The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

and along the Northwest Frontier, for example, had kept British troops busy.
Fighting against tribesmen, however, had not required many tactical
advances. In any case, hadn’t those long years of 1914–18 been the war to
end all wars? In its aftermath, Germany had been disarmed, the Rhineland
was to be permanently occupied by Allied troops, and a League of Nations
had been formed to settle international quarrels by less violent means. Why
would Britain need a large army or even air force any longer?
There was no money for maintaining large forces in any case. An
assumption was made that there would be no major war for ten years and as
each year passed, so the ten-year rule was moved forward too. No other
country followed Britain’s lead, however, although not until 1932 was this
finally accepted and the ten-year policy abandoned. Even so, subsequent
rearmament was painfully slow, and all the while not only was Hitler’s
Germany building up its strength, but so too were Italy and Japan; the latter
was spending nearly half her national income on rearming. Suddenly, not
just Europe was under threat, but British possessions and interests in the
Middle East, Africa and the Far East were as well.
Although British rearmament began to gradually speed up, financial
constraints as well as endless debate hampered progress, as did too many
years of inactivity. By April 1938, the British Government considered that
any future war with Germany should be conducted with primarily air and
naval forces; another Continental land war was to be avoided. Not until
Hitler marched into Czechoslovakia in March 1939, thus reneging on his
promises at Munich the previous autumn, was it finally agreed that the
Territorial force should be doubled and conscription introduced. Even so,
the British Field Force (as the BEF was originally known) that headed over
to France in September consisted of only two corps of four divisions. And
there was the rub: it was all very well declaring war on Germany, but in
1939 there was no question of Britain taking the attack to the enemy.
Britain’s war policy was entirely defensive – at any rate, certainly until
sufficient strength had been built up, and that, it was recognized, was not
going to be any time soon.
If only Britain had carried the enormous technological and, ultimately,
tactical, advances made during the First World War into the inter-war years!
But there had been little attempt to maintain her traditional position at the
cutting edge of technical and industrial development. Tanks, aircraft, and
bigger, higher-velocity guns – even the thermionic valve that led to wireless