A Young Woman's Political Record 53 (Patreon)

AN: Thanks again for your support.

ooOoo

July 24, 1941

Churbull proved quite amenable to a meeting. He had actually pushed for an earlier meeting time than I had expected, just one week from the moment I had raised the suggestion. In turn, I had been forced to rush Lergen's preparation for our little surprise. Fortunately, General Lergen was a man who was always prepared for the unexpected, and he adjusted as smoothly as if he had expected me to push for such unreasonable aggression.

Churbull also suggested Amstreldam as a neutral meeting location. I would have preferred to meet in Parisee, but I could understand why the Albish Prime Minister wouldn't want to be photographed in the capital of a recent ally, meeting with their conqueror. Amstreldam's food was about as good, anyways, so I didn't mind. Honestly, it was thoughtful of him not to even try to force me to come to him in Londinium.

I took the train from Berun. Flying would have been quicker, but people seemed to get antsy when I flew to diplomatic meetings under my own power. Taking a passenger plane would have made for a less comfortable trip and just felt silly when I had a computation orb. At least on the train I could read through paperwork.

I could also admire the scenery. The people of Lothiern must have been feeling good about their neutral stance in the war. Unlike the previous war, where they had served as the primary battleground, today the landscape was peaceful and pristine. Business was booming, even, according to every report I'd read. As long as you had a country or two between yourself and the battlefield, neutrality was a great deal.

I didn't even begrudge them their neutral stance, really. We could still get access to their industrial production, after all. We just had to pay the market rate for it. It would have been nice to have a few more troops for the eastern front, but I could hardly expect a foreign country to send their troops off to war just to help me out. Besides, there were advantages to having a neutral neighbor.

Also, it wasn't like the northwestern region of Germania had been ravaged by war. Once the Francois Republic's army had been neutralized, the region hadn't even been threatened. If you didn't pay close attention to the number of women showing up for factory work, you'd have a hard time even realizing there was a war going on. It would be up to our air force to maintain that security once Legadonia fell.

I was still assuming Legadonia would fall, although it didn't look quite as cut and dry as I had expected it to, after the Allied Kingdom pulled out. The Russy attack had followed what was becoming a pattern for them: a week or so of overwhelming force and dramatic success, followed by an extended pause as they consolidated their gains. It could have been the result of simple prudence, but it might also have been an indication of their logistical limitations.

The Legadonians had used the respite to reorganize their own defenses. They seemed intent on fighting it out. It would take quite an effort to root them out, but unfortunately the Russy Federation had shown they were capable of quite an effort. Another surge like the last one would be enough to knock out the Legadonian resistance.

I would have liked to help, but circumstances constrained me from offering more than aerial support, both magical and mechanical. Shipping up enough troops to Legadonia to make a difference would weaken our own defenses in the east. While I would have liked to keep the front open as long as possible, at the end of the day the commies couldn't march from Ostfjord to Berun. There was no convenient geographical barrier waiting to stop them if I screwed up and let them overrun Pullska.

Not to mention, if I was in the mood to roll the dice, Legadonia wouldn't be where I'd go to do it. A superlative defense was useful, of course, but not war winning except in the longer term. If I wanted to convince the Allied Kingdom that they should stick in the war because momentum was on our side, I needed a real victory to support my point.

I was received at the rail station with all due pomp and circumstance. The Lothiern government had allowed me to bring quite the entourage, considering that I was leading a country at war. I thought it was a bit silly, as the Type 99 was more than enough to see me safely anywhere that I felt like going, but sometimes I had to make allowances for appearance's sake.

The local police led us through the streets to the hotel where Churbull was waiting, having landed in Amstreldam earlier in the day. It was actually the same hotel I had visited previously to discuss the Ildoan crisis. I hoped this meeting would proceed in more logical fashion.

I walked into the meeting room to find Churbull already seated at the conference table, enjoying a cigar. He stood in greeting, then moved to put out the cigar. I held out a hand, stopping him.

"No need for that," I said. I wanted to start the meeting out on a friendly note.

"Oh?" he replied, raising an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you would say that."

"I don't want to spend all day in smoke filled rooms," I said. "A single cigar is hardly going to kill me."

