The Grand Alliance

THE GRAND ALLIANCE

WINSTON CHURCHILL

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Copyright

The Grand Alliance

Copyright © 1948 by Winston Churchill Cover art and eForeword to the electronic edition copyright

© 2002 by RosettaBooks, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical ayrticles and reviews.

For information address [email protected] First electronic edition published 2002 by RosettaBooks LLC, New York.

ISBN 0-7953-0612-1

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Contents

eForeword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Book One:

Germany Drives East

1: The Desert and the Balkans

2: The Widening War

3: Blitz and Anti-Blitz, 1941: Hess 4: The Mediterranean War

5: Conquest of the Italian Empire

6: Decision to Aid Greece

7: The Battle of the Atlantic, 1941 The Western Approaches 8: The Battle of the Atlantic, 1941 The American Intervention

9: Yugoslavia

10: The Japanese Envoy

11: The Desert Flank: Rommel: Tobruk 12: The Greek Campaign

13: Tripoli and “Tiger”

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14: The Revolt in Iraq

15: Crete: The Advent

16: Crete: The Battle

17: The Fate of the “Bismarck”

18: Syria

19: General Wavell’s Final Effort: “Battleaxe”

20: The Soviet Nemesis

Book Two:

War Comes to America

1: Our Soviet Ally

2: An African Pause: Tobruk

3: My Meeting with Roosevelt

4: The Atlantic Charter

5: Aid to Russia

6: Persia and the Middle East Summer and Autumn, 1941

7: The Mounting Strength of Britain Autumn, 1941

8: Closer Contacts with Russia Autumn and Winter, 1941

9: The Path Ahead

10: Operation “Crusader” Ashore, Aloft, and Afloat 11: Japan

12: Pearl Harbour!

13: A Voyage Amid World War

14: Proposed Plan and Sequence of the War 15: Washington and Ottawa

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16: Anglo-American Accords

17: Return to Storm

Appendices

Notes

About the Author

About this Title

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Maps and Diagrams

The Advance from Tobruk

The Campaign in East Africa

The Battle of the Atlantic: Merchant Ships Sunk by U-Boats in the Atlantic

Phase I. From the Outbreak of War to the Invasion of Norway, September 3, 1939, to April 9, 1940

Phase II. The Western Approaches, April 10, 1940, to March 17, 1941

Phase III. The Ocean up to the Entry of the United States into the War, March 18, 1941, to December 6, 1941

The Balkans

Rommel’s Counter-Offensive, April, 1941

The German Invasion of Greece

Habbaniya-Falluja

Syria and Iraq

Crete and the Aegean

The Chase of the Bismarck

Map 1: Situation at 6.00 a.m. May 24

Map 2: Situation at 3.06 a.m. May 25

Map 3: Situation at 10.30 a.m. May 26

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Plan 1: Situation at 9.00 a.m. May 26

Plan 2: Situation at 8.48 a.m. May 27

Plan 3: Situation at 10.15 a.m. May 27

The Syrian Campaign

Diagram to Illustrate Operation “Battleaxe”

The German Attack on Russia

Operations in Persia

The Mediterranean Area, June 21, 1941

Enemy Dispositions November 18 Opening Phase, November 18-19

First Battle of Sidi Rezegh

Rommel’s Raid November 24–28 Second Battle of Sidi Rezegh, November 29–30

The South China Sea

Malaya

Cyrenaica

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eForeword

One of the most fascinating works of history ever written, Winston Churchill’s monumental The Second World War is a six-volume account of the struggle of the Allied powers in Europe against Germany and the Axis. Told through the eyes of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, The Second World War is also the story of one nation’s singular, heroic role in the fight against tyranny. Pride and patriotism are evident everywhere in Churchill’s dramatic account and for good reason. Having learned a lesson at Munich that they would never forget, the British refused to make peace with Hitler, defying him even after France had fallen and after it seemed as though the Nazis were unstoppable.

Churchill remained unbowed throughout, as did the people of Britain in whose determination and courage he placed his confidence.

Patriotic as Churchill was, he managed to maintain a balanced impartiality in his description of the war. What is perhaps most interesting, and what lends the work its tension and emotion, is Churchill’s inclusion of a significant amount of primary material. We hear his retrospective analysis of the war, to be sure, but we are also presented with memos, letters, orders, speeches, and telegrams that give a day-by-day account of the reactions-both mistaken and justified-to the unfolding drama. Strategies and counterstrategies develop to respond to Hitler’s ruthless conquest of Europe, his planned invasion of England, and The Grand Alliance

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his treacherous assault on Russia. It is a mesmerizing account of the crucial decisions that have to be made with imperfect knowledge and an awareness that the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

The Grand Alliance, the third volume of this work, describes the end of an extraordinary period in British military history in which that country stood virtually alone against the German onslaught. Two crucial events bring about the end of Britain’s isolation and prove key turning points in the war against Hitler. The first is Hitler’s well-documented decision to attack the Soviet Union, opening up a battle front in the East. Stalin, who a few months earlier had been making plans with Hitler to carve up the British Empire between them, now finds himself looking to the British for support and entreating Churchill to open up a second front in France. Churchill includes the fascinating correspondence between himself and the Russian leader.

The second event is the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entry of the United States into the war. U.S. support had long been seen as crucial to the British war effort, and Churchill documents his efforts to draw the Americans to the aid of their allies across the ocean, including his direct correspondence with President Roosevelt. The attack on Pearl Harbor, of course, changes everything, and soon after the British began coordinate their efforts against Nazi Germany with the cooperation of the United States. The Grand Alliance is formed.

Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 due in no small part to this awe-inspiring work.

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Preface

THIS VOLUME, like the others, claims only to be a contribution to the history of the Second World War. The tale is told from the standpoint of the British Prime Minister, with special responsibility as Minister of Defence for military affairs. As these came directly to some extent into my hands, British operations are narrated in their scope and in some detail. At the same time it would be impossible to describe the struggles of our Allies except as a background.

To do full justice these must be left to their own historians, or to later and more general British accounts. While recognising the impossibility of preserving proportion, I have tried to place our own story in its true setting.

The main thread is again the series of my directives, telegrams, and minutes upon the daily conduct of the war and of British affairs. These are all original documents composed by me as events unfolded. They therefore constitute a more authentic record and give, I believe, a better impression of what happened and how it seemed at the time than any account which I could write now that the course of events is known. Although they contain expressions of opinion and forecasts which did not come true, it is by them as a whole that I wish my own share in the conflict to be judged. Only in this way can the reader understand the actual problems we had to face as defined by the knowledge then in our possession.