This story takes place during chapter seven of my longer story We Meet Again. Unfortunately, I cannot guarantee that certain details of this oneshot will make sense if that story has not been read up to the point referenced. Please be advised, and happy reading.
"Our war for the freedom of our country will merge with the struggle of the peoples in Europe and
America for their independence and for democratic liberties."
– Joseph Stalin, 3 July 1941
22 JUNE 1942
Only the tread of his feet, wearing a rut in the scrupulous carpet, betrayed his exhaustion—he was sure of it. And that it was all the other would—indeed, could—discern.
He was wrong, but then, for hubris so long- and hard-built, absolute certainty of success in his endeavors could only be anticipated.
"Are you nearly finished?" Britain snapped as he passed the desk yet again, white-knuckled hands curled tightly at his sides. Beneath the fringe of his hair, lank with oil and damp from the front, Ivan noted how prominent and blue the veins running through Britain's hands were, the skin spread thin across them. Nearly ready to break.
And then there were the bandages on his wrist. Every time he spun and stormed to the west wall of the spacious bedchamber, arms swaying as though they were the wind propelling his winnowed body forward, their sterile white blazed—a bolt of lightning beneath the aged chaff of his shirt cuff.
To what they denoted Ivan had yet to determine, but he was confident that whatever injuries lay beneath were the consequence of closeness—to his people, to his surroundings. To himself. All the words carelessly given, all the actions recklessly made.
While being led to the room where they were to sign into effect twenty years of mutual assistance, Ivan had heard the whispers of Tobruk's surrender, and while that was something to worry about, Ivan failed to see how that could have cut Britain's skin. Despite desires, perhaps, Libya was not his anymore than it was the USSR's.
Unless Britain had bled himself intentionally. But again, it raised questions of for whom and why.
Ivan wasn't sure why it mattered—it didn't really, except that if this was the sort of ally he could expect to have for the next score—weak, susceptible to ideals and wracked by defeats—Ivan would have preferred to be his opponent when Britain was indomitable. He could be useful this way, he supposed, but he had not been this feeble while assigning half of Persia to himself, nor last January when he, Ivan, China and America petitioned the world to rise against Germany and her fellow Aggressors. And he definitely hadn't been as diffident or emasculated when acting as diplomat to the new Russia in the 1550s. Back then, he'd been a pirate and bane worse than the Unterseeboots these days were—but he'd been effective, courteous and refreshingly modern, and Ivan had admired his way with words and riposte.
Now, however, each time he passed east, Britain avoided gazing too long at the interior wall, watching his decades-old but immaculately polished shoes more than the rose-patterned paper pasted along it, and when he smoked he took exceptional, almost unconscious care not to spill a single speck of ash from the tray on the edge of the desk.
It was both infuriating and an opportunity, this weakness.
He'd been in power far too long, grown too accustomed to its comforts. Expecting everyone and no one would dare try to exploit him.
"You've been at it for two hours," he fumed on when Ivan did not answer him, "honestly, how difficult can it be to translate a text, especially one as short and menial as this? I could do it in less time than it's taken you to decide upon a word."
Defensive, self-aggrandizing. Not narcissistic, but prideful—two characters of many reasons why Britain and France would never coexist without fault.
A familiarly fierce gaze turned upon Ivan when he chuckled; he felt it without looking up—or breaking from the sentence he was constructing. "You are in good humor, Britain. Will you regale me with stories of success now?"
All that met his remark was a scoff. And then those sharp, glinting eyes cast down upon the documents spread on the scarred wood.
One, finished some days ago, rested evenly and without weather, a copy of the original accord signed last month.
The other lay half-composed, its Cyrillic letters glistening black in the fabricated sunlight of the room's electric lamp—the star of this show, to phrase it lightly. Everything else around him was shadowed and shuttered, from the window on the west side to the locked door on the east, guarded still by the coal-black temper of the State Secretary whose name Ivan had never cared to remember. He stared at Ivan's hand as it moved over the paper with the irate intensity of one nonetheless resolved to do his job, if nothing else selfishly motivated.
