Before The Storm: Midnight Approaches (Part 4)

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2:02Every day, another bit of life juggles back to something near normal. One by one, the museums are opening again. You can wander once more through the fish and reptile galleries of the National History Museum. But only if you bring along your gas mask, for they don't intend to have phosgene Londoners left lying around among the cobras. The Victorian Albert is reopened, and so has the Imperial War Museum, where ironically inclined visitors can take a look at Hitler's and Chamberlain's signatures on the famous Peace in Our Time document. Another interesting exhibit there is a drawing of celebration held here in July 1918, a meeting at which Mr.

2:41Churchill declared, said, Germany must be beaten, must know she is beaten, and most feel she is beaten. The museum officials add a note to the effect that until recently, delicacy has prevented them from showing the drawing, but that they are now doing so because the Solomon expressed in Mr. Churchill's speech have once more become appropriate and seasonal. And that, of course, was the American journalist Molly Panta Downs writing for the new yorker on the 16th of february 1940 so welcome to we have ways of making you

3:14Al Murray: talk with me al murray and james holland of course um uh who's who's just offered us his molly panter downs there's an unfortunate surname that could be misconstrued couldn't in in inappropriate banter at the wrong moment this is our fourth episode of our before the storm uh uh series about what's known as the phony war and what we're going to look at is uh this sort of very because there is a state of limbo here as she says a bit another bit of life juggles back to something near normal there's this peculiar um limbo at the end of the last episode of course we said that actually this period is is characterized actually by british imperial naval dominance and the fact that the britain is calling calling the power shots at sea by turning on and off imports and exports of stuff to its adversaries if it wants.

4:04Al Murray: And also that the British have put their economy, basically done a handbrake turn with their agricultural economy and are going from importing to being self-sufficient. But there is this feeling that the war is something to get used to rather than get to grips with, isn't there? It's an encumbrance, an embuggerance rather than something that they need to be really worrying about. Exactly. And for all the sort of bomber panic between the wars because, you know, the war has been prophesied as this sort of waves of bombers and civil unrest and vast calamity. That hasn't happened. What was all the fuss about?

4:42Al Murray: Honestly. What was all the fuss about? Exactly. Although meat is rationed in March, the shooting season has extended an extra month. Thank God for that, Jim.

4:55But Easter's early and there's petrol rationing

4:59Al Murray: because obviously you've got to fuel is obviously a thing you're going to have to rush there's a mass exodus of um londoners who want to take a quick break while it's still peaceful um and also there's a feeling that actually the war is gonna be a damp squib it's not gonna happen which is amazing really with with um with you know with an atom of hindsight it's absolutely incredible that people feel like that and there's even a feeling of hope isn't there that you know yeah yeah yeah But isn't it, you know, I mean, how people have been being, I mean, think, just think about how people have been predicting the outcome of the Ukraine war and nearly every prediction has been wrong so far.

5:38And how people are kind of second guessing what's going to go on in Iran and all the rest of it. The truth is, Al, no one knows.

5:45Al Murray: No one knows, Jim. No one knows. No one knows. No one knows. Earlier on, we touched on, you know, economic warfare, really, as the British attitude to this. So we should look at metal and how important it is, because obviously, if you're going to build lots of planes and tanks and bayonets and artillery guns, you need raw materials. You need lots and lots of iron ore, lots of metal. So this is where Scandinavia fits into the picture. Well, you need that and you need resilience of your supply lines, you know, and that applies to metals and rare earth metals as much as it does to food. and having Laurie Lee wanging in your ears and broadcast.

6:29I mean, you know, it's all part of it. In a time of war, you've got to be ready to be able to, well, even before the war, which is what everyone's doing, is they're preparing for it and they're thinking, okay, what are we short of? What do we need to do? How do we need to, you know, and in the case of Britain, obviously, it's how do we need to, how do we transform ourselves from importing almost all our food to producing most of it ourself? And how do we make sure that we've got the bauxite and the copper and the tin and the oil and everything we need when we go into a long and protracted war?

7:03Britain is still planning for a long war. As you say, it's hoping for a short war, planning for a long one. And the moment the war turns into a long war rather than a short, sharp war, it's a battle of supplies, as we've said over and over and over again over the last seven years. and the truth is no country in the world has enough resources to fight a war without imports

7:23Al Murray: not even the u.s and not even the uss are yeah there's not a single country that can do it all dependent on imports of some kind which underlines why it's such a terrible idea obviously what go to war yeah yeah yeah absolutely oliver hittleton is the expert um in in the uk in britain on this and he says the metal trade is truly international for no country self-supporting in all the non-ferrous metals. Thus, the United States have no tin. The United Kingdom, if classified, apart from the Commonwealth, has no significant resources of any of them. All the great industrial countries have to import some of their needs from their colonies or from overseas.