It wasn't like I had outlawed smoking in Germania. I had only ever wanted to be voted out of office, not lynched. While I had asked my subordinates not to smoke in my presence, they did plenty of smoking before and after. The collective smell of the smoke lingering on the clothing of my cabinet members easily matched anything a single cigar could do. I just counted myself lucky to be in a working environment where I wasn't at severe risk of lung cancer from secondhand smoke.

Churbull looked doubtful for a moment before bringing the cigar back to his mouth for a puff. When I didn't react any further, he shrugged and sat down. I took a seat across the table and hesitated for a moment, not sure if I should start things off.

"Well, in the spirit of reconciliation," Churbull said, resolving my dilemma, "I should tell you that the Royal Navy is moving to impose a blockade on southern Ildoa. They should be in place by the end of next week."

"That's..." I said, trailing off as I gathered my thoughts. "That's quite a change of heart."

I had been prepared to bluff and bluster just to keep the Allied Kingdom in the war. I never imagined I would be handed Ildoa on a silver platter like this.

Muzzioli's forces in southern Ildoa were heavily dependent on imports. If the Allied Kingdom cut off their access to the sea while their only land border was hostile, their days were numbered. I didn't expect Falasca to continue sending his troops to the front line once he'd won his civil war, but simply having Ildoa pacified and starting to get its economy back together would be a great boon.

"To be honest, you made some people very nervous when you led a tank column through Parisee," Churbull said. "Subsequent events have shown, though, that you are a steadfast ally. Whatever your reputation, you are someone we can do business with."

Finally! Someone who understood me. Just imagine what our countries could accomplish together once we embraced the international flow of capital.

"Meanwhile, the true nature of the regime in Moskva has become clear," Churbull continued. "The dastards infiltrated our society during peace time in order to weaken our war effort."

I coughed, then cleared my throat. "How awful. We shall have to redouble our own effort to root out communist agents."

It seemed our efforts to raise a red scare had borne fruit after all. It just took a little longer than I had expected. As long as we all hated the commies at the end of the day, I wouldn't complain.

I might need to have a little talk with Elya, though, about her work in Albion. I wouldn't want anything to get in the way of our newfound understanding.

"Both you and Jugashvili have long insisted that communist and capitalist societies cannot live side by side. Perhaps it was naive of me to resist coming to the same conclusion," Churbull said. "Nevertheless, we are resolved, and I speak for the whole cabinet in this, to see the fight through to the end. The question before us is how best to come to grips with the communist menace."

Ah, there it was. Elya had told me that portions of the Albish cabinet were willing to entertain peace talks. Now, it seemed, those members of the cabinet had been soundly defeated. That was a relief.

If anything, Churbull seemed downright enthusiastic about getting back into the swing of things. Well, we weren't lacking in communist soldiers to fight.

"Legadonia is still fighting," I said, then reconsidered. "Although, well."

"Yes, I daresay our assistance would not be well received," he admitted. "However, I have considered several other options."

That was a relief. My favorite plans were the ones other people came up with. That way I could nitpick from the sidelines and take some credit if things went well, or quietly fade into the background if something went wrong.

"Oh?" I asked.

He reached into his attache case and withdrew a rolled up map. He laid it out on the table between us, using an ashtray to hold down one side while he smoothed out the other. Somewhat to my surprise, it was a map of the world rather than a map of Europe.

"Yes," he said. "To begin with, we can send men to the far east to open up a new front."

He used a broad tipped pen to draw a line from the Allied Kingdom, through the Mediterranean Sea, down through the Suez Canal, and all the way out to the east coast of the Russy Federation. Even just looking at the line on the map was a daunting prospect.

I raised an eyebrow. "That's a long way away."

"Exactly!" Churbull said. "Any Russy soldiers fighting in the east aren't fighting in the west. The two fronts are far enough apart that shifting units between them would be difficult."

I nodded. That was true enough. The logistics of such an invasion seemed daunting to me, but the Germanian, and before that Imperial, military had never had much experience with large scale amphibious operations. I was willing to defer judgment to the Albish Admiralty.

"Then, while the Rus are stretched thin," he continued, "we hit them in their soft underbelly."

I looked at the map, dubious. "Where is that, exactly?"

"A relatively small Albish force can sail to Bharat," he said, "raise local support, and march north."

This time, the line he drew was from the southern coast of what would one day be Pakistan, up through what I was pretty sure was at least one mountain range, ending up in the middle of the Russy Federation. It looked nice, but I didn't think the arrow ended anywhere close to anything of strategic importance.

