South-East Europe in British War Strategy, 1941–5

Abstract

The Balkan campaign of 1941, though strongly condemned after the event by most military experts, left the British convinced that they would return to South-East Europe one day. This belief persisted even after the Quebec conference of 1943 had demonstrated the determination of Britain’s closest and most powerful ally, the United States, to prevent any serious Anglo-American commitment in the area, and the Teheran conference had shown the even stronger determination of Russia to exclude the British so far as possible. At the very least, it lived on in the mind of Churchill who, whatever the scepticism of his own military advisers, and even though he had formally accepted strategic decisions which seemed to rule out any such return, still believed that the unexpected might happen, the opportunity might offer itself, to be seized and exploited eagerly.