8:02Al Murray: Metals must be exchanged across all the international frontiers. So Littleton knows his stuff. He's making his point. There it is for the horse's mouth. We laughed at the biographies of German officers in an earlier episode. Littleton's is classic, isn't it? Fought the First World War. He's got a DSO. He's got an MC. He's on the money. Exactly. He's chairman of the British Metal Corporation by 1939, which is the biggest metal company in the UK. He's also, this is interesting, he's the director on the board of the German metal firms Metallgeschäft and Norddeutscher Raffinerie, because his British company works in affiliation with them.

8:41Well, it was until the war, yeah.

8:42Al Murray: Yeah, exactly. Exactly, because the steel trade, there's questions of mutual understanding and technology. And he understands, if anyone knows the German metal trade in Britain, it's him. He understands what they're short of, what they haven't got, how their markets work, everything. So he's an incredibly useful person to know. Yeah, yeah. Because it's not just about iron and steel, is it? It's about stuff to make alloys with for other purposes. So you need zinc for brass, for instance. So he's warned, after the Germans take over Czechoslovakia, he's warned that he might be appointed controller of non-ferrous metals by the Ministry of Supply on the if and when a war breaks out.

9:22Al Murray: So he gets going. He gets planning the purchase and allocation of zinc, copper, lead and tin, which are the non-ferrous metals you need for a rounded ability to make different alloys and different products. So he gets ahead of the game by buying above the market rate on some long-term purchases, which means by the time the war starts, Britain has reserves and an ongoing supply of all four of these non-ferrous metals. And this is British wealth and economic muscle in play, isn't it? We can afford to do this, so we do. But it's also, can I also just say, this is also harnessing private enterprise, because he's a private individual.

10:06or he's not at this stage where he's warned that he might be required by the Ministry of Supply, but he's not actually at the time of doing this. He's just doing it. It's amazing. So he's securing this off his own back. Yeah. You know, obviously with the tacit support of the government, but he's still doing it. And this is the point that in a time of war, you need to harness the private with the public.

10:27Al Murray: It's before the paradigm of nationalisation, isn't it? That hasn't happened yet. On the outbreak of war, guess what? But he becomes controller of non-ferrous metals and he's given carte blanche to them by the government to get on with stockpiling. And also the British Metal Corporation is co-opted and controlled by the government. So they stand up some new offices in rugby. Littleton is glad to get away from home and sets up camp there because he doesn't have to deal with evacuees. Yeah, he is. He's absolutely brilliant. Yeah. He says, I little dreamt that English children could be so completely ignorant of the simplest rules of hygiene and that they would regard the floors and carpets as suitable places upon which to relieve themselves.

11:08Says Oliver Littleton, DSOMC. Yeah, yeah.

11:11Al Murray: But this is interesting because this is actually one of the side stories of evacuation, isn't it? This extraordinary culture clash between inner city London and the upper classes where they go, jeepers, that's what these people are like. Heavens, heavens to Betsy. But within six weeks, they reached the set requirements of 250 million pounds worth of metal stockpiled. So Littleton's on it, and he's really, really getting the job done. And so, you know, the other two things you really, really need, you really, really need, and this is for any of the belligerents, it's iron ore and oil. This is Germany's big problem, isn't it?

11:49This is because Germany is isolated in the heart of Europe, doesn't have access to the world oceans, even when it had a colonial empire. You've got to get through these narrow little straits between islands and stuff in the Baltic Sea, and between that pinch point between Denmark and Norway. And then you've got to get out into the North Sea, which is blockaded. And so you've got a massive, massive problem. It's geographical isolation. And it's a lack of any means of breaking the blockade imposed upon it, the naval blockade imposed upon it, is a massive problem. So 22 million tonnes of iron ore imported into Germany in 1938.

