Why the west likes neither Molotov, nor Ribbentrop 13 страница
Mackenzie, W. The secret history of SOE: Special Operations Executive, 1940–1945. P. 49.
Bullock, A. Hitler and Stalin. P. 292.
Yakobsen, G. A. 1939–1945. The second world war // World War II: TwoApproaches. P. 14.
Falin, V. The second front. The anti-Hitler coalition: conflict of interests. P. 149–150.
On the 11th of October Britain made an agreement with Norway on freighting the most and best part of the Norwegian fleet. On the 7th of December Sweden concluded a trade treaty with Britain and leased out 50 % its merchantmen. The
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The supreme judge is our conscience. We are struggling to restore the domination of law and to protect the freedom of the minor countries… We have a right — and, more so, God orders us — to temporarily abandon conventional laws that we are striving to restore and strengthen. The minor countries must not tie us hand and foot, while we are struggling for their rights and freedoms. At the hour of formidable challenge we cannot let the letter of the law stand in the way of those who are called to defend and abide by it”1.
This is not a quote from Adolf Hitler’s speech, as he was preparing to commit one more act of aggression. It is the same memorable note signed by sir Winston Churchill, a freedom fighter. The point was that he was going to do the same thing that the German fuehrer was about to do: to involve the neutral states into the war, though these states, naturally, wanted to avoid such involvement. Of special interest is the English reasoning for violation of all the treaties signed by England: England is a good state, so it is allowed to do anything it chooses, whereas Hitler is a bad boy, he is trying to conquer the whole world, so he has no right to do anything. The paradox was that the freedoms of the Norwegians and the Swedish were endangered, when Great Britain undertook to defend them!
At present, too, one can often hear the “song” about what is allowed to “good boys” and not allowed to “bad boys”. For example, the USA does the tapping for the sake of freedom, so it is a positive thing. But in the Soviet epoch the KGB was flagrantly violating human rights — by tapping. As is known, the American and British troops invaded Iraq, ruining this prosper-ing country. But they marched in to struggle for freedom and to prevent Saddam Hussein from striking the West with the help of his chemical weapons. Saddam is no more, and Iraq had never had chemical weapons; at the same time about a hundred dead bodies are daily found in the streets of Bagdad. But there are no reasons for worry and indignation, because the USA and Great Britain cannot be treated as aggressors, not at all! For there is
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contract validity period of each treaty was till the end of the war. But Sweden, a neutral country, was not going to do business only with Britain: on December 22, 1939 the Swedish concluded an agreement with the Germans to ensure their deliveries of iron ore to Germany (source: Meltyukhov, M. Stalin’s lost chance. P. 139).
Falin, V. The second front. The anti-Hitler coalition: conflict of interests. P. 150.
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Who made Hitler attack Stalin
a new government and a new election system in Iraq; as for corpses usually found in refuse bins, these are just excesses related to the transition period from the totalitarian regime to democracy. In the early 1990-ies the terrible dictator of Iraq invaded Kuwait which was, of course, an impertinent act of aggression. Blood turns to ice on hearing about atrocities following the invasion, for example, Saddam Hussein declared the annexation of Kuwait to Iraq. Were there any corpses in the streets? Not a hundred a day, like in Bagdad, and the Iraqi Air Force did not bomb the capital of Kuwait. But the aggressor committed a much more terrible crime: he annexed the neighboring territory without holding a plebiscite, with one stroke of the pen. How terrible…
Let me come back to the terrible situation of the Hitler’s period of time. It is noteworthy that on February 15, 1940 the British leadership did not allow its SOE agents to sabotage the delivery of the Swedish ore. However, in about two months (April 10) Britain was going to make a lodgment in Norway. Does it make sense? Yes, it does; the sabotage will withdraw Ger-many from the war, while the occupation of Norway will make it possible for Britain to dictate its terms to Hitler. Besides the potential front to fight the Bolsheviks was ready, as was a pretext for starting hostilities against them: on November 30, 1939 the Soviet-Finnish war broke out. England and France organized a diversified operation in the Norwegian fiords. They brought in troops under a specious excuse of defending the proud Northern nation from the Russian savages. Later on Germany might make its own contribution, as long as it was interested in importing Sweden’s iron ore and following the tradition of German politicians to render help to Finland.
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After the Russian October Revolution in 1917 and granting independence to Finland a German task force played the main role in suppressing the Red movement in that northern country. But shortly after the November revolution in Germany lost its pro-German orientation. The Finns changed from staunch royalists into convinced democrats and gave an oath of allegiance to the Entente. When Yudenich’s army attacked Petrograd, British planes and ships, stationed on the territory of Finland, came in for air and maritime support. But the real aim of the British task force was to destroy the Russian Navy. At that time Stalin was in charge of the city defense and memorized how convenient it was for the potential aggressor to attack the second Russian capital that was near at hand from south Finland.
