with P-47's-were available to escort bombers regularly. The crew
replacement problem was
particularly acute. During the winter months the demands for TORCH had
been especially heavy, and combat crews in the United Kingdom,
forced to operate without adequate replacements, began to suffer from
weariness and tension as well as
from combat losses. The direct drain to Africa combined
with the other factors-the antisubmarine
warfare, lack of available shipping, and diversions to the CBI and
Southwest Pacific-to slow the rate of build-up of the Eighth Air Force.
In March the War Department asked General
Eisenhower to keep his shipping requirements for North Africa at a minimum,
since every additional ship provided
for his theater was a "direct drain" on the bomber offensive from the
United Kingdom.49 From
January to May 1943, Eighth Air Force operations over Germany continued
to be largely experimental, and the Combined Bomber Offensive remained
essentially in the planning stage.50
Rearming the French
To the heavy claims on U.S. military resources growing out of the
Mediterranean campaigns in the
months following Casablanca was
added another-the rearmament of the French in North Africa. The
participation of the French in the North African campaign, the
rapprochement between Generals Giraud
and de Gaulle brought about by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill at the time of
Casablanca, and the hope and desire of the French to take part in the
eventual liberation of their motherland raised a unique problem in
coalition warfare for the U.S. military planners-rearming a whole
foreign army.51 On the eve of the Chief of Staff's departure for
Casablanca, the Army planners had pointed out that re-equipping
the French troops to make an effective
contribution to the Allied cause was an urgent question for British and
American consideration.
52 At Casablanca General Marshall urged the
necessity of equipping the best French divisions in North Africa as
rapidly as possible.53 He expressed the belief of the JCS that the use
of these divisions would result in a considerable economy in other
Allied forces. Marshall and Sir Alan Brooke agreed that French troops in
North Africa would be particularly useful for garrison work, freeing
British and U.S. forces for combat. At the same time, General Marshall
and his advisers realized that
equipping a whole new French army was a complicated issue. Repercussions
would inevitably be felt in British and U.S. production, training, and
equipment programs. The coalition of associated powers would have to
agree on a strategic concept for the eventual
[54]
employment of the new army. Finally, thorny political questions
involving the future French government would have to be resolved.54 Nevertheless, General Marshall believed it necessary to at least begin
the task. He therefore proposed at Casablanca to furnish equipment from
U.S. resources, insofar as shipping limitations
permitted, and to train the French troops in its use.
The President agreed with Marshall's views.55 When General Giraud
estimated that there were enough
French officers and noncommissioned officers in North Africa to raise an
army Of 250,000, the President took the position that the French leader
should be instructed to go ahead and that the British and Americans
should make every effort to provide the necessary equipment. General Marshall
stated he was prepared to accept the inevitable delay in equipping U.S.
forces then forming in the United States in order to equip a French army
of 250,000 men. He assured General
Giraud that it was in the interests of the United States to bring the
French forces to a high degree of efficiency. The question was not
whether to equip the French Army but rather how to carry out the program
in the face of the limiting factor in all Allied undertakings-the
shortage of shipping. On behalf of the British Chiefs of Staff, Sir Alan
Brooke promised that, though the
British had more limited resources at their disposal than the United
States, they would do what they could to help provide modern equipment
for the French forces. It was obvious that the United States would have to bear most of the costs.
The upshot of the negotiations at Casablanca was an Allied
understanding that a program to equip the French Army should be started
immediately.56
The President and General Marshall accepted
the principle of rearming the French in North Africa, with the U.S.
target for re-equipping of eleven divisions
as quickly as possible.
57 No agreement
was reached on a strategic concept for the subsequent employment of the
French army. A rearmament committee composed of British, American, and
French representatives was promptly established in the theater, and a
French officer was sent to Washington to act as liaison between that
committee and the War Department. In Washington machinery
was put into motion by the War Department to speed equipment to the
French.
In the weeks following Casablanca it became clear that U.S. and
French military officials- did
not see eye to eye on what had been agreed upon at the conference.
