by Norman Lowe
The Germans now swept southwards: Paris was captured on 14 June and France surrendered on 22 June. At Hitler’s insistence the armistice (ceasefire) was signed at Compiègne in the same railway coach that had been used for the 1918 armistice. The Germans occupied northern France and the Atlantic coast (see Map 6.1), giving them valuable submarine bases, and the French army was demobilized. Unoccupied France was allowed its own government under Marshal Pétain, but it had no real independence and collaborated with the Germans. Britain’s position was now very precarious. Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, allowed secret enquiries to be made via Washington about what German peace terms would be; even Churchill thought about the possibility of a negotiated peace.
(e) Why was France defeated so quickly?
The French were psychologically unprepared for war, and were bitterly divided between right and left. The right was fascist in sympathy, admired Hitler’s achievements in Germany and wanted an agreement with him. The communists, following the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR, were also against the war. The long period of inaction during the ‘phoney war’ allowed time for a peace party to develop on the right, headed by Laval. He argued that there was no point in continuing the war now that the Poles, whom they were supposed to be helping, had been defeated.
Map 6.1 The beginning of the war in Europe – main German thrusts, 1939–40
There were serious military weaknesses. France had to face the full weight of an undivided German offensive, whereas in 1914 half the German forces had been directed against Russia.
The French High Command was content to sit behind the Maginot Line, a line of defences stretching from the Swiss to the Belgian frontiers. Unfortunately the Maginot Line did not continue along the frontier between France and Belgium, partly because that might have offended the Belgians, and because Pétain believed that the Ardennes would be a strong enough barrier; but this was exactly where the Germans broke through.
France had as many tanks and armoured vehicles as Germany, but instead of being concentrated in completely mechanized armoured divisions (like the Germans), allowing greater speed, they were split up so that each infantry division had a few. This slowed them to the speed of marching soldiers (infantry).
The German divisions were supported by combat planes, another area neglected by the French.
The French generals made fatal mistakes. No attempt was made to help Poland by attacking Germany in the west in September 1939, which might have had a good chance of success.
No troops were moved from the Maginot Line forts (most of which were completely inactive) to help block the German breakthrough on the River Meuse (13 May 1940).
There was poor communication between the army and air force, so that air defence to drive German bombers off usually failed to arrive.
Military defeats gave the defeatist right the chance to come out into the open and put pressure on the government to accept a ceasefire. When even the 84-year-old Pétain, the hero of Verdun in 1916, urged peace, Prime Minister Reynaud resigned and Pétain took over.
(f) The Battle of Britain (12 August to 30 September 1940)
This was fought in the air, when Goering’s Luftwaffe tried to destroy the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a preliminary to the invasion of Britain. The Germans bombed harbours, radar stations, aerodromes and munitions factories; in September they began to bomb London, in retaliation, they claimed, for a British raid on Berlin. The RAF inflicted heavy losses on the Luftwaffe (1389 German planes were lost as against 792 British); when it became clear that British air power was far from being destroyed, Hitler called off the invasion. Reasons for the British success were:
Their chain of new radar stations gave plenty of warning of approaching German attackers.
The German bombers were poorly armed. Though the British fighters (Spitfires and Hurricanes) were not significantly better than the German Messerschmitts, the Germans were hampered by limited range – they could only carry enough fuel to enable them to stay in the air about 90 minutes.
The switch to bombing London was a mistake because it relieved pressure on the airfields at the critical moment.
The Battle of Britain was probably the first major turning point of the war: for the first time the Germans had been checked, demonstrating that they were not invincible. Britain was able to remain in the struggle, thus facing Hitler (who was about to attack Russia) with the fatal situation of war on two fronts. As Churchill remarked when he paid tribute to the British fighter pilots: ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’
(g) Mussolini invades Egypt, September 1940
Not wanting to be outdone by Hitler, Mussolini sent an army from the Italian colony of Libya which penetrated about 60 miles into Egypt (September 1940), while another Italian army invaded Greece from Albania (October). However, the British soon drove the Italians out of Egypt, pushed them back far into Libya and defeated them at Bedafomm, capturing 130 000 prisoners and 400 tanks. They seemed poised to take the whole of Libya. British naval aircraft sank half the Italian fleet in harbour at Taranto and occupied Crete. The Greeks forced the Italians back and invaded Albania. Mussolini was beginning to be an embarrassment to Hitler.
6.2 THE AXIS OFFENSIVE WIDENS: 1941 TO THE SUMMER OF 1942
(a) North Africa and Greece
Hitler’s first moves in 1941 were to help out his faltering ally. In February he sent Erwin Rommel and the Afrika Korps to Tripoli, and together with the Italians, they drove the British out of Libya. After much advancing and retreating, by June 1942 the Germans were in Egypt approaching El Alamein, only 70 miles from Alexandria (see Map 6.2).
In April 1941 Hitler’s forces invaded Greece, the day after 60 000 British, Australian and New Zealand troops had arrived to help the Greeks. The Germans soon captured Athens, forcing the British to withdraw, and after bombing Crete, they launched a parachute invasion of the island; again the British were forced to evacuate (May 1941).