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A thorough research into the Soviet-Finnish war is beyond the scope of this book, but some information should be mentioned. England made great efforts to cause this war. On the 17th of September the USSR, marching into Poland, declared its neutrality towards Finland. In ten days, as Poland was routed, on the 28th of September Germany and the USSR conclude a friendship and border treaty. Britain responds a little earlier: on the 27th of September Britain “advises” the Finns to resist “the pressure from the East”. On the 5th of October the USSR invites Finland to negotiate the problem of bettering relations. The Finns immediately turn to the West for support. Germany advises not to strain relations with Moscow, but the USA, England and France, on the contrary, want Finland to take a tough position. The West reckons that the tension in the relations between Finland and the USSR will provoke a crisis in the relations between Germany and the USSR. Finland is trying to buy time and then suddenly (October 6) appeals for reservists to report and. On the 8th of October Finland says that it will not come to the negotiating table. On October 12 Finland declares full mobilization and evacuation from the largest cities. Thus, the Finns were rushing for war against their mighty neighbor. Did they hope to win the war? No, they could not be victorious all alone. But they relied on the interference of “progressive mankind”. That was why the Finnish delegation refused to discuss the treaty on mutual assistance suggested by the USSR. Then the Soviet Union suggested a treaty on a joint defense of the Gulf of Finland. The point was that if the USSR was deprived of the right to control the entry into the gulf, any aggressor could easily enter it or block its entry from the outside, thus depriving the Baltic fleet from entering into the Baltic Sea. But, naturally, the Finns rejected this proposal at once. Then the USSR proposed one more variant: Finland would lease the USSR a sea base in the port of Hanko and exchange part of its territory for a greater part of the Soviet land.
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The Finnish delegation left for Helsinki. On the 17th of October Manner-heim was appointed Commander-in-chief of the Finnish army. On the 23rd of October the Finns consented to remove the borderline a little westward, but refused to lease Hanko. On October 24 their delegation returned to Helsinki and carried on to fight a delaying action. On the following day Finland finished laying mines in the gulf and deployed their army in the frontier area. The Soviet Union started to move troops to the Karelian Isthmus. It is noteworthy that the Finnish government had not informed their parliament the whole aggregate of the Soviet proposals for fear of their acceptance, because the parliament might proceed from the assumption that “there never was a good war or a bad peace” and that to make peace with the USSR was better than going
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Who made Hitler attack Stalin
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to war against it for the interests of England and France. On the 3rd of November the last round of the talks began. The Finnish delegation was instructed to come to an agreement exclusively on the own terms and to reject compromise. The last session took place on November 9, 1940 and on the 13 of November the delegation went home. When they were crossing the border, the Finnish frontier guards opened fire at the Soviet guards on the other side! It was an obvious provocation aimed at tough measures on the part of the USSR. On the 26th of November at 15.45 the state broadcasting agency TASS reported that at 15.45 the Finnish artillery shelled the Soviet territory resulting in 4 dead and 9 injured soldiers. There is still no clear-cut explanation of this episode. On the 30th of November war broke out1.
The landing operation in Norway turned out a bloody job for the Ger-mans. They were engaged in combat operations against the Norwegians and the British and French landing forces from April 10 to June 8, 1940 to gain control of the country. Hitler was really worried. In fact that was the first war in which Britain and France gave the German army no “give-away” advantage. The German fuehrer was slowly realizing the fact that his Western partners in negotiations would not yield an inch. In March two American envoys came to meet with him, and only a month later a British task force nearly overtook Hitler in Norway2. It was impossible to wait any more. Hit-ler did not want to and fixed the date of attacking France: May 10, 1940…
How did England and France prepare to repel the aggression? One has the impression that they did not believe to the last moment that Hitler would go to the length of attacking one of the Great Powers. Even during the fierce fighting in Norway, the British Royal Air Force was inactive and sanctioned the air raids of individual planes — at first in the daytime and later mostly in the nighttime. During the raids the British planes carried on air-dropping propaganda leaflets on the heads of the Germans3. Such an idyll went on until May 1940, i. e. the beginning of the German assault
Meltyukhov, M. Stalin’s lost chance. P. 142–151.
Sumner Welles, the US deputy state secretary held negotiations with the Nazis on March 1–3, 1939, and on the 4th of March Hitler received the American businessman Mooney who allegedly stood close to President Roosevelt (source: Falin, V. The second front. The anti-Hitler coalition: conflict of interests. P. 165–175).
The protracted blitzkrieg. German generals on the war in Russia. P. 384.
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against France. It was then that the air forces of the allies began to drop real bombs, not ideological substitutes.
It took Hitler only 44 days to defeat France that had to lay down arms. In a month and a half the German army managed to do what could not have done in four years during the First World War. How did the German Wehrmacht manage to do what seamed absolutely impossible to the ma-jority of contemporaries? No doubt, the wonderfully rapid debacle of the French army was mainly due to Manstein’s brilliant military plan supported by Hitler. Fearful of the war with Britain and France most German generals were concerned about deposing their fuehrer, than about a possible victory in the French campaign. That was why their original plan was timorous; it suggested forcing the enemy back from the German border and occupying Holland and Belgium in order to make safer the strategic Ruhr area1. Hitler rejected this plan, and Manstein came forth with his proposals. Did Hitler like them? The plan, suggested a long-range penetration by large tank units across the Ardennes, and if it was successful, the result would be obliteration of the enemy. There was but one hindrance: The Ardennes, a mountain mass in Belgium that the German generals thought impassable for tanks. So did the French decision makers, as they did not expect a blow from that side.
