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[First part](https://steemit.com/history/@pioner888777/american-armed-forces-at-the-european-theater-during-the-second-world-war-undeclared-roosevelt-war)



In May 1941, all intelligence information, carefully collected by secret services of both Americans and British, pointed to Spain and Portugal as the next targets of the German predatory aspirations. This meant a direct threat to the Azores, the islands of the Green Cape and the western ledge of French West Africa from Dakar, in the closest place to the eastern ledge of Brazil. When the German battleship Bismarck withdrew from its secret hiding place on May 24 to sink the English cruiser Hood with a single salvo and then hide somewhere in the Atlantic, the predictions acquired additional meaning.


This prompted President Roosevelt to introduce a state of emergency in the country. Even when the English navy and aviation finally found and sank the Bismarck battleship - it happened just a few hours before the president's speech on the radio - fears subsided only partially, because somewhere in the vastness of the ocean the same ship was still in operation - the battleship "Tirpitz", and the naval forces of Harold Stark did not have a single ship capable of exchanging volleys on equal terms with him.


Marines of the United States were preparing to occupy the Azores, the army was trying to bring together enough of the necessary funds to equip the task force to help the marines, and the president froze the assets of Axis powers in the United States and closed their consulates when the crisis finally passed in early June. New intelligence data, as Winston Churchill to Roosevelt privately reported, indicated that the Germans intended to take the next step not in the southern but in the east direction - against the Soviet Union.


New intelligence data turned out to be correct. This happened before dawn on Sunday 22 June.

Despite his long-standing hatred of Bolshevism, Churchill immediately publicly announced his assistance to the Russians.


Two days later Roosevelt established exactly the same policy for the United States, although he formulated it less concretely. He again expanded his constitutional powers to declare that there is no need to resort to neutrality laws in the case of Russia.


It was in this atmosphere of the resurgent world crisis and in the conditions of a partial state of war for the United States that Roosevelt proposed to the Minister of War and the Minister of the Navy a month later, in July, to develop a "victory program". He wanted to get detailed information about the needs in the human forces and technical means that would be required to achieve a final victory over obvious opponents.


For the naval forces, the way to victory was through the maximum use of the air and sea power of the United States and Britain and through the use of ground forces only in those areas where the Germans would not be able to deliver their powerful ground forces for confrontation. This was a kind of peripheral strategy, in essence not different from that which would support the British.Although the leadership of the naval forces agreed that the final defeat of Germany could be inflicted only by ground armies on the European continent, nevertheless the naval planning bodies foresaw the use in Europe of not more than one million US troops, that is, considerably less than in the First World War.


The naval forces did not intend to significantly increase the number of their personnel. The planning bodies expected that the total number would be 1.3 million, including about 162,000 in the Marine corps. These figures were sharply different from the actual number reached by the naval forces during the war: 3.4 million people, including 485,000 in the Marine Corps. In developing its "victory program," the command of the navy sought to far from maximizing the efforts of its country, relying instead on foreign human resources, backed by the products of American industrial production.


On the other hand, the army saw no other way than confrontation with the enemy's armies on the ground. For the army and the air force, 8 million 795 thousand people, as calculated by the planning bodies of the military ministry, will be required. This figure was surprisingly close to the actual maximum number achieved during the war - 8 million 291 thousand, but the forecast for the composition of forces proved to be very erroneous. Instead of the planned 215 divisions, in fact, only 91 divisions were formed, and the aviation and service troops required significantly more personnel than was provided for by calculations.


The program developed by the command of the naval forces with its much lower costs and casualties was all the more attractive, because it was the Roosevelt idea of ​​the arsenal of democracy transferred to the conditions of actual war.


In August, successfully concealing from the public the essence of the ABC headquarters negotiations that took place in Washington at the beginning of the year, President Roosevelt considered the shift in public opinion reached sufficient to receive approval of open cooperation with the British. In view of the fact that England suffered one defeat after another - Greece and Crete were lost, British troops in North Africa were forced back into Egypt, - he was looking for an opportunity to raise the morale of the British.After meeting with Cherchell on board a ship in the bay of Ardenzhia near Newfoundland, he drafted a document, then signed a declaration on the aims of the war, although the country was not yet at war. It was the Atlantic Charter, the forerunner of the United Nations Declaration.


Roosevelt's participation in the Atlantic Conference at a time when he was still preaching neutrality, even for Churchill was astonishing. The United States acted like the girl who, succumbing to seduction, went too far along the path of temptation, that now even her seducer seemed somewhat stupid on her part not to go to the end.