Churchill's Triumph by Michael Dobbs
“Nevertheless,” Churchill continued, trying to push the memories of the needless humiliation from his mind, “he is the head of your state and so long as he remains in that position I shall treat him with respect. Why, if we were to judge all heads of state on their merit we’d never invite a single one of them to the table in the first place. Apart from Mr. Roosevelt, of course.”
“True enough.” Stalin snorted.
“I have a compromise to suggest. When we raise our glasses, rather than toasting kings or presidents, we should toast the heads of state—all three of them. You could manage that, couldn’t you?”
“You think the words make a difference?”
“Yes, I do think words make a difference, Marshal Stalin.”
“Won’t make your king not a king. And won’t make Kalinin any less of an old fart.”
“Words can cement an alliance.”
An epic, primeval grunt emerged from Stalin’s cubicle. “Well, if that’s what you want. If that’s what it’ll take to keep England in the fight, you can have your words and I’ll raise my glass and drown your king in vodka every night of the week. Hell, I might even get Molotov to marry into royalty—now there’s an idea! A princess, perhaps. I’m sure you’ve got a few to spare. Some good may come of it. His current wife’s a Jewess, and none of that lot likes me. There I am, saving what’s left of their race from the clutches of bloody Hitler, yet still they turn on me. Keep talking about how they want a motherland—when they have one right here! Odd. Very odd. Betrays bad thoughts. So, better a princess than a Jewess, eh? Fewer of ’em!” He laughed and pulled with sudden violence at the chain.
The water was still gurgling its way through the ancient system of plumbing when the two leaders found themselves standing side by side in front of a marble washstand, their images reflecting back at them from an oversized mirror that hung in an ornate gilt frame.
“Something else I would like to ask you informally, outside the plenary session, Generalissimo,” the Englishman began, splashing water over his hands while the Russian examined his moustache. “A difficult matter, something that is beginning to bother public opinion back home. And you know how difficult that can be. . . ”
Stalin looked on in utter incomprehension.
“… particularly in the run-up to an election.”
“Ah, now I understand! But of course you will win. I have been told.”
“We hear all sorts of rumors about the treatment of women in the countries you are liberating. Like Poland. There is talk of excesses, of women being subjected to all sorts of indignities.”
“Indignities?”
“I feel sure that, man to man, I don’t have to spell out the details.”
“If I may also speak frankly, man to man?”
“Of course.”
“Why do you listen to those who chatter like women over the rooftops? I feel insulted you should ask these things.”
“I intend no insult. But I, too, will be asked about these things when I return home.”
“Then tell whichever fool who asks you that they should be ashamed of listening to a viper’s nest of lies. Damnable lies for which they will burn. God forgive them, those stinking Polish émigrés, for that’s where these lies come from. You shouldn’t have given them house-room all these years. They take advantage of you, invent these absurd stories and pretend they are the innocent victims, even as their terror fighters in the Home Army are sneaking about massacring Russian soldiers, stabbing my poor bastards in the back while they’re liberating the Polish homeland. They want to start a civil war. And you ask me to toss with these men about the future of Poland, to take them into the new Polish government? Well, I’m a simple man and I’ve got a simple answer to that.” He then uttered a word that Birse found great difficulty in translating, until Churchill told him not to bother. He understood.
“So there is no problem?” Churchill persisted.
“I wouldn’t call a few unhappy women a problem. Hell, we men can scarcely breathe without upsetting some woman or other. It’s the story of life. And of war. Russian soldiers have marched a thousand miles through blood and fire and over the bodies of their dead comrades—so what are we to do? Shoot them every time they take some trifle and have a little fun with a woman? Why, Prime Minister, I hear that even your own son Randolph isn’t averse to a little poking around in the shrubbery when he can. No, there may be a few sour-faced old hags in Poland, but they should be on their knees thanking God they’re still alive rather than sniveling on their sleeves because some soldier in the Red Army forgot to say please.”
Stalin’s tone remained calm, as if he were discussing the functioning of the postal service or the finer points of wheat yields. In the mirror, Churchill could see the other man clearly: the peasant face, the black and irregular teeth, the stern, mirthless eyes. Churchill imagined this face, or a face like it, the face of a soldier, red and sweating, staring into the terrified face of one of his own daughters. Somehow he couldn’t see it as a trifle.
“The Poles are all crooked, like fishhooks,” Stalin continued, his voice rising, playing to his audience. “They’ll do anything to drop the good name of Russia in the shit. Why, if they had their way, the next time your wife came to Moscow and I kissed her hand I’d be charged with attempted rape. The Polish émigrés will accuse my men of any type of crime—they even accuse me personally. Me! Stalin! Of every sort of wickedness.” Then he laughed, an empty, soulless sound. “But not buggery, eh? I leave that to your English gentlemen.”
