History of the Second World War (2 page)

To all these people therefore, and to the hundreds in all those many spheres other than strategy and defence in which Basil’s far-ranging interests lay whose names I have not given and who will, I trust, forgive me for that, this
History
owes much. Nobody believed more than did Basil that a teacher will be ‘taught by his pupils’, and his pupils and friends were among the most stimulating it was possible to have. While writing the
History,
Basil had some very able assistants. Christopher Hart, then Peter Simkins, now at the Imperial War Museum, Paul Kennedy who did some valuable work on the Pacific Campaign, and Peter Bradley who helped with the chapters on Air.

Many secretaries worked with great efficiency over the years and their interest and patience in typing and re-typing the successive drafts of the
History
made the task easier for Basil. Miss Myra Thomson (now Mrs Slater) was with us for eight years during the time we lived at Wolverton Park. Later, here at States House, Mrs Daphne Bosanquet and Mrs Edna Robinson were helpful in every possible way, and in the last stages of the preparation of the
History,
Mrs Wendy Smith, Mrs Pamela Byrnes and Mrs Margaret Haws did valuable work.

Among the countless other people to be thanked are the directors and staff of Cassell’s, the publishers of the British edition of the
History.
Desmond Flower commissioned the book in 1947 and has waited patiently for it to be finished. Thanks are also due to David Higham, not only as the literary agent for many of Basil’s books, but for his friendship over the years.

The publishers and I are especially grateful to the following who so generously read various chapters or the whole of the
History
before or after Basil’s death and gave him the benefit of their criticisms: G. R. Atkinson, Brian Bond, Dr Noble Frankland, Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Gretton, Adrian Liddell Hart, Malcolm Mackintosh, Captain Stephen Roskill, Vice-Admiral Brian Schofield, Lieut.-Colonel Albert Seaton, Major-General Sir Kenneth Strong, and Dr M. J. Williams, Some of them have generously allowed Basil to make quotations from their own books — Colonel Seaton before his was even published.

We would like also to thank Ann Fern and Richard Natkiel for their work in respectively researching and drawing the maps; and once again thanks are due to Miss Hebe Jerrold, who has produced a first-class index, though having to work under much pressure.

Of the many people who have helped, I know that we all are most indebted to Kenneth Parker of Cassell’s, Basil’s editor and friend, who has had the heavy task of organizing the
History
for publication after Basil’s death. Without him, the book would have been delayed even longer. Basil said, in the Foreword to his
Memoirs,
that he had ‘been blessed . . . with a most stimulating, knowledgeable and exacting editor with whom it has been a delight to work.’ To those words I would like to add my special gratitude for his work on the
History.

Basil had small private means, so research for the
History
was always slowed down as he had to earn a living by his journalism and by writing other, more quickly produced books. He was helped during the years 1965-67 by a grant from the Wolfson Foundation and he appreciated the special interest that Mr Leonard Wolfson showed in the
History.
Help came from another direction in 1961, when King’s College, London, where Michael Howard was then Director of Military Studies, generously made possible the conversion of the stables of States House into a Library, and a small flat was built in the barn for the use of visiting historians. This greatly added to our working space and to the comfort of the scholars. Also the Inland Revenue authorities in the three different districts where we lived during these years, by their understanding of the nature and the problems of Basil’s work, made it possible for us to live and work in England. Without this, we would have been forced to live abroad and the
History,
as well as much else of Basil’s writing and teaching, would have suffered.

To ‘all who helped’, therefore, named and unnamed in this Foreword, I would like to dedicate this book.

Kathleen Liddell Hart

States House,

Medmenham,

Bucks., England
July 1970

CONTENTS

Part I

THE PRELUDE

1 How War was Precipitated

2 The Opposing Forces at the Outbreak

Part II

THE OUTBREAK (1939-1940)

3 The Overrunning of Poland

4 ‘The Phoney War’

5 The Finnish War

Part III

THE SURGE (1940)

6 The Overrunning of Norway

7 The Overrunning of the West

8 The Battle of Britain

9 Counterstroke from Egypt

10 The Conquest of Italian East Africa

Part IV

THE SPREAD (1941)

11 The Overrunning of the Balkans and Crete

12 Hitler Turns Against Russia

13 The Invasion of Russia

14 Rommel’s Entry into Africa

15 ‘Crusader’

16 Upsurge in the Far East

17 Japan’s Tide of Conquest

Part V

THE TURN (1942)

18 The Tide Turns in Russia

19 Rommel’s High Tide

20 The Tide Turns in Africa

21 ‘Torch’

22 The Race for Tunis

23 The Tide Turns in the Pacific

24 The Battle of the Atlantic

Part VI

THE EBB (1943)

25 The Clearance of Africa

26 Re-entry into Europe

27 The Invasion of Italy

28 The German Ebb in Russia

29 The Japanese Ebb in the Pacific

Part VII

FULL EBB (1944)

30 Capture of Rome and Second Check in Italy

31 The Liberation of France

32 The Liberation of Russia

33 The Crescendo of Bombing

34 The Liberation of the South-west Pacific and Burma

35 Hitler’s Ardennes Counterstroke

Part VIII

FINALE (1945)

36 The Sweep from Vistula to Oder

37 The Collapse of Hitler’s Hold on Italy

38 The Collapse of Germany

39 The Collapse of Japan

Part IX

EPILOGUE

BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT

SUBJECT INDEX

GENERAL INDEX

CLASSIFIED LIST OF AUTHOR’S BOOKS

MAPS

DRAWN BY

RICHARD NATKIEL, f.r.g.s.

