The Second Front

Ever since the German invasion of his country in 1941, Stalin had been asking his western Allies, Britain and the United States, to launch an invasion by sea of German-occupied France. The invasion of France, called at the time 'the Second Front', would force the Germans to transfer some of their 3 million troops from Russia to France. This would weaken the German forces and so help the Russians in their struggle to drive the Germans back.

Churchill agreed in principle with the idea of an attack on France, but insisted that the British and Americans first attack Italy. Churchill described Italy as the 'soft underbelly of the Axis' and argued that the Germans would have to take troops from France to stop the Allies' advance in Italy. The Italian campaign did, in fact, tie down 25 German divisions (about 400,000 troops). This would make the attack on France easier when it came because there would be fewer German troops in France.

Stalin was not pleased with this decision since it caused a long delay in the opening of the Second Front and meant that the Russians would continue to suffer terrible casualties. He suspected that Churchill and Roosevelt delayed the Second Front because of their hostility to the Soviet Union's Communist system. He thought they wanted to see his country weakened further before helping out with an attack on France.

Neil Demarco: The era of the Second World War; Oxford University Press, 1993/2000, page 44