The British Prime Minister (Churchill) to President Roosevelt 41
387. I was so glad to hear your voice again and that you were in such good spirits, and also that you like our plans for “Quadrant”42 to which we are all ardently looking forward.
I have told Eisenhower that we fully agree to his releasing the proclamation with our amendment inserted about British and Allied prisoners.43
Discarding etiquette, I have sent a direct message to the King of Italy through Switzerland emphasizing our vehement and savage interest in this matter. I am most grateful for your promise to put the screw on through the Pope or any other convenient channel. If the King and Badoglio allow our prisoners and keymen to be carried off by the Huns without doing their utmost to stop it, by which I mean using physical force, the feeling here would be such that no negotiations with that Government would stand a chance in public opinion.
Armistice terms: The War Cabinet are quite clear that we ought not to broadcast armistice terms to the enemy. It is for their responsible government to ask formally for an armistice on the basis of our principle of unconditional surrender. Then I suppose envoys would be appointed and a rendezvous fixed. Our version is already in your hands. As you will see, it follows the main lines of Eisenhower’s draft, but is more precise and is cast in a form suited to discussion between plenipotentiaries rather than a popular appeal. There are great dangers in trying to dish this sort of dose up with jam for the patient.
We also think that the terms should cover civil as well as military requirements, and that it would be much better for them to be settled by envoys appointed by our two governments than by the general commanding in the field. He can of course deal with any proposals coming from the troops on his immediate front for a local surrender.
Finally, all our thoughts are concentrated upon the great battle about to be fought by the British 8th and United States 7th Armies against the 65,000 Germans cornered in the eastern Sicilian tip. The destruction of these rascals could not come at a better time to influence events, not only in Italy but throughout the world. It is grand to [Page 337] think of our soldiers advancing side by side like brothers and with good prospects of victory ahead.
- Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩
- Code name for First Quebec Conference August 11–24, 1943. Documentation on this Conference is scheduled for publication in a subsequent volume of Foreign Relations. ↩
- For text of General Eisenhower’s radio broadcast to the Italian people on July 29, 1943, see New York Times, July 30, 1943, p. 3.↩