Dan Snow's History Hit - THE LEADERS: Roosevelt

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

How instrumental was Roosevelt in the Allied victory? He'd guided America through the Great Depression, he changed American society and his post-war vision shaped the world we see today. He knew WWII would be won through alliances, not bloodshed and America's entry into the war changed the game completely.To examine how and why, Dan is joined by Dr Graham Cross from Manchester Metropolitan University and Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrews, Phillips O'Brien as they look at Roosevelt's political career and his biggest wartime decisions.Produced and edited by Dougal PatmorePhillip's book 'The Strategists' is available now.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail].

In the last days of the Second World War, and incidentally, the last days of his life, Franklin D. Roosevelt imagined his ideal post-war world. It would be run by what he called the Four Policemen. That was the US, the Soviet Union, Britain, and China. And they would operate through the United Nations. Tariffs, which had done so much harm during the Great Depression, they'd be lowered. International trade encouraged. Currencies would be supported by an international monetary fund. There would be a world bank providing

investment for post-war reconstruction. The dream he had that war itself could be banished by resolving disputes peacefully through the United Nations did not entirely come to pass. But the ambitious experiment in international architecture did contribute to creating a globalised world, the world we recognise today with a web of international agreements and rules, and that was a world that saw an explosion of trade and travel and exchange and wealth creation. This is the rules-based international order, an order that many people today feel is under threat, a reminder that in history, nothing is permanent. This is the last episode of The Leaders on Dan Snow's History. We've been examining the era-defining decisions of the six men at the centre of World War II.

In this episode, we're going to finish up by looking at Roosevelt, whose entry into the war changed the game entirely and shaped the world as we know it today. He's the man who, well, before the war changed the game entirely and shaped the world as we know it today. He's the man who, well before the war began, he guided America through the Great Depression. He changed American society. He lifted himself from a wheelchair to lift the nation from its knees, as one biographer put it. He's the warlord who knew instinctively that this greatest of industrial conflicts would be won through alliances, collaboration. Once again, I'm joined by Professor Phillips O'Brien, author of The Strategists, to explore Roosevelt's wartime decision-making. And we'll also hear from Dr. Graham Cross, a senior lecturer in American history from Manchester Metropolitan University.

He's going to give us a better understanding of how Roosevelt's early life and career influenced his strategic vision. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30th, 1882, into just incredible wealth and privilege. His father, James Roosevelt, and his mother, Sarah Ann Delano, both came from wealthy, old-school New York families. Really, they were as close as you come to aristocracy in the United States of America in the late 19th century. Roosevelt's outlook, his career path, well, like all of us, it was shaped by his early life. He inherited his politics from his dad. He was a Democrat, despite admiration for his very famous Republican cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, who would become president at the beginning of the 20th century.

He was brought up in an international bubble, in numerous trips to Europe. He was charming. Some would say he's manipulative. One early interest, one early fascination, really, that would be key to the man that Roosevelt would become, was that he developed an abiding love of ships and the sea and naval history. Sensible man. Here's Dr. Graham Cross. We sometimes impose these things after the event, but it seems like he did have a sort of fascination with boats and the sea. And

that was, I suppose, very much in keeping with the spirit of the age. I mean, it comes from his family. His mother's side, the Delanos, had connections with world trade and sailing and such like. So he definitely has a connection and interest there. And then they holiday each season in the summer in Campobello and they take yachts out onto the water there. He's a very accomplished sailor actually during his early life. He learns those things. So he's a natural when it comes to that sort of thing. And also he has his famous relative, Theodore Roosevelt, who is assistant secretary of the Navy, like he would become in Wilson's administration,

who is all about the Navy and expanding the Navy and using the Navy to project American power around the globe, much like many other empires were doing at the time, Britain, France, and such on. Roosevelt's views on naval power took shape even as a teenager when he read the works of naval historian and strategist Alfred Mahan. Mahan believed that in peace and in war, a nation's greatness was inextricably linked with control of the sea. And to achieve this, nations ought to build vast fleets of ever more powerful battleships that could engage

in a decisive battle for control of the waves. If Mahan was the high priest of the battleship, Roosevelt was happy to become his disciple. He gets Mahan's book, The Role of Sea Power in History for Christmas, and then gets The Role of the Interest of America in Sea Power for his following birthday. So when he's 15, 16, he reads both of those books, and his mother says that he practically memorized the books. And he later tells his wife, Eleanor, that they were very illuminating for him as well. So he's definitely a disciple of Mayen, but it's important to realize about Roosevelt that he's not what you would call an intellectual thinker. He's not a deep reflective type. He's more of a practical learner. He learns

through his experiences and learns through speaking to people, having conversations with people, and actually struck up a correspondence with Mayen when he was assistant secretary of the Navy a couple of years as well. And he had plenty of those experiences, didn't he? Because he also had a sort of European dimension to his upbringing as well. Yes. He toured Europe many times. They spent their summers at health spas in Bad Neumayr in Germany. His father had a fairly serious heart condition that limited his life, political activities and community activities later in life. And they spent a lot of time taking the cure at spas in Germany. And he had at at that time, a conversational German, actually. So he certainly came to Europe several times. Did those trips to Europe make him what we might call a globalist? Was he principally interested

in the American interest growing up, as this enthusiasm for Mahan seems just? Or was he thinking about, well, nascent globalism, internationalism, which was also a great current of the time? Roosevelt's an interesting character when it comes to that because it's certainly the age of increasing American tourism and connection around the world. And Roosevelt is part of that with his travel. He's incredibly well-travelled.

He's got a privileged upbringing, so his family can afford to take him on these holidays. So he's very much aware that the United States is part of a wider Western global culture. And he's certainly aware of that. There's a tension in many Americans though. And it goes back between that old divide between Jefferson and Hamilton and whether the best thing for the United States is to look inward and rely on itself and defend itself if it ever comes to it through its continental borders or definitely draw him out into the world and give him a wider appreciation of America's global needs when it comes to security. He's very much aware of what you would call an expanded geography of security for the United States.

He goes to a very expensive private school. How did that change his outlook? Definitely. Groton, another sort of factory for producing the elite government officials of the time. It's a very small school run by the Reverend Endicott Peabody. And I think that probably influences him in two ways. It certainly encourages that global outlook and interest in global affairs. It tries to inculcate in its pupils a Christian humanitarianism, a sort of sense of duty to those less fortunate than yourself. So he certainly develops him as a character in that way as well. His illustrious cousin, distant cousin that you mentioned, becomes president, tell you Roosevelt. Not a Democrat though. No, a Republican mayor, but it's his fifth cousin and it's the Oyster Bay branch of the Roosevelt.