Truly, though, did he watch every foreigner with mistrust or was Ivan's presence at the White House especially disturbing? It was true, after all, that he had not received any of the comforts customarily awarded to guests here. Indeed, none but the stoicism of the Secretary had greeted him upon his arrival—alone this time, without Litvinov—and none save barely-suppressed fury since. It seemed few in the White House were aware of a wary ally—or, in most minds, a spy—in their midst, and both the British and American delegations preferred it to remain that way.
That, more than anything, spoke of how friable these United Nations were—more than the treaty in front of him, more than the intelligence gleaned from his agents in England, more than Roosevelt's congenial report of Congress's reluctance to grant his starving, desperate people a specialized Lend-Lease.
More than the bent but strengthening line allying Britain and America against a world grasping at strings to hold on to everything it knew—all vis-à-vis the sentiments of historical attachment and a Charter the Soviet Government wanted little association with.
In accordance with the two principles of not seeking territorial aggrandizement for themselves and of non-interference in the internal affairs of other States. How to translate that. Writing the words was easy enough. The caveat was anything but.
Ivan had understood, years before the Great War took its toll, that Britain's imperium was no longer as sustainable as he would have the world believe. Truly he needed America's camaraderie as urgently as Ivan needed the young one's wealth. But he, unlike his ministers, was not seeking it. In most regards, if Ivan's observations at the last signing lent any truth to present relations, Lord Britain was actively fighting a rekindled relationship with the one he'd once proudly called a son.
And he thought Ivan did not know, when he made the history so clear by the tremor in his step, the quaver in his voice—as subtle and undetectable by humans as bloodied hands were clear.
Here one may be tempted to question how Ivan could know all of this. The truth, if such dubiousness wanted it, is much simpler than any formulaic approach to social and political ententes. But few believe that the truth could ever be so simple. Fewer still trusted his word when Ivan spoke in flat honesty what they did not want to hear, but after centuries spent in detached navigation of the muddled in-between that humans were so fond of, Ivan had no intentions of easing anyone's conscience by making his methods comprehensive. It should be obvious to any who paid attention that the depths of Britain's rage were vast. Less lucid was how they could readily compete with Ivan's own.
But to wear it so proudly, and without restraint, the same blazing red his uniform had once been—and bearing all the chaos that came with it. Believing, always, that anger was his greatest defense…
Why?
What could he accomplish with it now that had not earned him victory or failure before, when his strength was felt through all corners of the world?
Pain bolted across the brittle bones of Ivan's booted foot as he wrote—easily ignored, though not without memory and minute musings of how the front fared in his absence. As he mulled in contemplation of a particular word, the visage of a dying man—friend of another, son of an unknowing mother—rose in his mind, that of one who had bled to death over a month ago, his torso little more than a ragged mess of crushed bone and ruptured arteries. Hundreds more had joined him since then, including his fellow scout—shot through the chest in defense of his city.
And now Kerch. Sevastopol. The whole of Crimea. Their resistance was crumbling, too.
It was those trains of thought that, uncaged, left Ivan seeking solace in the back of his mind—where the comforts of literature floated and the vodka had no reason to touch—while fury surged.
However, where Britain worked its conduciveness, Ivan preferred its clarity. Its strategy. For the longer it sat, un-whittled and unused, the more patient it became. Considering. Weighing and discarding options. Waiting until the precise moment to—
Well, take control.
"It takes time and consideration to choose the correct words, in order to ensure that the most accurate meaning is carried through," said Ivan, all too equably for one in his position, at the mercies of his host. But that was as he'd been with everything today. "You understand, Britain. Russian is as delicate a language as English. There are frequentative verbs, you see—they are not common in your tongue, but they cannot be omitted from use in mine." Spoken without so much a cursory glance. Focused entirely upon reproducing the accord from English into his delicate Russian—and delicate it was, if the flourishes his hand brought to the paper were any indication. He may as well have been scratching on papyrus with an ink-dipped quill, the room illuminated with candles instead of electrics.
Not a patience-inspiring thought.
Running a hand over his face, Arthur cursed quietly. The bandages were showing again. Hastily he tugged down his shirt cuff and muttered, "If you're writing a ruddy novel, perhaps." Louder, he snarled, "I swear, Russia, if you're writing anything other than what is on that document, I will burn both copies and see you back to the front myself—preferably to outfit a cell for you." Because he knew what Ivan was likely to write, if he did deviate from the original text. They both knew.