I searched for a polite way of phrasing my next observation. "It seems a challenging march."

"Nothing our lads can't handle," Churbull said, gesturing with his cigar for emphasis. "Come to that, it shouldn't be too hard to get Pashtostan on side as well."

I nodded, feeling a little helpless to object. Albion had been meddling in that region since before I was born.

"And then, the final blow," he continued, "we sail a fleet into the Black Sea and seize the Crimean peninsula!"

Now, this plan seemed perfectly plausible. Although there was one obvious bottleneck in the way.

"Sail into the Black Sea?" I asked.

"Of course, we'd have to convince Magna Rumeli to let us through," he allowed. "But once they realize that we're serious, that won't be a problem."

Well, again, when it came to bossing around non-European countries, I was the clueless newbie. What I liked about this prong of the attack was that it was a relatively short trip from the Allied Kingdom, and it actually positioned their troops where they might help us out. Although, to be honest, the Crimean peninsula was a pretty big chunk of land to bite off. The whole region was relatively flat. Ideal tank country, really, which also seemed to favor the defender. Still, if they could pull it off then it would at the very least give the Russy Federation something new to worry about.

"You're ready to implement these plans?" I asked.

Churbull suddenly looked sheepish. He puffed on his cigar for a moment before letting out a reluctant sigh and answering my question.

"Unfortunately, our high command seems intent on finding reasons why such things are impossible," he said, "which is where you come in. You seem to have a knack for making impossible plans come true."

Ah. The reason his ideas had seemed like amateurish plans that any military professional would shoot down was because they were, indeed, the plans of an amateur. If I helped push them through against the combined wishes of the Allied Kingdom's top military brass, I wouldn't just be some nitpicker, I'd be the prime mover responsible for the ensuing disaster.

Still, I ought to at least pretend to try to help Churbull out. I took a moment to study the maps and consider whether there was anything Germania could do to make his dreams more practical. 

"I'm flattered that you think so highly of me," I said, stalling for time.

The only thing that came to mind, as it so often did, was to apply mages to the problem. Mages that were sailing off to the middle of nowhere with the Royal Navy, though, were mages that weren't participating in the all-important fight on the eastern front. Also, they practiced a magic that was grounded in scientific understanding. They weren't miracle workers.

At least, they had better not be. I'd stashed the Type 95 away with strict instructions that no one was to touch it without my express permission.

I didn't want to ruin the mood by rendering a blunt dismissal of Churbull's ideas. Since I didn't want to say no and I didn't want to say yes, it was time for a distraction.

"We can share our rocket technology," I said, "both the propulsion and the proximity fuses."

The Albish had their own rocket program. It was always hard to be certain about such things, but our best guess was that they were around six months away from figuring out their own equivalent to our missiles. I had come to the meeting prepared to barter the technology away in exchange for the Allied Kingdom staying in the war. Considering that they were eagerly jumping into the war with both feet, I was happy to hand over the blueprints.

Our manufacturing was barely keeping up with the demand for more rockets. Getting the Albish war machine to produce their own would mean more dead communists, a true win-win situation.

"You will?" he asked.

I nodded. "It should help your aircraft carry out their missions, and rocket artillery is a bit easier to move than the traditional variety. Whether that's enough to make these landings viable, I would defer to your admirals and generals."

He seemed pleased, though I did catch a flash of disappointment as he realized I wasn't going to back his schemes in full.

"I do have an idea as to how we might begin our active cooperation," I continued, "though the plan isn't quite so ambitious as yours."

"How so?" he asked.

I borrowed a pen and drew my own line on the map. The line ran from the Pullskan border to the Bug river and then down to the Black Sea. I went ahead and shaded in the area between the Bug and the Dnieper, too.

"Our forces have launched an offensive from Pullska, intending to advance to the Bug and follow it to the Black Sea," I said. "If things go very well, they will push forward to the Dnieper."

Considering the weight of Russy forces opposing the offensive, we'd be doing well to get to the Bug. Still, it was important to put a positive spin on things in front of our ally.

"They've already begun?"

"The attack started this morning," I said.

This was what I had been planning to use at the heart of my sales pitch to keep the Allied Kingdom in the war: a major offensive, the first to venture into Russy-owned territory. I had thought that a dramatic move was needed in order to combat the perception that the Russy had all the momentum going in their favor.

