The Road to Berlin (71 page)

The Finns, however were not the first to beat this hasty path to Moscow’s door. Late in August, at the other end of the Soviet–German front, the Russians opened a massive attack on Rumania. Within hours the German–Rumanian positions crumbled and the Rumanians in the decisive
coup
of 23 August took themselves out of the war, abandoning their German allies and in the process tearing down the German defensive arch in south-east Europe. The armistice with Rumania was already signed when the Finnish delegation was finally received by the Russians.

6

Soviet Liberation, Soviet Conquest: August–December 1944

‘Broadly speaking the issue is: are we going to acquiesce in the Communisation of the Balkans and perhaps of Italy?’

Preoccupied with this thought, the Prime Minister on 4 May demanded of Eden a short paper setting out ‘the brute issues between us and the Soviet Government which are developing in Italy, in Roumania, in Bulgaria, in Yugoslavia and
above all
in Greece’. The turn of events in Greece, its resistance forces ripped apart by civil war, gave Churchill cause for acute concern. The communist-controlled
ELAS
(‘National People’s Liberation Army’), the fighting guerrilla arm of
EAM
(the ‘National Liberation Front’), which served as a loose coalition of left-wing parties though it was essentially the executive of the Greek Communist Party, the
KKE
, turned its British-supplied weapons not only against the Germans but also on its political rivals, the few thousand anti-Communists of the
EDES
(‘National Democratic People’s Army’) led by Colonel Zervas, an officer of pronounced republican conviction. Zervas operated in the western Pindus (his strength coming mainly from the Epirus); north of Athens there was also Colonel Psaros’s resistance group, ‘5/42 Regiment’ (also known as the
EKKA
, ‘National and Social Liberation’), an organization finally wiped out by
ELAS
in the spring of 1944, leaving only Zervas in the field. By 1943 the sudden, savage raids launched by
ELAS
guerrillas on other independent resistance groups had drastically thinned the anti-communist ranks. The survivors of these murderous and stealthy assaults were usually pressed into the ranks of
ELAS
itself, while others took up arms against the Communists by enlisting in the security battalions raised by the collaborationist government. In March 1943
ELAS
wiped out the
AAA
, a republican resistance organization led by General Saraphis; once captured, the general was duly accused of collaboration with the enemy and then at gun-point offered the post of military commander of
ELAS
. Throughout the summer of 1943
EAM–ELAS
proffered a political olive branch, setting up a joint headquarters for all resistance groups, only to fall savagely on Zervas’s
EDES
once the Italians had surrendered, a violent spasm of open civil war that ended with a rough-and-ready truce in March 1944.

The truce signalled a change in
EAM
tactics. In March 1944
EAM
set up in the Greek mountains the ‘Political Committee of National Liberation’
(PEEA)
, a provisional government in all but name and an acute embarrassment to the Greek government in exile, whose plight grew more serious with the mutiny of Greek troops serving under British command in the Middle East, a grave disturbance on the eve of the departure of the Greek brigade for Italy. British troops cordoned off the mutinous Greeks who finally surrendered at the end of April, but not before they had set up soldiers’ committees, pressed their demands for a plebiscite before King George
II
of Greece might return to his country, and urged the recognition of the ‘Political Committee of National Liberation’ as the true provisional government. In Greece itself
EAM
, whose potent political influence had been so dramatically demonstrated among the soldiers, set about destroying the
EKKA
resistance organization in the belief that the end of the occupation was practically in sight, thus eliminating one more rival and clearing the ground for the seizure of power that had been planned as far back as 1943. Only
EDES
remained under Zervas, but by now
EAM–ELAS
knew full well that only small British forces would move into Greece once the Germans withdrew.

The installation of a communist government in Greece and the implanting of Russian influence in the eastern Mediterranean was anathema to the British government. Warned by the portents in Greece and prodded by the Prime Minister, Eden on 5 May put a specific suggestion to Mr Gusev, Soviet Ambassador in London: assuming that Rumanian affairs might be regarded as largely a Russian concern, the British could perhaps legitimately expect Soviet support for their policy in Greece. It took all of two weeks to elicit some response from the Soviet government, but on 18 May Gusev called on Eden to inform him that his government accepted the idea of a division of interests covering Greece and Rumania; but first Moscow must know whether or not the Americans had been consulted. The British Ambassador in Washington, Lord Halifax, was therefore instructed to sound State Department opinion on the advisability of making such an approach to the Russians, a proposal which basically rested on ‘military realities’.

Though the British plan specifically disavowed any commitment to ‘spheres of influence’, Cordell Hull in his talk with Lord Halifax on 30 May showed some alarm at the implications of the proposals; the next day the Prime Minister sent his own message to the President, reaffirming that no return to or recognition of ‘spheres of influence’ was in any way involved, though the message did disclose that the British had made an approach to the Russians, a move dictated by ‘the existing military situation since Rumania fell within the sphere of the Russian armies and Greece within the Allied command … in the Mediterranean’. In his first talk with Cordell Hull, Lord Halifax confined himself to Rumania and Greece. On 8 June the Prime Minister instructed the Ambassador to add Bulgaria and Yugoslavia to Rumania and Greece (making the apportionment Yugoslavia and Greece for the British, Rumania and Bulgaria for the Russians), an enlargement
of the original scheme which served only to incense Secretary of State Hull still further.

