Part VI
In this part . . .
Years of political neglect ensured that the British Army was ill prepared and underequipped for a second global conflict, although it did have a spectacular success against the Italians in North Africa. However, by 1942 Britain was able to take the offensive, despite the intervention of Japan, fighting successful campaigns in North Africa, Italy, northwest Europe, and Burma.
Following the end of the Second World War, the army’s work involved ensuring a peaceful withdrawal from Empire, fighting a Cold War against communists, fighting real wars in Korea, the Falkland Islands, Iraq, and Afghanistan, defeating terrorism, and peace keeping. Despite constant reductions in its strength, the army undertook all these tasks successfully and with credit.
Chapter 20
In This Chapter
● Policing actions between the wars
● Campaigning in France, 1939-1940
● Facing Germany alone, 1940
In 1919 the Treasury cut defence expenditure to the bone, using the excuse that Great Britain was not likely to become involved in a full-scale war for ten years. This notorious Ten Year Rule remained year after year until 1932, when Hitler came to power in Germany. The measure was simply an excuse for not spending money and deferring modernisation of the army.
Mechanisation of the forces proceeded at a snail’s pace. For some years after the First World War, the army spent more on animal feed than it did on petrol. The numerous senior cavalry officers in high places did everything in their power to retain their traditional arm of service at the expense of the Royal Tank Corps, as it became in 1923. When, under Hitler, Germany began rearming openly, the British government suddenly realised that years of deliberate political neglect had produced an army incapable of fighting a modern war. Several Territorial infantry battalions transferred to the Royal Tank Corps, and when the size of the Territorial Army doubled in 1939, their numbers doubled as well. In 1939 the British government made a sensible decision to form the mechanised cavalry regiments and the Royal Tank Corps (which became the Royal Tank Regiment) into the Royal Armoured Corps, to centralise training, administration, and other matters. At this point, time ran out and the Second World War began.
The causes of the Second World War have filled many books dedicated to the subject, so for more information, check out Keith D. Dickson’s World War Two For Dummies and Sean Lang’s European History For Dummies (both published by Wiley). For now, it’s worth remembering that Britain, France, and some other Allied countries originally faced off against Germany, Italy, and other Axis countries (and that the Soviet Union, America, and later Italy joined with the Allies).
At the start of the Second World War, the British army consisted of:
● Infantry: British infantrymen started the Second World War equipped not unlike they were at the end of the First World War: steel helmets, rapid firing Lee-Enfield rifles, and khaki uniforms were standard issue. Figure 20-1 shows typical infantrymen of this period.
● Cavalry: By this time, the cavalry were re-equipping with tanks and armoured cars.
● Artillery: Early in the war, British artillery was towed by trucks, and self-propelled artillery came later in the war.
● Tanks: The Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) was still growing at the start of the Second World War, and the tanks it used in included heavily armoured Matilda tanks and lightly armoured Cruiser tanks.
For more on British tank theory between the wars and at the start of the Second World War, see Chapter 1. The British army developed its own special forces in the early stages of the Second World War - see the later sidebar ‘Commandos and Paratroopers’ for more information.
Figure 20-1: British infantrymen, Second World War.
Campaigning between the Wars
The defeat of the Central Powers in 1918 did not mean that the army had nothing to do. Under the terms of the general peace agreements of the First World War (see Part V), the British Empire absorbed several German colonies and reached its greatest territorial extent. The United Kingdom also had mandates to administer the Turkish provinces of Palestine and Mesopotamia. As increasing Jewish settlement in Palestine was already causing friction with the Arab population, this proved to be a poisoned chalice.
To avoid overstretching the post-war army, the Royal Air Force assumed responsibility for air policing Mesopotamia (renamed Iraq) and Aden. A Third (and brief) Afghan War began in 1919 with an incursion into British territory. Having experienced a taste of modern firepower and the Royal Air Force’s ability to bomb deep inside Afghanistan, the Afghans called the fighting off and went home, forfeiting their British subsidies.
British troops were actively employed in dealing with civil wars of one kind or another, notably during:
● International intervention in Russia, 1918-1919. The Russian Civil War was raging and British troops formed part of the international interventionist forces. They fought on the side of the White Russian armies in the areas of Murmansk, Archangel, the Baltic, and South Russia. Unfortunately, the Whites could not agree on a joint strategy, or much else for that matter, whereas the Red Russian or Bolshevik armies were clear in their aims and, having the benefit of a central position within Russia, were able to deploy their troops more efficiently. One by one the White armies were defeated and the interventionist forces withdrew.