While the Rus had maintained a sizable presence all along the front, we were still capable of assembling overwhelming force at a single point. We could generally maintain air superiority thanks to the quality of our aircraft alone, while our aerial mages of course didn't face any peer competitors. Our tanks should be better than theirs, and our men all had assault rifles to go along with the machine guns that had been generously distributed throughout our infantry. Man for man, our army should be superior.

It was hardly elegant, but we did have the power to pick an arbitrary point on the line and smash through it. The problem with embracing the strategic equivalent of the frontal charge was that the butcher's bill would be proportionally higher than it would be when you properly picked on a weak point. When you sent the elite of your military to charge straight at a prepared defensive line, sooner or later you'd find yourself running short of elite troops.

In this case, I'd elected to pay that price so that I would have the chance to move Churbull's heart by dramatically revealing our attack. The cost in troops would be high, but the reward of keeping the Allied Kingdom in the war would be worth it.

Now that I knew the Allied Kingdom was staying in the war regardless, I felt a bit foolish. Still, it was too late to call off the attack without looking ridiculous and torpedoing morale.

"If successful," I continued, "the Russy invasion force would be trapped in a large scale pocket. It's not quite perfect, though."

Churbull traced the map with his finger from the end point of our offensive down to the Yugoslavian border. "The sea."

"Exactly," I said. "If you can get your fleet into the Black Sea and cut off the Russy army from resupply and retreat, it would be a great help."

"I see," he said.

"Not to mention, if your expeditionary force could take on the task of holding the line in a few sectors," I said, "it would free up our troops to aid Legadonia."

It would take some work to rejigger everything on the fly. But it was worth doing a little extra work if it meant more problems for the Red Army.

ooOoo

July 24, 1941

Sergeant Georg Eschenbach had been a proud member of the volunteer battalion that participated with distinction in the Ildoan Civil War. Not just a member, he had been fortunate enough to be granted the use of one of Germania's secret weapons: a magical orb that allowed him to use the ability he'd been born with as a C-class mage on the battlefield without risk of magical detection. It was hardly a patch on what a real aerial mage could do, but having a bit of magic in your pocket to turn to in a tight situation was often more effective than trying to radio for aerial mage reinforcement.

Together with his fellow soldiers, Eschenbach had helped drag the Northern Ildoans to the brink of victory only to have it all stolen away by the intervention of the Francois Republic. It had taken a few years, but the Chancellor had shown the Franks the folly of their ways in the end. Meanwhile, Eschenbach had learned from his experience in Ildoa. Leaving aside aerial mages, he thought their battalion could go against any other battalion of light infantry in the world and give them a solid thrashing.

Germanian High Command seemed to agree. Their battalion had been split up into companies and spread across the front of the invasion force as it set out from Pullska. Their job was to smooth the way for the rest of the army as it pushed through to the sea. If it worked, it would be an encirclement on the same scale as the legendary Revolving Door. Eschenbach was determined to do his part.

They could expect help from the artillery park and from tactical bombing. High Command wasn't going to be stingy with the explosives when it came to an operation of this magnitude. Still, some targets needed that personal touch. Case in point, their company's objective for the first day: the taking of Hill 213.

The otherwise anonymous hill didn't sit squarely astride the army's line of advance. A target that juicy would have been tabbed for attention by aerial mages. No, Hill 213 belonged to the second tier of targets. It was inconveniently located, but it was close enough to threaten Germanian lines of supply as the offensive pushed onward. The Rus had recognized as much and had fortified the hill, unfortunately.

Two pillboxes had been dug into the west facing side of the hill, basically glorified machine gun nests. A more formidable bunker had been emplaced near the hilltop, where its artillery could control the small north-south road that lay west of the hill. According to intelligence reports, there could be a dozen or more Russy tanks lurking somewhere in the area, ready for counterattack, together with an unknown level of infantry support.

Besides taking Hill 213, their secondary objective was to fill in some of those question marks on the intelligence report. Eschenbach would have preferred to launch the assault after they had a solid idea of the opposition they could expect to face. Well, if the job were easy, High Command wouldn't have wasted his time with it.

