Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [287]
But these were all minor matters, by comparison with the great strategy decisions of earlier years. The Allied armies were advancing across Europe with little opportunity for the prime minister to influence their courses. He hailed successes, chafed in familiar fashion at setbacks and delays, but knew that power resided at Eisenhower’s headquarters and in Washington. Oliver Harvey wrote, somewhat patronisingly, “As the purely military problems1051 simplify themselves, the old boy’s tireless energy leads to ever closer attention to foreign affairs.” Almost all Churchill’s thoughts were now fixed upon the postwar settlement of Europe, which might be critically influenced by the Yalta summit. “I have great hopes of this conference,”1052 he told the House of Commons, “because it comes at a moment when a good many moulds can be set out to receive a great deal of molten metal.” Nonetheless, he complained to Harry Hopkins, who was in London, that if the Allies had spent ten years researching a possible rendezvous, they could not have devised a less convenient one than the Crimea. It was farcical that a desperately sick U.S. president should be obliged to travel six thousand miles to suit the whims of Soviet doctors, who had allegedly told Stalin not to venture abroad. As for the prime minister himself, on January 29 he arrived at Malta, the Anglo-American staging point for Yalta, with a temperature of 102 degrees.
The Combined Chiefs of Staff held an unpleasant preliminary meeting, its atmosphere poisoned by personality clashes entwined with the campaign in northwest Europe. Montgomery’s boorish behaviour towards Eisenhower sustained friction. Brooke was distressed to find that Marshall refused even to enter into argument with the British about strategy. America’s course was set, for a measured advance to the Elbe. Franklin Roosevelt arrived aboard the cruiser Quincy on February 2. If Churchill was feverish, the British were shocked to perceive in the leader of the United States the wreck of a man. It was a grim prospect, to set off for a summit with an American president unfit for important business. After the delegations’ first dinner together at Malta, Eden fumed about lack of serious discussion: “Impossible even to get near basics1053. I spoke pretty sharply to Harry [Hopkins] about it … pointing out that we were going into a decisive conference and had so far neither agreed about what we would discuss nor how to handle matters with a Bear who would certainly know his mind.” Human sympathy for Roosevelt was eclipsed by dismay about the implications of his incapacity to defend the interests of the West.
The Allied leaders’ arrival in the Crimea on February 3 was inauspicious. After the planes carrying the great men landed, Roosevelt had to be assisted into a jeep to inspect a Russian guard of honour, with Churchill walking beside him. There followed a nightmare six-hour trip to Yalta, along terrible roads. The prime minister looked around without enthusiasm. “What a hole I’ve brought you to!”1054 he said to Marian Holmes. Later, he described the resort bleakly as “the Riviera of Hades.” Generals found themselves billeted four to a room, colonels in dormitories of eleven. From national leaders downwards, all complained about the shortage of bathrooms. On February 4, there was a preconference dinner of the principals. Eden wrote: “A terrible party, I thought1055. President vague and loose and ineffective. W., understanding that business was flagging, made desperate