Churchill at War (2024) s01e03 Episode Script

The "V for Victory" is really catching on.
Everyone over in Intelligence is pleased.
But, sir, you might want to
turn your hand the other way.
Why?
Well, sir,
that way has another connotation,
and it means, well, um
Out with it.
Um
Well?
Up your ass, sir.
Oh yes, I know that.
Rather the message we should be sending
Herr Hitler, don't you think?
I take your point, Prime Minister.
As you see here, in Morse code,
the V is three dots and a dash.
Dot, dot, dot, dash.
Very much like the first notes
of Beethoven's Fifth, sir.
We were thinking we could use that
at the beginning of broadcasts.
Da-da-da dum ♪
Yes.
Well, that's very good, Mr. Griffin.
And it's bloody German too.
Splash the V all over the country.
All over the world.
The V sign
is the symbol of the unconquerable will
of the occupied territories.
And a portent
of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny.
So long as the peoples of Europe
continue to refuse
all collaboration with the invader,
it is sure that his cause will perish
and that Europe will be liberated.
As the end
of the year 1940 approached,
we were alive.
There had been no invasion of the island.
Alone, we had defied the tyrant.
Britain, whom so many had counted out,
was still in the ring.
With a gasp of astonishment,
the subjugated state saw
that the stars still shone in the sky.
Hope burned anew
in the hearts of hundreds of millions.
But I had no lack of cares.
In those turbulent days of 1940,
Hitler is not lessening up
the pressure on Britain.
He has now got this war.
We are no less determined
to strike back until the British people
have rid themselves
of this criminal and his methods.
Hitler's not
just another would-be conqueror.
He's unique
in a thousand years of history.
He wants to destroy civilization
as people know it.
Since the fall of France,
Britain has been fighting alone
against the Nazis,
waiting for the rest of the world
to come and fight this enemy.
You have the Nazis, obviously, in Europe.
The Japanese, of course, in the Far East.
These battles are bloody,
and they're not even
necessarily going well.
As these losses of battles happen,
it's hard to keep people's morale up.
So strategically, there was
this enormous British jigsaw puzzle
that Churchill had to oversee.
I'm not afraid of the air.
I'm not afraid of invasion.
But I am anxious about the Atlantic.
Britain was dependent for its food,
for its raw materials, its weapons,
on imports from abroad.
Hitler and his navy saw an opportunity
to fill the seas around Britain
with enough submarines,
they could sink enough of those ships
that Britain would be
starved into surrender.
We know it will be hard.
We expect it will be long.
We shall strive to resist him
by land and sea.
Britain was basically fighting for time.
And it was fighting a war for survival.
Britain is still an empire,
so they have built up these reserves.
But now they are being spent.
We are determined
to persevere to the very end.
But if American assistance
is to play any part,
it must be available soon.
It wasn't all that long after World War I
that Hitler began
to make his moves in Europe,
and most Americans said,
"We're not gonna do it again."
"That's none of our business."
This is the environment
that FDR is dealing with.
It's not that
he himself is an isolationist,
but he knows that he can't just
drag the country, kicking and screaming,
towards something
they are not prepared to do.
The people's voice matters,
and the voice was loud and clear,
"We don't want to be involved."
And Roosevelt had to manage that,
and at the same time listen
to another voice that was equally as loud,
and that is, "Help!"
The Nazi masters of Germany
have made it clear that they intend
not only to dominate all life
and thought in their own country,
but also to dominate
the rest of the world.
Roosevelt begins
to look at ways of getting around
US isolation legislation.
I shall ask this Congress
for greatly increased
new appropriations and authorization.
Lend-Lease is really a brilliant
brainchild by Franklin Roosevelt.
He will lend or lease all of the material
that the British need
to go on fighting the Nazis,
not selling it to them.
They'll merely return
the goods and the ships
and airplanes and ammunition
when the war is over.
America ruthlessly
set terms for Lend-Lease.
Privately, Churchill says, "We're being,
you know, flayed to the bone."
It was wonderful what America did,
but also very costly for the UK.
They do not need manpower.
But they do need billions of dollars'
worth of the weapons of defense.
We must be the great arsenal of democracy.
He's telling
the American people,
the more they support their allies,
the less involvement
they will have directly.
It's the older version
of "No Boots on the Ground."
Adolf Hitler would say,
"Yes, the United States, you're neutral,
but you speak neutrality
with an English accent."
