The Red Dagger
Interview of Anthony Eden for the BBC’s ‘World At War’ (1973)
Interview: “Do you remember the first time you met Wallace?”
Eden: “Yes, it was at Potsdam.”
Interview: “Can you tell us about it?”
Eden: “I certainly can. Wallace was the last to arrive. The four other leaders, Stalin, Churchill, DeGaulle, and Mussolini were standing in a line with Stalin on the far left, no pun intended. I remember Wallace arriving on the right side of the line, that is to say, closest to Mussolini. Mussolini actually stood to attention and offered his hand to the President. Wallace didn’t even look at him. Wallace simply kept walking past everyone in the line like they didn’t exist … until he stretched out his hand to greet Marshall Stalin. It was a horrible experience. All the non-Soviet delegations, including the Americans were utterly mortified when they saw it. Well, perhaps
we were all mortified – Mussolini was simply incensed. It made Kiev seem like a pleasant afternoon tea break with the choir.”
The Red and the Dead: How the Wallace Presidency Changed America by Ben Rushmore
Wallace had one goal in mind at Potsdam on December 18th: Get Stalin to help out in Asia come hell or high water. Though Stalin’s mind was already decaying, he had enough wisdom to play cool and talk about how long it would take to rebuild his army from the crippling losses and economic difficulties that beset the USSR, hinting his frustration with a limited territory to plunder. Wallace listened as sympathetically as he didn’t listen to Mussolini at all. After getting off on such abysmal terms, the tone of the meeting had been set.
It was the house of the late Crown Prince Wilhelm, who had been killed by Himmler during the latter days of the war for fear of a Hohenzollern claim on the throne due to the uprising of the Conservative elements of German society against the Nazis. His son, Louis Ferdinand, was there to commemorate his father and wished that the Allied powers achieved a lasting, just peace for Germany. Ferdinand had narrowly escaped capture and fled to the Italians just before being captured by the Gestapo. His refinement and anti-Nazi credentials impressed both Mussolini and Churchill – perhaps an idea was already running through their minds.
The first item on the agenda was the size of the occupation zones for each country. Though Italy was restricted simply to Austria and a small area in Berlin, Mussolini was more than vocal about what he wanted. The new German border had been agreed to follow the Oder River. There had been discussions about an Oder-Niesse border but the Anti-Nazi uprising had given the Germans more leeway than otherwise existed. Thus, they were given this minor break. The Poles were compensated for the Soviet annexation of their eastern territory by the addition of a string of new German territories (with the German residents unkindly kicked from the region). The Soviets never broke into the territory of this new German border, stopping just at Stettin. For that reason, Mussolini concluded that the Soviets had no right to an occupation zone whatsoever beyond that which their new occupied state of Poland had already swallowed, not to mention East Prussia’s annexation. Stalin was of the opinion that the country should be split almost in half like Berlin, with the Soviets going as far as Thuringia. Churchill and DeGaulle objected strongly to this, as this would infringe on their zones. As would soon be a common sight, the European powers stood in unison against Stalin, with Wallace standing on the sidelines though quietly nodding whenever the Russian translator spoke.
Finally, Wallace called Stalin into a private room for ‘frank discussion’. It was here that perhaps the most infamous of Wallace’s decisions came about. It was here that Wallace bribed Stalin’s participation for the war in Japan by not only offering him more Asian territory, but also securing more European territory than he might otherwise have got. Firstly, it was offered that even if not one Russian foot landed in Japan, Hokkaido would be put under Soviet administration. After that, China and Korea would be considered in the Soviet zone of influence – though Stalin had still not decided to 100% back Mao yet, a decision he would come to regret. As far as Wallace was concerned, the Soviets could do what they wanted in China or Korea as long as they kicked the Japanese out. In Europe, America agreed to forsake their Berlin occupation zone and give it to the Soviets (which was thankfully on the side and would not have resulted in two West Berlins). Furthermore, the Americans agreed to strike a compromise with the Europeans on the Occupation Zone question, with an East Germany running along the Elbe and stopping at Schleswig-Holstein (as the British would never leave Hamburg). Even more remarkable, Wallace agreed a unilateral withdrawal of American troops from Iran and Czechia, leaving the British alone to administer the territories outside the Russians. Only a skeleton force would likewise be in Germany. He offered an extension of Lend-Lease while it would shortly be shut down for Britain. He offered complete independence of Soviet action in Poland and Slovakia to choose the government it wanted, with the full right to unilaterally declare independence from Czechoslovakia whenever it pleased. Wallace even went as far as to tell Stalin about the Manhattan Project and about its destructive capability. Some have accused Wallace of outright encouraging the Soviets to build their own but this is unsupported. Stalin was thunderstruck at the number of concessions he gained but did his best to play the reluctant. However, he agreed to launch an invasion of Manchuria in three months.
