Page 273 - The Chief Culprit

234 y e Chief Culprit

ing on two fronts. Attempts to concentrate great efforts on one front automatically led to the
weakening of the other front, and the enemy immediately exploited it. As a result, Germany
had to renounce a strategy of destruction in favor of the only other alternative, a strategy of
attrition. But Germany’s resources were limited, in contrast to the resources of its enemies. A
war of attrition could only end in catastrophe for Germany.
Both the German General Staff and Hitler himself understood that a war on two fronts
would be catastrophic for Germany. Speaking at a meeting with the High Command of the
German armed forces on November 23, 1939, Hitler said that a war against the Soviet Union
could only begin after the war in the west had ended. In 1939 and 1940, Germany always
fought on only one front. e German General Staff was able to apply the concentration
principle brilliantly, thrusting the enormous German military power first against one enemy,
then against another. e main problem facing German strategy was to prevent war from
breaking out on a second front. As long as the Germans were fighting on one front only, they
won brilliant victories. Two fronts meant abandoning all strategic principles, regressing from
the strategy of crushing to the strategy of attrition. It would spell the end of the blitzkrieg,
and would mean catastrophe.
In 1940, in terms of strategy, Churchill could only have dreamt that the war Germany
was fighting would transform from a one-front war into a two-front war. It was the only way
to save Great Britain. In May 1940, the British army suffered a crushing defeat unprecedent-
ed in history. e German tank divisions broke through to La Manche, and trapped forty
British, French, and Belgian divisions against the coastline in the region around Dunkirk.
e British troops managed to evacuate to Britain from France in early June 1940, but the
losses were horrendous. ey had left all their military equipment on the French coast, all
their tanks, artillery tows, 63,000 automobiles, and more than half a million tons of am-
munition and supplies. e human casualties of the British army totaled more than 68,000.
After leaving the continent, the British army was left practically without heavy weapons.
Fewer than one hundred obsolete tanks were left on the British Isles. 2
Belgium capitulated on May 28. France fell on June 22, 1940. Hitler’s troops reached
the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and took over naval bases of tremendous strategic value.
From this time, the piracy of German U-boats increased sharply on the sea routes. Britain, an
island nation, faced the threat of a naval blockade and the most acute crisis in trade, industry,
and finance. Worse still, the German military machine, which at that point seemed invincible,
was making intensive preparations to land on the British Isles. It was in this environment that
Churchill wrote to Stalin on June 25, 1940. On June 30, the German armed forces captured
Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands. In almost a thousand years of British history, this was
the first time since 1066, meaning after the Norman conquest of Britain, that an enemy had
captured a part of the British Isles. What would follow—a German occupation of mainland
Britain? Guernsey was taken without resistance. For how long could Britain resist?
Stalin received Churchill’s message the day after Germany had seized Guernsey. What
were Churchill’s interests? Did he want to save the British Empire or the dictatorship in the
Soviet Union? For Stalin, Churchill was not an unbiased observer who, out of friendly senti-
ments, was warning of danger, but a man who desperately needed help and allies in a conflict
against a fearful enemy. Stalin therefore was very suspicious of Churchill’s letters.