Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [10]
In the mid-thirties, there was not a great deal the British could have done about Hitler, even had they chosen not to go along with him. As soon as the war ended they demobilized their large army and reverted to the traditional policy of dependence upon the navy. Even that lost ground, however. It was Britain’s financial situation that led her into considering the naval limitations of the Washington Conference and its successors. Her strength at sea was in many ways nearly as illusory as was France’s on land. The old Royal Navy of the days of sail had been capable of dominating the water of any area of the world for a time. Now British supremacy included a tacit recognition of the local command of the United States Navy over the western Atlantic and most of the Pacific, and the dominance of Japan over east Asian waters. France and Italy could challenge her hold on the Mediterranean, and the two of them combined could have held the Mediterranean against her. Relatively speaking, the British were weaker in the thirties than they had been before 1914. They resolved this problem by adopting the infamous “ten-year rule,” a government prediction that as there was no war on the horizon for ten years, weakness was permissible. They were still using the formula in 1935.
Britain was weaker in another way, too. In 1914, the Channel had been a barrier that was nearly impassable. Once during the Napoleonic Wars Earl St. Vincent as First Lord of the Admiralty was asked about the possibility of a French invasion; his reply was, “Gentlemen, I do not say that the enemy cannot come; I say only that they cannot come by sea.” That sublime confidence was still justified in 1914. But by 1935, it was possible that the enemy might come by air.
Before 1914, France had led the world in aircraft development, what there was of it. Britain and Germany had both equaled her as a result of the demands of the war. Both had gone even further in the direction of producing long-range heavy bombers and the British, alone of the great powers, had brought in an independent air force at the end of the war.
They had then succumbed to the visionaries. Through the twenties, a group of theorists, the most famous of whom was Giulio Douhet of Italy, had produced ideas that strategic bombers, in and of themselves, would determine the course of future wars. A country needed no more for its defense than a heavy-bomber force. If invaded, it would launch its bombers against the enemy at home, against his means of production and transport. Massive destruction would follow, the invading forces would either be withdrawn for home defense or would wither from lack of supplies. Civilian demands for protection would paralyze the enemy’s war effort. The best civil defense would be a bomber force that would carry the war to the enemy; there was no need for fighter protection, because “the bomber would always get through.” Strategic heavy bombers were the ultimate terror weapon of the twenties and thirties.
The British agreed with this, or at least the leading lights of the infant Royal Air Force did. Arthur Harris, who would lead R. A. F. Bomber Command in World War II, and was known to the public as “Bomber” Harris; Sir Hugh Trenchard, who commanded the R. A. F. in its early days, and others were men looking for a role for their service, and they found it in the ideas of Douhet. Air defense was subordinated to