the German ‘enigma’ coding machines, which were used by the German armed forces as well as the railways. These devices were capable of encoding information in an incredibly complex manner, and there were millions of possible combinations. The machine itself had been on the open market from 1923 until its adoption by the German army and navy (who used different versions) in 1929.14 Although the Germans had modified the enigma machine considerably from its original design, the Poles had obtained one and had communicated a method of cracking the code to the French. This information was brought to Britain from France, and was studied assiduously by mathematicians and codebreakers of genius. These were established at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire where, because of the time needed to calculate the correct settings before the daily, and sometimes thrice daily German changes, the world’s first programmable electronic computer was devised and built. By 1944 these brilliant men and women were routinely passing on German naval, air and military information from the highest level, including instructions from Hitler himself, often reading it before the intended recipients! The intelligence gained was used to advantage, although always with a cover story that would conceal the source of the information and allay German suspicions, or perhaps arouse them in an inappropriate area.
The advantage of surprise in warfare is incalculable; the German commanders, generally of the highest skill and professionalism, were to be deprived of this advantage for themselves, yet had it used against them in all the most considerable actions in the West. In any area of human antagonism, be it in law, in business, in sport or in war, the knowledge of your opponents innermost plans is a pearl of great price. This secret was known to the British as ‘ultra’.
Another weakness was soon revealed to all. Hitler’s ally, Italy, consisted of some 40 million vigorous, brave and industrious individuals, with an army of over 70 divisions and a modern battlefleet, apparently united under Mussolini and the Fascist party. But from the first shots Mussolini’s Italy was revealed as corrupt, her army antiquated, her industry inadequate, her treasury drained and her leaders bombastic and incompetent. The union of the disparate Italian regions was imperfect, and her citizens were more dedicated to province than to nation, and more to family than province. Her natural friendship with Britain and the United States (which harboured so many millions from her shores, who maintained a regular correspondence with their families in the homeland) was a further source of weakness. Her armies, soon deprived of the air cover of a few ancient biplanes, were swept aside, and her soldiers abandoned the one sided and unpopular struggle in droves, although many units fought with great courage and skill, especially the crews of torpedo boats and midget submarines. The fact that morale crumbles in the bravest of armies when they lack modern equipment, particularly tanks and aircraft, was demonstrated by the Poles in 1939, the French in 1940, the British and Americans in the Far East in 1942, and by the Germans themselves in 1945, (when what equipment they possessed was immobilised by lack of fuel). Italian units soon needed to be stiffened by Germans; and Italy sank rapidly into satellite status.
A further weakness in the German position was the utter determination of the British government to see the whole thing through until Nazism was finally extinguished in Germany. She could not be brought to terms by bombardment, however ferocious. Hitler presumed that British hostility was sustained by a powerful clique of Jews, for he could not appreciate, nor could any of his great officers of state, the absolute odium in which he was held, both in Britain and the United States. The Nazi elite sneered at ‘decency’, persecuted minorities, despised democracy, lauded war and murdered their opponents, yet seemed unable to fathom the disgust this attitude inspired in the great majority of the free people of the West.
For this reason Britain had embarked on a course which appeared to throw self-interest to the winds. She borrowed heavily from the United States, and the level of her gold and currency reserves was determined by that power, for although America would support democracy, she would not sustain a rival in trade. Britain was prepared to accept American industrial and financial aid on terms which meant the sale of all her remaining American assets, and which would inevitably lead to her post war dependence on the United States, and to American hegemony in the West. The future of her empire would be in the hands of the nation whose birth and whose very soul was anti-imperialistic. The uncertain future was mortgaged for the fight against Hitler.
But with huge American and Canadian subsidies, the progressive imperial decline in finance and industry was temporarily reversed, and Britain’s main weakness disappeared. British factories could produce armaments to their full, and considerable, capacity, and the products of American industry began to flood in. These industries would now begin to supply an army which would ultimately consist of some 47 divisions, 11 of them armoured, and although these were also required in the Far and Middle East, they represented a force which Germany had continually to guard against, for they might raid anywhere from Stavanger to Bordeaux. “He that commands the sea”, wrote Bacon, “is at great liberty, and may take as much or as little warre as he will.”15 For the army in 1940, the ‘warre’ taken was necessarily little. Although the imperial army could recruit from many warlike peoples in India, and would receive valuable additions from the brave ‘Free French’ forces of Charles de Gaulle, from the Poles, the Czechs, the Dutch, the Belgians and others who had escaped to Britain, and above all, from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, it simply could not match the German army in numbers, equipment, morale or efficiency.
The navy commanded the sea, but could not end the war on its own. It might deny the seas to Germany for all but the most hazardous and clandestine of trade, but it was itself vulnerable to shore based aircraft and to submarines. Battleships, once the lords of the oceans, were in deadly peril unless they were protected from the torpedo and the bomb, as were all other vessels. Land based aeroplanes made any approach to a coast without air cover hazardous. The navy, like the army, could scarcely operate at all without protection from aerial attack.
But the air force was different. It could directly attack enemy territory. Like the light cavalry of the Huns and the Magyars, it could send out raiding parties to burn and destroy deep within enemy territory. It could not be stopped by city walls, garrisons or armies. It could single out for destruction industries, transport, military installations and ships. It was the only armed force possessed by Britain that could strike directly at Germany. Some thought it might eventually win the war on its own by a massive bombardment that would destroy cities, industries and morale alike. The Royal Air Force itself, jealous of its independence from the other armed services, had readily embraced the strategic bombing theory; it found a ready ear among those who dreaded trench warfare, and among those who perceived that the expense of heavy bombers seemed considerably less than that of capital ships and huge armies.
The bombing of cities had been dreaded before the war, and its destructiveness overrated. Guernica had been destroyed by bombers in the Spanish civil war. But Guernica was small and had been undefended. When bombers were opposed by intense anti-aircraft gunfire, they had to fly high, or be decimated. When opposed without a large fighter escort by enemy fighter planes, they were forced to fly at night (bitter British and American experience was to prove that no defensive armament could reasonably protect unescorted day bombers against the ravages of enemy fighters). At high altitude, and at night, navigation was difficult and accuracy of aim almost impossible. There would be no more Guernicas until the arrival of better navigational aids, bombing accuracy and air superiority – unless the target was so huge that it could not be missed.
Nevertheless, the British persisted in their bombing campaign, because they could do little else. Between July 1940 and the end of May 1941, some 18,000 tons of bombs were dropped, nearly 4000 tons being on industrial towns.16 Although extremely irritating to the German High Command and the Nazi elite, these attacks were costly to Britain in men and materials, and inaccurate. By the end of 1940 the Germans had dropped nearly 35,000 tons on Britain. They had dropped over 22,000 tons during 1941,17 but most of this was in the early part of the year. Hitler was turning
