The Grand Alliance (72 page)

They seemed to have no inkling that Hitler had for more

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than six months resolved to destroy them. If their Intelligence Service informed them of the vast German deployment towards the East, which was now increasing every day, they omitted many needful steps to meet it. Thus they had allowed the whole of the Balkans to be overrun by Germany. They hated and despised the democracies of the West; but the four countries, Turkey, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, which were of vital interest to them and their own safety, could all have been combined by the Soviet Government in January with active British aid to form a Balkan front against Hitler. They let them all break into confusion, and all but Turkey were mopped up one by one.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders, but it may be doubted whether any mistake in history has equalled that of which Stalin and the Communist chiefs were guilty when they cast away all possibilities in the Balkans and supinely awaited, or were incapable of realising, the fearful onslaught which impended upon Russia. We have hitherto rated them as selfish calculators. In this period they were proved simpletons as well. The force, the mass, the bravery and endurance of Mother Russia had still to be thrown into the scales. But so far as strategy, policy, foresight, competence are arbiters, Stalin and his commissars showed themselves at this moment the most completely outwitted bunglers of the Second World War.

Hitler’s “Barbarossa” directive of December 18, 1940, had laid down the general grouping and primary tasks of the forces to be concentrated against Russia. At that date the total German strength on the Eastern Front was thirty-four divisions. To multiply that figure more than thrice was an immense process both of planning and preparation, and it fully occupied the early months of 1941. In January and

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February the Balkan adventure into which the Fuehrer allowed himself to be drawn caused a drain-away from the East to the South of five divisions, of which three were armoured. In May the German deployment in the East grew to eighty-seven divisions, and there were no less than twenty-five of their divisions absorbed in the Balkans.

Considering the magnitude and hazard of the invasion of Russia, it was improvident to disturb the concentration to the East by so serious a diversion. We shall now see how a delay of five weeks was imposed upon the supreme operation as the result of our resistance in the Balkans, and especially of the Yugoslav revolution. No one can measure exactly what consequences this had before winter set in upon the fortunes of the German-Russian campaign. It is reasonable to believe that Moscow was saved thereby.

During May and the beginning of June many of the best-trained German divisions and all the armour were moved from the Balkans to the Eastern Front, and at the moment of their assault the Germans attacked with a hundred and twenty divisions, seventeen of which were armoured and twelve motorised. Six Rumanian divisions were also included in their Southern Army Group. In general reserve a further twenty-six divisions were assembled or assembling; so that by early June the German High Command could count on at least a hundred and fifty divisions, supported by the main striking power of their air force, about twenty-seven hundred aircraft.

Up till the end of March I was not convinced that Hitler was resolved upon mortal war with Russia, nor how near it was.

Our Intelligence reports revealed in much detail the extensive German troop movements towards and into the Balkan States which had marked the first three months of The Grand Alliance

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1941. Our agents could move with a good deal of freedom in these quasi-neutral countries, and were able to keep us accurately posted about the heavy German forces gathering by rail and road to the southeast. But none of these necessarily involved the invasion of Russia, and all were readily explainable by German interests and policy in Rumania and Bulgaria, by her designs on Greece and arrangements with Yugoslavia and Hungary. Our information about the immense movement taking place through Germany towards the main Russian front, stretching from Rumania to the Baltic, was far more difficult to acquire. That Germany should at this stage, and before clearing the Balkan scene, open another major war with Russia seemed to me too good to be true.

We did not know the tenor of the conversations of November, 1940, between Molotov, Hitler, and Ribbentrop at Berlin, nor of the negotiations and proposed pacts which had followed them. There was no sign of lessening German strength opposite us across the Channel. The German air raids on Britain continued with intensity. The manner in which the German troop concentrations in Rumania and Bulgaria had been glozed over and apparently accepted by the Soviet Government, the evidence we had of large and invaluable supplies being sent to Germany from Russia, the obvious community of interest between the two countries in overrunning and dividing the British Empire in the East, all made it seem more likely that Hitler and Stalin would make a bargain at our expense rather than a war upon each other. This bargain we now know was within wide limits Stalin’s aim.

These impressions were shared by our Joint Intelligence Committee. On April 7 they stated that there were a number of reports circulating in Europe of a German plan to attack Russia. Although Germany, they said, had considerable The Grand Alliance

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forces available in the East, and expected to fight Russia some time or other, it was unlikely that she would choose to make another major war front yet. Her main object in 1941

would, according to them, remain the defeat of the United Kingdom. As late as May 23 this committee from the three services reported that rumors of impending attack on Russia had died down, and that there were reports that a new agreement between the two countries was impending.