Maj. Gen. Marie Emile Bethouart,
chief of the French military mission in Washington; brought the problem
to General Marshall's attention in early February.58 He pointed out
that, according to General Giraud's version of
[55]
his understanding with the President, an agreement had been reached
to deliver material for three armored divisions, eight motorized
divisions, and a first-line air
force of 500 pursuit planes, 300 bombers, and 200 transport planes by
summer; and that substantial amounts- 400
trucks, and enough armament for two armored regiments, three reconnaissance
battalions, three tank destroyer battalions, and three motorized
divisions -were to be delivered within the next few weeks. General
Marshall, who had left the conference before the conclusion of the
President's agreement with General Giraud, understood the President had simply promised that the United
States would proceed to equip the French troops as quickly as possible,
and that such problems as cargo space, types of equipment, and
priorities of shipment would be settled later.
Actually this difference of views appears
to have been the result of divergent
interpretations of the President's marginal note written in French-"Oui
en principe"-next to the specific commitments
in the agreement with General Giraud. Marcel Vigneras has pointed out
that the French interpretation of this phrase suggested a far firmer commitment
than the American "yes, in principle" that the President undoubtedly
intended.59 This is an interesting example of semantic differences out
of which rose misunderstandings among nations associated in waging a
coalition war. In fact, the phrase "in principle" -translated or
interpreted differently by British, Americans, French, and Russians -was
the source of a number of such Allied misunderstandings in World War II.
While Marshall felt that tanks should be provided for separate tank
battalions, he did not believe that equipping three armored divisions
was then either practicable or
desirable. The whole question of
assembling armored divisions in North Africa-British, American, or
French-would have to be considered in relation to subsequent strategy.
He did believe that the United States should send armament for one
armored division -especially since, as he had informed General Giraud,
the equipment was available in the United States but the personnel was
not ready for it. He assured Bethouart of the Army's confidence in
French officers' talent and the rapidity with which French units could
be made effective for combat. It was on that basis that the War
Department leaders had concluded that the United States was justified in
delaying the organization of U.S. divisions at home in favor of
equipping French divisions overseas.60
The French remained dissatisfied with the current allocation of
25,000 tons per convoy for the French rearmament set by General
Eisenhower for the convoys coming to North Africa. According to the War
Department policy the decision had to rest with General Eisenhower,
since providing shipping for the French might interfere with the
campaign needs of the British and U.S. troops. General Eisenhower warned
the War Department that a
critical situation was developing
in the relations with the French
[56]
in North Africa. At the same time, the uneasiness of the French over
U.S. intentions was brought to
the attention of the President and the Secretary of State by Mr. Robert
D. Murphy in communications from
North Africa. On 20 February the President sought to quiet French fears
that the United States was not living up to its promises and to set the
record straight on the U.S. agreement
at Casablanca. He informed Mr. Murphy:
You can tell them [the French in North Africa] that at no time did I
or General Marshall promise equipment for the French divisions at any
given date. What was agreed on was the principle of rearming them-to be
done as soon as we found it practicable from a shipping point of view.
Mr. Murphy was at liberty to tell the French that the President was
receiving the same cries for help from USSR, from the British for
supplies for England and for Burma, from China, and from several
South American states as well. The President was going ahead with French
rearmament as quickly as he could "get it over"; meanwhile, the
President advised, the French
must remain "calm and sensible."61
Within the limits of shipping and equipment available, the War
Department proceeded to fill the
requests for equipment for the French-as made by General Giraud through
General Eisenhower. General
Eisenhower felt strongly that no
equipment be sent to the French at the sacrifice of British and American
strength for current and subsequent
operations in the Mediterranean.62 This policy the War Department
put into effect. By early March it was engaged in equipping three French
divisions along the Spanish Moroccan frontier in order to counter a
possible German thrust through Spain and to compensate for withdrawals
from Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.'s forces for replacements for the
Tunisian front.
