Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [219]
Britain’s Aegean commitment was trifling in the grand scheme of the war, but represented a blow to national pride and prestige, precipitated by the personal decisions of the prime minister. Once more, he was obliged to confront the limitations of his own soldiers against the Germans—and the vulnerability of British forces without the Americans. John Kennedy described the operation as “a justifiable risk. [Maitland Wilson] could not know how strongly the Boche would resist.” But four years’ experience of making war against Hitler should have inoculated the prime minister and his generals against recklessness. Ultra intercepts warned London that the Luftwaffe was reinforcing the eastern Mediterranean, before British troops were committed. Churchill repeatedly deluded himself that boldness would of itself suffice to gain rewards. This might be so against an incompetent or feeble enemy, but was entirely mistaken against a supremely professional foe who always punished mistakes. The daring of the prime minister’s commitment was unmatched by the battlefield showing of those responsible for carrying it out. In the Aegean, as so often elsewhere, the speed of German responses to changing circumstances stood in stark contrast to faltering Allied initiatives.
Kennedy wrote that “the PM on paper has full professional backing for all that has been done.” He meant that the Chiefs of Staff and Maitland Wilson formally endorsed the prime minister’s commitments to the Aegean. In truth, however, almost all the higher commanders had allowed his wishes to prevail over their own better judgement. Brooke, unreasonably, joined the prime minister in blaming the Americans for failing to provide support: “CIGS feels that the war may have been lengthened801 by as much as six months by the American failure to realise the value of exploiting the whole Mediterranean situation and of supporting Turkey strongly enough to bring her into the war.” Yet why should the Americans have sought to save the British from the shipwreck of an adventure which they had always made it plain they did not believe in? There is, moreover, no reason to suppose that additional U.S. air support would have altered outcomes. Likewise, the British official historian seems mistaken802 in lamenting the diversion from the Aegean in the first days of the campaign of six Royal Navy fleet destroyers to escort battleships home to Britain. If the destroyers had remained, they would merely have provided the Luftwaffe with additional targets. Even had the British successfully seized Rhodes, it remains unlikely that Turkey would have entered the war, or that Turkish military assistance was worth much to the Allies.
Some of the same objections could be made to Churchill’s 1943 commitment to the Aegean as to his earlier Balkan foray in 1915. The Dardanelles campaign, on which he impaled his First World War reputation, was designed to open the Black Sea route to arm Russia. Yet, even had the passage been secured, the World War I Allies were chronically short of weapons for their own armies, and had next to none to spare for shipment to the Russians. Likewise in 1943: even if Turkey had joined the conflict its army would have been entirely dependent on Anglo-American weapons and equipment. It was proving difficult to supply the needs of Russian, U.S., British and French forces. As the Americans anticipated, Turkey would more likely have become a hungry mouth for the Allies to feed than a threat to German purposes in the Balkans.
Churchill bitterly described the Aegean campaign as the Germans’ first success since El Alamein. On November 21, he told his wife, Clementine, in a cable from North Africa: “Am still grieving over Leros etc803. It