Allied Leaders of World War Two/Churchill, Part 3

"Churchill, War & Postwar"

Churchill was (and has been) criticized by some for not pursuing the North African campaign against the Italians in early 1941, but instead, of choosing to withdraw forces to help bolster Greece against the Italians. While not a total certainty, the Italians were on the verge of collapse in Libya, and their total defeat would have removed the possibility of German forces coming to their rescue (the forces under the command of Rommel, aka "the Desert Fox"). Churchill, however, was always aware of a potential communist threat, and southeastern Europe remained such a concern for him throughout the war, as he tried to balance the war against Hitler, with an attempt to stay one step ahead of communists, including Stalin.*

While Churchill was wary of Stalin's expansionist goals, as displayed by the Soviet leader's deal with Hitler in 1939 to divide up eastern Europe between them, Churchill met with President Franklin Roosevelt and Free French representative Charles de Gaulle at Casablanca, in then French Morocco, in early 1943,** and the conference resulted in the Allied announcement that they would only accept the "unconditional surrender" of the Axis powers. This limited their ability to negotiate any deal with Germany, even if Hitler had been killed or deposed,*** and it did little to placate the always suspicious, if not paranoid, Stalin. In 1944 Churchill met with Stalin and they reached an agreement about the Balkans, with the Soviets getting the influence over Rumania and Bulgaria, but Britain getting the same with Greece. Influence was to be shared regarding Yugoslavia, but the point became irrelevant, as Marshall Tito, the communist resistance leader there, ended up running the country, and he was often at odds with the Soviets, who found they could not dominate him.

Churchill advocated a strategy of attacking southern Europe to knock Italy out of the war and to force the Germans to commit military resources to defend what he called, "the soft underbelly" of Axis Europe. Stalin pressed for a major Allied landing in western Europe to tie down the German army so that Hitler would be forced to defend two major combat areas, eastern Europe, against the Soviets, and western Europe, against Britain, the U.S., and the Free French. Instead, the Allies basically took Churchill's advice and invaded Italy, bringing about the surrender of the Italian government, although Mussolini was rescued by his German ally and then propped up by them as a counter force to the Allied liberated parts of southern Italy. The Allies finally delivered the major invasion blow in June 1944, as their armies landed in the Normandy part of France. A few weeks later the Soviets launched a massive offensive against the German forces in the central Soviet Union, staggering the German army. The huge losses incurred by the Germans in France and in the Soviet Union meant the war was nearing an end. The Allied leaders met in the Soviet Union at Yalta in February 1945, where they decided the postwar fate of eastern Europe and Germany. The Western Allies agreed to return all Soviet citizens in their occupation areas to the Soviet Union.****

Just after the war ended, Britain held new elections, and in a stunning outcome, Churchill's Conservative Party suffered a major defeat to the Labour Party, and Churchill was out as prime minister. He remained active in politics, however, and he again became prime minister in the early 1950s when he was well into his 70s. His health deteriorated from a stroke, and he retired in the mid 1950s. Never out of the public eye, Churchill was made an "Honorary Citizen of the United States in 1963 (remember, his mother had been an American). He suffered another stroke in early 1965 and passed away about a week later. He was 90 years old.

* Mussolini's Italy had invaded Greece from Albania (then an Italian possession) in the fall of 1940, but had met very tough resistance from the Greeks. Churchill sent small forces to help the Greeks at first, but then increased the British commitment there. There were already communist movements in Greece and elsewhere in southeastern Europe, and during the later occupation of the Balkan countries, communist resistance movements battled the German and Italian occupation forces there, although there were also non-communist resistance elements in these areas too, and it was not uncommon for the two sides to do battle with one another, in a prelude to postwar control of each respective country.

** Interestingly, the war in North Africa was still being fought not all that far from there in Tunisia. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin did not attend the conference, as the decisive battle of Stalingrad was nearing its end in the Soviet Union; a crushing defeat for Hitler and a major sign he could not win the war.

*** The hope among the German opposition to Hitler, within the military in particular, was to arrest or to kill Hitler and major Nazi leaders, but then to negotiate a separate peace treaty with the Western Allies to permit Germany to continue the war against the Soviet Union, perhaps even with Allied participation. This was also in Churchill's mind, it seems.

**** This was important because many Soviet citizens had taken up arms AGAINST Stalin. By returning these people to Stalin's control, it was a death sentence and untold hundreds of thousands (millions?) died as a consequence. It is important to remember, the Soviet Union was a multi-ethnic, multi-national empire based upon the old Russian Empire, but with the Tsar (or Czar, if you like) replaced by Soviet leaders who were every bit as ruthless as the Tsars, if not more so, at times, but with the empire's wealth no longer concentrated in the very few in the nobility and upper class as under the Tsars.