But Ivan, as per usual, took the byway. "And how will you know that what I write is, how do you say…not transparent? You do not understand Russian, if I recall."
Bosh. Of course he knew that Arthur and the State Secretary had no choice but to take his word for the comparative accuracy of his work—no ifs, ands or buts about it. Truly, the only reason Arthur was here was because it must be his hand that signed this version of the agreement. If any other Englishman could take his place, Arthur would happily let him while he sat in the Oval Study with Roosevelt, Churchill and Matthieu, thrashing out a plan to rescue the African Front.
Yesterday's rains had ceased by the morning, and with them had faded the gravitas of the announcement that Tobruk had surrendered to Rommel's forces. Circumstances were looking graver by the moment on that side of the Mediterranean, but it was time to focus on what could be done rather than what had already happened. There were thirty thousand lives now in enemy hands—including Jack and Sizwe's. Not a word had been heard from or about them and, despite himself, despite the probability that they were alive and planning to escape by uniquely suited means, Arthur was growing worried about their condition.
Rather ironic, knowing what this room symbolized, that he should care now. That was what most of his possessions would say if they knew what had transpired in this same space six months ago.
What Arthur couldn't bring himself to say, then and now, was that it wasn't true.
Beside the door Secretary Hull stood in stony silence, his arms crossed over his barrel chest and gaze resting resolutely upon the two agreements—for the most part. Every few minutes his eyes would dart to the wall, seeing through it the way only spirits could and clairvoyants were rumored to, and his forcibly grave expression would flicker to anger before returning to his prior position. Arthur had watched it occur many times over the course of this meeting, often from the corner of his eye. No doubt he wished to be in with the leaders as badly as he did, albeit for quite different reasons.
His competitive dislike of Under-Secretary Welles wasn't kept much of a secret among the governments, but the fact was that Welles, so far as Arthur had worked and corresponded with him these past months, played a much broader role in foreign policy than Hull, whose priorities always seemed centered upon the peace that free trade could prosper. That didn't mean he hadn't his uses, of course; according to his reputation, there was much Hull had accomplished during his tenure. It was only that now was not the time for his talents.
He would be good for the peace—whatever that meant. But this treaty…it wasn't peaceable, no matter what the damn thing promised. It demanded too little and requested too much.
Eden never should have signed this. There were other options, surely.
After the disaster of Persia last year, however, was there?
Knowing that Stalin had once chosen to ally with Hitler in order to—as Ivan put it—stay out of another European war, was there?
Arthur gnashed his teeth, tearing his gaze away from the door as he spun on his heel and paced to the other side of the room, where the liquor and ice pail—removed from the desk when it was dragged forth from the corner—sat in tempting condensation on the shuttered windowsill. Several months ago he had stood with Matthieu at that same sill contemplating mortality, what it would mean if his lands had collapsed so much sooner—too soon to have populated these that he paced upon, an ally where once he had been the enemy. And before that, a possessor.
How foolish he'd been, allowing the row to delve so deep beneath his skin.
He had learnt long ago that any movements toward war necessitated subsequent movement towards peace, and sometimes… God, sometimes that meant allying with those one couldn't trust with his own life. Pacts and Lend-Leases had already been signed between them all—as much the product of nerves as they were of need.
Cooperation was all that would work against Hitler; anyone with sense knew that—and Arthur knew it well. Individually they could not stand, but Hitler hadn't the manpower to run down all of Europe when it was fighting back, though he'd done a near damn job of it when it was too baffled to react. Which meant that for the benefit of their peoples and the world Britain and the Soviet Union would fight together until combative aggression was no longer necessary, and then…
Well, Arthur would prefer not to think about that just yet.
Despite better judgment, however, it was only by digging his nails into his palms hard enough to break skin that Arthur kept quiet. With every scratch of the pen nib the urge to mutter beneath his breath grew stronger, with every step the urge to escape this godforsaken place greater, but between Hull blocking the door and the ties tightening with each word Ivan stained into the paper, too much was at stake to risk a careless word or a reckless toss of his hand. Not that he had done well restraining himself thus far.