In order to accomplish their objective, the company had been split into two. Eschenbach, along with forty-odd others, would be in a platoon under Lieutenant Storch. Their job would be to make their way through the shrubby little forest to the foot of the hill and keep the men in the pillboxes occupied. Meanwhile, the other platoon under Lieutenant Reitzel would use the cover of the small finger of forest that climbed up on the hill itself to get in close and take the pillboxes. After that, Storch's platoon would have the honor of scaling the hill in order to take out the bunker.

Meanwhile, the small battery of howitzers trailing along behind them would be raining fire down on the entrenched defenders, doing their best to make all of their careful planning irrelevant. Should that fail, they had a few more toys to play with. Two of the men attached to their platoon had been issued flamethrowers. Humping them up the hill wasn't going to be fun, but Eschenbach would much rather be on the side carrying the flamethrowers than the side facing them down. There was Eschenbach himself, along with a few other men carrying the H-7 stealth computation orb. There were a few combat engineers, with their packs full of all kinds of explosives. A few men had even brought along the new Iron Fist recoilless rifle. It was intended for use against tanks, but it ought to be able to give the pillboxes a good rattle, at least.

Just like skinning a cat, there was more than one way to take down a fortification.

They set off through the woods to the reassuring whumphf of artillery firing behind them and crash of artillery landing somewhere ahead of them. At the very least, it would give the men in the pillbox something to do besides watching the forest for infiltrators.

Eschenbach took point. The H-7 would give him a critical edge in any sudden confrontation. Really, the walk itself would have been downright pleasant if Eschenbach hadn't been convinced that they were sharing the woods with the Russy army. Every time he rounded a corner he would draw on his H-7 to quicken his reflexes. Every time, he was presented only with a new view of the sparse trees and ample undergrowth that made up the forest. By the time they reached their first way point, he had burned through a quarter of his magical reserves.

Lieutenant Storch crouched next to him behind the last line of shrubbery, peering up at their target. "Gunfire wouldn't do more than tickle the walls from this range. At least it'll get their attention."

The howitzers hadn't made much of a dent. As he had feared, the pillboxes were dug too deep into the hill to succumb to indirect fire.

"We could try knocking with the Iron Fist," Eschenbach suggested.

Storch took another look, measuring the distance. "You think you can make the shot?"

They were about two hundred meters from the closest pillbox. The latest iteration of the Iron Fist was rated for about one hundred meters. That said, while the precise nature of the H-7 was classified, it was something of an open secret that Eschenbach could produce a "lucky shot" on command.

"It shouldn't be a problem, sir," Eschenbach said.

"All right," Storch replied. "Take some distance. And look alive. The back blast will make you a target."

Eschenbach nodded, then backed away, keeping himself crouched to stay hidden by the shrubs until he was deeper in the forest. He took the proffered Iron Fist from the private who had been carrying the thing, then started moving along their line. He kept going until he was well clear of the rest of the platoon, keeping an eye out for a good firing position. He stopped when he found a nice thick fallen tree trunk. That would do.

The Iron Fist was a handy little thing. About a meter long, it was a simple metal tube with a warhead slotted into the front. You held it under your arm, pointed it at a tank that you didn't like very much, and pulled the trigger. A big jet of fire would shoot out the back end while the warhead flew off from the front end.

The one hundred meter range was a little misleading. You could pretty much just point and shoot from up to a hundred meters away. The warhead would fly further if you raised your aim a bit. Of course, doing that with any kind of accuracy meant you needed to do a whole lot of math and ideally should have some specialized training... or you could use a computation orb to do the heavy lifting and tack a tracking spell on for good measure.

Eschenbach took aim at the pillbox that he could just see through the hanging leaves. Spinning up the H-7, he made a few minute adjustments to his aim and focused on the target he wanted to hit. Another quarter of his reserves vanished just before he pulled the trigger. He didn't wait to see the result, dropping the tube and diving behind the fallen log as soon as the shot was away.

The sound of machine gun fire came rattling down the hill. A pair of bullets slammed into the tree trunk with an almost simultaneous thunk, while more snapped into the dirt behind him. Eschenbach kept his head down until the bullets stopped, then got up on his hands and knees and started crawling back towards his unit. Once he was deeper in the forest he got to his feet and started making better time.

He arrived to find Storch looking up the hill with satisfaction. "You definitely got their attention, Eschenbach."

He followed his lieutenant's gaze to see that both pillboxes had been swarmed over by Reitzel's platoon. As he watched, a pair of Russy soldiers came out with their arms up.

