Triumph and Tragedy (The Second World War) (14 page)

This direct conflict of opinions, honestly held and warmly argued by either side, could only be settled, if at all, between the President and myself, and an interchange of telegrams now took place.
2

“The deadlock,” I said on June 28, “between our Chiefs of Staff raises most serious issues. Our first wish is to help General Eisenhower in the most speedy and effective manner. But we do not think this necessarily involves the complete ruin of all our great affairs in the Mediterranean, and we take it hard that this should be demanded of us…. I most earnestly beg you to examine this matter in detail for yourself…. Please remember how you spoke to me at Teheran about Istria, and how I introduced it at the full Conference. This has sunk very deeply into my mind, Triumph and Tragedy

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although it is not by any means the immediate issue we have to decide.”

Later I summed up my conclusions to Mr. Roosevelt:
(a)Let us reinforce “Overlord” directly, to the utmost
limits of landings from the west.

(b)Let us next do justice to the great opportunities of
the Mediterranean commanders, and confine ourselves
to minor diversions and threats to hold the enemy
around the Gulf of Lions.

(c) Let us leave General Eisenhower all his landing-craft as long as he needs them to magnify his landing
capacity.

(d)Let us make sure of increasing to the maximum
extent the port capacity in the “Overlord” battle area.

(e)Let us resolve not to wreck one great campaign
for the sake of another. Both can be won.

The President’s reply was prompt and adverse. He was resolved to carry out what he called “the grand strategy” of Teheran, namely, exploiting “Overlord” to the full, “victorious advances in Italy,” and an early assault on Southern France. Political objects might be important, but military operations to achieve them must be subordinated to striking at the heart of Germany by a campaign in Europe. Stalin himself had favoured “Anvil,” and had classified all other operations in the Mediterranean as of lesser importance, and Mr. Roosevelt declared he could not abandon it without consulting him. The President continued:
My interest and hopes centre on defeating the
Germans in front of Eisenhower and driving on into
Germany, rather than on limiting this action for the
purpose of staging a full major effort in Italy.
3
I am
convinced we will have sufficient forces in Italy, with

“Anvil” forces withdrawn, to chase Kesselring north of
Pisa-Rimini and maintain heavy pressure against his
army at the very least to the extent necessary to
contain his present force. I cannot conceive of the
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Germans paying the price of ten additional divisions,
estimated by General Wilson, in order to keep us out of
Northern Italy.

We can — and Wilson confirms this — immediately withdraw five divisions (three United States and two French) from Italy for “Anvil.”
The remaining twenty-one
divisions, plus numerous separate brigades, will
certainly provide Alexander with adequate ground
superiority….

Mr. Roosevelt contended that a landing in the Bay of Biscay would be a waste of shipping. If Eisenhower wanted more troops they were ready in the United States and he had only to ask for them. But it was his objections to a descent on the Istrian peninsula and a thrust against Vienna through the Ljubljana Gap that revealed both the rigidity of the American military plans and his own suspicion of what he called a campaign “in the Balkans.” He claimed that Alexander and Smuts, “for several natural and very human reasons,” were inclined to disregard two vital considerations. First, the operation infringed “the grand strategy.” Secondly, it would take too long and we could probably not deploy more than six divisions. “I cannot agree,” he wrote, “to the employment of United States troops against Istria
and into the Balkans,
nor can I see the French agreeing to such use of French troops…. For purely political reasons over here, I should never survive even a slight setback in ‘Overlord’
if it were known that fairly large
forces had been diverted to the Balkans.
”
4

No one involved in these discussions had ever thought of moving armies
into the Balkans;
but Istria and Trieste were strategic and political positions, which, as he saw very clearly, might exercise profound and widespread reactions, especially after the Russian advances.

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The President suggested at one point that we should lay our respective cases before Stalin. I said I did not know what he would say if the issue was put to him to decide. On military grounds he might have been greatly interested in the eastward movement of Alexander’s army, which, without entering the Balkans, would profoundly affect all the forces there, and which, in conjunction with any attacks Stalin might make upon Rumania or with Rumania against Transylvania, might produce the most far-reaching results.

On a long-term political view he might prefer that the British and Americans should do their share in France in the very hard fighting that was to come, and that East, Middle, and Southern Europe should fall naturally into his control. But I felt it was better to settle the matter for ourselves and between ourselves. I was sure that if we could have met, as I so frequently proposed, we should have reached a happy agreement.

On July 2 the President declared that he and his Chiefs of Staff were still convinced that “Anvil” should be launched at the earliest possible date, and he asked us to direct General Wilson accordingly. He said that at Teheran he had only contemplated a series of raids in force in Istria if the Germans started a general retirement from the Dodecanese and Greece. But this had not happened yet.

