Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (124 page)

Were we to move more than eight million Germans as well? Even if such a transfer could be contemplated, there was not enough food for them in what was left of Germany.

Much of Germany’s grain came from the very land which the Poles had seized, and if this was denied us the Western Allies would be left with wrecked industrial zones and a starved and swollen population. For the future peace of

Triumph and Tragedy

768

Europe here was a wrong beside which Alsace-Lorraine and the Danzig Corridor were trifles. One day the Germans would want their territory back, and the Poles would not be able to stop them.

The first plenary session of the Conference was held at five o’clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 17. Stalin proposed that the President should take the chair. I supported this, and Mr. Truman accepted our invitation. A number of lesser problems then appeared. Mr. Truman proposed that Italy should join the United Nations, and that the Foreign Ministers of Great Britain, Russia, China, France, and the United States should draft the peace treaties and boundary settlements of Europe. I was doubtful about both these suggestions. Although we had suffered heavy naval losses in the Mediterranean we had much goodwill to Italy, and had provided fourteen out of the fifteen ships which Russia claimed from the Italian Fleet.

But I said bluntly that the British people would not easily forget that Italy declared war on the Commonwealth in the hour of her greatest peril, when French resistance was on the point of collapse; nor could they overlook the long struggle against her in North Africa before America came into the war.

Stalin was just as doubtful about asking China to join the Council of Foreign Ministers. Why should she deal with questions which were primarily European ones? And why have this new body at all? We had the European Advisory Commission, and we had agreed at Yalta to regular meetings of the three Foreign Secretaries. Another organisation would only complicate matters, and anyway when would the Peace Conference be held? The President

Triumph and Tragedy

769

maintained that as China was a member of the World Security Council she ought to have a say in the European settlement, and he admitted that the new United Nations organisation would leave little scope for meetings of the Foreign Secretaries of the “Big Three.” All this seemed to me somewhat premature. I feared a dissolution of the Grand Alliance. A World Organisation, open to all and all-forgiving, might be both diffuse and powerless. Free elections in Poland were more to the point, and I reminded my colleagues that this practical problem still lay before us.

On this we parted.

When the Conference met for its second session at five o’clock on the afternoon of July 18 I at once raised another matter which, though outside the agenda, was of immediate importance. At Teheran it had been very difficult for the Press to get near the meeting-place, and at Yalta it had been impossible. But now, immediately outside the delegation area, there were a hundred and eighty journalists prowling around in a state of furious indignation.

They carried very powerful weapons and were making a great outcry in the world Press about the lack of facilities accorded to them. Stalin asked who had let them in. I explained that they were not within the delegation area, but mostly in Berlin. The Conference could only do its work in quiet and secrecy, which must be protected at all costs, and I offered to see the Press-men myself and explain why they had to be excluded and why nothing could be divulged until the Conference ended. I hoped that Mr. Truman would see them too. The plumage of the Press needed to be smoothed down, and I thought that if the importance of secrecy and quiet for those engaged in the Conference Triumph and Tragedy

770

were explained to them they would take their exclusion with a good grace.

Stalin irritably asked what all the journalists wanted, and Mr.

Truman said that each of us had his own representative to stand between him and the Press. We had agreed to exclude them and matters should be left as they were. I submitted to the majority, but I thought and still think that a public explanation would have been better.

The Foreign Secretaries then produced their plan for drafting the European peace treaties. The Council would still consist of the Foreign Ministers of the five Powers enumerated by the President, but only those who had signed the articles of surrender imposed on the enemy State concerned would draw up the terms of settlement.

This we agreed to, but I was concerned at an American proposal to submit the terms to the United Nations. I pointed out that if this meant consulting every member of the United Nations it would be a lengthy and laborious process, and I should be sorry to agree to it. Mr. Byrnes said we were so bound by the United Nations Declaration, but both he and Stalin admitted that reference to the United Nations could only be made after the five Powers had agreed among themselves. I left it at that.

Then there was Germany. The exact powers of the Control Council, economic questions, the disposal of the Nazi Fleet, none were ready for discussion. “What,” I asked, “is meant by Germany?”“What she has become after the war,” said Stalin. “The Germany of 1937,” said Mr. Truman. Stalin said it was impossible to get away from the war. The country no longer existed. There were no definite frontiers, no frontier guards, no troops, merely four occupied zones. At length

Triumph and Tragedy

771

we agreed to take the Germany of 1937 as a starting-point.