So Roosevelt's certainly seen as a traitor to his class. He's not expected to become a Democrat. Why would you do that? But he follows the politics of his father. In many ways though, I guess that he has a lot of sympathies with Teddy Roosevelt. He certainly has the same views

in terms of naval power as him. He also admires his progressivism and would also kind of use him as a model for his own career. I mean, the route that Franklin Roosevelt takes to power is the same one as Teddy Roosevelt did. I mean, he becomes assistant secretary of the Navy, spends some time as governor in New York. So he models his early political career on Theodore Roosevelt. And they know each other. I mean, even though they're distant cousins, I mean, Theodore Roosevelt walks FDR's wife down the aisle. He does. Yes. Good to keep the name in the family, as they joked at the time.

Eleanor is Theodore Roosevelt's niece. So Franklin marries Eleanor, who's walked down the aisle by Theodore, all of the above Roosevelt's. Yes. Keeping the name in the family. They feel rather overshadowed because when it gets to their wedding afterwards, everybody wants to talk to Theodore Roosevelt rather than the happy couple at the time. But Eleanor's a really good match for Franklin Roosevelt, I think. He has a bit of a reputation for being a bit light. Henry Cabot Lodge, Woodrow Wilson's famous arch rival, calls him a bit light. Alice Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's daughter, calls him a feather light. Alice Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt's daughter, calls him a feather duster. So he's considered a political lightweight, but Eleanor's

a good choice for him because she has integrity. She has principles. She gives him that kind of backbone when perhaps Roosevelt is a little bit of a political operator, shall we say, and she's a good influence to have on him, keeps him aware of some of the more important things in American life and world life. Treats her appallingly, of course. He has numerous affairs, a major one being Lucy Mercer, who is a lifelong affair that Eleanor discovers in 1919 and makes Roosevelt vow to never, ever speak to her ever again. But of course, he does. And she's actually at his bedside when he dies at Warm Springs in 1945.

He blows through Harvard very quickly. And then when does he decide to run for office? And he enters politics quite quickly, doesn't he? He enters New York politics at first. So he's running as a local state senator and successfully gets elected there, has the wisdom to tie his star to Woodrow Wilson, who at that time is also entering politics as a progressive Democrat reforming candidate who manages to win the 1912 election. And Roosevelt's done enough to help with his campaign to, as I say, hitch his star to Wilson and manages to get himself a position within the Wilson administration. He's offered assistance actually to the Navy.

Why? Just connection? I mean, it just seems like a good chap. Yeah, partly connection. He's done enough, as I say, to be noticed by Wilson because he helped out in Wilson's campaign. So Wilson feels obliged to offer him something. He has this chance meeting with the assistant secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, in the lobby of a hotel in Washington and gets talking to him. And it's actually Daniels that offers him the position. It's a good move because Roosevelt is obviously a name that is recognized. It has some cachet in American politics. There's also an argument also that it's about keeping Roosevelt's close to you. You don't want a loose cannon out there saying all sorts of things that might harm your administration.

So keep your friends close, but your enemies closer potentially as well. Because Roosevelt had always been quite close to TR, Theodore Roosevelt. And so give him a position in government and maybe we can control what he says a little bit more. And what did Roosevelt learn when he was in government? He sounds like he was quite effective and certainly there's plenty going on in Woodrow Wilson's administration. So what's the lessons he's drawing from that period? As I say, I think Roosevelt is a person who learns through his practical experience.

And one of the really important lessons that he learns is just service in government. Josephus Daniels is really patient with him because as assistant secretary of the Navy, he's often shouting off about, we should be buying more battleships. We should be preparing for the coming war. We should be doing this, be doing that. Josephus Daniels is a pacifist. So the two of them don't necessarily get along on an intellectual level, but Josephus Daniels realizes that he is somebody who is going to be useful to the Democratic Party and shows him how Washington works, how you get legislation through Congress, how you work to build compromises with people rather than sticking to your ideals totally. You have to work with people to get stuff done.

And it's an absolutely brilliant education in how the system works for Franklin Roosevelt that pays real dividends when he's president, because he's probably one of the most experienced presidential candidates in terms of executive government to have served by the time he becomes president. He really knows how Washington works. You mentioned that Roosevelt's lobbying for more battleships, for more money for the Navy. He's being a good executive officer there. When war does come, when the First World War does come, did Roosevelt want to enter that war earlier with his internationalist credentials, his understanding about the outer bounds of

US security? He's absolutely keen to enter the war in 1914. He's quite belligerent, a bit of a jingo in the language of the day. He feels that the United States has interests around the world, and particularly in Europe, and that they should be protected against what he sees as German militarism. At that stage, it is not any kind of idealistic plan to reform the world, for Roosevelt at least. It's all about protecting the United States' interests. And that should be done. There's a clear threat here, and we need to protect against that. And

that's in stark contrast to his boss, Josephus Daniels, who's a pacifist, as I say, and also to Woodrow Wilson, who is asking Americans to remain neutral in thought and deed at the time. So it's very different. So that puts him at odds with the administration, gets him into sort of some hot water at times, but they never sack him. They think he's too useful in office rather than actually firing him for being too jingoistic. During that war, is Roosevelt important within that US naval effort? I mean, they come in quite late, but there's a great U-boat threat in the Atlantic at that point. I mean, what does he do?

He at one point tries to resign his position as Assistant Secretary of the Navy because he wants to serve, partly for the kind of reasons of war is an adventure to people at the time, and also because it would be good for him politically to have a military service record and post-war political ambition. So he tries to resign, but Wilson and Daniels won't let him because he's too useful in Washington. He's an active administrator. He's a good executive. He does his job well. He says things occasionally that get him out of water, as I say, but he's actually useful. So Wilson doesn't let him leave Washington. When it comes to actual sort of participation and contribution to the war, I think he learns quite a lot from

actually how the war plays out. Because if you go back to Mayan and the idea that nations decide their differences by huge naval battles, that doesn't happen. When it comes to the actual reality of the Atlantic naval conflict, it is about destroyers and it's about submarines. And it's about a big, huge mine barrage that Roosevelt's instrumental in putting across the North Sea as well. So it challenges all of those ideas that he had about naval warfare. And it was also about aircraft and new technology. All those manned disciples went through a pretty steep learning curve in the First World War, that's for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. And they felt that everything that they imagined naval warfare would be like turned out not to be true. And that's kind of disturbing for Roosevelt as it is for the other Mayan disciples. At the end of the war, how has his sense of politics and strategy changed? So he realizes, I think, and he does several tours to Europe. He visits Britain in 1918, meets Winston Churchill, incidentally. They meet at a dinner at Gray's Inn in July of 1918. And Roosevelt remembers that occasion and says, I never liked him, and thought he was a stinker that evening. Churchill himself didn't ever remember the event. So luckily, they managed to patch things up when they eventually met 20 years later.

