WORLD WAR II- BRITAIN ON THE MOVE- WAR IN AFRICA

 

Now only Britain remained but for that Germans had to cross the English channel. The German navy was no match for the Royal Navy, so Hitler devised a new strategy.

He thought if Germany mounted an attack on the Royal Air Force and destroyed it, then he would have full control of British skies and his landing craft would be able to land easily. He named this “Operation Sealion”.

The German air force had 3 times the number of planes England had. So, it expressed the confidence that it would be able to easily carry out the task. By September most of the RAF was destroyed but Churchill was not backing off.

In 1940 August 24^th some German planes erroneously dropped bombs on civilian targets and there were a big number of civilian deaths. In retaliation, the RAF bombed Berlin on the next day. This angered Hitler.

From 7^th September on wards, he asked the Luftwaffe to hit civilian targets. This continued for 9 months. This was the 2^nd blunder committed by Hitler. This targeting of civilians allowed the RAF to recoup as the Luftwaffe’s firepower on aircraft factories was reduced.

The pilots of the RAF who never slept peacefully for months took a full week off and rested. Aircraft factories started producing aircraft. The Luftwaffe went on bombing London but all the populace had already been transferred to bunkers and that resulted in a waste of effort for the Luftwaffe.

Not only that, as the remaining planes of the RAF had been rested, the Luftwaffe was lulled into thinking that the RAF was finished and they had command of the skies. 

On September 15 the RAF fighters rose in strength into the British skies, targeted the Luftwaffe, and brought down several aircraft. That day 185 Luftwaffe aircraft were shot down while the RAF lost only 26 aircraft.

By the end of October Hitler understood that the RAF could not be defeated and he had to drop the plans for invasion of Britain. This is a moral victory for Britain. In the battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe lost 1800 aircraft while the RAF only lost 1000 aircraft.

Now let us turn to Hitler’s ally Mussolini. After sending his army into France after Germany finished them off, he wanted to attack the British and French colonies in Africa as Britain and France were in no position to defend them.  In the process, he attacked the British island colony of Malta in the Mediterranean on June 11, 1940. The battle to seize Malta continued for 2 years up till 1942.

What is the significance of Malta? If Germany or Italy proposed to attack North Africa their shipping had to go by Malta, if the British were entrenched there, then it would be a great threat to German and Italian navies. Malta again has become a fighting scene between the Luftwaffe and the RAF. Malta later played a crucial role in stopping Axis navies in 1942 and the British submarines from there sank 391000 tons of Axis shipping.

In 1940 August Italy attacked the British colony of Somaliland in Africa and occupied it. Mussolini felt he was no less than Hitler with that victory. In the same euphoria, the Italian forces went and attacked Egypt.

There was an initial success but after that, the 236000 Italian troops deployed were trounced by the 36000 British Commonwealth troops stationed there and made to retreat.

The Italian commander Graviani did not know about the number of British troops and used bad tactics by trying to defend rather than attack by building bunkers. Finally seeing that the Italians were not attacking, the British forces themselves attacked the Italian army on 9^th Dec 1940 through Operation Campus. The soft Italian troops were no match for the British troops and were roundly defeated in just 5 days.133000 POW’s have been captured by the Commonwealth troops. 420 Italian tanks have been destroyed. The British forces only had 1900 casualties.             

Mussolini seems to be bloated by his ego and along with Egypt he also opened a front on Greece on 28^th October 1940. Italy again got roundly defeated by Greece lost 14000 men and had 1.35 lakh casualties. Ten German and British forces had to intervene in the battle in early 1941.  

Having Italy as an ally seems to have been a liability rather than an asset. Each time Mussolini bungled, Hitler had to support him.

The US was neutral in the war but had been supplying weapons to Britain as well as China. Now Hitler wanted to cut off these arms and brought his U Boats (submarines) into operation.

Britain required more than 1 million tons of material per week to hold off Germany and the U-boats sank all the Allied shipping possible for them. A lot of this shipping was American, but after some time the American ships managed to evade the U-boats and continue their supplies. Incidentally, all these goods were supplied by the US with cash down policy and not as aid.         

Hitler realized that only 2 countries fighting the war against the Allies was a difficult proposition as Japan had not signed the treaty. So he persuaded Japan to sign the tripartite pact in September 1940 along with Italy.

Hitler had only his own country to supply him with men, money and arms while both Britain and France had their colonies to buttress their efforts. The Axis forces were later joined by Hungary and Romania in November 1940, Slovakia in November 1940 and Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in March 1941. But immediately after Yugoslavia signed the treaty there was unrest and the Government had been brought down. A pro-British government came to power there.

Germany also wanted Russia to sign to which Stalin put some unacceptable conditions. Britain also sent a telegram to the Soviet Union to join the Allied powers. Hitler hated communists and he felt that the Soviet Union would always be a threat to him while Stalin considered Hitler to be his friend.

Hitler also felt that he would get lots of arms and food as well as plenty of space (Lebensraum) for Germany if he could defeat Russia. So with this in mind, he asked his commanders to prepare a plan to invade the Soviet Union. This move cost Hitler everything later as the German army got bogged down in the Soviet winter.

Italy is the weakest among the Axis powers. So the Allies decided to attack the Italians first. The Allies then sent a maximum number of troops into Egypt and Greece to fight Italy. But Hitler is very shrewd and he understood their game plan. He then attacked Yugoslavia for defying him and also Greece and Egypt to buttress the Italian troops.

Headed by Field Marshal Rommel the combined German and Italian forces defeated and drove back the British forces to the port town of Tobruk. By the end of May 1941 Yugoslavia and Greece both fell into the hands of the Axis powers. The Allies were defeated miserably.