The Last Lion Box Set: Winston Spencer Churchill, 1874 - 1965 (471 page)

The
Times, New Statesman,
the solidly leftist
Manchester Guardian,
and the Labour Party joined Pearson in fits of indignation, criticism that Cadogan called “swill” and “dishonest and libelous trash.” Aneurin Bevan and the more rebellious Labour MPs “see a heaven sent opportunity,” Colville wrote. Churchill’s intervention in Greece brought on a vote of confidence on December 8. During the House debate, Churchill slashed away at those who faulted his policy, including the U.S. State Department and Franklin Roosevelt. Proclaiming his resolve to proceed in Greece, he announced: “I say we march along an onerous and painful path. Poor old “England! Perhaps I ought to say ‘Poor old Britain.’ ” This was a direct jab at Roosevelt, who insisted—for fear of offending Scots, Welshmen, and the Northern Irish—that U.S. government communications never refer to “England,” only “Britain.” Churchill pushed on, again with America in mind: “We have to assume the burden of most thankless tasks and in undertaking them to be scoffed at, criticized and opposed from every quarter; but at least we know where we are making for, know the end of the road, know what is our objective.” The objective—in Greece, Italy, every place the Nazis had occupied—was democracy. He told the House
that British troops in Athens were there not to impose democracy but to safeguard the right of Greeks to make their choice—be it democracy, socialism, constitutional monarchy, even communism—in secret, without fear, at the ballot box. “Democracy,” he offered, “is no harlot to be picked up in the street by a man with a tommy gun.”
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Churchill won the vote of confidence by a margin of 279–30. Two days later, he sent a note to Harry Hopkins in which he wrote, “I hope you can tell our friend” that law and order in Athens is “essential” and a condition for any talks with the warring parties there. Churchill also told Hopkins: “I consider we have a right to the president’s support in the policy we are following.” He did not get that support, at least not in public. Instead, on December 11, Roosevelt sent a telegram in which he told Churchill, “As anxious as I am to be of the greatest help to you in this trying situation, there are limitations imposed… by the mounting adverse reaction of public opinion in this country.”
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B
y mid-December, all armies on the Western Front, German and Allied, were refitting in anticipation of an Allied thrust to the Rhine within weeks. Five mostly green American divisions held the heavily wooded and hilly Ardennes sector of the front, where General Omar Bradley considered any German attack “only a remote possibility.” On December 15, Field Marshal Montgomery told reporters that the Germans were incapable of staging “any major offensive operation.” The following day, ten panzer divisions and fourteen infantry divisions appeared as if by sleight of hand in front of the Americans in the Ardennes sector. The surprise was complete, the German buildup having been conducted under strict radio silence. The skies were threatening, perfect cover for the Germans, and inhospitable for Allied fliers. Within days, the German salient—the bulge in the lines—extended almost to the Meuse at Dinant. The vital port of Antwerp was the German objective. All in the West followed the battle, anointed the Battle of the Bulge. The German successes of December 16–24 “were enormous shocks to the public,” Mollie Panter-Downes wrote, adding that most Britons, who had believed this would be the last Christmas of the war, now believed they were in for “at least another year of fighting.” One Englishman did not. Churchill, believing the Germans had made a fatal error by attacking the Ardennes rather than girding their defenses on the Rhine, told the cabinet, “I think this battle is more likely to shorten the war than to prolong it.”
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By Christmas Eve, secure in the ultimate outcome of the Battle of the Bulge, Churchill turned his attention to Greece. Chequers had been prettified
for what should have been a peaceful family Christmas. The great fir was up, sent as a gift by the American public for the second year in a row. Little Winston, now four, anticipated much in the way of sweets and cakes. Mary believed she knew what her papa would bestow on her in the way of a Christmas gift. She loved horses. Each Christmas, she recalled, her father gave her “generous cheques towards my post-war wish for a hunter, usually accompanied by a drawing.” Her father “was quite difficult to give presents to from a family point of view, as there was so much competition!” On his birthdays, Mary always gave her father a carnation for his buttonhole. Clementine liked to give him velvet slippers with his monogram, or perhaps an “evening” siren suit in velvet. And to his children Churchill always gave copies of his books upon publication.