Now, in terms of his politics at the end of the war, as I say, his conception of warfare, he'd seen the battlefields in Verdun in France. He toured those areas as well, seeing how terrible warfare was, trench warfare. Roosevelt's ideas of warfare and ideas of international relations had undergone a great change towards the end of the war because of these challenges to naval warfare and because he'd seen the battlefields that were done and had seen the carnage in Europe. So he felt that there had to be something more and things had to be done slightly differently. And the story was that he was converted to the idea of collective security and self-determination for nations by Woodrow Wilson himself on the USS George Washington

heading back from Europe from Versailles in February 1919. I don't think that conversion was probably as complete as some like to argue that it was. Roosevelt had already had a lot of his ideas challenged, but I don't think that he was ever the zealot for Wilson's ideas that he's sometimes portrayed as. It sounds like he had a pretty sophisticated grip of those two currents in US thought and history pulling in different directions. The idea of the safety of isolation, but also an understanding that eventually there was something important about collective security. It's the problem of the age, isn't it? How do you deal with problems overseas, outside America, that will eventually come back to influence you at home? I mean, you have to deal with them in

some capacity. Do you just deal with them with the naval hammer, so to speak, and send your battleships out? Or do you have some kind of structure and prevent wars like World War I from happening? What President Woodrow Wilson envisaged was a global forum where governments would cooperate to resolve their differences peacefully. In the wake of the horror of the First World War, this forum was established as a result of the Versailles Peace Settlement. It was called the League of Nations. But in the USA, there was a problem. For the Americans to join the League, it had to be ratified by the US Senate, and senators were worried about losing sovereignty. A fierce partisan battle developed. Wilson refused to

accept any compromises, and ultimately ratification failed. The United States did not join the League, and that undermined the organization from the outset. That battle in the Senate not only damaged the League, but it seemed to break Wilson as well. He had a serious stroke in 1919, in the midst of the crisis, leaving him partially paralysed. Roosevelt watched closely what happened to Wilson, and he decided not to risk his own political future, like Wilson had done, over a matter of high principle, no matter how much he believed in it. Here's Roosevelt as the practical politician. He looks at Wilson and Wilson's reluctance to compromise with his opponents in Congress, Henry Cabot Lodge and associates. And the League of Nations goes down to defeat in November 1919 and then March of 1920.

And Roosevelt keeps his distance from what he's saying in terms of support for the league. He kind of likes the idea, but the practical politician in him says otherwise. And he eventually runs as vice presidential candidate in the 1920 presidential election with James Cox as the candidate. Wilson tries to get them to run as League of Nations candidates. He wants it to be a great and solemn referendum on the issue of the League of Nations because the Senate has rejected the League of Nations twice. And he feels that the people of America will think differently and will vote for a candidate supporting the League of Nations. Frankly, obviously, he's made a real name for himself. Who's he popular with? Who do you need

to be popular in this period? Is it grassroots? Is it members? Or is it men in smoke-filled rooms? The aim is to replicate Wilson's coalition, which is this great swing across the West and South of the United States in a populist kind of way, but restrained enough not to alienate some of the more conservative Democrats. So Roosevelt is a good candidate to balance the ticket. James Cox politically is a bit of a nobody. So Roosevelt brings a famous name to the ticket. He had a very kind of successful war in terms of his service in Washington.

But the other thing is, it's not too much of a loss if he failed badly in his career ends. So he's a great name to have attached to the ticket, but it's not a disaster politically for the party. How does the election go? It goes very badly, of course. Warren Harding and his call for a return to normalcy wins the public mood. People want to forget about the war. They feel that Wilson has betrayed his ideals. Wilson had spoken of the war of great purpose, the great war to make the world safe for democracy. And that hadn't turned out because of all of the dirty little deals purpose, the great war to make the world safe for democracy. And that hadn't turned out because of all of the dirty little deals in Europe that gave the Allies colonies that imposed huge reparations on Germany. If you're a liberal supporter of Woodrow Wilson

and his plan for world peace, you're pretty disillusioned. And then at the same time, Republicans are opposed to his plan as well in various shades of either reservations or complete rejection of the League of Nations. And ultimately, it's not the issue that gains traction with people. It's the economy, it's people getting back to their lives after the war. And Warren Harding, with his call for normalcy, is effective at cutting through to the American public. Political defeat was followed by personal crisis. In August 1921, Roosevelt contracted polio. It left him paralysed from the waist down and reliant on a wheelchair. Roosevelt would be forced not only to rebuild his politics, but also his health. But this defining experience reforged Roosevelt personally, but also his image in the eyes of the public.

Francis Perkins, his Secretary of Labour throughout his presidential administration, says that, and who knew him at the time, says that it has following polio, he's clearly seen to have this kind of gritty struggle with his disability and trying to regain his health. And it removes a lot of that effete, patrician, feather duster kind of imagery about him. He's now seen as a bit of a bruise, a bit of a fighter, a determined individual. Because what's expected of him at that time, if you have some kind of catastrophic physical ailment like that, at the time you're expected to withdraw to private life. And that's what his mother, Sarah, wants to do. She wants him to just go back to Hyde Park and live out his life in privacy. But Roosevelt's determined to maintain his political career, and he has him helping that. Eleanor helps him a great deal.

Louis Howe, his political advisor, helps him stay in the public eye. So it's certainly character forming in terms of his gritty determination. There's a couple of other things that come out of it as well that are quite important. It makes him the great communicator that he was. If you think of the practicalities of being a disabled political candidate in the 1920s, when life is not designed around people in wheelchairs, going out and giving a speech means being lifted through windows, being carried by your son, all those kinds of things. So it's not very easy to maintain a political career. So he becomes a pioneer of radio speeches and radio communication. political career. So he becomes a pioneer of radio speeches and radio communication.