“Those same Englishmen have a vote. It’s a right for which they have fought ferociously. I need to be able to respond to those who will question me.”
“Have no worries. I’ll make sure you return home with more than enough bones to silence the yapping dogs.”
“I would prefer to give them the truth.”
“Your trouble, Prime Minister, is that you believe in the power of truth. But power is truth. You win, history says you’re a great man; you lose, and they drop you down the nearest mineshaft. Bury you in new truth. We Russians know it, and if the Poles don’t know it yet, they’re about to find out. They lost. Didn’t defend their country, failed to liberate it. So they must take what they get.”
“Just like your soldiers, taking what they can get.”
The remark might have lost something in translation, or it might have been that Stalin had grown bored with this conversation, for he simply laughed, and left.
With exaggerated care, Churchill finished washing his hands. The Russian hadn’t even started.
***
There were to be more blasted words. Russian words. Words that would change the world.
When they returned to the great hall to complete their plenary session, it was Molotov who took centre stage. The Russian Foreign Minister, unlike Stalin, wasn’t much of an actor, but he had to his credit an impressive list of roles. He was nicknamed Stone Arse by his colleagues because of his impenetrable nature and prodigious capacity for both work and alcohol. In his wire-framed glasses he gave the appearance of being little more than a gentle academic, yet he was very much the hands-on operator. It was Molotov who had planned the destruction of the kulaks, deporting and obliterating millions of innocent people long before Hitler did the same. It was Molotov who had given orders that the troops must shoot starving peasants who stole even a handful of their own grain. It was Molotov’s pen that had signed the decree permitting the execution of children as young as twelve, and which had endorsed the massacre in the forests at Katyn. It was that same pen that had signed the pact with his German counterpart, von Ribbentrop, and flung the world into war. Now, little more than five years later, he began to tell the others how that same war would be finished.
He told them he had news that would give them comfort, and some they might find disappointing. The good news was that, during the few minutes of the recess, the
Copies of the new document were handed round for the British and Americans to read. Roosevelt, whose face was still grey, seemed to grow flustered, starting upon it two or three times, only to lose the thread and be forced to return to the beginning, pinching the bridge of his nose as though his pince-nez was troubling him.
Surprisingly, for a document that had taken so long in typing, it contained only five points. Points One and Two set out the new frontiers of Poland, east and west, in sixty-six words. Nearly a third of everything Polish was to be handed over lock, stock, and farmyard to the Russians, while Poland was to be compensated with a huge chunk of Germany. An entire country was to be moved, like a gypsy wagon, a hundred miles west.
Point Three created a new political system in Poland, and did it in less than twenty words. It described the Lublin Poles as “the Provisional Polish Government.” The paper suggested it would be “desirable” to add to those Poles from Lublin “some democratic leaders from Polish émigré circles.” And that was it, all of it. And with it, the deed was done, and the control of Poland thrust into the hands of the Leninists from Lublin.
It was a coup—but that particular word wasn’t mentioned. Instead, other words were employed, smeared all over the agreement like balm across a burn. Point Four suggested it was “desirable”—that strange, imprecise word again—for the Provisional Polish Government to be endorsed at an election. The document said the election would be held as soon as possible, but it didn’t say when, or under what rules, or who would be allowed to stand, or who would count the votes. The gaps were so wide you could have driven a brigade of tanks through them, if necessary, and Stalin had more tanks than anyone. In this part of the document, it wasn’t what was said but those things that were not said that made the difference.
The fifth and final point merely stated that any questions about the new Provisional Polish Government should be “discussed”—not settled or agreed or resolved or decided, merely put up for discussion and kicked about a little—by the countries’ three ambassadors in Moscow, which would prove as pointless as playing poker with a priest.
There was a subtext, of course. The Russians had already made it blindingly obvious that Poland was being bartered for the United Nations. Look, Franklin, we’ve got all sorts of suspicions about your United Nations idea, which in all honesty sounds like a playpen for poseurs, but we know how desperate you are for it and we’ve bent over backwards to help you out. So now we want a bit of leeway in return. We’ll accept your system for the United Nations if you accept our system for Poland. That’s what it comes down to, your dream of enduring peace and prosperity in exchange for Poland. It’s a one-time opportunity, this, you can’t afford to miss it. We’ve built in all the safeguards on Poland you could possibly want—democracy, elections, conciliation, consultation. And if the whole thing upsets that old boar Winston, well—who cares?
