Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00It
00:28is the last months of 1940, the close of a dramatic year in which the pulse of history
00:34beat at an ever faster rate. A new type of war burst upon the world as France reeled
00:41beneath the blitzkrieg of the German army. France was to crumble to defeat and political
00:47collapse in barely a month. A proud, great power descending into a hell of occupation,
00:54betrayal and collaboration. As German soldiers marched in Paris and as the Vichy government
01:00of Pétain accommodated the Nazis, Charles de Gaulle rallied the Free French in exile
01:06to carry on resistance. The Battle of Britain has been fought in the skies of England, with
01:13Hitler's proud Luftwaffe meeting its first reversal of fortune. The blitz has begun bringing
01:19death and destruction on the cities of the United Kingdom. All Britain can do is resist
01:25and defy. Amidst the destruction of all they know, the people of Britain refuse to be cowed.
01:34Abandoning his plans for invasion, Hitler seeks to weary Britain with an incessant grinding
01:39bombing and to drive Britain to despair by widening the war surrounding her with ever
01:44more enemies. His Italian allies invade the British protectorate of Egypt and bring the
01:51war into the Balkans with attacks on Greece. The Greek nation in bold defiance resists
01:58the invasion and turns the tables upon the Italians in a series of thrusting counterattacks.
02:05In America, Franklin Roosevelt wins a third term, promising to keep America from the war.
02:12In the coming months, as the war grows even larger, it'll be even harder for the United
02:17States to remain apart from the turmoil which tears apart the globe.
02:28As 1940 drew to a close, the war was spreading ever wider. In southern Europe, Italy had
02:34invaded Greece. The motives behind this invasion were the usual desire for a new Roman Empire
02:40and the aggrandizement of Mussolini's fascist state. The battle was fought in the winter
02:45of the fierce northern mountains of Epirus. Italy had presented itself as a modern fascist
02:52state. Mussolini was proud to review what appeared the army of the future, with fleets
02:58of tanks and armadas of aircraft. That strength was an illusion. Italy had neither the wealth
03:05nor the industrial infrastructure to create true strength. Time and time again, the Italian
03:13armies would prove by far the weaker half of the Axis partnership, inadequate to deliver
03:18the boasts and promises of the Italian leadership.
03:27Greece was not a powerful enemy, poor, backward, and politically unstable. Although itself
03:33ruled by a dictatorship with extreme right-wing politics, Greece was nonetheless pro-British
03:39and in alliance with Britain and France from April 1939. Presented with Italian demands
03:47and threats, the Greek dictator Metaxas, though unpopular, caught the spirit of the Greek
03:53people with one word rejection. Aki. No. A rebuff that provoked invasion. The invasion
04:04by the Italians descended into farce. The invaders were quickly driven back. In just
04:09days, the Greek army was pushing into Albania and occupying a large area of formerly Italian
04:15territory. With the arrival of winter, the two armies settled into inactivity, but the
04:23stage was set for the Balkans to become a dramatic arena of war. Germany's attention
04:30was still distracted by Britain and her empire, still a difficult thorn in the side of Hitler,
04:36a potential threat. Hitler's planned strategy of invading the British Isles had crashed
04:42with the planes of the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. The invasion was cancelled.
04:47The invasion fleet dispersed. The new strategy aimed to defeat Britain via the Blitz, massive
04:55heavy bomber attacks against the civilian and industrial targets of the UK. Waves of
05:00bombers would strike at night with high explosives and incendiary firebombs. The incendiary attacks
05:07were particularly devastating. Aircraft could shower thousands of small bombs, swamping and
05:12overwhelming fire services. The fires started becoming beacons to guide following waves of
05:18attacks through the darkened blackout. The German plan was to weary the British people,
05:24make them tired of the war. Nighttime attacks were essential to preserve the planes of the
05:30German Air Force after the heavy losses of the Battle of Britain. Each morning,
05:35the people of Britain would awake to discover who had been killed and who had lost their homes
05:40the previous night. In late 1940, the weight of German attacks was switched from London to the
05:47provincial cities of the UK. In the wider framework of history, the weight of bombs falling on the UK
05:54cities was not great. Later in the war, a higher tonnage of explosives would fall in single nights
05:59on single German cities than was used against London in the whole war. The strategy of bombing
06:06Britain was just part of Hitler's plan to break British will. The Nazis also sought to stretch
06:16Britain to surrender by applying pressure on many fronts from many directions. One of these extra
06:23pressure points was North Africa, where Hitler's ally, Italy, was attacking the British forces
06:29guarding the strategically important Suez Canal. As with Mussolini's Greek tragedy, the fascist
06:36forces could not deliver the promises and arrogance of the Italian dictator. The huge
06:42armies that Italy had thrown against the British had advanced but a small way into Egypt and then
06:48halted at a place called Sidi Barrani, to cautiously and timidly await supplies and reinforcements.