12:29but post the blockade only 9.5 million tonnes so less than half you know so that's quite that's quite a big reduction and germany needs to import 750 000 tonnes of ore per month from sweden minimum as its main supplier to main just to maintain the war effort as it is in 1939 not as it is later on in the war when they're kind of all over the place so swedish orb delivers a basic demand of the Wehrmacht according to the OKW, the over-commanded Wehrmacht, the German General Staff. And then the biggest Swedish iron ore field is in the north, it's the Karuna-Gallivare district, which is just across the border from Norway around the parallel of Narvik, so within the southern part of the Arctic Circle, but within the Arctic Circle nonetheless.

13:15Or is then shipped through the Narvik port in Norway, or through the Lulea port in Sweden, because you You can also go down through the Gulf, the Lulea option, which is on the eastern side of Sweden. But it's frozen over in winter. So then you're canalised into going down the Norwegian coast. Yeah. Which is why that railway line that was only completed in 1904 or whatever it was. Yeah. From Galivare to Narvik is so important and the shipping route out of Narvik.

13:48Al Murray: The Germans have a very vulnerable source of iron ore. There is an opportunity here. Let's put it this way. Upon which they are hugely dependent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's an opportunity for the Allies to do something about this, isn't there? Or, you know, there's yet another pressure point. So Winston Churchill, who's first Lord of the Abralty, suggests in September, I suggest that forthwith so the Allied effort should, notwithstanding, blah, blah, blah. He says, right, we're going to violate Norwegian neutrality, mind its coastal waters. if the Norwegians can't be persuaded that, you know, sending iron ore to the Germans is a bad idea.

14:28Al Murray: This is why, in the end, you can see why Churchill is the only option in May 1940, you know, later on. Because he's the only person who's shown any actual kind of like aggression and gumption. I just think they could have said to the Norwegians, and maybe they did, and it just hasn't been recorded, but I'd have thought the way to do it is go to the Norwegians and say, look, we've got a problem on our hands. You want to stay neutral. You don't want to keep out of the war. We'll protect your sovereignty. we'll also compensate you but you have to cut off these supply lines to the germans and and you can blame it all on us and and we'll do a blockade but let's not get a war over this and we will compensate you we will buy that iron off that you're going to give the germans ourselves and we will also compensate you financially as well we'll do this and we'll we'll we'll set up a blockade and you can just say well we're neutral we can't do anything about it we don't have a strong enough navy to do it which you don't um and it's job done and and the norwegians will say yeah, but then the Germans will invade us and the British will go, well, OK, but that's our first opening bid.

15:24But that doesn't happen. They don't coat it in those terms. And maybe it's because they don't trust Norwegians, but I don't see why not, because Norwegians are our friends. So I think they don't try hard enough, is my feeling on this.

15:37Al Murray: That, I think, characterises the Chamberlain government. For all the positive things we've been talking about them doing, And they are nevertheless in a sort of kind of in a funk about actually what to do. This is too much for them, isn't it? I mean, it's interesting. It also, I mean, if Britain did go belligerent on Norway, then your moral case for the war looks a little harder to make, doesn't it? You know, you're not the good guy anymore. Yes, well, you would never go belligerent on Norway. That's uncomfortable and you would never do that. But you could say we will compensate you for the loss of trade you're doing to Germany.

16:14And we will make it very, very clear that you have no choice in the matter. But secretly, we'll have an understanding.

16:20Al Murray: It's interesting, isn't it? Because Churchill thinks that mining in the Norwegian Leeds would strike such a blow against German war-making capacity. It's equal to a first-class victory. He thinks this will do the trick. There's a big what-if here, isn't there? if they've got on with it, got on with this whole Norwegian thing properly. And they start work on it while the Lulea route's still frozen over. You know, Narvik is the only passable route for the ore. And so they've got to do it right now, but they can't. The War Cabinet shelves plans, Churchill's plans, and actually are more interested in supporting the Finns in concert with the French.

17:02Al Murray: But that still means you've got to get through Narvik and Sweden. and there's still neutrality violations on offer here. The French want to support the Finns because in the event of a Russian victory, that means the Germans do have freedom of movement in Sweden and Norway and secure all the iron ore. So they're coming, the French are coming in around the, you know, around the question of the iron ore as well. And they want to send ships. They want to send a naval force to Pastamo, North Finland, and mountain troops to take the iron ore fields. So the French plan is also kind of like, that's pretty pretty spicy isn't it's pretty saucy i mean this is the problem is you know britain and france are now formal allies and they can't agree on anything and one of the reasons the french can't agree on anything is because their political stuff their political situation is so fractured that no one in france can agree on anything so if if people in france can't agree on anything they're never going to agree on anything with the british you well they're sort of you know still slightly reluctant allies to whom they look at with sort of historic suspicion yeah yeah it's interesting the french are quite sanguine about the idea of fighting Russia.

