The Critical Period: Reasons Behind Germany’s Loss of the Battle of Britain, 1940

If there is anything to be learned from a study of world history, it is to expect the expected. History as we understand it today is made with rational justification in a global context preceded by all-encompassing social, political, economic, and biological factors contributing to its conflicts. From the conquest of Alexander the Great’s armies more than two millennia ago to the rapid expansion of European powers into the New World within the last five hundred years, there are countless examples of the powerful dominating the powerless; indeed, our general historical model shows that the strong prevail. When we find an anomaly in this extensive inventory of events – the weak triumphing over the strong – we would be wise to pay attention.

The Battle of Britain, presents such an anomaly: in a rare divergence from what history might expect, a handful of English fighter pilots, pitted against the full might of the German Luftwaffe, survived and indeed prevailed. They were able to accomplish this in spite of everything History had to throw at them not only due to their bravery and skill, but also thanks to the culmination of several crucial factors: on the one hand, though massive and powerful, the Luftwaffe was ill-prepared for the particular demands of conflict in England and suffered from strategic tactical errors in judgment both before and during the battle; while on the other hand, the Royal Air Force had inherent natural defensive advantages and benefited from sound tactical judgment; and finally, the one man ultimately responsible for Germany’s military actions was fatally unwilling to commit the forces required to prevail.

One of the most uncontroversial reasons for German failure in the Battle of Britain is that the Luftwaffe was simply ill-prepared. As A.J.P. Taylor writes, “The key… is that the air commanders before the Second World War had very little previous experience to draw on”. No evidence existed to contradict the widely accepted yet purely fictional Douhet Theory, predicting which predicted the obliteration of cities by massive bomber forces, leaving the enemy no choice but unconditional surrender. What little previous experience there was came exclusively from one-sided conflicts, such as the British bombing in Iraq or German bombing in Spain, in which fast bombers penetrated inferior enemy biplane defenses with few losses.

Though the Germans had encountered more advanced fighters before, in battles to invade and occupy countries such as France and Norway, the tank and troop deployment of German Blitzkrieg tactics was so rapid that the presence of defending fighters could not alone stop the Wehrmacht from reaching the western edge of continental Europe. When faced with the English Channel, the first barrier to Blitzkrieg the Wehrmacht had ever encountered, Germany was forced to rely solely on air power to defeat an enemy that employed more than biplane fighters in its defence.