(explosion booms) (dramatic music) - [Narrator] War ravaging
the east since 1937 in Japan's invasion of China reached Europe on the
1st of September, 1939 with Germany's invasion of Poland. It became global on the
7th of December, 1941 when Japanese aircraft attacked
the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. (dramatic music) It touched every continent. (guns roaring)
(dramatic music) And lasted for six years.
(suspenseful music) (men shouting) It ended with a new weapon for a new age. (suspenseful music) This is the history of the
greatest of all man-made events. These men are part of that history. They are eye witnesses to the triumphs and tragedies of the war,
wherever it was fought. (dramatic music) Their testimony is part of the story of how our world was made. By those who could pay (dramatic music) and those who could no longer meet the price of empire. (dramatic music) In episode three of "The Price of Empire," the armed forces of Hitler's Germany swept without check across Europe. In September, 1939 with their Soviet ally, they had destroyed Poland
as an independent state. In 1940 Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium were conquered and France capitulated.
(suspenseful music) Six months after the fall of France, Vyacheslav Molotov, the
Soviet foreign minister, visited Berlin to
discuss how the world was to be divided following victory because the war is over
but over, Molotov was told, and Britain is beaten. "You say that England is defeated," Molotov said to his opposite
number, Von Ribbentrop, "then why are we sitting here
in this air raid shelter?" (suspenseful music) The answer to Molotov's question is that Britain was not beaten. (suspenseful music) (car rumbling) But she was alone. (suspenseful music) (plane engines roaring) (suspenseful music) With the end of the Spanish Civil War, both of the countries
of the Iberian Peninsula were controlled by fascist dictators. Italy had been ruled by such a dictator, Benito Mussolini, for more than 15 years. And now the rest of Western Europe, most of Scandinavia, and much
of Central and Eastern Europe was flying the swastika. (suspenseful music) East, the Soviet Union,
under Joseph Stalin, carefully observed the terms
of its treaty with Hitler, to whom it shipped supplies
of food and other material. (train whistling)
(suspenseful music) The greatest empire in the world
was undefeated and defiant. The Battle of Britain, their prime minister had
told them, is about to begin. (suspenseful music) Defiance, however, does not come cheap. Banker to the world at the
beginning of the 20th century, 50 years later, Britain would be the most indebted nation to the tune of $40 billion. (people cheering) (suspenseful music) Food rationing had been
progressively introduced since January, 1940. Rationing had been introduced
in Germany in August, 1939, the month before the invasion of Poland. (suspenseful music) As the war went on, the
vast majority of Britons, including more than half
of the manual workers, had their own piece of land, their garden or their allotment. The British reliance on
imported food was almost halved. (suspenseful music)
(machinery rumbling) But not everything in the British Isles was as spirited or good-hearted. The poet T.S. Eliot wrote to a friend, "We are involved in an
enormous catastrophe, "which includes a war." He may have been thinking of the deliberate policy
of misinformation, designed to confuse spies and traitors, which spread fear through the population, spawning a whole catalog
of invasion alarms in which parachutists, variously dressed as nuns,
priests, and policemen, featured. Not to mention those in sky blue uniforms with transparent parachutes
who floated invisibly to earth. (suspenseful music) As early as May the 12th, the tabloid "Sunday Pictorial" was asking if the government had
considered training golfers in rifle shooting to
eliminate stray parachutists. (suspenseful music) - [Announcer] These scenes
multiplied a hundred times show how our men are being prepared for the defense of Britain. - [Narrator] A German-Swiss resident of the London borough of
Kensington was arrested for puffing on his cigar
and pointing the lighted end at the night sky. He was clearly signaling
to enemy aircraft. Many stray dogs less fortunate were shot on suspicion of carrying messages. (suspenseful music) On the 23rd of May, Sir Oswald Mosley, who had led the British
fascists during the 1930s with some huffing and puffing
but little electoral success, was interned. On the 31st, General Ironside, Commanders-in-Chief, Home Forces, reported suspicious men moving at night all over the country.
