by Unknown
Chamberlain was woken at 0300 to be told that Halifax was dead, although other details were uncertain. The unwritten British constitution had never been intended to cope with such a situation, but Chamberlain’s view was that as leader of the majority party, he was once again Prime Minister. Attempts to contact King George VI in Scotland for confirmation were unsuccessful. Fearful for his own life, Chamberlain moved to Halifax’s command bunker, from where he telephoned members of the War Cabinet with the news that some kind of uprising had occurred and that an armistice was even more urgent before the country collapsed into anarchy. Eden in particular, now back at the War Office, challenged Chamberlain’s authority and refused to order the army to stand down. At the Admiralty and Air Ministry, neither Churchill nor Wood could be found. In desperation, Chamberlain resorted to telephoning the owners and editors of every Fleet Street newspaper, ordering them to place the British surrender in their morning editions.
So on Thursday, July 18, Britain awoke to newspaper headlines (and German propaganda radio broadcasts) proclaiming that all troops should lay down their arms. This was easier to say than to do; the Royal Navy in particular showed little inclination to surrender; the Channel and the skies above southern England were not safe for the Germans yet. But gradually the cease-fire took hold. Seizing the advantage, Manstein flew in two more regiments to Manston over the next forty-eight hours, together with three squadrons of Heinkels and two of Messerschmitts. On Friday, Hitler addressed the Reichstag at the Kroll Opera House, “to appeal once more to reason and common sense” for a total British surrender.22 With the fighting effectively over, Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess flew to Croydon aerodrome next afternoon to arrange details. Hess caused brief bewilderment by demanding to speak to the Duke of Hamilton, an obscure and harmless Scottish nobleman. After discussion, it was found he meant Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton, the First World War veteran who was chairman of the British Legion, on the assumption that he would act as figurehead leader of the country. The doughty old warrior’s reply is a matter of historical record.
All this took a few days in which those unwilling to give up the struggle in Britain considered their options. German military control extended only to a corner of southeast England, and in theory every inch of the country could have been turned into a battleground. But in practice, as the Luftwaffe’s strength increased, not even Northern Ireland was safe, and the most important British military asset—the fleet—could not be protected for long. By July 22, a month to the day from the capitulation of France, it was all over. Chamberlain simply vanished; later German investigations concluded that, knowing he was dying of throat cancer, he had either shot himself or taken poison. By then the Home Fleet had put to sea from northern Scotland protecting a great convoy that included the British government in exile, and almost 200,000 troops under the now Field Marshal Montgomery.
As a British historian has rightly concluded, despite appearances, Britain was not defeated by any decisive German military victory. Rather, as the result of errors and misfortunes, Britain “had quietly vanished amid the stupendous events of the Second World War, like a ship-of-the-line going down unperceived in the smoke and confusion of battle.”23 Persistently overestimating the Germans, and underestimating its own people’s will to fight, the British government became the victim of its fears. All now depended on Canada, the rest of the Empire, and above all the United States, if the fight against Germany was to continue.
The Reality
Churchill became Prime Minister on May 10, heading a coalition government, and took many of the actions rejected by Halifax in this account. Otherwise, much of this chapter reflects the reality of 1940. The Battle of France took place as described up to May 21. But Rommel and his division both survived the Battle of Arras; it was Lieutenant Most who died, and there is no monument on “Rommel’s Hill.” Rommel’s frightened complaints contributed to the German decision to halt their Panzer forces on May 24-27. This, together with Gort’s redeployment of his two divisions northward without waiting on May 27 (and Montgomery’s remarkable maneuver, which deserves to be better known) enabled the BEF to pull back intact into the Dunkirk perimeter. All but 68,000 men of the BEF were rescued from Dunkirk.
