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Stalin, Roosevelt & Churchill: Forging the Alliance That Won the War
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Churchill knew Britain couldn't win alone — so he spent four years building the Grand Alliance that made D-Day possible. This episode traces how he won Roosevelt's trust, navigated Stalin's demands, and shaped the strategy from North Africa to Normandy.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
In the summer of nineteen forty, Britain stood alone. No ally to its east, none to its south, and America watching cautiously from across the Atlantic.
Franklin Roosevelt had been watching Europe unravel since the late nineteen thirties. American public opinion was overwhelmingly against entering another European war.
Then came December seventh, nineteen forty-one. When news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reached Churchill at Chequers, his reaction was one of profound, if complicated, relief.
The North Africa campaign, launched in late nineteen forty-two, was a significant vindication of Churchill's approach. General Bernard Montgomery's Eighth Army defeated Rommel's forces at El Alamein in November nineteen forty-two.
The months before D-Day were among the most anxious of Churchill's war. He understood the stakes better than almost anyone.
The Grand Alliance was never as unified as the wartime propaganda suggested. From Alone to D-Day is also a story about managing tensions, competing interests, and the hard negotiations that ran alongside the military campaigns.
By the summer of nineteen forty-four, with Paris liberated in August and the Allied armies pushing into Germany, the shape of Allied victory was becoming clear. Churchill's position within the Grand Alliance had shifted.
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