 British planners reported to Prime Minister Winston Churchill on 4 October that even with the help of other Commonwealth countries and the United States, it would not be possible to regain a foothold in continental Europe in the near future.After the Axis invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin began pressing for a in Western Europe.Churchill declined because he felt that even with American help the British did not have adequate forces for such a strike, and he wished to avoid costly frontal assaults such as those that had occurred at the Somme and Passchendaele in World War I.