The campaigns in Greece had important effects:
It was depressing for the Allies, who lost about 36 000 men.
Many of the troops had been removed from North Africa, thus weakening British forces there just when they needed to be at their most effective against Rommel.
More important in the long run was that Hitler’s involvement in Greece and Yugoslavia (which the Germans invaded at the same time as Greece) may well have delayed his attack on Russia. This was originally planned for 15 May and was delayed for five weeks. If the invasion had taken place in May, the Germans might well have captured Moscow before the winter set in.
Map 6.2 North Africa and the Mediterranean
(b) The German invasion of Russia (Operation Barbarossa) began on 22 June 1941
Hitler’s motives seem to have been mixed:
He feared that the Russians might attack Germany while his forces were still occupied in the west.
He hoped that the Japanese would attack Russia in the Far East.
The more powerful Japan became, the less chance there was of the USA entering the war (or so Hitler thought).
But above all there was his hatred of communism and his desire for Lebensraum (living space).
According to historian Alan Bullock, ‘Hitler invaded Russia for the simple and sufficient reason that he had always meant to establish the foundations of his thousand-year Reich by the annexation of the territory lying between the Vistula and the Urals.’ It has sometimes been suggested that the attack on Russia was Hitler’s greatest mistake, but in fact, as Hugh Trevor-Roper pointed out, ‘to Hitler the Russian campaign was not a luxury: it was the be-all and end-all of Nazism; it could not be delayed. It was now or never.’ Hitler did not expect a long war; he told one of his generals: ‘We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.’
The German attack was three-pronged:
in the north towards Leningrad,
in the centre towards Moscow,
in the
south through the Ukraine.
Map 6.3 The Russian front
It was Blitzkrieg on an awesome scale, involving close on 5.5 million men, and 3550 tanks supported by 5000 aircraft and 47 000 pieces of artillery. Important cities such as Riga, Smolensk and Kiev were captured (see Map 6.3). The Russians had been caught off their guard, in spite of British and American warnings that a German attack was imminent. Stalin apparently believed that Hitler could be trusted to honour the Nazi–Soviet non-aggression pact, and was extremely suspicious of any information which came from Britain or the USA. The Russians were still re-equipping their army and air force, and many of their generals, thanks to Stalin’s purges, were inexperienced (see Section 17.3(b)).
However, the German forces failed to capture Leningrad and Moscow. They were severely hampered by the heavy rains of October, which turned the Russian roads into mud, and by the severe frosts of November and December when in some places the temperature fell to minus 38°C. The Germans had inadequate winter clothing because Hitler had expected the campaigns to be over by the autumn. Even in the spring of 1942 no progress was made in the north and centre as Hitler decided to concentrate on a major drive south-eastwards towards the Caucasus to seize the oilfields.
(c) The USA enters the war, December 1941
The USA was brought into the war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (their naval base in the Hawaiian Islands) on 7 December 1941 (see Illus. 6.1). Until then, the Americans, still intent on isolation, had remained neutral, though after the Lend-Lease Act (April 1941), they had provided Britain with massive financial aid.
Illustration 6.1 Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941: US warships lie in ruins after the Japanese air attack
Japanese motives for the attack were tied up with her economic problems. The government believed they would soon run short of raw materials and cast longing eyes towards territories such as Britain’s Malaya and Burma, which had rubber, oil and tin, and towards the Dutch East Indies, also rich in oil. Since both Britain and Holland were in no fit state to defend their possessions, the Japanese prepared to attack, though they would probably have preferred to avoid war with the USA. However, relations between the two states deteriorated steadily. The Americans assisted the Chinese, who were still at war with Japan; when the Japanese persuaded Vichy France to allow them to occupy French Indo-China (where they set up military bases), President Roosevelt demanded their withdrawal and placed an embargo on oil supplies to Japan (26 July 1941). Long negotiations followed in which the Japanese tried to persuade the Americans to lift the embargo. But stalemate was reached when the Americans insisted on a Japanese withdrawal both from Indo-China and from China itself. When the aggressive General Tojo became prime minister (16 October), war seemed inevitable.
The attack was brilliantly organized by Admiral Yamamoto. There was no declaration of war: 353 Japanese planes arrived undetected at Pearl Harbor, and in two hours, destroyed 350 aircraft and five battleships; 3700 men were killed or seriously injured. Roosevelt called 7 December ‘a date which will live in infamy’.
Pearl Harbor had important results:
It gave the Japanese control of the Pacific, and by May 1942 they had captured Malaya, Singapore, Hong Kong and Burma (all part of the British Empire), the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, and two American possessions, Guam and Wake Island (see Map 6.4).
It caused Hitler to declare war on the USA.
Declaring war on the USA was perhaps Hitler’s most serious mistake. He need not at this stage have committed himself to war with the USA, in which case the Americans might well have concentrated on the Pacific war. However, the Germans had already assured the Japanese that they would come to Japan’s aid if she was ever at war with the USA. Hitler assumed that President Roosevelt of the USA would declare war on Germany sooner or later, so he wanted to get Germany’s declaration of war in first, to show the German people that he, and not the Americans, controlled events. In fact the US Congress was naturally determined to have their revenge on Japan, but was still reluctant to get involved in Europe. Roosevelt would have had a difficult job to persuade Congress to declare war on Germany; Hitler’s action saved him the trouble.