When news of the terms reached the Europeans, though there was little infringement on their own territory and they had stopped Stalin from getting his full wishes in Germany, they were disgusted. Perhaps best remembered was Churchill’s infamous outburst to Eden that, “The only thing on Wallace’s head is his hat!” DeGaulle had only come to Potsdam due to the desire of everyone to play their own side (the British and Italians thought he would be anti-Communist enough while the Americans and Soviets thought he could moderate the former parties). After words of the deal reached DeGaulle, however, he was in no doubt about it: “Wallace left us to die” he bitterly spat. Mussolini, however, was already beyond anger. In fact, he was already plotting and scheming with Balbo and Ciano about what to do. Many of the suggestions would bear strong fruit.
At the same time, the European leaders knew that this was probably as good a deal as they would get. Britain had already plundered Peenemunde and captured Werner Von Braun, along with the designs and test models of the still unused ‘V2’ Rockets. By the time the Soviets moved into their new occupation zone of East Germany, they would discover the place already starved of talent that had deserted for British shores (and to a lesser extent Italian and American). The European leaders accepted in a private discussion that there was little they could do, as Wallace was merely exercising America’s restraint rather than imposing its will upon them. However, the three leaders agreed that this would not be the end of the discussion. They would meet again, only without Wallace getting in the way. It would be the last time Wallace arrived in Europe for that very reason – he was denied entry by almost the entirety of the continent.
Mussolini: The Twentieth Century Man by Joseph Manderlay
The formation of the United Nations had been mostly up in the air until the solid reality came to fruition at Potsdam. It was agreed to give the organisation some teeth after the League of Nations had failed (somewhat due to the new leaders of the organisation). At the top of the food-chain was a Security Council which could decide to unleash UN forces to defend against the great evils of the world, notably genocide. And a number of them would be granted the extraordinary power to single-handedly veto the proceedings. This would be a point of some contention.
While ‘The Big Three’ of the US, UK and USSR would obviously be included, there was much discussion about who the others would be. France and the Republic of China (Stalin having still not decided to fully back Mao) were by and large agreed without complaint. It was the ascension of Italy to the table that caused a serious falling out. As Italy represented one of the largest power blocks on Earth in the Roman Alliance, and had the full backing of her fellow members as well as many prominent Jewish organisations who wanted to repay Mussolini’s salvation of hundreds of thousands of their brethren, it was considered diplomatically impossible to deny them a seat.
But this caused another issue. Now the Security Council was chaired by six seats, which left the possibility of ties in the air. This was considered a serious flaw in the process and so a seventh applicant was considered necessary. Japan (still at war at the time) and Germany were impossible for obvious reasons. India and Israel still did not yet exist as sovereign nations. In a highly cynical move, Mussolini pushed for Turkey to be included as the seventh chair to represent the Muslim population of the world. The Soviets were outraged at another member of the Roman Alliance getting a seat and threatened to sink the whole organisation by pulling out (which they had already threatened to do when Italy was included in the seating arrangement). Finally a compromise was reached and the relatively neutral country of Brazil, an Allied power in return for President Vargas beginning a policy of political liberalization. Vargas, seeing an easy opportunity to establish Brazil as a world player, gladly accepted and gave amnesty to political dissidents, mostly Communists. Though Stalin hoped Brazil would ultimately be an anti-colonial aid, Brazil would generally side with the West on foreign policy matters, especially in the fifties and sixties.
