Neville Chamberlain’s Broken Bum | Dunkirk Part 1: Phoney War

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1:26Welcome back to Finn vs. History. As ever, I'm joined by Horatio Gould. We all bum them into sex clubs. Today, it's the start of Britain's complicated relationship with small boats. It's Dunkirk. the love-hate relationship this country has with the small vessel oh so now you don't want the boat oh i see right oh so now we'll start the boats that's what they said this is this was very much the era of start the boat start the boats uh when did it become stop the boats basically yeah probably june 1941 it was only start the boats for one week in british history yeah this is the week of starting the boats um what beautiful boats they were a lot of small boats the boats are fine to arrive if they've been to get british people yes back that's the whole point that's the point yeah if there's any children any refugees in it well stop that stop that no thank you we are picking up our our series that we started i don't know when if you've been the first proper series yeah if you've been listening to this for a while if you're a patron you'll know that we started this on the patreon podcast that we used to do and we did a four-part series on the rise of the nazis yes and then we got to the start of world war ii i realized we didn't know as much as we thought i can know anything it turns out which even for us turns out we had no fucking clue what happened to the thing that we say we like the most but today that we're picking up on world war ii yeah fellas lock yourself in the cupboards get the bag on your head Get the back of your head.

2:56And just start fucking going to town. Get the belt round your neck. I'm out. No, I'm going out. Tell the wife to go away. We're getting into World War II. This is the red as the red meat. I mean, this is, I think also the beginning of the war is as straight as it is as well, because it's even, it's kind of a bit of a duller part. It's a bit more, it gets fruitier. Yes. The more it gets along. You know, you start going to like the Pacific theater. It starts getting a little bit more exotic. This is on a cold, wet beach in Dunkirk. Yes, this is. Can they do it in a cold, wet night in Dunkirk? This is real.

3:32They can. Yeah, this is the Britannia on a Tuesday of World War II. Yes, it is. Exactly. Because even Stalingrad, that's so big. Stalingrad's gay. Yeah. Two fronts. War on two fronts is gay. It's the bloodiest kind of battle. There's a real explosiveness to Stalingrad. This is, they might all, oh, they don't. Okay. Okay, fine. Oh, they got away. this is a heroic retreat this is so baked into the British psyche this is the most important year in British history 1066 1940 right those are the big two years these five days are the most important in the world history this is yeah you could say or from you know the Hitler's perspective this is the great what is well you see everything through Hitler's perspective yes I'm an I'm an arty apologist I think I've made that very clear even when he did the renaissance it was like what would Hitler I mean he does like painting but well this is Hitler's renaissance you're a great empath is what you are yes for one man

4:32yeah if anything I've got too much empathy for one for one man he's an empath that's what's great about Finn is he is he generally an arthropologist no the thing about Finn is he just sees he's a selective he sees all perspectives apart from apart from any of them apart from this one he sees one perspective from Hitler's point of view this is the great what if the great you know sliding doors moment is if he'd finished us off at Dunkirk we would now be in the Indian summer of a thousand year right also what's very funny is that from the French perspective they fucking hate this Dunkirk yeah because this is this is like oh we'll see you then for us for the Brits this is like oh this is Rourke's Drift on a beach this is the myth that we built our entire post-war British identity this is literally year zero for the British sense themselves in 2025 or wherever we are now for the French they're like fuck off what what do you mean you're going for the French this is a rubbish story yeah this is this is it's a terrible story it's the start of their worst story I mean they really don't cover themselves in glory and go back over oh they fuck it so hard But this is also part of the British dad law.

5:50This is pure British post-war dad law is the French have springs under their arms. Yeah. That's what my dad's always saying, you know, the amount of jokes my dad has about surrendering, you know. You're going to shake the hand. Oh, no, no, no, take it, take it, take it. Oh, sorry. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys, as Donald Rumsfeld called them. So in this series, we'll be dealing with, pretty much from the outbreak of war, the western theatre of the war up until the evacuation at Dunkirk. How much do you like Dunkirk as a topic? Because it's obviously, it's hard to know how much you actually like it because it's just rammed down your throat.