“Therefore,” he concluded, “I am compelled by the logic of not dispersing our main efforts to a new theatre to agree with my Chiefs of Staff.

“I honestly believe that God will be with us as He has in

‘Overlord’ and in Italy and in North Africa. I always think of my early geometry —‘a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.’”

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For the time being I resigned myself, and the same day General Wilson was ordered to attack the south of France on August 15. Preparations began at once, but the reader should note that henceforward “Anvil” was called

“Dragoon.” This was done in case the enemy had learnt the meaning of its original code-name.

By early August however a marked change had come over the battlefield in Normandy and great developments impended. On the 4th I reopened with the President the question of switching “Dragoon” to the west.

Prime

Minister

to

4 Aug. 44

President Roosevelt

The course of events in Normandy and Brittany, and
especially the brilliant operations of the United States
Army, give good prospects that the whole Brittany
peninsula will be in our hands within a reasonable time.

I beg you will consider the possibility of switching

“Dragoon” into the main and vital theatre, where it can
immediately play its part at close quarters in the great
and victorious battle in which we are now engaged.

2. I cannot pretend to have worked out the details,
but the opinion here is that they are capable of solution.

Instead of having to force a landing against strong
enemy defences we might easily find welcoming
American troops at some point or other from St.

Nazaire northwestward along the Brittany peninsula. I
feel that we are fully entitled to use the extraordinary
flexibility of sea- and air-power to move with the moving
scene. The arrival of the ten divisions assigned to

“Dragoon,” with their L.S.T.s, might be achieved rapidly,
and if this came off it would be decisive for Eisenhower’s victorious advance by the shortest route right
across France.

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3. I most earnestly ask you to instruct your Chiefs of
Staff to study this proposal, on which our people here
are already at work.

I also hoped that Hopkins might be able to help.

Prime Minister to Mr.

6 Aug. 44

Harry Hopkins

I am grieved to find that even splendid victories and
widening opportunities do not bring us together on
strategy. The brilliant operations of the American Army
have not only cut off the Brest peninsula, but in my
opinion have to a large extent demoralised the
scattered Germans who remain there. St. Nazaire and
Nantes, one of your major disembarkation ports in the
last war, may be in our hands at any time. Quiberon
Bay, Lorient, and Brest will also soon fall into our
hands. It is my belief that the German troops on the
Atlantic shore south of the Cherbourg peninsula are in
a state of weakness and disorder and that Bordeaux
could be obtained easily, cheaply, and swiftly. The
possession of these Atlantic ports, together with those
we have now, will open the way for the fullest
importation of the great armies of the United States still
awaiting their opportunity. In addition the ten divisions
now mounted for “Dragoon” could be switched into St.

Nazaire as soon as it is in Allied possession, in this
case American possession. Thus Eisenhower might
speedily be presented with a new great port, as well as
with a new army to operate on his right flank in the
march towards the Seine.

2. I repeat that the above is additional to anything
that has been foreshadowed in the schedules of
transportation either from Great Britain or the United
States. Instead of this we are to be forced to make a
heavy attack from the sea on the well-fortified Riviera
coast and to march westward to capture the two
fortresses of Toulon and Marseilles, thus opening a
new theatre where the enemy will at the outset be
much stronger than we are, and where our advance
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runs cross-grained to the country, which abounds in
most formidable rocky positions, ridges, and gullies.

3. Even after taking the two fortresses of Toulon and
Marseilles we have before us the lengthy advance up
the Rhone valley before we even get to Lyons. None of
this operation can influence Eisenhower’s battle for
probably ninety days after the landings.
5
We start 500

miles away from the main battlefield instead of almost
upon it at St. Nazaire. There is no correlation possible
between our armies in the Brest and Cherbourg
peninsulas and the troops operating against Toulon
and Marseilles. When Marseilles is gained the turn-round from the United States is about fourteen days
longer than the straight run across the Atlantic.

4. Of course we are going to win anyway, but these
are very hard facts. When “Anvil” was raised at
Teheran it was to be a diversionary or holding operation
a week before or a week later than “Overlord” D-Day, in
the hope of drawing about eight German divisions away
from the main battle. The decision to undertake Anzio
and the delays at Cassino forced us to continue putting
off “Anvil,” until its successor “Dragoon” bears no
relation to the original conception. However, out of evil
came good, and the operations in Italy being persevered in drew not fewer than twelve divisions from the
German reserves in North Italy and elsewhere, and
they have been largely destroyed. The coincidence that
the defeat of Kesselring’s army and the capture of
Rome occurred at the exact time of launching

“Overlord” more than achieved all that was ever
foreseen from “Anvil,” and, to those who do not know
the inner history, wears the aspect of a great design.