Before The Storm: Midnight Approaches (Part 4)

What were Britain's 'shadow factories'? Why did the allies plan to intervene in the Finno-Soviet Winter War? How did Germany hope to meet it's desperate need for resources? Join Al Murray and James Holland for part 4 of this new series on the 'Phoney War', and how complacency and hubris led to the shock fall of Western Europe to the Nazi German war machine in Spring 1940. Start your free trial at ⁠patreon.com/wehaveways⁠ and unlock exclusive content and more. Enjoy livestreams, early access, ad-free listening, bonus episodes, and a weekly newsletter packed with book deals and behind-the-scenes insights. Get your ticket for We Have Ways Fest 6 here! Get your WHW Merch here! A Goalhanger Production Produced by James Regan Editor: Charlie Rodwell Assistant Producer: Alfie Norris Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Social: @WeHaveWaysPod Social Producer: Harry Balden Email: [email protected] Membership Club: patreon.com/wehaveways Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:12Speaker 03

  Every 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 phosphine Londoners left lying around among the cobras. The Victoria and Albert has 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 Churchill declared "Germany must be beaten, must know she is

• 1:55Speaker 03

  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 salamans 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.

• 2:22Speaker 00

  So, welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk with me, Al Murray, and James Holland, of course, who's just offered us his Molly Panta Downs. There's an unfortunate surname that could be-

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Misconstrued, couldn't it?

• 2:33Speaker 00

  -inappropriate banter at the wrong moment. This is our fourth episode of our Before the Storm series about what's known as the phony war. And what we're going to look at is this sort of very, because there is a state of limbo here. As she says, "Another bit of life juggles back to something near normal." There's this peculiar limbo. At the end of the last episode, of course, we said that actually this period is characterised, actually, by British imperial naval dominance, and the fact that Britain is calling the power shots at sea by turning on and off imports and exports of stuff to its adversaries,

• 3:13Speaker 00

  if it wants. And also that the British have put their economy, you know, 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?

• 3:33Speaker 03

  It's an encumbrance, an embroggerance, rather than something that they need to be really worrying about.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  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.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  What was all the fuss about, honestly?

• 3:53Speaker 00

  What was all the fuss about, exactly? Although meat is rationed in March, the shooting season is extended an extra month. Thank God for that, Jim.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  But Easter's early, and there's petrol rationing, because obviously you've got to, fuel is obviously a thing you're going to have to rush. There's a mass exodus of Londoners who want to take a quick break while it's still peaceful. And also, there's a feeling that actually the war is going to be a damp squib. It's not going to happen, which is amazing, really, 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?

• 4:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But isn't it, you know, I mean, how people have been, I mean, think, just think about how people have been predicting the outcome of the Ukraine war, and nearly every prediction's been wrong so far, and 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.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  No one knows, Jim. No one knows. No one knows.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  No one knows.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  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, you need raw materials. You need lots and lots of iron ore, lots of metal. So this is where Scandinavia fits into the picture.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  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. I mean, you know, it's all, it's all part of it in a time of war. You've got to, you've got to be ready to be able to, well, even before the war, which is what, 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 ourselves? And how do we make sure that we've got the bauxite and the copper and the tin and the

• 6:10Speaker 03

  oil and everything we need when we go into a long and protracted war? Britain 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, not even the US, and not even the USSR.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  There's not a single country-

• 6:39Speaker 00

  That can do it.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  -all dependent on imports of some kind.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  Which, which underlines why it's such a terrible idea, obviously.

• 6:46Speaker 03

  What, go to war?

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oliver Littleton is the expert in the UK, in Britain, on this. And he says, "The metal trade is truly international, for no country is self-supporting in all the non-ferrus 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. 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 EMC.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  He's on the money.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  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 Metallgeschäftschaft and Norddeutsche Raffinerie, because his British company works in affiliation with them.

