How And Why Did Britain Survive The War From 1940-1943?

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How And Why Did Britain Survive The War From 1940-1943?

As you can see from this map war was raging in Europe in 1940 and Britain
was in big trouble. Germany appeared unstoppable as the defeat of Poland had
taken just under a month in September 1939 by using their new Blitzkrieg
tactics in which tanks would converge in one big group and punch a massive
hole through enemy lines. For the next months a phoney war occurred in which
Britain prepared for a German invasion. Although Britain was officially at
war with Germany, Britain had decided not to assist the Polish with their
war effort but if war broke out closer to home, as in France, Britain would
be forced to do become involved. If no action was taken Britain's
superiority as the economic super power in Europe would soon end if Germany
had its own way. The preparation for war continued throughout the next nine
months with France trusting its survival to the Maginot Line which was an
elaborate defence wall made up of underground fortifications, tank traps and
gun posts. France was naïve in trusting its defence in this as if Blitzkrieg
tactics were used on the weaker parts of the fortifications, such as a gap
in the middle, France would be overrun by this skilful German army.
Meanwhile Britain was suffering from German attacks on its battleships,
cargo vessels and aircraft carriers and this was beginning to be worrying as
Britain really should not be facing any danger regarding her rule of the
seas as she had massive naval superiority over Germany. Britain had thirteen
aircraft carriers to Germany's none and fifteen battleships to Germany's
two. Hitler realised he could not compete so instead developed the cheaper
option of U-boats from which would come an important part of the war in the
next few years. Britain's army was seeing its first bit of action when a
British Expeditionary Force was sent to assist France in its defence against
a German invasion and also to plug a Maginot Line gap along the Belgium
border. The country itself (Britain) was preparing for the war with the
public practising air raid alerts. Rationing was being put out in place and
children were being evacuated from the towns and cities into the
countryside. The phoney war inevitably ended with the invasion of the Low
Countries by Germany in May 1940. The Blitzkrieg tactics came in to their
own as the flat land of Holland and Belgium posed no real obstacles for the
powerful army. France braced itself for the invasion which occurred in May
1940. Germany took no time to defeat the Low Countries. It attacked the
weaker central part of the Maginot Line. The Germans easily defeated the
First World War style French troops and drove on to capture Paris.
Incredibly, although the French had a bigger army than Germany, they were
defeated in just six weeks.
Invasion Of The Low Countries
This attack on France turned Britain's fortunes from bad to worse as a
German army trapped the British at Dunkirk. The BEF were stuck on the
beaches and Rommel wanted to step in and finish them off with tanks but
Hitler intervened and ordered that the Luftwaffe should do it. Luckily
Hitler had not envisaged the ability of the British to organise one of the
most amazing rescues in world history in which an armada of hundreds of
small privately owned boats sailed from southern English ports to ferry the
British army from the beaches of Dunkirk. 330,000 men were rescued in just
nine days and the heroism of these seamen helped in the survival of Britain.
Although the new Prime Minster, Winston Churchill, put a brave face on
things by saying "The tale of the Dunkirk beaches will shine in whatever
records are preserved of our affairs" secretly he would have been in a rage
about this incident as although he proclaimed it as a great victory, 50,000
men were lost and vast amounts of British equipment were left behind and so
Britain was left on its knees with no outside help and on the brink of a
German invasion. Defeat was a distinct possibility but luckily Germany
decided to concentrate on France and Britain had time to arm itself and get
the war machine into momentum, The Battle Of Britain had begun!


Dunkirk

One French General suggested that Britain was waiting 'to have its neck rung
like a chicken'. That was the way it was because Britain was in desperate
trouble with its army in disarray and its commercial shipping and navy
taking heavy losses from the German U-boats. Although Britain was preparing
for a massive German invasion Hitler did not think there was a reason to
attack Britain and would have preferred to make peace with her and to leave
the British Empire untouched. But there was no way that Churchill would
agree to any peace deal with Germany as if that happened Germany would have
a free rein in Europe and ruin Britain's economy.
Realising that there was no way that Britain wanted peace, Hitler ordered
her invasion. The planned date for invasion Sealion was 15th September 1940.
The problem for the German army was that this would be like no battle so far
as it would not just be a case of crossing over some flat plain and blasting
a hole through a weak army's defences. He had to cross over a twenty mile
stretch of sea and, with the RAF above, any men in landing craft and on
boats would be blown to kingdom come. Thus Hitler had to defeat the RAF
before he could proceed to invade Britain. Hitler's attempts to destroy the
RAF with the Luftwaffe was called The Battle Of Britain.

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The Battle Of Britain
The Luftwaffe was complacent under the command of Herman Goering who
believed or just boasted that the RAF would be destroyed within four days.
He may have had reason to think this as the Luftwaffe had more pilots and
planes but what was quantity when Britain had quality? The Spitfire was the
best battle plane  as it was faster, could stay flying longer and had more
fire power. Britain had many other advantages over the Luftwaffe and these
were why we stood up to the Luftwaffe so well. We had radar and the Germans
did not, we ...

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