World War II Behind Closed Doors Read Free Page B

clear from Stalin's subsequent words that his single-minded focus on the importance of the second front had not diminished. The British and Americans had gained the impression, from a meeting of Foreign Ministers in Moscow in October, that the Soviets might possibly call at Tehran for both Overlord and an increase in Allied resources for the Mediterranean theatre. But Stalin now made his wishes clear. Overlord was pre-eminent – a view that coincided exactly with American plans.
    Churchill was not about to give up, and he launched a spirited attack, outlining once more the benefits of more resources for the Mediterranean. But to no effect. Stalin saw no benefit in dispersing the Allied effort. He wanted one strike against the beaches of northern France with – just possibly – a landing in support of Overlord in the South of France. The session broke up with Churchill dismayed – he confided to Lord Moran immediately afterwards that ‘A bloody lot has gone wrong’. 13 But, tough as he was, Churchill pressed on, holding one more crucial meeting with Stalin later that day – this time on the question of Poland.
    From the first moment of the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland there had been an acceptance in the British Foreign Office that it would be difficult ever to get this portion of Poland back, but Churchill had been outraged when Stalin told Eden in December 1941 that he wanted to claim this territory as his own. However, by now the Prime Minister had come to the conclusion that, politically, there was no alternative but to give the Soviets what they wanted. At Tehran, late at night, he and Stalin discussed the fate of Poland in what must surely rank as one of the most important – yet seemingly casual – conversations of the war. It was Churchill who raised the question of Poland, and Stalin was careful to saynothing until he heard what the Prime Minister proposed – this despite Churchill's attempt to get the Soviet leader to disclose first ‘what he thought about it’. Stalin revealed nothing, saying that ‘he did not feel the need to ask himself how to act’ and waited for Churchill to show his hand. 14 Churchill said that after the war ‘the Soviet Union would be overwhelmingly strong and Russia would have a great responsibility for hundreds of years in any decision she took with regard to Poland. Personally, he thought Poland might move westwards like soldiers taking two steps close. If Poland trod on some German toes, that could not be helped, but there must be a strong Poland. This instrument was needed in the orchestra of Europe’.
    The significance of Churchill's words should not be underestimated. For he had just proposed – via the almost comic simile of ‘soldiers taking two steps close’ – one of the largest and most fundamental population shifts of the twentieth century. As a consequence, millions of people would either be uprooted if they sought to keep their previous nationality, or subsumed into another country. At a stroke, Germany would lose more territory than had been lost as a consequence of the Versailles Treaty. Meantime the Poles, Britain's ally, might lose in the East around 40 per cent of the country that had existed before the war – the very land, moreover, from which came the majority of Polish soldiers who were currently fighting in the British army in Italy.
    Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, said in the same meeting that he was ‘encouraged’ by the idea that ‘the Poles should go as far west as the [river] Oder’. But Stalin was careful not to commit himself, merely asking Eden ‘whether we [the British] thought he was going to swallow Poland up’.
    Eden replied that ‘he did not know how much the Russians were going to eat. How much would they leave undigested?’
    ‘The Russians did not want anything belonging to other people’, said Stalin. ‘Although they might have a bite at Germany’. The notes of the meeting conclude: ‘The Prime Minister