18:02Well, because it's a long way away and the Russians aren't going to bomb France. That's why. That is why. Okay, it is. So what one has to understand with the French is the fear of the Luftwaffe underpins every decision they make in this opening stage of the war. And that goes back to General Voulamain, the commander-in-chief of the Armée de l 'air, the French air force, going to visit the Luftwaffe and being shown reams and reams and reams of Messerschmitts and bombers and all the rest of it, all of which would be smoke and mirrors and a magic show rather than reality. And that's why. It is the thought of bombs raining down on Paris.

18:42It's the apocalyptic, bomber will always get through, all that kind of stuff that is dictating this. And that is why. And so they're fine about Russia because Russia is miles away. It hasn't got bombers and won't attack them. It's a Luftwaffe they're worried about. That is the single biggest thing that is hindering the French at this stage.

18:59Al Murray: Anything that takes the Germans away from France because they don't want a repeat of the Western Front, if they could possibly help it. Anything that makes stuff happen somewhere else is good for France. Either way, they can't make their minds up. Even if that's what the French are hoping for, they're not going to make a decision. They agree in principle to plan for the seizure of the Swedish iron oars and offer military support for the Finns. And it's going to be a really big expeditionary force. They're talking about 100 ,000 British troops with 11 ,000 British vehicles. It is, but this is not something you can just organise immediately.

19:35Because people are going to go on holiday and people aren't around and the decision makers are going to be made and, you know, keep a camp down the road a little bit. Well, you know, they sort of agree on it in February, but nothing's going to happen until April. I mean, you know, it's just... Yeah. It is proper hurry up and slow down.

19:51Al Murray: No one's really serious about that. That's the truth. Certainly within the British army, people don't think this is going to happen. You're talking about 100 ,000 British troops and 11 ,000 British vehicles. Someone goes, yeah, right, whatever. Ain't going to happen. You know, the French are going to say three and a half divisions. It's not going to happen. No, that's not going to happen. You know, what about the snow? I don't know, we'll sort that out when we go there. It's quite Germanic in it. So it's quite Nazi in its approach to lack of thinking about it. Yeah, there's this tremendous character called then Brigadier John Kennedy, who's the chief of staff to Major General Pierce Maxey, who is the guy who's earmarked to be the quantum chief for this.

20:28And Kennedy later becomes a general, and he's all about planning and the operations in the war. And he's a bit like Ronald Adam. He's one of those sort of forgotten figures, but a very, very important figure in running Britain's military or certainly his army effort. And he says, I could hardly believe that the scheme was going to come off, but we had to do on the work, on the assumption that it would. And I think that attitude is one that is replicated everywhere. 100 ,000, 200 ,000, whatever. Yeah, fine, just put it down. Put it down in the ledger. Never happened.

21:00Al Murray: And he's right. I mean, it's scheduled for mid-March. War cabinet aren't into it. The prime minister's not into it either. And the other thing is events dictate actually the outcome of this because the Soviets and Finland come to an agreement on the 13th of March. Kennedy diagnoses the problem, doesn't he, when he's talking to a colleague. He says, You know, it wasn't my fault we took so long to make up our minds. We need more drive at the top. I learned how futile the waging of war becomes when the higher command refuses to grasp the nettle and delegate command to chosen subordinates. I learned afresh the dangers of hesitation when embarking on a course whose only hope of success is to be bold.

21:42You know what the big problem is, don't you? Not no Nelson.

21:48Al Murray: yes well but but in the absence of nelson there is someone urging action um while everyone else is dithering and that's churchill isn't it yes that's his gig that's what he does the allies the allies are saved really by the finns suing for peace oh my god can you imagine yeah and it shows that really the french and the british are waiting for something to come up rather than trying to order the pace of events themselves. Should we take a break and then go and look at Germany? Yeah, go on. We'll see you in a tick, everyone.

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24:00Al Murray: welcome back to we have ways of making you talk with me i'm iran james holland and we looked at the lassitude in britain although you know some things working well the metals policy working out well but other things really being kind of shot through with um a lack of drive indecision and woolly thinking yeah and i hope that something will come up in germany though they can't wait for something to come up. They need a short war and they need it now, Jim. Yeah, because economically they're completely isolated. Yeah. You know, I think when you think of sort of all alone, you think of the David Lowe cartoon of the guy on the, you know, the only people that are alone in the first half of 1940 are the Germans.