But if Roosevelt hadn't wanted to risk Arthur jeopardizing this, he ought not to have housed him in the same room as before, much less arranged for a meeting in it.
He slanted another glance at Ivan as he passed by. That he had come directly from the front that morning had been immediately clear when he walked in, exhaustion deep in his step and sleepless shadows beneath his dead eyes, but it hadn't stayed long. Like flicking a switch, he became the home-sheltered diplomat, ever-ready with temperate responses and time-weathered smiles more unnerving than if he'd been sullen.
Ivan had always been a rather wary opponent of the world, it was true, whether he chose to be or not. His unpredictability was one of the reasons the stakes were so high this morning, though Arthur rather had the feeling that, like him, Ivan couldn't care less about this. It was not what he had wanted either.
Still, he was satisfied about something. If not this, then what on earth could it be?
Arthur nearly hissed in his frustration. "We should have finished this in London."
The moment after Britain spoke, there was a quiet, sibilant break. Ivan heard him grimace, imagined his head whipping aside in feeble attempt to disguise the truth in between that he hadn't meant to say aloud. Ivan actually paused writing to listen to his cursing.
Ah. Now he understood.
It shouldn't be at all surprising, really, that Britain remained steadfast in his prejudices. In other circumstances his imperiousness may have been encouraging to his people. Here, outside his seat of power, it was…
Fascinating.
Revealing.
To know that beneath that aloof, hateful superiority there lived vivid and true emotion. Fear as invasive as the great Weltschmerz.
And with it a yearning too averse to give breath, much less voice, that this kind of dependency, this sort of equality with the root of his ambitions was unfamiliar territory.
Though not necessarily unwanted.
So that was what made him tremble, made him quake in his immaculately polished shoes.
Ivan dropped his eyes from them, back to the documents at hand.
Each contracting party undertakes not to conclude any alliance and not to take part in any coalition directed against the other high contracting party.
This accord was more adventitious than he'd thought, then. Even, loath as he was to admit, without the territorial clause.
He remained stoic as he responded, "Settle, Britain. I am nearly finished. This agreement is not so taxing as others I have translated."
The retort was quick with lashes. "Unlike your pact with Ribbentrop, presumably. Splitting the world amongst yourselves would take a great many words to craft lies with, I should think." Britain practically burned the words from his tongue as he stomped past.
Ivan's mouth pursed, just slightly. You should know. Is any of this so different or of greater moral than what we have done before?
From the door came a clearing of Hull's throat—a warning.
Like the conditions of the once stunning Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, it was ignored.
Ivan did not spare their pathetic excuse for a neutral party a glance before responding, levelly, "At the time it was in my government's interest to cooperate with Germany. Poor judgment it may have been, perhaps, but it was not against law to have continued communication with the State, as America has proven."
As soon as he spoke, all movement ceased, save the sharp jerk of the pen nib as Ivan finished a sentence. He felt Britain's murderous gaze, heard every inch of strength it took to restrain himself as he moved towards him, flattened his hands on the desk and leaned in.
With the controlled grace of a lion ready to bare its teeth, close enough to see the pale flickering life in his eyes, Britain growled, too low for anyone else to hear, "No one—and I mean not a soul—save a select few in this building knows anything of the boy's coordination with Ludwig Beilschmidt. In order for him to be of any use to the United Nations, your discretion is of the utmost import. Surely keeping a secret isn't so difficult for you—savvy?"
Ivan did not respond, gracing it only with a warm, unassuming smile.
There was a time, not too long ago, when Britain could have threatened to obliterate Russia with a simple blockade and siege, and Ivan, although then an emerging empire himself, hadn't the respect he deserved from the jingoist nations in-between to be able to contest his wrath without disastrous consequence. In the end he would have had no choice but to bow to demand.
Now, however, as the morning passed, as shadows illuminated the delicate, breakable bones of his wrists and the flesh absent from his face…
Britain hadn't the power any longer. His influence was not the reason Ivan sat in the White House translating while the President and Prime Minister talked of Second Fronts and personal victories and splitting the atom.
Ivan was not the greatest threat among them.
And they both knew it.