(suspenseful music) And on July the 2nd, he reported there is signaling
going on all over the place. (suspenseful music) But he lamented that no
evidence had been found of fifth column activities or
weapons of mass destruction. (suspenseful music) In fact, though many stories, from death rays to parachuting
nuns circulate to this day, the evidence to support
them is as threadbare as evidence for the tooth fairy. (suspenseful music) Under pressure to form
some sort of home defense, the Secretary for War, Anthony Eden, went on the radio on May the 14th to announce the formation of the Local Defence Volunteers or LDV, said by some to stand for
look, duck, and vanish. (suspenseful music) - [Announcer] This questionnaire
is addressed to civilians who are not in armament factories
or in government service. (triumphant music) Have you joined the
Local Defence Volunteers? (suspenseful music) (gun roars) - [Narrator] The LDV
formed groups associated with social and sporting
clubs and factories. By July, 1 1/4 million men had joined, but they were not well
supplied with weapons. (suspenseful music) - When they started to
form the Home Guard, which was the LDV, I joined them. I was 15 when I joined them. We got a bit of this and a bit of that. And then finally, you got your rifle. The ones we were given was a Ross rifle. It was a Canadian rifle
that only held five rounds. - [Narrator] Churchill insisted
that the LDV be renamed the Home Guard. Eden was annoyed. He had had 1 million LDV armbands printed. - Well, I was at a
school at Darby's College and not working very hard because I was spending
most of the evenings in the Home Guard as a dispatch rider. And learning how to smoke and drink and all the rest of the things. - [Narrator] Jack White
was keen to play his part in the Home Guard. But his application was rejected because, born the son of Russian Jews, he was classed as an alien. In the First World War, Jack White had been awarded the highest decoration for valor, the Victoria Cross. He was not classed as an
enemy alien or interned. 2,000 aliens living near the coast were rounded up and others followed. (suspenseful music) Churchill said that it was necessary to collar the lot. (suspenseful music) (explosions booming) In contradiction of its
popular postwar image, the Home Guard was a serious reserve. (explosions booming) It fired shots in anger, with several kills to its
credit in anti-aircraft duties. Its patrols freed regular
army units for other work, and it housed, or rather disguised, lethal groups of trained
commando-style personnel tasked with murder and mayhem in the event of an invasion. (fire crackling)
(explosions booming) Guard units also provided the
enemy in training situations. (suspenseful music) More than one new recruit
reported on being captured by First World War veterans, more adept at soldiering than they were. - We did all sorts of classes
and things for about a month and fighting against the Home Guard. And people thought the
Home Guard was a joke, but they weren't. I was captured by them twice. And I thought I was a clever soldier. They were on the ball.
(motorcycles rumbling) - [Narrator] The plan
for Britain's defense, agreed to on June the 12th, drew a line south from
Edinburgh to the Medway. Another west from below
London to south of Bristol, an area further defined
by a number of stop lines. (suspenseful music) Within these defined areas,
anti-tank ditches were dug and concrete pillboxes built. And everyone waited. (suspenseful music) (explosion booms)
Winston Churchill waited with unquenchable optimism. His mother was American. His belief in the onward march of the English-speaking
peoples was well-documented and his optimism was sustained, not by confidence in British arms, but by the conviction that America, inextinguishable and
inexhaustible, would come in. (suspenseful music)
(people cheering) The greatest boost to Churchill's belief in salvation across the
Atlantic came in August in one of the key moments of the war. The American Congress
would not allow neutrality to be breached by the
supply of war materiel to either side without payment. (suspenseful music) Opinion, polls registered American support for involvement in the war at a mere 8%. Roosevelt found a way. It was called Lend-Lease. Payment in kind, Britain
made over naval bases in her West Indian possessions
to the United States. Or payment later. And Britain was obliged to pay. It took 50 years. (suspenseful music) Churchill called Lend-Lease a long step towards America coming in on our side. (suspenseful music) Two days after the signing
of the Lend-Lease Agreement, the 15th of August was
Adlertag, Eagle Day, which the head of the Luftwaffe,
Reichsmarschall Goring, nominated as the start
of the critical phase of the Battle of Britain.
