To what extent did Britain's relation with her allies change during World War II

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Nick Clarke        -  -

To what extent did Britain’s relation with her allies change during World War II

Throughout World War II, Britain’s allies were constantly changing. In 1939, Britain’s allies were the Poles and French but by 1945 her number of allies had increased dramatically, with most notably alliances with USA and USSR. However, in periods between, Britain had been alone in fighting the Germans, besides support from the Empire and Dominion states.

In September 1939, Neville Chamberlain, who for two years and attempted to keep peace, led Britain into war against Nazi Germany. After Hitler broke the Munich Agreement of August 1938, where Britain and France signed a treaty agreeing to protect Poland. This made the three allies but when Germany launched their blitzkrieg on Poland, in September 1939, Britain and France could and did little to help Poland and Poland fell within weeks, allowing Germany to transfer their army to the Western front, due to the Nazi-Soviet pact.  

Following the fall of Poland, Britain’s new war objective was to defend its own island and France and hope that an economic blockade of Germany would end the war. In October 1939, Britain and France were offered peace proposals, but few were prepared to trust Hitler and sacrifice the land lost by Poland. The “Phoney War”, where no fighting or bombings took place besides at sea, followed this and Britain mobilised in preparation for war. Russia exploited this situation as without Britain and France to intervene as they had to focus on defending their own borders, they invaded the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and then began fighting with Finland. Many British and French politicians, notably Winston Churchill, lobbied for Britain and France to send aid to Finland and fight both the Nazis and the USSR. An elaborate plan was devised to attack the Russians whilst also cutting off Swedish iron ore supplies to Germany was devised but it never happened as just before as it was about be brought into action, the Russo-Finnish war was over and Finland gave over to demands of Stalin. If troops had been sent to USSR, and direct contact have been made; any future alliance would be very problematic and virtually inconceivable. The situation, illustrated the British attitude towards Russia in the early years of the war, with them seeing them as aggressors who conspired with Hitler under the Nazi-Soviet pact, rather than seeing them as potential allies.

Following the failure of the Norwegian campaign, a vote of no confidence was voted against the Conservative Prime Minister Chamberlain. Although Chamberlain won a House of Commons vote, he was clearly losing the confidence and Labour leaders said they were prepared to serve in a coalition Government but not under Chamberlain. This led to the resignation of Chamberlain and appointment of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister and head of the coalition government. Churchill’s character played a very large part in Britain’s relationship with her allies and therefore by studying his own personal relationships can help explain Britain’s changing relations with her allies.  

On the day of Churchill’s appointment, May 10th 1940, German forces invaded Holland and Belgium and broke French lines driving a wedge between the Allied armies. Within ten days, due to the effectiveness of Blitzkrieg, German forces had pushed British troops back to the beaches of Dunkirk. 350,000 troops were rescued by a make shift navy. With the retreat, Britain’s only ally in France had been defeated, after they surrendered on June 22nd despite the pleas of Churchill as he little more to offer than words. Arguments followed with the French blaming Britain claiming they had not exerted themselves fully and should have fought and not fled at Dunkirk. The British however, claimed to defeat was due to the French politicians and their military leaders ineptness. The state of the crumbling alliance with France was again shown by destruction of the French fleet by the British after the occupation, in order to stop the Germans taking it. Britain now stood alone against the Nazis, with only the small “Free French” organisation led by General Charles de Gaulle. However, although they had no allies, Britain did have the support of its Empire, which provided both raw materials and in many cases large numbers of troops, often in exchange for the promise of increased freedom and granting of dominion status.

After Churchill rejected a second peace proposal from Hitler after the fall of France, Britain’s objective was clear. To survive any threat of invasion from Germany and hold out until an ally could be found. Hitler launched “Operation Sealion” but seemingly was more interested in a future war against Russia. Whilst Britain began the Battle of Britain, Churchill and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden began a search for allies so they could move from a defensive position into an offensive position. They were optimistic that USSR and USA would both enter the war and a “Grand Alliance” would be formed.

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However, the three countries could not have been more contrasted in their ideology. USSR, as a communist state, had no free elections, no freedom of speech with the entire population working under the state. Britain and USA were Capitalist countries, and so believed in freedom of vote and right to run ones own business and spend money how they saw fit. The complete contrasts led to great hostilities between the two ideologies, especially USSR and USA as is shown in the Cold War. Both were weary of each others beliefs and sometimes openly aggressive in speech towards each other, ...

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