6:29Yeah, but gladly though. I'm like a basking shark looking for someone to ram World War II. You're Bonnie Blue. I am Bonnie Blue. I'm Bonnie Blue. I'm Bonnie Blue in a landing craft just taking 338 ,000 allied troops. bonnie blue fucks the entire british you're meant to bring them home you don't need them to have post-nuclarity on the beach they're still there bonnie i think that's her next that's her next none of this like david blaine the box shit yeah why don't you why don't you suck off the entire strand in expeditionary force well that'd be a great porn film is you get 200 000 men i'd love 200 000 men stuck on the beach at dunkirk yeah so there's a boat we saved and it's just and there's just they're all just like completely drained yeah sucked dry the hms lily phillips as the nazis arrive yeah yeah oh no but the the luftvaffer are strafing them from the skies while bonnie blue is just sucking them all off and the men are queuing they're all lined up on the mole one at a time then they just fall into the sea after they come yeah they do just yeah valiantly die um sorry charlie how does that's a massive baby that's huge now what country is that a british baby this is leslie leslie balls uh he's the fastest baby in the world that's sorry leslie what balls leslie balls balls leslie balls that's amazing now how old is she i don't know if i think it's a he and i don't know if he's got any legs he's got legs he's a baby oh is he on his knees yeah right how old is that child he is this is 1935 so wow that's exceptional that's a 10 stone baby in dunkirk he'd have been he'd have been five right and obviously he's not was not evacuated because he'd sink any ship he gets on.

8:12That's a baby. That's extraordinary. How old is Leslie? Because in the top gear leaderboard of the biggest babies of all time. Do we have the numbers? That's amazing. But also in the 30s, Britain, what are you getting that fat off? Is it pure lard? What's putting the pounds on there? Spam. Because before like, yeah, is it spam? It's tin stuff, yeah. So between Nadia and, wait, 10 stone. So he's like 10 times the size of Nadia, but he is five, whereas Nadia was one. Nadia's the Russian baby that's not a five year old is that a five it's only five I don't know how old he is here to be honest a ten stone baby I mean yeah he's a baby he's a baby I mean a ten stone so this is the win Leslie Balls is the winner at the minute what's quite nice is that this is 1935 British pate and this is essentially British TV in the 2000s yeah a ten stone baby look at this fat fuck look at him Britain's fattest baby right so but I guess what I was I was interested in is like yeah it's how much you as far there's so many great moments in World War 2 where does dunkirk rank for you is it one of your top british history moments like for me you know i'm a patriot when it comes back it goes to british history for sure but i'm much more of an agin corps guy i'm much more of a trafalgar guy dunkirk for me doesn't get me fired up really no much as it does nearly every dad you speak to well the thing about dunkirk that's actually fires you up is the political uh machinations that were going on in westminster while what's What's going on in Westminster is so much more interesting than anything that happens.

9:41Well, because it is ultimately just 400 ,000 blokes on a beach. They're just milling about. There's a lot of milling about. There's a lot of just, yeah, just they haven't got any towels. They haven't got any stuff. They're just waiting on a beach. But then you listen to James Holland on We Have Ways of Making You Talk. This is like, they talk about that as like the biggest week in British history, basically. And I guess it is. Well, in retrospect, it is the defining moment of World War II in that if it had gone another way, then basically Hitler's sort of won. So do you think it is the defining moment of World War II?

10:15But is that just a British perspective? Probably is a British perspective. How are Russian historians, American historians, or French historians who gives a fuck, how would they look at it? Are they also viewing this as one of the key, key moments? Well, the reason it's key is that if Hitler destroys the British Expeditionary Force and Britain has to come to terms with Germany, then the Nazis would get the British fleet and then they basically close down one front, which means that they can then go into Russia with a massive fleet. And especially if the Italians come into the war, because the two biggest fleets Americans wouldn't come in.

