Leseprobe

88 goals pursued by the Soviet Union in Europe once again became the centre of London’s concern. And once again, the succinct, yet far from reassuring, answer was: “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” 14 . To his dismay, Churchill had to acknowledge that the need for foreign policy action was inversely proportional to his individual room to maneuvre. While the need for action increased, his scope was shrinking from month to month, from week to week, and, ulti- mately, even from day to day. Two things need to be seen against this background: Churchill’s proposal, made to Stalin in October 1944, for a division of Southeastern Europe into spheres of influence as well as his equally erratic and unsuccessful appeal to the new American President for delaying the Anglo-American forces’ withdrawal from the areas agreed with Moscow so that the Western Allies would be able to extort concessions from Stalin at the conference table. More than ever, Britain had to rely on the support of the Ameri- can government. Churchill’s warnings, however, were ignored in Washington, first by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (who seemed eager to closely cooperate with Stalin at any cost), and then with his successor Truman (who, at least for the time being, was opposed not only to a showdown with Moscow but also to immediately schedul- ing a peace conference). 15 Since Roosevelt had not revoked his announcement made at the Crimea Conference of withdrawing American forces from Europe within two years at the latest, London had no choice but to play wait-and-see. Orme Sargent, Alexander Cadogan’s designated successor, was not alone in finding as little attraction in the role of Lepidus (in the triumvirate with Octavian and Antony) as in the prospect of eventually facing Stalin alone. 16 Since the end of 1940, only American loans had prevented Britain’s early economic collapse. After the victory, British war debt totalled £4.7 billion, and the trade deficit, £1 billion. Overseas mar- kets had collapsed, and British export volume reached a mere 31 per cent of its value in the last year before the war. Gold and dollar reserves were largely exhausted; there was an acute shortage of foreign exchange; more than a quarter of national wealth, more than double that of the First World War, was lost. A considerable part of the assets located abroad had to be sold. Balance-of-payments crises occurred with great frequency. 17 No wonder that John Maynard Keynes warned his government against a “financial Dunkirk” and even sketched out the prospect of accepting “for the time being ... the position of a second-class power, rather like the present posi- tion of France”. 18 What also contributed to the general uncertainty in the run-up to the Potsdam Conference were the elections to the House of Commons on 5 July 1945. “I shall be only half a man until the result of the poll”, Churchill told his personal physician. 19 As the soldiers’ votes were only counted three weeks later, election results were not known until 26 July. In the meantime, a heap of unfinished business had piled up at the conference table in Potsdam. To prevent any