● The Irish War of Independence, 1919-1921. Executions following the Easter Rising of 1916 (see Chapter 17) and the imprisonment of hundreds of Irish nationalists afterwards swung public opinion in Ireland towards independence. Some nationalists favoured achieving independence by violent means and enjoyed the tacit support of some sections of the population. To assist in restoring order, some 8000 auxiliary policemen were recruited. They were called the Black and Tans because of the colour of their uniforms, and they were mostly ex-servicemen unable to settle down to civilian life. Both sides committed acts to be ashamed of, but the Black and Tans excelled in such activities and they alienated moderate Irish opinion. By 1921, neither side expected to win an outright military victory. The nationalist leaders concluded a treaty with the British government that recognised the right of six Protestant counties of Ulster to remain within the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, while the remaining 26 counties gained self-governing dominion status as the Irish Free State, which eventually became the sovereign republic of Ireland in 1949. Ulster accepted the situation, but elsewhere a bloody civil war ensued between those Irishmen who accepted the provisions of the treaty and those who did not, ending in favour of the pro-treaty party in 1923 (the knock-on military effect of this partition is detailed in the sidebar ‘The lost regiments’).
The lost regiments
Granting independence to the 26 counties forming the Irish Free State in 1921 meant that the regiments with strong local connections in those areas could no longer exist within the British Army. Five regiments disbanded and those men wishing to continue their service with the British Army transferred to other regiments. The five regiments were:
● The Royal Irish Regiment
● The Connaught Rangers
● The Prince of Wales' Leinster Regiment
● The Royal Munster Fusiliers
● The Royal Dublin Fusiliers
The Irish Guards, though formed as recently as 1900, were not affected, nor were those regiments whose local connections lay in Ulster. The Army as a whole still draws recruits from both sides of the Irish border.
The Phoney War, 1939-1940
The Second World War started in September 1939. On the Western Front it was known as the Phoney War because, apart from patrol activity, absolutely nothing happened.
Despite being known as the Phoney War in France, the war was very real elsewhere:
● Under Adolf Hitler’s leadership, Germany defeated the Polish army in September 1939 with the help of the Soviet Union. For the moment, Hitler and Josef Stalin, the Soviet dictator, maintained a truly insincere friendship.
● Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in April 1940. British forces went to the Norwegians’ assistance, only to find that the Germans possessed tanks and adequate air support, whereas the British and Norwegians had neither. The result was an embarrassing evacuation of the British army by sea in June.
Germany’s initial victories were fought using the same Blitzkrieg tactics that Allenby used at Megiddo (see Chapter 19). These consisted of a holding attack that coincided with a deep penetration elsewhere on the battlefront with the object of inflicting strategic paralysis on the enemy, both accompanied by dominant air support.
Nothing happened on the new Western Front for months and months. The Allies believed that if the Germans attacked, they would employ a mechanised version of the Schlieffen plan that had failed so narrowly in 1914 (see Chapter 17), sweeping through Belgium and on across France’s northern frontier. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Field Marshal Viscount Gort, and the best French armies were to drive north into Belgium in response to this. Here’s what followed:
● On 10 May 1940 the Germans launched their offensive in the West. They invaded Holland and captured Fort Eban Emael, the lynchpin of the Belgian frontier defences. As agreed, the BEF and the French drove north. It was then that the enemy sprung their trap.
● Powerful German panzer (armoured) divisions drove through the Ardennes Forest and on 13 May began assault crossings of the river Meuse. Holland surrendered the following day.
● From 16 May onwards, the panzer corps, with the close support of the dive bombers from the Luftwaffe (Germany’s air force), smashed through the French front and began to carve a wide corridor across northern France to the coast.
● The Germans reached the coast at Abbeville on 20 May, having achieved in days what Ludendorff’s storm troopers failed to do in weeks during 1918 (see Chapter 18). The Allied armies to the north of the corridor were now isolated within a pocket and, with the exception of the Belgians, cut off from their supply bases.
The BEF was seriously deficient in tanks. Apart from the light tanks in the divisional cavalry regiments, the equipment of the 1st Army Tank Brigade (consisting of the 4th and 7th Royal Tank Regiments) was mainly the slow, heavily armoured Matilda I and a few Matilda IIs, but the brigade was under strength. The 1st Armoured Division was not due to arrive from England until mid-1940. Initially, the French army had plenty of tanks, but the best of these had been destroyed in the frontier battles.
