194 e lusive v ictories
audiences. All the reinforcements were killed or captured within a few
days. (Contrast this with Roosevelt’s cold-blooded acceptance of his
military chiefs’ assessment that the Philippines could not be held in
1942, leading to the decision not to attempt major reinforcement.)
Once the Anglo-American Allies were prepared to go on the
off ensive, Churchill liked to conjure up operations that would have
diverted their eff ort to the periphery of occupied Europe. For example,
he repeatedly urged an attack across northern Norway (Operation
JUPITER) to link up with the Russians, an enterprise that would have
neither aided the Red Army signifi cantly nor engaged a substantial part
of the Wehrmacht. His enthusiasms extended to colorful leaders like
Ord Wingate and their ideas about unconventional operations. With
the prime minister’s staunch backing, Wingate mounted a large behind-
the-lines operation in Burma in 1944 that failed to preempt the massive
Japanese off ensive at Imphal and Kohima.
Churchill’s most glaring failure is the mirror image of Roosevelt’s
wisest decision: the timing of the cross-Channel invasion and the
attendant shift in Anglo-American eff ort from the Mediterranean to
northwest Europe. As I earlier noted, the prime minister paid lip service
to the idea of invasion but never committed to a particular date, a hes-
itation that refl ected early British defeats at the hands of the Germans.
Circumstances had changed by mid-1943—the Allies had won against
the U-boats, their equipment had improved, they had achieved vic-
tories on the ground in North Africa and Sicily, and American troops
were arriving in England in vast numbers—but he ignored the implica-
tions of the changes. His outlook also refl ected a British preoccu-
pation with the importance of the Mediterranean and secure sea lanes
and his desire to see the main campaign led by a British commander
and fought primarily by Commonwealth troops. Even after Roosevelt
decided the Normandy invasion must proceed, Churchill refused to
give up his obsession with Italy, Greece, and the Balkans. He wrongly
persisted in arguing that the best route into Central Europe led through
Italy into Austria (where again his fixation on prestige led him to
proclaim the quaint notion that the power that controlled Vienna
controlled Europe.) In pressing for campaigns in Greece and Yugo-
slavia, he also wanted to deny them to the Red Army. Certainly the
Anglo-Americans could have liberated the region fi rst, but at the price