• 7:51Speaker 03

  Well, was until the war, yeah.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. But, yeah, exactly. Because the steel, you know, the steel trade, you know, there's questions of mutual understanding and technology. And he understands, if anyone knows the German metal trade in Britain, it's him.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  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.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  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, you know, 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-ferrus metals by the Ministry of Supply, on the if and when a war breaks out. So he gets going. He gets planning the purchase and allocation of zinc, copper, lead, and tin, which are the non-ferrus metals you need for a rounded ability to make different alloys and different products. So he gets, he gets ahead of the game by buying above the market rate on some long-term purchases, which means by the

• 8:57Speaker 00

  time the war starts, Britain has reserves and an ongoing supply of all four of these non-ferrus metals. And this is British wealth and economic muscle in play, isn't it? We can afford to do this, so we do.

• 9:11Speaker 03

  But it's also, can I also just say, this is also harnessing private enterprise, because he's a private individual. 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.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  It's amazing.

• 9:25Speaker 03

  So he's securing this off his own back.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  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.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  It's before the paradigm of nationalisation, isn't it? That hasn't happened yet.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  On the outbreak of war, he, guess what? He becomes controller of non-ferrus metals, and he's given carte blanche then by the government to get on with stockpiling. And also, British, the British Metal Corporation is co-opted and controlled by the government. So they've got, they stand up some new offices in rugby. Littleton is glad to get away from home and sets up camp there because, because he doesn't have to deal with evacuees.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, yes, yes, he's absolutely brilliant.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  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.

• 10:19Speaker 03

  Says Oliver Littleton, D S O M C.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, but this is, but this is interesting because this is actually one of the side stories of evacuation, isn't it? It's like this extraordinary culture clash between, you know, between inner city London and, and the upper classes. But they go, Jesus, that's what these people are like. Heavens, heavens to mercy. But within six weeks, they reached the set requirements of two on 50 million pounds worth of metal stockpiled. So Littleton's on it and he's, he's really, really getting the job done. Um, and so, you know, the other two things you really, really, 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?

• 10:59Speaker 03

  This is because Germany is isolated in the heart of Europe, doesn't have access to the world oceans, even when it had a colonial out, uh, empire. You've got to get through these narrow little straits between islands and stuff in the Baltic Sea. And between, you know, that, that, that pinch point between Denmark and Norway.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  And then you've got to get out into the North Sea, which is blockaded. Um, 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, you know, 22 million tonnes of iron ore imported into Germany in 1938, but post a blockade, only 9.5 million tonnes, so less than half. Yeah. 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.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  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 ore delivers a basic demand of vermaat, according to the OKW, the Oberkommandant Vermaat.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  The German general staff. And then the biggest Swedish iron ore field is in the north. It's the Karuna Galivair district, which is just across the border from Norway. Around the kind of sort of parallel of Narvik. So within the southern part of the Arctic circle, but within the Arctic circle nonetheless. Or is then shipped through the Narvik port, um, uh, in, in Norway. Or through the Lulea port in Sweden, because there is, you, you can also go down through the Gulf, the Lulea option, which is on the eastern side of, of Sweden. But it's frozen over in winter. So then you're cannibalized into going down the Norwegian coast.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Which is why that railway line that was only completed in 1904 or whatever it was.

• 12:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  In, uh, from, um, Galivair to Narvik is so important and the, and the shipping route out of Narvik.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  The Germans have a very vulnerable source of iron ore. There is an opportunity here. Let's put it this way.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  Upon which they are, are hugely dependent. Yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's an opportunity for the, for the allies, um, uh, to do something about this, isn't there? Or of, you know, there's a, there's a, yet another pressure point. So Winston Churchill, who's First Lord of the Admiralty, 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, mine its coastal waters if the Norwegians can't be persuaded that, um, you know, sending iron ore to the Germans is a bad idea. This is why, in the end, you can see why Churchill is the only option in May, in May 1940, like, you know, later on. Because he's the only person who's shown any actual kind of like aggression and gumption.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  I, I just, 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 is go to the Norwegians and say, look, we've got a problem on our hands. You, you want to stay neutral. You didn'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 go to war over this and we will compensate you. We will buy that iron ore off, that you're going to give to the Germans ourselves, and we will also compensate you financially as well. We'll do this and we'll, 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, okay, but, but that's our first opening bid.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  But that doesn't happen. They don't, they don't coat it in those terms. And, and maybe it's because they don't trust the Norwegians, but I don't see why not, because the Norwegians are of France, you know? So I, I think they, they don't try hard enough is, is my feeling on this.

