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more Hurricanes, making four hundred and forty
fighters in all, if your pilots could use them effectively.

These would be eight- and twelve-gun Hurricanes,
which we have found very deadly in action. We could
send one hundred now and two batches of fifty soon
afterwards, together with mechanics, instructors, spare
parts, and equipment, to Archangel. Meanwhile arrangements could be made to begin accustoming your
pilots and mechanics to the new type if you will send
them to air squadrons at Murmansk. If you feel this
would be useful orders will be given here accordingly,
and a full technical memorandum is being telegraphed
through our Military Air Mission.

2. The news that the Persians have decided to
cease resistance is most welcome. Even more than
safeguarding the oilfields, our object in entering Persia
has been to get another through route to you which
cannot be cut. For this purpose we must develop the
railway from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian and make
sure it runs smoothly with reinforced railway material
from India. The Foreign Secretary has given to Maisky
for you the kind of terms we should like to make with
the Persian Government, so as to have a friendly
people and not be compelled to waste a number of
divisions merely guarding the railway line. Food is being
sent from India, and if the Persians submit we shall
resume payment of the oil royalties now due to the
Shah. We are instructing our advance guards to push
on and join hands with your forces at a point to be fixed
by the military commanders somewhere between
Hamadan and Kasvin. It would be a good thing to let
the world know that British and Russian forces had
actually joined hands. In our view it would be better at
this moment for neither of us to enter Teheran in force,
as all we want is the through route. We are making a
large-scale base at Basra, and we hope to make this a
well-equipped warm-water reception port for American
supplies, which can thus surely reach the Caspian and
the Volga region.

3. I must again express the admiration of the British
nation for the wonderful fight the Russian armies and
Russian people are making against the Nazi criminals.

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General Macfarlane was immensely impressed by all
he saw at the front. A very hard time lies before us, but
Hitler will not have a pleasant winter under our ever-increasing air bombardment. I was gratified by the very
firm warning Your Excellency gave to Japan about
supplies via Vladivostok. President Roosevelt seemed
disposed, when I met him, to take a strong line against
further Japanese aggression, whether in the South or in
the Northwest Pacific, and I made haste to declare that
we would range ourselves upon his side should war
come. I am most anxious to do more for Chiang Kai-shek than we have hitherto felt strong enough to do.

We do not want war with Japan, and I am sure the way
to stop it is to confront those people, who are divided
and far from sure of themselves, with the prospect of
the heaviest combination.

On the evening of September 4, M. Maisky called to see me to deliver M. Stalin’s reply. This was the first personal message since July.

Premier

Stalin

to

4 Sept. 41

Prime Minister

Personal message of Premier Stalin to Premier
Churchill.

I express thanks for promise to sell
1
to Soviet Union
a further two hundred fighters in addition to the two
hundred previously promised. I do not doubt that the
Soviet aviators will succeed in mastering them and
putting them into use.

I have however to say that these aeroplanes, which
apparently cannot be put into use quickly and at once,
but at different periods and in separate groups, will be
incapable of effecting serious changes on the Eastern
front. They will be unable to effect serious changes, not
only because of the large scale on which the war is
being waged, which necessitates the continuous supply
of a large quantity of aeroplanes, but chiefly because
the situation of the Soviet forces during the last three
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weeks has considerably deteriorated in such important
areas as the Ukraine and Leningrad.

As a matter of fact, the relative stabilisation at the
front which we succeeded in achieving about three
weeks ago has broken down during the last week,
owing to transfer to Eastern front of thirty to thirty-four
fresh German infantry divisions and of an enormous
quantity of tanks and aircraft as well as a large increase
in activities of the twenty Finnish and twenty-six Rumanian divisions. Germans consider danger in the West a
bluff, and are transferring all their forces to the East
with impunity, being convinced that no second front
exists in the West, and that none will exist. Germans
consider it quite possible to smash their enemies singly:
first Russia, then the English.

As a result we have lost more than one-half of the
Ukraine, and in addition the enemy is at the gates of
Leningrad.

These circumstances have resulted in our losing
Krivoi Rog iron ore basin and a number of metallurgical
works in the Ukraine; we have evacuated one aluminium works on Dnieper River and a further aluminium
works at Tikhvin, one motor and two aircraft works in
the Ukraine, two motor and two aircraft works at
Leningrad; and these works cannot be put into operation in the new localities in less than from seven to eight
months.

