Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [193]
On February 13, 1943, when it was still hoped that the North African campaign could be wound up within a month, Churchill was exasperated to hear that the Sicilian landing could not take place before July. He cabled Hopkins in Washington: “I think it is an awful thing that in April, May and June, not a single American or British soldier will be killing a single German or Italian soldier while the Russians are chasing 185 divisions around.” He, like the British people, was acutely conscious of the Russians’ losses and—increasingly—of their victories in the Caucasus, at Kharkov, and at Stalingrad. He cabled Stalin constantly about the progress of the RAF’s bomber offensive, and assured him mendaciously that the French invasion plan was being “kept alive from week to week.” When the Chiefs of Staff asked him to press Moscow for information about Russian military plans, he demurred: “I feel so conscious of the poor contribution the British and American armies are making … that I should not be prepared to court the certain rebuff which would attend a request for information.” In a flush of impatience, he asked his Chiefs if the British could launch Husky, as the Sicily operation was now code-named, on their own. No was the firm reply. But in asking the question, Churchill discredited American suspicions that he was reluctant for his soldiers to fight.
February’s defeat at the Kasserine Pass, in Tunisia, where a German thrust drove back in a rout superior U.S. forces, had no strategic significance. Within days, Eisenhower’s troops regrouped and regained the lost ground. But it dealt a decisive blow to hopes of an early end of the campaign. On February 27, Alexander reported on the state of U.S. forces and the three French divisions, mostly colonial troops, now joining the campaign: “Americans require experience717 and French require arms … Hate to disappoint you, but final victory in North Africa is not (repeat not) just around the corner.”
It was a perverse feature of the war that while the British people showed fervent admiration for Russian achievements, they seldom displayed the same generosity towards Americans. The Grand Alliance spawned a host of Anglo-Soviet friendship groups in Britain, but few Anglo-American ones. A Home Intelligence report of January 14, 1943, declared: “At the time of Pearl Harbor, public interest in the US received a momentary stimulus which soon declined and has (in marked contrast to the attitude to Russia and things Russian) remained low ever since.” When news of the Kasserine battle was released in Britain, Violet Bonham Carter recorded in her diary a friend’s story of meeting a vegetable seller in Covent Garden who said: “Good news today, sir!”718 “Have the Russians done well?” “No—the Americans have got the knock.” This, asserted Bonham Carter, represented “the universal reaction” to news of the reverse that had befallen Eisenhower’s army. A best-selling novel of the time was How Green Was My Valley. Attlee jested unkindly that Alexander in North Africa was now writing a sequel, How Green Is My Ally.719 Churchill deleted from a draft of his memoirs a February letter to the king, in which he wrote: “The enemy make a great mistake720 if they think that all the troops we have there are in the same green state as are our United States friends.” Americans were irked to read the findings of a Gallup poll that asked British people which ally was making the greatest contribution to winning the war. Some 50 percent answered721 “Russia;” 42 percent “Britain;” 5 percent “China;” and just 3 percent “the United States.”
The British knew that the war was a long way from ending, and were resigned to that prospect. But after more than three years of bombardment, privation and defeats, weariness had set in. It is hard to overstate the impact of the blackout on domestic morale. Year after year, throughout the hours of darkness the gloom of Britain’s cities was relieved by no visible chink of light.