Give us your faith and your blessing.
And under Providence, all will be well.
Give us the tools,
and we will finish the job.
On January 10th, 1941,
a gentleman arrived to see me.
It was evident to me
that here was an envoy from the president
of supreme importance to our life.
Harry Hopkins is a personal advisor
to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
He provided him political advice.
He was a trusted agent.
Roosevelt sends Harry Hopkins
to find out several things.
Can the British take it?
Are they gonna stay in the war?
FDR had to be certain
the British would not flinch.
They discovered that
Hopkins has misgivings about Britain
because of the Empire,
has misgivings about Churchill
because he is seen as an imperialist.
And so everything is done to woo this man.
He loves glamorous, highborn women
and loves the whole
sort of high society thing.
Clementine makes sure
that the most delicious meals possible
are prepared for him.
Even amidst
wartime rationing, Churchill,
he made sure
he always had champagne to drink.
Clementine then introduces him
to her very, very beautiful
daughter-in-law, Pamela.
It was a campaign of seducing his mind,
seducing his emotions.
Taking him to places
where there's been bombings
and to meet the British people
and see how their spirit is so resilient.
Churchill takes him
to the Map Room.
He shows him top secret documents.
He fully takes Hopkins
into his confidence.
There he sat,
absolutely glowing with
refined comprehension of the cause.
It was to be the defeat,
ruin, and slaughter of Hitler.
I'm going to report to the president.
The British need our help.
They need it desperately.
They need it now.
And I'm sure they're going to get it.
The enormous advance
in the United States' opinion
has been largely influenced
by the conduct of Londoners
and of the men and women
in our provincial cities
in standing up to the enemy's bombardment.
Looking back upon
the unceasing tumult of the war,
I cannot recall any period
when its stresses
and the onset of so many problems
bore more directly on me
than the first half of 1941.
Had the enemy persisted,
the Battle of the Atlantic would have been
even more closely run than it was.
When the German attacks began to ease off,
Churchill must have realized
that Hitler was planning something else.
In 1941,
Hitler has a big decision to make.
Continue his onslaught
against the British,
try and knock them out of the war,
finish the job?
Or does he turn east to fulfil
what he believed was his destiny?
Our intelligence reports
revealed in much detail
the extensive German troop movement
towards and into the Balkan states.
To me, it illuminated the whole
eastern scene like a lightning flash.
I cast about for some means
of warning Stalin.
And by arousing him to his danger,
I made the message short and cryptic,
hoping that this very fact would arrest
his attention and make him ponder.
Stalin had been in an alliance,
or at least a non-aggression pact,
with Hitler from 1939,
and the two of them had divided up Poland.
Churchill wrote to Stalin.
Stalin did not reply.
He was very suspicious.
From his perspective, Churchill was trying
to goad him into conflict with Hitler.
The wicked are not always clever,
nor are dictators always right.
In June 1941, Hitler breaks
the pact that he had with the Soviet Union
and decides to invade.
The whole world was shocked
by the invasion of the Soviet Union.
They'd been working in cahoots
up to the hours before the invasion.
Hitler is a monster of wickedness,
insatiable in his lust
for blood and plunder.
Not content with having
all Europe under his heel,
so now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe
must launch his mechanized armies
upon new fields
of slaughter, pillage, and devastation.
On the 22nd of June, 1941,
nearly 3.3 million Germans
on a 2,000-mile front
invade the Soviet Union.
Within the first day,
almost the entire Soviet Air Force,
one of the largest air forces on Earth,
is destroyed.
In the first week,
they capture 350,000 men.
It is a colossal disaster.
And that then
provides Churchill with a dilemma.
To what extent
does he then support the Soviet Union?
He's been an arch critic
of the Soviet Union and of Stalin.
Churchill famously described
the importation of communism
as like the importation
of a plague bacillus.
If Hitler invaded Hell,
I would make, at least,
a favorable reference
to the Devil in the House of Commons.
Churchill immediately took the decision
to make a full alliance with Russia,
which was a complete about-turn for him.
While Churchill is
no fan of communism, by any means,
he recognizes the strategic importance
where "the enemy of my enemy
is my friend."
The Soviets had actually
begun evacuating Moscow.
So there was genuine concern the Soviets
would collapse and fall out of the war.
There are letters and letters
where Churchill is
begging Roosevelt for help.