The Arras counter-attack, 21 May 1940
The Allies’ planned response to the rapid German advance across northern France was to cut the ‘Panzer Corridor’ in two by converging counter-attacks from north and south, so isolating the panzer divisions closest to the coast. The southern counter-attack never got moving. The northern counter-attack force, under the command of Major General H.E. Franklin, moved off during the afternoon of 21 May. It consisted of two columns, plus supporting artillery and anti-tank batteries with each column.
The force descended Vimy Ridge and then began to wheel eastwards, passing south of Arras, with a view to forming a front facing east. In so doing, they ran into the flank of Major General Erwin Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division and not only played havoc with its motorised rifle regiments, but also caused neighbouring German troops to bolt. To the Germans’ horror, their 37-millimetre anti-tank guns were useless against the Matildas’ thick armour. For a while, Rommel himself was under fire and his aide was shot dead beside him. Energetic commander that he was, Rommel concentrated all his artillery against the slow-moving British tanks. His 88-millimetre anti-aircraft guns were potent tank killers and his field guns, while unable to penetrate the British armour, were capable of immobilising a tank by blowing the tracks off. By 6 p.m. the British assault was at a standstill and during the evening the surviving tanks began to withdraw. As they did so, the riflemen of the Durham Light Infantry beat off German counter-attacks on the villages they had occupied. Rommel’s own tanks, which he had despatched to the west during the morning, returned to the battlefield in an attempt to intervene. They ran straight into the British anti-tank gun screen and a French armoured formation covering the British right flank.
Altogether, Rommel’s losses included approximately 600 personnel casualties and between 30 and 40 tanks. The real damage, however, was of a different kind. The higher German headquarters were already nervous about projecting their precious armoured formations so deep into enemy territory. Now, their worst fears seemed about to be realised. They recalled the 6th and 8th Panzer Divisions from the coast and directed them towards a crisis that was apparently developing in the Arras area, while with few exceptions they halted the onward drive of the remaining panzer divisions for 24 hours.
If Franklin’s men felt that they had incurred heavy casualties to no purpose, they were wrong. They had bought priceless time for the BEF. On 22 May the Royal Navy landed garrisons at the ports of Boulogne and Calais. The determined resistance put up by these absorbed yet more of the panzer divisions’ time. During that time the opportunity for the Germans to destroy the BEF began to evaporate.
The Dunkirk evacuation, 26 May-4 June 1940
On 25 May King Leopold of Belgium ordered the Belgian army to cease fighting. This left a yawning gap in the left flank of the Allied armies and insufficient troops were available to fill it. The following day the government told Lord Gort that his first priority was to evacuate as much of his BEF as possible to England. The BEF and its allies commenced a steady withdrawal to Dunkirk, where they established a defensive perimeter.
The panzer divisions halted to catch their breath and reform, perform some much-needed maintenance, and prepare for the next phase of the war in the west - the destruction of the remaining French armies south of the Somme. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering assured Hitler that the Luftwaffe’s aircraft were quite capable of breaking resistance within the shrinking Allied perimeter. As British units reached Dunkirk, they destroyed heavy weapons and vehicles to prevent them falling into enemy hands; lines of lorries driven across the sands at low water formed additional piers to evacuate troops from.
Admiral Ramsay, in charge of the evacuation, assembled over 1000 vessels, including destroyers and smaller warships, cross-channel ferries, pleasure steamers, coasters, trawlers, tugs, and craft as small as cabin cruisers. Their civilian owners manned many of the little ships. They declined to hand them over to the Royal Navy because they were determined to play a part in bringing their soldiers home. Some ferried men out from the beaches to larger vessels, but others returned to England fully laden. The initial hope was that up to 45,000 men might be rescued, but when the evacuation ended at 3.40 a.m. on 4 June, the ships had taken 200,000 British, 130,000 French, and 10,000 other Allied soldiers to safety. All their tanks, guns, and heavy weapons had to be left behind.
Commandos and paratroopers
With his strong sense of history, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was aware of the long British tradition of carrying out raids on the enemy's territory. He requested volunteers from all over the army for this type of operation, implemented after the British withdrawal from Dunkirk. The units they formed were named Commandos, after the Boer units that tied down so many British troops during the Second Boer War (see Chapter 16). Both the selection process and the training the troops received were severe. The raids they carried out were desperate affairs. More often than not, they were successful. To Hitler's fury, they often made the German military machine look rather foolish. The raids also created a sense of insecurity in the enemy's coastal garrisons.
In due course, the Royal Marines also formed Commando units. Today's Royal Marine Commandos pride themselves on being the most thoroughly trained infantry in the world. Their members only receive the award of their green berets after successfully completing months of hard, demanding effort.
