Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [285]
There seemed no limit to the troubles sent to vex him. Montgomery gave an outrageously hubristic press conference following his modest personal contribution to the Bulge battle. This excited new American hostility and correspondingly exasperated the prime minister. Churchill was obliged to recognise that there was no more chance of restoring King Peter of Yugoslavia to his throne than King Zog of Albania or King Carol of Romania to theirs. Roosevelt agreed to Stalin’s proposal for a February summit at Yalta, in the Crimea, causing Churchill to cable: “I shall be waiting on the quay. No more let us falter! From Malta to Yalta! Let nobody alter!” In reality, however, the British complained bitterly about the inconvenient venue. They remained resentful that Roosevelt was unwilling to visit their own country, or to accept Churchill’s alternative suggestion of a meeting in Iceland. The prime minister sent congratulations to Stalin on the Russian Vistula offensive, all the more fulsome because of his anxiety for Soviet goodwill in Greece and Poland. Brooke expressed relief that Churchill seemed finally reconciled to the fact that there could be no Adriatic amphibious landing, nor a drive on Vienna. Churchill brusquely dismissed de Gaulle’s demand that he should attend the Yalta conference in the name of his country. “France cannot masquerade as a Great Power1043 for the purposes of war,” he told Eden.
The prime minister said to Marian Holmes, “You wouldn’t like my job1044—so many different things come up which have to be settled in two or three minutes.” At a time when many of his own ministers were wearying of Churchill, Holmes paid a tribute which reflected the passionate affection and loyalty he retained among his personal staff: “In all his moods1045—totally absorbed in the serious matter of the moment, agonized over some piece of wartime bad news, suffused with compassion, sentimental and in tears, truculent, bitingly sarcastic, mischievous or hilariously funny—he was splendidly entertaining, humane and lovable.” While ministers and commanders complained with increasing impatience about the prime minister’s failing concentration and outbursts of irrationality, he remained a unique repository of wisdom. Consider, for instance, his words to Eden, who had been pressing him about arrangements for postwar Germany:
It is a mistake to try to write out1046 on some little pieces of papers what the vast emotions of an outraged and quivering world will be either immediately after the struggle is over or when the inevitable cold fit follows the hot. These awe-inspiring tides of feeling dominate most people’s minds … Guidance in these mundane matters is granted to us only step by step, or at the utmost a step or two ahead. There is therefore wisdom in reserving one’s decisions as long as possible and until all the facts and forces that will be potent at the moment are revealed.
Likewise, on January 18 he delivered to the House of Commons a report on the war situation which some thought was as glittering a display of oratory as he had produced since 1940. In a two-hour speech, he said of Greece:
The House must not suppose that, in these foreign lands, matters are settled as they would be here in England. Even here it is hard enough to keep a Coalition together, even between men who, although divided by party, have a supreme object and so much else in common. But imagine what the difficulties are in countries racked