Soviet international diplomacy, uncompromising and unconciliatory as ever, was not unhelpful to those in the West who sought to make the danger better known. The Active Forces Draft was introduced in 1982. By early 1985 the reserves, though with some way still to go, had passed above crisis level. The US Army in Europe was no longer in such a state that, in the event of a military showdown with the Warsaw Pact, it would face early and unavoidable disaster because of a lack of trained manpower.
The position of France, critical to the whole question of the survival of the Alliance, must now receive attention. In the long history of Soviet maladroitness and miscalculation since the Second World War nothing — not the free elections so rashly allowed in Austria in 1946, or the swift re-arming of West Germany by the USSR’s recent allies in response to Soviet threats, or yet the alienation of Marxists outside the Soviet Union or the antagonization of China or the ineffective meddling in the Middle East — nothing at all in an impressive record of political ineptitude proved to be a more spectacular and costly failure than the confident attempt by the Soviet Union to persuade France to renounce her obligations under the Atlantic Treaty.[6]
The earlier Brussels Treaty, to which France also still belonged, was even more categorical about affording military aid to a victim of attack.
The II French Corps, stationed in Germany, embodying two enlarged divisions now, with supporting troops, up to full strength, was put by the French government at SACEUR’s disposal even before the Soviet announcement. In fact, it came under command to AFCENT at midnight on 3–4 August. The corps was to be followed in a matter of days by the first of three further mechanized divisions from the First French Army. From 4 August the French Tactical Air Force was ordered to support French forces on the ground as SACEUR might determine. French ports, communications, military installations and, above all, airfields and airspace were at the same time made available to the Allies.
If France had stayed in NATO, or come back in good time, a French army group located in southern Germany and fully integrated into AFCENT might so have strengthened the whole Central Region as to deter in real terms — without nuclear shadow-boxing — a Warsaw Pact invasion. It was too late to think about that now. What gave real cause for satisfaction and solid ground for hope was the very active unofficial contingency planning which had long been a feature of relations between the French General Staff in Germany and CENTAG.
The onset of war in Europe posed a particularly cruel problem for Turkey. She was recovering from deep economic gloom, but her armed forces had been weakened by the restriction on equipment supplies from the US. This ban had been imposed by Congress, contrary to the wishes of the US Administration, on the occasion of the Turkish action in Cyprus in 1974. Some partial mitigation had occurred in the late seventies but full re-supply had only been arranged three years before the present outbreak. Turkey had for some time been making it clear to the US and to the other Allies that the performance of her Alliance responsibilities would have to be made proportionate to her reduced capability. It said much for the steadfastness of the Turkish character, as well as for their historic fear of Russian aggression, that they did not go further in their reaction to Congressional displeasure. Relations with Greece had begun to recover from the low point reached at the time of the Cyprus affair and the argument over sea-bed rights in the Aegean, and it was largely the progress made in patching up this quarrel which finally led Congress to authorize the resumption of full equipment deliveries. But three years was a short time in which to make good the deficiencies and catch up with the new types of weapon systems which had meanwhile become available.
The growing threat during 1984 of Soviet action from the north and Soviet influence in Egypt from the south had further helped to cement the improvement in Greek-Turkish relations, and thus paved the way for Greece to resume active participation in NATO planning and co-operation, which had also been interrupted in the aftermath of the Cyprus affair.
The circumstances leading to the actual outbreak of war in Europe proved particularly unfavourable for Greece and Turkey, however. Egypt’s move into Arabia had disrupted some of their oil supply and emphasized the Soviet presence in Syria and Iraq, which were Turkey’s neighbours to the south and east. The outbreak of hostilities in Yugoslavia brought increased Soviet troop concentrations into the Balkans and enhanced Bulgaria’s role as a potential jumping off point for a drive to the Straits or the Aegean.
Nevertheless, Soviet policy also faced a dilemma. The rugged terrain of the Anatolian plateau was not of much use to them, but passage of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles might be crucial to their success in driving America out of the eastern Mediterranean. No doubt sufficient forces could be concentrated in Bulgaria to force back the Turkish First Army from Edirne and open the way to occupation of Gallipoli and the Bosphorus approaches — even if Istanbul itself, now peopled by 4 million Turks, would be a most indigestible mouthful. But any such moves, even accompanied by airborne landings, would give plenty of time for the blocking of the Straits by demolition, mines and blockships. Even with control of the shores of the two waterways these obstructions could take some vital weeks to clear. Since this was intended by the Soviet planners to be the period within which the whole European operation would lie, the disadvantage of armed attack on the Straits loomed rather large.
Soviet planners were necessarily aware that the Montreux Convention, which since 1937 had regulated the right of passage through the Turkish Straits, almost totally forbade this right to the warships of belligerents. After the beginning of operations in Europe they would hardly be able to claim not to be in this category, even if no formal declaration of war had been made. Some of them were inclined to assume that, faced with the threat of overwhelming force, the Turks would have no alternative but to accept a bending of the Montreux rules and allow Soviet warships continued passage. Others, who knew Turkey better, argued successfully that this could by no means be relied on and that Turkey was fully capable of living up to her obligations even at great cost to herself. They pointed out that it would do the USSR little good to be in Istanbul if the Bosphorus was blocked. Moreover, apart from Turkish action, it would not be difficult for US aircraft even from the western Mediterranean to make passage of the Straits by Soviet warships exceptionally hazardous.
It was therefore finally accepted by the Soviet command that the only safe course was to get their ships out first from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. Once there they would have shore facilities in Alexandria again since the Egyptian volte-face. They could hope for the use of Malta and the seizure of a harbour in the course of the Yugoslav operation. There might even be a chance to settle old scores with Albania and re-occupy the submarine base at Valona, from which they had been rudely ejected when Albania joined the Chinese in 1961. The ships would thus not be as dependent as formerly on periodic return to Black Sea ports for refitting and supply. Civilian merchant shipping from the Black Sea could no doubt fill up the supply gaps, and their passage through the Straits would pose much less risk of Turkish reaction. In the spring of 1985 there was, therefore, an unusual amount of Soviet naval tonnage leaving the Black Sea for the Mediterranean, for manoeuvres, trials and transfer to other stations; by the outbreak of hostilities in Europe all the units required for naval operations in the Mediterranean had already passed through.
There was of course a risk that these movements would seem to imply a Soviet intention to prepare for a European war and stimulate precautions in the West. By routing almost all the ships first of all to Alexandria, however, the Russians strove to give the impression that they were still concerned primarily with the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
6
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty lays down that in the event of armed attack on any signatory each member will assist the country so attacked by taking ‘such action as it deems necessary including the use of armed force’.