He wants the heads of state to meet.
I brooded on the future battle.
I had the keenest desire
to meet Mr. Roosevelt,
with whom I corresponded
with increasing intimacy.
There was the question of arranging
a meeting between me and Roosevelt.
Somehow, somewhere, soon.
And then, in August 1941,
Roosevelt offers to meet secretly
at sea off two battleships.
Winston Churchill
and Franklin Delano Roosevelt
will meet now for the first time
face-to-face in Newfoundland.
They're crossing a war zone,
a dangerous thing to do at that time.
There are German submarines around,
but Churchill has to try and get America
in the war against Germany.
On the first day, on board their ship,
we're to have a private luncheon.
That's when I shall take his temperature
about getting into the war.
He gives every indication of wanting to,
but what will he actually do?
Churchill spent an extraordinary
amount of time planning the meeting.
He needed to find a way
to get to Roosevelt's heart,
to engage his emotions
in the struggle of the British.
From what I hear,
it's very hard to predict
what Roosevelt will do or not do.
Cartoonists in America
depict him as a sphinx.
Yes.
And it's up to me
to unravel his mysterious ways.
Now
you shall be Roosevelt,
and I shall be, uh well, me.
Welcome aboard, Prime Minister.
Yes, yes, let's dispense
with the pleasantries.
Now, Pug, let's try this.
Mr. President,
I would much rather have
a declaration of war
and no supplies for six months
than all the supplies you can muster
and no declaration.
All I can promise you
is to support you the best I can.
Oh, give me something more than that, Pug.
What would he really say?
Something about Congress.
Something about
their damn neutrality laws.
What would it take, Mr. President,
for you to declare war?
- As you know, Prime Minister
- Mmm.
- Congress declares war.
- Mmm.
And Congress is elected by the people.
And the people are not ready.
Damn it, Pug!
That is the most infernal reply.
I'm just giving you
the reply I think you'll get.
Yes, and you're very likely correct.
Well, I'm I'm sorry, Prime Minister.
Damnably evasive.
It's his bloody job
to change the people's minds.
I think he's trying to bring them along.
But these American isolationists,
they still believe
nothing is worse than a war.
I'll tell you what's worse.
Slavery is worse than war.
Dishonor is worse than war.
Does our dear friend Roosevelt
only follow public opinion?
Or does he form it?
Churchill goes out
to that meeting incredibly hopeful.
To Churchill, the fact that the President
has requested this meeting is a signal
that America and the White House is about
to make some really significant shift.
For Churchill, it's really about
sizing up Roosevelt as a person.
These were politicians,
remember? They needed to know each other.
They worked by feel. They worked in rooms.
And so, being with each other
was a way for both men to understand
the character and resilience of the other.
No lover ever studied
every whim of his mistress
as I did those of President Roosevelt.
It's essential that we state
the aims of this war.
What are we fighting for?
When you say "we",
it almost makes me feel like you might
America is neutral,
and it's going to stay that way.
Even if I try to chase Congress,
they would no doubt
argue about it for months.
Mmm.
But we must spell out what we stand for.
Freedom.
Freedom from fear, freedom from want.
Freedom of religion, and of course,
freedom of self-determination
for all peoples.
Self-determination, of course.
Er, but we should discuss what that means.
You know what that means.
We can't say we're for democracy
and cling to colonies
when this is all over.
Hmm.
I shall have my staff draw up some ideas
that I'm sure will align with yours.
Splendid.
What Churchill hoped was
that this would, in fact, be the moment
where America came into the war.
That, of course, didn't happen.
Now, do tell me
how you slipped away in secret.
It must be quite the story.
As far as
the American press knows,
I'm on a fishing trip
on the presidential yacht.
Mm?
Mm.
When he's there, what Roosevelt
talks about is the Atlantic Charter.
The Atlantic Charter
was a statement
that the forces of democracy
were working together
to stand against
the forces of dictatorship.
It was about human rights.
Onward Christian soldiers
Marching ♪
When I looked upon
that densely packed congregation
of fighting men of the same language,
of the same faith,
of the same fundamental laws
and the same ideals,
it swept across me
that here was the only hope,
but also the sure hope
of saving the world
from measureless degradation.
Churchill sees that
he has to embrace
this initiative from the President,
even though, of course,
it raises potential question marks
about the future of the British Empire.
So Churchill leaves
the Atlantic Charter meeting
on one level quite disappointed.