06:54Early in November, the British Army of the Nile had mounted a massive counter-attack, even though
07:04vastly outnumbered by the Italians, 300,000 men compared to the British 50,000. The British Army
07:12was an army of the British Empire, a force that included Indian troops fighting far from home,
07:19New Zealanders from the other side of the world, in the skies, above the desert, flew South Africans
07:26and many other citizens of the Empire. The British swept forward over vast distances with powerful
07:33tank forces. In the next two months, the British destroyed a total of nine Italian divisions,
07:39captured 138,000 Italian prisoners, destroying and taking hundreds of tanks and guns. To a Britain
07:47that had been bombarded physically by air assault, bombarded emotionally by news of British troops
07:54in seeming constant retreat, the ranks of captured Italians, their dejected columns
08:00stretching for miles under the orders of British soldiers, was a glad sight.
08:17The vast spaces of the desert made for dramatic warfare, a war of movement with open fields of
08:29fire and action unimpeded by town, natural barrier or civilian population. Throughout the fighting in
08:37the desert, for all combatants, it was the ability to maintain their lines of supply, not to outrun
08:43the lifeblood of fuel, food and ammunition, that became essential to the success of any advance and
08:50the avoidance of defeat. It was because of poor supply that the Italians had halted to await a
08:57British attack. It was logistics that caused the British to eventually, in the first month of 1941,
09:03bring their advance to a halt. The British consolidated. They had captured towns and ports
09:10to hold and garrison. The war in the Mediterranean was spreading and the British offensive in North
09:18Africa was halted for strength to be drawn off to fight other battles against more threatening
09:23enemies, to defend more precarious positions. As the British people struggled through rubble of
09:32their towns and cities, time and time again it was to be repeated that the British can take it.
09:39The British reply to the German strategy was one of simple resistance and endurance.
09:44November 15th saw one of the most notorious and unforgotten raids of this time, when the
09:52Luftwaffe destroyed the English Midlands city of Coventry. The city's medieval cathedral was
09:58reduced to rubble and many factories making munitions, engines to power tanks and aircraft
10:04and other war supplies were all destroyed. 60,000 of the city's 75,000 buildings were badly damaged
10:12in some way. 450 German aircraft made the attack. Only 120 sorties were flown in opposition and
10:23the city had only 40 anti-aircraft guns. Only one German plane was lost. Much history has been
10:33devoted to the value of air power in the Second World War. Whether indiscriminate attacks on
10:39centers of population were of value, whether or not they were moral. The attack on Coventry
10:45showed that a coordinated focused attack on a relatively small target could be dramatically
10:50successful. This was no mass arbitrary terror raid, but one coordinated with radar guidance
10:57by the Germans. Specialist Pathfinder squadrons came first, designating the target with highly
11:04accurate incendiary attacks that started fires to guide the following plans. A terrible truth is
11:11that it was known the raid was coming, but no preparation could be made. The raid was discovered
11:17by the reading of the messages transmitted by Germans in the highly secret Enigma machine,
11:22code broken by the British Ultra system. The agonizing decision that had to be made was when
11:29and when not to use this intelligence. The use of this most secret intelligence was never discovered.
11:37The Nazis never believed their deepest secrets could be read, never realizing Enigma was a broken
11:44weapon. To use everything would be to ultimately compromise the secret of Ultra. To preserve the
11:51source meant sacrificing British and Allied lives. Coventry became a stepping stone in the
11:58escalation of the inhumanity and savagery of war. The RAF would revenge Coventry. Britain had no
12:08means of striking back at Hitler. The Germans held the strategic initiative, and every move would be
12:14of Hitler's choice. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill knew that the only path that led to
12:21British victory, rather than simple survival, was involving the United States. And all British
12:28diplomacy was to this end. President Franklin Roosevelt had resolutely attempted to keep the
12:35United States neutral. Though Roosevelt had won the 1940 election on the promise that his country
12:41would not go to war, the American president realized that the gap between the Axis and
12:46America was widening, that a world dominated by the fascist powers was not a world to which
12:52America belonged. In a broadcast to the American people at the close of 1940, Roosevelt declared
12:59his belief that America had to play a part in the war, that the United States should become
13:04the arsenal of democracy. There is less chance of the United States getting into the war if we do
13:12all we can to support the nations defending themselves, than if we acquiesce in their defeat.
