Why did Great Britain and the USA delay the opening of a second front?
Units of Company E, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, US Army, begin landing on Omaha Beach. June 6, 1944
The question of opening a second front
For the first time, the question of opening a second front was officially raised in a personal message from the head of the Soviet government, Joseph Stalin, dated July 18, 1941, to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Welcoming the establishment of allied relations between the USSR and England and expressing confidence in the defeat of the common enemy, Stalin noted that the military position of the two powers would be significantly improved if a front was created against Germany in the West (Northern France) and in the North (Arctic). This front could have drawn significant German forces away from the Eastern Front and would have made Hitler's invasion of England impossible.
Churchill rejected Stalin's proposal, citing a lack of forces and the threat of a "bloody defeat" for the landing. Although the British were working on the issue of landing troops in Norway in order to prevent the Germans from occupying Sweden with its strategic resources.
In September 1941, in conditions of a severe crisis on the fronts, Stalin again returned to the issue of the second front. In messages dated September 3 and 13, 1941, Stalin wrote to Churchill that Germany had transferred more than 30 fresh infantry divisions, a large number of aircraft and tanks and intensified the actions of its allies, as a result of which the USSR lost more than half of Ukraine, and the enemy reached Leningrad. According to him, the German command considered “the danger in the West to be a bluff” (it was so) and calmly transferred all forces to Russia.
Germany got the opportunity to beat its opponents one by one: first the USSR, then England. This gave England a good opportunity to open a second front. Churchill, recognizing that the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the fight against Germany, said that opening a second front was “impossible.”
The successes of the Red Army in the winter of 1941–1942 opened up new opportunities for opening a second front. The Russians held Leningrad and Moscow and inflicted sensitive counterattacks on the enemy. The Minister of Supply, Lord Beaverbrook, reported to the British War Cabinet that Russian resistance was giving England new opportunities. Russian opposition created “an almost revolutionary situation in all occupied countries and opened 2 thousand miles of coastline for the landing of British troops.”
However, the British leadership still considered Europe a prohibited zone for British troops. The British cabinet and the imperial general staff did not share Beaverbrook's opinion.
On December 7, 1941, the United States entered the war. The Americans skillfully provoked Japan to attack and became the “victim of a surprise attack” (Why Japan attacked the United States). American public opinion, which was inclined to remain neutral, forgot about the principles of neutrality and isolationism.
The US Army headquarters began developing a strategic plan that included the concentration of American military capabilities against Germany. England was to become a springboard for the invasion of Northern France. The plan was discussed on April 1, 1942 at a meeting in the White House and approved by American President Franklin Roosevelt.
Scooter review of a British commando unit before the landing in Normandy. June 1944
The USA wanted to use the USSR in the war with Japan
Roosevelt attached great political and military-strategic importance to this plan. The American president believed that it was necessary to assure Moscow of the speedy opening of a second front. This gave support to the broad masses of the US people, who sympathized with the USSR’s struggle against the Nazi invaders, and was important in anticipation of the upcoming congressional elections at the end of 1942.
From the point of view of military-strategic plans, Washington wanted to enlist the support of the USSR in the defeat of the Japanese Empire in the Pacific theater of operations. President Roosevelt and the Chiefs of Staff attached the greatest importance to Soviet participation in the war with Japan.
Roosevelt sent his special assistant G. Hopkins and US Army Chief of Staff General J. Marshall to London to familiarize the British leadership with his plans. The British leadership agreed in principle to a limited landing of the Western Allies in 1942 and the opening of a second front in 1943.
On April 11, President Roosevelt invited the adviser of the Soviet embassy A. A. Gromyko and presented him with a personal message to the head of the Soviet government. Roosevelt proposed sending a Soviet delegation to Washington for negotiations to discuss the issue of opening a second front. On April 20, Stalin announced his agreement to a meeting between Molotov and the American President to exchange views on the opening of a second front. London was also supposed to take part in the negotiations.
As a result of complex and tense negotiations between Vyacheslav Molotov and the military-political leadership of the United States and England, a decision was made to create a second front in Europe. On June 12, it was reported that an agreement had been reached on the opening of a second front.
British tank crews from C Squadron, 13/18th Royal Hussars, prepare their M4 Sherman tanks for the Normandy landings. May 1944
The allies are stalling for time
Neither in 1942 nor in 1943 was a second front opened. The landing of troops in Europe in 1942 was postponed for the sake of the offensive of American-British troops in North Africa. Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on this without the participation of Soviet representatives. From a military point of view, the Allied operations in North Africa were insignificant and could not weaken the military power of Germany and lead to its defeat. Also, the operation in North Africa, which began in November 1942, excluded the organization of a second front in Europe in 1943.
