From D-Day to Victory
The final years of the war — D-Day, the alliance with America and the Soviet Union, and the bittersweet end of Churchill's wartime leadership.
Managing the Grand Alliance
Churchill's most important wartime role beyond 1941 was managing the alliance with the United States and the Soviet Union. His relationship with Franklin Roosevelt was genuinely warm but unequal — Britain was the junior partner, increasingly dependent on American industrial and military power.
His relationship with Stalin was transactional. Churchill loathed communism but recognized that the Soviet Union was bearing the brunt of the fighting. 'If Hitler invaded Hell,' Churchill reportedly said, 'I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.'
At conferences in Tehran (1943) and Yalta (1945), the postwar order was shaped. Churchill fought to maintain British influence but was increasingly overshadowed by the two emerging superpowers.