10:49Well, they're isolationist. They may have done, but who knows? So it's the great what if. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. As ever, we need to go back to where we think we left off in that Patreon series, which is the kind of the machinations that bring Churchill to power in Britain. So Neville Chamberlain, old, cuckish. Neville. Neville. Neville. Neville. Neville Longbottom. Come inside. Neville is a very old man. He's sclerotic. He's a great sort of husband. He's just got that sort of like British, old British aristocrat empire sort of naivety where he thinks that everyone's going to play by the rules.

11:34Yeah, it's all a game of cricket. Exactly. He views it all as a game of cricket. So he's completely unprepared for someone like Hitler, who is Steve Smith using sandpaper. Yes, yeah. Hitler's cheating. And I think this is one of the, if you listen to like Chamberlain speaking to Hitler and stuff, it's just him thinking, well, that's brilliant. Sorted, yeah. Yeah, so you definitely want to evade. Why are you holding your nose when you speak, Neville? He sounds fucking ridiculous. So Neville Chamberlain goes to the Munich Peace Conference in September 38. This is after Hitler has annexed Austria into the Third Reich, the Anschluss, which we are incredibly in favour of.

12:14Passionately. We couldn't be more. We're the most pro-Anschluss. I will defend Hitler to the death if he had stopped after the Anschluss. he you know the austrians and the germans are the same yeah and i have no problem with this exactly and i think to be honest there should be more anchless like coming together as a countries yes i agree spain and uh italy and greece just call it sleeper stand napestan sleeper stands just there america canada put those together israel palestine just put that together russia ukraine it's all it's all the same isn't it australia new zealand need to come oh yeah fuck off on uh norway sweden denmark that's just that's one finland as well chuck there in that and iceland that's just woke nonsense to stan um socialized health care whatever all of eastern europe so anything like anything sort of to the right of germany yeah uh that's just all one country then you've got africa yep no that's enough just africa um and then i reckon south america no you've got brazil and the rest of south america and Argentina.

13:19You've got Brazil, Argentina and then etc. Etc. So you should be called etc. Yes. Right. So Brazil, Argentina, etc. Yeah. China, Japan and the same country. China, Japan, Korea. That's all one. Yeah. Fucking. Yeah. This episode of Finvance History is sponsored by Surfshark, the premier provider of VPN. Do you know what a VPN is? I don't. But I tell you what, I do have problems when I want to watch horrible, disgusting, filthy videos. Yeah. Why? why because i'm terrified that my wife and everyone in the world will see what i'm doing you're in luck because surf shark provides brilliant easy to use vpns that means that you can basically have your uh location your ip location from anywhere in the world right so i could run away from my wife and children yeah to mexico bahamas yeah i could watch horrible stuff or you can just change your ip so it thinks you're in the bahamas and you can watch it at home so i still have to stay at home yeah okay well i use a vpn well brilliant i use a vpn sometimes when i want to watch videos in a foreign country well that's great because the worst thing about traveling is foreign tv and foreign people yeah and the list goes on and being abroad and the food yeah and the weather it turns out you can't have a holiday from your life you're still you you're just abroad that sombrero doesn't change anything no so why don't you secure your digital life with the surf shark vpn yeah it's a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee go to surfshark.com slash fvh that's surfshark.com slash fvh foxtrot vagina hotel you stayed at the foxtrot vagina hotel i'm staying on our honeymoon yeah click the link below or use the code fvh that's foxtrot vag hotel four extra months of surf shark don't let online threats catch you off guard yeah keep your data safe and see you next time anyway let's get back to the bloody episode shall we please get back to some history this episode is brought to you by paypal you know how a mom's bag has everything sunscreen snacks a stapler the new paypal app is like that but for your money shop pay manage your account and earn rewards all in one place.

15:40And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See paypal.com slash protection terms. Push your limits, train with precision, see the results. At Equinox, that's high performance loving. Everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at equinox start today at equinox.com so this sort of thinking i think so anyway yeah i'm what i'm what i like is being concise right it's going this doesn't need to be there yeah get rid of that word get rid of that country exactly no but roughly yeah you want you want the map to be yeah roughly we get it we get it we haven't got time you have an independent you got no no roughly kosovo fucking whatever roughly what is it we get it we get it yeah you're chinese probably i don't know we get it right anyway and what a fun fact about the is that um when uh the sound of music were the production we're going to film in salzburg they asked for permission to film uh a scene where they recreate the angelus right and they were denied because obviously the Austrians are a bit nervous.

