be a rapid success and entailed some of the heav-
iest fighting of the war. But Hitler’s decision to
defend Italy and so keep the Allies as far as pos-
sible away from south Germany diverted many
divisions to its defence and to the defence of the
Balkans, which had become vulnerable.
While in July 1943 the British and American
armies invaded Sicily, the largest tank battle of the
war was being waged at Kursk on the Russian
front. The German attack on the Russian salient
was beaten back by Marshal Zhukov. It was the
last occasion on which the Germans were able to
mount a major offensive in Russia. Both sides suf-
fered huge casualties, but the Russian armour had
proved superior and the Russians, unlike the
Germans, could make good such losses. Successive
Russian offensives drove the German armies back
in heavy fighting into Poland, but they halted the
Russians on the River Vistula. The Warsaw rising
(1 August–2 October 1944) did not induce the
Red Army at all costs to reach the Polish capital.
In mid-September Russian attempts to advance
were repelled by the Germans, who remained in
control of Warsaw until the end of the year.
Further south, Russian armies advanced from the
Ukraine into Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and
Hungary. As in Italy, new governments attempted
to change from the German to the Russian side.
But the Germans were still strong enough to
remove the Hungarian Regent Admiral Horthy
from power and to make a stand against the
Russian armies. Budapest did not surrender to the
Russians until February 1945. But Hitler could no
longer in 1944 place the bulk of his armies to
defend the eastern front.
On 6 June 1944 under General Dwight
Eisenhower’s supreme command the successful
cross-Channel invasion of France began. The
tremendous obstacles to this enterprise had been
overcome by meticulous planning and brilliant
execution. Beaches and bases were won and by
the end of July 1944 1.5 million men had been
landed in France. After the battle of Normandy,
Paris was taken on 25 August and the German
troops were pursued as they retreated from
France. A landing in southern France against the
depleted German forces there enabled the Allies
rapidly to liberate most of France. The Allies
reached the southern Netherlands and the north-
ern Franco-German frontier between Aachen and
Trier in September.
Meanwhile Hitler had launched his promised
wonder weapons, the pilotless aircraft-bomb, the
V-1, and the missile bomb, V-2, against London.
The attacks by these new weapons on London
and Antwerp in the summer and autumn of 1944
did much damage but could not alter the course
of the war. The last of these ingenious bombs hit
Antwerp in March 1945.
One problem that could not wait any longer for
solution was who was to be recognised as repre-
senting the free government of France. There
could be no question that Pétain’s Vichy regime
had forfeited all its claims by collaborating with
the Germans. Of all the countries that had been
overrun by the Germans, France was the only
indubitable pre-war great power. Yet ironically it
was the one ally not represented by a government
in exile in London. The Free French, who had
rallied to General de Gaulle in 1940 and formed
their own administration in London, were recog-
nised only as the French Committee of National
Liberation. De Gaulle felt his inferior status
deeply. But his status corresponded to reality in
that the majority of people in France and in the
French Empire accepted Pétain’s authority. Not
that this would have stopped the British and
Americans in wartime from according recognition
to de Gaulle. Expediency, however, persuaded
them not to challenge Vichy France openly. A
powerful French fleet after all was still in Vichy
hands in 1942. When the Allies made their North
African landings in November 1942, Operation
Torch, it was with the Vichy authorities there that
secret negotiations were conducted to avoid the
hostility of the French army units stationed there.
Admiral Darlan, who happened to be in Algiers,
decided to support the Americans. Soon after that
he was assassinated. De Gaulle was regarded as
something of an embarrassment; but despite
Allied intrigues he succeeded in reasserting his
leadership over all the Free French.
Roosevelt was particularly averse to commit-
ting himself to de Gaulle, who reacted by asserting
1
THE VICTORY OF THE ALLIES, 1941–5 289