13:18And that the United States should support all those who struggle to preserve the four freedoms,
13:25freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, freedom from fear. As Britain and
13:35America moved closer together, Hitler's ally Mussolini was proving more and more of a weakness
13:41than a strength. The fighting in Greece had proven disastrously humiliating with the Italian
13:47invasion thrown back in retreat. Catastrophe loomed in North Africa, threatening the loss of
13:54the entire Italian North African colony of Tripoli. The failures of the Italian armies in these
14:01campaigns were to be key events in the war. The list of Italian defeats went on and on.
14:06On January 4th, 1941, the fall of the Libyan fortress and port of Bardia brought the surrender of 45,000.
14:36On January 13th, the streets of Athens were filled with rejoicing crowds, as over a thousand Italian
14:54elite troops surrendered. In Africa, a remote backwater of the war, a British army from Kenya
15:03invaded Italian Somaliland and threw the Italian forces into retreat. On January 22nd, in North
15:12Africa, when Australian troops took the vital supply port of Tobruk, it was for the Italians
15:18as if Dunkirk had fallen. Everywhere, the new empire of Rome was crumbling away. The long
15:26catalogue of Italian failures led to a cry for help within the Axis alliance. As Italian soldiers
15:33were queuing to surrender to the British and Greek forces, Mussolini was meeting Hitler. The surrenders
15:39and the defeats humiliated Mussolini, whose regime and fascist movement was older than Hitler's Nazi
15:46Germany. Mussolini regarded himself as the senior partner in the Axis and was now forced to ask for
15:53help. Hitler agreed to use German forces to rescue the Italians. His price was Mussolini's acceptance
16:01of German direction of the war. The dragging of the German forces southwards, to the Mediterranean,
16:08to the Balkans, into North Africa, was to skew German thinking, sap the strength of the German
16:14war effort in ways that time and time again, throughout the history of the war, would be to
16:19detriment of Nazi aims. The German move southwards brought a storm of war to Malta, as the British
16:28held island came under ferocious air attack from the German Luftwaffe. The attacks on Malta were
16:34an obvious move, given its strategic position in the central Mediterranean. Malta's huge, deep,
16:41safe, natural harbors made it an obvious naval base from which whatever power held the island
16:47could threaten a Mediterranean enemy with control of strategic sea routes east to west,
16:53north to south. The island was a threatening base for air forces.
17:08Britain had controlled the island for over a hundred years and saw their colony as central
17:14to their Mediterranean strategy. It was a fortress with several airfields and a huge naval dockyard,
17:19and was an outpost in every sense. Only 95 kilometers from Italy, yet 1,600 kilometers
17:27from the nearest British base. The Axis Alliance sought to destroy Malta from the air. That they
17:34never succeeded in neutralizing the island proved fatal to their strategy.
17:38Malta had been attacked from the very start of the war with Italian aircraft, for a time
17:46defended by just three obsolete biplanes. When the war spread to North Africa, the Luftwaffe
17:53arrived in Italy to assist the fighting. From January 1st, 1941, air raids began. For the next
18:01seven months, there was to be just one 24-hour period in which no air raid was made. Twice as
18:07many bombs as fell on London during the Blitz were hurled upon Malta in just two months. The
18:14aim was to starve the island into submission. Incessant raids drove the island's civilian
18:19population of over a quarter of a million to live underground. A blockade by Axis air forces
18:25prevented Britain sending convoys of ships with supplies of war. The siege was to last for two
18:31and a half years. Malta had been captured for Britain by the Navy of Lord Nelson. Late 1940
18:41saw a classic naval action in that Nelsonian tradition. A daring attack was made against
18:48the Italian fleet as it lay at anchor in the southern Italian port of Toronto. The Italian
18:54Admiralty had tried to avoid action, fearing to risk their great ships. The British tradition
19:00of seeking battle at sea, to go right at them, was continued as three fascist battleships were
19:06destroyed and the dockyard severely damaged. Torpedo bombers made the attack from an aircraft
19:12carrier that had approached stealthily, in secret. Toronto was a lesson in tactics observed in Japan.
