Churchill plays the global card
The PM attempts to quell Stalin’s fury at the lack of an Allied assault on northern France
11 MARCH 1943
Despite Molotov’s shuttle diplomacy between Moscow, London and Washington, Stalin didn’t get the second front he so craved. In November 1942 the British and Americans landed not in northern France but on the coast of French north Africa (which, to Stalin, was a sideshow). With the USA still mobilising and its troops mostly engaged in the Pacific, Churchill called the shots on strategy. Mindful of Dunkirk, and haunted by the carnage of the Somme, he would not risk a Channel crossing until this could be mounted in overwhelming strength.
The PM was, however, deeply conscious of Stalin’s anger. After two years of brutal warfare, the Red Army had turned the tables on the Wehrmacht with a crushing victory at Stalingrad at the beginning of February 1943.
In one of his longest messages, on 11 March 1943, Churchill tried to make Stalin aware of the logistical challenges of global war – not easily grasped by the leader of an essentially land power and one that had remained neutral against Japan. So the PM explained in detail British deployments to defend the empire, noting that “by far the larger part of the British Army is in north Africa, in the Middle East and in India”. He also drew attention to the global supply lines on which his island nation depended. “You must remember that our total population is 46 millions and that the first charge upon it is the Royal Navy and Mercantile Marine, without which we could not live.” Thus, he concluded: “The entire manhood and womanhood of the country is, and has been, for some time, fully absorbed.”
This message was Churchill’s fullest attempt to convey the problems Britain faced in mounting a second front. But it’s unlikely that the Kremlin leader was convinced. Previously untapped material in the Stalin archive reveals that, against the words “fully absorbed”, there is a large question mark.