dimension to the Third Reich that certainly put moral and emotional fuel behind the
belated decision to resist it. Nevertheless, in the 1930s, how the German government
behaved at home was accepted in Britain and France as being strictly Germany’s concern.
The war began when it did, with the teams that it did, because the policy of appeasement
had failed. The German seizure of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939 demonstrated
that British and French vital interests were now at severe risk. Germany was seen as
galloping towards a position of European dominance, and that had to be stopped while
it was still possible to do so.
To fast-forward, there was never any realistic prospect of World War II concluding with
a compromise peace settlement. The character of British leadership after 10 May 1940 –
which is to say Winston Churchill, of course – would not entertain the notion. As much
to the point, after 22 June 1941, Hitler and Stalin were to be locked into a struggle
literally for survival. Moreover, the enormous dimensions of Germany’s war crimes and
crimes against humanity came to preclude such a deal. In addition, and of most practical
importance, unconditional military victory was the only condition for peace upon which
Russia, the United States and Britain could possibly agree. If anything could have
fractured an already strained coalition, it would have been bitter inter-Allied negotiation
over the terms to be offered to Germany for a compromise peace. The formula of
unconditional surrender announced by Roosevelt at Casablanca in January 1943 was not
only wise policy; it was unavoidable. Unfortunately, it had the inescapable consequence
of leaving all Germans, convinced Nazis and the rest, no alternative other than to go
down with the sinking ship, a fate that innocent and guilty alike would have to share.
Warfare, 1939–45
The experience of warfare from 1939 to 1945 is characterized and reviewed by means of
seven broad claims.
First, World War II, as eventually with its predecessor, was a conflict waged in the style
of combined arms. There was no wonder weapon. The mechanization RMA of the 1920s
and 1930s simply facilitated, even enabled, the more effective prosecution of combined-
arms warfare. In 1918, neither side possessed the means for the rapid exploitation of what
might be only a fleeting tactical success. In 1939–45, rapid exploitation was generally
possible, always assuming that the enemy was not alert to the danger and therefore had
not taken counter-measures. The tank played a crucial role in World War II, but it was a
role in both offence and defence that could be effective only in the context of combined
arms. Tanks alone were fatally vulnerable. Even tanks in large numbers could achieve
little in the absence of supporting infantry, artillery, engineers and air power.
Second, there were some dazzling manoeuvres in this war, but that is not how the war
was won and lost. Armed forces as large as those of the Third Reich – 12.5 million men
were mobilized – and loyal, even fanatically loyal, to Hitler could not be defeated by the
operational artistry of deft manoeuvre. Such manoeuvre certainly could, and did, play a
role in the German defeat, but it wrought its damage in the context of a long attritional
struggle. The Soviet encirclement of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad in November 1942 and
the trapping and annihilation of Army Group Centre in June 1944 were two outstanding
examples of successful manoeuvre warfare. However, neither event was the decisive
defeat that ensured Soviet victory. There was no single decisive defeat of the German
146 War, peace and international relations