The subsequent successful landings in North Africa were against ill-equipped French forces that were in a state of political disarray, while those on Sicily and the Italian mainland were against an Italian Army that was largely a spent force. Striking Hitler’s Festung Europa was an entirely different matter, even if the German forces concerned were in some cases second rate, reconstituting or recuperating.
It was clear that any future invasion of France would have to be conducted across open beaches and not against well-defended ports. In 1943 the Dieppe débâcle loomed large in everyone’s minds and despite the Allies’ considerable planning and preparation there was a very real fear that D-Day might go the same way.
In Tehran, Stalin was displeased to discover that a commander had not yet been nominated to direct the opening of the Second Front; he understandably interpreted this as a sign of lack of commitment on the part of the Western Allies. Churchill further aggravated him by advocating the seizure of Rome and the island of Rhodes. There followed a chilling moment when Stalin calmly discussed the execution of German officers at the end of the war; Churchill was horrified, and was equally dismayed that Roosevelt did not spring to his support.
Stalin would not yield to Churchill’s proposals for an Italian assault, and the British Prime Minister found himself isolated. His plan to bring Turkey into the war was thwarted by that country’s concerns about her traditional foe Bulgaria, a de facto German ally, which meant she was in no hurry to pick a fight with Hitler. This position suited Roosevelt, as it effectively prevented Churchill from renewing his call to continue operations in the eastern Mediterranean. It was self-evident that the special relationship between Britain and America was not quite so special after all, and Churchill knew that he could not always count on Roosevelt’s support in the future.
‘Stalin thought it would be a mistake to send part of our forces to Turkey and elsewhere, and part to southern France,’ Churchill recorded at their first plenary meeting on the 28th. According to the Soviet leader:
The best course would be to make Overlord the basic operation for 1944 and, once Rome had been captured, to send all available forces in Italy to southern France. These forces could join hands with the Overlord forces when the invasion was launched. France was the weakest spot on the German front. He did not himself expect Turkey to enter the war.
The following day Stalin called for a date for Overlord to be confirmed and insisted that it should be supported by a landing in southern France at the same time or a few months earlier. In his mind the capture of Rome and other Mediterranean operations should be viewed only as diversionary to the main event. While Roosevelt was supportive of Stalin’s demands, Churchill wanted to know where the resources would be found for such an invasion, especially in terms of landing craft. To this end the Combined Chiefs in Cairo were tasked to look at this issue and make representations, and on 30 November they assessed:
(a) that we should continue to advance in Italy to the Pisa-Rimini line [German Gothic Line]. (This means that the sixty-eight LST which are due to be sent from the Mediterranean to the United Kingdom for Overlord must be kept in the Mediterranean until 15 January).
(b) that an operation shall be mounted against the south of France on as big a scale as landing craft permit. For planning purposes D-day to be the same as Overlord D-day.
(c) to recommend to the President and Prime Minister respectively that we should inform Marshal Stalin that we will launch Overlord during May, in conjunction with a supporting operation against the south of France on the largest scale that is permitted by the landing craft available at the time.
Churchill and Roosevelt were content with these recommendations and Stalin was duly informed. Foolishly the Western Allies were about to commit themselves to attacking Normandy and the French Riviera at the same time and on an impossible deadline. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, as well as General Brooke, Admiral Cunningham, Air Chief Marshal Portal, General Marshall, Admiral King and General Arnold, all attended the plenary session of the Eureka Conference held in the Russian Legation on the 30th at which the proposed invasions were discussed in detail.
Churchill called for the closest cooperation among the Allies in coordinating their operations. He hoped that up to ten German divisions would be tied up in Italy and that the partisans in Yugoslavia would also continue to hold down German forces there. Stalin appreciated the threat to Overlord posed by German divisions transferring from the Eastern Front, so he undertook to tie down Hitler by launching a massive offensive in May. (In the event, Operation Bagration slipped to the end of June and overshadowed the success of Overlord with the sheer scale and speed of the Red Army’s victory.)
