Closing the Ring (48 page)

  This paper I handed to the President before we left for Teheran, and I was not aware during the Conference at Teheran what his answer would be. I understood from private sources that the American Chiefs of Staff realised fully the clash of authority that might arise between our Combined Staff organisation and the new Supreme General, and that after weighing our arguments they were by no means wedded to the plan. Neither the President nor any of his immediate circle referred to the matter in any way on the occasions, formal and informal but always friendly, when we came into contact. I therefore rested under the impression that General Marshall would command “Overlord,” that General Eisenhower would succeed him in Washington, and that it would fall to me, representing His Majesty’s Government, to choose the Mediterranean commander, who at that time I had no doubt would be Alexander, already waging the war in Italy. Here the issue rested till we returned to Cairo.

*  *  * *  *

Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November, is a feature in American life. Every soldier in the American armies is supposed to eat turkey on that day, and most of them did in 1943. Ample supplies of turkeys for all the United States Staffs at Cairo had been brought out in the President’s ship. Mr. Roosevelt invited me to join him at dinner in his villa. “Let us make it a family affair,” he said. So Sarah was asked too, and also “Tommy” (Commander Thompson), to whom he had taken a great liking. The President’s guests included his personal circle, his son Elliott, his son-in-law Mr. Boettiger,
and Harry Hopkins and his son Robert. We had a pleasant and peaceful feast. Two enormous turkeys were brought in with all ceremony. The President, propped up high in his chair, carved for all with masterly, indefatigable skill. As we were above twenty, this took a long time, and those who were helped first had finished before the President had cut anything for himself. As I watched the huge platefuls he distributed to the company I feared that he might be left with nothing at all. But he had calculated to a nicety, and I was relieved, when at last the two skeletons were removed, to see him set about his own share. Harry, who had noted my anxiety, said, “We have ample reserves.” Speeches were made of warm and intimate friendship. For a couple of hours we cast care aside. I had never seen the President more gay. After the meal was over we returned to the big room in which we had held so many conferences. Dance music—from gramophone records—began to play. Sarah was the only woman present, and she had her work cut out, so I danced with “Pa” Watson (Roosevelt’s trusted old friend and aide), to the delight of his chief, who watched us from the sofa. This jolly evening and the spectacle of the President carving up the turkeys stand out in my mind among the most agreeable features of the halt at Cairo.

*  *  * *  *

At last all the puzzles had been solved. The difficulties of the American Constitution, Roosevelt’s health, and Stalin’s obduracy, the complications of a journey to Basra and the Trans-Persian Railway, were all swept away by the inexorable need of a triple meeting, and the failure of every other alternative but a flight to Teheran. So we sailed off into the air from Cairo, at crack of dawn on November 27, in perfect weather for the long-sought meeting-place, and arrived safely by different routes at different times.
²

¹
German records show that during this period their Aegean air forces were increased by nearly three hundred aircraft, while those in Italy were reduced by about two hundred.

²
I have not broken the thread of the narrative to insert a domestic matter which was at this time causing me concern. The question of the release of the Mosleys will be found in Appendix A, Book Two.

2
Teheran: The Opening

Security Arrangements Wise and Unwise___Recapitulation of My Views___The First Plenary Meeting, November
28___
President Roosevelt Opens___Stalin’s Account of the Fighting on the Soviet Front___He Urges the Allied Cross-Channel Attack in Preference to Any Invasion of Germany from Italy___I State the British View___The Position of Turkey___The Crucial Point: Thirty-Five Divisions for “Overlord”___Stalin Favours the Invasion of Southern France as the Secondary Objective___I Insist upon the Capture of Rome___More About Turkey.

