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Authors: Emma Craigie, Jonathan Mayo
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Cox, a former
Daily Express
journalist turned intelligence officer, watches as groups of soldiers head into the nearby streets to deal withsnipers. Desperately tired, Cox gets his bed roll out from his jeep and lies down in the back of a truck. The sound of rifle fire echoes around the square.
The New Zealanders are leading a charge to get to the large port of Trieste before Marshal Tito’s Yugoslav Fourth Army. In their way is the German army and Fascists loyal to Mussolini. The Yugoslavs want Trieste as part of a new, larger Yugoslavia of which Tito is provisional prime minister. His country was invaded by the Axis powers in 1941, and since then the Allies have supported the Yugoslav resistance. But Trieste is important as a gateway to get supplies to Allied troops heading across the Alps and into Austria – plus, whoever controls the city, controls the northern Adriatic. Churchill is deeply concerned with the shape of Europe after the war. Two days earlier he sent a telegram to President Truman: ‘The great thing is to be there before Tito’s guerillas are in occupation. Therefore it does not seem to me there is a minute to wait. The actual status of Trieste can be determined at leisure. Possession is nine points of the law.’
Churchill also told Truman there will be ‘great shock’ when the US army withdraws from some of their zones of occupation in Germany and hands the territory over to the Russians, as agreed at the Yalta Conference. So if at the same time the northern Adriatic was occupied by Yugoslavs, ‘who are the Russians’ tools and beneficiaries’, in Churchill’s words, ‘this shock will be emphasised in a most intense degree’
.
The events of the last days of April 1945 had been shaped by the final conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, held in early February at Yalta in the Crimea, with Stalin as host. Stalin arrived in the Crimea by train (he had a fear of flying), Roosevelt in the first presidential plane, nicknamed ‘Sacred Cow’, and Churchill also by plane, with plenty of whisky to fend off the typhus and lice he believed thrived in Yalta
.
The Crimea had been occupied by the Germans, and the last Tzar’s summer palace, where the conference took place, had been thoroughly looted, so furniture, linen and paintings had all been brought in by train from Moscow’s best hotels – along with most of their staff. ‘We could not have found a worse place for a meeting if we had spent ten years on research,’ Churchill complained
.
At the end of the first day things were not going well. Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, wrote that night, ‘Stalin’s attitude to small countries struck me as grim, not to say sinister.’ He was right. Stalin’s aim was to regain all the territory that had ever been under Russian rule, and as neighbours he wanted regimes that that could be controlled from Moscow. Stalin was convinced that Germany would rise again within 25 years and he wanted Poland as a buffer state under his influence. Roosevelt and Churchill wanted to ensure that any Polish government included Polish politicians who were in exile in London. Churchill especially needed a free Poland – after all, this was the reason that Britain had gone to war in the first place – ‘the cause for which Britain drew the sword’. It was decided at Yalta that a Polish provisional government would be set up – the form of which would be decided by a commission. As for Germany, an agreement stated that the Allies ‘shall possess supreme authority with respect to Germany. In the exercise of such authority they will take such steps, including the complete dismemberment of Germany as they deem requisite for future peace and security’
.
On the last day of the conference, 11th February, the Big Three made the final changes to a statement of intent (Churchill objected to the word ‘joint’ as it reminded him of ‘the Sunday family roast of mutton’.) Published the next day, the
Daily Express
journalist turned intelligence officer, watches as groups of soldiers head into the nearby streets to deal withsnipers. Desperately tired, Cox gets his bed roll out from his jeep and lies down in the back of a truck. The sound of rifle fire echoes around the square.
The New Zealanders are leading a charge to get to the large port of Trieste before Marshal Tito’s Yugoslav Fourth Army. In their way is the German army and Fascists loyal to Mussolini. The Yugoslavs want Trieste as part of a new, larger Yugoslavia of which Tito is provisional prime minister. His country was invaded by the Axis powers in 1941, and since then the Allies have supported the Yugoslav resistance. But Trieste is important as a gateway to get supplies to Allied troops heading across the Alps and into Austria – plus, whoever controls the city, controls the northern Adriatic. Churchill is deeply concerned with the shape of Europe after the war. Two days earlier he sent a telegram to President Truman: ‘The great thing is to be there before Tito’s guerillas are in occupation. Therefore it does not seem to me there is a minute to wait. The actual status of Trieste can be determined at leisure. Possession is nine points of the law.’
Churchill also told Truman there will be ‘great shock’ when the US army withdraws from some of their zones of occupation in Germany and hands the territory over to the Russians, as agreed at the Yalta Conference. So if at the same time the northern Adriatic was occupied by Yugoslavs, ‘who are the Russians’ tools and beneficiaries’, in Churchill’s words, ‘this shock will be emphasised in a most intense degree’
.
The events of the last days of April 1945 had been shaped by the final conference between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, held in early February at Yalta in the Crimea, with Stalin as host. Stalin arrived in the Crimea by train (he had a fear of flying), Roosevelt in the first presidential plane, nicknamed ‘Sacred Cow’, and Churchill also by plane, with plenty of whisky to fend off the typhus and lice he believed thrived in Yalta
.
The Crimea had been occupied by the Germans, and the last Tzar’s summer palace, where the conference took place, had been thoroughly looted, so furniture, linen and paintings had all been brought in by train from Moscow’s best hotels – along with most of their staff. ‘We could not have found a worse place for a meeting if we had spent ten years on research,’ Churchill complained
.
At the end of the first day things were not going well. Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, wrote that night, ‘Stalin’s attitude to small countries struck me as grim, not to say sinister.’ He was right. Stalin’s aim was to regain all the territory that had ever been under Russian rule, and as neighbours he wanted regimes that that could be controlled from Moscow. Stalin was convinced that Germany would rise again within 25 years and he wanted Poland as a buffer state under his influence. Roosevelt and Churchill wanted to ensure that any Polish government included Polish politicians who were in exile in London. Churchill especially needed a free Poland – after all, this was the reason that Britain had gone to war in the first place – ‘the cause for which Britain drew the sword’. It was decided at Yalta that a Polish provisional government would be set up – the form of which would be decided by a commission. As for Germany, an agreement stated that the Allies ‘shall possess supreme authority with respect to Germany. In the exercise of such authority they will take such steps, including the complete dismemberment of Germany as they deem requisite for future peace and security’
.
On the last day of the conference, 11th February, the Big Three made the final changes to a statement of intent (Churchill objected to the word ‘joint’ as it reminded him of ‘the Sunday family roast of mutton’.) Published the next day, the
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