This has weakened our power of defence and faced
the Soviet Union with a mortal menace. The question
arises how to emerge from this more than unfavourable
situation.

I think there is only one means of egress from this
situation – to establish in the present year a second
front somewhere in the Balkans or France, capable of
drawing away from the Eastern front thirty to forty
divisions, and at the same time of ensuring to the
Soviet Union thirty thousand tons of aluminium by the
beginning of October next and a monthly minimum of
aid amounting to four hundred aircraft and five hundred
tanks (of small or medium size).

Without these two forms of help the Soviet Union will
either suffer defeat or be weakened to such an extent

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that it will lose for a long period any capacity to render
assistance to its allies by its actual operations on the
fronts of the struggle against Hitlerism.

I realise that this present message will cause dismay
to Your Excellency. But what is one to do? Experience
has taught me to look facts in the face however unpleasant they are, and not to fear to express the truth
however unwelcome it may be. The Persian affair has
in fact turned out pretty well. The joint operations of the
British and Soviet forces predetermined the issue. So it
will be in future as long as our forces act jointly. But
Persia is but an episode. The issue of the war will not of
course be decided in Persia.

The Soviet Union, like England, does not desire war
with Japan. The Soviet Union does not consider it
possible to violate agreements, including its treaty of
neutrality with Japan. But if Japan violates this agreement and attacks the Soviet Union, she will meet with a
due rebuff on the part of the Soviet forces.

Finally, allow me to express thanks for the admiration you have expressed at the actions of the Soviet
forces which are waging a bloody war with the robber
hordes of Hitlerite bandits for our common cause of
liberation.

The Soviet Ambassador, who was accompanied by Mr.

Eden, stayed and talked with me for an hour and a half. He emphasised in bitter terms how for the last eleven weeks Russia had been bearing the brunt of the German onslaught virtually alone. The Russian armies were now enduring a weight of attack never equalled before. He said that he did not wish to use dramatic language, but this might be a turning-point in history. If Soviet Russia were defeated, how could we win the war? M. Maisky emphasised the extreme gravity of the crisis on the Russian front in poignant terms which commanded my sympathy.

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But when presently I sensed an underlying air of menace in his appeal, I was angered. I said to the Ambassador, whom I had known for many years, “Remember that only four months ago we in this Island did not know whether you were not coming in against us on the German side. Indeed, we thought it quite likely that you would. Even then we felt sure we should win in the end. We never thought our survival was dependent on your action either way.

Whatever happens, and whatever you do, you of all people have no right to make reproaches to us.” As I warmed to the topic the Ambassador exclaimed, “More calm, please, my dear Mr. Churchill,” but thereafter his tone perceptibly changed.

The discussion went over the ground already covered in the interchange of telegrams. The Ambassador pleaded for an immediate landing on the coast of France or the Low Countries. I explained the military reasons which rendered this impossible, and that it could be no relief to Russia. I said that I had spent five hours that day examining with our experts the means for greatly increasing the capacity of the Trans-Persian Railway. I spoke of the Beaverbrook-Harriman Mission and of our resolve to give all the supplies we could spare or carry. Finally Mr. Eden and I told him that we should be ready for our part to make it plain to the Finns that we would declare war upon them if they advanced into Russia beyond their 1918 frontiers. M. Maisky could not of course abandon his appeal for an immediate second front, and it was useless to argue further.

I at once consulted the Cabinet upon the issues raised in this conversation and in Stalin’s message, and that evening sent a reply.

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Prime

Minister

to

4 Sept. 41

Monsieur Stalin

I reply at once in the spirit of your message.

Although we should shrink from no exertion, there is in
fact no possibility of any British action in the West,
except air action, which would draw the German forces
from the East before the winter sets in. There is no
chance whatever of a second front being formed in the
Balkans without the help of Turkey. I will, if Your
Excellency desires, give all the reasons which have led
our Chiefs of Staff to these conclusions. They have
already been discussed with your Ambassador in
conference today with the Foreign Secretary and the
Chiefs of Staff. Action, however well-meant, leading
only to costly fiascos would be no help to anyone but
Hitler.