marked the high-water mark of Anglo-American power in Europe. Churchill thought it should be used to secure the West’s postwar position. As John Ehrman puts it: “Disappointed, distrustful and sometimes deeply alarmed [by the Soviets] as they were, [British] hopes, and British policy, rested on a continuing partnership of the three Powers expressed in and operating through the instrument of the United Nations to which it was complementary. The strategy they wished to adopt in Germany was designed, not for reasons of defence or attack against Russia … but with the object, which they recognized must remain subsidiary to the immediate military task, of negotiating from strength. In the atmosphere of the time, this seemed to them a useful—possibly an essential—contribution to the tripartite alliance, guarding it from that threat of excessive Soviet ambition which Soviet conquests appeared to foster. The British in fact had not abandoned the objects, or even entirely the hopes, of the Yalta Conference.… They did not despair of a solution with the Russians: indeed they expected it. But they expected it as a result of firm and timely measures which would remind their ally of his obligations, and whose inception depended on the movements of the Western armies in the few weeks that remained.”
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Ehrman’s argument is, of course, friendly to British policy. New Left historians in the United States would never accept Ehrman’s analysis. By April 1945, they argue, it was abundantly clear that Churchill’s
intention was to somehow deny the Soviets the fruits of victory, specifically in eastern Europe. Churchill could not bear the thought of a Soviet domination of the old
cordon sanitaire
or of Soviet support for the political left in Rumania, Poland, and the other eastern European nations. American policy makers also wanted to keep the Soviet Union hemmed into its prewar boundaries. But even if this is a correct analysis of the policy, and even if it is a logical, rational policy, it is difficult to see where Berlin fit into the pattern. Unless the West was willing and able to hold the city, up to and beyond the point of resisting a Red Army attack, taking Berlin made little sense. Eisenhower’s suspicion of the time remains—Churchill wanted Berlin for prestige purposes that had little or nothing to do with the defeat of Germany and could hardly fit into a logical pattern of resisting Soviet encroachment in Europe. The Red Army had paid the price in blood, and the West was fortunate that the Soviets did not come further into central Europe than they did. To think that a Western capture of Berlin would have reversed the process and changed the situation in eastern Europe is absurd.

In any event, whatever Churchill’s (and Montgomery’s) motives, Eisenhower’s concerns were different. The shape of postwar Europe was up to the heads of government; his task remained the rapid defeat of Germany. This was not yet an accomplished fact, and he felt there was reason to believe that it might take a great deal more time. On April 13 the CCS asked him for his views on declaring Victory in Europe Day. The Chiefs thought he should not wait until all isolated centers of resistance had been mopped up, and they doubted that any German government would sign a formal document of surrender. Eisenhower said he expected continued German resistance in the Alpine redoubt, the north German ports, western Holland, Denmark, Norway, the Channel Islands, and the German pockets left in France. He feared that operations against Norway and the Alpine redoubt “may involve considerable forces and also may last for some time.” He thought, therefore, that the declaration of VE-Day should wait until it was evident “that further months of hostilities on a fairly considerable scale do not lie before us.” Nothing so far had indicated that German morale had cracked, and “it must be remembered that the storming of the final citadels of Nazi resistance may well call for acts of endurance and heroism on the part of the forces engaged.…” He recommended that VE-Day not be announced until the AEF and the Red Army had joined hands, the Allies had occupied the key positions
in the alpine redoubt, and the AEF was in Denmark and able to mount an assault on Norway.
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On April 15 Eisenhower explained his thinking on the political aspects to Marshall. “Frankly, if I should have forces in the Russian occupational zone and be faced with an order or ‘request’ to retire so that they may advance to the points they choose, I see no recourse except to comply. To do otherwise would probably provoke an incident, with the logic of the situation all on the side of the Soviets. I cannot see exactly what the British have in mind for me to do, under such circumstances. It is a bridge that I will have to cross when I come to it but I must say that I feel a bit lost in trying to give sensible instructions to my various commanders in the field.” This represented the key to both this particular question and the broader one of Churchill’s policy vis-à-vis the Russians. Eisenhower simply could not “see exactly what the British have in mind” because he continued to center his attention on the defeat of Germany, while Churchill looked to the shape of postwar Europe. What Churchill had in mind certainly was for Eisenhower to refuse a request to pull back, meanwhile referring it to the heads of government, who could then use it as a bargaining point to get concessions from the Russians. This had little or nothing to do with the defeat of Germany. It had everything to do with Britain’s postwar security.
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