Raeder asked for a rough plan for invading Britain in November 1939, and raised the matter with Hitler on May 20-21, but Führer Orders 16 and 17 were not issued until July 16 and August 1 respectively. The only historical plan for Sea Lion was the full-scale September option, which was not carried out, partly because of the Luftwaffe’s failure in the Battle of Britain, partly because of the plan’s own military unfeasibility. It was argued at the time, and later, that Hitler never saw this Sea Lion as anything more than a deception plan and a way of encouraging rivalry between his services.
A British political surrender or negotiated peace in June or July has been proposed both in alternative and mainstream history, but this was not a realistic option if Britain hoped to keep its Empire. I have therefore devised a fictitious and smaller version of Sea Lion, begun back in January 1940, which could realistically have been mounted in July. Even this fails militarily, but I have accompanied it with a political collapse in London. Those who wish to read of how a July version of Sea Lion might have succeeded are directed to Kenneth Macksey’s admirable book Invasion!
Much of this account is based on well-documented speculation by both sides on what might have happened. Manstein was sent to command the XXXVIII Army Corps in January 1940, which was later slated to lead the first wave of Sea Lion. Kesselring was a supporter of the July launch of Sea Lion. Student favored the June option, but, badly wounded in Rotterdam in May, he was not available to make his voice heard. Statistics given are either real or plausible projections favoring a best case for the Germans. I am grateful to Maj. Gen. K. J. Drewienkiewicz, Royal Engineers (ret.), for the performance of TA divisions in the campaign; to Dr. Niall Barr for Hess’s confusion between the two Hamiltons, and to Maj. Gordon Corrigan, Royal Gurkha Rifles (ret.) of Eastry.
In writing this account I have set myself a small historian’s challenge: from the Downing Street meeting of May 10 to Hitler’s “Appeal to Reason” speech of July 19, all quotations are real (even Halifax’s “finest hour” speech!), although the context has sometimes been changed. There are two exceptions. I have included Anthony Price’s version of “Dynamo” as if it were fact, as a tribute to a fine novelist. In the same spirit, I have borrowed Churchill’s “Day we say no!” from the Greek “Ohi Day” of October 28, 1940.
The pessimism of the British Army high command, including the role of Mason-Macfarlane, is a matter of record; that this was a military conspiracy including Gort is one possible explanation (I have discussed the available evidence in Bond and Taylor’s book listed below). Göring was indeed an avid reader of British thrillers, although as far as I know there was no new German translation of Riddle of the Sands produced in 1939. “Operation Smith” was identified in 1940 by British Intelligence as a codename for a German invasion plan. Model did play bridge, but “Small Slam” was his plan for what became the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. My execution of Sea Lion owes something to the Anglo-Canadian Dieppe raid in 1942, and something to the Anglo-American airborne landings in Sicily in 1943, both of which, for all their problems, were better planned than Sea Lion in any of its forms. The battle of Manston is loosely based on Student’s capture of Maleme in Crete in May 1941.
I have put “Boy” Browning in charge of the Whitehall guard on June 17 for my own amusement. In fact the connection with the Oxford Movement did not damage his career too much, and he was a brigadier by 1939. Churchill’s behavior that day owes something to a famous photograph of him cradling a Thompson gun; Chamberlain’s fate owes something to the ambiguous reports of Hitler’s death in 1945. The idea of Churchill bringing troops into Parliament is fantasy, but I believe he would have enjoyed emulating Oliver Cromwell.
Bibliography
Barnett, Correlli, The Collapse of British Power (Alan Sutton, Gloucester,
1984).
Bond, Brian, and Taylor, Michael, eds., The Battle for France and Flanders Sixty Years On (Pen and Sword, Barnsley, 2001).
Bond, Brian, Britain, France and Belgium 1939-1940 (Brassey’s, London, 1990).
Bond, Brian, ed., Chief of Staff: The Diaries of Lieutenant General Sir Henry Pownall, vol. I (Leo Cooper, London, 1972).
Butler, Ewan, Mason-Mac: The Life of Lieutenant General Sir Noel Mason- Macfarlane (Macmillan, London 1972).