WORD HISTORY:
Drive-Known forms of this word are only present in the Germanic languages. Whether it was a Germanic creation, or an altered form of some Indo European word (as some believe), or a borrowing from a non-Indo Europan source, is unknown. Anyway, Old Germanic had "driban," with the meaning "to push, to force, to cause to move." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "drifan," with the same basic meaning. Later this became "driven" (with a long "i"), before the modern spelling. The basic notion behind the meaning was that ancient people either pushed carts, or used animals to pull the carts/wagons, but it took humans to "force" the animals to draw the vehicle. The same notion has continued into modern times, as it takes someone to step on the gas to "force" the vehicle to move. German has "treiben" (the "ei" is pronounced like a long "i," and notice the change of "d" to "t"), which was originally "triban," in Old High German, Low German Saxon has "drieven," some Low German dialects have "driewe," Dutch has "drijven," West Frisian has "driuwe," Swedish has "driva," Icelandic has "drífa," Danish and Norwegian have "drive." The meanings all center around "push, force, cause to move," but not all are necessarily used for "driving" a motor vehicle, as in English.

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Seven

Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/G
"Germany in Retreat"

Just two months after the Axis surrender in North Africa, the Allies invaded the large Italian island of Sicily. Italian resistance was sporadic, at best, and essentially collapsed, but German forces on the island cost the Allies heavy causalities, before successfully evacuating to the Italian mainland. During the fighting for Sicily, Mussolini was deposed and then arrested. He eventually was held in a ski resort hotel on a mountain, Gran Sasso, in central Italy. Hitler ordered a special operation to rescue Il Duce ("the leader"), and in September German paratroopers and commandos landed by gliders near the resort and freed Mussolini.*

The new Italian government assured the Germans they would remain true to the alliance with Germany, but the Germans correctly suspected otherwise, and the Italians were in negotiations to surrender to the Allies. The Allies invaded parts of southern Italy in early September, and the Italian surrender was announced. Hitler already had military units in Italy, and he sent more troops to disarm the Italian military and to establish a front against an Allied advance northward. It was an agonizingly slow and bloody process for the Allies to capture Rome, and the German holding action was highly effective.

In Greece and Yugoslavia, strong resistance forces, many with communist affiliations, had developed against the Axis occupation, causing the Germans and Italians to use scarce troops and resources to try to truly secure these areas; something they were unsuccessful in doing.** The threat of Allied invasion, especially of Greece, also kept Axis forces tied down. When Italy surrendered, German forces ruthlessly disarmed and took custody of Italian troops, and many Italians were killed. Some Italians, however, remained committed to the German side for the rest of the war, while others joined the resistance movements.

In western Europe, the Germans continued to fortify the coastal areas against an expected Allied invasion. When 1943 passed without an invasion, the Germans believed 1944 would be the decisive year. Bunkers, coastal obstacles, barbed wire and massive reinforced concrete artillery emplacements lined the areas deemed most likely for the Allied invasion force. The guessing game continued for the Germans, as they tried to learn the exact location where Allied troops would try to come ashore and gain a foothold.

In Russia, after the disaster at Stalingrad, the German forces regained their balance, and Hitler decided to attack. While most of his military advisers opposed the new offensive, Hitler went ahead with the assault anyway. The German forces, especially armor, had made a remarkable recovery, and the Germans threw their forces against the Soviets near the city of Kursk. When the heaviest combat operations had ended in the spring of 1943, a large "bulge" remained in the Soviet lines. The German plan called for attacking at the base of this bulge on both sides (pinching it off), thus cutting off substantial Soviet forces. The Soviets were ready, and the clash of major forces took place in early July 1943. The German offensive failed, and the Soviets launched their own offensive against the now weakened German front. The German "home front" was shaken by the mounting casualties and defeats.

* The German military did some extraordinary things during the war; but they were serving such an evil nutcase.

** Bulgaria, part of the Axis alliance, also supplied troops to help garrison the area, as did Croatia, which had its own army and fascist militia in the aftermath of Yugoslavia's defeat in 1941.

WORD HISTORY:
Room-This noun goes back to Indo European "reu/rew/row," with the basic notion of "open space." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "ruman," with essentially the same meaning, "open space, space." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "rum," with a long "u" sound, with the same meaning. Later it became "roum," before the modern spelling. During the late 1300s it developed the sense "cargo space inside of a ship," which then expanded in the 1400s to "individual spaces inside of a house or building," which from then on became the predominant meaning in English. The verb form, meaning "to occupy a place for residency" or "to share a living space with someone," didn't come along until about the early 1800s. English still retains the "space" meaning when we say "make room for;" that is, "clear space for." Common in the other Germanic languages, although most retain the "space" notion as the primary meaning: German has "Raum," which tends to be used more for "space," as well as "room" (German "Weltraum" means "outer space"). It also can mean "vicinity" or "region," as in "im Raum Berlins," "in the Berlin region, in the Berlin vicinity." Hitler's term, "Lebensraum," meant "living space," or "living room," but not "living room" in the English language sense of "one of the main rooms in a dwelling, often used for entertainment, including for guests." Low German Saxon has "Ruum," Frisian has what now "seems" to be the rarely used "Rüm," Dutch has "ruim," Danish and Swedish have "rum," Norwegian has "rom," and Icelandic has "rúm."

