The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler--How War Made Them and How They Made War
“an important look at the personal side of how World War II strategy was made . . .”
The apocryphal saying “militaries always prepare for the last war” can also be true of political leaders, especially if they have military experience in war before their rise to power. This is the thesis explored by Professor O’Brien in this new look at formation of grand strategy by the major powers in Europe during World War II.
Bypassing the usual grand strategy examinations of coalition warfare or the balancing of ends, ways, and means, he dives into how the personal experiences of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Churchill, and Roosevelt during World War I influenced their strategic view and how they planned and executed their respective country’s strategy and mobilization of resources during World War II.
Interestingly, Hitler, Mussolini, and Churchill served on the front lines of the war and their experience with the slaughter of machine guns, artillery, and rapid-fire rifles on mass frontal assaults affected their strategic thinking to a greater extent than usually considered. Both Hitler and Mussolini, who served as infantry during the war, grasped some of the impact of the rapid development of airpower and the usefulness of the tank, but maintained their Great War mentality of firepower over maneuver to win battles.
Unfortunately, neither one really understood the importance of industrial capacity and logistics for these new tools of war, and while Germany was able overcome some of these challenges for a time, Italy was never able to rise to the importance as a world power that Mussolini wanted and quickly became virtually vassal state to Germany after 1941. Mussolini’s strategic blundering in the Balkans and North African desert quickly showed the ineptness of the Italian military, and he soon receded from the world stage after he was ousted from power, arrested, rescued by the Germans, and kept as a figurehead until his death at the end of the war.
Churchill had a great deal of experience during World War I both as a politician and as a soldier during the war, serving on the front lines during the disastrous Somme Offensive of 1916 that saw hundreds of thousands of British casualties to now great effect. His political experience as both First Lord of the Admiralty and later Minister of Munitions gave him a strong sense of the importance of maintaining control of the oceanic waterways that were key to Britain’s economic survival, control of their vast Empire, and the ability to conduct military operations anywhere they could reach by ship.
Churchill’s experience and thinking on the importance of sea and air power dovetailed nicely with his ally Franklin Roosevelt, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I, overseeing a large expansion of the American Navy and seeing first-hand the importance of maintaining control of the world’s oceans. Their emphasis on building aircraft and ships as a priority would be critical to seizing control of the skies of Europe and winning the Battle of the Atlantic against German submarines, two key prerequisites to successful invasion of France. Both men also agreed on the primacy of machines over manpower and using mechanization to keep down casualties.
Stalin was the outlier among the five, with most of his military experience not in World War I, but in the Russian Civil War that broke out during the Communist Revolution, where his strategic background was formed as much by his Communist ideology as his combat command experience. But Stalin was able to ruthlessly achieve his own personal and political objectives during this time, rising to the top of the Communist Party and becoming sole dictator of the Soviet Union.
The main point the author brings forward is that while Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt grasped the more important lessons from World War I, Hitler and Mussolini did not. Hitler never understood the importance the British and Americans placed on maintain the sea lines of communication between the New World and the Old, nor did Hitler consider the strategic influence of air power on the new mechanized battle space. Both Roosevelt and Churchill were convinced that air and sea power were the ultimate means to an Allied victory, with land power coming in a distant third. In particular, Churchill was never keen on a massive assault into Western Europe, and only the overwhelming influence of American might have convinced him to eventually support what become Operation Overlord.
Remarkably, Stalin emerges as the true strategic victor of the war. Despite his herculean efforts, Churchill was not able to keep the British Empire intact, nor was Roosevelt able to keep the wartime alliance together into the post-war period.
Stalin, on the other hand was able to adapt his authoritarian and paranoid tendencies to win the war, an incredible feat considering he naively accepted the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Treaty and trusted Hitler right up until the Germans invaded Russia in 1941. The near destruction of the Red Army and the deep penetration of the Germans into Russia, threating the Communist regime with collapse, forced Stalin to step back and let his military professionals like Georgi Zhukov handle the operational details within his overall strategic plan. When the war ended, Stalin was master of half of Europe and finally had his buffer states between the Soviet Union and Germany, although he also ignited the Cold War that would eventually lead to Communism’s collapse.
This is a fascinating examination of how national strategy is not always an entirely rational exercise. The influence of human experience, combined with deep seated assumptions, fears, and misjudgments can affect a leader’s thought processes and decision-making rationale for good or bad. It offers an important look at the personal side of how World War II strategy was made by the major leaders and how some adapted their experience and judgement, and others did not, with the resulting outcomes for their country’s war efforts.