This shelved the problem, and we turned to Poland.

Stalin thereupon proposed the immediate transfer to the Lublin Poles “of all stocks, assets, and all other property belonging to Poland which is still at the disposal of the Polish Government in London, in whatever form this property may be and no matter where or at whose disposal this property may prove to be at the present moment.” He also wanted the Polish armed forces, including the Navy and merchant marine, to be subordinated to the Lublin Poles. This led me to speak at some length.

The burden lay on British shoulders. When their homeland had been overrun and they had been driven from France many Poles had sheltered upon our shores. There was no worth-while property belonging to the Polish Government in London. I said I believed there was about £20,000,000 in gold in London and Canada. This had been frozen by us, since it was an asset of the Central Bank of Poland.

Unfreezing and moving it to a Central Polish Bank must follow the normal channels for such transfers. It was not the property of the Polish Government in London and they had no power to draw upon it. There was of course the Polish Embassy in London, which was open and available for a Polish Ambassador as soon as the new Polish Government cared to send one — and the sooner the better.

In view of this one might well ask how the Polish Government had been financed during their five and a half years in the United Kingdom. The answer was that it had been supported by the British Government; we had paid the Poles about £120,000,000 to finance their Army and Diplomatic Service, and to enable them to look after Poles Triumph and Tragedy

772

who had sought refuge on our shores from the German scourge. When we had disavowed the Polish Government in London and recognised the new Provisional Polish Government it was arranged that three months’ salary should be paid to all employees and that they should then be dismissed. It would have been improper to have dismissed them without this payment, and the expense had fallen upon Great Britain.

I then asked the indulgence of the President to unfold an important matter, because our position with regard to it was unique — namely, the demobilisation or transfer to their homeland of the Polish forces that had fought with us in the war. When France fell we had evacuated all Poles who wished to come — about 45,000 men — and built up from these men, and from others who had come through Switzerland and elsewhere, a Polish Army, which had finally reached the strength of some five divisions. There were about 30,000 Polish troops in Germany, and a Polish Corps of three divisions in Italy in a highly excited state of mind and grave moral distress. This army, totalling, from front to rear, more than 180,000 men, had fought with great bravery and good discipline, both in Germany and, on a larger scale, in Italy. There they had suffered severe losses, and had held their positions as steadfastly as any troops on the Italian front. The honour of His Majesty’s Government was thus involved. These troops had fought gallantly side by side with ours, at a time when trained troops had been scarce. Many had died, and even if I had not given pledges in Parliament we should wish to treat them honourably.

Stalin said he agreed with this, and I continued that our policy was to persuade as many as possible, not only of the soldiers but also of the civilian employees of the late Polish Government, to go back to their country. But we must have a little time to get over our difficulties.

Triumph and Tragedy

773

There had been great improvements in Poland in the last two months, and I cordially hoped for the success of the new Government, which, although not all we could wish, marked a great advance and was the result of patient work by the three Great Powers. I had told the House of Commons that if there were Polish soldiers who had fought at our side and did not want to go back we would take them into the British Empire. Of course, the better the conditions in Poland the more Poles would go back, and it would help if the new Polish Government would assure them their livelihood and freedom and would not victimise them for their former allegiance. I hoped that, with continued improvement in Poland, most of these people would return and become good citizens of the land of their fathers, which had been liberated by the bravery of Russian armies.

Stalin said he appreciated our problems. We had sheltered the former rulers of Poland, and in spite of our hospitality they had caused us many difficulties. But the London Polish Government still existed. They had means of continuing their activities in the Press and elsewhere, and they had their agents. This made a bad impression on all the Allies.

I said we must face facts. The London Government was liquidated in the official and diplomatic sense, but it was impossible to stop its individual members living and talking to people, including journalists and former sympathisers.

Moreover, we had to be careful about the Polish Army, for if the situation was mishandled there might be a mutiny. I asked Stalin to put his trust and confidence in His Majesty’s Government and give us reasonable time. In return everything possible should be done to make Poland an encouraging place for the Poles to go back to.

Mr. Truman declared that he saw no fundamental differences between us. I had asked for a reasonable