Butler, J.R.M., Grand Strategy vol. II, (HMSO, London, 1957).
Calder, Angus, The People’s War: Britain 1939-1945 (Granada, London, 1971).
Collier, Basil, The Defence of the United Kingdom (HMSO, London, 1957).
Colville, J. R., Man of Valour: The Life of Field Marshal the Viscount Gort (Collins, London, 1972).
Cox, Richard, ed., Operation Sea Lion (Thornton Cox, London, 1974).
Cull, Nicholas John, Selling War (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995).
Deighton, Len, Blitzkrieg (Jonathan Cape, London, 1979).
———, Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain (Jonathan Cape, London, 1977).
Ellis, L.F., The War in France and Flanders 1939-1940 (HMSO, London, 1953).
Glover, Michael, Invasion Scare 1940 (Leo Cooper, London, 1990).
Hinsley, F. H. et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. I (HMSO, London, 1979).
Horne, Alistair, To Lose a Battle: France 1940 (Macmillan, London, 1969).
Jones, R. V., Most Secret War (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1978).
Legro, Jeffrey W., Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint in the Second World War (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1995).
Liddell Hart, B. H., ed., The Rommel Papers (Collins, London, 1953).
Lindsay, Donald, Forgotten General: A Life of Sir Andrew Thorne (Michael Russell, London, 1987).
Long, Gavin, To Benghazi (Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 1952).
Lucas, James, Storming Eagles: German Airborne Forces in World War II (Grafton, London, 1990).
Macksey, Kenneth, Invasion! The German Invasion of England, July 1940 (Arms and Armour Press, London, 1980).
McLaine, Ian, Ministry of Morale, (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1979).
McNish, Robin, Iron Division: The History of the 3rd Division (Ian Allan, London, 1978).
Manstein, Erich von, Lost Victories (Greenhill, London, 1995).
Milligan, Spike, Adolf Hitler, My Part in His Downfall (Penguin, London, 1971).
Ponting, Clive, 1940: Myth and Reality (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1990).
Price, Anthony, The Hour of the Donkey (Victor Gollancz, London, 1980).
Roberts, Andrew, The Holy Fox: A Biography of Lord Halifax (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1991).
Schenk, Peter, Invasion of England 1940 (Conway, London, 1990).
Trevor-Roper, H. R., ed., Hitler’s War Directives (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1964).
Wheeler-Bennett, John, King George VI (Macmillan, London, 1958).
Notes
1. Cull, Selling War, 34.
2. See Badsey, Stephen, “British High Command and the Reporting of the Campaign,” in Bond and Taylor, The Battle for France and Flanders.
3. Butler, Grand Strategy, vol. II, 269; Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. I, 515-19.
4. Deighton, Blitzkrieg, 244.
5. Bond, Chief of Staff, 316.
6. Liddell Hart, The Rommel Papers, 32.
7. Barnett, The Collapse of British Power, 8.
8. Deighton, Blitzkrieg, 258; Colville, Man of Valour, 217.
9. See Badsey, in Bond and Taylor, The Battle for France and Flanders 1940.
10. Trevor-Roper, Hitler’s War Directives 29; Legro, Cooperation under Fire, 94-143.
11. Lindsay, Forgotten General, 140-41.
12. Milligan, Adolf Hitler, My Part in His Downfall, 24-40.
13. Ponting, 1940: Myth and Reality, 104-14; Roberts, The Holy Fox, 231-36.
14. Calder, The Peoples War, 93.
15. Glover, Invasion Scare 1940, 99.
16. Schenk, Invasion of England 1940, 25.
17. Deighton, Fighter, 262.
18. Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI, 460.