His famous wartime fireside chats have their origin in the 1920s and his experience with Poglio because he has to find a way to reach the public. And radio is a new technology and it's a great thing for him. The other thing I would say that Poglio has an impact on is his use of envoys. So again, in World War II, his eyes and ears are people like Harry Hopkins, Eleanor as well. He sends them to Britain, sends them to other countries to go take a look, to be his eyes, because it is physically arduous for him to do that at times. Although he's a great traveler as president. I mean, he gets to the altar in 1945, flying thousands and thousands of miles, immensely physically draining for somebody like Roosevelt and his health at that time. As he's recovering from his illness, does he sort of reorganize his political approach?

Is there something different about the Roosevelt that emerges at the end of the 20s? It's a kind of a combination, I guess. As I say, he's more engaged and compassionate with people. But as a result of the 1920 election, he had made a great deal of political contacts around the country. And he had the most finely tuned political antennae that you can imagine in a politician, really. He was always very conscious of the political mood of the nation.

And he improved that across the 1920s. I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but it said that he could take you across the map of the United States, not state by state, but county by county. He had such an in-depth knowledge of the political makeup of the United States. When Roosevelt does become president, it's in the midst of an existential crisis for the American Republic, astonishing contraction of economic activity, people unemployed, the risk of money not working. Does he have any time for foreign affairs as Europe and Asia and parts of Northeast Africa are hurtling towards war? What's Roosevelt's thinking about US strategy in this period? I think at a personal level, Roosevelt is an internationalist to a degree,

not quite as committed as Woodrow Wilson was. The other great lesson from Wilson is that he sees Wilson destroy himself on his ideals. And that's a great lesson to him because he says you should never get to the stage where you're looking over your shoulder and the American public are not following you. He's a great believer in this kind of Jeffersonian ideal of educating the public to the issues that are important and taking a practical approach to foreign affairs. And in the early 1930s, because of the Great Depression, that means the ideas such as the League of Nations as an attempt to deal with some of these emerging

problems is a no-go for politics and for the American people. And he gets into a situation in the 1932 election where William Randolph Hearst asks him outright, are you a supporter of the League of Nations? And he has to deny that he has any kind of support for that because it's not practical at this time. Now, a lot of his kind of liberal wing supporters hate that he did that, but it's just not practical at that time electorally. If you want to get elected, then you don't talk about the League of Nations. But then when you look at what he does as president, there are kind of little snippets of something a little bit more than an isolationist America. He is keen to develop a kind of a good neighbor relationship with Latin America.

He certainly does that. He gets his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, to engage in a lot of kind of bilateral trade agreements with individuals. So he's actually behind the scenes doing little things that seem to suggest that he at least is still engaged with international affairs and would rather, if things were possible, have a more engaged role for the United States. But he's a very good politician and is a politician of the possible, definitely. And as it becomes clear that Hitler and Germany are rearming and are presenting a threat

to their neighbours, what becomes possible for Roosevelt to do about it? As the 1930s go on, more becomes possible. He floats a trial balloon in October of 1937 when he asks, maybe we can quarantine these powers. Maybe we can show that the international community disproves of their actions. There's a horrible kind of isolationist reaction in the newspapers at the time, particularly around the Chicago newspaper. So he quickly withdraws that idea. But by the time you get to Munich and the Munich crisis in 1938, he's really convinced at that point that Hitler is going to, at some point, pose an existential threat to the United States. Now, that's because of Hitler's use of air power, I suppose, in diplomacy at the time. And it's often said that Roosevelt has this epiphany in the Munich crisis where he realizes that the United States needs an

air force to do that. I would argue that Roosevelt was already aware of that from his experiences back in World War I. He knew what air power could do, and he knew that air power was a potential threat to the United States. But what Munich allows him to do is start to take these steps to rearm the United States, to give them a powerful air force. Because if you have a powerful air force, you don't need to go to Berchtesgaden, as one of his advisors says, William Bullitt. That was the pre-war dream, wasn't it? You build enough aircraft and it makes ground war unnecessary and irrelevant. it wasn't quite to be so as europe slips into war does roosevelt ramp up preparations for war you mentioned the air force

there but what else can he do in 39 40 in early 41 definitely this is now about steps to prepare the united states for war that's coming at some point in Roosevelt's mind. And it's about educating the public slowly. So there are a number of measures that he takes. The first one obviously being the increase in the armed forces from 1938 onwards. He realizes that to do that, you're going to have to conscript lots of people. So we have the Selective Service Act passed in September of 1940, which is the first peacetime conscription for the United States, a really huge step for the United States to take at

the time when it's at peace. And then it becomes when war breaks out in Europe, it's about supporting nations that are helping deal with the threat to the United States. And that means Britain and France, which he helps through things like the Destroyers for bases deal, things like lend lease in March of 1941, giving other nations the arms and the supplies that enable them to carry on fighting. Even though politically at that point, his calculation is that it's not possible for the United States to enter the war at that time, because he doesn't have a political consensus that would support that. But he's very much about educating Americans that there is this threat on the horizon that we need to deal with. You'll listen to our Leaders series. More after the break.

I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. To be continued... and popes who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Despite his sensitivities around public opinion, Roosevelt guessed that conflict was inevitable and that America would eventually have to fight. So in the meantime, he gigantically expanded the American military and military production. And he involved the United States as much as he could without actually stepping across the line into outright hostilities. He turned America into, as he put it, the arsenal of democracy, providing allied nations with huge amounts of equipment and financial aid to keep them in the fight. This is Professor Phillips O'Brien. In 1940 and 41, before formal entry into the war, Roosevelt, he clearly sides against Japan. And Churchill famously says, never before has a nation not involved in a war been such a

participant. Well, you can see the domestic politician and the international politician clashing in this period. If you want to say the key event for Roosevelt in deciding that the U.S. will have to intervene in Europe, it is the fall of France. He does not expect that. He's very much like Churchill in the sense that he expects the French army to do a very good job to be able to at least hold the Germans off because they had seen the French army in their mind performing extremely well in the First World War. The fall of France in May 1940 is just a shock to Roosevelt, a really quite an extraordinary one. From that point on, I think he understands American power will have to be exerted in Europe. Does it mean full American involvement in the war? I think he probably assumes it will at some point, but he knows that can only happen when the American

people support it. So what he wants to do is start using American power to support Britain, but not go so far as to antagonize the American public, which doesn't want to get involved in the war. So he plays a little dance. He starts finding ways to get aid to Britain. That's his number one thing, but without seeming to be too much involved in the war. And the other thing is he's got to get aid to Britain. That's his number one thing, but without seeming to be too much involved in the war. And the other thing is he's got to get reelected. So Roosevelt is one of the greatest politicians in any democratic country's history. He wins the presidency four times. No person has done that. Maybe no person will ever do that. And he has to run in 1940 for his third term. And he needs to win that. And he runs that by partly

