Defense Files: Telegram
The Combined Chiefs of Staff to the Supreme Allied Commander, Mediterranean Theater (Morgan)
WARX 89469 (Fan 709). 1. This telegram is in reply to paragraph 7 of your Naf 1242.
2. Point a will be covered in a future message.
3. Point b. We agree with your recommendation in paragraph 4 a [Page 55] that as from “S” Day, you will be released from the task of imposing maximum delay in event of a Yugoslav attack. You should thus be able to release during phase 2 your armour, anti-aircraft and medium artillery.
Your task of maintaining law and order up to the Morgan line, including Pola, will continue until “R” Day, but you may thin out your forces in Pola as from “S” Day so that troops concerned may, on ratification, rapidly be transferred to Trieste since these forces are earmarked as part of the contingent to be placed at the disposal of the Governor.
4. Point d. Juridically there can be no further role for your forces in Italy after ratification and you should plan on this basis.
There remains, however, a possibility that Yugoslavs may refuse to sign or ratify, in which case it would be desirable politically to continue to control Pola and strip of territory between Morgan and French lines. We do not think such an arrangement would be militarily practicable if at the same time other provisions of the treaty, including the setting up of the free territory, were being brought into force. If therefore this situation should occur, it will be necessary to raise with the other great powers both this question and that of the establishment of the free territory.
5. Point e. Unless the interval between “S” and “R” Days is unexpectedly short (less than 2 months), it should be possible for you to evacuate majority of your heavy equipment through Trieste before “R” Day. Thereafter we shall aim at obtaining agreement of Governor to our continuing to use Trieste for the evacuation of such of our forces as cannot be routed through Venice, subject to the proviso that the total of troops of either national contingent in the free territory at any one time shall not exceed 5,000.
Since however we cannot be certain of obtaining Governor’s agreement, you should consider and report whether you can complete your withdrawal by other routes on the assumption that you have the use of Trieste for 2 months between “S” and “R” Days.
6. Point c. It will be necessary for the arrangements for demarcating the new frontiers to be made between governments. Your responsibility will be limited to the provision of facilities for the boundary commission or whatever body may be set up. As regards arrangements for the taking over of the civil administration by both Yugoslavs and Italians from Allied Military Government, these must, in the first place, be agreed between governments; it will then be for you to implement them.
7. Point f. It has already been decided by the Council of Foreign Ministers that Allied Military Government shall continue in the zones [Page 56] at present occupied by the British/American and Yugoslav forces until the Governor assumes office.1
8. The other points you raise in Naf 12522 and 12533 are under urgent examination and will be subject of a separate telegram.
- See Record of Decisions of the Council of Foreign Ministers, December 12, 1946. Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. ii, p. 1532.↩
- Not printed; in it General Morgan recommended the appointment of Maj. Gen. Bryant E. Moore, Commander of the U.S. 88th Infantry Division, as Commander of the Allied Forces. (Defense Files)↩
- Naf 1253, dated December 28, 1946, is printed in the documentation on the concern of the United States with respect to the maintenance of stable, democratic government in Italy, in volume iii .↩