America cannot honorably stay out.
If 1942 opens with Russia knocked out
and Britain left again alone,
all kinds of dangers may arise.
America is moving towards war,
but it is still far too slow for Churchill
and for the British government.
Think about the fall of 1941.
Churchill and Roosevelt meet at sea.
They issue this grand statement.
They get along wonderfully.
And then what?
Churchill's still fighting
a war by himself.
And the United States
is still on its side of the Atlantic.
And then history intervened.
Citizens
You know, what we need to do
is liberate Libya first
- Japan's attacks on American naval bases
- and the rest will follow.
were announced by President Roosevelt
in a statement
from the White House tonight.
The first statement said
that the naval base of Pearl Harbor
and other naval and military targets
in the chief Hawaiian island of Oahu
had been attacked from the air.
Did I hear that right?
There was an attack
on America in the Pacific?
If that's true
Sawyers!
Sawyers!
Will you come in here, please?
Did you have the BBC on in the kitchen?
- Uh, yes, sir. We always listen.
- Where did the Japanese attack?
Uh, it's an American naval base
in Hawaii, sir.
- Pearl Harbor?
- That's it.
I shall declare war on Japan at once.
Winston, you can't declare war
based on a radio report.
You need some kind of confirmation.
You're the American Ambassador, Gil.
Get me some bloody confirmation.
Give me a moment.
The Americans are in it now.
Winston
a friend would like to speak to you.
Mr. President,
what's all this I hear about Japan?
I ask
that the Congress declare
that since the unprovoked
and dastardly attack,
a state of war has existed
between the United States
and the Japanese Empire.
Churchill's a great strategist,
and he sees the situation
very clearly at that exact moment.
He knows that America is now
not only at war against Japan,
but in a much larger sense,
America has been dragged into
this global conflict,
which is now the Second World War,
whether it likes it or not.
The United States
is like a gigantic boiler.
Once the fire is lighted under it,
there is no limit
to the power it can generate.
Being saturated and satiated
with emotion and sensation,
I went to bed and slept
the sleep of the saved and thankful.
A date which will live in infamy.
By the end of the month
of December, Churchill is in Washington
to decide the grand strategy making
of the whole war.
Roosevelt invited Churchill to stay
at the White House for that Christmas.
Churchill's presence
in the White House is felt immediately.
Churchill was not quite
Eleanor's cup of tea stylistically.
You know, he came out
in a bathrobe, and little pink legs,
and was harassing
harassing Roosevelt,
and Eleanor Roosevelt,
trying to get something done.
She felt like here was this guy
coming in, crashing into the White House
with absolutely no decorum,
allowing the President to see him naked
while he took a bath
and drinking from morning till night.
He had
a rhinocerine capacity for alcohol.
One of his contemporaries said
Churchill couldn't have been an alcoholic
because no alcoholic
could have drunk that much.
I must confess
that my mind had preserved
but a vague impression of these days.
Churchill arrives
with a full staff,
and he takes over
the second floor of the White House.
He moves into the Rose Suite,
and the Monroe Room
is emptied of furniture,
and they set up the Map Room.
Eleanor said, "It's like two little boys
playing with their maps."
But FDR wanted the same thing,
and actually, this ultimately led to
the Map Room in the White House.
These two men genuinely found
a kind of pleasure in each other's company
that made the rough places of diplomacy
and war-making a little smoother.
It was a remarkable season.
I formed a very strong
affection for this formidable politician
who had imposed his will
for nearly ten years
upon the American scene,
and whose heart seemed to respond to many
of the impulses that stirred my own.
On the 26th of December, 1941,
Churchill addressed Congress,
which was a tremendous honor.
He is only the third
non-American citizen
to be invited to make an address
to the joint session of Congress.
He's actually quite nervous about this.
Churchill needed
to convince the Americans
to adopt the Germany First policy
and fight a two-front war.
There are many people
in the United States going,
"Germany didn't bomb us,
Japan did. We should go get them."
The Germany First policy will declare,
"Germany's the greater threat."
I feel greatly honored
that you should have invited me
to enter the United States Senate Chamber.
Uh, I cannot help for reflecting
that if my father had been American
and my mother British
instead of the other way around,
I might have got here on my own.
Churchill used
one of the greatest speeches of his career
to try to enthuse the American people
into supporting this war.