Just as the tide sets in upon one shore, so must it remove from another, exposing as it leaves more sand and silt from which to unearth shells and precious sea stones.
The treaty the two powers intend to sign today consists of two parts: the old favored, and the newer shores.
The former is a formalization of what has been signed off on before, not a month after Hitler severed again the ties between his word and his integrity and sent black and grey shadows flying through the green fields of the Union's western borders.
Now, one year to the date of that betrayal, the promise of aid in all formats—minerals, munitions, victuals—is not dissimilar to what the Soviet Union guaranteed to Germany in 1939, but anyone is a fool if he does not see the reality that all the assistance Britain agrees to send is dependent upon the wealth and tolerance of their other ally, the United States.
Along with a provision requiring the consent of both parties to engage in action toward peace with any adversarial Aggressor, very little—mere nuance—regarding the first two articles of this day's accord differs from the pact signed between Great Britain and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 12 July 1941.
What is new, however, and thus holds the significance of the accord, are the conditions of peacetime. The principles laid out in hope and mutual suspect for a time when the Aggressors are subdued and the damaged remains can once again be divided among the victors.
It stipulates close and friendly collaboration once peace has returned to the daily routines of life, both civilian and governmental.
It caveats the price of conflict if this peace is broken.
Its stability is contingent upon adhering to the principles of like-minded, peaceable, and freedom-seeking States in the event of allying with these moral States in the future, should the need or when the establishment arises.
It is an anxious prayer for the continuation of financial assistance to both nations and an ineffective limitation on the subtlety and indirectness of either.
And it was lacking in force before their representatives stepped into the room, not by fault of the absent territorial clause, diminishment of aid, or any reticent revelation. No, it is simpler than that—if any can choose to believe.
From the beginning, in December 1941, when Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden travelled to Moscow to open negotiations, what was presented as truths and prospect were lies—fragmented figments filtered from fact, daring and baseless, without the benefit of doubt or the credence of history.
And those whose hands today must stain ink on this treaty, the two men whom under penalty of perjury must acknowledge its solemn force after its creators are dead—they know, more deeply than any mortal given a gun, how this will end.
If the relationship it defines is destined to occur by war's end, the agreement and its provisos would not be necessary. Truth, however, is often an element of imagination, as susceptible to molding by ideology as a lie.
Another's involvement here has made that quite clear.
Besides, Britain and his Ministry would never hear of sacrificing the Empire so readily, and certainly not at the behest of an agreement with a nation whom history suggested they would sooner trample that coexist with.
On the other hand, Russia can guise his wish to grow, to recollect his family, for only so long, and the longer it takes, the longer he must wait for America and Britain's promised Second Front while the waters of the Volga run ever redder and the ideological enemy pushes farther, the less patient his desires—in essence far less abeyant than his fury—will become.
Britain, with his waning empire, has every right to be nervous for the day that becomes a reality.
Yet exigencies meant the pact was signed and done in duplicate in London on the twenty-sixth of May, for in the presence of a world where lands drown in blood, where nearly every moment of every day is spent in fear and trepidation and horrid, horrible waiting, what other choice does any wise, competent, idiotic or naïve politician have in order to drag some sort of benefit from the shadows?
What other choice do the lonely expansionists bearing similar scars on their backs and lengthy histories of cunning, cutting lies have?
A muscle beneath Arthur's eye twitched. "Of course. No use extracting a promise that you've little intention of keeping, isn't it?"
Ivan's smile grew minutely, drawing at the corners of his mouth until his cheek began to curve inward and creating the impression that he was just as skeletal as his cadaverous opponent. "I recall telling America several months ago that he should not make promises he cannot keep. I will say the same to you, Britain, and that I cannot guarantee my own nation's solidarity in this matter, either. Savvy?"
The State Secretary made another gullet-clearing sound. Lip curling, Arthur straightened, rolled back his bird-boned shoulders and barked, "The translation's nearly finished. If you would be so willing as to inform the President, we can sign it and be done here." He cast Ivan another look, this one filled with vitriol.
Then, he resumed his pacing.
And Ivan returned to his work, conducting the last few meaningless words to ink and wasted paper.
