Britain now stood alone. Opinion was not unanimously in
favour of continuing the fight against such unlikely odds. Some
leaders suggested that Lloyd George should negotiate a settlement
with Hitler. But Churchill, the new prime minister, ignored
the German overtures. The future of the free world hung on his
determination. The old warrior relied on American support and
on the resources of the Commonwealth to unify the British
people. He galvanized them with his energy. Even so it was by no
means certain that the British had the means to hold out. The
Royal Navy was strong enough to prevent an enemy landing,
although the Norwegian campaign had shown that the most
powerful battleships were vulnerable to attack. But the Norwegian
campaign had also strained the German navy, which
admitted that it could not now support a landing. Hitler renounced
plans for invasion while Goering braced himself to tip
the balance with the Luftwaffe.
In the summer of 1940 a remarkable series of aerial battles
began. Quite without precedent, this phase of the war came to
be known as the Battle of Britain. Thanks to radar, a technical
advance of which Britain then enjoyed a monopoly, and thanks
to the superiority of the British fighter planes, the British were
able to inflict heavy losses on the German air force. Much to
everyone's surprise, the Germans were forced to abandon the
strategy of destroying the Royal Air Force and its airfields, and
turned to indiscriminate bombing of cities, especially London,
in the vain hope of breaking British morale.
World History