Now that our two considerable nations,
each in perfect unity,
have joined all their life energies
in a common resolve,
a new scene opens
upon which a steady light
will glow and brighten.
Many people have been astonished
that Japan should, in a single day,
have plunged into war
against the United States
and the British Empire.
What kind of a people
do they think we are?
Is it possible they do not realize
that we shall never cease
to persevere against them
until they have been taught a lesson
which they and the world
will never forget?
Winston Churchill's language
helps break down the isolationism
of the United States.
Churchill levels
with the American people,
and this honesty, I think, is something
that allows people to trust him.
I think America loved Churchill
more than they loved England.
People buy off on the person
long before they buy off on the cause.
To me, the best tidings of all
is that the United States,
united as never before,
has drawn the sword for freedom
and cast away the scabbard.
The American entry
into the war certainly didn't change
the course of the war overnight.
You've got a very militaristic Japan
in the Far East.
You've also got Britain fighting
in North Africa and the Middle East.
Week by week,
the scale of this massacre grew.
This was one of the heaviest blows
I can recall during the war.
Churchill comes back to Washington
in June of 1942
for the second Washington Conference
with Roosevelt.
Churchill is advocating
to strike the Axis powers
by going through North Africa
and then through Italy
for a Mediterranean First strategy
in what he hopes will be a string
of quick victories to restore morale
after the losses that they've suffered.
Churchill was actually sitting
in the Oval Office
when he got the news
of the fall of Tobruk,
that 30,000 men were just captured,
and it was handed to him by FDR.
Tobruk has fallen,
the great fortress in North Africa.
There's this moment
where Churchill's face collapsed in a way
that evoked a hugely sympathetic reaction
from President Roosevelt,
and he said simply,
"What can we do to help?"
At the same time,
Stalin is also in a dire situation.
The Germans were still advancing
on all fronts in Stalingrad.
Some would say
that to defeat Germany,
Britain gave time,
America gave money,
and Russia gave blood.
Now Stalin wanted
an opening of a second front in France
as soon as possible because
that would take pressure off the Red Army.
The Soviet Union says
the fastest way to end the war
is to land in Europe and go to Berlin.
There are all of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
military advisors who say,
"The war ends fastest
when we go by the direct route."
But Roosevelt ruled
against his own generals.
He agreed with Churchill and
what became the North African Operation.
Another important aspect
of the conference
is the early discussions
regarding the Manhattan Project,
the nuclear project.
Churchill loved everything to do with
the way in which technology
could make the army and navy better.
Even before Albert Einstein was thinking
about nuclear technology,
Winston Churchill was writing articles
about how a single bomb
could be used to devastate an entire city.
Death stands at attention,
obedient, expectant
ready to shear away the peoples en masse.
Ready, if called upon,
to pulverize without hope of repair
what is left of civilization.
Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange
be found to possess a secret power
to destroy a township at a stroke?
British government-employed scientists
are exploring
that an atomic bomb is feasible.
Britain is ahead of the United States,
but realize they can't do it on their own,
and they seek partnership
with the Americans.
Churchill and Roosevelt
see very much eye to eye.
And both men knew that whichever side
was the first to be able to get this bomb
would win the war.
They say,
"We need to pool our resources."
Germany may have started down this road,
and it's a race.
So the intellectual spadework and talent
that the Brits have put into it
gets subsumed by the Manhattan Project.
Churchill and Roosevelt agreed
that they would share the technology
and neither side would deploy the weapon
without consulting the other.
The significance of all that is
the proximity of the alliance
at that point uh, the intimacy of it.
And for England,
who has many other concerns,
it now largely hands things off
to the United States.
In November 1942,
the Mediterranean First strategy started.
Operation Torch
in North Africa took place,
which saw the Germans withdraw westwards.
As Churchill said,
North Africa might not have been
the beginning of the end,
but it was the end of the beginning.
We must decide
at the earliest moment
the best way of attacking Germany
in Europe with all possible force in 1943.
They decide to meet in Casablanca,
which is just on the doorstep of where
all the action has been in North Africa.
Having Roosevelt and Churchill
in North Africa was a sign
that the Allies
were not to be trifled with.
Stalin is not at Casablanca.
What he's doing from a distance
is continuing to apply
as much pressure as possible
for a second front in Western Europe
as quickly as possible.
An attempt
to cross the Channel in 1943
would have led to a bloody defeat
of the first magnitude.