Churchill informed Moscow of the decision. In August 1942, the head of the British government arrived in the USSR for negotiations. The personal representative of the American President, Harriman, also took part in them. On 13 August 1942, Stalin handed Churchill and Harriman a memorandum stating that 1942 represented the best time to open a second front. The best forces of the German Empire fought on the Russian front.
However, Churchill reported the final refusal of the United States and Britain to open a second front in Western Europe in 1942. At the same time, he assured that the front would be opened in the spring of 1943. Moscow understood the interests of the United States and England quite well, but decided not to aggravate the issue.
The German headquarters, taking advantage of the passivity of England and the United States, launched a powerful offensive on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front in the summer and autumn of 1942. The Wehrmacht was rushing to the Volga and trying to capture the Caucasus in order to deal a mortal blow to the USSR. If the German offensive was successful, Türkiye and Japan could act against the Soviet Union.
England and the United States, at the expense of the USSR, retained their forces and resources, planning to use them at the final stage of the war in order to dictate their terms to the losing powers and establish their own world order.
British paratroopers of the 6th Airborne Division aboard an aircraft before landing in Normandy. June 6, 1944
In essence, the constant postponement by the ruling circles of the United States and Britain of the invasion of Europe from the West provided the Third Reich with such assistance that the Germans could not receive from any of their European allies. Germany could maintain dominance over most of Europe with its human, material and economic resources, and send most of its armed forces to the Eastern Front.
The year 1943 was marked by a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War and World War II as a whole. The gigantic battle on the Volga, which lasted 200 days and nights, ended in a brilliant victory for the Soviet troops. The Wehrmacht received a terrible wound. His strategic offensive failed. Germany lost the battle for the Caucasus.
In May 1943, the Allies defeated a group of Italian-German troops in North Africa. In the Pacific, the situation stabilized, and the strategic initiative passed into the hands of the Allies (Battle of Guadalcanal). The Allies were able to concentrate their efforts on Europe and open a second front.
After the Battle of Stalingrad and the continued advance of the Red Army, a new factor emerged in the attitude of the great Western powers towards the USSR. Now they began to fear the premature, from their point of view, defeat of Germany. The goal of maximally weakening the USSR in the war has not yet been realized. In London and Washington they began to understand that the USSR could not only survive, but also win, and sharply strengthen its position and weight in the world. Therefore, they decided to delay the opening of the second front so as not to weaken Germany.
The policy of sabotage of the second front and exhaustion of the USSR acquired decisive importance in the actions of the Western powers.
“There is no doubt,” noted Soviet Ambassador M. M. Litvinov to the United States, “that the military calculations of both states (the United States and Great Britain) are based on the desire for maximum depletion and wear and tear of the forces of the Soviet Union in order to reduce its role in resolving post-war problems. They will wait for the development of military operations on our front.”
In January 1943, an Anglo-American conference was held in Casablanca, which showed that the Allies were not going to carry out any serious offensive in Europe in 1943.
In fact, although it was not stated directly, the opening of the second front was delayed until 1944. Churchill and Roosevelt sent a message to Moscow following the conference. It was written in vague terms and without specifying timeframes or information about specific operations, expressing the hope that Germany could be brought to its knees in 1943.
On January 30, 1943, Moscow asked to report on specific operations and the timing of their implementation. After consultations with Roosevelt, Churchill sent an encouraging response to Moscow, saying that preparations for “crossing the Channel” were being carried out vigorously and the operation was planned for August. He also noted that due to weather or other reasons, it may be postponed until September, but then it will be carried out by larger forces.
In fact, it was a deliberate deception. London and Washington, announcing the preparation of a landing operation in Northern France, at that time were preparing an operation in the Mediterranean theater. True, it was impossible to deceive for long, and in May Roosevelt informed Moscow that the operation was being postponed to 1944.
Also, on March 30, the allies announced a decision to once again suspend the supply of military materials to the northern sea ports of the USSR, speaking of the need to transfer all vehicles to the Mediterranean Sea. On the eve of the next German summer strategic offensive, supplies of military materials and equipment were stopped. This happened in 1942, the same thing happened in 1943. At the most difficult time, the allies refused to open a second front and left the USSR without supplies weapons and materials.