16:56They're like, that was quite a rum move that we did. And so then the production said, well, I'll tell you what we'll do then. We'll just use the genuine footage where all the Austrians are fucking ecstatic about it. And they went, oh no, you can film if you make all the actors look miserable when Hitler's plowing through. No, no, no, you can film, but can you make us look really unhappy about it? Right, right. So anyway, the Austrians absolutely love the Anschluss. They love it. It's the high point of Austrian history. Right. So Munich Agreement is in September 38, and this is because Hitler started wanging on about the Sudetenland, which is the northern area of Czechoslovakia.

17:27Where all the tanks come from. All the tanks Skoda comes from. They make big family cars that are cheap to run and they don't die. And there's a lot of German speakers in the Sudetenland. And Chamberlain, he basically signs Sudetenland away. He says, you can have that. And then he comes back and he's like, I have to kill on this piece of paper. Yeah, that was the deal. He's like, you can have this as long as you promise to have no more territorial gains. Yeah. And then pretty quickly, Hitler just goes, yoink with Czechoslovakia, the rest of it. And Chamberlain goes, ah, because he's a cuck. Yes.

18:01He's a Lord's member. He's a Lord's member. He's in the pavilion at the MCC. Ah. Hitler takes Czechoslovakia. And he's genuinely, he can't believe it. Yeah. What? He really, he's just completely unprepared. Oh, that's not cricket. Yeah. Now, while this is going on, Churchill, Winston Churchill has been I mean I don't think we need to deal we won't deal with his career before this whole other series on Churchill at this point he's a nodding dog selling car insurance which is funny do you think there's a Hitler equivalent? What Hitler insurance? Yeah. Will it be like a nodding thing Yeah nodding like bobblehead It's like a Chinese The cat yeah it's a little cat that's doing that Blurt!

18:45Blurt! Blurt! house insurance or whatever. So Churchill has had a long career. He's, at this point, he's kind of in the wilderness politically. Yeah. He was behind the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, World War I. He also tied the British currency to the gold standard in 1925. Oh, so he causes a big boo-boo. Yeah, yeah. So he's done a lot of fuck-ups. Yeah, and he also loves drinking and fucking. Extraordinary. I know that's like the stereotype, but it is absolutely extraordinary. And everyone's like, this guy just fucks too hard. We can't have him. Does he fuck a lot? I think so. Well, he's married.

19:14I don't know if, I think he just, he's just a he's a booze hound for the boys as well he's one of those boozers who wants to hang out with the lads yeah yeah he doesn't actually want to chat to girls I don't think what do you think his knob was like do you think it was sort of tiny small yeah tiny little thing but gracefully small I think it's hidden under so much fat because he ate so much and drank and never exercised I think it was red like an old guy's nose what's his cum face yeah like a like a Scottish guy drinking too much whiskey his cum his cum face is yeah I'll tell you what What he was great at is motorboating titties.

19:48Oh man, yeah. No, there's been no better. I would love to be motorboated by Churchill. In the arse, in the tits. I think he gives great head, to be fair to him. And I'd love to just take his cheeks and just... So Churchill's in the wilderness. A maverick, a controversial figure. But one thing he has been consistent about is that he does not think Hitler's ever going to stop. He's anti-Hitler. he's an extremist in some regard yeah uh well he's just been saying he's basically improved right well yeah i mean so when so when uh you know after chamberlain starts to lose traction after munich but it's sort of like um seeing as the war started it's sort of like when brexit happened and it's like well now we need everyone who supported brexit to be in charge yeah a lot of them don't know how to run the country no but you have to and they just love it has to be their term yeah this is kind of like all the people who are predicting the war now it's come true it's like well we need to have to move these guys to the top.