Regarding Overlord itself, Churchill said ‘he would like to add weight to the operation as it is now planned, especially in the initial assault’. This was a very sound recommendation, but it ultimately sowed the seeds of discord among the Western Allies over their commitment to the invasion of southern France. It was Stalin who now secured a firm undertaking from both Roosevelt and Churchill for Operation Anvil. The Three Powers declaration, issued in Tehran:
took note that Operation Overlord would be launched during May 1944, in conjunction with an operation against southern France. The latter operation would be undertaken in as great a strength as availability of landing-craft permitted. The Conference further took note of Marshal Stalin’s statement that the Soviet forces would launch an offensive at about the same time with the object of preventing the German forces from transferring from the Eastern to the Western Front.
Stalin had clearly signalled how much he valued an invasion of southern France and his opposition to any Anglo-American operations in southeastern Europe, and he clearly anticipated that the matter was entirely closed. He may have secretly suspected that once the Second Front was opened Churchill would return to the Balkan question – why else would he ask that the attack on southern France should precede Overlord by two months. Tactically it made no sense, but Stalin had deliberately inflated its value. He knew that an invasion in both northern and southern France, coupled to their existing efforts in Italy, would ensure the Western Allies simply did not have enough resources to meddle in the Balkans.
The Soviet leader had his own grand designs for the summer of 1944 in the shape of Operation Bagration and the follow-up Lvov-Sandomierz offensive. The last thing he wanted was for matters to be complicated by the presence of Anglo-American forces in the Balkans. Ultimately he pressed for the attack on southern France because he wanted the Western Allies to be distracted from the Balkans, so that the Red Army would have a free hand to punish Hitler’s eastern European Axis allies and secure Yugoslavia.
Churchill and those around him were not blind to Stalin’s intentions. Brooke recalled during the meeting:
[Stalin] approved of Roosevelt’s proposal to close down operations in Italy and to transfer six divisions to invade southern France on 1 April, while the main Channel operation would take place on 1 May. I am certain he did not approve such operations for their strategic value, but because they fitted in with his future political plans. He was too good a strategist not to see the weakness in the American plan.
… his political and military requirements could now be best met by the greatest squandering of British and American lives in the French theatre.
While Stalin had naturally welcomed the additional operation for the Second Front in the West, it was General Marshall who subsequently ordered Eisenhower to include it in his strategic planning.
On the way back from Tehran Churchill and Roosevelt got together again in Cairo. ‘In order to give Overlord the greatest chance of success,’ said Churchill, ‘it was thought necessary that the descent on the Riviera [Anvil] should be as strong as possible.’ Roosevelt persuaded those present to agree that nothing should be done to ‘hinder’ Overlord or Anvil. It transpired, however, that Churchill was suffering from selective deafness on this occasion.
In Cairo, Brooke and King disagreed over
Anvil. Brooke saw little point in launching such an operation with anything less than two divisions, while King argued that no firm decisions had been made at Tehran about the size of the assaulting force. Stalin advocated ten divisions. Nonetheless, it was finally agreed by the Combined Chiefs that the operation be looked at with a view to using a minimum of two divisions and that the resources for it were not to be at the expense of Overlord.
Burma loses out
Air Chief Marshal Portal made it clear that if the southern France operation were to go ahead, then other operations would inevitably suffer, notably those against the Japanese-held Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. This was accepted and the Andaman assault was cancelled, although Roosevelt was reluctant to let down the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai-Shek.