On June 11, Moscow sent a message to Washington (its text was also sent to London). It indicated that another delay in opening a second front “creates exceptional difficulties” for the USSR, which has been waging a difficult struggle with Germany and its satellites for two years.
A further exchange of views further heated the situation - the Western powers had no arguments that could justify the delay in opening a second front. On June 24, Stalin sent a message to Churchill in which he expressed the Soviet government's disappointment in the allies. Stalin noted that we are talking about saving millions of lives in the occupied regions of Russia and Europe, the colossal sacrifices of the Red Army.
British soldiers swim across a river in preparation for the Normandy landings. May 1944
Britain and the USA understand that they could lose all of Europe
The defeat of the most powerful enemy group on the Kursk Bulge, the entry of Soviet troops to the Dnieper River and their advance to the state borders of the USSR showed that the process of a radical turning point during the Great Patriotic War was completed. Germany and its allies were forced to switch to strategic defense.
The victories of the Soviet troops in the summer and autumn of 1943 dramatically changed the entire military-political situation in Europe and the world. They showed that the USSR was capable of independently defeating Germany, and the complete liberation of Europe from the Nazis was not far off.
Fearing the entry of Soviet troops into Central and Western Europe before their armies, the leadership of England and the United States intensified the process of preparing the opening of a second front. The Anglo-Saxons were afraid of missing out on time to invade Europe and capture the most important political and economic centers and strategic areas. There was a threat that the United States would not be able to dictate its terms of peace to Europe, which had been bloodless by the war.
In August 1943, a conference of heads of government and representatives of the command of the United States and Great Britain was held in Quebec. The final report of the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted that the Normandy operation would be the main offensive of the Anglo-American forces in 1944. The start of the operation was scheduled for May 1, 1944. This decision improved relations between the USSR and the Western powers.
At the Moscow Conference of the Foreign Ministers of the USSR, USA and Great Britain in October 1943, the allies still did not provide specific data, wanting to maintain freedom of action. They only confirmed their intentions to begin an operation in Northern France in the spring of 1944, subject to favorable meteorological conditions in the English Channel region, as well as a significant reduction in the German Air Force in Northwestern Europe.
Moscow conference 1943. Sitting at the round table: USSR Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Marshal of the Soviet Union Kliment Voroshilov, Lieutenant General Hastings Ismay (Great Britain), British Ambassador to the USSR Archibald Kerr, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, British Deputy Foreign Secretary William Strang, General -Major John Dean (USA), Ambassador of the United States of America Averell Harriman, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Advisor to the US Secretary of State Green Hackforth, Deputy People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Maxim Litvinov and Andrei Vyshinsky
On November 19, 1943, on board the battleship Iowa on the way to Cairo for the Anglo-American-Chinese conference (it preceded the conference in Tehran), the American president, speaking about the need to open a second front, noted that Russian troops were already very close to Poland and Bessarabia .
Roosevelt stressed the urgency of occupying as much of Europe as possible by Anglo-American troops. Roosevelt gave France, Belgium, Luxembourg and South Germany to the British sphere of occupation. The Americans wanted to occupy Northwestern Germany and the ports of Denmark and Norway. The Anglo-Saxons also planned to capture Berlin themselves.
Churchill also did not want to allow the appearance of Soviet troops in Western Europe and proposed the “Balkan option” - an invasion of the Allied forces in the Balkans, which was supposed to cut off Soviet troops from Central Europe. In the countries of South-Eastern Europe they were going to establish regimes with an Anglo-Saxon orientation.
The Americans, who supported Churchill's Mediterranean strategy until mid-1943, believed that these plans were too late. Allied troops could get stuck in the Balkans, and at this time the Russians would capture the most important centers of Europe. The second front in France made it possible to prevent the Russians from entering the vital areas of the Ruhr and Rhine.
The Soviet delegation in Tehran sought to achieve a firm commitment from the British and Americans to open a second front. In general, Stalin got his way (Stalin's victory in Tehran). The decisions of the Tehran Conference provided for the start of a landing operation in the North of France in May 1944.
At the same time, the Allies planned to launch an operation in southern France. The USSR promised at this time to launch a decisive offensive to prevent the transfer of German troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front. The agreements adopted in Tehran determined the political decision to begin the Normandy operation.
Marshal of the Soviet Union, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt at a banquet during the Tehran Conference. In the photo in the lower right corner there is a cake with candles on the table - on November 30, 1943, Churchill celebrated his 69th birthday in Tehran.
