BRITISH POLITICAL AND MILITARY STRATEGY IN CENTRAL, EASTERN AND SOUTHERN EUROPE IN 1944

Transcription

1 BRITISH POLITICAL AND MILITARY STRATEGY IN CENTRAL, EASTERN AND SOUTHERN EUROPE IN 1944

2 Also by William Deakin THE BRUTAL FRIENDSHIP: Hitler, Mussolini and the Fall of Italian Fascism THE CASE OF RICHARD SORGE (with Richard Storry) THE EMBATTLED MOUNTAIN Also by Elisabeth Barker TRUCE IN THE BALKANS MACEDONIA: ITS PLACE IN BALKAN POWER POLITICS BRITAIN IN A DIVIDED EUROPE, *AUSTRIA, *BRITISH POLICY IN SOUTH-EAST EUROPE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR *CHURCHILL AND EDEN AT WAR *THE BRITISH BETWEEN THE SUPERPOWERS, Also published by Pa/grave Macmillan

3 British National Committee for the History of the Second World War 1988 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages First published in 1988 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data British political and military stategy in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe in World War, Underground movements--greece 2. Great Britain Foreign relations--greece 3. World War, Europe, Eastern 4. Great Britain -Foreign relations-europe, Eastern 5. Europe, Eastern-Foreign relations- Great Britain 6. Europe, Eastern-Politics and government I. Deakin, William II. Barker, Elisabeth III. Chadwick, Jonathan '47 D802.G8 ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI /

4 To the memory of Elisabeth Barker

5 ... -Leningrad /! Frontlines: June 1944 ~,..,._:-----August 1944 f October 1944 : - December ,.. Troop movements :;::> q km

6 Contents Preface Postscript Notes on the Contributors Participants in the Conference ix x xi xv 1 British Military Planning and Aims in David Hunt 2 British Political Aims in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, David Dilks 3 Problems of the Alliance: Misconceptions and Misunderstandings 40 Elisabeth Barker 4 Central and Eastern Europe at the Quebec Conference 54 Keith Sainsbury 5 The Moscow Conference of October 1944 (Tolstoy) 67 K. G. M. Ross 6 Resistance in Occupied Central and South-Eastern Europe 78 William Deakin 7 The Yugoslav Partisans and the British in DuJan Biber 8 British Strategy towards Greece in Lars Baerentzen 9 The Birth and Growth of Romania's Anti-Fascist Resistance Movement Gheorghe Zaharia 10 Notes on Operation Autonomous: Romania, 1944 Ivor Porter vii

7 viii Contents 11 Problems of the Hungarian Resistance after the German Occupation, Gyula Juhasz 12 Anti-Fascist Resistance in Bulgaria David Elazar 13 Bulgaria in August 1944: a British View 201 Elisabeth Barker 14 Poland and Great Britain in Czeslaw Madajczyk 15 The 1944 Slovak Rising 223 Vi/em Preean 16 Soviet Policy on the Balkans in 1944: a British View 235 Malcolm Mackintosh Index 253

8 Pref ace The International Committee for the History of the Second World War was formed in Paris in 1967 following a series of international conferences on the history of the Resistance in Occupied Europe. Sir William Deakin was invited to form a British Section in which he brought together a small group of leading historians and heads of the relevant official archives. The Imperial War Museum provided an administrative base and secretariat. With grants from the Wolfson and Astor Foundations Sir William initiated an experimental programme. Besides inviting individual historians to participate in conferences held abroad, the British Section has held a series of bilateral meetings with foreign counterparts (so far, from Belgium, France, West Germany (May 1986), Japan, the USA and Yugoslavia) and occasional international conferences, the latest of which is the subject of this book. Since 1976 the British Section has been sponsored by the British Academy, as the British National Committee for the History of the Second World War. The choice of the subject of this book derives from the conviction of the Committee that the time was ripe for a fresh review of the events of 1944 in central, southern and eastern Europe. Despite the mass of evidence now available in the Public Record Office and the archives of other nations, and in diaries and memoirs, for example, there must be expected to persist both myths and controversies about the events and the intentions of statesmen, soldiers and diplomats during the closing years of the Second World War. The year 1944 offers much to explore and sheds light both on the contrast between Britain's prewar and postwar standing in the world, and on postwar developments in the Cold War period and thereafter in central and south-eastern Europe. It seemed particularly valuable to draw into the discussions representatives of foreign committees and other foreign experts both to obtain insight into their views of the events and to enrich with contrasts our debates centred on the papers published here. The editors should like to thank Professor Dilks and Sir David Hunt who during the final eighteen months of preparation for the conference shared our work in a planning Sub Committee set up by the BNC. The Committee thanks all who took part, whether as paper-writers or as invited observers and participants in the discussions. ix

