All this was congenial enough to Roosevelt, who now suggested that Stalin’s suggestion of invading southern France two months before D-day should be examined by the military experts. Stalin added:
. . the experience gained by the Soviets during the last two years of campaigning was that a big offensive, if undertaken from only one direction, rarely yielded results. The better course was to launch offensives from two or more directions simultaneously. . . He suggested that this principle might well be applied to the problem under discussion.’’
Thus, to the surprise of both Americans and British, Stalin had placed all the weight of the Soviet Union and his own formidable personality behind the American strategy of concentrating on "Overlord’’ and abjuring wider commitments in the Mediterranean and Aegean. Churchill, however, did not agree with them and he resorted to bluster about the size of British-Empire forces in the Mediterranean area:
"... he did not disagree in principle with Marshal Stalin. The suggestions he [Churchill] had made for action in Yugoslavia and in respect of Turkey did not, in his view, conflict in any way with that general conception. At the same time, he wished it to be placed on record that he could not in any circumstances agree to sacriflce the activities of the armies in the Mediterranean, which included 20 British and British-controlled divisions, merely in order to keep the exact date of the 1st May for 'Overlord’ . . .’’
World History
