[IronJack]

Churchill always believed that the doorway to Europe was "the soft underbelly" of Italy. As First Lord of the Admiralty in WWI, he was the driving force behind the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, and sought to redeem his reputation by repeating the campaign in WWII. Fortunately, Eisenhower squelched the idea or the Normandy invasion never would have come off.

Churchill was an incredible statesman, but not necessarily a brilliant military planner.

[Tallguy]

The main point of contention between the Americans & Britains after the US entry into the war was where to strike. French North Africa was initially chosen because of the need to secure the Mediterranean. But the argument began before the Germans were ejected from Tunisia as to where to strike next.

The US General Staff wanted to invade France in 1943. The Brits, far more conservative in their approach, wanted to wait for more favorable force ratios. The Sicily/Italian campaign began as a British gambit to tie delay preparations for a cross-channel invasion. They understood better than the Americans that we couldn’t do both in 1943.

We also need to remember that the U-boat menace wasn’t effectively countered until late in 1943. It would have been difficult to build up the necessary forces AND invade France until the U-boat Offensive was defeated.

[gandalftb]

Good points.

Eisenhower understood logistics and knew that only England provided a supply platform for what Eisenhower understood was going to be a long war across France.

The competing strategies of invasion through Vichy France, Italy, and Greece all lost out to Normandy because of resupply and refueling limitations of the Mediterranean Sea and the bottleneck of Gibraltar.

England as a launch point was a no-brainer to the Brit and American general staff.