The most surprising thing about the German plan of routing France was that such an idea occurred to Hitler after reading… a French book on the art of warfare. The author of that book was none other but Charles de Gaulle. On the eve of the war he had a few books published on the sub-ject of the role of mobile army groups in a future moving warfare2 . Hitler thoroughly hammered away at these works. “I repeatedly turned to and reread the book by colonel de Gaulle on the potential of modern warfare by motorized forces and had a lot to learn from it”3. It appears to be de Gaulle that lent his idea for routing his own country. Apart from Hitler, the French military experts did not hold in high esteem the work of their colleague, the future president of France. So the Germans did just what the French colonel suggested.
Taylor, A. The Second World War: Two approaches. P. 412.
“La Discorde Chez l’Ennemi” (in French), “The Edge of the Sword” (English translation), “The Army of the Future” (Vers l’Armйe de Mйtier) (English translation).
Speer, A. Recollections (Inside the Third Reich). P. 245.
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Who made Hitler attack Stalin
De Gaulle not only wrote books. He met with the premier Leon Blum in 1936 and proposed what Hitler would create three years later: a motor-ized army with mighty tank divisions meant to crash into the enemy’s defense. The leader of France heard de Gaulle, but did nothing. Why take care of such costly projects, if according to the agreement with Hitler, Germany would go to fight in the east. France was not about to wage war, at any rate, it might sit out behind its fortifications. But after Hitler ran out of control, it was too late to change anything.
The German offensive started on the 10th of May, but it was a spoiling attack. On the 15th of May 1,300 tanks of Guderian and Kleist cracked the line in the Ardennes. After the German breakthrough toward the sea over a million French, English and Belgian soldiers were cut off the main forces. The situation for the allied troops became critical at once, but it was not hopeless yet. Analyzing the causes of the incredibly fast debacle of France, it is necessary to emphasize the role of General Manstein’s splendid plan. But of no less importance is… the British contribution to France’s capitulation.
The English troops, subordinated to the French commander-in-chief in charge of the joint forces, never cared about saving France, but suddenly stopped obeying his orders. Churchill does not hesitate to refer to the French premier Reynaud’s telegram of May 24, 1940: “…The British Army had carried out, on its own initiative, a retreat of twenty-five miles towards the ports at a time when our troops moving up from the south are gaining ground towards the north, where they were to meet their allies”1.
The diplomatic phraseology represents quite a simple situation. The German armored fist cut the allied forces, and Hitler’s tanks poured into the gap. But defeat might have been turned to victory. General Weygand of the French High Command had a rather straightforward plan. It was agreed that two counterattacks from the north and the south would defeat and liquidate the penetrating German divisions and then unite the separated groups of the allies located from 50 to 90 kilometers from each other. If this counteroffensive was a success, the imminent debacle of France would be impossible, and Hitler would have lost his armored ram.
Neither General Gort, nor the Commander of the Royal Aircraft Forces were present at the discussion of the plan. There was not a single Eng-
Churchill, W. The Second World War. V. II. P. 62.
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lishman there, which was no coincidence, because Britain was about to abandon their allies. As early as on the 19th, in the daytime, Gort informed London that he was examining the possibility of a retreat to Dunkirk. Staying away from a meeting unties one’s hands for not fulfilling the decisions adopted at the meeting.
So when the French troops launched a counterattack, the English troops, on the contrary, retreated! “In the evening of the 25th Lord Gort took a vital decision. His orders were still to pursue the Weygand plan of a southerly at-tack toward Cambrai, in which the 5th and 50th Divisions, in conjunction with the French. Were to be employed… Gort now abandoned the Weygand plan”1.
So simple — he just “abandoned the plan”! He might have thought the plan wrong or hard to execute. But there is no army in the world where they it is acceptable. Orders are not debated! One can easily imagine what happens, if every general, colonel, or lieutenant takes the liberty to decide, whether his commander’s order is possible or impossible to fulfill. Thus, finding the mission improbable, can an army officer refuse to fulfill it? What is in store for such an army?
At the crucial moment Gort, the British general, committed an offense for which any army officer should be court-martialed. But his offense was even more serious: he not only failed to fulfill the order, he undertook ac-tions which contradicted the letter and the spirit of the instructions that he received! The most surprising thing is that it is not a French author writing about this in his memoirs, but Churchill himself: “The action of the British Army is in direct opposition to the formal orders renewed this morning by General Weygand. This retreat has naturally obliged General Weygand to change all his arrangement, and he is compelled to give up the idea of closing the gap and restoring a continuous front. I need not lay any stress upon the gravity of the possible consequences”2.
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