Lets get realistic here. That "coward" was a decorated WWI veteran.
The NAZIs were winning the war until the U.S. came in. Without U.S. assistance, the Brits would have been done, and the Russians very likely would not have been able to hold out.
I believe Hitler lost it later in the war, because he had been so right early on. His biggest mistake was believing the war in the West was over after Dunkirk. He expected the Brits to come the the negotiating table. So did most of the Brits.
Hitler got lucky, or was a genius, early in the war. Then he believed he was always smarter than his professional generals. It cost him a lot later on.
It was Churchill who through the wrench in the works. Churchill's major strategy to win the war, was to get the Americans into it.
through the wrench should be threw the wrench
Of course he was a coward in WWII. He was certainly no genius, other than in a political sense.
Hitler guessed right about how much he could push, early on, until he got to his boneheaded error at Dunkirk. His generals wanted to close the bag, and he lost his nerve. Had he agreed with his generals, the British would have been done, and the Germans could have wrapped up things in N Africa, taken the Suez Canal, and had an ample supply of oil from the Middle East. Again, he didn't understand strategy or tactics.
Churchill wasn't going to make a deal, but a defeat at Dunkirk and loss of the army might very well have finished him off, politically. No UK, no US staging area for a second front.
After Dunkirk, instead of putting the neeeded resources into the N Africa campaign, Hitler began Barbarossa. Yeah, that's the mark of a genius, early on. Let's get realistic here.