19:20The war in the western desert of North Africa was to be a war of dramatic seesaws of fortune. In
19:281941, in February, the Italian appeal for German help in their desert campaign was met with the
19:34creation of a legend. German forces, small compared to the number of men involved elsewhere in the
19:41war, were landed in North Africa. This was the Afrika Korps, the commander Erwin Rommel. The
19:50guiding thinking that led Rommel's Afrika Korps was mobility, always to maintain movement until
19:56the moment was right for attack. In southern Europe, other events were taking place that
20:02would give Rommel his chance. On April 6th, Britain landed troops in Greece. At the same
20:12time, Germany's aid to Italy arrived in the Balkans. Panzer armies, 24 divisions strong,
20:18some of Germany's best and most mobile troops were moved into Germany's ally Bulgaria, ready
20:24to strike. On April 6th, those troops burst in a simultaneous blitzkrieg upon both Greece and
20:32Yugoslavia. The war was to be remarkable by the speed with which countries were to collapse before
20:37blitzkrieg onslaught. Yugoslavia was just another country in the way of German strategic goals,
20:45a role that the German armies had to take to achieve their objectives. Yugoslavia fell in
20:53nine days. Its army of over a million descended into chaos. Yugoslavia's factions and ethnic
21:00hatred surfaced as the Croatian and Muslim units in its multi-ethnic army mutinied and
21:06went over to the Nazis. The Germans lost just 151 dead as they simply marched through the
21:13country to attack Greece. The lack of Yugoslav resistance meant that the combined British and
21:20Greek armies were completely outflanked, outnumbered, outgunned and overwhelmed. Less
21:27than three weeks after arriving in Greece, the decision was taken to evacuate the Greek
21:32mainland. A long fighting retreat began as British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers
21:39began a withdrawal, heading south towards yet another Dunkirk. Once again, the Navy rescued
21:47the soldiers. 50,000 were saved. Greece was added to the long list of countries over which
21:54Axis domination was spread. Churchill was to say that he believed the decision to fight in
22:00Greece to be the only mistake that his government had ever made. The crucial error in Britain's
22:07deciding to fight in Greece was that the campaign stripped strength and forces from other theatres
22:12of war, most notably the Western Desert of North Africa. As the Battle of Greece was barely
22:22beginning, in the Western Desert the dramatic advances which had yielded such huge gains of
22:27territory and vast numbers of prisoners were about to be reversed. Within days of arrival,
22:34the Afrika Korps burst onto the war, smashing through weak screening forces and thrusting deep
22:40to the rear of the British lines. The speed of the advance such that the British commanding
22:45general Richard O'Connor was overtaken and captured as prisoner of war. The German advances
22:52terrified even the German high command, who described Afrika Korps commander Rommel as
22:57start mad, advising him to consolidate his victories, to dig in. The response by the
23:06British was panic. Churchill threw resources at the situation, tanks and troops to mount a
23:12counter-attack. Rommel and the Afrika Korps were as able in defence as they were in attack. The
23:20British attacks were driven back.
23:21The British forces wheeled backwards and both armies paused, awaiting the next blow from the
23:40Germans. British panic as the offensive turned to defeat brought the first of a series of desperate
23:50changes of command, as Churchill sacked General Waffle, his commander in the Middle East. In the
23:56coming year, British general after British general were to pit their wits against Rommel.
24:06On the other side of the world, events were taking place that were to have a dramatic and
24:11devastating effect on the war, on the whole course of Chinese history. China had been the scene of a
24:18protracted war since the 1930s. Indeed, some historians hold that World War II really started
24:25in 1937, as China struggled to resist the forces of the Empire of Japan. Japan wished to absorb
24:33China within the greater Asia co-prosperity sphere, masquerading as an alliance against
24:39European colonial exploitation. The co-prosperity sphere was in reality a mechanism by which the
24:47resources of Asia were exploited by Japan. It was a war with its own justification, a war to gain
24:54the resources that were needed to fight the war. In China, the Japanese fought an alliance between
25:01the Kuomintang, the nationalists led by the military strongman Chiang Kai-shek, and communist
25:08forces led by Mao Zedong. The anti-Japanese alliance was always built on shaky foundations
25:15before the Japanese invasion, the two factions had fought for control of China. Already in January
25:221940, the cracks were appearing in this alliance which warned of future conflict. The communists
25:28were developing a new way of war in fighting the Japanese, the theory of revolutionary guerrilla
25:34war. The war of fighting was corresponded by a war of words, of politics and diplomacy. In the early
25:44part of February 1941, Japan issued ominous threats. The expansion of Japan into the territory of its
25:52neighbors was always cloaked in the morality of anti-imperialism. On February 24th, the Japanese
25:59foreign minister, Tosui Matsuka, said that Japan has a natural right to the Western Pacific and
26:06Australia. The white races must cede this area to the Asiatics. We have a natural right to migrate
26:13there. In the war of words, Winston Churchill once more used his weapon of choice in a passionate
26:23appeal to the United States. We shall not fail or falter, we shall not weaken or tire, neither the
26:32sudden shock of battle nor the long drawn trials of vigilance or exertion will wear us down. Give
26:39us the tools and we will finish the job. Already the United States was supplying some of these tools
26:46under a policy called cash and carry. U.S. weapons bought in the U.S. and carried in U.K. ships were
26:53held not to violate U.S. neutrality. And the agreement to exchange destroyers for bases was
27:01easing the position in the battle for the Atlantic.