24:41I mean, they're absolutely out on a limb. They're in a pickle. Let's face it. You know, they haven't got enough food. They haven't got enough oil. They haven't got enough anything. You know, they really, really, really haven't. The massive loss of overseas trade since the Allies imposed the naval brigade is really hurting. Everyone's wearing brown clothes and ill-fitting shoes. The shops have got stuff in the windows, but you can't buy any of it. That geographical isolation is also a massive problem. And of course, these were precisely the constraints that worked against them in the First World War.

25:14Yeah. It had a crippling effect on Germany's war effort. And it's still a problem now. Germany has to have access to natural resources and to the global sea lanes, but it doesn't have access to either. And that's a big, big problem.

25:31Al Murray: And was dependent on imports before the war and now doesn't have access to them. And, you know, as we saw, Littleton secured copper supply. So copper and oil imports collapse. and you know the germans are asking the italians for stuff um which the italians don't which the italians don't have i mean it's the thing you know that they don't have the copper so the italians end up um extorting stuff from its population the copper pans and chalices are stolen from housewives chalices are stolen from churches well you know you take stuff out of the church you know at at your peril. China warns Mussolini as a bad idea, but Mussolini doesn't listen.

26:14Al Murray: German imports are collapsing. I mean, it's amazing. By March of 1940, they're 80 % lower than their pre-war level. They're scraping in a third of its 1932 level of raw materials, which is the peak depression era. In the First World War, there's a huge scandal in Germany, isn't there, with a steel shortage for ammunition. And it's repeating itself already and the war isn't underway properly yet. You know, they're back to the bad old days of the Hindenburg program, 1916 to 17, where they're trying to get their economy going, trying to make it work, increase their industrial output, but that damages agricultural output, which creates food shortages, which puts prices up, you know, which is how Germany ended up on the brink of starvation in 1918.

27:00Al Murray: Anyone in German government, in a German bureaucracy, they want to avoid these. They want to obviously avoid these catastrophes again. You know, the German civil service isn't Nazi. It's necessarily, it might be doing as it's told by Nazi government, but they're facing the same problems that their predecessors faced them. There'll be a whole load of people going, oh, here we go again. Not again. And of course, you've got General Georg Thomas, who we've mentioned a number of times. He's the head of the military economic staff at the OKW, the commander de Vermeck, the combined general staff, and Walter Funk, who is the minister for economic affairs.

27:32They are urging a hardening of the economy for a possible long war, where all sides eventually negotiate for peace, because that looks like the only realistic proposition. You just can't see how Germany, they can't see how Germany could possibly win against Britain and France and with America's United States on the other side of the Atlantic. So they are proposing no offensive action whatsoever. And they reckon they could sort to keep going just about for three years and of course this is diametrically opposite from Hitler's views and hopes for his war but you know for him it's all or nothing it's thousand year reich or armageddon whatever so there's no stockpiling of resources there's no attempt to protect German civilians from deprivations and hardships of conflict um and you know big big armaments orders have been put down.

28:27You know, U-boat, Luftwaffe, arms production is all to increase during the winter of 1939 and into 1940. And not least, the increased production of shells, which they're very short of after the Polish campaign. And they then create the organisation TOD, which is created by the Minister for Ammunition, who's Fritz Todd, in March 1940. He's a 48-year-old construction engineer. He's worked his way up the greasy Nazi pole. and the organisation Todd is a manual labour force comprising government organisations like the Reichsarbeitsdienst and private enterprise and the plan is to widen it with prisoners once they get to that stage and the organisation Todd takes complete control of ammunition production and introduces key decentralisation and deregulation measures you know, so shortcuts basically and ammunition figures do rise sharply after todd's appointment although you know it's a bit like the shadow factories in in britain the groundwork has been laid the previous autumn the shadow factories as you didn't hear earlier earlier series you know these the idea that you have one firm but you also build up a whole load of other factories which can do you know say you're talking about supermarine spitfires that supermarine is in southampton but you have these Spitfires or complete Spitfires on behalf of Supermarines or Vickers, but you're spreading the load.

29:53And that's the point. And that's the same principle they use for ammunition supply. But the truth is, Hill is urging a war against the West in October and November 1939. Do you remember all those shenanigans we had in, I think, the second episode, wasn't it, where we were talking about how are we going to do things and Halder and all the rest of it? But they couldn't have sustained it. They just don't have enough. At least by the spring, they do have enough shells. For their quick war.