• 14:47Speaker 00

  That I think characterizes the, the Chamber of Government is in a sort of, is it? For, for all the positive things we've been talking about them doing, 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, if, if Britain did go belligerent on Norway, then it, then your moral case for the war looks a little harder to make, doesn't it? Um, you know, you're not the good, you're not the good guy anymore if you're.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Yes, well, you would never go belligerent on Norway. That's, that's uncomfortable and you would never do that. But you could, you could say, we will compensate it, compensate you for, for the loss of trade you're doing to Germany. And, and we will make it very, very clear that you have no choice in the matter, but, but secretly we'll have an understanding.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  It's interesting, isn't it? Cause, cause Churchill, Churchill thinks that mining in the Norwegian leads would strike such a blow against German war making capacity. It's equal to a first class victory. He thinks this'll, this'll, this'll do the trick. This is a big what if here, isn't there? Um, if they've got on with it, got on with this whole Norwegian thing properly. Um, uh, and they, they start work on it while the Lulea route's still frozen over, you know, Narvik, Narvik is the only possible route for the ore. And so they, 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, uh, the Finns, um, with, uh, in concert with the French.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  But that still means you've got to get, uh, through, uh, Narvik and Sweden. There's still neutrality violations, um, uh, uh, on offer here. The French want to support the Fin, the Finns because in the event of a Russian victory, that means the Germans are, 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, the, around the question of the iron ore as well. And they want to send ships. They want to send a naval port force to Pastamo, North Finland, and mountain troops to take the iron ore fields. So the French, French plan is also kind of like, um, that's pretty, pretty spicy, isn't it? It's pretty saucy.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  I mean, this is the problem is, 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, who are they're sort of, you know, still slightly reluctant allies. To whom they look at with sort of historic suspicion.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. The French are quite sanguine about the idea of fighting Russia.

• 17:13Speaker 03

  Well, because it's a long way away and the Russians aren't going to bomb France. That's why.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  That is why. Okay. It is. So, so, so what, what has to understand with the French is the fear of Luft, the Luftwaffe underpins every decision they make in this opening stage of the war. Okay. And that goes back to, uh, General Voulemont, the commander in chief of the Army de l'air, the, the French air force. Going to visit the Luftwaffe and being shown reams and reams and reams of Messersmiths and bombers and all the rest of it, all of which was big spoken mirrors and a magic show rather than reality. And, and that's why, it is the thought of bombs being raining down on Paris. It's the apocalyptic bomb will always get through. All that kind of stuff that is dictating this. That is why. And so they're fine about Russia because Russia's miles away. I haven't got bombers and won't, won't attack them.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  It's, it's a Luftwaffe they're worried about.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 03

  And that is, that is the single biggest thing that is hindering the French at this stage.

• 18:10Speaker 00

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

• 18:43Speaker 03

  It is, but this is not something you can just organize immediately. People have got to go on holiday and people aren't around and the decision makers got 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 till April. I mean, you know, it's just.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  It, it is, it is proper hurry up and slow down.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  And 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.

• 19:06Speaker 03

  They're talking about 100,000 British troops, 11,000 British vehicles. Someone goes, yeah, right, whatever.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  Ain't gonna happen. You know, the French are going to send three and a half divisions. It's not gonna happen.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  So that's not gonna happen.

• 19:18Speaker 03

  You know, what about the snow? I don't know. We'll sort that when we go there. I think, you know, it's quite sort of dramatic and it's, it's quite Nazi in its approach to kind of lack of thought, thinking, thinking about it. Yeah, there's this tremendous character called, called then Brigadier John Kennedy, who's the chief of staff to Major General Pierce Maxie. He was, who is the guy who's earmarked to be the quadrant chief of this. Um, and, and Kennedy later becomes a general and he's, he's all about planning and the operations in the war. And he's, you know, he's a bit like Ronald Adams. He's one of those sort of forgotten figures, but, but, um, uh, a very, very important figure in running Britain's military or suddenly his army effort. And he says, I could hardly believe that the scheme was going to come off, but we had to do it on the work, on the assumption that it would.