Down to the close of the North African campaign, the controlling
factor in French rearmament-as in all undertakings-continued
to be the question of shipping. General Eisenhower felt that if
additional shipping over and above the 25,000 tons per convoy that he
had allotted for French rearmament were made available, it would have to
be furnished by the War Department Army Service Forces maintained that
no additional shipping space could be provided
from shipping allocated to the U.S. Army until after General Eisenhower's
current and projected requirements
were met. The Army planners concluded, therefore, that it would probably
be possible to allocate additional space only when substantial amounts
of French shipping were turned over to the associated powers' pool and
placed in convoy service.63 By the close of the North African campaign
three and one-half divisions had
been equipped, or were in process of being equipped-one armored, two and
one-half infantry divisions, and
sundry other units. A start had also been made in building a French air
force. The British had provided airplanes
for one French squadron and the
[57]
Americans had equipped another. Still unsolved were the precise
timing and scale of French rearmament and the related strategic question
of the subsequent role of the French Army. These problems would have to
be decided on high military and political levels. It was increasingly
apparent to the U.S. staff planners, however, that the campaigns that
had brought French North Africa within the Allied orbit and led to the
rebirth of the French Army also had added a new and large claimant for
U.S. military resources.64
Commitments to the Middle East
Of equal concern to the Washington high command during the wind-up
of the African campaign were the mounting
U.S. commitments to the Middle East. The events of 1942 and early 1943
forced successive modifications of the Army's policy toward that area of
British strategic responsibility. By the close of 1942 there were 30,000
American troops present or en route to the Middle East-primarily service
and air troops-with many more
scheduled to go. The allocations continued to grow, amounting
by the close of the Tunisia Campaign
to about twice that number present
or en route.65 The increased Middle East commitments reflected in large
measure the increased air activities of U.S. forces in the
Mediterranean. They also reflected the greater need for service units to operate and
maintain the Persian Gulf supply
route for Soviet aid shipments.
The British and Americans, from early in the war, had feared that
German forces would drive through Turkey and into the Middle East,
thereby blocking an important supply route to the USSR, cutting off the
flow of oil from the Middle East, attacking the USSR in the Caucasus,
and possibly pushing on to form a juncture with Japanese forces. U.S.
planners had long recognized the necessity of insuring the security of
the Middle East-a strategic bridge between East and West in the global
struggle. But by the turn of the year it appeared that the progress of
the Allied campaigns in North Africa and on the Eastern Front had
eliminated the immediate threat to the Middle East and greatly
strengthened the Allied position there.66 The United States could
therefore properly plan for the
withdrawal of the forces sent to help the British during the crisis of
1942. That action would have the advantages of simplifying British
control of operations in their sphere of primary interest and of
providing U.S. forces for potentially more decisive operations
elsewhere. The planners were well aware that, unless U.S. forces in the
Middle East were reduced in operational strength, their presence might
itself become an argument for further Mediterranean operations and
thereby jeopardize concentration for a major cross-Channel operation.
The Army had other reasons for its reluctance to become involved in
active operations in the Middle East. These
[58]
found expression in the report of Lt. Col. DeVere P. Armstrong of
the Strategy Section, OPD, submitted to the War Department in early
January 1943, shortly after Armstrong's return from an extended visit to
the Middle East. He emphasized that upon the defeat of the Axis forces
in North Africa, the Middle East would probably become a region for the
strategic defensive. In his opinion the British, who were deeply
involved in the Middle East-in a political
and economic as well as a military sense-would have sufficient forces in
the area to defend it. He stated:
. . there is no doubt in my mind but that the British war effort in
the Middle East is tempered with conscious political and economic
thoughts for the future. With the possible exception of Persia, however,
I do not believe that this attitude is causing the Allied war effort in
the Middle East to suffer.
He feared lest increased U.S. military activity in the Middle East
involve the United States in the complex political crosscurrents of that
troubled area. The time had therefore come for the United States to
"avoid further commitments in the Middle East" and to begin to think of
withdrawing its combat forces from the area. At the same time he foresaw
that the Persian Gulf Service Command (PGSC), through which the United
States was funneling supplies to the USSR, would soon become the major
U.S. effort in the Middle East. That effort, he emphasized, was most important
not only because of the military significance of the aid extended but
also because the prestige of the United States as an ally was at stake.67
In the strategic discussions at Casablanca,
the Middle East had figured only as a side issue to the basic question
of cross-Channel versus Mediterranean operations.
In their arguments in favor of the Mediterranean after the conclusion
of the African campaign, the British spokesmen proposed operations
against the Dodecanese Islands as one possible operation.68 As noted
above, General Marshall and the rest of the JCS, intent upon a
cross-Channel operation, were
willing to settle only for a western Mediterranean operation.69 General
Marshall and his colleagues felt anxious lest Mediterranean operations,
and especially operations in the east Mediterranean, draw off strength
from concentration for an eventual cross-Channel
operation and probably prevent the United States from undertaking
operations in Burma and the Pacific. Back of the anxiety of the U.S.
military planners lay their even greater concern over possible
involvement in costly diversionary
operations in the Balkans. As a result, the U.S. Joint Chiefs at Casablanca
played down the potential role of the Middle East in operations immediately
following the North African, campaign
other than possibly to support an undertaking in the western Mediterranean.