Stalin’s promise that he would join the war against Japan once Nazi Germany was defeated was of little consolation to those British and American forces that had been fighting the Japanese in Burma and the Pacific since late 1941. Bearing in mind that Japan was also fighting China, the Soviet Union’s entry into the war could have been the turning-point. In India Lieutenant-General Sir William Slim, commander of the British 14th Army, was not pleased with the outcome of the Tehran Conference:
I had not long been back at my headquarters when events began which threatened to upset some, and then most, of the plans I had brought with me from Delhi. The seven offensive operations, scheduled for 1944, had been approved by the Combined Chiefs of Staff at the Cairo Conference at the end of November 1943. Only a week later, however, at Tehran, Marshal Stalin promised to enter the war against Japan if Anglo-American efforts were directed first to defeating Germany. Roosevelt and Churchill accepted the condition, and as part of this concentration against the main enemy, more than half the amphibious resources of South-East Asia were ordered back to Europe. As this rendered impossible the sea assault on the Andaman Islands, it was planned to use what remained for a landing behind the Japanese in Arakan…
The practical result of all this was that the projected operations in South-East Asia in 1944 were reduced from seven to four.
Slim was far from pleased that he was forced to abandon the proposed landings in southern Burma and fall back on a costly and difficult four-pronged land invasion.
While Churchill went along with the plans for Anvil, his mind remained firmly on Italy and the Balkans. ‘Reverting to the Riviera attack,’ he remarked, ‘I expressed the view that it should be planned on the basis of an assault force of at least two divisions. This would provide enough landing craft to do the outflanking operations in Italy, and also, if Turkey came into the war soon, to capture Rhodes.’ However, the Rhodes operation was soon abandoned.
Churchill saw Anvil as a waste of effort, needlessly drawing vital troops and equipment from Italy. His staff argued that these resources would be better used maintaining the Allied effort in Italy, which would enable a decisive thrust up the Italian peninsula, through Austria and into southern Germany – and success here would render both Anvil and even Overlord unnecessary.
However, Eisenhower’s generals argued that both geography and logistics were against such a plan; crossing the English Channel meant shorter lines of communication and a line of advance that was not obstructed by the troublesome Alps. Although there was also some concern that German troops in Italy might strike west at the invasion forces’ eastern flank.
Roosevelt moved swiftly to head off Churchill and on 4 December 1943 Eisenhower was appointed to command Overlord. Stalin was informed of his appointment the following day, Churchill on the 6th. His Mediterranean aspirations were completely dashed. Overlord and an invasion of southern France were now to have priority, while operations in the Aegean were effectively stymied and Pisa was deemed the limit of advance in Italy. Churchill did not take all this lightly, as despite his best efforts Roosevelt and Stalin had got their way. However, as Brooke noted with some satisfaction:
I had got the date of Overlord pushed back to 1 June so that it would not cripple the Italian campaign, and the south of France offensive turned into something more elastic which could be adjusted without affecting Italy too seriously.
While Churchill was forced to acquiesce to Overlord, he would remain stridently opposed to the concept of committing forces to southern France. He and the British Chiefs of Staff under Brooke wanted all military resources directed either to support Overlord in Normandy or to continue the fight in Italy.
Churchill had been opposed to Anvil from the start, and ultimately favoured Bordeaux not the Mediterranean. He was right that once the requirements of Anzio had delayed Anvil, the latter then made no military sense in that it would not support Overlord. Churchill believed a landing in Bordeaux would be the quickest way to take the pressure off the Allied forces in Normandy. Nonetheless, the Americans felt that his alternatives did not make sense either.
On 5 December the Combined Chiefs formalised their findings based on a two-division assault of southern France conducted to coincide approximately with Overlord. This would mean delivering 45,500 men and 7,740 vehicles. However, their assessment was that the resources available in the Mediterranean at the time of Overlord, comprising some 300 vessels, would only be able to shift some 39,000 troops (one American division or three British brigades) and 4,520 vehicles. This left a shortfall of 6,500 men and 3,220 vehicles, which would require an extra 72 vessels to ship them, comprising 3 Combat Loaders, 12 Motor Transport Ships, 26 Landing Ship Tank (LST) and 31 Landing Craft Tank (LCT). The 26 Landing Ship Tank (LST) and 26 Landing Craft Tank (LCT) required could be made up from the spring orders originally earmarked for the Pacific. The remaining 5 LCTs could be found in the Mediterranean; although scheduled for Overlord, they were actually surplus to allocated requirements. America was supplying an additional 24 LCTs for Overlord over its original Quadrant Conference commitment, so these vessels for Anvil would not be missed. It was felt that the extra MT ships needed could be found from those already pooled in the Mediterranean under AFHQ. Similarly the special landing craft for assault support had to be drawn from those currently in the Mediterranean. This meant a greater responsibility fell on the naval forces to provide close support for the assault.