• 20:01Speaker 03

  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.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  And he's right. I mean, it's, 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, events dictate actually the outcome of this because the, the Soviets and Finland, um, uh, come to, come to an agreement on the, you know, on the 13th of March. Kennedy diagnoses the problem, doesn't he? When he's talking to a colleague, he, he, he, he says.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  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. You know what the big problem is, don't you? Not by Nelson.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 20:59Speaker 03

  Nelson's not there.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Well, but, but in the absence of Nelson, there is someone urging action, um, while everyone else is tithering and that's Churchill, isn't it?

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  That's his gig. That's what he does. The Allies, the Allies are, are saved really by the Finns suing for peace.

• 21:14Speaker 03

  Oh my God, can you imagine?

• 21:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it shows that really the French and the British are waiting for something to come up rather than, uh, trying to create a, a, trying to order the pace of events themselves. Shall we take a break and then go and, go and look at Germany?

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, go on then.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  We'll see you in a tick, everyone.

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• 22:25Speaker 00

  Welcome back to We have ways of making you talk with me. I'm Ryan 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 a lack of drive.

• 22:41Speaker 03

  Indecision and woolly thinking.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  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.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, because economically they're completely isolated.

• 22:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  You know, I think when you think of sort of all alone.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  You think of the David Low cartoon of the guy on the, you know, you know, the only people that are alone in the first half of 1940 are the Germans. I 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. You know, the shops have got stuff in the, in the, 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.

• 23:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  You know, had a, 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 Eva. And that's a big, big problem.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  And was dependent on imports before the war and now doesn't have access to them. Um, 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 extorting stuff from its population. The copper pans and chalices are stolen from housewives and chalices are stolen from churches.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  Well, you know, you take stuff out of the church, you know, at your peril.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  China wants Mussolini is a bad idea, but Mussolini doesn't listen. 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 peak depression era. In the First World War, there's, there's a huge scandal in Germany, isn't there? With the steel shortage for ammunition and it's repeating itself already. And, and the war isn't underway properly yet. You know, they're back, they're back to the bad old days of the Hindenburg Programme, 1916 to 17, where, where they're trying to get their economy going, trying to make it work, increase their industrial output, but that damages agricultural output,

• 25:18Speaker 00

  which creates food shortages, which puts prices up, you know, which is how Germany ended up on the brink of starvation in 1918. 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, it's necessarily, it might be doing as it's told by Nazi government, but they're, they're, 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.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  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 Vermaat, the combined general staff, and Walter Funk, who is the Minister for Economic Affairs. They are urging hardening of the economy for a long, a possible long war, um, where all sides eventually negotiate for peace because that looks like the only realistic proposition. You know, you just can't see how Germany, they can't see how Germany could possibly win against Britain and France and with America's, you know, United States on the other side of the Atlantic. So, so they are proposing no offensive action whatsoever. And, and they reckon they could sort of keep going just about for three years.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  And of course, this is diametrically opposite from Hitler's views and hopes for his war. For, 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, been put down. You 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, uh, which is created by the Minister for Arm, for ammunition, who's Fritz Tod, um, in March 1940. He's a 48-year-old construction engineer.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  He's worked his way up the greasy Nazi pole. And the Organisation Tod is a, is a manual labour force comprising government organisation like the Reichs, our Reichsdienst and private enterprise. And the plan is to widen it with prisoners once they get to that stage. And the Organisation Tod takes complete control of ammunition production and introduces key decentralisation and deregulation, deregulation measures. You know, so sort of shortcuts, basically. And ammunition figures do rise sharply after Tod'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, those who didn't hear earlier, earlier series, you know,

• 27:58Speaker 03

  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 shadow factories all over the country, also producing parts of, of Spitfires or complete Spitfires on behalf of Supermarine straight vicars. But you're spreading the load and, and that's, that's the point. And that's the same principle they use for ammunition supply. But the truth is, is, you know, Hitler's urging war in the West, a war against the West in October and November 1939. Do you remember all those shenanigans we had and when, I think the second episode, wasn't it? Where we were talking about how are we going to do things? And, um, and Haldor 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.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  For their quick war.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  For their quick war.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  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 they, you know, they, they can't exceed their bounds. So yes, back to France. So in France, uh, uh, let's, 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, um, with the rest of the Second North Africa Division, who are on the North East Front near the Belgian border. So interesting colonial troops. Um, uh, uh, I mean, that's one advantage, of course, the French colonial empire being that close, much closer to France. You know, our, our soldiers have to come from over the Atlantic, from India, from Australia,

• 29:27Speaker 00

  from, from a long, long way away, whereas, you know, this is, you, you bring your guys to North Africa. It's all that much, much quicker. Um, and it's freezing cold in January. It's a very difficult winter, of course it is. Um, but Ballon 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, 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." So they're not training for the fighting, they're being used to do other jobs.

