Russia at war 1941-1945

"It was decided to send a special envoy to Moscow. Mr Eden, who had made useful contacts with Stalin (in 1935) volunteered to go. This generous offer was declined by the Prime Minister. Instead, on June 12, Mr Strang, an able official, but without any standing outside the Foreign Office, was entrusted with this momentous mission.

This was another mistake. The sending of so subordinate a figure gave actual offence."

(Churchill, op. cit., vol. I, p. 346.)

It should, of course, be remembered throughout that Maisky, a "Litvinov man" at heart, was more enthusiastic about the Tripartite Alliance as "the only way of stopping Hitler"

than were either Stalin or Molotov.]

Strang arrived in Moscow in the middle of June and had, together with the British

Ambassador, Sir William Seeds, and the French Ambassador, M. Naggiar, a number of

meetings with Mr Molotov. The first meeting on June 16, lasted an hour; another meeting on July 1 lasted an hour and a half; and still another, on July 8, two hours.

Let us remember that these discussions arose from the diplomatic exchanges that had

gone on since April. After rejecting the "Litvinov Plan" on April 17, the British Government had asked the Soviet Union to enter into a number of unilateral

commitments; in its Note of May 14—this was already after Molotov had taken over—

the Soviet Government declared that the latest British proposals did not contain the principle of reciprocity, and put the Soviet Union in a position of inequality; the absence of these guarantees to the Soviet Union in case of aggression on the one hand, and the

"unprotected position" of its North-Western frontiers, on the other, might well act as an incentive for the aggressors to attack Russia. It therefore proposed a more detailed version of the "Litvinov Plan" of April 17:

An effective Anglo-Franco-Soviet mutual assistance pact, complete with (1) a three-power guarantee to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe exposed to

aggression, these countries to include Latvia, Estonia and Finland, and with (2) a

"concrete agreement" among the three powers as to the nature and the volume of the help they would render each other and to the guaranteed states. "Without such an agreement", the Note concluded, "the mutual assistance pacts may well remain suspended in mid-air, as we know from the experience of Czechoslovakia".

[AVP SSR (Soviet Foreign Policy Archives) Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks, vol. III, f. 39, quoted in Istoriya velikoi otechestvennoi voiny Sovietskogo Soyuza (History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union), vol. I (Moscow, 1960). Referred to in future as

IVOVSS.]

The joint Anglo-French proposals of May 27, in reply to this Note, were a marked

improvement on earlier efforts; they provided for direct Anglo-French aid to the Soviet Union in the event of a "direct attack", but left the question of the Baltic States still unresolved. Molotov's new Note of June 2 now stressed the need for "all-round, effective and immediate" mutual aid, and proposed to cover Belgium, Greece, Turkey, Rumania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland in the joint guarantees. It even provided that the mutual assistance would apply in cases when one of the signatories had become involved in war by helping a neutral European country that had applied for such help.

[AVP SSR, vol. III, ff. 46-47.]

What Molotov was in fact suggesting was a mutual assistance pact covering practically the whole of Europe.

The talks were becoming increasingly complicated. The Russians raised the question of

"indirect aggression". This meant in the first place, the use by Germany of the Baltic States as a base for aggression "with the connivance" of the governments of those countries. The possibility of Russian preventive action here could, in the British view, not be ruled out. The Russians also wanted to know if their troops could have access to

Polish territory in case of need. They wanted a concrete agreement on the precise military contribution the Soviet Union, Britain and France would make to the "common effort".

Looking back on these crucial days Grigore Gafencu, the Rumanian Foreign Minister,