Russia at war 1941-1945

opportunity of joining forces with Britain in the Balkans by furnishing material help to Yugoslavia and Greece; this would delay a German attack on Russia.

Cripps meantime had sent a detailed letter along the same lines to Vyshinsky; and he therefore thought that Churchill's "fragmentary" message would do more harm than good.

I greatly fear that the delivery of the Prime Minister's message would not be merely ineffectual, but a serious tactical mistake. If, however, you are unable to share this view, I will of course endeavour to arrange urgently for an interview with Molotov.

"I was vexed at this," Churchill wrote, "and at the delay which had occurred."

After some acrimonious exchanges between Churchill and Cripps via Eden, Cripps finally wired more than a fortnight later (after Yugoslavia had already been invaded) that he had sent the text of Churchill's message to Vyshinsky; and on April 22 he wrote to Eden:

"Vyshinsky informed me in writing today that message had been conveyed to Stalin."

In the summer of 1941, in talking to me, Cripps alluded to this episode, when he said: In London they had no idea what difficulties I was up against here. They did not

want to realise that not only Stalin, but even Molotov avoided me like grim death; for several months before the war, Vyshinsky was my only contact, and a highly

unsatisfactory one at that. Stalin, I can tell you, did not want to have anything to do with Churchill, so alarmed was he lest the Germans found out. And Molotov was no

better. At the same time, they let it be understood that they didn't mind their

military talking to our military.

Churchill later commented:

I cannot form any final judgment upon whether my message, if delivered with all

the promptness and ceremony prescribed, would have altered the course of events.

Nevertheless I still regret that my instructions were not carried out effectively. If I had had any direct contact with Stalin I might perhaps have prevented him from

having so much of his air force destroyed on the ground.

It was clear from what Gripps later said that the message could certainly not have been delivered "with all the promptness and ceremony prescribed" for the simple reason that Stalin would not even dream of having any such "ceremony". Finally, it is also clear that this particular message, suggesting that the Russians intervene in the Balkans, would have produced no results, since Stalin had firmly set his mind to continue in his policy of co-existence with Hitler. Moreover, it would have arrived too late to save Yugoslavia.

But even if the Russians were frightened of being dragged into a Balkan war they might all the same have listened to Cripps when the latter persisted in warning them of the imminent German attack on the Soviet Union. At the same time Eden kept on warning

Maisky who, as the latter later assured me, did not fail to pass these warnings on to Moscow. But it was no good.

Cripps had no reason to be satisfied with the Soviet leaders; nevertheless, when the invasion started, he did his utmost to restore normal relations between Britain and the Soviet Union. There is a suggestion in Churchill's Second World War that the Russians were at first wholly unresponsive to his famous broadcast of June 22—