The compromise agreement on an operation against Sicily affected the
Middle East only insofar as the latter region was accepted as one of
several possible springboards for executing the
[59]
HUSKY operation.70 Decisions on eastern
Mediterranean moves-and on the role of the Middle East in them-were held
in abeyance.
In early March the War Department announced a policy looking to the
curtailment of U.S. Army activities
in the Middle East. Service troops and facilities
to expedite the flow and maintenance
of lend-lease supplies for British forces in the Middle East were to be
reduced.71 In early April, however,
the War Department informed General Brereton, then Commanding General,
U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East, that the service installations were
not to be closed down abruptly but were to be turned over gradually to
the British.72 Because of the extreme shortage of British specialists,
the U.S. troops were not expected to be released until well after the
conclusion of HUSKY. War Department
plans in the early spring allowed
for the dispatch to the Middle East only of service units whose primary
purpose was to support the U.S. Ninth Air Force, then engaged in the
Tunisia Campaign.73 Army planners were opposed
to the retention of U.S. air units as a static garrison in the Middle
East after the campaign. But, on the assumption
that lend-lease aid to the USSR would remain a primary commitment of the United States, the strength of the Persian Gulf Service Command,
they reasoned, should not be reduced.
Command Changes: USAFIME, NATO, and ETO
While making plans for curtailment of U.S. Army activities in the
Middle East, War Department planners sought to bring command into line
with strategy and deployment. Command arrangements
for the U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East (USAFIME) were subject to a
number of complications. Though the area was recognized by the Americans
and the British as one of British strategic responsibility, the U.S.
Army forces in it had been given by mutual agreement a unique
responsibility for expediting lend-lease to a third ally, the USSR. The
growing importance of the Persian Gulf Service Command and the prospective
decline of the rest of the Middle East theater as an area of active
operations for U.S. forces made
necessary a clarification of relationships between the two. U.S.
commands in the Middle East region had to deal with delicate problems in
an area in which the United Kingdom, the USSR, and local populations-especially
in Iran-had peculiar and often varying interests.74 Furthermore,
the increasing momentum of Allied operations in the Mediterranean raised
the problem of the command relationship
of Middle East theater to the rest of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean.
It also raised the larger problem of the command relationships in the
[60]
whole Middle East-North Africa-Europe area.
Various proposals were weighed. As early as December 1942, General
Handy directed his planners to look into the whole question.75 Early in
January 1943 a special committee concluded that the entire Mediterranean
area-including most of the Middle East region-and western Europe should
be incorporated in a single U.S.-U.K. command. The committee emphasized
that all regions from which British-American attacks might be launched
in executing the primary
mission-a major offensive against continental Europe-had to be under a
single commander.76
But in view of the many unsettled questions in strategic planning, no
action to create an over-all command was taken. General Handy, agreeing
that the recommendations of his committee were desirable, sent the whole
question back to the planners for further study.77
More important for the immediate future was a series of changes
affecting U.S. command relationships that grew out of decisions reached
at Casablanca. In mid-January Marshall informed Handy, in a
communication dispatched from Casablanca, that the JCS had reached an
agreement with Eisenhower during the conference on the subdivision of
the current European Theater of operations into two parts, Europe and
North Africa.78 The joint Chiefs were also in agreement that General Andrews, the commanding general of USAFIME, be transferred almost immediately to the United Kingdom to
assume control of the European part.79 The GCS, the JCS also agreed,
should establish priorities for
missions for all bombers in the European-Mediterranean area. Marshall
asked Handy for recommendations on how to put these agreements into
effect.
A War Department draft directive was quickly drawn up and forwarded
to Marshall at Casablanca.80 It divided the European-Mediterranean area
into the European Theater of Operations, the North African Theater of
Operations (NATO), and the
Middle East Theater of Operations and outlined the limits of each.