This they considered likely, since German economy would require strengthening to meet the needs of a long war. The necessary assistance could be obtained by Germany from Russia either by force or agreement. They thought the latter would be the German choice, although a threat of force would help to bring it about. This threat was now building up. There was plenty of evidence of the construction of roads and railway sidings in German Poland, of the preparation of aerodromes and of large-scale troop concentrations, including troops and air units from the Balkans.

Our Chiefs of Staff were ahead of their advisers; and more definite. “We have firm indications,” they warned the Middle East Command on May 31, “that the Germans are now concentrating large army and air forces against Russia.

Under this threat they will probably demand concessions most injurious to us. If the Russians refuse, the Germans will march.”

It was not till June 5 that the Joint Intelligence Committee reported that the scale of German military preparations in Eastern Europe seemed to indicate that an issue more vital than an economic agreement was at stake. It was possible that Germany desired to remove from her eastern frontier the potential threat of increasingly powerful Soviet forces.

They considered it as yet impossible to say whether war or agreement would result. On June 10 they stated, “The latter

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half of June will see either war or agreement.” And finally on June 12 they reported, “Fresh evidence is now at hand that Hitler has made up his mind to have done with Soviet obstruction, and to attack.”

I had not been content with this form of collective wisdom, and preferred to see the originals myself. I had arranged, therefore, as far back as the summer of 1940, for Major Desmond Morton to make a daily selection of titbits, which I always read, thus forming my own opinion, sometimes at much earlier dates.
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It was thus with relief and excitement that towards the end of March, 1941, I read an Intelligence report from one of our most trusted sources of the movement and counter-movement of German armour on the railway from Bucharest to Cracow. This showed that shortly after Prince Paul had made his secret visit to Hitler at Berchtesgaden on March 18, three out of the five Panzer divisions which had moved through Rumania southward towards Greece and Yugoslavia had been sent northward to Cracow, and secondly, that the whole of this transportation had been reversed after the Belgrade revolution and the three Panzer divisions sent back to Rumania. This shuffling and reversal of about sixty trains could not be concealed from our agents on the spot.

To me it illuminated the whole Eastern scene like a lightning flash. The sudden movement to Cracow of so much armour needed in the Balkan sphere could only mean Hitler’s intention to invade Russia in May. This seemed to me henceforward certainly his major purpose. The fact that the Belgrade revolution had required their return to The Grand Alliance

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Rumania involved perhaps a delay from May to June. I sent the momentous news at once to Mr. Eden in Athens.

Prime Minister to

30 March 41

Mr. Eden, Athens

My reading of the Intelligence is that the bad man
concentrated very large armoured forces, etc., to
overawe Yugoslavia and Greece, and hoped to get
former or both without fighting. The moment he was
sure Yugoslavia was in the Axis he moved three of the
five Panzers towards the Bear, believing that what was
left would be enough to finish the Greek affair.

However, the Belgrade revolution upset this picture and
caused the northward move to be arrested in transit.

This can only mean, in my opinion, the intention to
attack Yugoslavia at earliest, or alternatively [to] act
against the Turk. It looks as if heavy forces will be used
in Balkan Peninsula and that Bear will be kept waiting a
bit. Furthermore, these orders and counter-orders in
their relation to the Belgrade coup seem to reveal
magnitude of design both towards southeast and east.

This is the clearest indication we have had so far. Let
me know in guarded terms whether you and Dill agree
with my impressions.

I also cast about for some means of warning Stalin, and, by arousing him to his danger, establishing contacts with him like those I had made with President Roosevelt. I made the message short and cryptic, hoping that this very fact, and that it was the first message I had sent him since my formal telegram of June 25, 1940, commending Sir Stafford Cripps as Ambassador, would arrest his attention and make him ponder.

Prime Minister to Sir

3 April 41

Stafford Cripps

Following from me to M. Stalin, provided it can be
personally delivered by you:

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I have sure information from a trusted agent that
when the Germans thought they had got Yugoslavia in
the net – that is to say, after March 20 – they began to
move three out of the five Panzer divisions from Rumania to Southern Poland. The moment they heard of the
Serbian revolution this movement was countermanded.