And it did upset Winston. The proposed exchange was so lopsided it was almost certain to capsize. For those like Roosevelt, the United Nations was a glorious dream; for others it was more of an hallucination, a talking shop. It would decide nothing, bind no one. But Poland was something concrete. Poland was a step halfway across Europe. Its fate would bind millions and threaten many more. Russia, like its soldiers, was taking what it could get.
Yet Roosevelt read the words as though they came from a different dictionary. He was the last to finish the document, which made it inevitable that he would be the first to speak. And he declared that he welcomed it. It was progress. Oh, he had a few quibbles about some of the language—he disliked the use of the term “émigré,” for instance; it reminded him of the French Revolution, he said, but he was sure they could find a better term. And he was most impressed with the Russian view that free elections could be held soon, because that view was entirely in line with his own.
But of Russia’s proposal to rip out the heart of the existing Polish political system by referring to the Lublin Poles rather than the London Poles as “the Provisional Polish Government,” the President said nothing. It was as if he had barely noticed, and his silence spoke most eloquent consent. Old Poland was dead.
Roosevelt was clearly flagging. His lower jaw was beginning to tremble. They’d been at it for five hours; time to call it a day, he suggested. And still Churchill was struggling to make a point, to do business today, to put off nothing until tomorrow, for these things were like cement that would harden and set overnight until in the morning they were all but impossible to shift. There was so much he wanted to contest, he had to start somewhere, and start now, so he began with the new frontiers. He reminded them that throughout all their discussions they had never once, no, not once, consulted a map. The proposals would involve the transfer of huge populations as large as any undertaken in the entire history of the world.
“If my computations are correct, I believe there are something like six million Germans between the present Polish frontier and the one that is being proposed,” he said. “Six million. They can’t stay, otherwise there is a danger of stuffing the Polish goose so full of German sausage that she might choke. And yet to lift them physically would be an undertaking as historic as the flight of the Israelites from Egypt and—”
Stalin cut across him: “They’ve gone.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There are no Germans left,” he said, smiling. “They’ve run away. Done the job for us.”
Momentarily, Churchill was taken aback. “That certainly solves some of the problem.”
“And if any have decided to stay, I guarantee we’ll change their minds. The Red Army can be most persuasive.”
“I have no doubt of that,” Churchill responded dryly, his biblical analogy shattered on the hard rock of Russian reality. “Six million. Perhaps there’s some hidden purpose in this, some pre-ordained balance. I estimate six million to be the approximate number of Germans killed during this conflict. What is taken with one hand. . . ”
“The war isn’t over yet. Still a lot more killing to be done, Prime Minister. Perhaps another million or two?” The Russian was staring at Churchill and saw that he didn’t seem comfortable. “What’s the matter? You have reservations about how many Germans we destroy?”
Reservations? He had any number. He was a warrior, not a butcher, and he had all kinds of reservations about what the Red Army would do, the liberties they would take, the countries they would swallow up and the lives they would enslave. But there was no point in expressing them: Roosevelt wouldn’t back him up, wouldn’t want a row. He was on his own.
“No reservations, Marshal,” he responded.
“Then it seems we are in full agreement,” Roosevelt interjected. “An excellent moment to adjourn, I think.”
Inside, Churchill was screaming. But no one wanted to listen.
***
“How are you feeling, Mr. President?” the physician asked.
“Just bully.”
“Then maybe I should call a psychiatrist, too.”
“Just get on with it,” Roosevelt responded wearily, his voice rattling in his throat.
Commander Howard G. Bruenn looked at his patient laid out on the bed and didn’t like what he saw. With this patient, it had been a long time since he had liked anything that he saw. The heart shot to h
Bruenn should have advised his patient in the strongest possible terms not to run for a fourth term as President. The drugs weren’t available for the sicknesses he had, and telling him to cut down on his cigarettes and cocktails was like kicking a limping dog. But Bruenn wasn’t simply a doctor: he was a military doctor, and as a military man Bruenn knew there was still a war to win, and in wars, some men die. And soon it would be Roosevelt’s turn.
“Is there any way you can ease up a little, just for a few days, sir?”
“I asked you to be my doctor, not to play the fool,” Roosevelt snapped, but immediately regretted the harshness of his tone. Bruenn was only doing his job, and it was a job that Roosevelt knew was impossible. “Maybe if you could get Winston to take a sedative, it would help. He does insist on trying to make speeches all the time.”
“I’m told they are very fine speeches.”
“Winston makes no other kind. But we haven’t. . . ” —a sigh—“. . . I haven’t got time for them right now. Still so much to do.” He was panting, his breathing shallow. “We’re making so much progress, the whole thing is there, so close I can taste it. So, you just keep me going for another couple of days and. . . well, we’ll see.”