the now unstoppable German war machine. ‘The great battle of France is over; it lasted 26 years,’ wrote a young German engineer officer,3 linking the bloodshed of 1914–1918, the great collapse, the simmering fury of Freikorps and Nazis, the French occupation of the Ruhr and Hitler’s gigantic rearmament programmes with the fall of France into one great war. This view will no doubt be taken by Historians a thousand years hence. It was certainly taken by Hitler. But the Historian of the far future will make one small alteration; he will discover the end of the great battle of France in the ruined heart of Germany, after a conflict of 31 years.
The French, now under the government of the aged hero of the first World War, Marshal Petain, sought an armistice. It was signed, at Hitler’s insistence, in the very same railway carriage in which the German delegation had signed the 1918 armistice, which was towed to Compiegne just for that purpose, and then blown up. This was vengeance indeed. Alsace – Lorraine, taken from France in 1871 and forcibly returned in 1919, was again to be part of the German Reich. French prisoners of war were not to be returned, and northern and western France were to be occupied, while Germany remained at war with Britain. The French government retired to Vichy. The British, frightened that the great French fleet would fall into German hands, insisted that the French sail it to a French Caribbean or a United States port, or that it join the British, or scuttle, or otherwise demilitarize. Acting quickly, without allowing time for full discussions, the British attacked the French fleet at Mers el Kebir, and seized or demilitarized French ships elsewhere. France, tormented by defeat, had now to suffer humiliation by her allies.
But Hitler’s policy towards France was rooted in the events of 1918, and the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923. He had considered France to be ‘the inexorable mortal enemy of the German people,’ and thought, ‘on soberest coldest reflection’ that Britain and Italy were Germany’s only possible allies.’4 But the theatrical scene enacted in the railway carriage at Compiegne was not born of the ‘soberest and coldest reflection.’ It was vengeance; delightful, narrow and expensive. He could not exploit the anti-British bitterness of the French caused by the evacuation at Dunkirk and the bloodshed at Mers el Kebir. Hitler might have made a lasting peace with France by leaving her with Alsace Lorraine and her full territory, and returning her prisoners, asking only for a free hand in the east. What could Britain have done, faced in 1940 with an exclusion from a united Europe, as in 1962? What would have been Britain’s justification to the people of the United States for maintaining a war in the face of such determined goodwill? Would she still have been offered lend – lease by the Americans? Could she have blockaded France to prevent her supplying goods from the world market to Germany? Could she afford to continue the war? But Hitler thought that Britain would make peace anyway, now that France was down.
Whatever his policy options, Hitler was master of western Europe. He had achieved this by two main instruments. firstly, the German army, the best in the world, drilled and trained with iron Prussian discipline, brave, enthusiastic, skilful, well led, well armed, victorious and battle hardened. Secondly, the German air force, the Luftwaffe, armed with modern aircraft, superior to its enemies in both numbers and training, which had proved itself an essential element in battlefield victory. German Europe would be secured from invasion from the west while the German air force remained superior. When, in 1943, plans were laid to invade northern France from Britain, Lt. General Morgan (acting Chief of Staff to the supreme commander, allied expeditionary force) wrote ‘A definite and highly effective local superiority over the German fighter force will be an essential prerequisite of any attempt to return to the continent, since it is only through freedom of action of our own air forces that we can offset the many and great disabilities inherent in the situation confronting the attacking surface forces.’
Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery wrote after the war that:
‘It is not possible to conduct successful offensive operations on land against an enemy with a superior air force, other things being equal. The enemy’s air force must be subdued before the land offensive is launched. The moral effect of air action is very great and is out of proportion to the material damage inflicted. In the reverse direction, sight and sound of our own air forces against the enemy have an equally satisfactory effect on our own troops. A combination of the two has a profound influence on the most important single factor in war – morale.’5
Thus vengeance on France seemed to Hitler to be a luxury that he could afford, for the west could not be invaded unless his air force was defeated, and even then, the incomparable German army would have to be overcome in battle. When, to Hitler’s irritation, the British, now under the redoubtable Winston Churchill (who was supported by one of the noblest of her kings, George VI), refused to heed the peace feelers that he put out, he decided, after a fatal6 delay, that the Luftwaffe could clear the skies over Britain for an invasion fleet to cross the narrow sea.
The story of the Battle of Britain is well known. A few fighter pilots, from many nations as well as Britain, denied air superiority to the Luftwaffe, inflicting disproportionate losses on the attackers. When German aircrew bombed London in error, Churchill ordered the bombing of Berlin in retaliation. This infuriated Hitler, and struck a deep chord in his furious soul: ‘When the British air force drops two or three thousand kilograms of bombs, then we will in one night drop 150, 230 or 400,000 kilograms! When they declare that they will increase the attacks on our cities, then we will raze theirs to the ground!’7
The Germans now transferred their attacks from airfields and radar stations to London, at the extreme range of their main fighter aeroplane, the Messershmitt Bfl09. As bomber losses mounted, the attacks on British cities were switched to the hours of darkness. All in all, during the Battle of Britain (July 10th to October 30th 1940), the Germans lost 1733 aircraft; the British lost 915.8 But production figures were also significant – even more so, if the German estimates of British losses and production are taken into account. The Germans estimated that British losses in fighters were twice their own.9 They also grossly underestimated British production. Between July 1940 and April 1941 they thought that their battered enemy had produced 6825 aircraft,10 while in reality they had made 14,761.11 This was not all; during this period, 3555 aircraft were delivered from North America (of which 1279 were delivered direct to overseas commands and Dominion governments).12 Britain acquired 18,316 aircraft, not 6825! This was a very serious miscalculation, for it led to a fatal complacency; aircraft production requires planning well in advance, as does pilot training. This was simply not done in time. Germany produced only 10,826 aircraft in 1940 and 11,776 in 1941.
But the consequences of the Battle of Britain were not only complacency born of an underestimate of British production, and overestimate of British losses. The defeat of the German air force led their High Command to discount the value of strategic bombing, and to continue with an air force mainly limited to army co-operation. Britain, however, drew the opposite conclusion, seeing the battle as confirmation of the necessity of vigorously pursuing a general air policy, that is, an air force designed for strategic bombing, air defence, and naval and army support.13
There were other flaws that ran deeply hidden under the surface of the German position. Firstly, the British had identified and ‘turned’ all the German secret agents in Britain, and thereafter, throughout the rest of the war, all subsequent agents entering the country were either noted or greeted by British intelligence.
Secondly, as a corollary to this coup, the British