Both Germany and the Soviet Union possessed parachute troops. The Germans used theirs to good effect in Norway, Denmark, and Holland in 1940. Obviously paratroops held the key to certain tactical situations. The British Army began training its first parachute troops shortly after Dunkirk. The men were volunteers and underwent tough physical tests and training, as well as assessments of their mental attitude. The hard-earned maroon beret soon became the hallmark of the airborne soldier. The British Parachute Regiment formed on 1 August 1942. Its early operations quickly placed it in the front rank of shock troops. It maintains its reputation for hard, aggressive fighting to this day.
Throughout the evacuation Dunkirk was under heavy attack by the Luftwaffe. The Germans sank six British and three French destroyers and damaged 19, as well as sinking 56 other ships and 161 small craft. The apparent lack of British aircraft above the evacuation zone resulted in unjustified criticism of the Royal Air Force. In fact British fighters intercepted and broke up many German air attacks before they reached the beaches. Between 10 May and 4 June, 402 enemy aircraft were destroyed and a further 201 damaged, at a cost to the Royal Air Force of 141 aircraft.
Some British troops remained south of the Somme. The Germans trapped the 51st (Highland) Division, which had been serving on the French sector of the front, and forced it to surrender at St Valery, near Dieppe. The 1st Armoured Division, stripped of its infantry element to form the garrisons of Boulogne and Calais, reached France through Cherbourg. Its tanks, deficient in gunsights, radios, and many other essential items, mercifully saw little action before the French armies collapsed. The division was ordered back to Cherbourg to re-embark for Britain along with the base and administrative troops left in northern France - a total of 150,000 British and 20,000 Polish soldiers.
Standing Alone after Dunkirk
The campaign in France cost the British Army 4438 killed, 14,127 wounded, and 39,251 taken prisoner. In England, only three divisions with 500 guns and 200 tanks were available to meet a possible invasion by the Germans. Plenty of soldiers were around, but their divisions had to be reconstituted and reequipped. For the moment, nothing existed to equip them with. Factories therefore had to continue producing weapons in quantity even if they were not the most modern available. For example, designs for 6-pounder tank and anti-tank guns had been approved, but because factories were still tooled up for 2-pounder production that had to continue out of sheer necessity.
Winston Churchill became Prime Minister on 10 May 1940. He had made mistakes in his career, and he would make more, but the hour had produced the man. He bore some resemblance to that traditional British symbol, the bulldog, and possessed its virtues of strength and stubborn courage. He saw Dunkirk as a deliverance and not a victory, and commented that evacuations did not win wars. His superb command of the English language enabled him to deliver speeches that rallied the nation behind him and gave people a sense of purpose, although he promised nothing for the immediate future but hard times.
Lend-Leasing
Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the United States maintained an attitude of benevolent neutrality towards Great Britain during this initial period of the Second World War. Churchill made an open request to the United States: 'Give us the tools and we'll finish the job.' Roosevelt was sympathetic and the Lend-Lease Agreement came into force. Under this agreement, the United State provided guns, tanks, motor vehicles, aircraft, food, fuel, and machine tools to any of the combatants who collected them, knowing full well that the Royal Navy's blockade prevented any of these items reaching Germany. Some years earlier, Roosevelt commented that 'The business of America is business', so these supplies had to be paid for in due course. In effect, Great Britain's war effort was being bankrolled by the United States. The Americans charged a high rate of interest on the loan and in the aftermath of the war the British had to endure years of serious austerity to pay it back; the final payment was made at the end of 2006.
Throughout the summer of 1940 the Royal Air Force fought and won the Battle of Britain. During this aerial campaign fought for supremacy of the skies over Britain, the Luftwaffe was unable to obtain the air superiority necessary for an invasion, and by October the prospect of autumn gales in the Channel led Hitler to abandon the idea of invading the United Kingdom. The Luftwaffe continued to bomb British cities and inflict heavy civilian casualties. Again, contrary to German expectations, these attacks simply strengthened British determination to go on fighting.
With most of Continental Europe now under German occupation, Britain stood completely alone. Benito Mussolini, Hitler’s Italian crony, declared war on the United Kingdom on 10 June, hoping to share in the eventual spoils. As the British already regarded Mussolini as a buffoon, the event tended to stiffen British resolve rather than add to the sense of isolation. Day by day, the British army was visibly recovering its strength - including hiring equipment from the US (see the sidebar ‘Lend-Leasing’), and forming new special forces (see the sidebar ‘Commandos and paratroopers’). Chapter 21 looks at the next significant theatre of war - the war in North Africa.