Map Research by Ann Fern

Europe at the Outbreak of War

The Tank Drive in Poland

The Finnish War

The Overrunning of Norway

Fall of France, 1940

The Battle of Britain

The Western Desert

Capture of Sidi Barrani

The Leap to El Agheila

The Battle of Beda Fomm

The Fall of the Italian East African Empire

The Overrunning of the Balkans

‘Barbarossa’: Hitler’s Invasion Plan

The Initial Onslaught on Russia

The Pacific: December 8, 1941

Attack on Pearl Harbor

Invasion of Hong Kong

Invasion of the Philippine Islands

Invasion of Malaya and Singapore

Invasion of Burma

Russia: December 1941-April 1942

Hitler’s Plans: Spring 1942

German Advance to Stalingrad

The Tide Turns in Russia

North-West Africa

First Alamein

Battle of Alam Halfa

Second Alamein

The Battle of Midway

The Tide Turns in the Pacific

The Battle of the Atlantic

Rommel’s Attempt to Outflank First Army

Eighth Army Outflanks Mareth Line

The Final Phase in North Africa

Re-entry into Europe

The Landings in Southern Italy

Salerno Beachhead

Caucasus to Kiev

The Kursk Salient

Operations in Northern Burma

The Slow Advance through Italy

Anzio Beachhead

The Argenta Gap

The Normandy Landings

Caen to the Rhine

The Liberation of Russia

The Liberation of the South-West Pacific

The American Invasion of Leyte Island

Imphal to Rangoon

Battle of the Bulge

The Vistula to the Oder

The Allies Meet

Post-War Europe

PART I - THE PRELUDE

CHAPTER 1 - HOW WAR WAS PRECIPITATED

On April 1, 1939, the world’s Press carried the news that Mr Neville Chamberlain’s Cabinet, reversing its policy of appeasement and detachment, had pledged Britain to defend Poland against any threat from Germany, with the aim of ensuring peace in Europe.

On September 1, however, Hitler marched across the Polish frontier. Two days later, after vainly demanding his withdrawal, Britain and France entered the fight. Another European War had started — and it developed into a second World War.

The Western Allies entered that war with a two-fold object. The immediate purpose was to fulfil their promise to preserve the independence of Poland. The ultimate purpose was to remove a potential menace to themselves, and thus ensure their own security. In the outcome, they failed in both purposes. Not only did they fail to prevent Poland from being overcome in the first place, and partitioned between Germany and Russia, but after six years of war which ended in apparent victory they were forced to acquiesce in Russia’s domination of Poland — abandoning their pledges to the Poles who had fought on their side.

At the same time all the effort that was put into the destruction of Hitlerite Germany resulted in a Europe so devastated and weakened in the process that its power of resistance was much reduced in the face of a fresh and greater menace — and Britain, in common with her European neighbours, had become a poor dependant of the United States.

These are the hard facts underlying the victory that was so hopefully pursued and so painfully achieved — after the colossal weight of both Russia and America had been drawn into the scales against Germany. The outcome dispelled the persistent popular illusion that ‘victory’ spelt peace. It confirmed the warning of past experience that victory is a ‘mirage in the desert’ — the desert that a long war creates, when waged with modern weapons and unlimited methods.

It is worthwhile to take stock of the consequences of the war before dealing with its causation. A realisation of what the war brought may clear the way for a more realistic examination of how the war was produced. It sufficed for the purposes of the Nuremberg Trials to assume that the outbreak of war, and all its extensions, were purely due to Hitler’s aggression. But that is too simple and shallow an explanation.

The last thing that Hitler wanted to produce was another great war. His people, and particularly his generals, were profoundly fearful of any such risk — the experiences of World War I had scarred their minds. To emphasise the basic facts is not to whitewash Hitler’s inherent aggressiveness, nor that of many Germans who eagerly followed his lead. But Hitler, though utterly unscrupulous, was for long cautious in pursuing his aims. The military chiefs were still more cautious and anxious about any step that might provoke a general conflict.

A large part of the German archives were captured after the war, and have thus been available for examination. They reveal an extraordinary degree of trepidation and deep-seated distrust of Germany’s capacity to wage a great war.

When, in 1936, Hitler moved to re-occupy the demilitarised zone of the Rhineland, his generals were alarmed at his decision and the reactions it might provoke from the French. As a result of their protests only a few token units were sent in at first, as ‘straws in the wind’. When he wished to send troops to help Franco in the Spanish Civil War they made fresh protests about the risks involved, and he agreed to restrict his aid. But he disregarded their apprehensions about the march into Austria, in March 1938.

When, shortly afterwards, Hitler disclosed his intention of putting the screw on Czecho-Slovakia for the return of the Sudetenland, the Chief of the General Staff, General Beck, drafted a memorandum in which he argued that Hitler’s aggressively expansionist programme was bound to produce a world-wide catastrophe and Germany’s ruin. This was read out at a conference of the leading generals, and, with their general approval, sent to Hitler. As Hitler showed no sign of changing his policy, the Chief of the General Staff resigned from office. Hitler assured the other generals that France and Britain would not fight for Czecho-Slovakia, but they were so far from being reassured that they plotted a military revolt, to avert the risk of war by arresting Hitler and the other Nazi leaders.

The bottom was knocked out of their counter-plan, however, when Chamberlain acceded to Hitler’s crippling demands upon Czecho-Slovakia, and in concert with the French agreed to stand aside while that unhappy country was stripped of both territory and defences.

For Chamberlain, the Munich Agreement spelt ‘peace for our time’. For Hitler, it spelt a further and greater triumph not only over his foreign opponents but also over his generals. After their warnings had been so repeatedly refuted by his unchallenged and bloodless successes, they naturally lost confidence, and influence. Naturally, too, Hitler himself became overweeningly confident of a continued run of easy success. Even when he came to see that further ventures might entail a war he felt that it would be only a small one, and a short one. His moments of doubt were drowned by the cumulative effect of intoxicating success.