30:17Al Murray: For their quick war. Yeah. But the plan they have, of course, is the Manstein plan, which is their quick war plan, which is the one they're going to have to use because, you know, they can't exceed their bounds. So, yes, back to France. So in France, let's drop in on the French army. So it's Captain Daniel Ballon, who's a reserve officer from Paris with his horse transport company, which is stationed near Valenciennes, with the rest of the 2nd North African Division, who are on the northeast front near the Belgian border. So interesting, colonial troops. I mean, that's one advantage, of course, the French colonial empire being that close, much closer to France.

30:58Al Murray: You know, our soldiers have to come from over the Atlantic, from India, from Australia, from a long, long way away. Whereas, you know, this is you bring your guys to North Africa. It's all that much, much quicker. And it's freezing cold in January. It's a very difficult winter. Of course it is. But Boulogne is billeted in a nice, warm, big house. and his men are helping engineers build block houses along an anti-tank ditch along the border. They're trying to keep their morale going. They're showing films, they're playing football. But he thinks there's a problem. And he says, fan. But the best thing would be to carry on with training and work the men hard instead of letting them rust.

31:40Al Murray: So they're not training for the fighting. They're being used to do other jobs. but these are the orders from ghq and that sector the front is on it's total inactivity and the odd football match watching cinemas smoking fags drinking red wine at lunchtime and other other english cliche and the time will come when we will do a big proper series on the blitzkrieg in the west um and which we will be looking in some greater detail at exactly what the French soldiers are doing on the front line. But suffice to say, just for the moment, they're spending more time building blockhouses, playing football and watching films, than they are actually training to be soldiers.

32:24And that is a massive problem. There's also Capitaine René de Chamboune, who is stationed along the Magno line in Lorraine. This is a big defensive line that runs along the French-German border. And he's also experiencing similar frustrations. His men are doing the old patrol, but not much more and writing about his men he writes he was not so ready to remain inactive in trenches or billets for eight long months with the feeling that his fields were abandoned and neglected you know so this is because people have been recruited from all across the board these reservists this is how you create a an army of three million or four million or whatever it is just like that with the click of fingers in about 48 hours but that means you know a lot of these guys are farmers because you know france is still a very um very strong agrarian society as well these people have to leave home.

33:10So who's looking after the farm while they're away? You know, they're just triddling their thumbs and this is a complete waste of time. I'm freezing my nuts off here and, you know, doing absolutely diddly squat. I could be back home kind of, you know, producing food. They've got a point, haven't they?

33:22Al Murray: Morale goes down the toilet and there's complacency and disengagement. You know, in contrast to the Germans who are hypermotive, they might have had it. Of course, the German pipeline from boy to soldier doesn't have an equivalent in France. There isn't a, you know, youth, Francaise, Reichsarbeitsdienst end up in the Wehrmacht thing with your French soldier. So he hasn't been marinated in politics and destiny and all that stuff, like his German equivalent. It's interesting. We've all these officers who are like, you know, they're in contact with the men. That's the interesting thing here. They're people who are around the soldiers and know the soldiers.

33:59But they're also a bit older. They've been around the block. So, you know, Captain André Buffard, you know, he's 37. and he's in he has been in the general staff from uh in the um french army of africa and um and it's important to understand that there's three french armies there's a metropolitan army which is the home army then there is the army d 'afrique you know the african army and then there is a colonial army the africa army is the one from morocco and and all the rest of it in tunisia and the colonial one is from all other parts you know whether it be be on dosheen or or what is now mali etc he is also frustrated by the continuing differing that that is characterizing the military decisions and he's all for for kind of striking italy is you know oh kicking giving them a kick up the arse oh nice yeah okay because he says look it's military weak it's weak in resources threatens french positions in tunisia and british control of the egypt and suiz canada let's do that you know we're massively upset the axis power balance allows the allies to secure the mediterranean and the middle east frees up allied naval power and resources and gives the french army some fighting to do and it shows that the allies are capable of taking initiative to be honest quite a fan of that plan and he goes but nothing was done because such a decision required a firmness which was quite foreign to the nature of our leaders so isn't it interesting that the This sort of level below the top, below the political level, whether it be British or French, they're all saying the same thing.

