In the Spanish Civil War, fought between 1936 and 1939, Hitler had offered his army, his weaponry and the Luftwaffe to General Francisco Franco, the General who was the Head of the National Army and leader of the left-wing Nationalist Spain party, which would later be called ‘FET y las JONS’. The German armed forces were sent to both help with the war and to train for Hitler’s invasions and war. The world was shocked when it saw what the Luftwaffe was willing to do to achieve a victory. Guernica is a small town in the North of Spain, and was seen as the final victory that the Nationalists would need to retain the Basque region. The Luftwaffe planned Operation Condor Legion, which was to; basically, destroy the bridge to stop an escape, and then halt traffic and stop any attempts to rebuild the bridge. On April 26, 1937, 24 planes, from Germany, Italy and Spain, were given this mission each armed with over 300 kilos of explosives. Although the town was mainly full of innocent civilians, the Luftwaffe sent multiple waves of planes over the town, dropping bombs onto the civilians below. Three quarters of the town’s buildings were destroyed but the bridge that was the aim of the raid remained completely intact, and though the exact number is disputed, hundreds of people were injured and killed.
In the years after the raid of Guernica, Hitler developed this tactic into the ‘Blitzkrieg’, German for ‘Lightning War’. German Stuka bombers would bomb a civilian population, causing mass havoc and chaos. Whilst the civilians would try and flee the city, the German army would enter, causing mayhem as civilians tried to get out and the army tried to get in. False rumours were also spread around the place of invasion causing chaos and the city would become defenceless, as the country’s army waited many miles away for the invasion. Stuka dive bombers would first arrive and destroy railway lines, communications and main roads whilst the German army arrived in Panzer tanks. When the tanks had arrived, the bombers would leave, making sure there was not enough time for the city to organise itself. Any damaged roads were repaired for German use and then the bombers and tanks would move to the next city quickly. Often the bombers would bomb nearly every area of the city apart from one, causing mass fleeing to this ‘safe-zone’. Then the infantry would surround this area causing more casualties and terror.
When countries, opposed to Hitler’s Nazi regime, saw how he did not care about civilian casualties, including women and children; preparations began to remove defenceless targets out of vulnerable places such as large cities and people near military bases that were likely to be bombed.
In 1935, Italy invaded the country of Abyssinia under their leader, Benito Mussolini’s, orders. Though the League of Nations attempted to negotiate terms that both of the countries would agree to, Italy refused the offer and easily invaded the country by using tanks, aeroplanes and gas. The League attempted to ban Italy from importing products but to no avail. Meanwhile, Hitler marched his troops into the Rhineland, something strictly prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles. Although France wanted Italy’s support, Mussolini annexed Abyssinia and later signed the Rome-Berlin Axis with Hitler. This friendship later evolved into an alliance, which threatened the Allies, as they had seen Germany’s Blitzkrieg tactics and Italy’s use of gas, tanks and aeroplanes against civilians in Abyssinia
In the First World War, Britain had expected to fight a war like previous wars it had fought in. It prepared cavalry, but the horses could not be used in the mud of the Western Front. When Germany began using the machine gun as opposed to the sword, it suffered heavy losses until it could put more guns into production. Both Britain and Germany then began using gas on each other. Xylyl bromide was used by the French with tear gas, which caused the mucus in the nose, throat to enflame and causes sneezing and watery eyes. But the preferred gas of the German army was the deadly mustard gas. Mustard gas has no immediate effects on contamination with a human and so the gas was inhaled more. However, after six hours, blisters appeared on soldiers’ faces as well as severe itching. If the mustard gas reacted with your eyes, blindness was common. With mild inhalation of mustard gas, the effects were usually not life-threatening. However if large doses were inhaled, the gas would stop oxygen from entering the body, by increasing pressure in the lungs, causing death by lack of oxygen.
When British Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was coming to an end with Germany, the country realised it needed to protect itself in case Hitler used gas bombs on the civilians. Gas masks were produced for every member of the country, including babies and children. These had to be carried with the person at all times, and there were drills to ensure that everyone knew what to do. However, the gas masks could only withstand a certain amount of gas, and the Government was worried that during a surprise attack, many children would not have time to get them on, especially babies who would need adult help. The Government wanted to protect the next generation, which would provide labour, industry and help the country’s economy when they were adults. Therefore, the decision was taken to move vulnerable people to places that were unlikely to be bombed with gas. The gas masks were still carried in the countryside, to ensure minimum risk of life.
During the war, the Government knew that many men would be going to fight in the war. In 1937, there were only 200,000 men in the armed forces whilst the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces, had over 8 million men. Therefore, the Government knew that it would have to use conscription like they did in the First World War. If this was to happen, the majority of able-bodied 18-40 years would be called upon to serve in the war effort. The only people that wouldn’t have to serve were conscientious objectors and those in ‘reserved occupations’ such as miners, scientists and merchant seamen. The fact that men were called up to the army gave the Government two reasons to evacuate the vulnerable to the countryside.
Firstly, with a lot of men being involved in the war, industries needed people to take the jobs of those lost; and so a lot of women were employed in jobs that would require long working hours. This would result in their children not being properly cared for. So if children were evacuated to safer places, other families would care for them and the mothers would be able to concentrate on their jobs.
The other reason was that the men fighting in the war would include fathers and they would be disheartened if they heard news of injury, or even death, of their loved ones. If their children were evacuated to the countryside, there was less a chance that they would get injured meaning that the men could concentrate on defeating the enemy.
Evacuation was also declared in order to stop a mass exodus from cities when bombing did begin, rather than not telling civilians of the risk of being bombed, the Government believed that if the population knew then they could prepare for attacks by installing bomb shelters and blackouts. Evacuation was announced so that if bombing began, children would either be safe in the countryside or parents could use the program to ensure that their children got a home. In the countryside, there was less chance of food supplies being bombed so parents also believed that their children would be better nourished in the countryside as land owners could use their own crops without spending ration coupons.
Finally, the evacuation program also helped the Government ease the burden on emergency services if bombing did occur. Rather than hospitals being full of gravely injured children, only women and the elderly would be injured meaning that the hospital staff could deal with the injuries more effectively as people would be seen quicker. This would ease the Government’s mind as it did not want to further damage the lives of its civilian population.
In conclusion, the decision to evacuate children from their homes and families during the war was one that the Government did not do spontaneously but, after watching the Axis powers’ war with other countries, considered necessary to try and prevent as little casualties in the war as possible. Whilst all the factors discussed above would have been factors for evacuation, I believe the most important of the factors was the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. When this happened, it showed that Hitler was so determined to achieve his aims that he would obliterate anything that stood in his way, including civilians. The British Government would have seen the beginning of Hitler’s Blitzkrieg tactics and would have known that if Hitler carried on invading under his Lebensraum policy, then Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement would have to stop and war would begin.
When the Allies declared war on Germany, they knew that Germany could respond with immediate force and so decided to put Operation Pied Piper into place then. Though nothing happened in the year that war was declared, people knew that it was inevitable until Hitler began to try and damage Britain. As the Government had already planned the evacuation, it was prepared for Germany and any harm it may have wanted to inflict.