(suspenseful music) The German air offensive that
sought to achieve control of the skies over Southern England, preparatory to an invasion. In one respect, the
advantage had already moved from Germany to Great Britain. In early 1940, Britain had been producing
256 fighter planes a month. Winston Churchill, recognizing the urgency
of improving production, appointed the Anglo-Canadian
newspaper proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook, Minister
for Aircraft Production. - And so I beg all of you everywhere to speed the tank, speed the defenses of Britain! - [Narrator] Under
Beaverbrook's management, production for the month
of July climbed to 496. An article in "Time" magazine
in 1940 drew attention to his record and presciently noted that, "This war is a war of machines. "It will be won on the assembly line." (planes roaring) Importantly, the British assembly line was not just turning out lots
of aircraft, but good ones. (planes roaring) These were the Hurricanes and Spitfires that would write their names
into the history books. (planes roaring) Britain deployed other tools that would be vital in the battle ahead. (suspenseful music) Cryptologists, famously
installed at Bletchley Park, a country estate outside of London, decoded Luftwaffe signals that gave warning of planned sorties. (suspenseful music) The work of a British
meteorologist between the wars was critical in developing
the screen of radar stations that was vital to British air defense. His name was Robert Watson-Watt, and it was under his leadership that the design and installation
of aircraft detection and tracking stations, called Chain Home, made possible the early
warning of incoming squadrons. (suspenseful music) It was not, of course, all high tech. The defense of Britain also relied on the keen eyes of 30,000 watchers, peering through binoculars at 1,000 posts throughout the country.
(suspenseful music) Like Britain, Germany
had first-rate aircraft, but they were not first
rate for the task ahead. (guns roaring)
(suspenseful music) (planes buzzing)
(suspenseful music) They either been developed to support battlefield operations. The Luftwaffe had no heavy bombers and the feared Stuka was, as we shall see, to prove almost useless. (suspenseful music) (explosion booms) The Luftwaffe's commander, Herman Goring, had been a Nazi party
faithful from the start. A decorated fighter ace
in the First World War, he had been injured in
Hitler's abortive attempt to seize power, the
so-called Beer Hall Putsch. The medicine Goring took during recovery from those injuries made him
a lifelong morphine addict. His influence with Hitler and on Luftwaffe strategy
and spending was substantial. (suspenseful music) Between the first air
raid on July the 10th and the middle of August, the German strategy,
essentially Goring's strategy, was to try and draw British fighters into combat by attacking convoys at sea. (suspenseful music) On August the 8th, over the English Channel,
the RAF lost 16 aircraft. (suspenseful music) But shot down 31. (explosions booming) Over the next three days, German losses continued to be
greater than those of the RAF. (planes roaring)
(suspenseful music) And on August the 12th, the
focus of the battle shifted. (planes roaring) (explosions booming) (suspenseful music)
(birds shrieking) Elsewhere in its empire, Britain was about to fight another action that would conclude with
another forced evacuation of her troops. In the early hours of
the 3rd of August, 1940, the Italian Army crossed the border between Italian East Africa
and British Somaliland. The Italians numbered about 24,000. Opposing them was a British
force of about 4,000 troops, mostly soldiers from India and Africa. The Somaliland Camel Corps, battalions from the King's African Rifles, the Third 15th Punjab Regiment, joined during the campaign
by a second Indian regiment and a Scottish battalion
from the Black Watch. The British had no tanks, armored cars, or anti-tank weapons. (suspenseful music) The smaller force fought
a rearguard action against the advancing Italians until it was taken off by the Royal Navy in the early hours of the 18th of August. (suspenseful music)
(people chattering) The following day, the Italians moved down the
coast to complete their conquest of British Somaliland. (suspenseful music) They would not stay there long. (suspenseful music) (artillery booming)
(suspenseful music) Of more lasting significance
in the history books, the month of August was also the central and most famous month of
the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe attacked the
Royal Air Force directly, targeting airfields and
support installations. (explosions booming)
(suspenseful music) Many of the airfields were
in the Southeast of England and the skies over that
part of the country came to be known as Hellfire Corner. In that small,
vapor-trail-laced piece of sky, more fighter pilots died than in the whole of the rest of Britain.
(suspenseful music) Below them on downs and headland, crowds assembled to
cheer each British kill. (guns popping)
(suspenseful music) On the first day of the attack on the RAF, three airfields were damaged and one radar station put out of action. The next day, August the 13th, the Luftwaffe launched its greatest attack of the war to date.
(suspenseful music) It flew 1,485 sorties,
(planes roaring) damaged airfields, though
it mistakenly targeted many that were not fighter bases, (guns roaring)
(planes buzzing) and lost more than twice as
many aircraft as the RAF. (planes roaring) Losses to the fleet of Junkers 87s, the Stukas that so
terrorized ground forces, were particularly heavy. (planes roaring) The Stuka was a lethal dive bomber. But a cumbersome machine in level flight, both out-sped and outmaneuvered
by British fighters. (suspenseful music)
(planes roaring) (guns roaring)
After further losses, the Stuka was withdrawn
from the Battle of Britain. (guns roaring) (explosion booms) (plane buzzing) And so to Adlertag, the day that Goring said was the first day of the decisive phase of the battle. The Luftwaffe flew 1,786 sorties
against British airfields. It lost 76 of its aircraft. The RAF lost 35.
