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In July 1942, Hitler arrived at his Ukrainian HQ in Vinnitsa – Werewolf – to launch Blue, which again wrongfooted Stalin and achieved astonishing advances, as the Axis forces, having mopped up Crimea,^* charged across the sweltering steppes, reaching Stalingrad in September. While Churchill sought a winning general to stop Rommel, Stalin, ordering ‘Not one step back’ and placing blocking units to execute any retreating troops, turned the ruins of Stalingrad into a fortress. As the German Sixth Army fought its way into the city, the Soviets held out in a cauldron battle. Sensing he was close to victory, Hitler determined to take it: ‘a battle of the giants’ was what Goebbels called it. Stalin barely slept, spending the night on a sofa in the Little Corner, as the Russians fought ferociously, an astonishing resistance encouraged by terror but truly inspired by the quasi-sacred cults of patriotism, sacrifice and heroism. ‘Za Rodina, za Stalina!’ they cried as they fought. ‘For Motherland, for Stalin!’ Soviet losses in the entire war were unparalleled: twelve million soldiers and over fifteen million civilians perished.

Roosevelt, far from the grim, micromanaging intensity of Hitler’s and Stalin’s headquarters, was hosting Churchill in his idiosyncratic White House, which FDR grandly called ‘the backyard’. There, theatrically wielding his cigarette holder, he faced global decisions on a vast scale, tempered by the mixing of martinis and the company of resident cronies Harry Hopkins, the pretty young Crown Princess Märtha of Norway and his devoted cousin Daisy Suckley, along with Fala the Scottish terrier: ‘You’re the only one I don’t have to entertain,’ FDR flattered Daisy and often talked of retiring with her to his cottage at Hyde Park. The pressure was astonishing. ‘I’m going over to the office and will spend the day blowing various people up,’ FDR told Daisy, to whom he found time to write indiscreet letters. His guest, Churchill, who had suffered a minor heart attack during an earlier White House stay in December 1941, reeled from British military disasters, the fall of Singapore and defeat at Tobruk. But over the next weeks, he and FDR delayed any invasion of France and agreed instead to land in north Africa and attack Hitler’s ‘soft underbelly’ in Italy. Churchill flew to Moscow to inform Stalin there would be no invasion of France. Stalin accused him of cowardice – but the two warhorses ended up drinking together into the night.

Hitler boasted that Stalingrad was about to fall and ‘No one will drive us from this place again,’ adding, ‘The Jews once laughed at my prophecies … I can assure you they’ll choke on their laughter everywhere.’

In the Pacific, Tojo was celebrating a roll of victories, sinking the British battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales, taking Malaya and Hong Kong from Britain, the East Indies from Holland, Guam and the Philippines from America. In February 1942, British Singapore had surrendered. The Japanese bombed Australia and the Imperial Navy had proposed an Australian invasion. Tojo preferred to attack the British Raj, starting with Burma. Backed by the Thais and by insurgents led by an anti-British nationalist Aung San, Tojo conquered most of the country, cutting Allied supplies to China. Aung was typical of Asian nationalists who embraced Japan’s Pan-Asian policy against European empires.^* But Japanese cruelty exposed the reality; Allied prisoners suffered slave labour, death marches, torture, beheadings and starvation. One in four Filipinos were killed. In China, the Japanese killed four million civilians in their ‘Burn to Ash Strategy’, known as the ‘Kill All, Burn All, Loot All’ policy, signed off by Hirohito. Overall during the war, fourteen million Chinese died.

MAO AND THE SHANGHAI ACTRESS

FDR decided ‘Europe First’, which called for limited aid to Chiang, who he hoped would tie down 700,000 Japanese troops. Roosevelt sent a peppery American general, ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell, who soon loathed Chiang (whom he called Peanut); Chiang hated him back. Incapable of understanding China, Stilwell resented Chiang’s dictatorship, enforced by a secret-police chief, Dai Lai, who threw prisoners into cauldrons. Madame Chiang flew to America to address rallies and win over FDR, charming the Americans with her Wellesley accent and chic cheongsam. As British and Indian forces retreated in Burma, Stilwell demanded that Chiang help; Chiang sent troops, but they were routed. In the comfortable caves of Yen’an, his rival Mao Zedong fought a guerrilla war against the Japanese, deploying new units north into Manchuria – among the cadres a young Korean, Kim Il-sung, whom the Japanese nicknamed Tiger on account of his small-scale but ferocious attacks.