Once again the thorny issue of American requirements for the Pacific reared its ugly head. The Combined Staffs were at pains to point out that the LSTs and LCTs now earmarked for southern France represented a month’s allocation for the Pacific. This diversion would impact on proposed operations in July (most notably against the Imperial Japanese Navy’s main Central Pacific base at Truk) and the shortfall would have to be made up by diverting craft from the South Pacific, otherwise the operation might have to be cancelled.
If adequate shore-based fighter cover for Anvil could be provided the naval forces would need to be supplemented with up to 20 additional escorts and 2 anti-aircraft fighter direction ships. If adequate shore-based fighters could not be found, then the fleet would need up to 12 carriers with fighters, plus 6 anti-aircraft cruisers and 18 screening vessels.
Back in America after the Tehran Conference, Roosevelt shared his homespun public relations with the American people:
Within three days of intense and consistently amicable discussions, we agreed on every point concerned with the launching of a gigantic attack on Germany.
The Russian Army will continue its stern offensives on Germany’s eastern front, the Allied armies in Italy and Africa will bring relentless pressure on Germany from the south, and now the encirclement will be complete as great American and British forces attack from other points of the compass….
He then added, evidently believing that he had won over Stalin, even if it had been at the expense of his relationship with Churchill, that:
I may say that I ‘got along fine’ with Marshal Stalin. He is a man who combines a tremendous, relentless determination with a stalwart good humour. I believe he is truly representative of the heart and soul of Russia; and I believe that we are going to get along very well wit
h him and the Russian people – very well indeed.
This was true, but only up to a point and only because Stalin was going to get exactly what he wanted: an invasion in the south of France, not in the Adriatic or Aegean.
Chapter Two
De Gaulle – ‘he is a very dangerous threat to us’
After the Anglo-American invasion of French North-West Africa Roosevelt had pointedly stated: ‘The future French government will be established not by any individual in metropolitan France or overseas but by the French people themselves after they have been set free by the victory of the United Nations.’ Notably Overlord would involve just one French division and Dragoon only three.
As far as Roosevelt was concerned, Charles de Gaulle as leader of the Free French was not really a viable player; he had no resources or popular appeal. Free French operations against Dakar and Syria had shown that his involvement could even be counter-productive. The man was haughty and aloof, and while Churchill tried to accommodate him, Roosevelt did not. He was convinced that de Gaulle was a potential dictator who would seek to maintain the French Empire and would obstruct any American aspirations to free the North African Arab states from French colonial rule. Indeed, Roosevelt had already promised the Sultan of Morocco freedom once the war was over. De Gaulle by his own admission had only one strategy: intransigence. He had nothing to bargain with so he saw no point in bargaining. This translated into what his contemporaries saw as arrogance and rudeness.
While Churchill had officially recognised de Gaulle as leader of the Free French at the end of June 1940, this did not mean he was granted the status of head of the French government in exile. Marshal Henri-Philippe Pétain was the legal head of the French government in Vichy, and the British Foreign Office feared Churchill’s backing of de Gaulle would push Pétain further into Hitler’s arms. Instead of assembling the considerable resources of the French Navy and Empire to help oust Hitler, the Vichy government, already in a state of disarray, was more concerned about retaining control of its colonial possessions.
Operation Dragoon Page 3