27:11In March 1941, U.S. support moved to new levels. Roosevelt signed into law the Lend-Lease Bill.
27:20Lend-Lease enabled the president to send weapons, munitions, aircraft, machinery, and designs to
27:27any country whose defense he felt essential to the well-being of the United States.
27:33Essentially, the bill gave Britain a blank checkbook to fight the war with American
27:38industrial wealth. At the same time, America stopped supplies to Germany
27:44of the strategic materials of the specialist resources needed for weapons systems.
27:51That the isolationist sentiment of the American Congress was overcome
27:56was a sign that American governments and people were starting to realize that they
28:00had to support the democracies of the world, that the collapse of the British Empire would mean
28:05global chaos. Lend-Lease enabled President Roosevelt to make good use of his pledge
28:11for America to become the arsenal of democracy. At the same time as the U.S. was supplying the
28:18stuff of war, Britain was further mobilizing and using its store of human talent to the full.
28:25The mobilization of women was essential to the British war effort,
28:28and the British government used its powers to conscript women into industry. Women were
28:34drafted into all areas of industry and transport, into previously exclusively male preserves.
28:41Jobs previously classified as mysterious male crafts were suddenly deskilled, and women took
28:48the places of men taken into the armed forces. It was an area where Nazi ideology was weak.
28:56The Nazis believed women only good for the breeding of children and caring of the home.
29:01This tunnel vision was to be a failing in the mobilization of industry.
29:06The spring of 1941 once more saw the resumption of heavy air attacks against Britain's cities,
29:12continuing the policy of terror against the British population. Once again, this psychological
29:18attack upon the will of the British people was spun into reverse by the British media,
29:23as both Buckingham Palace, the home of the British royal family, and the houses of
29:28Parliament were hit. Cinema newsreels used the news to further reinforce the sense of coherent
29:35solidarity in the British population. People and government were all in this together and
29:42determined to tough it out. In a secret war directive, Hitler was to admit the failure of
29:49his plan to cow Britain with aerial warfare, and to use it as an excuse to attack Britain.
29:56The bombing campaign has had least effect of all, he said, as far as we all can see on the morale
30:07and the will to resist of the English people. No decisive results can be expected from terror
30:13attacks on residential areas. Bombing is to be intensified on shipping and the ports to inflict
30:20the greatest possible damage on the British economy, and to give the impression that an
30:26invasion is planned for this year. In all wars, the secret decision to act, the secret intention,
30:34the secret weapon gives advantage. In spring of 1941, Britain used a secret weapon to win
30:41a dramatic victory at sea against the Italians. In the Battle of Matapan, the Royal Navy lured
30:48a force of Italian warships to destruction off the southern coast of Greece. That victory was
30:55made possible by the use of secret intelligence, by the ultra system that had managed to break the
31:01most secret German codes. If the battle was maneuvered by state-of-the-art technology,
31:07it was a victory won by traditional naval strengths, speed and accuracy of firing,
31:14by superior seamanship, by the aggression and courage of the crews.
31:44On May 10th, one of the strangest episodes in the story of the war occurred. Adolf Hitler's deputy
31:57Fuhrer, Rudolf Hess, parachuted into Scotland alone. Hess claimed his astrologer had told him that he,
32:06Rudolf Hess, was personally destined to be the bringer of peace between Britain and Germany.
32:12Hess claimed that in return for a free hand in Europe, Britain would be allowed to retain her
32:18empire. The offer was rejected and Hess was to spend the rest of his life in captivity.
32:29Amidst all the fighting on the land, the new diversion of aerial battles and the struggle
32:35of small ships against the submarine, it was still the Royal Navy at sea, as battle fleet,
32:41a line of mighty ships sailing in line astern that was taken as the symbol of Britain's armed
32:47might. In the British fleet at sea was seen an icon of British strength, of the domination of
32:54a worldwide empire, of British virtues and character. The fleet at sea, a battle fleet
33:01of heavy gun ships, was in a direct historical tradition that linked the Navy in a continuous line
33:08to the fleets of history and other finest hours. If one ship was to be taken as a symbol of the
33:15Navy, it was HMS Hood, named after an admiral of the golden age of the 18th century Navy.