Theater boundaries in the European-Mediterranean area were to be ignored
in the selection and assignment
of objectives for strategic bombing missions for those theaters. The GCS
were to determine the strategic objectives
and the priorities for such objectives
and to direct the shifting of bomber and fighter units between theaters
for strategic bombing missions. Strategic
[61]
bombing in the Middle East was to be under British command.
General Marshall made use of these Washington recommendations in his
discussions with the CCS at
Casablanca on the control of strategic bombardment in the
European-Mediterranean area.81 War Department leaders who were at
Casablanca used them to brief General Andrews on his assignment in the
United Kingdom.82 General Marshall and his Washington staff proceeded,
at the close of January and in early February
1943, to put into effect the rearrangements
of command assignment and boundaries in the European-Mediterranean
area.83 When naming Andrews
as commanding general of the new European theater, the War Department
also announced that General Brereton would become Commanding General,
USAFIME.84 Upon Andrews' departure for his new assignment on 31 January
1943 Brereton assumed command of USAFIME.85
The division of the European theater into two parts and the
designation of the southern half as the North African Theater of
Operations symbolized the increasing importance of the Mediterranean.
The separation went into effect on 4 February 1943. General Eisenhower,
relieved from the command of the European Theater of Operations, which
he had headed since June 1942, assumed command of the North African
Theater of Operations. Included in the newly established North African
theater were the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica,
and a considerable portion of northwest Africa-from the Atlantic coast
to the eastern boundary of Tunisia. Shorn of its Mediterranean portions,
the ETO comprised Iceland, the British Isles, the Scandinavian
countries, France, Germany, and the area extending eastward to the
western boundary of the USSR and southward through Hungary and Rumania.86
The decisions made during Casablanca
fell. far short of creating a single Anglo-American command in the European-Mediterranean
area. Steps were taken, however, to tie the Middle East in with the rest
of the Mediterranean for the swift windup of the North African campaign
and for HUSKY. In
[62]
line with previous recommendations of the Chief of Staff, the United
States and United Kingdom agreed to accept Air Chief Marshal Tedder as
Air Commander in Chief of the
whole Mediterranean theater,
under Eisenhower in his capacity as Allied commander.87 Under Air Chief
Marshal Tedder were to be the Air Officer Commander in Chief, Northwest
Africa (General Spaatz) and the Air Officer Commander in Chief, Middle
East (Air Chief Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas). The single air command
responsible to Eisenhower was to direct air operations in both the North
African and the Middle East theaters to speed the conclusion of the
North African campaign. As noted above, the conferees at Casablanca also
agreed that, although the British Eighth Army was to continue to be
based in the Middle East, it was to be transferred to Eisenhower's
command and General Alexander was to become Deputy Commander in Chief to
Eisenhower.88
The net result was to provide for a closer knitting of the Allied
forces in the Middle East with those in the remainder of the
Mediterranean, especially in air and ground commands. These command
decisions reinforced the strategic decisions and meant, in effect, that
the Middle East forces were increasingly drawn into the Mediterranean
orbit and given a supporting role for the windup of operations in the
African littoral and for any subsequent moves in the western Mediterranean. Within a month after Casablanca-by 20 February-this
new system of Allied operational -command in the Mediterranean was in
effect.
Thus, with the relationship between the Mediterranean and the
European operations still uncertain, the War Department
lent its weight in the first half of 1943 to drawing the Middle East
theater into the larger orbit of the Mediterranean
command. A unified Allied command in the Mediterranean offered the hope
of speeding the end of operations
in the western Mediterranean in preparation for an eventual cross-Channel
effort and, if tied in with the European
theater, of possibly discouraging the British from undertaking diversionary
operations in the eastern Mediterranean
or the Balkans. In any event, the War Department saw a "clear and
present danger" in the current trend to the Mediterranean unless U.S.
commitments to the Middle East
were scaled down, the Middle East linked to the western Mediterranean,
and the whole fitted into some larger strategic pattern against Germany.
The Problem of the Neutrals Spain and Turkey
The trend toward the Mediterranean raised serious questions
concerning relations with neutral
powers. U.S. staff planners in World War II were faced with a whole
series of unique politico-military
problems in connection with the status of the neutral countries. Should
neutrals be kept neutral? When should a favorably dispersed neutral be
converted into an active partner? What methods should be used to induce
neutrals to join the coalition?