35:30We're rudderless. We're indecisive. We're getting we're getting rusty. And the men and the men are feeling it.

35:36Al Murray: The fish has rotted from the head, isn't it? And it's got corroded right down into the into the the fighting men, which is which is a huge problem. A very difficult, very difficult to turn around. Put that in reverse. It's very difficult, you know, because morale will deliver bad outcomes. in fighting, which will damage morale, which will deliver bad outcomes, which will damage morale, which will... And so on. So Churchill does some outreach, as it would be called nowadays, and he sends his friend and colleague, Edward Spears. Spears is chairman of the Anglo-French Committee of the Commons, and he's a magnificent fellow, Spears, isn't he, Jim?

36:09Yeah, he's absolutely tremendous. He's brought up in France. He speaks here like a native. He was a liaison officer to the French army in the First World War. Very good egg. Very smart, very bright, very articulate, a born diplomat, even though he's in the army. Yeah. And Churchill wants to explore the idea of mining the River Rhine to disrupt German river freight opposite the Maginot Line. But can you imagine that? You know, if the French are kind of nervous about doing anything to upset the Germans, how well is mining the River Rhine going to go down as a concept towards the French high command?

36:44Yeah, it offers a sort of a kind of picture of Churchill's desperation at this point to

36:49Al Murray: get something, anything done. And also that he's understanding economic warfare. So Spears talks to Gamalin, Georges, Deladier and Reynaud. So all the big power players. And they're worried the Germans might retaliate, Jim. The people we were at war with might retaliate. It's an unwarranted escalation. Well, you know, the General Vuleman in his serious take on the Luftwaffe. Spears says, but the Germans are blowing up our ships all around the coast. The mines are ours. And Georges replies, Jim, The politicians and maybe the public won't see it that way. They will connect your attack on enemy rivers with the probable German retort against us.

37:27I am all for Churchill's plan and will give him every facility. But I am telling you.

37:32Al Murray: Raynaud, who's the finance minister, he laments the lack of driving will from both French and British governments. He says to Spears, If he can spot it. But he's part of the lassitude, part of the inaction. and then uh french government falls you know uh kind of uh routinely on the 21st of march french public opinion can see this is happening but the politicians can't respond to it because you know there's outrage about the fact that nothing's been done about finland there's outrage about the finnish surrender and the french public opinion demands action um so there's a vote of no confidence but we cannot repeat what happened 20 years ago they get caught in this real bind of no one can say right we're going to have to do this and they're going to and take the politicians of public the public with them so um deladier is forced out by voting no confidence reino then who we just who we just met moments ago as finance minister steps in to replace him um not unlike chamberlain in that respect having been a chancellor exchequer than a prime minister so it's a similar sort of deal.

38:37Al Murray: You know, Deladier has found that French politics, it's really diverse. It's really, really difficult. You've got all sorts of people pulling in all sorts of different directions, haven't you? You know, you've got communists, you've got super nationalists, you've got contra the French revolutionists. You've got all sorts of conservative people pulling in all sorts of different directions. So everything has to be a coalition. It has to be. And Deladier has formed this thing called the Union Sacrée, which is, you know, a great name for a national unity government, but it can't work as it stands.

39:15Al Murray: There are hawkish members, and there are those who want to de-escalate. Reynaud can't deal with it either. Well, he's only got a one-vote majority. Yeah. So it's plus ça change, plus c 'est la même chose, to coin a phrase. He wants more hawks, Reynaud, but he can't get them in. He wants the former Prime Minister, Leon Blum, But Bloom's a Jew and he knows that anti-Semitism, which is all too real and alive in France, means that won't happen. I mean, so the makeup of his cabinet is absurd, isn't it? Yeah. Should we go through it? Yeah, go on. So six socialists, five radical socialists. These are all parties.

39:55Six democratic right members. Three union of socialists and republicans. Five democratic alliance members. Five independents, two Democratic Union members and one deputy unattached to a party. They am just neutral. So basically, you've got communist, conservative, defeatist, pro-fascist, all in one bag. Yeah, basically. And Reynaud's rallying cry to the chamber of the 23rd of March is...

40:18Al Murray: The stake in total warfare is the old stake. To conquer is to save everything. To succumb is to lose everything. It's quite right. He's right, but whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yada, yada, yada. He can't drag them with him. And there is no consensus. There is no common ground. And they're all terrified of Luftwaffe bombs. Fair enough. It's terrifying, Jim. And then, in a signal of things moving, Admiral Dönitz on the 4th of March is ordered to halt U-boat sailings in the Atlantic and redirect them to Norwegian waters ahead of the German invasion. And for most of the U-boat crews, they think this is absolutely insane.

