I thought most of Churchill's disasters happened in WW1 (and you could argue that he's not the only culprit in them either). Was there any of them in WW2?
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Ordering the forces in North Africa to attack Rommel over the heads of the British generals because Ultra had intercepted messages that the German supply situation was dire. Turns out, Rommel was exaggerating his woes. AFAIK, Churchill was reading the originals, British intelligence community was more cautious. Sending British forces form North Africa to Greece also did not work out well in either place. Not sure if he had anything to do with the order to Crete not to render the airfields unusable because the German invasion was so sure to fail. Heck, Montgomery is credited with succeeding in North Africa because he wouldn't listen to Churchill.
Malaya was also his doing and this "Soft underbelly" of Europe thing was also part of his mental shenengians.
Ah the soft underbelly, going into the heart of Europe via the Italian peninsula... would anyone happen to know if Churchill flunked geography by change?
One could simply promise South Tyrol or Istria to Italy and voila new ally and free passage
There is a lot of hindsight in this argument... Attacking the enemy if you have an indication that the enemy suffers from a bad supply situation isn't really dumb. Of course you never know how bad the situation actually is. But just sitting around won't win a war anyway
Reinforcing Greece might had bad effects in the North African theater, but you need also to have a look on the grand strategy level here. Not reacting on a plea for help might lead to small countries threatened by Germany to simply surrender without a fight.
The invasion of Italy knocked Germany's most important ally out of the war rather quickly, helped to secure the mediterenean and opened another front which Germany needed to defend - I don't see why this was a bad plan. It actually worked out for the Allies...
While Gallipoli was really a weird case - basically everyone was sure that this will fail, even Churchill himself said that before WW I - his performance in WW II wasn't really bad IMHO. Britain managed to fight effectively in many different theaters, which is quite a feat for a rather small nation.
I mostly object to overruling the general of the theater. provide them with intelligence data, but leave the decision to them. If you feel their decisions are wrong, replace the generals. But micromanaging from the far-away capital whenever the mood strikes you, no, just no.
Valid point, but providing ineffective aid probably isn't very encouraging to other nations either.
From what I was led to believe, the plan was to attack Germany via Italy and coincidentally get to Germany before the Soviets did. If so, then it was a failure, and nicking as much of Europe as possible away from the Soviets would have been better achieved by an earlier invasion of France.
Don't know much about Gallipoli, in WWI, I believe Churchill was in part responsible for the defeat at the Coronels, ordering the admiral to attack, after defeat, claiming he expected the admiral to use the superior battleship against the Germans (HMS Canopus) but conveniently forgetting that Canopus was slower than the German ships and thus couldn't catch up with them.
I mean as compared to the Galactic Empire sure Britain is small since it could not cover completely one single planet... but as compared to other Terran Nations, only the US had an edge over them in 1940.
This is one of those historic quirks where different stories spanning decades all merge into a single and inaccurate combobulation.
British strategy in the 1941-42 period was essentially to isolate Germany economically (through the blockade) while building it's strategic bombardments in order to affect German military strength, while building the capability of British land forces, and secure continued naval access to the empire.
For Britain to remain in the war, it was vital to secure the Mediterranean and this meant knocking securing north Africa and knocking the major Mediterranean naval rival out of the war.
The concept of a continued allied presence in the Mediterranean had two purposes. The first was to maintain pressure, forcing the deployment of German forces in order to relieve the pressure on Normandy. The second purpose was to ensure an allied presence to prevent the Bolshevisation of Europe, and in particular to prevent the Bolshevisation of the eastern Mediterranean.
The concept of attacking Germany through the 'soft underbelly' is generally a carry over from WW1 strategy which was a consideration for ending the stalemate of the Western front.
An interesting paper on the topic is
CHURCHILL'S SOFT-UNDERBELLY APPROACH ONTO THEE EUROPEANCONTINENT - A MISSED OPPORTUNITY
BY
COLONEL JOHN P. LAWTON, INF
I've always thought that the logic of invading Italy for Britain should have been precisely that it wasn't soft.
If you're a limited land power trying to make yourself a nuisance then it's best to land somewhere where it's going to be hard for the enemy to dislodge you. Italy struck the sweet spot of being strategically valuable and also not making the invasion force into a sitting duck to a counterattack.
As I understand, Churchill's aborted fantasy was landing a major force in the Balkans.
If you're a limited land power trying to make yourself a nuisance then it's best to land somewhere where it's going to be hard for the enemy to dislodge you. Italy struck the sweet spot of being strategically valuable and also not making the invasion force into a sitting duck to a counterattack.
As I understand, Churchill's aborted fantasy was landing a major force in the Balkans.
Churchill's plan was to land a couple of divisions in the Balkans as allied presence would give them defacto control of of the area post war.
The side effect would have been that Hungary had already expressed interest in deserting to the Allies, but that was essentially impossible with Germany right there, so the offer was refused and leaked to the press, giving Hitler one more reason to occupy the country directly in the following months. Given Allied forces in the region, Hungary would almost certainly have changed sides at the drop of a hat. Apparently, a wild rumor circulated in the Hungarian army, expecting American parachutists to land at any moment to drive the Germans out. Romania and Bulgaria would probably have deserted the Axis at that point.
With Italy under attack, and the Balkans contested or lost to the Germans, that would stretch German manpower even further, and give the Allies boots on the ground in the Balkans, well ahead of the Soviets. Fantasy, maybe, but Churchill's idea did have a few solid positive points, along with the obvious problems.
It had some sense from strategical and geopolitical points of view, unlike early liberating France BTW, but I have no idea how the Allies would have supplied the major operation in Balkans from their main base in Britain, bearing in mind their actual problems in France, which is several times closer.