How did the British and the United States ever defeat the Axis in the West? Both countries were tied down in the Pacific fighting the imperial Japanese and supplying Stalin’s Red Army, which they feared wanted more than just the defeat of Hitler.

The two allies could not agree on where and when to launch an initial assault on the Germans and Italians. The Americans themselves were divided over whether to focus primarily on Japan, which had attacked America on December 7, 1941—or Germany, which had not. They were also fearful that the United States would end up fighting for the continuance of the British Empire, while the British were more afraid that the greater global resources of the United States—soon to be manifested in the war—would inevitably supplant England after the defeat of the common enemy.

If the British believed their greater experience and familiarity with military affairs should have allowed them to play a refined Athens to America’s muscular Rome, the Americans felt that, once again, the conniving Europeans had got themselves into a mess of destroying Western civilization and only the United States, with its well-supplied innumerable legions, could, for the second time in twenty-five years, bail them out. British generals believed that their sagacity and acumen should count far more than their less impressive manpower and resources, just as their brash American counterparts resented being lectured on what to do by those who,