8. Churchill Wanted to Fight the Soviets as Soon as Germany Surrendered
As the war in Europe was drawing to a close in 1945, Winston Churchill was growing increasingly frustrated with Stalin. Specifically, the British Prime Minister was becoming exasperated by Soviet intransigence regarding Eastern Europe, which Stalin clearly aimed to turn into a Soviet empire. With each passing day, it was becoming more and more clear just how worthless had been Stalin’s promises to allow the Eastern Europeans – and most importantly from Churchill’s perspective, the Poles – to decide their own fates via democratic elections. Britain had gone to war in order to defend Polish independence, but at war’s end, Stalin was riding roughshod over the Poles, keeping the third of their country he had annexed in 1939 in cooperation with the Germans, reducing them to a Soviet client state, and extinguishing their freedom and independence.
Churchill saw the fate of Poland as a matter touching upon British honor, so he ordered his generals to draw up plans to attack the Red Army as soon as Germany surrendered. He had a nebulous goal of pushing the Soviets back to their borders or at least forcing them to treat Poland fairly. Churchill’s generals presented him with Operation Unthinkable, whose title indicates what the generals thought of the Prime Minister’s idea. Two versions were offered, an offensive and defensive one. The offensive envisaged a surprise attack on the soviets in July, 1945, intended to force Stalin to give Poland a “fair deal”. The defense envisaged a British defense of Western Europe after America withdrew from the continent. Either one would have led to disaster.