• 30:10Speaker 00

  But these are the orders from GHQ and that sector, the front he's on, it's total inactivity. And the odd football match, watching cinemas, smoking fags, drinking red wine at lunchtime and other, other English cliches.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  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. And that is a massive problem. There's also Capitaine Rene de Chambeun, who is stationed along the Maginot Line in Lorraine. This is a big defensive line that runs along the French-German border. And he's also experiencing similar frustrations. You know, 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

• 31:09Speaker 03

  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, as you create an army of three million or four million or whatever it is, just like that with a click of a fingers, in about forty-eight hours. But that means, you know, a lot of these guys are farmers, because, you know, France is still a very, very strong agrarian society as well. These people have to leave home. So who's looking after the farm while they're away? You know, they're just trilling their farms again. This is a complete waste of time. I'm freezing my nuts off here and, you know, doing absolutely dearly squat. I could be back home, kind of, you know, producing food. They've got a point, haven't they?

• 31:46Speaker 00

  Morale goes down the toilet and there's complacency and disengagement. You know, in contrast to the Germans who are hypermotive, might have had it. Because the German pipeline from boy to soldier doesn't have an equivalent in France. There isn't a, you know, you Français, Reichs arbeitst dienst, end up in the Wehrmacht, um, thing with your French soldier. So, so he hasn't been, he hasn't been marinated in, in, in politics and destiny and all that stuff, like, 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.

• 32:23Speaker 03

  But they're also a bit older. They've been around the block. So, you know, Captain André Bouffre, you know, he's thirty-seven. And he's in, he has been in the general staff from, in the French Army of Africa. And, and it's important to understand that there's three French armies. There's the Metropolitan Army, which is the home army. Then there is the Army d'Afrique, you know, the African Army. And then there is the Colonial Army. The Africa Army is the one from Morocco and, and all the rest of it, Tunisia. And the colonial one is from all other parts, you know, whether it be, be Ondo Shin or, or what is now Mali, et cetera. He is also frustrated by the continuing differing that, that is characterising the military decisions. And he's all for, for kind of striking Italy

• 33:08Speaker 03

  as, you know, kicking, giving them a kick up the arse.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Oh, nice. Yeah, okay.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  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 Suez Canal. Let's do that. You know, we're massively upset the Axis power balance, allows the Allies to secure the Mediterranean, 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, that, that at this sort of level below the top, below the political level, whether it be British or French, they're all saying

• 33:52Speaker 03

  the same thing. We're rudderless, we're indecisive, we're getting, we're getting rusty.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  And the men, and the men are feeling it. The fish has rotted from the head, hasn't it? And it's got corroded right down into the, into the, the fighting men, which is the, which is a huge problem and 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 in the Commons. And he's a magnificent fellow, Spears, isn't he, Jim?

• 34:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely tremendous. He's, he's brought up in France. He's, he speaks it like a native. He was a liaison officer to the French Army in the First World War. Farley good egg, very smart, very bright, very articulate, a born diplomat, even though he's in the army.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  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, the Germans, how well is mining the River Rhine going to go, Dan, as in the concept towards the French High Command?

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, it offers a sort of, a kind of picture of Churchill's desperation at this point to get something, anything done. And also that he's understanding, you know, economic warfare. So, so Spears talks to Gamelin, 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.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Well, you know, the General Voulemann and his, in his serious take on the Luftwaffe.

• 35:36Speaker 00

  Spears says, but the Germans are blowing up our ships all around the coast. The mines are ours. And Georges replies, Jim.