Only by landing in Sicily and Italy
could we engage the enemy on a large scale
and tear down the weaker,
at least, of the Axis partners.
Churchill continued to argue
for more peripheral operations.
Anything, really, to avoid
a potential cataclysm across the Channel.
Several senior
American strategists had severe doubts
about Winston Churchill's
strategic vision.
And it's easy to understand why.
Churchill had been responsible
for the disaster at Gallipoli.
He had not got a great reputation,
frankly, as a strategist.
That's not just American generals.
Quite a lot of British generals
felt exactly the same way.
But Winston Churchill is
in the "believing is seeing" business.
He creates an image of the future
other people can't see.
Part of what leaders do is take people
where they can't go on their own.
Dear Clemmie, it is
in every respect as I wished and proposed.
I have seen the President constantly,
and we have had
nearly all our meals together.
We've won in North Africa,
so, of course, let's go across to Sicily.
I think that
Churchill was quite persuasive.
The strategic decisions
of the first year or two of the joint war
represented a high watermark
for Churchill's influence.
So for now,
Roosevelt sides with Churchill.
At the end of the Casablanca Conference,
Churchill persuades Roosevelt
to come with him
and travel out to the city of Marrakesh.
The President and I
talked a great deal of shop,
but also touched on lighter matters,
enjoying a wonderful sunset
on the snows of the Atlas.
Imagine standing in that tower
with the sun setting,
with the President of the United States
and the Prime Minister of Great Britain,
who are marshalling
the forces of democracy
against the Third Reich.
They're really, in many ways,
at the pinnacle,
not just of temporal power,
but the pinnacle of their friendship,
after which things
would get more complicated.
Churchill is very interested
in fighting on the Mediterranean
to protect his colonial empire.
For Winston Churchill,
that would keep the Suez open
so that we can get to our colonies.
The Mediterranean
was the main artery
in the communications
of the British Empire.
At that time,
the Japanese were shelling Calcutta,
the capital of Bengal,
and they had submarines
in the Bay of Bengal.
At the same time, a gigantic typhoon hit.
The results were
incredibly low food stocks,
and there were
multiple warnings about this
from even the British authorities in India
that food assistance was needed.
The places where we had in
the past bought rice to alleviate famine,
including Malaya and Burma, Thailand,
were all under the control
of the Japanese.
The Japanese navy was there.
So it became tremendously difficult
to bring rice in from outside India.
They're asking Britain,
"Can you support us?"
"Can you send us wheat,
can you send support?"
And Britain's response
is effectively, "No."
Churchill didn't cause the famine,
but he could've prevented it
by that decision to redistribute
surplus food from elsewhere to India.
Canada, which was also part
of the British Commonwealth,
offered to send food to India
and was stopped by Churchill.
And remember, these are
It's really important,
these are British subjects.
These are the responsibility of Britain.
Churchill thought priority had to be given
to the troops who were fighting
to protect the Empire.
Because if the Japanese had broken through
and captured India,
that could have led to something
like 50 million Indian deaths.
Churchill's number one priority
should have been to preserve
the sovereignty and integrity
of Britain and its Empire.
The failure to do so cost, it's believed,
around three million lives in Bengal.
Which, at a time when Britain
was fighting this existential war
to defeat Nazis
who were killing people in the millions,
it's a really problematic part
of the legacy.
If we wish
to abridge the slaughter
and ruin which this war is spreading,
we cannot afford to relax
a single fiber of our being.
In the summer of 1943,
180,000 allies are gonna land
using 2,000 landing craft
on the southern
and eastern side of Sicily.
In the next month and a half,
they're gonna capture the island.
Although Italy surrenders,
the Germans will give a grudging defense,
going all the way
up the Italian peninsula,
and it will cost lives and time.
Churchill has been focusing
on Italy, and it's not going well.
Personally,
I feel that we might
give Hitler the chance
of a startling comeback.
And so it's decided that the three powers,
Stalin, FDR, and Churchill, need to meet.
The Tehran Conference, which will be
the first time that the Big Three meet.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Winston Churchill,
and Joseph Stalin will all get together.
Three of the most powerful people
in the world will meet face-to-face.
This is an enormous undertaking.
It was essential that the Big Three
coordinate major attacks in the East
as well as the West to ensure that
the Nazis were fighting on two fronts.
Roosevelt hoped to use Tehran
to get on better terms with Stalin.
