When Hitler managed to conquer France in just a few weeks without expending hardly any resources at all, Stalin began to have second thoughts about his grand scheme. According to the man who would one day succeed him, Nikita Khrushchev recalled just how downcast and agitated Stalin had become when he first heard of Germany’s surprising victories in the field. According to Khrushchev, Stalin, in one of his particularly disgusted moods, had “cursed the French for letting themselves be beaten” and claimed that the British were “fleeing as fast as their legs could carry them.”