How far
[63]
should the Allies go in weaning a neutral power from neutrality?
These were some of the questions that inevitably had to be faced. Only
gradually in World War II, as in World War I, had the United States
shifted from neutrality. In the United States itself the historic
significance of the transition from the position of wooed neutral to
that of a wooer of neutrals, perhaps not surprisingly,
called forth no great introspection on the part of the, busy American
political leaders and military
planners. Since Allied dealing with neutrals was preeminently
in the realm of political negotiations,
the course of military planning
was subjected to all the vicissitudes and uncertainties of a delicate
international diplomacy. While
the Allied political leaders
here, as in other important strategic issues, in the final analysis
called the tune, the military planners were especially intent on
pointing out to the Chief of Staff, and through him to the JCS and the
President, the cost to major military plans involved in the abandonment
of neutrality. Nowhere was this staff role as a military watchdog on
national political policy better demonstrated than in the case of Spain
and Turkey in 1943.
As the Allied campaign against the Western Axis in late 1942 and
through 1943 swept through North Africa and into the Mediterranean, the
U.S. political leaders and military staffs kept an anxious eye on the
two neutrals-Spain and Turkey-that flanked the Allied forces. Franco's
Spain, from the very beginning of its fight with the republican
government, had been closely bound to the fascist governments. The fear
of Spanish support for a German drive through Spain and Spanish Morocco
aimed at cutting the line of Allied communications in the Mediterranean
caused anxiety to British-American military planners preparing for TORCH
and subsequent Mediterranean operations. It was largely because of this
that the Americans had insisted on Casablanca as one of the original
landings in TORCH, so as to ensure the use of an Atlantic port in the
event the entrance to the Mediterranean were blocked. It was largely for
this reason also that the War Department helped General Eisenhower
provide and equip substantial garrison forces on the borders of Spanish
Morocco to counter any sudden move against the Allied flank. Though the
problem of Spanish neutrality concerned the military throughout the
conflict, the responsibility for handling it lay with the State
Department. The planners watched closely the reactions of Franco's
government to State Department efforts to keep Spain from entering the
war as am ally of Germany. The continued "neutrality" of Spain,
opportunistic though it was, proved to be in part at least a triumph of
Anglo-American diplomacy in planning and waging economic warfare.89
Turkey, the uneasy neutral at the other end of the Mediterranean,
presented a somewhat different
set of complications
for the Allies. Allied political negotiations with Turkey throughout
1943
ran the gamut of conciliation,
[64]
blandishment, and sternness. An avenue
of approach to the Balkan-eastern Mediterranean-Middle East area, Turkey
was strategically located to exercise influence-if given adequate
help-in a part of the world in which two of the associated powers of the
United Nations - the USSR and the United Kingdom had
peculiar and special interests of their own. But for two years-1941-42 Turkey's
own position had been highly precarious and it walked a tightrope between
the warring camps. Axis conquest
of the Balkans and Rommel's threat to Egypt exposed Turkey to the danger
of being overrun by an Axis drive toward Suez and the Persian Gulf. To
strengthen Turkish opposition to Germany, Great Britain, which was bound
to Turkey by treaty, and the United States had, during this period,
extended limited amounts of munitions to that neutral. Allied bolstering
of a favorably disposed Turkey presented the possibility at the outset
of 1943, when German lines of communication and the bulk of German
combat resources were oriented
eastward, of hindering a Drang nach Osten.90 Turkey
might thereby become a bulwark ensuring
the security of the Allied position in the Middle East. A friendly
Turkey might also serve as a springboard for Allied offensive action
against the Axis forces in the Balkan-eastern Mediterranean-Middle
East area. The improving Allied
prospects in the Mediterranean appeared to Churchill to offer a distinctly favorable
opportunity to induce Turkey to
join the Allies. He had long been interested in bringing Turkey into the
war. Especially attractive to him was the possibility that Turkey might
play an active role in connection with an Allied "overland" campaign
into the Balkans.91 His staff came to Casablanca
with an ambitious plan for rearming
Turkey and for using its strength and bases in support of operations in
the eastern Mediterranean.92 The President also was interested in
Turkey's entry apparently,
like the Prime Minister, as much to ensure a stable peace in the postwar
world as for war purposes.93 The principle of preparing the way for
Turkey's active participation was accepted
by both the British and the Americans at Casablanca.94 The President
and the U.S. high command were content to allow the British to play the
direct role in dealing with Turkey-considered
to be within the area of British strategic responsibility. Matters connected
with Turkey would be handled by the British the same way those con-
[65]
nected with China were handled by the United States.95
The Prime Minister welcomed the opportunity to "play the hand" with
Turkey-with "munitions or diplomacy."