Value
The Allied strategic operation to land troops in French Normandy (Operation Overlord) is considered the date of the creation of the Western (second) Front of World War II. The Normandy operation is the largest amphibious operation in stories humanity - more than 3 million people took part in it, crossing the English Channel from England to Normandy. Suffice it to say that on the first day of the operation, 5 infantry divisions, 3 armored brigades and a number of other formations (about 100 thousand people) were landed.
Until this moment, neither the actions of the allied forces in Africa, nor the landings in Sicily and Italy could claim the title of “second front”. The Allies captured a large bridgehead, which allowed them to land entire armies, launch an offensive across France and liberate Paris. The Germans were able to form a full-fledged new front line only in September 1944 on the western border of Germany.
The opening of the Western Front led to the approach of victory over the Third Reich.
Berlin had to involve significant infantry and tank formations in the fight against the allied forces (mainly the armies of the United States, Great Britain, Canada and parts of the French Resistance movement). And although the war on the Western Front, for the most part, did not take on such a fierce and stubborn character as on the Eastern Front, Berlin still could not transfer these troops to the Russian Front.
British paratroopers from the 6th Airborne Brigade look out of the door of a Horse glider before taking off for Normandy. June 6, 1944
As a result, Soviet troops took Berlin in May 1945, rather than in late 1945 or early 1946. The Soviet Union saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The Red Army would have finished off the German Empire alone, but this would have happened later and with more serious human and material losses.
So, on June 23, 1944, one of the largest military operations in the history of mankind began - Operation Bagration. Moreover, the success of the Belarusian operation significantly exceeded the expectations of the Soviet command. It led to the defeat of Army Group Center, the complete cleansing of Belarus from the enemy, and they recaptured part of the Baltic states and the eastern regions of Poland from the Germans.
The Red Army, on a front of 1 km, advanced to a depth of 100 km. The successful offensive jeopardized Army Group North in the Baltic States, which subsequently greatly facilitated the Baltic operation. Two large bridgeheads across the Vistula were also captured, which simplified the Vistula-Oder operation.
According to a number of military historians, the offensive of the Soviet fronts was facilitated by the emergence of the Western Front. The German command was not able to transfer reserves from France, including large tank formations. Their presence on the Soviet-German front seriously complicated the Belarusian offensive operation.
It is also worth considering that a significant part of German artillery was in the West, as well as aviation. This allowed the Soviet Air Force to quickly gain air superiority and destroy retreating German columns without serious opposition from the Luftwaffe.
On the other hand, the powerful Soviet offensive in Belarus did not allow the German headquarters to concentrate forces to eliminate the Allied bridgehead in Normandy. Already on June 10, the Red Army launched an offensive on the northern wing of the front, and on June 23, Operation Bagration began.
It is worth remembering that the Allies landed in France much later than they promised and than was expected. In fact, the top military-political leadership of England and the United States waited until the last moment. The Anglo-Saxons initially believed that Hitler, who was allowed by the masters of London and Washington to crush most of Europe to mobilize its economic and human resources, would quickly crush the USSR, but would get stuck fighting partisans and developing vast Russian spaces.
Then it was possible to implement the scenario of an agreement with Hitler, sharing the planet with him. Or the German generals would have eliminated the intractable Fuhrer, who would have started to become “dizzy with success.” This was facilitated by the fact that most of the German leadership before the Second World War, and even during its first stage, dreamed of an alliance with Britain. The British Empire was the model of their “Eternal Reich”; it was it that created the racial system throughout the planet, the first concentration camps and reservations.
Actually, the Anglo-Saxons were initially the creators and sponsors of the “Third Reich” project (Who brought Hitler to power; Origins of World War II: USA vs. All).
Germany was unable to crush the USSR with one lightning strike, and a protracted war of attrition and fortitude began, in which the Russian people had no equal. Then England and the USA began to wait until the enemies weakened each other in order to receive all the fruits of victory and establish complete control over the planet.
But here, too, the enemy was mistaken - the USSR, although it suffered terrible losses in this battle of the titans, was able to strengthen itself and the process of liberation of Soviet lands began, and then the liberation of Europe. A threat arose that the USSR would be able to bring under its control not only part of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, but Central and Western Europe. It was necessary to land troops in Western Europe so as not to be late for the division of the skin of the killed German bear.
Thus, the beginning of the Normandy operation was not associated with the desire to help an ally who was waging a difficult fight against Germany and to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation, but only with the desire of the Anglo-Saxons to establish an occupation regime in European countries and prevent the USSR from occupying a dominant position in the Old World . England and the USA were in a hurry to snatch the best pieces from the bleeding German bear.
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