• 35:43Speaker 03

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

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Reynaud, who's the finance minister, he laments the lack of drive and will from both French and British governments. He says to Spears, neither have begun to realise what it is all about. If he can spot it, but he's part of the, he's part of the lassitude, part of the inaction. And then, French government falls, you know, kind of routinely on the twenty-first 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. So there's a vote of no confidence.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  But we cannot repeat what happened twenty years ago.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  They're 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, and take the politicians and public, the public with them. So Deladier is forced out by a vote of no confidence. Reynaud then, who we just, who we just met moments ago as finance minister, steps in to replace him. Not unlike Chamberlain in that respect, having been a Chancellor of Exchequer, then a Prime Minister. So it's a similar sort of deal. You know, Deladier has found that French politic, politics isn't, it's really diverse. It's, 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.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  So everything has to be a coalition. It has to be. And Deladier has formed this thing called the Union Sacre, which is, you know, a great name for, you know, national unity government. But it can't work as it stands. There are hawkish members, and there are those who want to deescalate. Reynaud can't deal with it either.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Well, he's only got one vote majority.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. So plus ça change, plus il aime même chose, to kind of, kind of phrase. He wants more hawks, Reynaud, but he can't get them in. He wants the former Prime Minister Leon Blum, but, but Blum's a Jew and he knows that antisemitism, 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?

• 38:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Shall we go through it?

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, go on.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  So six socialists, five radical socialists, these are all parties, six 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 communists, conservatives, defeatists, pro-fascists, all are all in one bag.

• 38:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 03

  Basically. And Reynaud's rallying cry to the chamber on the twenty-third of March is. The stake in total warfare is the old stake. To conquer is to save everything. To succumb is to lose everything. He's quite right.

• 38:50Speaker 00

  He's right, but whatever.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yada, yada, yada.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  Can't drag them with him. And there's, there is no consensus. There is no common ground.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  And they're all terrified of Luftwaffe bombs.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Fair enough. It's terrifying, Jim.

• 39:02Speaker 03

  And then, in a signal of things moving, Admiral Durnitz on the Fourth 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. And take, for example, Oberleutnant Eric Top, who says.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  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, he's not best happy, is he, Jim?

• 39:38Speaker 03

  No, he isn't. He's twenty-five years old. He's very bright. He's Eric Top. He's an articulate, smart fellow. He loves the Navy, loves the Kriegsmarine, loves the exclusive status of the U-boat force. He's been raised in Hanover, ditches his medical studies to join the Navy. Wants to go and be a doctor, because he's in pursuit of adventure. And he makes various pre-war voyages before joining the U-boat arm in nineteen thirty-seven. So in June nineteen thirty-eight, Top joins U forty-six as the commander's number one, which is the one W O. So that's the second in command. And by April, with only two sinkings to the crew's name, Top is still waiting for action despite new Norway orders. And he says,

• 40:20Speaker 00

  You have to have been with us to know what a seemingly endless waiting period can do to you. While on earlier patrols, one surprise followed another in close succession. Now we are practically devoured by the monotony of our daily routine. So everyone's morale is beginning to wilt, isn't it?

• 40:37Speaker 03

  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, 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. You know, Margarete 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. He's absolutely horrified by how different the reporting is.

• 41:18Speaker 03

  And so she starts to doubt Hitler and the whole point of the war, just by listening to this different radio station.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 41:24Speaker 03

  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. I 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. It's, you know, 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.

• 41:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 03

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

• 42:27Speaker 00

  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.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  And so say all of us.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  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 if they're gonna 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. 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.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  And I think we will return with that. We need to, 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 winceing at that.

• 43:29Speaker 00

  Well, I'm wincing on your behalf.

• 43:30Speaker 03

  Funny enough, I find that easier to do than Singapore and the repulse and the Prince of Wales, if I'm honest.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Okay, that's interesting.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  You know, we have no expectations with our army, but with our navy, we've got Nelson.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Hang on a minute, I think you can hear the Duke of Wellington's being in his grave.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  Thanks, everyone for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this roundup of the phony war. And we're quietly in the background, the Royal Navy with its foot on Britain's enemies' throats.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  If you've joined our Patreon, thank you for doing that. We will see you all very, very soon. Cheerio.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  Farewell.

• 44:12Speaker 02

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