20:45Yeah so Chamberlain's like Cameron it's like right well I better go then. Just whistles and fucks off. And he's like Johnson you know. Yeah well yeah Churchill comes in so we're getting ahead of ourselves but basically in August 39 the war starts proper with Operation Himmler. Right. So the Germans I didn't actually know this they do false flag operations in Poland to drum up a kind of support for the war and so they dress up as Poles which I don't know what that I mean, what, are they dressing really shit stonewashed jeans? Drinking cans. There is no... I'm just always staggered by the wealthiest Russians you see are just dressed so terribly.

21:26Yeah. All the time. A lot of gold. So much gold. Diamante-encrusted jeans. Well, it's just communism for 70 years. It means that you haven't been able to develop this stuff naturally. It's been repressed. That 10 years in the 90s where they just suddenly have capitalism and they just don't take time to design jeans that actually look good. Yeah, when you're really hungry, you eat way too much. Yeah. And then now you're fucked. And now they've just got like seven slits in their jeans. So they dress up as Poles and they attack German civilians and infrastructure in Poland. And then this culminates in, on the 31st of August, the Gleivitz incident where Germans dress up as Polish troops and hijack the Gleivitz radio station antenna and play anti-German messages.

22:05I don't know what we're going to use. Oh, the Germans are. Oh, they're smelly. I mean, we're not German, we're Polish. We're Polish. Germans are smelly. And then the next day, Germany invades Poland. It's a defensive war. It's a defensive war. They go, well, you can't call us smelly over India. That's not fair. Britain and France issue an ultimatum. Which is, God, that's tough from Britain and France. Right, don't do that. Don't do that. Germany ignore it. Two days later. We've got Germany over a barrel, boys. We've got them here. We've issued an ultimatum. They're fucked. Two days later, they go, right, okay, then we're at war.

22:41and they then don't send any military to help Poland because they're like, what the fuck's Poland? Yeah. What is it? I would just found out that Poland exists. Isn't that Russia? Because they're thinking like we are, they're trying to make the world smaller, easier to manage, a bite-sized global map. Everything to the east of Germany is Russia until it's China. And then it's China until it's Hawaii. And then it's America, et cetera, et cetera, Brazil, Argentina. What you're saying is East Europe should be Russia, but then we should give some of the Chinesey parts of Russia back to China. Yes. Like when it gets all Chinese.

23:15They're clearly not Russian. Yeah. That's what the territorial debate should be about. It's not about Ukraine, Russia. It's like, why the fuck are there Asian people in Russia? Turn around. There's Asians everywhere. What are you doing? You and Ukraine and Russia, it's fine. It's all fine. You're the same blokes. Whatever. It's counties. It's just different counties. It's the same. You know, you both pierce baby's ears. Yeah. It's a civil war. Turn around. Half of you are Asian. What's that about? That's what we need to have. That's weird. Why is Chinese in Russia? Anyway, that's a different issue.

23:47What I'm saying is if Russia wanted to Angeles parts of China or the other way around, whatever, I'm fine with it. Anyway, so on the 3rd of September, the war is declared and we won't deal with the Polish campaign, but basically the USSR, they'd signed a Nazi-Soviet pact. They invade Poland from the east. Which you said is the most disappointed you've ever been with the Nazis. Devastating. Absolutely devastating. I thought we hated those guys and then it turns out they're mates Did it potentially turn your view on Hitler then? Yes it did So he has some bad sides to it That's up there with the worst thing he does I think is the Nazi Soviet pact Anyway the last unit of the Polish army surrenders in October 1939 but we're really dealing with the Western Front in this series and so what then happens is that from 1739 to about May 40 it's called the Phony War uh actually americans call it because sorry just before we go into the phony war this is such a key moment though which i listening back over all this history i didn't realize this is when the french actually the worst part of what the french do it's not them collapsing like a pudding as soon as germany come through it's the fact that when germany are attacking poland if france that has the biggest land one of the biggest land forces in the world two million people i think uh way more tanks but more anything it's huge better tanks but better tanks like they could have easily if it was the right kind of war France could have crushed Germany easily if they go in now when the Nazis are in Poland the whole thing the whole thing's over yeah and it's like they're undefended defended Charlie's just googled did French soldiers keep cheese in their tanks AI overview says no I'm gonna I'm gonna fight back and say yes I think AI overview maybe not as smart as we thought I don't think big tech is ready to deal with i think part of the reason why french tanks didn't weren't as effective they thought they would be is because they always had one hand eating a piece of brie i thought i think wheels of brie were the wheels that used and it started melting and they started eating it and they had fins of cheese over the top of the wheels of brie and the whole thing was made instead of actual grease they were using borsan i mean look there there is evidence if you needed it of a french soldier holding a wheel of cheese part of the problem is that they were drinking red wine eating cheese sitting waiting for something to happen but it's never really explained to me why they didn't attack because it it was an open goal in a way but this is where stereotypes can paint a picture right you believe in stereotypes do you i'm a i'm a stereotype i'm a stereotype you're a stereotypist i'm a stereotype determinist right in that you know i say i'm a historian really i'm a cultural analyst i'm an ethnographer if i'm anything yeah um a profession which has really gone downhill.