I
COULD NOT ADMIRE
the arrangements which had been made for my reception after landing in Teheran. The British Minister met me in his car, and we drove from the airfield to our Legation. As we approached the city, the road was lined with Persian cavalrymen every fifty yards, for at least three miles. It was clearly shown to any evil people that somebody of consequence was coming, and which way. The men on horseback advertised the route, but could provide no protection at all. A police car driving a hundred yards in advance gave warning of our approach. The pace was slow. Presently large crowds stood in the spaces between the Persian cavalry, and as far as I could see there were few, if any, foot police. Towards the centre of Teheran these crowds were four or five deep. The people were friendly but noncommittal. They pressed to within a few feet of the car. There was no kind of defence at all against two or three determined men with pistols or a bomb. As we reached the turning which led to the Legation
there was a traffic block, and we remained for three or four minutes stationary amid the crowded throng of gaping Persians. If it had been planned out beforehand to run the greatest risks, and have neither the security of quiet surprise arrival nor an effective escort, the problem could not have been solved more perfectly. However, nothing happened. I grinned at the crowd, and on the whole they grinned at me. In due course we arrived at the British Legation, which lay within a strong cordon of British-Indian troops.

The American Security were more clever about the President. An elaborate escort of armoured cars surrounded the Presidential vehicle on its route. Actually he alighted at an unknown landing point, and went quite unguarded to the American Legation through utterly unpredictable streets and byways.

The British Legation and its gardens lay almost adjoining the Soviet Embassy, and as the Anglo-Indian brigade entrusted with our safety was in direct contact with the still larger Russian force that encircled their own domain, both soon joined and we became an isolated area with all the precautions of war. The American Legation, which was guarded by United States forces, was more than half a mile away, and this meant that either the President or else Stalin and I would have to traverse the narrow streets of Teheran two or three times a day, back and forth, during the Conference. Meanwhile, Molotov, who had been in Teheran twenty-four hours before our arrival, produced a story that the Soviet Secret Intelligence had unearthed a plot to kill one or more of the “Big Three,” as we were regarded, and the idea of one or other of us continually going to and fro through the streets filled him with deep alarm. “If anything like that were to happen,” he said, “it could produce a most unfortunate impression.” This could not be denied. I strongly supported Molotov in his appeals to the President to move forthwith inside the Soviet Embassy, which was three or four times as big as the others, and stood in extensive grounds, now ringed by Soviet troops and police. We prevailed upon Mr. Roosevelt to take this good advice, and
next afternoon he moved with his whole staff, including the excellent Filipino cooks from his yacht, into the Russian domain, where ample and comfortable quarters were provided for him. Thus we were all within a circle, and could discuss the problems of the World War without any chance of annoyance. I was made very comfortable in the British Legation, and had only to walk a couple of hundred yards to reach the Soviet palace, which might be said to be for the time being the centre of the world. I continued to be far from well, and my cold and sore throat were so vicious that for a time I could hardly speak. However, Lord Moran with sprays and ceaseless care enabled me to say what I had to say—which was a lot.

*  *  * *  *

There have been many misleading accounts of the line I took, with the full agreement of the British Chiefs of Staff, at this Conference. It has become a legend in America that I strove to prevent the cross-Channel enterprise called “Overlord,” and that I tried vainly to lure the Allies into some mass invasion of the Balkans, or a large-scale campaign in the Eastern Mediterranean, which would effectively kill it. Much of this nonsense has already in previous chapters been exposed and refuted, but it may be worth while to set forth what it was I actually sought, and what, in a very large measure, I got.

“Overlord,” now planned in great detail, should be launched in May or June, or at the latest in the opening days of July 1944. The troops and all the ships to carry them still had first priority. Secondly, the great Anglo-American army in action in Italy must be nourished to achieve the capture of Rome and advance to secure the airfields north of the capital, from which the air attack on Southern Germany became possible. After these were gained, there should be no advance in Italy beyond the Pisa-Rimini line—i.e., we should not extend our front into the broader part of the Italian peninsula. These operations, if resisted by the enemy, would attract and hold very large German forces, would give the Italians the chance to “work their passage,” and keep the flame of war burning continually upon the hostile front.