33:23Hood was the largest ship of her type in the world, vast and powerful. In May 1940, Hood was
33:30ordered to engage the German battleship Bismarck. Bismarck was the Hood's opposite number in the
33:36German Navy, the largest and the most powerful. Bismarck had put to sea to act as a surface raider
33:44against the Atlantic merchant ships. Few vessels could outrun her, no escorts of destroyers or
33:50light cruisers could match her firepower. She had to be met by an opposite number of equal weight.
33:57Hood had been laid down in World War I and put to sea in 1920. The engagement with Bismarck
34:04was Hood's first and only battle. In the space of just a few minutes, the Hood was destroyed with
34:11the loss of all but three of her crew. Hood and Bismarck were of course effectively obsolete.
34:18The future of war at sea lay in the combination of naval strength with air power, the aircraft carrier.
34:27Bismarck was chased by over 100 British ships. It was torpedo attacked by bombers from an aircraft
34:34carrier making her impossible to steer. Bismarck was to circle helplessly and could not maneuver
34:40to resist the combined strength of British ships closing in and met her end. Coming so soon after
34:48the loss of Hood, Britain rejoiced. Having driven British, Greek and Empire forces out of mainland
34:57Greece, there remained in late spring of 1941 one remaining obstacle to the securing of Hitler's
35:03southern flank. This was the Greek island of Crete which, if in allied hands, could have been made a
35:11fortress that could menace the axis. On May 22nd, the Germans attacked the island in an assault that
35:17was to be unique in military history. Crete was to be the only campaign that was begun and fought
35:24to conclusion using airborne forces alone. On May 22nd, the skies of Crete filled with paratroopers.
35:34In 1941, the paratrooper was seen as the soldier of the future with a way of fighting that combined
35:41the modern technology of flight with an act of courage and daring that seemed to require extra
35:47special human qualities. Paratroopers in all armies thought themselves the elite with distinctive
35:53uniforms and a high esprit de corps. In an age when radar was new and unsophisticated, aircraft could
36:01still spring surprises and throughout World War II, parachute drops had dramatically seized
36:07fortresses, surrounded slow-moving formations, caused panic and fear in civilian and soldier alike.
36:16In an age when the ordinary infantryman was armed with a simple rifle, the long period when the
36:22paratrooper dangled helpless in the sky as a slow-moving and clear target was not so great
36:28a weakness. The German parachute division, part of the German Air Force, with its attached glider
36:34troops and airborne regiments, each with their own transport, had a triumphant war, carving their own
36:40place in history. In campaign after campaign, winning stunning victories without reverses.
36:48The German plan for the invasion of Crete was a bold, logical conclusion of these successes.
36:55Once secured, the plan was to use Crete as a base from which to attack Cyprus,
37:00and in the same way from Cyprus to attack Lebanon and Palestine, and threaten Britain's
37:06Middle Eastern oil and the Suez Canal, meeting with the Africa Corps, attacking from the west
37:12in a grand pincer action. Parachute and glider forces were to seize Cretan airfields, which
37:20would then be used to fly in transport planes with reinforcements to secure the victory.
37:25Only when the victory was won would the seaborne troops arrive. The British Prime Minister Churchill
37:32had his own plans for Crete. He had ordered the island made into a fortress in which troops were
37:39to be dug in in impregnable positions. Churchill thought that the Germans would attack the island
37:45and be defeated in a battle that would turn the tide in the Balkans.
37:51The large garrison that was to fight the Germans was a hodgepodge farrago of different units,
37:57of hastily organized and improvised formations, of logistics troops given rifles,
38:04of whole regiments fleeing the Greek mainland that arrived with no boots.
38:09The German attack on the first day was disastrous, paratroopers dropping in many cases
38:15directly on top of the British positions. In a bitter battle lasting barely a week,
38:22the victory Churchill imagined very nearly came, but in the end the German strength grew.
38:29And once more the navy was called upon to arrange the escape of an army. The bedraggled troops
38:35threaded their way over the mountains of Crete to escape. However, German losses in Crete were
38:41so high that the parachute forces were never again used as an independent force.
38:49Behind all the events of the war, as it spread to every country, town and village of Europe,
38:55behind all the images of chaos, of mass destruction, of desolate surrender and
39:01desperate hard-fought victory, underlying the fighting on land, sea and air, there was a plan.
