added. Air power came of age between 1939 and 1945. Inevitably, it disappointed those
who harboured exaggerated expectations of its potential to deliver victory unaided by
land and sea forces. But, equally, its potency embarrassed those who had believed that
ground forces and fleets could manoeuvre and fight even under unfriendly skies. They
could not; or at least they could not for long, and certainly not effectively.
Fifth, even though the purpose and heart of this war were always in the East, geostrate-
gically the conflict was a repeat of the experience of 1914–18, in that it was a strategic
triumph for the side that was a maritime coalition. Sea power was the great enabler of the
victory of the Grand Alliance. It bound the Allies together, maintained and exploited the
essential – maritime – lines of communication, and it was superior sea power that allowed
the Grand Alliance to draw upon the resources of the entire world. ‘[A]ll the seas of the
world are one,’ as J. H. Parry (1981: xi) has observed. Hitler’s landlocked imperium was
impressive in scale in 1942 and 1943, but it could not compete successfully with an
enemy coalition that used the world’s sea lanes at will, contested though they were; which
enjoyed the power of the strategic initiative granted by maritime superiority; and which
used its sea power to help sustain its essential continental member. Air power was more
visible than sea power, and to many people certainly appeared more modern and more
directly relevant to the task of bringing war to the enemy, but the most vital logistical
infrastructure of the war effort of the Grand Alliance was maritime, not aerial.
Sixth, as World War II repeated the experience of World War I with respect to the
enabling essentiality of sea power, so also it demonstrated yet again the strategic benefits
that can accrue from mastery of the black arts of signals intelligence. Unknown beyond
a small, closed circle of officials and military beneficiaries until the early 1970s, the
Allies, Britain in particular, secured and by and large maintained a decisive advantage in
the intelligence competition of the war. Of the greatest strategic importance was Britain’s
success – with Polish assistance – in breaking the German codes that were transmitted
on their supposedly unbreakable Enigma encoding machines. The vital intelligence
so gathered was codenamed Ultra. British success over Enigma was not steady or, for a
while, complete, but it was sufficient to make a strategic difference. In fact, Ultra intel-
ligence could be so useful that there was always a problem in protecting the source. The
Allies had to be supremely careful not to take military action that the Germans would be
certain to interpret as being based on a breach of Enigma security. As with air power and
sea power, both of which benefited greatly from its aid, intelligence from code-breaking
was a great enabler of the victory over Germany. In neither world war did Germany shine
in the intelligence field. This was a costly weakness.
Seventh and finally, the warfare of 1939 to 1945 showed for the second time in the
century that the German Army was the most formidable killing machine in the world.
Indeed, it was among the most efficient such in all strategic history. German military
methods and fighting power have attracted a great deal of professional admiration among
Anglo-American historians and defence analysts. With at least 9.5 million military dead,
Russian analysts have been in no need of reminders of German combat prowess. It is a
fact that in both world wars the Germans were unsurpassed at fighting. Whether on the
offence or the defence, whether they were winning or losing, German soldiers regularly
exacted an unequal exchange ratio, or toll, of casualties upon their enemies. One can
isolate particular factors at particular times that probably made some difference to
German morale and fighting power. For example, it is plausible to argue that throughout
148 War, peace and international relations