In his first response (10 June) the President did not accept Churchill’s main argument and suggested rather ‘consultative machinery to dispel misunderstandings’ and ‘to restrain the tendency towards the development of exclusive spheres’. The Prime Minister returned to the attack at once, pressing upon the President his view that consultative machinery would end up as ‘mere obstruction’ and suggesting that the Anglo-Soviet arrangement be given a three-month trial run, to be followed by a ‘Big Three’ review. President Roosevelt agreed on 12 June to this proposal, adding that nevertheless this did not imply the establishment of ‘post-war spheres of influence’, cautious assent which was given without the knowledge of his Secretary of State who was taking a brief rest from his duties. Churchill thanked the President and on 19 June Eden gave Gusev the news of this presidential approbation, expressing the hope that Soviet agreement would duly follow.

At this point, however, Secretary of State Hull chose to insert himself rather forcefully into the train of events; though the President’s agreement was given on 12 June, Hull on 17 June submitted a draft reply (to the British message of 8 June) which pointedly underscored the preliminary British approach to the Russians without first consulting the Americans. These strictures the President duly forwarded to Churchill on 22 June, only to have the Prime Minister rebut the charge of improper behaviour in first approaching the Russians, singling out the President’s unilateral approach to Stalin over Mikolajczyk as a counter-argument.

In the midst of these strained messages the State Department learned from the American Ambassador to the exile Greek government that British sources in Cairo had informed him of prior American agreement to the proposed Anglo-Soviet plan for Greece and Rumania, a circuitous route indeed for the American Secretary of State to learn of a presidential decision. Hull very primly forwarded this ambassadorial disclosure to the President on 30 June, the day on which Gusev (answering Eden’s communication of 19 June) brought up the uncertainty of the American position and announced an independent Soviet investigation of the American attitude. The very next day Gromyko in Washington presented Hull with a summary of the Eden–Gusev exchanges and then sat back to wait for results. Obstructed at this late stage in the negotiations, the Prime Minister spilled out an angry sentence about ‘the pedantic interference of the United States’. In an attempt to win over Stalin without further ado, his message of 12 July referred to earlier conversations, emphasizing the need for a ‘working arrangement to avoid … the awful business of triangular telegrams which paralyses action’ and mentioning that ‘the President agreed to a three-months trial’. Now it was Stalin’s turn to find ‘some difficulties’; his reply arrived on 5 July and was firm in its refusal to go any further until those ‘certain doubts’ entertained by the American government were finally clarified—‘we shall do well to return to the matter when we get the US reply’.

That ‘US reply’ was already on its way, on 15 July as it proved, when Gromyko received a reply to his query of 1 July: this latest communication confirmed American agreement to the proposed Anglo-Soviet plan for Greece and Rumania but stipulated that it was no part of American policy to promote ‘spheres of influence’ in the Balkans and declined to admit any prejudice to American interests in a temporary division promoted by ‘the present war strategy’. Though no actual agreement was as yet concluded between the Russians and the British, it was this all-important American assent that triggered off the first and far from insignificant diplomatic redeployment in eastern Europe. While the British struggled to keep the lid on the Greek situation, Soviet diplomacy explored the possibilities of contacts with Rumania. Already at the beginning of 1944 Rumanian Minister Nano and the Soviet
chargé
in Stockholm, Semeonov, had a series of meetings. In the spring another channel opened with the arrival in Cairo of Prince Barbu Stirbey (Cairo being chosen when a feeler put out in Ankara by the Rumanian minister for a meeting in London was rejected). Soviet, American and British diplomats engaged in the involved, dragging talks with Stirbey, while in Rumania the capitulationist plot thickened and drew King Michael more closely into it.

From the skilled and discreet men of the Rumanian Foreign Ministry, drawn mainly from the cipher department (and including Miculescu-Buzesti, son-in-law of Prince Stirbey), King Michael was kept informed of current negotiations with the Allies. From General Aldea he learned of the present temper of the army; from Iuliu Maniu he had news of the opposition, of their contacts with the Allies and with the Communist Party. Early in April Maniu discovered from Minister Cretzianu in Ankara that the Allied command in the Mediterranean promised negotiations from the Soviet side if Marshal Antonescu’s government proved unwilling to break with the Germans and had to be forced out of power: where there were no Soviet troops to hand Rumanian forces must themselves engage the Germans, while Allied aircraft would mount air attacks as and when required.

On 2 April a Soviet note set out the Soviet position, reaffirming the claim to Bessarabia and the northern Bukovina, but ten days later the Soviet Ambassador in Cairo handed Prince Stirbey terms for an armistice which, though still insisting upon Soviet annexation of Bessarabia, promised the return of almost the whole of Transylvania to Rumania. Allied bombers were already raiding Rumania, putting in a massive attack on 5 May which knocked out half of the Rumanian oil production, but Maniu wanted Allied paratroops, not bombing raids which simply reduced Rumania’s capacity to defend itself. He struggled to obtain a specific guarantee from the three Allied powers that none would interfere in Rumanian affairs once the country was freed, though the chances of striking a real bargain over Rumania’s secession from the war were fast receding. Prince Stirbey advised speedy acceptance of the terms already offered, since they represented the best that could be obtained; Maniu, however, determined to try for more and sent out another emissary, Constantin Visoianu, towards the end of May.