Sometimes, when aberrations become reality, one must readily understand that it is by then a necessity, and so must it be accepted as such, else one risks creating more obstacles that the accord prefers to crumble.
Sometimes, this is a projection of hope in the darkness, a guiding light for those glassy-eyed souls unable to see the pavement in the rubbish field before them.
Sometimes it is an omen-bearer, a reluctant promise to wage war together in order to preserve peace afterward—or try to.
And sometimes, the final draft is not the work of either party but the principles of another hidden behind the scenes, deferred to in full capacity of knowing that what he wrote for them were counteractive to the lives both nations had spent the past hundred years pursuing.
They all know who it is, of course. They also know that there was no way in hell he allowed this to occur without his input. That Arthur's forthright pacing and incorrigibility, that Ivan's casuist translating—they are merely a diplomatic show for what was signed, sealed, and delivered to Moscow before anyone began to work in that stale bedroom that morning.
Fragmented from fiction disguised as virtue, from the report Ivan would receive when he arrived at the Soviet Embassy later, this cipher is a fellowship in arms of all freedom-loving nations, which are headed today by the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States.
Footnotes:
For details about the row Arthur mentions and his subsequent conversation with Matthieu, please see chapters four and five of We Meet Again.
1. Anglo-Soviet Mutual Assistance Treaty: Officially the "Twenty-Year Mutual Assistance Agreement" and signed 26 May 1942, this treaty was minor in comparison to others signed throughout and after the war, but, to quote the Soviet Foreign Affairs Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, in his report to the Soviet Embassy in the United States, the accord established "for the first time basic principles for friendly collaboration between the USSR and Great Britain after the war." Until this point, negotiations between these two revolved mostly around Lend-Lease aid, and a mutual assistance pact promising this and other needs was signed on 12 July 1941, which is what this treaty formalizes.
This was supposed to remain in effect for twenty years or until superseded by the development of what we know today as the United Nations. As we know, and because this is so little known, the latter occurred. What I found to be so interesting, however, and I hope it was to you as well while reading, were the principles of post-war assistance and collaboration. In modern retrospect, had the creation of the UN not rendered this void, the United Kingdom would have been contractually obligated to financially assist the Soviet Union until 1962—at times, I would imagine, at the expense of the United States. Given how reliant Britain became on the US during and after the war, whether the former would have followed through on those obligations is unlikely. Part of the reason this treaty and the pact before it were created was due to Britain's anxiety that Stalin—who, before the war began, wanted to remain outside its reach—would pursue a separate peace with Hitler. However, at the time the Nazis invaded, Britain desperately needed another ally who was fully committed to fighting Hitlerite Germany, so they made sure that didn't happen via a condition of the pact, formalized in the treaty, stating that neither country can enter into or conclude negotiations with Germany unless by mutual consent.
In summarization, this treaty represented some cessation of Britain's superpower status to the Soviet Union. Though they still exercised diplomatic power, Britain just wasn't strong enough militarily to maintain its dominance.
"Signed, sealed, and delivered to Moscow" refers to the treaty being sent to Stalin for ratification following its completion.
2. The territorial clause: During negotiations, Molotov requested a clause be put in recognizing the boundaries of the USSR prior to the Nazi invasion—i.e. the territories the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact allowed the USSR to acquire: Finland, eastern Poland, northern Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. However, this went against the principles of the Atlantic Charter (which Molotov in his report claims Part Two of the treaty was conceived along the lines of), and thus inspired months of Molotov pushing for this and the British and American delegations denying. It's worth noting that at one point Churchill was considering giving it to the Soviets, but Roosevelt—always the Wilsonian, mind you, and a steadfast believer of self-determinism—remained firm: No. Eventually, Soviet resolve gave out, and the treaty was signed without the clause.
3. Britain vs. Russia in the 1800s: In the Victorian Era, Russia presented itself to be a worrisome competitor to Britain, expanding east and south to close the distance between their empires. Especially concerning to them was the closing gap between the Russian Empire and modern-day Iran, Afghanistan and Tibet. What became known as The Great Game for dominance in these areas involved—often unnecessarily, in modern hindsight—military and territorial conflict, despite the unlikely event of Russian attack. During this time Britain also became obsessed with protecting India and its plethora of resources.