26:29I'm a phrenologist, an ophthalmographer, commercial analyst, amateur linguist. You should put a phrenologist in your Instagram bio. Amateur linguist, phrenologist. Professional phrenologist, amateur linguist. He, him. He, him. Yeah, I'm an amateur phrenologist in my spare time in the shed. I'm measuring people's skulls. And he'll do it for free? Man's got to have a hobby. and mine is measuring the skulls people who make their own beer in the shed yeah you've got your own uh phrenology kit yeah i do it's like a fun little thing it's like it's not a professional thing but you can do it at home i may fix gluing skulls back together what happens if you take the uh caucasoid with the mongolite what happens if you glue those together does that tell us anything about how about racial iq fascinating um anyway um no i am i to some extent i think history is easy to understand if you bring national stereotypes into it and because it is inexplicable why the french don't just pop over the rhineland but they've got so many troops they've got such a great land like four five six to one they outnumber germany um but they are too busy picking out pastry flakes and pubes from their teeth i mean we that is kind of true though that's true we're not even making a joke i'm not making that up literally a lot of the reason they did it is because i basically france after world one which to be fair to them they bore a lot more of the brunt than we did it was on their land yeah they hosted that house party yeah they had to clean up yeah yeah yeah yeah you know like we we obviously world one was bad for us but we didn't you know when you're at like a house party it's like five at five a.m you're like thank god this is not my house yeah i'm so glad i had to clean this up or even that was us leaving or even it's when you go when you have kids and you go around to someone else's house with kids and then they just literally destroy the place.

28:20And you go, fucking brilliant, we can just go home now. Our house is fine. We've literally ruined your house. So then after that, the France said to counteract, they went, as gay as the French have even gone the 20s, right? Yes. So it's like, we're already gay. Let's double gay it. And they basically didn't want to give up being gay. They was being super, holding onto it as hard as possible. Well, they thought that the next war, and we'll get into the Majora line and stuff in the next episode. What have you got, Charlie? Apparently the French soldiers are called Poilou. Have you heard of this?

28:52Poilou. Which means the hairy ones. Exactly. There you go. Thank you. Sorry, they called themselves that? I don't know. It's a term of endearment for the French infantry of World War I, and it means literally the hairy one. Right. So it's just their typically rustic agricultural background. Smelly. And derives from the bushy moustaches. Yeah. What's unfortunate about the French being the most ready to surrender people in the world is they also had the stinkiest armpits, which is a devastating combat. Well, I think it's more like a raccoon or like a skunk emitting. Right. We think they're surrendering.