On this Christmas Eve, Churchill gave his family something entirely unexpected; after pondering the Greek crisis all day, he ordered his new C-54 (a gift of General Arnold) readied and, after informing—but by no means consulting with—his War Cabinet, left Chequers after dinner in order to take charge of events in Athens. To accompany him on the journey, the Old Man shanghaied Jock Colville, two female typists, his doctor, Lord Moran, and Anthony Eden. “Hell,” Eden told his diary before departing, “I was looking forward to a quiet family Christmas.” So began Churchill’s strangest odyssey of the war.
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Brooke committed his thoughts on the matter to his diary: “Winston has done a spectacular rush to Greece, to try and disentangle the mess…. And what are we to get out of it all? As far as I can see, absolutely nothing!” The British would have to withdraw sooner or later, Brooke wrote, and Greece “will become as communistic as her close neighbors consider desirable.” Brooke had weeks earlier predicted that Churchill would ultimately shift 80,000 men to Greece. That week, when the remainder of the 49th Division was ordered to Greece, British forces there numbered close to 80,000. They were fighting Greeks, who months earlier had been fighting Germans. Brooke needed those troops in Italy, where the campaign had stalled at the Gothic Line just north of Pisa and Florence, and sixty miles south of the Po River. The Po was Alexander’s and Clark’s objective. Sixty miles, a distance Hitler’s panzers once advanced in a day early in the war, a distance Montgomery advanced in the first two days following his victory at El Alamein. It had been almost fifteen months since Anglo-American forces landed in Salerno. Those forces had needed nine months to advance 150 miles to Rome, and in the six months since, had crawled only another 150 miles. Fifteen months, 450 days, three hundred miles, an average advance of less than three-quarters of a mile per day. And now the prime minister was off to Greece. “Meanwhile,” the CIGS told his diary, “the campaign in Italy stagnates.”
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The overnight flight, with a refueling stop in Naples, brought Churchill
into Athens early on Christmas afternoon. Machine-gun fire could be heard throughout the city. British Beaufighters circled overhead, in search of ELAS positions to strafe with cannons and rockets. General Alexander had come in from Italy; Harold Macmillan, HMG’s resident minister in the Mediterranean, was also on hand. Churchill and Eden met them on board the aircraft for a two-hour discussion, during which Churchill’s position on King George of the Hellenes began to shift under the guidance of Macmillan and Eden, who suggested convening a conference of all Greek parties, chaired not by Papandreou but by Archbishop Damaskinos. It was likely that the ELAS would boycott any other arrangement. The British embassy was without heat and often without electricity; the weather had turned bitterly cold, so from the airport the party traveled down to the harbor in armored cars and boarded HMS
Ajax,
which offered relative safety. Sleep for the weary was not to be had, Colville noted, because gun battles continued on the mainland, and depth charges were detonated at random intervals to discourage any underwater assault on
Ajax.
Shortly after dusk, Papandreou and the archbishop boarded
Ajax
to meet—separately—with Churchill. The visitors were greeted by the ship’s company singing a robust version of “The First Noel.” Events almost took an unfortunate turn. It is a tradition in the Royal Navy for tars to dress up in silly costumes on Christmas Day and then to spring silly pranks on their crewmates. When crew members spied a tall, bearded man walking up the gangway, dressed in ecclesiastical robes and carrying a long black staff, they presumed he was one of their own and made ready. Fortunately,
Ajax’
s commanding officer intervened, and Damaskinos was escorted to a stateroom without incident.