4. "a Charter the Soviet Government wanted little association with": The Atlantic Charter between the United States and Great Britain (published 14 August 1941) was received with middling lackluster in the USSR. Stalin didn't care for the idea of "being bound to respect the sovereignty of other peoples", nor of advocating freely-elected governments; as a result, the Soviet Union never fully subscribed to it, despite Molotov's report—given to the Soviet Embassy in the US 19 June 1942—about the signing of this agreement freely declaring that his country had "in good time adhered" to it (AAHII 87, Molotov's Report).
5. Lend-Lease aid: FDR approved $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union on 30 October 1941, but anti-Communist debate in Congress meant it wasn't acknowledged until 7 November. Prior to this, the US had sent only military weapons. With this decision the US government would begin sending food and raw materials such as copper, aluminum, and nickel as well.
A formal Lend-Lease aid agreement between the US and the USSR was negotiated and finalized on 11 June 1942.
6. Persia, 1941/42 = Iran, present-day
Though officially neutral, Persia was known to have friendly ties with Germany and housed many nationals. When Persia's governing leader, Reza Shah Pahlavi, refused to expel them, an Anglo-Soviet invasion (Operation Countenance) was carried out on 25 August 1941. The biggest reason for this could be argued that it was not because of its ties to an enemy State, though that was a factor. More likely the invasion was due to Persia's strategic importance—specifically, its massive oil production (in 1940 they produced over 8 million tons) and the route possession of it opened for Lend-Lease Aid.
Persian resistance to the invasion crumbled quickly—within a month—and by 17 September, it was occupied by British/Indian and Soviet forces and an armistice had been signed, essentially splitting the country in half for the remainder of the war. In January 1942, however, a Tripartite Treaty was signed acknowledging the country's territorial independence and guaranteeing an end to Allied occupation after the war. By the end of the year, the US had taken over administration of the area.
7. Kerch. Sevastopol. And Kharkov.: By 4 July 1942, besieged Sevastopol would be in Nazi hands. Kerch had already fallen (8 – 16 May), Kharkov back in October 1941. On 12 May 1942, however, a Soviet operation to retake Kharkov was launched, but it was contained and, five days later, counteracted by the Nazis, who claimed 250,000 prisoners and most of the armored defense the Southwestern Army had. For the anecdote about the dying man and the friend who followed him into death, see chapter six of We Meet Again.
This story takes place just six days from the start of Operation Blue, the Nazis' summer operation aimed at cutting off the Volga supply route, capturing the Caucasus oil fields and seizing the southern steppe area with the intention of meeting with Rommel's forces near the Suez Canal.
8. Cordell Hull: To-date the longest serving Secretary of State, nearly as long as Roosevelt's presidency, from 1933 to 1944.
Sumner Welles: Undersecretary of State (the #2 ranking official in the State Department) 1937-43.
By the time this takes place, the behind-the-scenes factionalism in the State Department between Hull and (less purposefully) Welles was well known within the White House walls. As is implied in the story, Roosevelt did prefer to work through Welles, often at the expense of Hull, probably in part because they had a distant family connection—which did not sit well with Hull, who in 1943 unearthed evidence against Welles personally that was released to the press, prompting his resignation in August.
In regards to this story and why Hull is in the room with Arthur and Ivan while Welles in with the President and Prime Minister: Welles, in what became known as the Welles Declaration, had publicly condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's allowance of the Soviet Union to occupy the Baltic States in 1940 and distrusted the USSR once America joined the Allies. This later became a minor source of contention within the alliance.
Hull, on the other hand, was generally more focused on the Wilsonian idea of "liberal internationalism"—basically that free trade = international peace, in turn leading to prosperity, which didn't usually make him the ideal choice for discourse on wartime policies. He did, however, take part in negotiations for this agreement, as well as attended the 1943 Moscow Conference. I haven't found anything to indicate he was in any way xenophobic, so in regards to Ivan's musing question of whether he looked at every foreigner with mistrust: No, probably not. He was just upset about the Welles situation.
9. Litvinov: Soviet Ambassador to the United States (Ambassador Comrade) Maxim Maximovich Litvinov. It's worth noting that Molotov hated him for personal reasons. (And it wasn't secret either. Kind of reminds you of Hull and Welles, doesn't it?)
