fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July, after the French
admiral refused a British ultimatum requiring him
to follow one of four courses, each of which
would have denied the Germans use of these war-
ships. The British action cost the lives of 1,297
French sailors, so recently their allies. It was an
indication that Churchill would pursue the war
with all the ruthlessness necessary to defeat a
ruthless enemy. Vichy’s response was to break off
diplomatic relations with Britain.
In London, General de Gaulle rallied the small
Free French Forces. But the great majority of the
French and most of the colonial empire accepted
the legitimacy of Vichy and Pétain. Vichy France
remained an important strategic factor in Britain’s
calculations, so de Gaulle was not granted the
status of the leader of a French government in
exile, even though such Polish, Dutch and Belgian
governments had been recognised. He deeply
resented this as an insult to the honour of France
as now embodied in his movement.
The course of the war from the fall of France
to December 1941 needs to be followed in three
separate strands. First there was the actual con-
flict between Britain and Germany and Italy on
land, sea and air. The most critical of the strug-
gles was the battle in the air. Hitler believed that
unless he won command of the air he could not,
in the face of the strong British fleet, successfully
mount Operation Sea Lion, codename for his
invasion of the British Isles. On 10 July the pre-
liminary of the battle of Britain started over the
Straits of Dover, then in mid-August the main
attack switched to British airfields. The Luftwaffe
could use some 2,500 bombers and fighters in the
battle. Britain’s first-line fighter strength was
some 1,200 fighters. The radar stations on the
coast which gave warning of the approach of the
German planes and the cracking of the German
operational code, as well as the superior
Hurricanes and Spitfires, of which 660 could be
used, were to Britain’s advantage. But had the
Germans persisted in their attacks on airfields they
might nevertheless have succeeded in their aim of
destroying Britain’s air strength. Instead the
German attack switched to cities. London was
heavily raided on 7 September in reprisal for an
RAF raid on Berlin. On 15 September it was clear
that the German air force had failed to establish
command of the air and two days later Hitler
abandoned plans for the invasion of England. But
now the night raids against cities were causing
tremendous damage to London and other British
towns. On 14 November 1940 Coventry was
blitzed. The night raids continued, but for all
their damage, for all the loss of life they caused,
they were not a decisive factor in the outcome of
the war. The people emerged from the air-raid
shelters to work in the war factories.
More critical was the war at sea. Although
Britain controlled the surface of the oceans, sub-
marine warfare once again brought it into des-
perate danger by disrupting essential supplies
from America. The submarine threat reached its
most serious peak between March and July 1941.
The losses of British tonnage were heavy, but the
US increasingly assumed a belligerent attitude in
guarding the convoys on its side of the Atlantic.
1
GERMANY’S WARS OF CONQUEST IN EUROPE, 1939–41 251
- A surprise visit. Hitler tours the conquered
capital © Bettmann/Corbis