guaranteeing the American people you won't get involved in another foreign war. He knows how to position himself. He doesn't run in 1940 as we are about to go to war. Far from it. None of your boys will die in a foreign war is one of his famous speeches of the campaign. However, once he is reelected, he knows he has four years, a little more freedom of maneuver. And what he decides to do is open the taps of American war production. So what are the great policies of aiding Britain,

lend, lease, those all come after the 1940 election. Early 41, he starts going to Congress and go, okay, let's come up with a plan to aid the British and aid those fighting the Germans, not to get the US in. In many ways, he's arguing this is a way to keep the US out. If we provide all this material aid, they can do the job without us. I think he partly knows that's not true. The US will have to get in, but he's being very careful about what he's saying. So he then begins the policy of producing, producing, producing, and sending a lot to the British under Lend-Lease. The frustrating thing

for him is he still can't get in the war. I think Roosevelt, by the summer of 41, absolutely understands the US has to get in. When you have the German invasion of the Soviet Union in particular, which again, from his point of view, there's a very good chance the Soviet Union will collapse. They do worry about that, what happens if the Soviet Union collapses, so that they have this view, okay, we really do need to start preparing to get into the war.

The question is, how can they do that? That's just a fundamental problem Roosevelt has. What he tries to do, very important, is to maneuver the Germans into firing the first shot. He can't fire the first shot. He can't declare war on Germany. He needs the Germans to do something to shoot at Americans. So the second half of 1941, he's basically trying to order American warships to- They're basically sort of participants in the Battle of the Atlantic. It's extraordinary. They are absolutely participants in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Hitler actually understands what's going on. From that point, Hitler pulls out. Because Hitler understands he doesn't want to have war with the U.S. then. He wants to defeat the Soviet Union. So Roosevelt's desperately trying to get the Germans to attack American ships. But the Germans don't play ball. And that's why the second half of 1941 is actually very frustrating for Roosevelt, for Churchill, because Churchill at this point is

hearing Roosevelt saying and doing all the right things, but unable to go into the war. The Japanese, out of nowhere, make Roosevelt's life much easier in one respect. They attack the American Pacific fleet. Hitler then completes the picture by declaring war against the United States of America. I'm guessing in the hours and days after Pearl Harbor, if Roosevelt declared war on Germany, the American people were like, hey, what's this got to do with Germany? The Germans had declared war on the December 11th. So there's actually four days. Yeah, it's a tricky few days. And the Roosevelt administration is seriously wondering what happens if the Germans don't.

If Hitler had turned around and on December 10th or 9th said, we are shocked with the Japanese. We have no knowledge of this. We call for restraint on all sides. We condemn the Japanese and we don't want war with the U.S. It really would have put Roosevelt in a bind. The problem is Hitler can't imagine Roosevelt not going in. So the Germans give him what he desperately wants, and they give him the declaration of war. The USA is in World War II. Now, what does Roosevelt want out of that war?

What are his war aims? Well, this is the thing. What he wants is a war aim is somewhat nebulous. He seems to want a war where the victorious allies continue afterwards to make the world stable. And I don't want to say free because I know he understands the Soviet Union isn't free, but where the world will be stable, where American power will be used to keep the world in a sense on an even keel, and that the world will be a better place than it had been before. He is an anti-imperialist. I think he assumes empires are going to come to an end. In fact, the war makes him more of an anti-imperialist, his own experiences of it.

He is understanding the war that there's going to be a different world, but he hopes a world where American power can be used judiciously and sensibly. The problem is, he doesn't really articulate beyond principles what that world will be. So he talks about the four policemen keeping control. That's the US, Britain, Soviet Union, and China. But how that's going to work is unclear. So less ambitious, ideologically, than Wilson, for example, in the First World War? He might have had more ambition, but he won't say it because he believes Wilson actually was defeated by the American people by being too specific.

So that something like the League of Nations, he will have a United Nations, which where the US has a veto and everyone has veto. So he's creating a political system that will be less, I think, of a threat to the American public in their view of what they want. The thing about Roosevelt is that he says very assuring, positive things, but there's not a lot of detail in it. And I think that's his political experience coming out and what he thinks the American people want. He never, by the way, talks about keeping US forces in Europe. If you hear what Roosevelt's saying, it's they're going to come home at the end of the war. It's not that there's going to be a big US presence in Europe.

Status quo without some of the nasty strutting guys. How does he think he's going to win the war? I mean, Roosevelt in many ways knows how he's going to win the war. He's going to win the war with machines. Roosevelt goes to France in 1918. He goes to France to look at the battlefields. And what he sees in the First World War partly disgusts him. He doesn't like the land. He's a naval guy. He finds a land where it just smells so bad. I mean, he goes to Verdun and he has to go in

like a French bunker and these fortresses and spend the night with hundreds of other people, as he said, breathing recirculated air. He just loathes it. And what he wants to do for both political reasons and strategic is fight a war where America's great ace in the hole is economic production. He knows that. America can make more than anyone else. So how the US is going to win the war is by overwhelming the Japanese, the Germans, the Italians with production. That's the fundamental thing. Doesn't want to have a lot of casualties. He's a democratic politician. Casualties are not good in his mind for voters. So he's going to accumulate the force needed and then crush the

axis. Within that, then he has to make decisions about where they should fight. And that's why where he makes the decision not to invade France in 43, but to invade France in 44. That kind of thing. Is he making operational decisions? Is he leaving it to others? Is he choosing the guys he wants in those key positions

and then to get on with it? He can be very assertive at times. And that's the thing about Roosevelt is he's probably the most hands-off of, I mean, Hirohito might be the most hands-off, though Hirohito is not as hands-off as people think. But Roosevelt is certainly more hands-off than Hitler or Stalin or even Churchill. But he can intervene decisively at certain times if something matters to him. He has his war leadership team in place from the summer of 42, and he lets it be. So his

four joint chiefs of staff are the same ones throughout the war. Leahy is chief of staff, Marshall is chief of staff of the army, King is chief of naval operations, and Arnold was head of the air force, and they stay in those roles until the end of the war. That's sort of a sign. He has the team he wants, and on the whole, he lets them do it as long as they follow his instructions. I think the most interesting example of that is the support for the invasion of North Africa in 1942, which we know of as Operation Torch eventually, when it's done. It's first called Operation Gymnast, but then later renamed Operation Torch. Why it's interesting is that the head of the army, General George Marshall,

and the head of the navy, American navy, Ernest King, and the head of the US Army Air Force, Henry Arnold, don't want to do Torch. The head of the American military leadership is desperately opposed to Torch, as is the Secretary of War, Stimson. So there's no support for Torch, but Roosevelt wants it. He wants to invade North Africa in 1942. And sorry, would they rather go to the Pacific or would they rather go straight to Northwest Europe? There's no consensus. Marshall's view on the war is just build up in Britain and invade France as soon as possible. To him, there's no point in doing anything outside of invading

France. That's where you're going to win the war. If you're George Marshall, you're going to invade Northwest Europe and get into Germany. So it's physically seizing Germany becomes that. And therefore, anything around the edges are pointless. Why are you doing this? It's wasting time.