39:07There was a grand strategy that looked into a larger history, to a destiny.
39:15From the very beginning of Nazism, from its earliest days, Hitler's philosophy of National
39:21Socialism was a theory of history that explained the past and predicted the future. Hitler saw
39:28National Socialism's destiny as confronting and destroying Soviet Communism in the East.
39:34It was a fight to gain living space for the superior German race at the expense of the
39:39inferior Slavic people of Russia. Hitler believed this titanic confrontation essential for the
39:45future of the world and something about which there could be no compromise, an inevitable certainty.
39:52In 1939, the world had stood in shock at the Nazi-Soviet pact, an alliance of two ideologies
40:00previously in direct and deadly opposition. For Hitler, the pact gave him the freedom to
40:06destroy Poland, the freedom to fight in the West with not a threat of war on two fronts.
40:12For Stalin, the pact brought the illusion of security.
40:16In Hitler's grand scheme and stratagem, the pact was a sham to buy time.
40:22All events of the war from 1939 were part of the bigger grand plan to invade and destroy Russia,
40:30each campaign shaped and shaded by this goal which lay beneath every Nazi move.
40:37The cancellation of the invasion of Britain was due to a shifting of Hitler's gaze
40:41The cancellation of the invasion of Britain was due to a shifting of Hitler's gaze eastwards.
40:47The story of the war in 1941 is the story of successive
40:51distraction and diversion from Hitler's great plan.
40:58All through 1941, Germany was assembling a massive force along the borders of Soviet Russia.
41:05The shifting focus of effort meant that pressure slackened on all other fronts,
41:10as planes, guns, tanks, men, and above all, Hitler's will was turned to the east.
41:18As Stalin reviewed his armed forces, he believed his country was safe.
41:22The Soviet forces looked immense and strong, with the largest number of tanks in the world
41:28outnumbering the potential enemy. The Soviets believed the Nazi-Soviet pact would hold,
41:34that Hitler would keep his word. Stalin's pre-war show trials and purges,
41:41his paranoia which caused him to eliminate anyone he thought dissident, had caused the death of many
41:47good officers and filled the ranks with men afraid to show independence and initiative.
41:53The Russian forces were filled with political commissars,
41:57placed to ensure the reliability and loyalty of the troops to communism.
42:02Stalin was obsessed with territory and deployed his vast resources to ensure that no areas gained
42:08in his grab of Poland would be lost. Against all military sense, his armies were deployed along
42:15his western border, defending every turn and twist of the line on the map with no consideration for
42:22natural defensive positions of terrain or of defense in depth.
42:27In June 1941, it was clear that the war was coming. Russia was warned by British intelligence
42:33that German forces were being transferred east, that 3.6 million German soldiers,
42:403,350 tanks, and 2,000 aircraft were massed upon the German-Russian frontier.
42:47Stalin refused to believe an attack was close, even when a defector revealed the exact date
42:53and start time, June 22nd at 4 a.m. On that day, the largest force of war ever assembled in the
43:02history of the world moved. Hitler called his plan Operation Barbarossa, after the medieval
43:10German emperor who led German armies to the east centuries before. Barbarossa consisted of three
43:18attacks. Each followed a historical invasion route. In the north, a thrust was made along the
43:24coast towards Leningrad, modern-day St. Petersburg. In the center, the most powerful attack was aimed
43:32at the Russian capital and the encirclement and destruction of vast numbers of Russian troops.
43:39The third, southern thrust, was a stab at the Ukraine, the heart of the Soviet Union's
43:44agricultural, industrial, mining, and oil-producing area in southern Russia.
43:51The attacks were to the classic blitzkrieg formula of heavy air bombardment with powerful,
43:57deep attacks by tanks and motorized infantry, encircling the enemy, who could then be destroyed
44:03by slower-moving infantry. Apart from marshes to the central area of the frontier, no natural
44:11barrier lay in the path of the Germans and their gods. The vast space of Russia offered terrain
44:16ideal for armored warfare. In autumn and spring, heavy rains turned the mostly dirt roads to mud.
44:25However, in the dry heat of the Russian summer, the vehicles rolled forward easily and quickly.
44:33It's hard to conceive of the massive numbers involved in the eastern fighting.
44:38Mass surrenders and defeats on a scale never before seen. Many hundreds of thousands of men
44:45were captured. The Soviet army began Barbarossa with a strength of 2,600,000.
44:52In the first months of the campaign, its strength fell to 800,000.
