The Grand Alliance (73 page)

Your Excellency will readily appreciate the significance
of these facts.

The Foreign Secretary, who had by this time returned from Cairo, added some comments:

If your reception gives you opportunity of developing
the argument, you might point out that this change in
German military dispositions surely implies that Hitler,
through the action of Yugoslavia, has now postponed
his previous plans for threatening Soviet Government. If
so, it should be possible for Soviet Government to use
this opportunity to strengthen their own position. This
delay shows that the enemy forces are not unlimited,
and illustrates the advantage that will follow anything
like a united front.

2. Obvious way of Soviet Government strengthening its own position would be to furnish material help to Turkey and Greece, and through latter to Yugoslavia.

This help might so increase German difficulties in Balkans as still further to delay the German attack on Soviet Union, of which there are so many signs. If, however, opportunity is not now taken to put every possible spoke in the German wheel danger might revive in a few months’ time.

3. You would not, of course, imply that we ourselves required any assistance from Soviet Government or that they would be acting in any interests but their own.

What we want them to realise, however, is that Hitler intends to attack them sooner or later if he can; that the fact that he is in conflict with us is not in itself sufficient to prevent him doing so if he is not also involved in some special embarrassment, such as now confronts him in Balkans, and that it is consequently in Soviet The Grand Alliance

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interests to take every possible step to ensure that he does not settle his Balkan problem in the way he wants.

The British Ambassador did not reply till April 12, when he said that just before my telegram had been received he had himself addressed to Vyshinsky a long personal letter reviewing the succession of failures of the Soviet Government to counteract German encroachments in the Balkans, and urging in the strongest terms that the U.S.S.

R. in her own interest must now decide on an immediate vigorous policy of co-operation with countries still opposing the Axis in that area if she was not to miss the last chance of defending her own frontiers in alliance with others.

Were I now [he said] to convey through Molotov the Prime Minister’s message, which expresses the same thesis in very much shorter and less emphatic form, I fear that the only effect would be probably to weaken impression already made by my letter to Vyshinsky.

Soviet Government would not, I feel sure, understand why so short and fragmentary a commentary on facts of which they are certainly well aware, without any definite request for explanation of Soviet Government’s attitude or suggestion for action by them, should be conveyed in so formal a manner.

I have felt bound to put these considerations before you, as I greatly fear that delivery of Prime Minister’s message would be not merely ineffectual but a serious tactical mistake. If, however, you are unable to share this view, I will, of course, endeavour to arrange urgently for an interview with Molotov.

On this the Foreign Secretary minuted to me: In this new situation I think there may be some force in Sir Stafford Cripps’ arguments against the delivery of your message. If you agree I would propose to tell him that he need not now deliver the message, but that if Vyshinsky responds favourably to his letter he should give the latter the facts contained in your message.

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Meanwhile I should ask him to telegraph to us as soon as possible a summary of the letter which he has sent to Vyshinsky and to send us the text by the next opportunity.

I was vexed at this and at the delay which had occurred.

This was the only message before the attack that I sent Stalin direct. Its brevity, the exceptional character of the communication, the fact that it came from the head of the Government and was to be delivered personally to the head of the Russian Government by the Ambassador, were all intended to give it special significance and arrest Stalin’s attention.

Prime

Minister

to

16 April 41

Foreign Secretary

I set special importance on the delivery of this
personal message from me to Stalin. I cannot understand why it should be resisted. The Ambassador is not
alive to the military significance of the facts. Pray oblige
me.

And again:

Prime

Minister

to

18 April 41

Foreign Secretary

Has Sir Stafford Cripps yet delivered my personal
message of warning about the German danger to
Stalin? I am very much surprised that so much delay
should have occurred, considering the importance I
attach to this extremely pregnant piece of information.

The Foreign Secretary, therefore, telegraphed on the eighteenth to the Ambassador instructing him to deliver my message. As no answer was received from Sir Stafford, I asked what had happened.

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Prime

Minister

to

30 April 41

Foreign Secretary

When did Sir Stafford Cripps deliver my message to
Mr. Stalin? Will you very kindly ask him to report.

Foreign Secretary to

30 April 41

Prime Minister

Sir Stafford Cripps sent the message to M.

Vyshinsky on April 19, and M. Vyshinsky informed him
in writing on April 23 that it had been conveyed to M.

Stalin.