10. "his agents in England" refers mainly to the Cambridge Five, a group of men who gathered information for the Soviets from within the halls of MI5 and MI6. They went undetected for years.
11. Tobruk, long a valuable port and fortress on the African Front, surrendered to General Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps a second time on 21 June 1942, claiming with it thirty-three thousand prisoners of the thirty-five thousand in the garrison, as well as their equipment and fuel. News of this devastated the British government. Fortunately, Churchill was with Roosevelt at the White House when this occurred and was able to request equipment be sent to Egypt, but the mood in Africa had been dire for some time by then. The pattern of warfare on this front always seemed to be up or down for months at a time, and lately it had been going badly for the British. Losing Tobruk suggested to the delegation at the White House that everything east of it—Cairo, the Suez Canal, and the oilfields—were simply waiting for Rommel to claim them, because what should have been leagues of experienced soldiers and generals were failing. Before the shock had settled enough that they were able to strategize and look ahead, it became a question of how long before the Axis Powers were united in Asia.
Jack and Sizwe are my character names for Australia and South Africa, respectively. Most of the troops in the Tobruk garrison at the time of surrender were South African; prior to that, a large number of Australians had guarded it.
See chapter 7 of We Meet Again for passages about this event.
12. A final note about this treaty: For all the input and involvement Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Harry Hopkins (Secretary of Commerce and one of FDR's closest confidants) had on this, there is no American signature on this treaty. It's implied, certainly, but the peculiar absence of any tangible presence on the paper itself seemed strange to me, as well as the fact that negotiations for this treaty began on 15 December 1941, four days after Hitler declared war on the United States. Molotov's report, too, takes lightly and diplomatically the absence of the territorial clause, focusing instead on the development of Anglo-Soviet and Soviet-American relations as a result of this treaty and the various trade agreements negotiated in the lead-up. I don't say this to stereotype, but I genuinely felt as though I needed to read between the lines in some areas.
This sounds like a conspiracy theory—and it is; the whole story is, really—because there were legitimate, time-sensitive reasons for when and why this treaty was developed. In all likelihood, Anthony Eden's trip to Moscow was probably planned before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The need to formalize the pact between Britain and the USSR was as much a result of British anxiety and a mutual need for aid as it was the Atlantic Charter.
And yet, the fact that the principles of the Atlantic Charter—advocating self-determinism and free trade—had a place in this at all between a vast Empire with a working system of protected trade and a State that wanted to expand, speaks volumes to me about the changing lines of authority in this period. This isn't to opine that the US had it morally correct, only that it must have been becoming clearer to the Allies that American leadership was unavoidable, and what that meant for the post-war world whenever that became a reality.
Information Sources (Wikipedia articles omitted):
1. "All About History Book of the Victorians: Second Edition", by Imagine Publishing Ltd.
2. "All About History Book of World War II", by Imagine Publishing Ltd. (AAHII)
3. "Fact File: Anglo-Soviet Treaty" – WW2 People's War Archive, BBC
4. "Fact File: Persia Invaded" – WW2 People's War Archive, BBC
5. "Twenty-Year Mutual Assistance Agreement Between the United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics : May 26, 1942" – The Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School (Text of the treaty)
6. "World War II: Molotov's Report on Ratification of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty (June 19, 1942)" – Jewish Virtual Library
7. World War II: The Definitive Visual History, From Blitzkrieg to the Atom Bomb, by DK Publishing
Quote Sources:
1. Epigraph: "Molotov's Report"
2. In accordance with the two principles…: Article V, Section 2, Twenty-Year Mutual Assistance Agreement
3. Each contracting party undertakes…: Article VII, Twenty-Year Mutual Assistance Agreement
4. Close and friendly collaboration: Article V, Section 1, Twenty-Year Mutual Assistance Agreement
5. A fellowship in arms…: "Molotov's Report"
This oneshot is not meant to be a diatribe against modern-day Russia, the United Kingdom, or the United States, nor to vilify or stereotype individuals from any of these countries. The views expressed in this story are intended to be reflective of a 1940s era, not of personal values or beliefs held.
Thank you for reading.