1066 Ch. 26 • World War IIPants came without cuffs or zippers; a suspicious gray “utility loaf” replaced
white bread. British farmers augmented agricultural production by increas
ing the amount of land under cultivation by a full third.
In October 1940, Churchill established a scientific advisory committee
to put some of Britain’s most eminent scientists to work designing more
powerful and reliable weapons. One of the most significant breakthroughs
of the war was not a technological innovation but the solving of the com
plex puzzle of a secret code. British intelligence officers, aided by mathemati
cians, deciphered communications between Hitler and his high command
during the Battle of Britain. This subsequently allowed the Allies to know
many German military moves in advance. British intelligence officers then
broke the German communications code, facilitating, among other things,
the identification of spies. By the end of 1943, the code breakers, some
using the “Enigma” machine developed after World War I to decipher
secret messages, were intercepting more than 90,000 messages a month.
The British Psychological Warfare Division, along with their U.S. counter
part, also put the science of psychology into the service of modern warfare,
waging radio and leaflet campaigns in an attempt to weaken the enemy’s
will to continue fighting.
Hitler's Allies
Hitler sought other allies in an attempt to win the war quickly. Seeking to
discourage the United States, Japan’s rival in the Pacific, from entering the
war on the Allied side against Germany and Italy, the two Axis powers
signed the Tripartite Pact with Japan in September 1940. Germany and
Italy recognized Japan’s interests in Asia, while Japan acknowledged those
of Germany and Italy in Europe. The treaty specified that each power
agreed to cooperate should any one of them be attacked by “a Power at pres
ent not involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict.”
Hitler then tried to convince Francisco Franco, whose victory in the Span
ish Civil War Hitler had helped make possible, to join the war of the Axis
powers against Britain. The German dictator envisioned a Spanish
seizure of Gibraltar and German use of naval bases in the Spanish Canary
Islands. The Spanish dictator pleaded the poverty of his country and, as if
to emphasize the point, arrived at the meeting with Hitler hours late on a
plodding train. After spending eight hours cajoling Franco, Hitler said, “I
would prefer to have three or four teeth extracted rather than go through
that again.” Franco’s Spain, however much ideologically in tune with Hitler’s
Germany, remained officially neutral.
In Romania, King Carol II was powerless in the face of his greedy neigh
bors, who were encouraged by Germany. He surrendered to Hungary a part
of Transylvania that had been awarded to Romania by the Treaty of Ver
sailles and that included a considerable Hungarian population. Stalin forced
Romania to hand over to the Soviet Union northern Bukovina and Bessara