29:23They're actually emitting gas. When you surrender, can you please not raise your arms? Can you just raise a hand rather than your arm? We don't need them. Or just wave a flag or something. But that's what they think. It's like as you attack a skunk or a sea squid or something, and its last act is to emiss a noxious gas. That's what a Frenchman does. That's what a Frenchman does. If you attack it, it goes, ah, and it just releases its armpits. in many ways Dunkirk is the British deciding it was too smelly to stay in France and they just evacuated what is it this is the hairiest French person ever Petrus Gonsalves that's a bear he's from the 16th century right and he's very hairy yeah that's well to me that's just every that's like the Aztec Algod yeah they just they get out the hairiest stinkiest guy this is the this is the nuclear option but the problem is their instincts their instincts are to sit smoke and chat about the meaning of life whereas the Germans are, as we'll discover, on meth in tanks, having the best time of their lives.

30:22Also, they're chucking a roll on deodorant in there and the French are scattering out of the trenches. They basically just, they managed to superglue a can of links so it's always on and they chuck it as a grenade. Oh no, oh no! Evacuate! Evacuate! Anyway. It's the most dad fair. Oh, it's great. It's so great. It's one of the joys of having children. you know they're only young for a little bit and you can only really get get juice out of the one of the least problematic racism xenophobia britain on france that's that's fair game that's cricket that's that is cricket so no one's getting cancelled for making fun of the french no although it'd be very funny if i got having having just been an outspoken nazi apologist for eight months if i then have too big of a swipe at the french and they go oh no that's it actually you're done so what happens in September 39 from a western perspective is that the eight months of phony war right phony phony you're fake you're phony it's not a real war phony baloney so what happens now who's called it the phony wars though it's Americans call it that yeah because it's not a British phony the Germans call it the Sitzkrieg that's weirdly funny for Germans it's oddly funny isn't it yeah something suspicious something's coming the Germans just made a joke why are you in such a good mood you're normally fucking terrible vibes have you discovered methamphetamines what are you about to do yeah so suspicions are raised when the Germans start punning yeah that's these are a new type of German what's happened here they're having a laugh Sitzkrieg Sitzkrieg ha ha ha ha ha ha you don't know what's coming ha ha ha ha ha so this is the battle of the Atlantic starts which is it's funny how basically the start of the war is essentially all economic on the western front it's quite dull it's very dull it's all about the merchant fleet and you know Britain has an insane it's the best navy in the world at this point this is really a war of factories World War 2 if you want to see it that way which no one does but you know Eric Hobsbawm do you know him so he's written these amazing books he's Adam Curtis his favourite guy he's a Marxist he says that essentially you could see World War II as a war who's got the more factories.

32:37Well, his whole view of history is the Marxist view of history which is all class struggle. It's all workers. So, of course, he views it through the factories. Yes, exactly. It's always like, but it's also like you've just made the most interesting thing that's ever happened incredibly boring. Which is communist. Which is communism, yeah. It's like, oh, it's this battle between good and evil and right and wrong. No, it's about who's got more factories. Oh, I can make more steel than you so I'm going to win. All right. But in the first eight months of the war, this is, U-boats trying to attack British ships in the Atlantic to control.

33:07Obviously, the Americans are sort of softly supporting the Allies at this point. Italy's not in the war yet. It's all very kind of, it's foreplay, right? It's all, it's kissing. It's like kissing. Yeah. It's not really getting our blood pumping. His eyes are across the bar. Yeah, it is. Hitler's doing some butt stuff on the Eastern Front. Yeah, of course. But, you know, we're not, that's not our concern at this point. So there's a naval blockade. when's that ever done anything yeah and britain begin evacuating city children and pregnant women to the countryside which i think is a policy we should look at again yeah uh what cities for the boys i think cities for the boys yeah well do you know there was a bit of like you know when it's like uh glastonbury's on a lot of real londoners like it's great all these posh home counties yeah they're fucked up they fucked off and finally get like london and christmas yeah everyone's fucked off yeah we get real londoners about do you think there's a bit of that the blitz yeah where it's like this is just what's great is that this isn't the blitz yet nothing nothing's happening go right get the women away get them off get the kids and the toddlers and women got to go got to go yeah there's something anyone who cries and whinges is gone on a train and then they're like this is fucking great should we keep them in the in the county if we do rules it's not safe it's not no it's not safe no there's too many beers going around too much fun there no no you'd hate it no this is what it's the wife and children calling and it's you on a light night out yeah no no we're not having a great time no no it's really it's really dangerous no no no we're not drinking sambuga shots no no no we're going to war tomorrow actually yeah yeah yeah no you stay you stay there in a boring countryside um and there's a guy called lord haw-haw who's um becomes a kind of popular talk radio show who is spreading nazi propaganda to british audiences um which in a way is this show's this shows from one to another cultural forebear um now we get into the Norway plans.