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While Churchill took the measure of Papandreou, the archbishop entertained the lesser lights in Churchill’s party. Damaskinos had brought a bottle of ouzo as a gift, which the British partook of heartily, thinking the clear liquid was water. After downing a tall glass of the stuff (mixed with whisky), Colville told his diary, “I have never felt closer to death.” He also concluded that Damaskinos cut “a magnificent figure and also has a sense of humor.” Churchill thought likewise after meeting with Damaskinos. Thus, the holy man whom Churchill had weeks earlier called a quisling and dictator now found himself in the prime minister’s good graces, addressed now by Churchill as “Your Beatitude.” Colville noted that “we are now in the curious topsy-turvy position of the Prime Minister feeling strongly pro-Damaskinos (he even thinks he would make a good regent).” That was Churchill’s way; nothing substituted for a face-to-face meeting. It was agreed that Damaskinos would indeed chair the meeting of all parties scheduled for the next day. Papandreou—who Macmillan thought “a worthy man, but vain, and therefore shifty”—was being marginalized, and that meant King George of the Hellenes was as well.
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The meeting with the Greek factions took place on December 26 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Getting from
Ajax
to the ministry proved a dangerous business. Two artillery shells straddled the ship as Churchill prepared to leave. A burst of machine-gun fire peppered a stone wall above his head. Churchill went by armored car, scolding Colville on the way for not carrying a weapon in such perilous circumstances. To placate the Old Man, Colville borrowed a tommy gun from the driver. “What is
he
going to do” in case of attack? asked Churchill. “He will be busy driving,” Colville replied.
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They found the ministry blacked out and without electricity or heat. Kerosene lamps burned in the bleak conference room. Damaskinos took his place at the head of the table, a signal to the ELAS that movement toward a settlement was under way. The problem was, the ELAS were not in attendance. Then, after Churchill and the archbishop made their opening remarks, “three shabby desperados, who had been searched and almost stripped before being allowed to enter, came into the dimly-lit conference room.” The Communists had arrived, ready to talk rather than shoot. Churchill and the British departed, leaving the Greeks to sort things out among themselves. By the next afternoon they had reached an agreement. The Communists accepted Damaskinos as regent. Papandreou drafted a letter of intent to King George of the Hellenes in that regard, a statement Macmillan believed would prove Papandreou’s death warrant. (It did not. He served as prime minister twice again from 1963 to 1965.) At Churchill’s request, Damaskinos pledged absolutely and without reservation to guarantee Papandreou’s safety. King George promised not to return to Greece until the people had spoken in a plebiscite. By late on December 27, it was done. Churchill had not strictly speaking secured a cease-fire, let alone a signed truce, but he had secured the regency. “Greece’s troubles were by no means over,” Eden later wrote, “but at the least the Greek people would now have a chance to choose their destiny without fear.”
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O
n December 29, the day he returned from Greece, Churchill received a cable from Stalin in which the marshal threatened to recognize the Lublin Poles to the complete exclusion of the London Poles. The interests of the entire Polish people, Stalin wrote, cannot be sacrificed “in favor of a handful of Polish emigrants in London.” Roosevelt, when informed, cabled Stalin that he was “disturbed and deeply disappointed” by the message. “I am more than ever convinced,” the president wrote, “that when the three of us get together we can reach a solution of the Polish problem.” Stalin, in reply, promised a “free and democratic Poland” but also reminded Roosevelt,
“The problem of Poland is inseparable from the security of the Soviet Union.” As well, Stalin told Roosevelt, he did not want Polish anti-Soviet partisans operating in the rear of the Red Army as it drove into Germany. In fact, the Soviets and their Lublin puppets had been systematically destroying the Polish resistance movement since August. Churchill joined Roosevelt in asking Stalin to delay any irrevocable decision on the Lublin Poles until the three leaders met at the end of January. Since October, when Roosevelt first proposed a Big Three meeting to coordinate the final assault on Germany and its partition into occupied zones, events had outpaced plans.