Allied by War: STALIN'S FIGHTBACK

News of Tobruk’s surrender reaches Churchill while he is meeting Roosevelt in Washington. It seems like the worst possible moment to ask for help. Yet Roosevelt offers it, and Churchill sets about rebuilding Britain’s military fortunes while defending his Mediterranean strategy.  David Reynolds and Russell Barnes follow the appointment of Montgomery, his victory at El Alamein and Operation Torch –  the Anglo-American landings in North Africa. Churchill’s diplomacy is equally energetic. In Moscow, he has to tell Stalin there will be no invasion of France in 1942. This delicate encounter draws on all the PM’s talents – the artist  sketching a crocodile, the actor alternating between sweet reason and histrionic fury, and a long night to see who can outdrink the other.   At Casablanca, the Mediterranean campaign acquires fresh momentum. The invasion of Sicily will help bring down Mussolini, but another postponement of the second front leaves Stalin seething. Churchill has recovered much of his authority. But keeping his allies behind his strategy will be much harder. 

Churchill is remembered for defying Hitler in 1940. But two years later, Singapore has surrendered, Rommel is threatening Egypt, and critics are asking whether Britain needs a different war leader. Churchillian rhetoric can’t make these defeats disappear.  David Reynolds and Russell Barnes revisit the difficult years between Dunkirk and the desert war’s turning point. Why did Churchill send tanks to Egypt while Britain faced invasion? Why was the Suez Canal so important? And why did he favour attacking the Axis through the Mediterranean when the Americans wanted to take the most direct route to Germany through France?  Behind those decisions lay the defence of a now fragile empire and bitter memories of the First World War’s carnage. At home, the socialist politician Stafford Cripps offers a very different vision of Britain’s future.  As Tobruk falls in June 1942, Churchill needs a victory very badly. This is the wargame behind the uplifting national memory: uncertain, costly and threatening to end his premiership. 

By 1943, the Red Army has learned hard lessons. Soviet factories are producing weapons in vast numbers, Allied supplies help keep the army mobile, and Stalin is giving his commanders more freedom. Hitler’s armies are being driven back.  David Reynolds and Russell Barnes trace the advance through Operation Bagration, the Warsaw Uprising and the final assault on Berlin. Stalin co-operates with his Western allies while preparing to dominate the peace. He even sets his own generals against one another in a frantic race for Hitler’s capital, with little regard for the lives it will cost.  Victory brings no lasting relaxation at home. Returning prisoners face suspicion, and celebrated commanders become potential rivals. Across Eastern Europe, the defeat of Nazi Germany opens the way to Soviet rule. We examine the uncomfortable relationship between the courage of the people who won the war and the power of the man who claimed their triumph. 

Hitler’s invasion brings the Soviet Union close to collapse. Stalin’s response mixes dogged defiance with appalling cruelty, but survival demands something else, something unfamiliar: listening to his generals. From the defence of Moscow to Stalingrad and Kursk, David Reynolds and Russell Barnes trace the Red Army’s recovery and ask how much credit its dictator deserves.

On 22nd June 1941, Hitler invades the Soviet Union. Stalin has dismissed repeated warnings. How did a man who saw enemies everywhere so disastrously misjudge the threat from Nazi Germany?   In the first of three episodes on Stalin, David Reynolds and Russell Barnes trace his rise from a Georgian seminary student to the Soviet Union’s absolute ruler. They examine the ruthless manoeuvring that eliminated his rivals, the human cost of forced industrialisation and the purges that weakened his army on the eve of war.   The Nazi–Soviet Pact in 1939 bought Stalin time and territory. But his strategy rested on assumptions that Hitler’s spectacular victories in 1940 overturned. Distrusting Britain and desperate to avoid provoking Germany, he struggled to recognise the danger gathering on his borders.  As invasion becomes catastrophe, the story follows Stalin’s retreat to his country house, exposing the vulnerability of a state built around one man.    Next time: Stalin finds his voice and the Soviet fightback begins.   Follow Creating History for the complete 13-part Allied by War series. A ClearStory production.

How did leaders with such different ambitions hold their alliance together long enough to win the Second World War? In this opening episode of Allied by War, David Reynolds and Russell Barnes introduce the private arguments and compromises behind the familiar history. They explore the gap between public image and private character, and ask how the bargains that helped secure victory contributed to the Cold War that followed.   This is the first of 13 episodes about the leadership and legacies of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, reflecting on their influence over the world during the last 80 years.