44:57Moreover, the battles were fought with a ruthless brutality probably unknown in Europe since
45:04Christian armies defended the continent from Muslim Ottoman Turks. Encircled, surrounded Russians
45:11fought with a tenacious despair that even the most stubborn and determined French soldiers
45:15had not shown. The Germans, showing ferocious lack of pity that no western soldier had yet to face.
45:26The soldiers of Germany took their lead from Hitler, who on March 31, 1936,
45:33said, the war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in knightly fashions.
45:40The struggle is one of ideology and racial difference and will have to be conducted with
45:45unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. All officers will have to rid themselves of
45:53obsolete ideologies. I know that the necessity for such means of making war is beyond the
45:59comprehension of generals, but I insist that my orders be executed without contradiction.
46:06The commissars are bearers of ideology directly opposed to national socialism.
46:12Therefore, the commissars will be liquidated. German soldiers guilty of breaking international
46:19law will be excused. Russia has not participated in the Hague Convention and therefore has no rights
46:27under it. German soldiers, many of whom had grown up under Nazi rule, identified with Hitler's words
46:34and were callous instruments of his will. Russian troops of all ranks and classes were treated with
46:40disregard. The communist commissars, the political officers, were shot out of hand. A total of five
46:49million seven hundred thousand Russians were captured by the Germans in the whole of the war.
46:54Three million three hundred thousand were to die in captivity. Yet, in the Russian mind,
47:01fear of the enemy was outweighed by fear of Stalin. Generals who failed were shot as traitors by the
47:08Russian secret police. Rather than save their forces by tactical retreat, Russian generals
47:15would rather await surrender and annihilation. The success of Barbarossa seemed the fulfillment
47:24of the Nazi destiny and the end of Soviet communism, a vindication of the Nazi ideology.
47:31Those who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it. The German armies
47:37followed in the footprints of the French army of 1812, which had perished in the snow of the
47:43Russian winter. Barbarossa began in late June, when already some of the better, finer weather of
47:50the Russian summer had gone and the countdown to the deep Russian cold begun. The deep,
47:56deep cold that was as ferocious an enemy of the invader as any army. Historians will forever
48:04debate whether the wars in the south of Europe delayed the start of Barbarossa, leaving too
48:09little time before the end of summer. Barbarossa was Hitler's vision, his dream. In the twists and
48:17turns of the timeline of events, of possibilities, ifs and maybes, it's fascinating to contemplate
48:24an alternative course of history. As Hitler's 153 divisions of nearly four million men forged
48:31eastwards, in North Africa, Rommel's Afrika Korps prepared to mount an invasion of Egypt,
48:37but with a fraction of the vast numbers in Russia. Had but a small share of these troops
48:43been given to Rommel, his strength would have overwhelmed the British, and his victory would
48:49have probably forced Britain to make peace. The implications of what might have been are frightening
48:55to contemplate. But in September 1941, the Nazis had no thought for any other future, any other than
49:05that which led into the vast spaces of the east. In September, Hitler's army marched ever eastward
49:12with triumph and certainty. A month later, the first snows of winter were to fall.
49:19Next time, on World War Two, The Complete History. The terrible drama of Barbarossa unfolds with the
49:36German armies at the gates of Moscow. Stalin orders the destruction of the very fabric of
49:42the Soviet Union before the advancing Germans, and the Russian winter throws its icy grip
49:47round the armies of the Third Reich. As America marches on the path to war, an old soldier,
49:54Douglas MacArthur, is recalled to the service of his country. Britain and America move closer to
50:01alliance, as the US Navy begins to take active involvement in fighting German U-boats in the
50:06North Atlantic. In the constant fencing of diplomacy around the war, the war of words that went hand
50:13in hand with the fighting, Stalin urges his Western allies to start a second front. In the
50:20Far East, Japan continues its ever more belligerent attacks upon the European powers in Asia. In a last
50:29desperate move to preserve peace, US President Roosevelt appeals directly to Japanese Emperor
50:36Hirohito. While politicians talk peace, the fleet of the Japanese Empire secretly approaches the
50:43Hawaiian Islands and the US base of Pearl Harbor. Its aim? To knock the US Navy out of the Pacific
50:51border. The strain breaks, and on what Roosevelt is to call the Day of Infamy, as the US fleet lies
50:59at anchor, the planes of the Japanese Navy burst out of a morning sky to rain death and destruction.
51:06Sane minds in Japan already know it is a desperate gamble for the Japanese Empire,
51:12that a war must be won quickly, or lost to the industrial might of America. On the same day,
51:19Germany declares war upon the United States, and the fates of both Nazi and Japanese Empires are sealed.