34:56No, this is actually, I used to play a video game, a computer game called Commando. You ever play that? No. A bit like strategy game sort of thing. But they had a big thing. There's lots of stuff about Norway. Okay. Because you don't really learn about Norway when you're doing World War II in school, but this is where the first contact is between Allied forces and on the West and the Nazis. Because we know there's a possibility that the Germans are going to try and take all of Scandinavia, basically. Basically, there's iron ore, raw iron ore, Oh! Nothing better for a Marxist historian than a pot of raw iron ore.

35:33Iron ore in Sweden. Sweden's got a lot of iron ore. The Germans needed to make steel, which they then make tanks out of. Yeah, this is when it's like civilization. This is when it's like a strategy game. Get this so you can make that. Charlie, it might be helpful to get some maps up. As opposed to just pictures of raw. As opposed to just pictures of iron ore. Where do you even start, though? With a map? In terms of, like, how the fuck does that become a tank? well there are people who know how to do that and you're not one of them don't i don't think you need to learn about that either charlie i think maybe focus on being learning how a podcast works that's the key thing you need to do is to focus on the job that you're currently being employed don't worry about iron ore no one's ever gonna ask you to make like me he's an empath isn't he's like fuck how would i do that you don't need to it's outside your remit so you've got sweden which is where there's lots of raw iron ore and then the ways for germany to get that out are certain months of the year they can go up from Germany, Poland, like through past Denmark to get it.

36:27But all year round, they can get it from the port of Narvik, which is right at the top of Norway because of ice or something. I don't fucking know. Anyway, so Norway's very strategically important. So Churchill recognizes this. Well, of course, because it's like someone in the top bunk pissing on you from below. Yes. Because Norway's above Britain and it opens another... Which did happen to me on a stag do. Not me, my friend. I was on a stag do in Bristol. and we were all staying in a hostel. This is the same one. I have to tell you this story about when we were at the subway at five in the morning and the guy asked for a meatball marinara and the lady said, we don't have that one.

37:01And his response was, do I look like a cunt? My mate Henry, who has had anger issues. Has he? Yeah, he lives in Berlin now. Did he look like a cunt? Hey? Did he look like a cunt? Yeah, he asked for meatball marinara, which is all you should get from a subway and they didn't have it. So then he was like, well, I'm not a cunt. So find some meatball marinara. Do I look like a cunt? He's got a lot going on. Anyway, it's not really about the Meeple Marinaro. I feel there's something else. There's something else going on. Anyway, on that stag, we were saying there's a hostel in Bristol. And what was it?

37:32My mate Ash? Anyway, someone just, we're all in bunk beds. And then woke up to just, you know, water on their face, splashing on their face. And they're like, oh, I'm thirsty, actually. and then he realises that the guy above him is just is like right up against the wall and it's just is not is naked and it's just pissing down the wall is he asleep or is he awake and lazy no he is asleep he's asleep he's not just like I can't be arsed yeah just yeah no yeah he just got fully just pissed on Christ from above that's amazing anyway that's what why was that relevant that was relevant because that's tactically what Norway is to Britain yes geographically it's the top bunk it is and so the only way for the Nazis to get iron ore raw iron ore raw iron ore delicious raw iron ore out of Sweden is to go from Narvik which is a very very north of Norway so now Churchill who has come into the cabinet when the war broke out because Chamberlain goes right turns out we need some alphas in here I fuck this actually so Churchill becomes first lord of the admiralty which is I think like war war man I don't know yeah I mean, I think it's linked to the Navy, but the Navy's the most important part of the British Empire.