I very much regret that, owing to an error, the
telegrams reporting this were not sent to you at the
time. I attach copies.

These were the enclosures:

Sir Stafford Cripps,

19 April 41

Moscow, to Foreign

Secretary

I have today sent text of message to Vyshinsky,
asking him to convey it to Stalin. It was not clear from
your telegram whether commentary was to be incorporated in message or added as from myself, and consequently, in view of my letter to Vyshinsky of April 11 and
my interview with him yesterday, I felt it preferable to
abstain from adding any commentary, which could only
have been repetition.

Sir Stafford Cripps,

22 April 41

Moscow, to Foreign

Secretary

Vyshinsky informed me in writing today that
message had been conveyed to Stalin.

I cannot form any final judgment upon whether my message, if delivered with all the promptness and

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ceremony prescribed, would have altered the course of events. Nevertheless, I still regret that my instructions were not carried out effectively. If I had had any direct contact with Stalin I might perhaps have prevented him from having so much of his air force destroyed on the ground.

We know now that Hitler’s directive of December 18 had prescribed May 15 as the date for invading Russia, and that in his fury at the revolution in Belgrade this date had on March 27 been postponed for a month, and later till June 22. Until the middle of March the troop movements in the north on the main Russian front were not of a character to require special German measures of concealment. On March 13, however, orders were issued by Berlin to terminate the work of the Russian commissions working in German territory and to send them home. The presence of Russians in this part of Germany could only be permitted up to March 25. In the northern sector strong German formations were already being assembled. From March 20

onward an even heavier massing would take place.
3

On April 22 the Soviet complained to the German Foreign Office about continuing and increasing violations of the U.S.

S.R. boundary by German planes. From March 27 to April 18 eighty such cases had occurred. “It is very likely,” added the Russian note, “that serious incidents are to be expected if German planes continue to fly across the Soviet border.”

The German reply was a series of counter-complaints against Soviet planes.

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During this time the one hundred and twenty German divisions of the highest quality were assembling in their three army groups along the Russian front. The Southern Group, under Rundstedt, was, for the reasons explained, far from well found in armour. Its Panzer divisions had only recently returned from Greece and Yugoslavia. Despite the postponement of the date till June 22, they badly needed rest and overhaul after their mechanical wear and tear in the Balkans.

On April 13 Schulenburg came from Moscow to Berlin.

Hitler received him on April 28, and treated his Ambassador to a tirade on the Russian gesture towards Yugoslavia.

Schulenburg, according to his minute of this conversation, strove to excuse the Soviet behavior. He related that

“Russia was alarmed by the rumours predicting a German attack. He could not believe that Russia would ever attack Germany. Hitler said that he had been forewarned by events in Serbia. What had happened there was to him an example of the political unreliability of states.” But Schulenburg adhered to the theme which had governed all his reports from Moscow. “I am convinced that Stalin is prepared to make even further concessions to us. It has already been indicated to our economic negotiators that (if we applied in due time) Russia could supply us with up to five million tons of grain a year.”
4

Schulenburg returned to Moscow on April 30, profoundly disillusioned by his interview with Hitler. He had a clear impression that Hitler was bent on war. It seems that he had even tried to warn the Russian Ambassador in Berlin, Dekanosov, in this sense. And he fought persistently in the last hours of his policy of Russo-German understanding.

Weizsäcker, the official head of the German Foreign Office, was a highly competent civil servant of the type to be found The Grand Alliance

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in the Government departments of many countries. He was not a politician with executive power, and would not, according to British custom, be held accountable for State policy. He is now undergoing seven years’ penal servitude by the decree of the courts set up by the conquerors.

Although he is, therefore, classified as a war criminal, he certainly wrote good advice to his superiors, which we may be glad they did not take. He commented as follows upon this interview:

Weizsäcker

to

Berlin,

April

Ribbentrop

28, 1941

I can summarise in one sentence my views on a
German-Russian conflict. If every Russian city reduced
to ashes were as valuable to us as a sunken British
warship, I should advocate the German-Russian war for
this summer; but I believe that we should be victors
over Russia only in a military sense, and should, on the
other hand, lose in an economic sense.

It might perhaps be considered an alluring prospect
to give the Communist system its death-blow, and it
might also be said that it was inherent in the logic of
things to muster the Eurasian continent against Anglo-Saxondom and its following. But the sole decisive factor
is whether this project will hasten the fall of England.