It was something
that Churchill slightly resented,
because he himself, of course, had
a wonderful working relationship with FDR.
And he feared that there might be
a danger to the British Empire
in the Americans and Russians
becoming too close to one another.
Meanwhile, Roosevelt's looking
at the long-term future,
where he knows that
the British stock is falling day by day,
and the Soviet stock is rising.
As Britain literally
is using the last of its global wealth
and resources to stay in the war,
it becomes very clear that the future
is gonna be about the Soviet Union
and the United States.
The chill of the autumn of 1943
was both literal and figurative
for Roosevelt and Churchill.
Now, Winston, don't be mad
at what I'm going to do.
As a result, Churchill feels himself being
pushed off the top table a little bit.
Ah!
Marshal Stalin, please join us.
There I sat with
the great Russian bear on one side of me
with paws outstretched,
and on the other side
sat the great American buffalo.
And between the two
sat the poor little English donkey,
who was the only one,
the only one of the three,
who knew the right way home.
First of all, we need
a certain date for the invasion of France.
You have promised me May of 1944.
Does that hold?
Certainly. That is our aim.
But we have unfinished business
in the Mediterranean,
and there are other potential uses
of resources to discuss
before the invasion.
Further thrusts north in Italy,
for instance.
This will dilute
the second front you've promised me.
Well,
I respectfully disagree, Marshal Stalin.
It will enhance our position
and will only delay Overlord
by a month or two.
This is unacceptable.
Let's put this to rest.
I agree with Marshal Stalin.
We shall concentrate
our resources in France.
Agreed?
I don't think
that would be expedient, Franklin.
I did not hear the Prime Minister.
Perhaps he had
too much champagne with lunch.
Are we agreed, Winston?
Agreed, but I want it noted on the record.
Apparently, he missed his nap too.
In order to make Stalin
somebody that can trust him,
FDR will make jokes at Churchill's expense
and poke fun at him,
and when Stalin
is poking fun at Churchill,
FDR will laugh.
It really is a schoolyard dynamic.
Mr. President.
When this war is won,
we must make sure
that Germany does not rise again
for a third time.
I propose that 50,000
of the German General Staff
be rounded up and shot immediately.
What? This is outrageous!
Outrageous, but necessary.
Great Britain would never condone
nor participate in such atrocities.
Have no illusion, Marshal Stalin,
the British public
will never tolerate mass executions.
I still say 50,000 must be liquidated.
Allow me to mediate.
I propose a compromise.
That we only execute
49,000.
I would rather be taken out
and shot myself than sully mine own
and my country's honor
by such base infamy.
If my shirt were taken off now,
it would be seen that my belly is sore
from crawling to that man.
I do it for the good of the country
and for no other reason.
It's really Mean Girls
meets C-SPAN, right?
It's harsh. It's harsh.
Winston Churchill was iced out
of the cool kids' table at Tehran.
My darling,
the atmosphere at mealtimes is genial,
but the triangular conferences
are grim and baffling.
Churchill's still doing his best
to help kind of guide things,
but increasingly,
Churchill and Stalin start falling out
and not seeing eye to eye.
FDR is starting
to get into a situation
where his interests and Churchill's
interests are not completely aligned.
And he's got to placate Stalin,
who desperately wants FDR and Churchill
to open up another front of war.
This starts a new phase of World War II.
There's a feeling that Britain
has moved in this moment
from a great imperial power
to an adjacent one.
To Foreign Secretary,
our present plans for 1944
seem open to very grave defects.
Both the Americans
and the Russians
are now very firmly of the view
that a date must be set now
for the second front in France
and that that must take clear priority
over all other theaters.
Churchill has been demurring
and deferring as long as he can.
He's also very wary of the losses
that come with a cross-Channel invasion.
And he doesn't want to be responsible
for something like that.
This is much
the greatest thing we have ever attempted,
and I am not satisfied that we have yet
taken the measures necessary
to give it every chance of success.
Winston Churchill is wary
of a landing directly into Europe.
This one-time Herculean effort
is going to be concentrated
on a 50-mile coastline in France.
And if that fails,
the war is set back for two years,
if not a failure altogether.
Why would we risk that?
When I think of the beaches of Normandy,
choked with the flower
of American and British youth
and when in my mind's eye
I see the tides
running red with their blood,
I have my doubts.
I have my doubts.