9 x Preface The Committee also wishes to record its thanks for the support and encouragement of the British Academy, the Trustees, Director and Staff of the Imperial War Museum, and the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum Trust, without which the meeting in the Imperial War Museum during the period December1984 could not have been held. Extracts from documents in the Public Record Office and from HMSO publications are published by permission of the Controller of HM Stationery Office. London WILLIAM DEAKIN ELISABETH BARKER JONATHAN CHADWICK Postscript The death of Elisabeth Barker occurred during the final stages of the preparation of this book. She had had much to do with the inception of the Conference and was still editing these papers ten days before she died. After coming down from Oxford, Elisabeth Barker joined her brother who was The Times correspondent in Vienna and it was from there that she first put down her roots into Eastern Europe. During the War she became Head of Balkan Region of the Political Warfare Executive. In 1945 she was made Reuter's Balkan Correspondent and later worked in the BBC's Overseas Service first as Diplomatic Correspondent, then as Head of European Talks. Her earlier books included Truce in the Balkans (1948) and Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics (1950). After retirement in 1970, she published Britain in a Divided Europe, (1971), British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War (1976), Churchill and Eden at War (1978) and The British between the Superpowers, (1983). Elisabeth Barker combined an instinct for a good story with iron discretion and a historian's insistence on accuracy. She went straight to the centre of a problem in short, straightforward sentences. She has contributed much to our understanding of Eastern Europe. She had a genuine, unselfish interest in people; her generosity seemed limitless. She will be greatly missed by her friends and colleagues, including the many she had in Eastern Europe. IVOR PORTER

10 Notes on the Contributors Lars Baerentzen is lecturer in the department of Modern Greek and Balkan Studies, University of Copenhagen, He is editor of British Reports on Greece by J. M. Stevens, C. M. Woodhouse and D. J. Wallace, co-editor of Studies in the History of the Greek Civil War and author of articles on Greek wartime history. Elisabeth Barker, who died in 1986, was Head of Balkan Region of the Political Warfare Executive from 1942 to She was the author of Truce in the Balkans; Macedonia: Its Place in Balkan Power Politics; Britain in a Divided Europe, ; Austria ; British Policy in South-East Europe during the Second World War; Churchill and Eden at War and The British between the Superpowers Du~an Biber is scientific collaborator and historian at the Institute for the History of the Labour Movement, Ljubljana. He is President of the Yugoslav Committee for the History of the Second World War and a vice-president of the International Committee. He was a war correspondent in various partisan Resistance units from He held the UNESCO Fellowship in and the Ford Foundation Fellowship in He is author of Nacizem in Nemci v Jugoslaviji (Nazism and Germans in Yugoslavia ) and Tito Churchill, strogo tajno (Top Secret). William Deakin was the Warden of St Antony's College, Oxford from 1950 to He is now retired. He is Chairman of the British National Committee for the History of the Second World War and a vice-president of the International Committee, a standing commission of the International Congress of Historical Sciences. He served with the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars from 1939 to 1941 and was seconded to Special Operations, War Office from He led the first British Military Mission to Tito in May 1943, and was attached to the Balkan Air Force, based in Italy, from the summer of 1944 onwards, serving on the staff of (then) Mr Harold Macmillan, Resident Minister at the headquarters of General Alexander. He was appointed First Secretary HM Embassy, Belgrade from 1945 to He is author of The Brutal Friendship: Mussolini, Hitler and the Fall of Italian Fascism; The Case of Richard Sorge (with the late Professor Richard Storry), and The Embattled Mountain. xi

11 xii Notes on the Contributors David Dilks has been Professor of International History at the University of Leeds since He was previously Research Assistant to the Earl of Avon (formerly Mr Anthony Eden), Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder, and Mr Harold Macmillan (later Earl of Stockton). He was a contributor to The Conservatives edited by Lord Butler; editor of and a contributor to Retreat from Power (2 vols) and The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (with Christopher Andrew); editor of The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan; author of Curzon in India (2 vols) and Neville Chamberlain: Pioneering and Reform. David Elazar was an active participant in the anti-fascist Resistance Movement in Bulgaria from 1939 to He was a guerilla fighter from summer 1943 to 9 September 1944 and commissar of a guerilla detachment. He was also a Colonel in the Reserve. He has been Chairman of the Bulgarian National Committee for the History of the Second World War, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, since 1969, and is author of several publications on the history of the antifascist resistance and workers' movement in Bulgaria. David Hunt is a director of Observer Newspapers Ltd and Quondam Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Now retired from HM Diplomatic Service, he was formerly High Commissioner in Uganda, Cyprus, and Nigeria and Ambassador to Brazil. He served with the First Battalion of The Welch Regiment from 1940 and as GSOI and Colonel GS (Intelligence) to Field-Marshal Alexander from 1943 to He is author of A Don at War; On the Spot: An Ambassador Remembers and Footprints in Cyprus. Gyula Juhasz is a Professor of History, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and Director of the Institute for Hungarian Studies. He is author of Hungarian Foreign Policy ; Magyat-brit titkos targya/asok ban (Hungarian-British Secret Conversations in 1943); Uralkod6 esymek Magyarorszagon (Prevailing Ideas In Hungary ); editor of collected papers: Alianz Hitler-Horthy-Mussolini; Diplomacidi itatok Magyarorszag kulpolitikajahoz (Documents on Hungarian Foreign Policy ), Vol. IV and Vol V. Malcolm Mackintosh is Assistant Secretary in the Cabinet Office, London, dealing with Soviet and East European affairs. He served in the army from 1941 to 1946 in the Middle East, Italy and the