Map 6.4 The war in the Pacific
As it was, Germany was now faced with the immense potential of the USA. This meant that with the vast resources of the USSR and the British Commonwealth as well, the longer the war lasted, the less chance there was of an Axis victory. It was essential for them to deliver swift knock-out blows before the American contribution became effective.
(d) Brutal behaviour by Germans and Japanese
The behaviour of both Germans and Japanese in their conquered territories was ruthless and brutal. The Nazis treated the peoples of eastern Europe as sub-humans, fit only to be slaves of the German master-race. As for the Jews – they were to be exterminated (see Section 6.8). As American journalist and historian William Shirer put it:
Nazi degradation sank to a level seldom experienced by man in all his time on earth. Millions of decent, innocent men and women were driven into forced labour, millions were tortured in the concentration camps, and millions more still (including nearly six million Jews) were massacred in cold blood or deliberately starved to death and their remains burned.
This was both amoral and foolish: in the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) and in the Ukraine, the Soviet government was so unpopular that decent treatment would have turned the people into allies of the Germans.
The Japanese treated their prisoners of war and the Asian peoples badly. Again this was ill-advised: many of the Asians, like those in Indo-China, at first welcomed the Japanese, who were thought to be freeing them from European control. The Japanese hoped to organize their new territories into a great economic empire known as a Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, which would be defended by sea and air power. However, harsh treatment by the Japanese soon turned the Asians against rule from Tokyo, and determined resistance movements began, usually with communist involvement.
6.3 THE OFFENSIVES HELD IN CHECK: SUMMER 1942 TO SUMMER 1943
In three separate areas of fighting, Axis forces were defeated and began to lose ground:
Midway Island
El Alamein
Stalingrad
(a) Midway Island, June 1942
At Midway Island in the Pacific the Americans beat off a powerful Japanese attack, which included five aircraft carriers, nearly 400 aircraft, 17 large warships and an invasion force of 5000 troops. The Americans, with only three carriers and 233 planes, destroyed four of the Japanese carriers and about 330 planes. There were several reasons for the American victory against heavier odds:
They had broken the Japanese radio code and knew exactly when and where the attack was to be launched.
The Japanese were over-confident and made two fatal mistakes: they split their forces, thus allowing the Americans to concentrate on the main carrier force; and they attacked with aircraft from all four carriers simultaneously, so that when they were all rearming, the entire fleet was extremely vulnerable.
At this stage the Americans launched a counter-attack by dive-bombers, which swooped unexpectedly from 19 000 feet, sinking two of the carriers and all their planes.
Midway proved to be a crucial turning point in the battle for the Pacific: the loss of their carriers and strike planes seriously weakened the Japanese, and from then on the Americans maintained their lead in carriers and aircraft, especially dive-bombers. Although the Japanese had far more battleships and cruisers, they were mostly ineffective: the only way war could be waged successfully in the vast expanses of the Pacific was by air power operating from carriers. Gradually the Americans under General MacArthur began to recover the Pacific islands, beginning in August 1942 with landings in the Solomon Islands. The struggle was long and bitter and continued through 1943 and 1944, a process which the Americans called ‘island hopping’.
(b) El Alamein, October 1942
At El Alamein in Egypt Rommel’s Afri
ka Korps were driven back by the British Eighth Army, commanded by Montgomery. This great battle was the culmination of several engagements fought in the El Alamein area: first the Axis advance was temporarily checked (July); when Rommel tried to break through he was halted again at Alam Halfa (September); finally, seven weeks later in the October battle, he was chased out of Egypt for good by the British and New Zealanders.
The Allies were successful partly because during the seven-week pause, massive reinforcements had arrived, so that the Germans and Italians were heavily outnumbered – 80 000 men and 540 tanks against 230 000 troops and 1440 tanks. In addition, Allied air power was vital, constantly attacking the Axis forces and sinking their supply ships as they crossed the Mediterranean, so that by October there were serious shortages of food, fuel oil and ammunition. At the same time the air force was strong enough to protect the Eighth Army’s own supply routes. Montgomery’s skilful preparations probably clinched the issue, though he has been criticized for being over-cautious, and for allowing Rommel and half his forces to escape into Libya.
However, there is no doubt that the El Alamein victory was another turning point in the war:
It prevented Egypt and the Suez Canal from falling into German hands.
It ended the possibility of a link-up between the Axis forces in the Middle East and those in the Ukraine.
More than that, it led on to the complete expulsion of Axis forces from North Africa. It encouraged landings of British troops in the French territories of Morocco and Algeria to threaten the Germans and Italians from the west, while the Eighth Army closed in on them from Libya. Trapped in Tunisia, 275 000 Germans and Italians were forced to surrender (May 1943), and the Allies were well-placed for an invasion of Italy.