The Dodecanese Campaign: The History of Nazi Germany’s Last Major Victory in World War II

Summary

By mid-1943, British leaders, particularly Churchill, believed that while the defeat of Germany and Italy were important, victory should not be achieved at the expense of ceding control of post-war Europe to the Soviets. What went unsaid was that Churchill’s goal was British control over the Mediterranean, and his insistence on using Allied resources in the Mediterranean and working to block Russian gains even while the war was still in progress caused some of the most vituperative exchanges between Britain and America. At one point, Churchill even began to actively consider pursuing the war in the Mediterranean independently and without American support. The Chief of the British Imperial General Staff General Sir Alan Brooke, normally one of Churchill’s most ardent supporters, became concerned that his obsession with the Mediterranean was driving the prime minister beyond rational action: “I am slowly becoming convinced that in his old age Winston is becoming less and less well balanced!"[1]

Nowhere were these differences more clearly exposed than during the Dodecanese Campaign, a British attempt to seize islands in the Aegean during the fall and winter of 1943. The campaign in the Aegean brought Anglo-American relations to their lowest point during the war, with the British feeling let down and perhaps even betrayed by their American allies, while the Americans believed the Aegean was relatively unimportant in the overall strategic context of the war and a potential drain on resources that would be better used elsewhere. The Dodecanese Campaign was the tragic outcome of the fundamental differences of opinion and approach between allies who otherwise worked closely and in harmony, and though nobody knew it at the time, it marked one of the last major victories for German forces who had been forced to retreat in every other theater of operations.