The Twenty Years’ Truce
3.6. The Unraveling of Peace
championed it. And so Germany enjoyed an advantage that was much greater on land than at sea and in the air; was still inexperienced in modern warfare; and, having expanded at breakneck speed, German forces were still somewhat disorganized and needed at least one relatively small campaign (against Poland) before they really hit their stride.60
Stalin’s foreign policy during those years presents something of a riddle. From the mid-1930s on, the USSR often talked about the need to set up a “collective security front” with the remaining European powers to resist Hitler’s growing power. This was clearly not to the liking of at least some Western capitalist circles, who would have much preferred to see the two totalitarian states kill each other. In September 1938, France and Britain did not even invite the USSR to the Munich Conference.
In the spring of 1939, more or less serious talks for establishing an alliance with Britain and France nally got under way, but as the Western powers procrastinated, Stalin performed an about-face and signed a nonaggression pact with Hitler instead. The next two years saw the USSR invade rst Poland, then Finland, and nally Romania and the Baltic states, either swallowing them alive or tearing o pieces of them. Yet whether it is true, as has been claimed,6’ that Stalin in 1941 was planning to launch a full-scale military attack on Germany and was only forestalled by Hitler at the last moment remains moot.
By the late 1930s, the Red Army had once again become the largest in the world by far, but in terms of quality it continued to lag behind. In the early 1930s, Soviet ideas concerning armored and airborne operations were as advanced as any, but the country’s primitive technical capabilities left many of these ideas stillborn.
Worse still, in 1937–38 its o cer corps was decapitated by Stalin, with the result that remaining commanders tended to be young and inexperienced.
In both training and general education, Soviet o cers (except at the very top) and conscripts could not even remotely compete with
their future German opponents. The cultural gap between o cers and enlisted personnel that had existed in the tsar’s army persisted, and a corps of professional NCOs who might have helped bridge the gap did not exist. As a result, this army of workers and peasants relied on truly draconian methods of discipline. Zhukov dealt with troublesome subordinates by telling them to step down in favor of their deputies and shoot themselves. In 1941–45, the Soviets probably executed a larger number of their own troops than did all other belligerents combined; and considering that one of those belligerents was led by Hitler, that was no small feat. Finally, and perhaps most fatal of all, because the Red Army was totally committed to the o ensive, it found itself nearly helpless when it was in fact attacked rst.
On Germany’s other side, France was now in full decline. Though its army remained large, neither its population nor its economy kept up with those of the other powers, and in terms of the leading economic indicators it had already fallen behind Japan. As a result, its foreign policy was reduced to trying to cement its alliance with Britain while desperately clinging to its former greatness. This approach was symbolized by the Maginot Line, even though the original idea behind the line had been to use it not simply as a defensive shield but in order to permit the rest of the French army to advance into Belgium.
Along with the British, the French armed forces probably changed least from the World War I era. France held on to the same old generals—in May 1939, General Weygand, who was later to be recalled from retirement to try to prevent defeat, said he could not praise those generals highly enough62—the same old doctrine, and, in some cases, the same old weapons. This provided little basis for ghting the most powerful, most innovative, most dynamic, and, in some ways, most highly motivated army in the world. When the time came, even the Germans themselves were surprised by the extent of the victories they had won.63
Super cially, the British were in a better position. Like France, Britain had long become a status quo power with a strong paci st wing. Unlike France, it had the channel between itself and the Germans, and unlike France, when the time came its people stood up and fought. As before, Britain continued to control the world’s chief sea-lanes, an inestimable advantage, yet perversely this control proved a weakness as well. Without dominion of the sea, Britain would have to surrender within weeks or months. Yet in 1939 British resources were clearly overstretched; having lost alliances with Italy and Japan, the empire had to defend itself on no fewer than three fronts, the home islands, the Mediterranean, and the Far East. The one power that could have addressed the balance, the United States, remained stubbornly neutral. When the time came, the British wisely decided to concentrate most of their available resources in the rst of these theaters. This led to the neglect, and eventual loss, of the Far East during the war, and the Middle East almost immediately after the war had ended.