We Brave Few: Europe 1945-1949 by Abraham Ferguson
The initial waves of elections across Europe in the winter and spring of 1945 produced a wave of results, many interesting. In Hungary, Otto Von Hapsburg rejoiced as the result of the referendum as to whether the monarchy should be restored ended in a 58% victory to the Monarchists. The Hapsburg Dynasty was restored to its former prestige. The young king vowed to be the eternal defender of Hungarian democracy and its minorities, be they political, racial or religious. By contrast, Finland also had a referendum as to whether it would join the Soviet Union as an SSR. One Finn recalled how a certain polling station in Helsinki consisted of a public ballot with multiple Red Army soldiers standing on all sides of the table, overlooking the voter’s choice. All in all, it was pointless, as the 90% polling victory for the SSR option was in many locales in possession of a higher voting count than the entire population of the area, children included. Wallace would defend the vote count on the fact that the referendum for the French constituent assembly achieved a 96% ‘yes’ rate. Similar results were noted in occupied Czechoslovakia, with the Communists gaining 48% of the vote on the back of ludicrously strong performances in Slovakia. Few had hope for the Polish and East German elections scheduled in the not too distant future. Speaking of France, tensions had considerably boiled over with DeGaulle kicking the Communists out of the Three-Parties Alliance and replacing them with the Conservative bloc. It ignited a firestorm of strikes and riots up and down France, with the Communists winning nearly a third of the vote in the 1945 election, though it was not enough to overcome the alliance. Political instability would rock France for months after the election, though the PCF would never achieve a success as monumental as a third of the vote ever again.
The British elections had been delayed until early-June. At the time, it was commonly expected that Labour would achieve a modest victory. While Churchill was personally popular, the Conservatives were considered out of touch. The Labour program, which called for mass nationalization, was considered modern and revolutionary. The Beveridge Report had been a key issue in the campaign, with all parties pledging to fulfill it, though the ratio of public and private involvement differed party to party. All in all, Labour led opinion polls from anywhere between five to ten percent.
It was perhaps because of this that Churchill decided to take a gamble. One can never be sure how much the infamous ‘Red Dagger Speech’ was motivated by real world or electoral concerns, but both were equally possible. The dormant Anti-Communist feelings of the British electorate were awakened at news of the results in the Finnish and Slovakian elections. The reports of intimidation had stirred wrath that was just beginning to brew. Wallace’s Sovietphilia compounded this, which was by now being criticized by almost every paper that wasn’t avowedly of the Left. Churchill also knew that if he could make the election about foreign policy, he would be in with a better shot of winning. Secondly, as Eden recorded in his diary, Churchill had been mortified by Wallace’s conduct at Potsdam. He had decided that for the forseeable future, the United States could not be an ally and he had to depend only on his European allies. Thus, he crafted a speech that was to be the claxon call for Europe: Wake up! Thus, even though World War Two was still raging, even though the Nuremburg Trials were only heating up, Winston Churchill started the Cold War with the famous words that came from the House of Commons.
Winston Churchill’s Speech to the House of Commons, April 26th 1945
“From Vladivostok on the Pacific, to Stettin on the Baltic, a Red Dagger [1] stands poised over the heart of Europe. And should it plunge down, then all those great cities: Paris, Rome, Vienna, Athens, Budapest, yes even London herself … they shall all be crushed by foreign despotism after having so barely survived another. Once more, Europe finds herself alone against monstrous tyranny. But now, with the cost of appeasement, the cost of surrender and the cost of division now so plain to us, the people of Europe are united. They know it makes no sense to fight amongst themselves when there is bear on the hunt.”
[1] – TTL’s Iron Curtain, but since the new shape of Europe is more like a knife jutting out than a straight cut across, the symbols were changed.
