Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

The Japanese pressure on the Soviet Far East reached its peak in the years 1938 and 1939 with two attacks by the Japanese Army on Soviet territory. The second of these attacks, at Nomonhan on the Manchurian-Mongolian frontier, resulted in a major Japanese defeat in which Nippon suffered 52,000 casualties; it was ended by a truce signed on September 16, 1939, only one day before Russian forces began to move into Poland. From the diplomatic point of view the Soviet Far Eastern policy was a success, for Hitler, in the years 19 30-1941, put pressure on Japan to relax its efforts to expand on the northern part of the Asiastic mainland and to replace this with a movement against British Malaya and the Netherlands East Indies. The Japanese defeat at Nomonhan and the fact that the raw materials which Japan needed were to be found in the south rather than in Mongolia, Siberia, or even northern China, persuaded Japan to accept the change of direction. A Soviet ambassador returned to Tokyo in November 1939, for the first time since June 1938.

During the period 1929 to October 1941, the Soviet Union had excellent information about Japanese affairs from its “master spy” in the Far East, Richard Sorge. Sorge, a member of the Nazi Party from 1933, representative of many German newspapers in Tokyo from the same year, and press attaché in the German Embassy in Tokyo in 1939-1941, had an excellent knowledge of the most secret matters in the Far East because of his own intimate relations with the German ambassador and because of his secret agents (including Saionji, adopted son of the “last Genro,” and Ozaki, adviser to Prince Konoye) in Japanese governing circles. By reporting to Moscow on the condition of the Japanese military forces and the gradual triumph, within the Japanese government, of the anti-British over the anti-Russian influence, Sorge made it possible for the Soviet Union to weaken its defenses in the Far East in order to strengthen them in Europe.

In Europe, after the occupation of Poland (which shielded the Russian center), the Soviet leaders were worried about two areas. In the south, including the Balkans, the Dardanelles, or the Caspian oil fields, they were very fearful of an Anglo-French attack, while in the Baltic they were fearful of both the Western Powers and Germany.

The Soviet fears of the Western Powers in the south appear quite unfounded to us, but seemed very real to them in 1939. The information which has been released since 1945 shows that there was some basis for this fear but that the Anglo-French threat to Russia was much greater in the Baltic than it was in the south. In the latter area the Kremlin was suspicious of the French Army of the Orient in Syria. The Russians believed that General Maxime Weygand had a force of several hundred thousand men which he wished to use across Iran or Turkey in an attack on the Russian oil fields in the Caspian region. In January 1940, Germany obtained reports from Paris that Weygand proposed to attack the Soviet Union from Romania. As a matter of fact, Weygand had only three poorly equipped divisions totaling about 40,000 men, and his plans were largely defensive. He hoped to support the Allied guarantees to Turkey, Greece, and Romania (given in April 1939), and to protect the Romanian oil fields by moving northward from Salonika if Germany, Hungary, or Bulgaria made any warlike move in the Balkans.

The political situation in the Balkans was of such precarious stability that the Western Powers did not dare to make a move in the area for fear everything would collapse. Turkey, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia were joined in a Balkan Entente aimed at preventing any Bulgarian aggression. Since these four states could mobilize over a hundred divisions, although lacking all modern or heavy equipment, they could keep Bulgaria quiet. Unfortunately, the Balkan Entente was not designed for protection against Italy or Germany, where the real danger lay.

Italy had various projects to attack Greece from the Albanian territory it had seized in April 1939. It also had fully matured plans to disrupt Yugoslavia by subsidizing and supporting a Croat revolt, under Ante Pavelić, against the dominant Serb majority in that state. During the “phony war” the Italians hoped that the Western Powers would allow Italy to carry out its project against Yugoslavia in order to block any German movement into that area. Such permission seemed possible from the fact that the democratic states had not guaranteed Yugoslavia as they had the other three states of the Balkan Entente. Italy’s project was set for early June 1940, but was interrupted by Hitler’s attack in the West, which was made, without notifying his Italian partner, on May 10th.

Another element of instability in southeastern Europe was the position of Hungary, which aspired to detach Transylvania from Romania. Since Hungary could not take this area by its own power, it sought support from Italy rather than from Germany (which the Hungarians feared). With Italian support, Hungary refused to allow German troops to cross its territory to attack Poland in September 1939, and began to negotiate an agreement with Italy by which the Duke of Aosta would be offered the crown of Hungary, as an anti-German solution to Hungary’s ambiguous constitutional position. This project, like the one in Croatia, was upset by the growing rivalry of Germany and Russia in the Balkans.

During the period from September 1939 to June 1940, Hitler had no political ambitions with respect to the Balkans or the Soviet Union. From both he wanted nothing more than the maximum supply of raw materials and a political peace which would permit these goods to flow to Germany. Both areas cooperated fully with Germany in economic matters, but fear of Germany was so great that both areas also sought political changes which might strengthen their ability to resist Germany at a later date. Hungarian efforts to obtain support from Italy were not successful, as we have seen, because Italy wavered between fear of Germany and recognition of the fact that its own ambitions in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, or Africa could be obtained only with German support. The Balkan Entente sought support and military supplies from ^he Western Powers but could obtain little, since these Powers believed that they did not have the equipment to defend themselves. The only important step they took was a military alliance with Turkey. This was signed with France and England on October 19, 1939 in the form of a mutual-assistance pact, except that Turkey could not be compelled to take up arms against Russia. This last clause was inserted on Turkish insistence but was kept secret and, in consequence, the Soviet Union was not reassured by the agreement.

In the meantime the Soviet Union took steps to defend itself against any attack from the Baltic. In the period September 29-October 10, 1939, three of the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, were forced to sign military-assistance pacts with Russia. Estonia and Latvia provided naval and air bases for Russian forces, while the city of Vilna was given to Lithuania by Russia. About 25,000 Russian troops were stationed in each of the three countries. Appeals from these countries to Germany for support against Russia were summarily rejected, and they were advised to yield to the Soviet demands. As part of the reorganization of this area, Hitler on September 27th ordered that the so-called “Baits” (German-speaking residents of the Baltic states) should be moved to Germany as quickly as possible. This was done within a month.

From the Soviet point of view Finland provided a much more important problem than any of the Baltic states. The city of Leningrad, one of Russia’s greatest industrial centers with a population of 3,191,000 persons, was joined to the Baltic Sea by the Gulf of Finland. This gulf, about 150 miles long and 50 miles wide, ran west to east, with its northern and eastern shores occupied by Finland and its southern shore largely Estonian. Leningrad, at the extreme southeastern corner of the gulf, was at the southern end of the Karelian Isthmus, a neck of land running north and south between the gulf and Lake Ladoga, some 20 miles farther east. The Finnish frontier crossed this isthmus from the gulf to Lake Ladoga only 20 miles north of Leningrad.