12 Notes on the Contributors xiii Balkans, including Bulgaria and Romania. He was a member of the British Military Mission in the Allied Control Commission in Bulgaria from 1944 to 1946, serving as a liaison officer with the Soviet Command and the Bulgarian government. He is author of Strategy and Tactics of Soviet Foreign Policy; Juggernaut: a History of the Soviet Armed Forces and articles and chapters on Soviet and Warsaw Pact affairs. Czeslaw Madajczyk is Professor of Contemporary History and Head of Department at the Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences. He is Chairman of the Polish National Committee for the History of the Second World War and a vice-president of the International Committee. He was a wartime Zwangsarbeiter (Forced Worker). He is author of Agricultural Reform in Poland ; The Question of Agricultural Reform ; The Third Reich's Occupation Policy in Poland (2 vols) and editor of European Culture and Fascism: Inter arma non silent musae (Warsaw 1977) and Comparisons between the First and Second World Wars. Ivor Porter is retired from HM Diplomatic Service and is a member of the Copyright Council and of PEN Executive Committee. In Spring 1939 he was a British Council Lecturer at Bucharest University. Transferring to the Legation he took part in the abortive preparations to destroy the Romanian oil fields and left Bucharest with the diplomatic mission in February He also worked at SOE Headquarters, Cairo and in 1943 was commissioned and trained for the Autonomous operation. After Autonomous he served, as Major, on the Political Adviser's staff in Bucharest and joined the Foreign Service in He is author of The Think-Trap. Vilem Preean was dismissed from the Institute of History, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague in 1970 after thirteen years work in contemporary Czechoslovak history. He resumed his scholarly work in West Germany in political exile and became Executive Director and Curator of the Document Centre (in exile) for the Promotion of Independent Czechoslovak Literature, in Hanover. As a young boy he was in the anti-nazi Resistance in Moravia and was awarded the Czechoslovak Merit Medal after the war. He is editor of Slovenske narodne povstanie. Dokumenty (Slovak National Rising. Documents); Slovenske narodne povstanie. Nemci a Slovensko 1944 (Slovak National Rising. Germans and Slovakia 1944); Acta Creationis: Independent Historiography in Czechoslovakia,

13 xiv Notes on the Contributors He is co-editor of the Czech Black Book (documentation on the invasion in August 1968 and the popular resistance to it). K. G. M. Ross, who died in 1985, was Lecturer in International Relations in the School of History at the University of Leeds. He was author of The Foreign Office and the Kremlin and of The Great Powers and the Decline of the European State System 1914 to He also published articles in learned journals. Keith Sainsbury is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading. His war service was in the Royal Artillery and subsequently in the Intelligence Corps at Bletchley Park and in Germany. He is author of The North African Landings, 1942: a Strategic Decision and The Turning Point: The Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran Conferences and numerous articles in learned journals. Gheorghe Zaharia is Director of the Institute for Historical, Social and Political Studies, Bucharest. He is Chairman of the Romanian Committee for the History of The Second World War and a member of the Bureau of the International Committee.

14 Participants in the Conference Among those who accepted invitations to attend part or all of the Conference on 1944, held in the Board Room of the Imperial War Museum, as observers and to take part in the debates on the papers were: Mr R. F. Bennett, Dr Alan Borg, Mr J. D. Brown, Mr P. W. H. Brown, The Lord Bullock, Mrs S. R. Burgess, Miss D. Butler, Professor D. Cameron Watt, Dr Lucio Ceva, Mr J. J. Chadwick, Dr Jan Ciechanowski, Mr Nigel Clive, Dr Richard Clogg, Mr Michael Cullis, Dr Norman Davies, Professor M. R. D. Foot, Mrs H. E. Forbes, Dr Jozef Garlinski, Professor Nicholas Hammond, Dr H. Hanak, Field-Marshal The Lord Harding, Group Captain E. B. Haslam, Professor F. H. Hinsley, Professor (Sir) Michael Howard, Dr L. Kettenacker, Dr Geoffrey Martin, Brigadier E. C. W. Myers, Mr M. Pearton, Dr Attila Pok, Air Commodore H. A. Probert, Dr Angela Raspin, Sir Frank Roberts, Mrs Marion Sarafis, Mr George Schopflin, Mrs Zara Steiner, Dr J. Vanwelkenhuyzen, General Vladimir Velebit, Miss A. Ward, Professor Geoffrey Warner, Mr R. R. A. Wheatley, Dr Mark Wheeler, Sir Peter Wilkinson, The Hon C. M. Woodhouse, Mr Christopher Woods. Lord Bullock, Professor Howard, Sir David Hunt and Sir William Deakin chaired the sessions. The Committee is grateful to all who took part. xv