I was not opposed at this time to a landing in the south of France, along the Riviera, with Marseilles and Toulon as objectives, and thereafter an Anglo-American advance northward up the Rhone Valley in aid of the main invasion across the Channel. Alternatively, I preferred a right-handed movement from the north of Italy, using the Istrian peninsula and the Ljubljana Gap, towards Vienna. I was delighted when the President suggested this, and tried, as will be seen, to engage him in it. If the Germans resisted, we should attract many of their divisions from the Russian or Channel fronts. If we were not resisted, we should liberate at little cost enormous and invaluable regions. I was sure we should be resisted, and thus help “Overlord” in a decisive manner.

My third request was that the Eastern Mediterranean, with all the prizes that it afforded, should not be neglected, provided no strength which could be applied across the Channel should be absorbed. In all this I adhered to the proportions which I had mentioned to General Eisenhower two months earlier—namely, six-tenths of our realisable strength across the Channel, three-tenths in Italy, and one-tenth in the Eastern Mediterranean. From this I never varied—not an inch in a year.

We were all agreed, British, Russians, and Americans, upon the first two major campaigns, involving nine-tenths of our available strength. All I had to plead was the effective use of one-tenth of our strength in the Eastern Mediterranean. Simpletons will argue, “Would it not have been much better to centre all upon the decisive operation and dismiss all other opportunities as wasteful diversions?” But this ignores the governing facts. All the available shipping in the Western Hemisphere was already committed, to the last ton, to the preparation of “Overlord” and the maintenance of our front in Italy. Even if more shipping had been found, it could not have been used, because the programmes of disembarkation filled to the utmost limit all the ports and camps involved. As for the Eastern Mediterranean, nothing was needed that could be applied elsewhere. The air force massed for the defence of Egypt could equally well or better discharge its duty if used from a forward frontier. All the troops, two or three divisions at the outside, were already in that theatre, and there were no ships, except local vessels, to carry them to the larger scenes. To get the active, vigorous use of these forces, who otherwise would be mere lookers-on, might inflict grave injury upon the enemy. If Rhodes were taken, the whole Aegean could be dominated by our air force and direct sea-contact established with Turkey. If, on the other hand, Turkey could be persuaded to enter the war, or to strain her neutrality by lending us the airfields we had built for her, we could equally dominate the Aegean and the capture of Rhodes would not be necessary. Either way it would work.

And of course the prize was Turkey. If we could gain Turkey, it would be possible, without the subtraction of a single man, ship, or aircraft from the main and decisive battles, to dominate the Black Sea with submarines and light naval forces, and to give a right hand to Russia and carry supplies to her armies by a route far less costly, far more swift, and far more abundant than either the Arctic or the Persian Gulf.

This was the triple theme which I pressed upon the President and Stalin on every occasion, not hesitating to repeat the arguments remorselessly. I could have gained Stalin, but the President was oppressed by the prejudices of his military advisers, and drifted to and fro in the argument, with the result that the whole of these subsidiary but gleaming opportunities were cast aside unused. Our American friends were comforted in their obstinacy by the reflection that “at any rate we have stopped Churchill entangling us in the Balkans.” No such idea had ever crossed my mind. I regard the failure to use otherwise unemployable forces to bring Turkey into the war and dominate the Aegean as an error in war direction which cannot be excused by the fact that in spite of it victory was won.

*  *  * *  *

Shortly after the President’s move into his new quarters in the Soviet Embassy, Stalin came to greet him, and they had a friendly talk. According to the Hopkins biography the President informed Stalin of his promise to Chiang Kai-shek of active
operations in Burma. Stalin expressed a low opinion of the fighting qualities of the Chinese troops. The President “referred to one of his favourite topics … the education of the peoples of the Far Eastern colonial areas … in the arts of self-government. … He cautioned Stalin against bringing up the problems of India with Churchill, and Stalin agreed that this was undoubtedly a sore subject. Roosevelt said that reform in India should begin from the bottom, and Stalin said that reform from the bottom would mean revolution.”
¹
I passed the morning peacefully in bed nursing my cold and dealing with many telegrams from London.