So he says, you build up everything possible in the UK to be able to launch a D-Day as soon as possible. King wants to spend as much as possible in the UK to be able to launch a D-Day as soon as possible. King wants to spend as much as possible in the Pacific. So in many ways, he's quite detached from the Atlantic War. And I know some naval historians get upset about that, but it's true. He is concerned about beating the Japanese. Torch means they're going to have to spend a lot of naval vessel ships in the Atlantic in 1942, which he doesn't want to do. And Arnold is the head of the Air Force, is sort of close to Marshall and is supporting an attack on Germany from Britain from the air. So the military chiefs have no support for Torch. The only one who does support

is Roosevelt's old friend, Bill Leahy, who he makes as chief of staff. And they basically have an almost identical strategic mindset. It's much more political as well. What they think is, one, we can't try D-Day too early because we don't know whether we can do it. You know, it's a big amphibious land. We have to practice. So let's try something like Torch

so we don't rush into D-Day to see operationally how to carry it off. On the other hand, we don't want to do nothing because we can't want to do nothing because we can't seem to be standing aside in 1942. And finally, it has some very important purpose, is it means that Germany can never get out of Europe. So if you join with the British and sort of sandwich Rommel, sandwich the German-Italian army in North Africa between these two things, you're basically meaning that Germany is hemmed

into Europe for the rest of the war. And that ends German expansion to that side. So those are the strategic reasons. It's sort of a long-term political maritime training kind of argument. And what happens is that Roosevelt starts pushing for Torch. The military people, Marshall even almost threatens to resign over Torch. The military people, Marshall even almost threatens to resign over Torch. It doesn't get quite that far. And Roosevelt says, no, you're going to do it. And he basically orders the army and navy to do what the army and navy don't want to do. And that's him very assertive as a war leader. I kind of get that point of view. The Japanese attack you in Hawaii. So your first major strategic level area of combat operations

is invading French-held territory in North Africa. Well, I mean, but of course what Roosevelt does is he allows King to do, King is the head of the American Navy, to do whatever King wants with what's left in the Pacific. The great myth is that the Americans fight Germany first. They never fight Germany first. No point do they fight Germany first. And in 1942, they basically fight a divided war.

They fight both the Pacific and North Africa. What Marshall wants is a full Germany first. Oh, really? That's why he wants the full, he basically wants, if you have it, you send it to Britain. Everything goes to Britain, because then everything goes to D-Day, and Germany's our number one enemy.

So that's the Marshall Germany first. The United States never fights Germany first. They always have a huge amount of force in the Pacific. Yeah. They're always splitting, compromising. They're always splitting. That's an interesting reflection of actually Roosevelt's strategic priorities. And it also helps Roosevelt and his chief of staff is that you've got the guy in charge of Britain is like, don't send everything to this island. I don't want to do D-Day. Please send it to North Africa to help us crush this German army in North Africa. the thing about Roosevelt is everyone thinks Roosevelt is charming, but he's actually a very cynical maneuverer and he's very manipulative. And so he can make this case, look, you know,

the British want this, we should do this. This was a little reason. So Churchill thinks he's convincing Roosevelt, I think, to do torch. Roosevelt always wanted to do torch. It was sort of, that was his idea from very early in 1942. That's the ultimate game point. But he's able to make it look like this is a British-American consensus that he's part of. How does that relationship or how does Roosevelt's strategy change through 1943 and his relationship with Churchill and sort of gaining equality, if not supremacy over Churchill through that decisive year? Well, in 1942, you might say they get along really well because they share many strategic conceptions on 1942 and how the war will be waged, particularly toward, I mean, they are absolutely simpatico in North Africa. And I guess there's almost a quality of resource at that point as well. There's an obvious mismatch.

No, no, absolutely. There isn't. And they're very similar in early 1943 when they decide we're going to not invade France in 1943. They share certain similar preconceptions up until that point. The real difference is when they start planning for 44. And that disagreement just becomes really the great struggle between Churchill and Roosevelt, which goes on into early 44. Go listen to our Leaders series. Join us after the break. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries.

The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions,

and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. So by Tehran conference in late 1943, Roosevelt's feeling confident enough to say to Churchill, we're doing France next year. Yeah. I mean, this is the moment where Roosevelt had gotten Churchill to twice before agree to D-Day and then twice before Churchill had found ways to twice before agree to D-Day and then twice before Churchill had found ways to slightly wriggle out of it. So he had wriggled out of it out of Trident because of the invasion of Italy, which wasn't supposed to happen. The invasion of Sicily was

not supposed to be followed by an invasion of Italy. It happens because they invade Sicily and Mussolini's government collapses and there's a new Italian government which says to the allies, we'd like to switch sides. And this goes to both Roosevelt's and Churchill's heads. Italy's about to switch sides. We can get all the way to Northern Italy right now. And so Roosevelt, for a few days, gets very excited and okays the invasion of Italy, thinking this will lead to a collapse of Italy. When it doesn't, and the Germans get troops into Italy far more quickly than the British and the Americans thought. I mean, what the Germans do in redeploying troops is really quite remarkable into Italy. And they really stymie the invasion of Italy. Churchill maintains, this is still where we should fight. And Roosevelt goes back to,

