The Bitter Sea: The Struggle for Mastery in the Mediterranean 1935–1949. Simon Ball

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СКАЧАТЬ the government of the despised Prince ‘Palsy’ and proclaimed that they would govern in the name of King Peter. No one was sure whether the ‘hidden hand’ of the British was behind the coup. ⁵⁴ Even the British themselves could not be quite sure of the role that they had played. At least three British intelligence agencies had had links with potential coup plotters. All had expressed enthusiasm for the demise of Paul. The long-time SIS resident in Belgrade, whose friends in the air force took a leading part in the final denouement, was nearest to events. The British were, however, by and large, spectators of a power struggle within the Serb elite. ⁵⁵

      What the coup did not achieve was the emergence of a pro-British regime. As soon as they possibly could, the plotters were on the phone to Germany offering friendly relations. They were too late. A frothing Hitler had already gathered his generals and told them that the upstarts must be crushed. ⁵⁶ Indeed he wanted Yugoslavia and its bastard multinationalism erased. ‘This fair-weather nation will have to pay for its provocations against the Reich with its life,’ Hitler decreed. It was essential that the civilian population of Belgrade should be bombed viciously and constantly. ⁵⁷ Once destroyed, Yugoslavia would be replaced by a series of ethnically cleansed regimes. The Serbs would be purged of their leaders. As for the Croats, it was time to ‘stroke them!’ ⁵⁸ The Ustasha–Insurgents–Croatian terrorists whom the Italians had financed and maintained in exile for many years were assembled at Pistoia. ⁵⁹ Their leader Ante Pavelic was received by Mussolini with the promise of a new Fascist Croatia. The band was then dispatched to Trieste to await events. ⁶⁰

      The potential fall-out of the coup held Eden in the Mediterranean. Churchill suggested that he return to Cairo to take control. In the end Eden chose to fly to Athens, passing directly over the battle of Cape Matapan. ⁶¹ From Athens there were hopes of moving on to Belgrade. Perhaps the north-east Mediterranean alliance that had eluded him for so many months was now in his grasp. It would then be possible to say when he finally does return to London’ that he did so with ‘“Serbia in the bag” for which he has striven so tirelessly’. ⁶² Watching his progress, Hitler commented that ‘the travelling warmonger’ might be in Athens, ‘but his activities are no longer a problem so far as his plans are concerned’. ⁶³ Indeed, Eden soon found that the Yugoslavs had no desire for his presence. ‘Belgrade is denying Eden’s presence,’ recorded Goebbels with satisfaction, ‘he has not been invited and would not be received, even if he came privately. Strong words and dramatic evidence of the Jew-boy funk.’ ⁶⁴ Dill and the commander of the British forces in Greece, Jumbo Wilson, did hold secret meetings with the Yugoslav military, but they achieved nothing. The nearest that Eden got was a train journey to Florina at the end of March, where a Yugoslav general furtively crossed the border to meet him. ⁶⁵ The Greeks and Yugoslavs refused to cooperate with each other in order to defeat the Germans.

      By then it was clear that Eden had made a mistake by heading north. The German threat in the south revealed itself more clearly with each passing day. On 2 April 1941 Rommel’s armoured forces took Agedabia, the limit of his authorized advance. On the same day, Bletchley Park reported that another German armoured division was in Sicily in the process of embarking for Tripoli. The intelligence intercepts still suggested that the German build-up would take over a month. The orders flowing from Germany to the battlefront did not give any real hint of reckless advance. Yet something was afoot. Rommel had little intention of obeying those orders.

      The day after the fall of Agedabia, he browbeat his Italian opposite number, General Gariboldi, into submission. Gariboldi demanded that Rommel should halt the advance. Rommel replied that his orders were not to advance unless the British were in headlong retreat. Then he had the authority to exploit the opportunity. As far as he could see, the British were fleeing. There were no armoured forces in front of him. Wavell was showing no appetite for the defence of Benghazi. It was his duty to chase him out of Cyrenaica. With Nelsonian arrogance Rommel seized for himself the triple initiative: over the British, over the Italians and over his own army high command. ⁶⁶ Eden had to get back to Cairo. The idea was growing that we cannot face the Germans and their appearance is enough to drive us back many score of miles’. Such a suspicion would ‘react most evilly throughout the Balkans’. ⁶⁷ As he prepared to fly south again, Italian troops–effectively under Rommel’s orders, whatever the formal command arrangements–occupied Benghazi. Rommel’s patron, Goebbels, immediately flooded the airwaves with read-backs of all the gloating statements the British had issued when Benghazi fell into their hands. It was ‘a dreadful humiliation for England’. ⁶⁸

      In truth, there was little for Eden to do in Cairo. The dispositions had been made around the Mediterranean, and there was little that the Mediterranean-hopping representative of Britain could do to affect the outcome. The one substantive decision made during his final stay in Egypt was that Tobruk should be reinforced by an Australian division and held for as long as possible. The Mediterranean commanders urged this decision. Eden and Dill added their imprimatur. Eden’s main task was to put a brave face on things, and to get his story straight for future consumption. When his Lockheed touched down at Heliopolis aerodrome on 5 April 1941, Eden himself cut a confident figure. His sartorial elegance had survived the journey, in contrast to his travelling companion who left the aircraft visibly ‘travel stained’. The jaunty air that had marked both Eden’s conversations and reports was still in place. This too was in contrast to the diplomats and officers who surrounded him. They were at the end of their tether, sunk in gloom at their repeated failures. A few hours in Cairo, however, was enough to bring Eden’s mood into line with that of everyone else. For the first time he started showing signs of ‘considerable emotion and agitation’. The atmosphere became one of ‘abysmal gloom’. As news from the battlefront trickled in, most notably that the British commanders in the Western Desert had been captured by the advancing Italo-Germans, there was a sense that people were cracking. They spent hours going over the same unprofitable ground, discussing ad nauseam how it had come to this. Out of these discussions came a ‘line’ about what had gone wrong. The whole scheme of sending assistance to Greece had been based on ‘the definite and positive assurance from the soldiers that they could easily hold the West’. It was the generals who were to blame for this misjudgement. Eden had been let down by the military. ⁶⁹

      Eden was certainly wise to prepare such a cover story before he departed, for a double-edged and doubly uncomfortable welcome was in preparation. ‘The great trip’, it was said in Whitehall, ‘has been a failure.’ Churchill was ‘saying he never wished to help Greece’. At the same time the Prime Minister declared of Eden that he wished ‘to exhibit him in triumph’. Whether he liked it or not, Eden was to be yoked to events in the Mediterranean and made to take responsibility for them. Eden delayed his departure long enough to hear the news that the Germans had invaded both Greece and Yugoslavia. ⁷⁰

      Thus ended Eden’s Mediterranean adventure. It took him three days to reach home. By that time the news was even worse than when he had left. The Greek army of the north-east, comprising 60,000 men–bigger than the entire СКАЧАТЬ