What Impact Did World War I Have On The British Military Strategy

After the devastating effects that World War I had on the British military and economy, the country favored more cautious strategies over frontal assault ones. Winston Churchill and his military leaders agreed that a peripheral strategy would be best suited to meet their needs for this world war. Their plan included major blockades of German supplies, targeting Germany’s southern allies first (i.e., Italy and North Africa), and allowing safe passage for shipping routes in the Mediterranean Sea (Matloff 684). This would also relieve pressure on the Soviets fighting on the Eastern Front and possibly allow opportunity for a subsequent front in the Balkans (Corrigan 397). Compared to the United States, Great Britain would launch an attack across the English Channel only as a “last blow against a Germany already in process of collapse” (Matloff 684).

military leaders reluctantly went along with Britain’s peripheral approach, thus starting Operation Torch in the fall of 1942. The plan involved an Allied attack sweeping through German forces in North Africa, tackling Italian forces in Sicily and finally taking out Germany’s ally by invading Italy. According to Matloff, General Marshall acknowledged the advantages of this operation which would strengthen Allied air power over Germany and make way for a better Allied shipping route in the Mediterranean (689). As reported by Kent Roberts Greenfield, Chief Historian for the Department of the Army in 1946, the coalition and collaboration between the United States and Great Britain during World War II was “an unprecedented achievement in the history of nation-states” (Greenfield 43). Without their fullest cooperation, and the unique relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt, the war would not have been conducted so