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COST EFFECTIVE WAR
In a Chapter entitled Our Great Decision Spaight says some very interesting things about how the British Government in 1939-40, during the period of the “phoney war” against Germany, had an air of complacency toward the World War they had declared that prevented them from fighting it with the utmost ruthlessness. The guarantee to Poland had been forgotten, without one bullet fired in its defence, because the World War was on and Germany would be easily crushed by the British Empire at minimal cost to itself:
“Never since hostilities began have we in Britain been so foolishly complacent as we were during the first winter of the war. We were terribly pleased with ourselves then.
Everything was going well. We were having a nice, comfortable war. The change-over from the pace of peace had been a far easier one on the whole than we had feared it would be; the gears had hardly jarred at all. Now we could just jog along — still on first speed, though we did not know it then — and not worry. We had time on our side. All we had to do was to keep on keeping our morale up, and Germany was doomed. She could not hope to stand up indefinitely to our blockade. The economic pressure which we were subjecting her to and remorselessly intensifying was bound to crush her in time, as it did in 1918. It would not necessarily be a short war, but of its outcome there was no doubt whatever… The Nazis would see before long that it was hopeless to go on, their leaders would scuttle themselves, a satisfactory peace would follow a satisfactory war, and all would be well again with the world.
“At the close of 1939 a booklet entitled ‘Assurance of Victory’ was issued under official auspices. It was a heartening publication. It set forth the overwhelming advantages which we possessed in comparison with Germany. The first was man-power. Citizens of the British Empire alone outnumbered the population of enemy territory by more than four to one. We had complete mastery of the sea, and it was being used to the full and from the very start. Our blockade was more effective than in the last war. ‘This time we have begun where we left off in 1918.’ We had the measure of the U-boats. We were sinking between two and four every week. Our shipping losses were less than one per cent of our tonnage afloat. We had greater reserves of labour than Germany. Her railways were strained almost to breaking point. We do not need to defeat the Nazis on land, but only to prevent them from defeating us. If we can succeed in doing that, we can rely on our strength in other directions to bring them to their knees.’ ‘The Nazis cannot hope to win the war on sea or on land.’ What of the air?… They could not build aircraft on a scale sufficient to keep a huge air force in the field. They would be short, too, of oil. Two-thirds of Germany’s oil had to be imported in peace. She would need more in war, and she could not obtain it. She imported two-thirds, also, of the iron ore which she needed, and here again she would be in difficulties. She would be short of fats also. Her gold reserves were low. The morale of the workers was a doubtful factor. ‘This war will expose the fatal weaknesses of the Nazi structure. . . . The immense staying-power of democracy is the final guarantee of Allied triumph.'” (pp. 38-9)
So Germany would be forced further eastwards to fight the World War Britain had declared on them by their need of the resources the Royal Navy was denying them and then, presumably, they would meet the Soviet Union and they would bleed each other dry. Happy Days for Britain (not worrying about the civilians, including the Jews, who could be sacrificed for this cost-effective Great War II)!
Spaight comments:
“Like thousands of other people in this country, I read that booklet and it made me feel good. I felt that the war was going well for us.” (p.39)
It was not perhaps surprising that the Germans would be forced to attempt to break this encircling stranglehold upon them, despite Hitler’s reluctance to wage war on Britain, due to his admiration for her Empire and desire to make a pact with it to join its “civilising mission” in the world as an equal partner. A Douche of Cold Water therefore came with Guderian and Manstein’s breakthrough in May 1940.
The Air Ministry was appalled at the Government’s failure to use its developing bomber fleet after a War had been declared. Spaight saw this as Hitler’s Psychological Victory:
“The German abstention both from strategic bombing and from the use of gas should not really have surprised us if we had appreciated truly the pattern of the air warfare which the mere predominance of the military school of thought in Germany had already outlined. It should have been apparent that tactical and not strategic bombing was Hitler’s arcanum vincendi, or at least one of his arcana. There was ample evidence that he did not want the latter kind of bombing to become the practice. He had done his best to have it banned by international agreement. It seemed during the first eight and a half months of the war that the object which he had failed to achieve by way of express agreement he was attaining by a kind of tacit consent. We in Britain had organised a Bomber Command. The whole raison d’etre of that Command was to bomb Germany if she should be our enemy. We were not bombing her. We were most carefully abstaining from bombing her. What, then, was the use of Bomber Command? Its position was almost a ridiculous one. It seemed to be keeping clear of the war, keeping neutral, acting as if it had made a separate peace. Had it — horrible thought — been bitten by a bug from Eire?
“What was the explanation? It certainly looked as if the policy of Munich, of appeasement, were still being continued in this particular sphere of warlike activity, or inactivity. Hitler must have been a happy man, happier far than he is now, during that first winter. In effect he had won a great psychological victory, or he seemed to have won it; perhaps here, again, fate smiled on him only to betray. The Lancasters, Stirlings and Halifaxes were being built all the time. At least the lull in the air meant that the construction of our big bombers could go on without interruption.
It is certain at any rate that our failure to carry the war into Germany was the subject of a good deal of criticism in this country…
“The Air Force, it was complained, was not being used for the purpose for which, so far as it was an offensive force, it had been created. Only when the German advance into the Low Countries and France began in May, 1940, was our striking force of the air allowed to fulfil its function; and then, in the opinion of some authorities, an opportunity had already been missed of the kind that does not recur — the opportunity to strike at the German concentration which preceded the great attack in the west.” (pp.44-5)