40:55And take, for example, Uberleutnant Erik Topp, who says...

40:59Al Murray: A submarine is designed to be a commerce raider and requires vast areas of sea space to be effective. Deploying U-boats in Norway's narrow fjords, however, went against all experience and common sense. So he's not best happy, is he, Jim? No, he isn't. He's 25 years old. He's very bright, is Eric Top. He's an articulate, smart fellow. He loves the Navy, loves the cruise marina, loves the exclusive status of the U-boat force. he's been raised in Hanover ditches his medical studies to join the Navy he wants to be a doctor because he's in pursuit of adventure and he makes various pre-war voyages before joining the U-boat army in 1937 so June 1938 Topp joins U-46 as the commander's number one which is the 1WO so that's the second in command and by April with only two sinkings to the crew's name Topp is still waiting for action despite new Norway orders And he says, You have to have been with us to know what a seemingly endless waiting period can do to you.

42:01Al Murray: While on earlier patrols, one surprise followed another in close succession. Now we are practically devoured by the monogony of our daily routine. So everyone's morale is beginning to wilt, isn't it? And disunity, I would say, characterises all the major powers, bar Britain. But even in Britain, as you point out, there's some disunity within the national government. and the Conservative government. Italy, most of the leadership is against the war, bar the Duce. No one is willing to challenge him. In Germany, exactly the same thing. Wehrmacht leaders, extremely doubtful, but Hitler, all absolutely all for it and wanting to gamble everything.

42:38You know, Margareta Doss, who we began this episode with, starts this, well, the last episode, didn't we, when we were talking about the home front, starts listening to the BBC's German broadcast instead of the state broadcast. is absolutely horrified by how different the reporting is. And so she starts to doubt Hitler and the whole point of the war just by listening to this different radio station. Wow. And in France, there's political infighting, disenchantment, undermining morale and any hope of confident decision-making. I think you could argue that Britain is able to reach a sort of unity of purpose for various reasons.

43:12I mean, first of all, war hadn't been fought on British soil after all. So the war hasn't scarred the national psyche as intensely as it had in France. Britain and Germany, of course, separated by sea and land. Germany feels further away. Domestic politics are definitely more stable. There's only three main parties covering a far narrower political spectrum than there is in France. And the majority of British people think that war is not just necessary, but a moral duty, according to kind of morale surveys. And actually, there's a fantastic diary that's never been published. It's in the Imperial War Museum, handwritten by Gladys Cox, who we've referred to, I think, a bit when we did our Blitz episode.

43:52And she lives in North London and she's got a flat apartment with her husband and their dog. And she says after listening to a speech by Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, she recalls that...

44:03Al Murray: Lord Halifax does indeed seem to be imbued with a profound sense of the rightness of our cause. He declared he would a hundred times sooner be dead than live in a world under Nazi domination. And so say all of us. Absolutely. It's hard to argue with Gladys there. But the thing is, this can't go on. Although the people around Hitler, lots of Wehrmacht people don't like the idea of fighting. They know they're going to fight. They've got to do it now. They've got to get it over with. And that's how he's able to carry them with him when the moment comes, isn't he? Got to get it done. Got to get it over with.

44:36Al Murray: Short war. Short war, because that's all that we're capable of. So we're here because we're here. We may as well have a go, take a swing. Germany is about to snaffle up Denmark and Norway. The phony war is almost over. The balloon is about to go up on the Western Front and the Blitzkrieg about to begin. And I think we will return with that. We need to do the land campaign of Norway, don't we? Norway, Denmark. And we absolutely need to do the Blitzkrieg in the West at some point. No, you wincing at that. Well, I'm wincing on your behalf. Funny enough, I'll find that easier to do than Singapore and the Pulse and the Prince of Wales, if I'm honest.

45:11OK, that's interesting. You know, we have no expectations with our army, but with our navy we've got nelson i mean i'll think in here the duke of wellington's being in his grave um thanks everyone for listening we hope we've you've enjoyed this roundup of the phony war

45:27Al Murray: and uh we're quietly in the background the royal navy with its foot on britain's enemy's throats um uh if you've joined our patreon thank you for doing that um uh we will see you all very very soon Cheerio. Farewell.

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