we got to invade France in 44. So there have been this sort of back and forth, back and forth. And what Roosevelt decides is that Tehran will be the key moment to force Churchill to accept this. And it also serves Roosevelt's geopolitical purposes because he can make common cause with Stalin. Roosevelt wants to get along with Stalin. He has been hankering for a meeting with Stalin. He'd been inviting Stalin to meet almost since Pearl Harbor. He'd been trying to meet with Stalin to find a way, but Stalin had always been putting him off. Maybe Stalin wanted to come from a position of strength to have that meeting. Stalin certainly didn't want to travel all the way to see Roosevelt. want to travel all the way to see Roosevelt. And so Roosevelt's been lobbying for this meeting to see Stalin. He's so desperate that he travels all the way around the world and Stalin just crosses the Soviet border for a small way. I mean, look at Tehran, look where the Soviet Union is, and look where Washington is. Roosevelt has to do this extraordinary trip around the world to go meet Stalin. Stalin's basically just going over the border into Iran. And Roosevelt's not that well. He is really beginning to strive. I mean,

the Roosevelt of Casablanca versus the Roosevelt at the end of 43 is a very different human being. So just a year's difference. Yeah. 42, early 43, he's still a very active and decisive war leader, early 43. He's still a very active and decisive war leader, doing a lot, going to a lot of meetings. And then he really begins to weaken. You can see it. And he almost has to save up his energy for Cairo and Tehran. Tehran is part of the sandwich between two meetings between Roosevelt and Churchill at Cairo, first and second Cairo conferences. And he really puts everything he can into those meetings, particularly Tehran to get on with Stalin. When they're over, he cannot work. He is so tired. He basically rides in a U.S. warship back. From what we can tell, he doesn't do anything. He just

sits there all day or sleeps a lot or sits on the deck getting the sea air, because he is so exhausted by the end of 1943. And in 1944, he will take months of vacation in a row, and just not do any work. He can't do it. He physically doesn't have the strength. So, Tehran is, in many ways, the last gasp of the old Roosevelt. And once it's over, he's never back. But he does succeed in setting the timetable that will roughly lead to the-

That's his great success. He and Stalin get Churchill to agree without any way out of it. It's supposed to be May 1944. It's delayed because of the weather. But that May 1944 is going to be D-Day. Churchill understands after Tehran, there's no way out. You can see how so much Churchill doesn't want to do this. Because after Tehran, Roosevelt and Churchill go back to Cairo. And Churchill makes an attempt

when he has Roosevelt by himself, one more attempt to get out of it. And Roosevelt's like, look, I'm going home. You've agreed. That's it. And bye. And Churchill's trying to say stay stay stay let's meet let's talk about it and roosevelt's no i'm gone and then churchill also has what seems to be a series of panic attacks or heart attack i mean something physically goes very wrong with churchill after the second cairo conference and he has to go to his bed and he thinks he's dying or having heart attacks. He's probably having panic attacks and exhaustion, stress, anxiety events, because he has fought against D-Day so long and so hard. And he finally knows he's got to do it. So Churchill and Roosevelt are both physically in decline in 44, huge amount of stress. Let's

talk about Yalta because Roosevelt, he makes another extraordinary trip to Europe. He goes to the Crimea, an even shorter journey for Stalin. He can take a warship directly into the Mediterranean. So that's a little bit easier to go to Yalta in some ways than it is to go to Cairo and Tehran, though it's still not easy on Roosevelt. But again, it's a sign of Stalin making Roosevelt come to him, which I think is also a bit of a psychological ploy of Stalin. Because Stalin's basically saying, you want to meet me more than I want to meet you.

And that is true, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, Roosevelt believes very much in personal relationships. He believes that he, as an individual leader, is key to the future. I sort of think as long as Roosevelt believes he is president, he won't die. He's so important because he runs for reelection in 1944, right before Yalta, and he clearly is dying. His doctors know he's dying. One doctor is brought in to examine him and is so shocked says i want on record that i am telling you if roosevelt runs for re-election he will not make it through the last term that

term he is too sick to stay on as president so he's clearly weakening quite extraordinarily but he decides to run for re-election when he is dying you could say it's probably the most irresponsible decision of any war leaders in the second world war in terms of their own but he decides to run for re-election when he is dying. You could say it's probably the most irresponsible decision of any war leaders in the Second World War in terms of their own, but he should have stepped aside, but he doesn't. He runs when he's dying. And moreover, he chooses Harry Truman, who he doesn't like and doesn't tell anything to, to be his vice president. So he's sort of saying, I don't care what happens after I go. I really don't care. What I'm going to do is be president for as long as I can. And this job gives me a focus. What I'm going to do is be president for as long

as I can. And this job gives me a focus. So I'm going to run for reelection and I will just keep going because I, Franklin Roosevelt, am so important to the future of the world that I will just have to find a way to live. And that's the Roosevelt who comes to Yalta, I think, both convinced of the necessity of his own self, but also a man who is at death's door. I mean, Stalin's shocked when he sees Roosevelt at Yalta, just how weak, and he's suffering from congestive heart failure, and his body's digesting its own muscle. So he's just incredibly thin. But you mentioned that Churchill and Roosevelt needed to go and see Stalin. Now,

why is that? Is that because they're thinking about after the war? Stalin at this stage, Red Army, utterly dominant, rampaging on a broad front across Eastern Europe. Do they go to discuss the last few months of the war? Or are they there to try and get Stalin's buy-in for some kind of post-war settlement? Yalta's all about the post-war. Yalta's not about winning the war. They know they're going to win the war. They don't take the military discussions that seriously, you know, that they send the generals off to talk about the end of the war, but they don't take part in those to a great deal. They're spending their time talking about the post-war world. And it's really an uncomfortable meeting. Now, Roosevelt's positions in Yalta are somewhat controversial because clearly he accepts Stalin's rule of Eastern Europe.

He gets one what he thinks is a concession where Stalin says he will accept democratic elements in the new government of Poland. But I think Roosevelt also understands that's a fig leaf because Stalin actually believes the Soviet system is democratic. So how can you say we're not democratic? But Stalin's there. Stalin's believes the Soviet system is democratic. So how can you say we're not democratic? But Stalin's there. Stalin's got the army. In some ways, all Roosevelt is doing is acknowledging the reality of who has control of different areas. So, I mean, what else is Roosevelt going to do?

That's one of the tricky questions about Yalta. Is he going to threaten the Soviet Union with war? No, he's not going to do that. He still is hoping to find a way to cooperate with Stalin after the war. So he's being very Rooseveltian, which is to try to bring him on board, cut a deal, find a way to get along. He fails in that. Well, I mean, I think he does fit and he understands that right before he dies, that the most anti-Soviet Roosevelt ever is, anti-Stalin is right before he dies. Because the most anti-Soviet Roosevelt ever is, anti-Stalin, is right before he dies.