96 He was especially hopeful, he affirmed
to the President, for "a warm renewal of friendship between Russia and
Turkey . . . . Thus Turkey while increasing her own defenses would stand
between two victorious friends. In all this I am thinking not only of
the war, but of the post-war."97 There was a way, under study by the
British and U.S. staffs, in which Turkey at war might even help the USSR
in the near future. Turkey's bases might be used for air operations
against German-controlled resources
and transportation facilities in the Balkans. Especially appealing to
the British and U.S. political chiefs was the possibility of U.S.
bombers attacking the Ploesti oil fields in Rumania. Turkey, the Prime
Minister believed, was the key to opening a new route in the
Mediterranean via the Dardanelles to send supplies to the USSR. The two
political chiefs were particularly anxious following Casablanca to give
tangible evidence of their expressed desire to relieve Axis pressure on
the USSR-whose fate was still felt to be in some doubt. Stalin's
disappointment over the delay in Africa, the continued postponement of
the second front in Europe, the interruption of the northern convoys,
and other delays in meeting Protocol commitments to the USSR made such
aid all the more desirable.98
After the Casablanca Conference Churchill went to Adana to meet with
President Inonu and other officials of the Turkish Government. He hoped
to pave the way for Turkey's entry into the war in the autumn of 1943.
He promised to speed up and increase supplies, though he emphasized that
he could not draw a blank check on the United States. Upon its entry
into the war, Turkey would immediately receive at least twenty-five air
squadrons. Despite Churchill's optimism, the results of the conference
were inconclusive. No definite promise was given that Turkey would enter
the war on the Allied side.99
In the following months estimates of material were drawn up by
British and Turkish staffs and submitted to Washington,
but U.S. officials gave them a relatively low priority, since
Casablanca had given no clear indication of the priority for Turkish
requirements.100, Meanwhile, War Department planners continued to study
ways and means of resisting an Axis invasion of Turkey and of attacking
Axis forces from bases in Turkey.101 They recognized the obvious
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military advantages of a Turkey favorably
disposed to the Allied war effort, but staff studies indicated that, if
Turkey entered the war on the
Allied side with its forces in their current state, Turkey would be a
liability rather than an asset.102 The resultant argument that Turkey
not be brought into the war prematurely,
and that, in the meantime, it be maintained in a state of neutrality
favorable to the Allies, appealed to the senior statesmen among the
planners-JSSC-and to the JCS.103
Such was the argument General Marshall, speaking for the JCS, had
advanced at Casablanca.104
The acquiescence of the U.S. military staff in the principle of
inducing Turkey to join the Allies actively in the war continued
to be tempered with the proviso that the price in military aid for the
abandonment of neutrality must not be the weakening of a concentrated effort for a major cross-Channel
invasion. The U.S. military planners kept on applying this yardstick to
proposals for aid to and operations from Turkey. As OPD's Strategy
Section warned, re-equipping the Turkish Army-a force of over forty-five
divisions-would be a major commitment
that would have serious effects on the ability of Allied countries to
equip their own forces.105 The U.S. military planners urged a "go slow"
attitude. It was obvious that
much of the required materiel would have to come from U.S. sources. The
problem of Turkey's entry-and the
price to be paid for it-was to remain with the Allied political
chiefs and their staffs almost to the close of the European conflict.
The variety of claims upon American resources stemming from the
commitment to the Mediterranean
underlined the task confronting the Army planners. U.S. production was
not yet at its peak, shipping was still a limiting factor, and no master
plan existed for distributing U.S. resources. The needs of the moment
threatened to siphon off more and more of those resources. How to make
the most of current opportunities in the Mediterranean and +still prevent
it from becoming a "suction pump" that might upset long-range goals
against Germany was the problem confronting General Marshall and his
advisers.
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Endnotes
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