"All right, men," Storch said, "time to do our part."

Eschenbach didn't use the H-7 on the ensuing charge. He was tempted, but the years of hard training were enough to let him keep up with his platoon on the jog up the hill, though he didn't much enjoy the experience. At least he wasn't saddled with carrying a flamethrower.

His job, along with anybody else who wasn't a demolitions expert, was to fend off the inevitable Russy reinforcements or counterattack that would be launched to protect the bunker. He kept waiting for the Rus to pop up, but even as they ventured higher and higher on the hill, the enemy never showed his face.

The bunker itself was heavily built. It was fortified well enough to shrug off mortar fire, but as a result it offered only limited fields of fire to its defenders. Eschenbach was able to get right up next to it and scramble up onto the roof without even coming under fire. Once again, he scanned the area for Russy infantry, and once again he came up empty.

The rest of the platoon carried out their own business. Eschenbach was joined on the roof by a pair of demolitions engineers. They began laying out their explosives while below the flamethrowers poured fire in through the few openings available to them. The engineers were just about to touch off their explosives when Eschenbach heard shouting from within and gestured for them to stop.

He made his way over to the edge of the roof and looked around for a moment before he spotted Lieutenant Storch. "They want to surrender, sir."

His command of the Russy language was far from masterful, but he could make himself understood. Following Storch's directions, he coached the Russy soldiers through the process of surrendering. He could hardly blame them for throwing in the towel. Facing down flamethrowers in an enclosed space was terrifying. Not to mention that the incompetence of their commander had to be terrible for morale. The man had hardly bothered to put up any defense at all.

Once the bunker was secure, Eschenbach pushed forward, still trying to spot the Russy counterattack. He took one look down the backside of the hill and ducked back with a curse.

Down in the valley below, their camouflage netting not quite obscuring their forms, was a line of half a dozen tanks. Eschenbach would rather have seen a line of infantry charging up the hill. Shaking his head, he reported what he had seen to Storch.

"Those things aren't much for climbing hills," Storch said. "Think you could land a hit on them from here?"

Eschenbach thought it over. The tanks were about half a kilometer away. It would be pushing it, but they weren't moving. He had the wherewithal for one more magically guided shot.

"Might as well try, sir," he said, "they'll be long gone by the time we get artillery up here."

Suiting word to deed, he requisitioned another Iron Fist for himself and crept to the edge of the hill. This time he was aiming at almost a forty five degree angle, trying to coax as much distance as possible out of his shot. Eschenbach crossed his fingers for luck, put a guidance spell on the round, and pulled the trigger.

Again, the back blast from the shot was so vigorous that it might as well have been trying to give away his position. Eschenbach scrambled backwards as soon as the shot was away. He counted himself fortunate once he got back away from the lip of the hill without suffering any kind of cannon fire. Those Russy tank crews were surprisingly lax, still napping even after the artillery barrage that had been launched against Hill 213.

"Eschenbach!" Storch called out, jarring him from his thoughts. "Come take a look at this."

He moved over to join his commanding officer, dropping to his body and crawling the last few feet so he could look down on his targets. He accepted the binoculars Storch held out to him and took a moment to adjust them so that his vision was in focus.

Eschenbach felt a moment of pride when he saw the hole punched in the top armor of the tank he'd been aiming for. That was some damn good shooting, if he did say so himself. Then he frowned, taking another look at the hole. The Iron Fist used a shaped charge that could punch a hole in tank armor. A hole was expected. What he hadn't expected was the obvious signs of splintering surrounding the hole.

"Wooden tanks?" he said, almost to himself.

"I've always been a little skeptical of our intelligence reports," Storch said, "but I believe this is the first time I've seen such a huge mistake go in our favor."

Eschenbach felt a brief moment of disappointment at the fact that he hadn't actually taken down a Russy tank, but he couldn't help but grin as the implications set in. All up and down the line, the might of Germania had been gathered in enough strength to roll over whatever defenses lay in their path. If they were up against quarter strength units and wooden tanks, they weren't going to be stopped by anything but the sea.

ooOoo

AN2: I've been sitting on that soft underbelly line for a while. IOTL Churchill was an energetic and optimistic person who often had his ideas shot down by his military staff. He was also not above trying to rope an ally into his pet schemes. ITTL he doesn't even have Gallipoli on his record as a cautionary tale.