19. Calder, The People’s War, 194.
20. Cox, Operation Sea Lion, 155.
21. Long, To Benghazi, 307.
22. Glover, Invasion Scare 1940, 114.
23. Barnett, The Collapse of British Power, 593.
The Battle of Britain
Triumph of the Luftwaffe, 1940
Charles Messenger
On June 18, 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill told the House of Commons: “The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin.” France was negotiating an armistice with Germany, which would be signed four days later. Continental Europe’s offshore island now stood alone against Hitler. Few outsiders believed that Britain could hold out without making some form of peace with Nazi Germany.
The Germans had already recognized during the Phony War that they might be forced to invade Britain. Grand Admiral Raeder had ordered the OKM to study the problem during the autumn of 1939. Hitler saw the navy’s proposals early in January 1940 and ordered the OKW to coordinate the drawing up of a triservice contingency plan for invading Britain under the code name Sea Lion. The planners recognized that for the landings to succeed, two prerequisites had to be met. First, the Royal Navy had to be prevented from interfering with the passage of the invasion forces across the English Channel. Second, the Luftwaffe had to achieve air supremacy over southern England. Raeder knew that his surface fleet was not strong enough to risk open battle with the British Home Fleet. He concluded that the best way in which the Channel could be made a “no go” area to the Royal Navy was to use the Luftwaffe to dominate it. This, as Göring accepted, was certainly feasible once France and the Low Countries had been overrun.
By the end of January 1940, Hitler had approved of the OKW plan for the invasion of Britain in principle. This largely influenced his decision to amend Case Yellow in accordance with the proposals put forward by Generals Gerd von Rundstedt and Erich von Manstein. Afterward, the attention of the German high command was absorbed by Norway and putting Case Yellow into effect. Once France had fallen, Hitler’s hopes that Britain might immediately seek terms were dampened by Churchill’s pugnacious speech of June 18. The OKW had also informed him that it would take six weeks to prepare the cross-Channel invasion force, which included gathering sufficient shipping. Hitler did not want to give the British the chance to recover their strength after their defeat in France, and was not prepared to wait until the end of July before mounting his attack. He therefore decided on a change of plan. The Luftwaffe’s attacks against Warsaw in September 1939 and, more recently, Rotterdam, had accelerated the Polish and Dutch surrenders. Likewise, the French declaration that Paris was an open city and the triumphant entry of his troops into the French capital had been the final nail in France’s coffin. Hitler was sure that if London was threatened in the same way, the British people would seek peace, rendering an opposed invasion, with all its risks, unnecessary. But first he had to make the British feel vulnerable. He needed to destroy what air defenses they had and also ensure that their traditional shield, the Royal Navy, was perceived by the British to be powerless. He discussed his thoughts with Hermann Göring. The Reichsmarschall was enthusiastic. For the first time in history, air power would achieve victory on its own, without the active participation of the two more traditional services.
The Germans were well aware that the so-called “Miracle of Dunkirk” had enabled a significant proportion of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to be rescued, though they also knew it had been forced to leave most of its heavy weaponry behind in France. The Royal Navy had lost a number of destroyers off the beaches to air attack. The capital ships of the Home Fleet remained at their wartime base at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. It would take them twenty-four hours’ steaming
time to reach the Channel. The RAF had also suffered heavily during the battle for France. Apart from the casualties inflicted on the BEF’s Air Component and the Advanced Air Striking Force, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, the AOCinC of the Fighter Command, had been unable to resist Churchill’s demands to help shore up the French by sending additional fighter squadrons to France. On May 15 Dowding had complained to the War Cabinet about the dissipation of his precious fighter strength, but his pleas fell largely on deaf ears. All Churchill would countenance was that only Hurricanes would be earmarked, thus at least enabling Dowding to preserve his Spitfires, which made up one-third of his strength, for the defense of Britain. The ten squadrons, which had been demanded by French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, were therefore sent. The subsequent air battles over France and those over the Dunkirk beaches, which also drew in Dowding’s fighters based in Britain, resulted in the loss of nearly 500 fighters and some 290 pilots.