The German Question, Part One Hundred Forty-Three

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/C
"Germany In World War Two" Part Two/E
"Greece & Yugoslavia Fall"

In late October 1940, Benito Mussolini launched an ill prepared and untimely (nearly winter) invasion of Greece from Albania, an Italian possession in those days. Greece has many rough and mountainous areas, where winter comes early, and the Greeks were no push overs, they were tough. Not only did they stop the Italian forces, they counterattacked, throwing the Italians back into Albania! Mussolini then sent more troops to help halt the Greek advance. The Greeks were halted by the Italians and winter weather, but once again Hitler prepared to step in to bolster his sagging ally. The British had sent some forces to help the Greeks, but this diminished their forces and supplies in North Africa, where they too had the Italians on the run at that time. With spring in the offing, the Germans had an invasion plan to overrun Greece.

Yugoslavia, another creation of post-World War One, had similar problems to Czechoslovakia; that is, it was a multi-ethnic nation governed by its largest ethnic group, the Serbs.* Other groups were not happy with the arrangement, especially the Croats, or Croatians, who wanted much more autonomy, with some more radical elements wanting an outright independent Croatia. Further, there were increasingly strong fascist-type groups throughout the country, including the much stronger Croatian group the "Ustaše," which maintained close ties to the fascist nations of Germany and Italy.

Yugoslavia was ruled by a regent, Prince Paul, until the king, Peter II, reached maturity. The Serb leaders, once committed more to the western powers of Britain and France, saw these powers as too weak after their behavior over Czechoslovakia, and they turned more and more to Italy and, especially Germany, for economic ties, and for protection against the Soviet Union. Hitler wanted the Yugoslav government to sign the alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan, as other eastern European countries were doing. Prince Paul reluctantly agreed, but the action was not popular with Serbian military leaders or with much of the non-Croatian population, especially the Serbs. Prince Paul was overthrown and King Peter II, by then 17, took power. In spite of assurances by the king and Serb leaders that the treaty with the Axis would be honored, Hitler had the German military draw up plans for the invasion of Yugoslavia, to be undertaken simultaneously with the invasion of Greece. Mussolini committed an Italian army to the invasion from northeastern Italy, where Italy had a common border with Yugoslavia. Bulgaria also participated on a limited basis, as did Hungary; both were signatories to the Axis alliance.

The invasions started in early April 1941, and the Yugoslav army, fractured by the Serb-Croatian split, was overwhelmed by the invaders. The Germans rolled through Greece also, and while there were periods of intense fighting in both Yugoslavia and Greece, the outcome was not in doubt, and both countries surrendered after a short time. The British forces, along with some Greek forces, evacuated to the Greek island of Crete. The Germans launched an assault on the island, led by a massive paratroop drop, the largest ever undertaken up to that time. German casualties were heavy, but again, the outcome was not long in doubt, and once again, the British evacuated many of their forces from the island. "Evacuation" was becoming a word all too familiar to the British.

The Germans, Italians and their allies now ruled Greece and Yugoslavia, at least on paper or maps. The terrain of both countries was rough and mountainous, ideal for insurgency groups to hide and launch attacks on the occupiers, and this happened with increasing frequency. You can see how Germany and her allies were stretching themselves thin, as they now had to garrison these countries with substantial forces to try to control the insurgency forces of both Greece and Yugoslavia. From a military viewpoint, they gained little for all of these efforts. Croatia was set up as an independent nation, but naturally tied to the Axis.

* There was a substantial German minority in Yugoslavia of about 700,000. Most of the Germans lived in areas that had been a part of Austria-Hungary until the end of World War One, with the largest group being the "Danube Swabians" ("Donauschwaben"), a general term for the German population living in or near the Danube River valley, although not just in Yugoslavia, but also in Hungary and in part of Rumania. Part of these "Danube Swabians" in Yugoslavia was the German population in a region called the "Banat," with the Germans there called "Banater Deutsche." Many of these Danube Swabians came to America after World War Two, with a fairly large number coming here to Cleveland. For many years there was a club called "The Banater Club," in Cleveland (West 140th Street, near Lorain Avenue), and then these Germans built a new, much more extensive club in the mid 1980s here, called "The Donauschwaben German-American Cultural Center," at Lenau Park on the suburban West Side.

WORD HISTORY:
Hit-The origin of "hit" is unknown. Old Germanic had "hitjanan," which meant "to come into contact with, come upon, meet." Apparently the word only endured in Old Norse, as "hitta." It wasn't until about 1100 that English borrowed the word as "hittan," and it still retained the meaning "to meet, to come into contact with." This later became "hitten," and it also extended the notion of "meet, come into contact with" to mean "strike." The native English word for "strike" was "slean," the forerunner of modern "slay," which in those times meant both "strike, hit," but also "kill." Gradually "hit" overtook "slay" in that meaning, leaving "slay" with the meaning "to kill." The original sense of "hit," however, is still around in the expression, "hit upon (something)." A noun version appeared in the late 1400s or early 1500s, derived from the verb. Forms of the word are still present in the North Germanic languages: Norwegian "hitte," which seems to now be archaic, Danish "hitte" and Swedish "hitta," both of which mean "find" (Get it? "Come upon, come into contact with"="find"), and Icelandic "hitta," which means "to meet."