Churchill's Secret War by Denniston Robin

Author:Denniston, Robin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750979559
Publisher: The History Press

This section has shown how the War Cabinet reacted effectively to intercepted signals intelligence. The actual danger to Churchill was more apparent than real, and his pneumonia on return to London provided a more cogent reason for the sense of anticlimax which followed the Adana Conference.

Aftermath

Churchill telegraphed Stalin to ask him to state that he had been kept fully informed of events at Adana, and said, ‘the Turks have come a long way towards us’, to which Stalin replied chillingly: ‘Of course I have no objection to you making a statement that I was kept informed on the Anglo-Turkish meeting, although I cannot say that the information was very full.’47 Adm Howard Kelly in Ankara earned grudging praise from the Southern Department’s Pierson Dixon when he commented that ‘an Imperialist Russia is much more frightening to the Turks than a thoroughgoing Communist Russia’. And the PM wrote tersely ‘Yes’ to a request that the Turkish officers and NCOs in training with the British should be fully subsidised by their hosts.

The FO circulated a ‘Most Secret’ memorandum early in February48 summarising the Adana conversation under three headings: A) present, B) war future, C) postwar future.

Under A) there was ‘the underlying suggestion that Turkey might come into the war either through being attacked or on her own initiative and in her own interests, or at least stretch her neutrality to a very wide extent in our interests.’ On B) Turkey might be attacked by Germany to obtain oil or as part of a Drang nach Osten [push to the east] effort. ‘It was on this basis that our proposals for completing Turkey’s defences were based.’ The prime minister is then credited with three hypotheses: 1)The destruction of Italy and the capture of Tunis would lead to action in the ‘western Balkans’ and therefore the need for Turkish security was paramount. Coupled with these was the Russian advance, precipitating a crisis in the summer. 2) Turkey might allow Britain to use her airfields to bomb Romanian oil installations; 3) Turkey might invade Bulgaria. But Churchill asked ‘for no engagement. Turkey must decide for herself. She should not act until it was in her interests and those of the Grand Coalition to do so.’ Menemencioğlu remarked that this ‘was extremely reasonable’.

Under C) postwar Russia was the most important factor. Churchill urged an international agreement but added: ‘If Russia attacked Turkey, we should arrange the best possible coalition against her and he would not hesitate to say so to Stalin.’ He also told the Turks of Roosevelt’s wish that Turkey should emerge from the war free and strong and independent. Finally the gist of Churchill’s ‘Morning Thoughts’ highlighted the various possibilities in the Balkans which might induce Turkey ‘to win her place in the Council of the Victors’.49

In Ankara Saraçoğlu reported to the National Assembly on the outcome of Adana in what Clutton called ‘a very pretty speech. Never before, not even in the safe and palmy days of 1939 has the “Alliance” been so amorously intimate.

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