Because this is where Stalin actually doesn't realize he's won. Why I don't buy the Stalin as great success is that Stalin's behavior in early 45 is actually far too aggressive. He doesn't need to do it. And Stalin, right before Roosevelt dies, starts sending telegrams that you're about to cooperate with Hitler. And that sends Roosevelt about on the bend. The sharpest telegram Roosevelt ever sends to Stalin is one of the last ones, which is basically, you are wrong, Joseph, and this is insulting. And if you actually want to have a relationship going forward, you have to understand that. And he says some of the most anti-Soviet things that he ever says right before he dies. But it's just at the very end of his life and there's not much left. He dies, as you say, hadn't prepared, hadn't read in Truman on lots of the intelligence or big decision making. Truman had absolutely no idea about the Manhattan Project.

Nope. He simply hadn't prepared the US government to exist without him. Roosevelt is often deeply lionized, but his war leadership at the end is highly irresponsible and highly dangerous for the future of the country because he literally is handing the government over to someone he hasn't told anything about, who's been kept in the dark, and who, by the way, he didn't really rate. That's the thing about Truman, is Roosevelt

chooses him not because he thinks he'll be a great president if Roosevelt dies. I think he chooses Truman because he believes he's a bit of a non-entity who won't try to get too much power and will allow Roosevelt to be Roosevelt. So he almost chooses Truman because he doesn't rate him in a way. He rates him as a politician in the Democratic Party, but not as a war leader. But he had kept Truman out. Truman had no idea what was going on. He hardly saw them because Roosevelt's hardly in Washington for the last part of his life. From the end of the presidential campaign until he dies, he's only in Washington like three or four weeks. So he's either on holiday in Hyde Park, part of the Yalta trip, or on holiday in Georgia where he dies. He dies on holiday in

Georgia. So he's only passing through Washington here and there. So Truman hardly sees him. How should we think about Roosevelt? What were his strengths? If you believe in a Clausewitzian paradigm of strategy, where strategy is ways and means to achieve ends, Roosevelt is the top on the ways and the means. He gets what he wants when he wants it. But we don't know what the ends are. That's where he fails. So he's brilliant on the ways and the means. We're going to build the most machinery, the means.

We're going to create the industrial force. And the ways will be, once we have that force, we will crush the Germans and the Japanese. Roughly on this timetable. So he's brilliant on that, but what it's for? I mean, Leahy actually has to say openly, if anyone knew what Roosevelt was fighting the war for, they didn't tell me. And he's closer to Roosevelt than anybody. So what Roosevelt's ultimate plans were, we do not know because Roosevelt didn't tell anyone. Again, you don't want to go through psychoanalysis on this, but if his great mentor, Woodrow Wilson,

who lost his health and his political legacy and reputation over exactly the opposite by being too demonstrative and too thoughtful about the post-war world, maybe that's Roosevelt's protective. I think basically he wanted to make himself so personally vital to the process that it couldn't function without him. He didn't want to delegate that kind of authority. And yet he was very good at delegating war fighting. Yes, he was very good about, he knew his limitations. He didn't think he had to interfere a lot in the war fighting, but he thought his great skill was going to be as a high grand political person maneuvering between Stalin and Churchill. Roosevelt did not see the end of the war. He didn't live to witness either the defeat of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. On the afternoon of the 12th of April 1945, he died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage in

Arms Springs, Georgia. His leadership helped enormously deliver the crushing Allied victory in the war. The channeling of the output of the industrial might of the United States kept the Allies fighting during their darkest moments in those early years of the war. And when the United States did join the fray, Roosevelt understood clearly this was a war of machines and technology rather than one merely of flesh and blood. He mobilised the wartime economy. He built the bomb.

He also set out to skilfully walk the tightrope of American politics, American public opinion, coaxing his people away from isolationism, trying to get them to accept that it was in the United States' interest to maintain America as a global superpower after the shooting stopped. The Second World War was a conflict on an unprecedented scale. Millions died as enormous numbers of men and machines clashed across incomparably vast battlefields. It was a struggle between economies as nations poured their entire efforts into the grinder of war. It left cities in ruins, populations decimated, survivors bereft, whole continents scarred by years of bloody fighting. And in that gigantic picture of conflict, death and destruction, do individuals really matter? Even those who've reached the pinnacle of power? Well, yes. It was the choices of the leaders that ultimately decided the fates of entire peoples and nations.

And their own fates too. We live in a world of gigantic complexity and sophistication. Today, huge numbers of us have the privilege of being able to fly, to live decades longer, to eat exotic foods, to have children without fearing for mother or baby. All of that in a way that's just unimaginable to people centuries ago. We've built enormously complex, capable states, but with them have come wars of ever greater intensity and weapon systems of mind-blowing destructiveness. And sitting at the top of nearly all of those states have been very, very powerful men. Usually, men who've been able to use that machinery to direct every aspect of our lives.

In the past, those leaders have decided what we eat and how we work and who we can love and how we act, how we go about our lives. Individuals have mattered in history because a tiny handful of them have controlled armies and navies and air forces and government machines. In World War II, those governments, led by those individuals, sent men and women to coal mines and factories and bombers and submarines and tanks. They sent families to death camps. They sent teenage boys to the front and told them to die for the cause. They unleashed atomic weapons on enemy people. Millions of lives were lost and destroyed and traumatized because of decisions taken by a handful of people. And this series has reinforced just how important those individuals are. They sit behind the desk.

They have the nuclear trigger. They decide on war and peace. But they're still humans. They still make decisions based on past experience. They react out of fear, perhaps out of optimism. They might be gamblers. They might be conservative. They might be tired or drug-addled or drunk or sober or pious or thoughtful.

Today, in some cases, we get the odd chance to vote some of them out. But mostly, though, we've had no control at all. They have decided. The rest of us can only watch. They have decided. The rest of us can only watch. We hope you've enjoyed this series on The Leaders. It was produced by Dougal Patmore and Marianna de Forge.

Thanks to all my guests, particularly Professor Phillips O'Brien. You can learn more about this history in his excellent book, The Strategist, and he's worth following on Substack as well. He's one of the rock stars over there. If you'd like to hear more from Dan Snow's history, including our ongoing D-Day to Berlin series, chronicling the key events of 1945, 80 years ago, as the Second World War reaches its end,

then just hit follow on your podcast player and you'll get new episodes every week. It's magic. You can listen on Apple, Spotify, BBC Sounds, or any other podcast player. Thanks so much for listening. Goodbye. you you