It's more than 100 days into Donald Trump’s second term as America’s 47th president and the world is holding its breath... In this conclusion to Creating History’s series on international summitry,  we dissect how the “disruptor-in-chief” has returned with a vengeance, turbocharging his “America First” doctrine and turning summitry into something like a high-stakes reality show.  Listener questions probe the limits of Trump’s power: Can international institutions survive? Is this the end of multilateralism? And where might Trump’s revived bromance with Putin lead? As the old order crumbles, we ask whether this is the death of diplomacy… or its reinvention. Creating History doesn’t take sides but does try to connect the dots on how history is being rewritten - the privatization of statecraft, summitry as performance art and the rise of a new “transactional world disorder.”     From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.   This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.   When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.   Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…   Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: [email protected]   Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.   Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516   If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history   Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk

International diplomacy has been upended since 2017.  In the first of a double Creating History episode, we dissect Donald Trump’s unorthodox first-term foreign policy through the lens of historical analysis. How did a reality-TV mogul turned commander-in-chief rewrite the rules of international relations? From his “fire and fury” theatrics with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un to the clandestine charm offensives with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, we unpack Trump’s summit diplomacy: a cocktail of brinkmanship, spectacle and transactional deal-making that left allies and adversaries alike scrambling.  We assess Trump’s rejection of traditional alliances, his reliance on personal chemistry over protocol and the lasting geopolitical fissures created by his “America First” mantra. Was this chaos… or strategy?   Next episode: From chaos to legacy—what happens when Trump’s “diplomatic revolution” gets a second act?   From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.   This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.   When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.   Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…   Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: [email protected]   Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.   Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516   If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history   Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk  

In this episode, we dissect one of the most consequential - and controversial - political partnerships of the 21st century: the alliance between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush in the lead-up to the Iraq War. From their chummy first meeting at Camp David in 2001, through the shock of  9/11, to the high-stakes summits that paved the path to invasion, we unravel how Blair’s relentless summitry became both a weapon and a liability.   Why did Blair, leader of a middling power, gamble his legacy on aligning with Bush’s hawkish vision? How did personal rapport and diplomatic theatre mask glaring intelligence failures and geopolitical miscalculations? We explore the asymmetry of this “special relationship,” where Britain’s prime minister, armed with charm and moral fervour, struggled to steer Washington’s agenda, only to become ensnared in a war that shattered his credibility and reshaped global alliances.   Unlike superpower showdowns of the past, this is a story of unequal summitry: a follower chasing influence, a leader demanding loyalty and a cascade of decisions that ignited Middle Eastern chaos, eroded trust in institutions and left a haunting question—was this partnership about statesmanship or hubris? Join us as we probe the human drama behind closed-door negotiations, the intelligence twisted into justification and the legacy of a war that still reverberates in every summit room today.   From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.   This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.   When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.   Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…   Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: [email protected]   Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.   Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516   If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history   Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk

When history hinges on a handshake...  Concluding our double episode on Reagan and Gorbachev’s high-stakes diplomatic dance, Creating History explores a series of summits in the late 1980s that defied the odds and dismantled the nuclear nightmare. Part 1 left us in Geneva, where a handshake between the former cowboy actor and the Soviet reformer cracked open a door. Now, in Part 2, witness how Reykjavik’s near-collapse, Washington’s triumphant INF Treaty, and Moscow’s symbolic strolls through Red Square turned cautious dialogue into irreversible action. Explore the audacious proposals, white-knuckle standoffs, and startling moments of trust as the leaders sparred over “Star Wars,” slashed missile stockpiles and rewrote the rules of superpower rivalry. Could idealism outmuscle hardline suspicion? And what lessons do these summits hold for today’s fractured world? Creating History brings you the untold drama behind the treaties that helped end the Cold War.   From Creating History - the team behind Creating Churchill - comes a gripping new season of high-stakes diplomacy, backroom negotiations and world-altering decisions.   This is Summitry.  Twelve episodes exploring pivotal meetings that shaped history.   When Hitler met Chamberlain. When Kennedy clashed with Khrushchev. When Bush and Blair stood shoulder to shoulder. When Trump had a shouting match with Zelenskyy... History isn’t just written - it’s negotiated.   Hosted by Russell Barnes and historian David Reynolds, Summitry takes you inside the rooms where power, pressure and politics collide. Each episode unpacks a defining diplomatic summit, revealing the human drama, strategic manoeuvring and lasting impacts of these encounters. Featuring expert analysis and rich historical context, this series pulls back the curtain on the meetings that changed the course of history.  Because when leaders meet, the world changes…   Follow the show at @Creating_Hist on X or Instagram, and send us your comments, voice notes and questions by email to: [email protected]   Please rate, review and recommend our show on your favourite podcast app. It really helps us get the word out and extend our reach.   Check out our first series Creating Churchill, also available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1772845516   If you’d like to buy us or the team a coffee at Ko-Fi.com/creating_history, we’d be very grateful. https://ko-fi.com/creating_history   Creating History is hosted on Podbean, produced and edited by Russell Barnes, with music by Rich Farnsworth, digital marketing by Lee Mann, and sound engineering by Andrew Chappell.  Creating History is a ClearStory production. www.clearstory.co.uk