The Grand Alliance by Winston S. Churchill

Author:Winston S. Churchill [Churchill, Winston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780395410578
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin, [1985], c1950.
Published: 2002-11-19T02:22:54.561000+00:00

The Grand Alliance

562

Prime

Minister

to

4 Sept. 41

Monsieur Stalin

I reply at once in the spirit of your message.

Although we should shrink from no exertion, there is in fact no possibility of any British action in the West, except air action, which would draw the German forces from the East before the winter sets in. There is no chance whatever of a second front being formed in the Balkans without the help of Turkey. I will, if Your Excellency desires, give all the reasons which have led our Chiefs of Staff to these conclusions. They have already been discussed with your Ambassador in conference today with the Foreign Secretary and the Chiefs of Staff. Action, however well-meant, leading only to costly fiascos would be no help to anyone but Hitler.

2. The information at my disposal gives me the impression that the culminating violence of the German invasion is already over, and that winter will give your heroic armies a breathing-space. This however is a personal opinion.

3. About supplies. We are well aware of the grievous losses which Russian industry has sustained, and every effort has been and will be made by us to help you. I am cabling President Roosevelt to expedite the arrival here in London of Mr. Harriman’s Mission, and we shall try even before the Moscow Conference to tell you the numbers of aircraft and tanks we can jointly promise to send each month, together with supplies of rubber, aluminium, cloth, etc. For our part we are now prepared to send you, from British production,one-half of the monthly total for which you ask in aircraft and tanks. We hope the United States will supply the other half of your requirements. We shall use every endeavour to start the flow of equipment to you immediately.

4. We have given already the orders for supplying the Persian Railway with rolling-stock to raise it from its present capacity of two trains a day each way up to its full capacity, namely, twelve trains a day each way.

This should be reached by the spring of 1942, and The Grand Alliance

563

meanwhile will be steadily improving. Locomotives and rolling-stock have to be sent round the Cape from this country after being converted to oil-burners, and the water supply along the railway has to be developed.

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