Armageddon | The Strange Alliance: could Western Allies and the USSR get along? @Armageddon4145 | Uploaded December 2020 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
"The Strange Alliance"... "The Alliance of Necessity"... "The Uneasy Alliance"... But also "The Grand Alliance". These adjectives qualified the wartime partnership between the United States and Great Britain on one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other.
To many eyes this alliance seemed unnatural, and few could imagine how such different, even opposite regimes could speak in a same voice and actually work together.
And indeed a common dialogue was not easily found between the western powers and the USSR. In terms of military strategy, they agreed upon one major point only: to concentrate on the European theater of operations against Germany and Italy even if it delayed the effort to deal with Japanese aggression in the Pacific. The Soviet Union was not at war with Japan, its sole concern was saving the motherland from German invasion. While the Japanese attacks on both American and British possessions in December, 1941 made it politically impossible to ignore the Pacific, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed with Stalin to focus their attention primarily on Germany.
On all other matters, there was disagreement over military strategy and how postwar security for all three powers was to be attained.
For the Soviet Union, which was fighting for its very existence, an immediate invasion of occupied France by the United States and Great Britain was clearly the most appropriate strategy. Only an all-out invasion of Western Europe, that would open a "Second Front", would force Hitler to redeploy significant German troops from the eastern front. Stalin argued that less forceful and more indirect operations in other areas would not provide the Soviets the relief they required.
For the British, an immediate direct frontal assault on the well-fortified wall of Hitler's Fortress Europe was military suicide. The two western powers were inadequately prepared to launch such an immediate assault. They had neither the manpower nor the armament needed to give it sufficient chances of success. Years of preparation would be required.
Instead, Churchill argued that the western powers should concentrate their military efforts on the periphery of Fortress Europe in areas where the Germans and Italians were weakest. This periphery strategy called for joint British-American operations against Germany's Afrika Korps in North Africa followed by sequential invasions of both Sicily and Italy. Only then could the D-Day "Second Front" invasion of France begin.
Roosevelt did his best to find a compromise between these two forceful leaders. And he succeeded in convincing both Stalin and Churchill that the western powers would pursue the periphery strategy while undertaking preparations for D-Day. As soon as those efforts were complete, England and the United States would invade occupied France.
Nevertheless, the delay of the "Second Front" created incredible suspicion and tension between the Soviet Union and its western allies. The Soviet leadership, based upon the historic antipathy with the West, feared that the United States and Britain were intentionally delaying the attack in hopes that the Soviets and the Germans would destroy each other. The two nations would launch the invasion then and only then in order to establish Anglo-American hegemony and control over all of Europe, including the Soviet Union.
* * *
Let's have a look into this "strange" but also fascinating alliance.
Let's review the most interesting letters exchanged between the great leaders: we'll see that suspicion, fears and even anger against each other show up under the official tone, sometimes remotely, and sometimes incredibly near, almost right behind the diplomatic language.
"The Strange Alliance"... "The Alliance of Necessity"... "The Uneasy Alliance"... But also "The Grand Alliance". These adjectives qualified the wartime partnership between the United States and Great Britain on one hand, and the Soviet Union on the other.
To many eyes this alliance seemed unnatural, and few could imagine how such different, even opposite regimes could speak in a same voice and actually work together.
And indeed a common dialogue was not easily found between the western powers and the USSR. In terms of military strategy, they agreed upon one major point only: to concentrate on the European theater of operations against Germany and Italy even if it delayed the effort to deal with Japanese aggression in the Pacific. The Soviet Union was not at war with Japan, its sole concern was saving the motherland from German invasion. While the Japanese attacks on both American and British possessions in December, 1941 made it politically impossible to ignore the Pacific, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed with Stalin to focus their attention primarily on Germany.
On all other matters, there was disagreement over military strategy and how postwar security for all three powers was to be attained.
For the Soviet Union, which was fighting for its very existence, an immediate invasion of occupied France by the United States and Great Britain was clearly the most appropriate strategy. Only an all-out invasion of Western Europe, that would open a "Second Front", would force Hitler to redeploy significant German troops from the eastern front. Stalin argued that less forceful and more indirect operations in other areas would not provide the Soviets the relief they required.
For the British, an immediate direct frontal assault on the well-fortified wall of Hitler's Fortress Europe was military suicide. The two western powers were inadequately prepared to launch such an immediate assault. They had neither the manpower nor the armament needed to give it sufficient chances of success. Years of preparation would be required.
Instead, Churchill argued that the western powers should concentrate their military efforts on the periphery of Fortress Europe in areas where the Germans and Italians were weakest. This periphery strategy called for joint British-American operations against Germany's Afrika Korps in North Africa followed by sequential invasions of both Sicily and Italy. Only then could the D-Day "Second Front" invasion of France begin.
Roosevelt did his best to find a compromise between these two forceful leaders. And he succeeded in convincing both Stalin and Churchill that the western powers would pursue the periphery strategy while undertaking preparations for D-Day. As soon as those efforts were complete, England and the United States would invade occupied France.
Nevertheless, the delay of the "Second Front" created incredible suspicion and tension between the Soviet Union and its western allies. The Soviet leadership, based upon the historic antipathy with the West, feared that the United States and Britain were intentionally delaying the attack in hopes that the Soviets and the Germans would destroy each other. The two nations would launch the invasion then and only then in order to establish Anglo-American hegemony and control over all of Europe, including the Soviet Union.
* * *
Let's have a look into this "strange" but also fascinating alliance.
Let's review the most interesting letters exchanged between the great leaders: we'll see that suspicion, fears and even anger against each other show up under the official tone, sometimes remotely, and sometimes incredibly near, almost right behind the diplomatic language.