(melancholy music) The raw figures are misleading. British losses could, to an extent, be made up by the repair of
damaged aircraft returning to their bases.
(suspenseful music) Damaged German aircraft, forced to land in Britain, were lost. (suspenseful music)
(metal clanging) Even more tellingly, British
pilots who bailed out landed in their own
fields and fought again. (suspenseful music) German pilots went into captivity. More than 900 Luftwaffe pilots
who bailed out over Britain were taken prisoner.
(suspenseful music) German aircraft were further disadvantaged by the limited amount of time they could spend over their targets. (planes roaring)
(suspenseful music) The best of their fighters, the Messerschmitt 109, had an operational range
of only 850 kilometers, much of which was expended flying to and from the combat zone. (suspenseful music) Even so, it was, as the Duke
of Wellington said of Waterloo, the nearest run thing you ever saw. (planes roaring)
(suspenseful music) On August the 18th, British losses, though still smaller than those suffered by the Luftwaffe, were substantial. More than 100 RAF pilots
had been killed in a week. (guns roaring) A resource that could
not be speedily replaced. (suspenseful music)
(men shouting) In one of those strange quirks of fate that seem to be scattered
through the narratives of war, the near advantage gained
by the Germans on the 18th was not pressed. Both weather and the
stresses on the German side forced a four-day pause.
(plane roaring) It was during this
pause on August the 20th that Winston Churchill gave one of his best remembered speeches. - [Winston Churchill] Never
in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
(planes roaring) - [Narrator] That those who fought and won the Battle of Britain
were indeed few in number compared to the many
who were in their debt cannot be doubted. But they were not few compared to the number of opponents they faced. In most respects, the fight
in the skies above England was an even contest.
(suspenseful music) And it was one in which a few of the
few dominated the battle. Air aces account for a
disproportionate amount of the success. 3 1/2% percent of the RAF's
pilots were responsible for 30% of the claimed kills. (planes roaring)
(suspenseful music) The first phase of the battle
had been attacks on shipping. (explosions booming)
(suspenseful music) The second, attacks on the RAF itself. (guns roaring)
(suspenseful music) After the pause, on August the 24th, the third and decisive phase began. On that night, an
off-course Heinkel bomber dropped its bombs in error
on an unintended target. (plane roaring)
(suspenseful music) (explosion booms) These were the first
bombs to fall on London. (fire crackling)
(suspenseful music) The bombs had been meant
for military targets in London's suburbs, but they fell in the center of
the city and did some damage. The extent to which this mistake and the British reaction to it determined the future course
of the war can be debated. Perhaps what happened would
have happened in any case. Perhaps not.
(melancholy music) What is sure is that Winston Churchill, convinced that it had
been a deliberate attack, ordered Berlin to be
bombed the next evening. (planes roaring)
(suspenseful music) On August the 25th, British bombers reached Berlin and inflicted minimal property damage. But the Germans were shocked. Hermann Goring had assured them that such a thing could never happen. But it did. (plane roaring)
(melancholy music) But it happened again on the
night of August, the 28th, with buildings damaged
and civilians killed. Two nights later, a third attack occurred. (suspenseful music) In Fuhrer Directive 17
of the 1st of August, in which he laid out his plans for the conduct of air and sea
warfare against England, Hitler had specified his targets. They did not include civilian targets. But, at clause five, he did say, "I reserve to myself the right "to decide on terror attacks
as measures of reprisal." (suspenseful music) (explosion booms) He now exercised that right. On September the 4th, he promised, "When the British air force drops two "or three or 4,000 kilograms of bombs, "then we will, in one
night, drop 250, 230, 300, "or 400,000 kilograms. (suspenseful music) "When they declare that they will increase "their attacks on our cities, "then we will raze their
cities to the ground. "We will stop the handiwork
of those night pirates, "so help me, God." (suspenseful music)
(explosions booming) The next night London was attacked. And three days later on
September the 7th, 1940 and for 57 consecutive nights thereafter, London was bombed.