As the war approached, both the British navy and air force, each in its own way, were probably as e cient as any in the world. This was much less true of the army even though, this time around, conscription had been introduced shortly before hostilities began.
US forces apart, only the British army had enough trucks to equip all units and did not have to depend on horses for transport.
Nevertheless, as events were to show, especially in point of armored operations, it had much to learn.
In battle, British armored forces never attained the uidity modern warfare requires—as illustrated, for example, by General Montgomery’s failure to destroy Rommel’s hopelessly outnumbered, logistically overstretched Panzerarmee after the battle of Alamein.
Much was due to the prevailing social system. Strict class distinctions separated o cers from everybody else. And for every young, innovative commander there were several Colonel Blimps.
After listening to a report on the wreckage left after the escape from Dunkirk, the German chief of the army general sta , General Franz
Halder, would say of the British: “Equipment, wonderful; leadership, as bad as bad can be.”
On the eve of World War II, Japan was already involved in a bloody con ict with China. The Japanese armed forces were noted for fanatical morale, aggressive behavior, excellent training, and ability to operate in terrain others considered impossible. Their amphibious doctrine led the world, and up until Pearl Harbor much of their equipment, including carriers, ghter aircraft, and torpedoes, was second to none. Yet Japan lacked the industrial infrastructure for taking on a giant such as the United States; nor did it have the necessary research and development facilities to sustain the technical advantages. Many Japanese aircraft in particular were based on foreign designs, whether American or German, and as hostilities went on and access to foreign technology was lost, the Japanese fell behind both in aviation and, even more critically, electronics, especially radar.
The situation of the United States was exactly the opposite.
Having withdrawn into neutrality, in the late 1930s America’s main foreign policy concern was to obstruct Japanese expansion wherever possible. Beginning in 1941, Washington also extended badly needed help to Britain. Psychologically, whereas Japan saw itself threatened and hemmed in, the United States felt completely safe against attack. As former president Herbert Hoover once put it: “On this imperfect earth, three thousand miles of the Atlantic and six thousand of the Paci c are as good a defense as any country could hope for.”6” And although the US Navy was now the largest in the world, the army ranked only eighteenth. However, the US war- ghting advantage really was in a gigantic industrial base that would back the forces and expand them quickly if necessary.
Technologically, too, the Americans were to prove capable of pulling ahead not only of the Japanese but of all others as well.
Italy remained what it had long been, a small, weak state securely locked in its Mediterranean prison. To break out was Mussolini’s greatest wish, but he never had the resources for doing so.65 Much
equipment was antiquated, but far worse was the ghting morale, which was notoriously low. Nor, as hostilities continued, was the country able to keep up in terms of either the quantity or quality of arms produced. As in World War I, Italy was to prove a liability to its allies, who had to provide it with food, fuel, and raw materials.
In 1939, the last year of peace, both Europe and the Far East had once again become armed camps. Only the United States remained aloof, more or less. To be sure, the twenty years’ truce also had its fair share of paci st movements. They were joined by communist parties that were in principle opposed to war (except as waged on behalf of the fatherland of all workers), arms-limitation conferences, and even disarmament conferences. Many of those who participated, were no doubt motivated by the best intentions. One recalls, for example, the Einstein–Freud correspondence of 1931–32. In it, the former asked “why war”; the latter did what he could to give an honest answer that would nevertheless not be so pessimistic as to be altogether useless. Still, in the face of the prevailing international climate and despite the “International Kiss” presented by the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact for avoiding war, the impact of attempts to prevent, or abolish, or limit, war was probably even smaller than ever before. When the con ict everybody had expected did break out, it was received with resignation, no joyful demonstrations held in the streets this time.