Two against one's not fair
Richard Lamb
THE BIG THREE: CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT AND STALIN by Robin Edmonds
Hamish Hamilton, f22.50, pp.608
This scholarly and authoritative work sheds fresh light on the wartime relation- ship between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill. Mr Edmonds, a former diplo- mat, has the advantage of being a Russian scholar, and is the first historian to contrast the recently opened Russian archives with the British and American on the meetings of the Big Three.
Churchill claimed that it was a personal triumph for him at Moscow in August 1942 to persuade Stalin to agree to the North African landings and the postponement of the cross-Channel invasion until 1943. This is borne out by the Russian archives although the often quoted words by Stalin that he liked 'Churchill's spirit' are absent. The Russians record that Stalin handed Churchill a memorandum stating that the refusal to establish a second front in 1942 'struck a mortal blow' at Soviet society, but add that Stalin assured Churchill that the fact that he and Churchill had met and got to know each other had 'great significance which led Stalin to look at the matter more optimistically'. Mr Edmonds believes Stalin readily understood the military advantages of North Africa, and Churchill's diagnosis is correct, although the interpreters were out of their depth.
Isaiah Berlin, who observed Roosevelt from the British embassy in Washington for most of the war, has written that Roosevelt was 'a spontaneous, optimistic ruler who dismayed his assistants by the gay and apparently heedless abandon with which he seemed to delight in inspiring two or more incompatible policies.' Churchill in 1942, understanding this ambiguity, cleverly jockeyed Roosevelt against the wishes of his military advisers into agreeing to the North African land- ings, and at Casablanca in January 1943 Into approving an atttack on Sicily. The unexpected toppling of Mussolini led Roosevelt on to accepting the invasion of mainland Italy, so that the cross-Channel Invasion of 1943 had to be abandoned. No landing in France in 1943 resulted in Stalin taking a hard line over Poland and the Baltic States, and according to the Russian archives he warned Roosevelt and Churchill that 'postponement' aroused in him 'anxiety about which I cannot be evasive.'
Strangely, one significant remark by Stalin at the Teheran Summit in November 1943 is missing from the British and American archives. Stalin told the other two that it would be very difficult for the Russians who were 'war weary' to carry on if there were no big changes in 1944 — a clear hint that failing a second front Russia might make a separate peace with Germany. Roosevelt took this more seriously than Churchill, who continued to hanker after operations at the head of the Adriatic in Istria so as to join up with the Russians in Austria in the hope of avoiding a blood-bath in France. Probably because of doubts about Stalin's intentions, Roosevelt and Churchill at Teheran agreed to cede to Russia all Poland up to the former Czarist frontiers.
Fourteen months later when the Big Three again met at Yalta Russia had over- run almost the whole of Poland, and there was a 'fundamental' deterioration in the Big Three relationship, with Churchill now very much the junior partner. The British Prime Minister was not even consulted over the US-Soviet accord about Russia attacking Japan after the German surrender, to which the British were, with reason, strongly opposed.
Mr Edmonds castigates the Americans for not taking a firmer line over Poland after Stalin refused to honour his Yalta commitments. Despite prodding by Churchill, Roosevelt was feeble and Mr Edmonds criticises Roosevelt's successor, Truman, for 'not playing the high cards that Roosevelt had refrained from playing at Yalta'.
Certainly it was a disaster that Truman and James Byrnes represented America at Potsdam in July 1945 instead of Roosevelt and Cordell Hull. Truman would have nothing to do with Churchill's suggestion of reneging on the agreement about Allied zones of occupation in Germany and was abject over Poland, the Baltic States and the Balkans, thus isolating Churchill. Mr Edmonds believes Roosevelt would have offered the quid pro quo of a giant US loan to reconstruct devastated Russia, and negotiated a compromise.
Churchill claimed that if he had won the election and returned to Potsdam he would have had a showdown with Stalin. He could have achieved little. Without support from Truman his negotiating position was weak, and Churchill later told John Colville that Truman was 'a novice bewildered by responsibilities which he had never expect- ed'.
Mr Edmonds believes Roosevelt's family connection with the China trade led him to underrate the efficiency of the Japanese armed forces in 1941, and considers Churchill and Roosevelt were 'at their worst' over Asia. Both Joseph Grew, the US ambassador in Tokyo and Robert Craigie, the British ambassador, were con- fident that Japan could be kept out of the war in 1941 by lifting the oil embargo. Some American historians even accuse Roosevelt of 'provoking' Japan into attack- ing because there was no other way of per- suading Congress to declare war on Germany. Mr Edmonds does, not go so far, but accuses Roosevelt of 'nonchalance' towards the Japanese, and Churchill of 'myopia' over Japanese military power. Certainly Churchill did nothing to promote an American-Japanese Agreement in 1941, and was enormously relieved after Pearl Harbor because it dispelled his nightmare of Japan attacking British and Dutch possessions in the East without bringing America into the war.
At last the United Nations is playing the role designed for it 50 years ago, and Mr Edmonds thinks Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin's work in creating it should be 'hailed' because no reform could have turned the League of Nations into an effective peace-keeping force; he points out that what has been lacking in the UN is not 'a workable framework , but the politic- al will to use it'. Such reflections are timely, as after 45 years the future of Europe from the Urals to the Atlantic again hangs in the balance, but this time with a strong united Germany and with the British role diminished beyond all expectation.
'Just like going off to prep school, isn't it Mother?'
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