Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [297]
At a lunch at Chequers a few days later, Churchill told his cousin Anita Leslie how much he had enjoyed his outing: “I’m an old man and I work hard1077. Why shouldn’t I have a little fun? At least, I thought it was fun but one has to hate seeing brave men die …” Leslie was driving an ambulance for the Free French. “With childish longing in his voice Winston asked what the French thought of him. ‘They do like me? They are fond of me? Give them my love.’” If these were the words of a sentimental old man, his flagging interest in daily business reflected the condition of an exhausted one. “The PM is now becoming1078 an administrative bottleneck,” wrote Colville.
There was a last spasm of frustration about his inability to influence military operations. When he learned that Eisenhower had signalled to Stalin that the Anglo-American armies would make no attempt to close upon Berlin, he expressed strong displeasure that such a communication should have been made without reference to the British or U.S. governments. As Russian behaviour rapidly worsened, he urged that the Anglo-American armies should advance as far eastwards as possible and stay there, heedless of agreed occupation zones, until Moscow showed some willingness to keep its side of the Yalta bargain. Meanwhile, Russian paranoia that the West would make its own peace deal with the Germans intensified. Zhukov visited the Kremlin on March 29. Stalin walked to his desk, leafed through some papers, picked one out and handed it to his marshal. “Read this,” he said. It was a report based upon information from “foreign sympathisers” who claimed that representatives of the Western Allies were conducting secret talks with emissaries of Hitler about a separate peace. Berlin’s overtures had been rejected, said the letter, but it remained possible that the German army would open its Western Front to give the Allies passage to Berlin. “What do you think?”1079 asked Stalin, continuing without waiting for Zhukov’s answer: “I do not believe Roosevelt will violate the Yalta agreement. But as for Churchill—that man is capable of anything.”
The Americans indeed showed no interest in diplomatic brinkmanship with the Kremlin. Though Roosevelt was persuaded to send a last challenging missive to Stalin about Poland, Washington would precipitate no confrontation. When Heinrich Himmler sought to parley with the Western Allies, Churchill reported the fact to Stalin, who had dispatched a stream of angry and indeed insulting cables to London and Washington about U.S. negotiations in Switzerland with SS general Karl Wolff, concerning a German surrender in Italy. Now, the Russian leader sent a notably emollient message to Churchill: “Knowing you, I had no doubt that you would act in just this way.”
The prime minister found the cable waiting in Downing Street on returning from dinner with the French ambassador on the night of April 25. It prompted a spasm of maudlin goodwill towards Stalin. Jock Colville noted in dismay that Churchill, not entirely sober, sat for ninety minutes in the Annexe, talking enthusiastically to Brendan Bracken about the cable, and then spent a further ninety minutes doing the same before the young private secretary: “His vanity was astonishing1080 and I am glad U[ncle] J[oe] does not know what effect a few kind words, after so many harsh ones, might well have on our policy towards Russia … No work was done and I felt both irritated and slightly disgusted by this exhibition of susceptibility to flattery. It was nearly 5 am when I got to bed.” Three days later, Churchill cabled Stalin, offering a further olive branch: “I have been much disturbed at the misunderstanding1081 that has grown up between us on the Crimea agreement about Poland.”