(suspenseful music) This was the final phase
of the Battle of Britain. They called it the Blitz. (water whooshing)
(melancholy music) - Thanks to the Anderson
Shelter, we're quite safe. I think he dropped a couple of bombs on us and it shook the (indistinct) like billio, but when I heard the four boys talk to me, I was quite contented. So far, I was thankful. - [Narrator] Young women in
boiler suits wearing tin hats paroled the streets of the capital, blowing whistles and shouting, turn that bloody light off! Londoners took to the shelters and slept in their thousands on the platforms of
underground railway stations. (melancholy music) - There was a lot of looting, which you wouldn't have thought. When people went down the shelters, their houses would get broke into. They wouldn't bother about the raid. (melancholy music) - [Narrator] Searchlights
lit up the night skies and anti-aircraft batteries
kept up the tumult of ack-ack against the
fleets of bombs overhead. But it was all largely show. The searchlights, some suggested, mainly helped the bombers
find their targets. (melancholy music) And the anti-aircraft
batteries are calculated to have downed one enemy aircraft for every 30,000 shells fired. September the 7th, the night of the first major
bombing raid on London, was a high tide in the English Channel. It may have been this, so suitable for invading ships and possibly other intelligence received, that caused the alarm to be sounded. (suspenseful music) Troops standing on the defensive
throughout Southern England received the code word, warning that the invasion
of England was expected within 24 hours. Perhaps surprisingly at the time of the greatest threat to the
realm and king and country, the code word was the name
of regicide, Cromwell. (suspenseful music) But the Cromwell alert
lapsed and no invasion came. (suspenseful music) The bombing offensive continued. (suspenseful music) (bombs booming) About 15,000 Londoners were
killed during the Blitz and more than a quarter of
a million made homeless. Buildings that were damaged
included Ren churches, the houses of Parliament,
and Buckingham Palace, London home of the king and queen. (suspenseful music) On September the 30th, the Luftwaffe flew its last daylight raid, continuing thereafter to attack by night. (suspenseful music) The British government commissioned polls to test the mood of the population and found that 80% remained
confident of a British victory. (suspenseful music) The raids grew smaller. The British officially
mark the end of October as the conclusion of
the Battle of Britain. Although London continued
to suffer heavily. (melancholy music) On November the 14th, the attack on the Coventry
marked a new phase in the German offensive. Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton,
Sheffield, and Liverpool were all targeted in November and British civilian deaths for that month exceeded 4 1/2 thousand. By now, Britain's Bomber
Command was raining equal, if not greater, destruction
on German cities, as we shall see in a later episode. (suspenseful music)
(planes roaring) The last night of the
Blitz on British cities would not be until the middle of May, 1941 when Hitler needed all of
his strength elsewhere. For the invasion of Russia. (suspenseful music) A world war will always draw
our attention across the map, as things of greater or
lesser significance occur, all of which are bricks
in the same edifice. The autumn of 1940 is, in most histories, the story of the Battle of Britain. But history needs peripheral vision. (suspenseful music) On September the 6th, 1940, the day before the first
major bombing raid on London, King Carol of Romania, a great grandchild of
Queen Victoria, abdicated, leaving the country in the control of another fascist leader, Ion Antonescu. (suspenseful music) On September the 11th, Hitler sent army and air force
reinforcements uncontested into Romania to protect
the Ploesti oil fields, the only significant oil wells in Europe. This also placed the
Wehrmacht in a forward base for operations against the Soviet Union. (suspenseful music) But why was Hitler turning his back on the invasion of Great Britain? (people cheering) (plane buzzing) Fuhrer Directive Number
16 of July the 16th, 1940, setting in motion preparations for a landing in Britain had stated, "As England, in spite of her
hopeless military situation, "still shows no signs of
willingness to come to terms, "I have decided to
prepare and, if necessary, "to carry out a landing
operation against her." If necessary? How could it not be necessary? (boots thudding) Only three days later, in a speech delivered to the Reichstag and broadcast around the world, Hitler said, "From
London, I now hear a cry. "It's not the cry of the mass of people, "but rather of politicians "that the war must now, all
the more, be continued." Hitler said, "In this hour, "I feel compelled to
direct yet another appeal "to reason in England." (suspenseful music)
(boots thudding) Hitler would have preferred peace terms and the chance to turn to his real objective,
expansion eastwards. British defiance denied him. (suspenseful music)
(crowds cheering) Hitler well understood
the risks of an invasion of the British Isles. Failure would instantly demolish what had been built up through
his extraordinary successes since September, 1939.
(artillery booms) (suspenseful music) The heads of his air force
and navy were not confident. There was division among his generals. And Hitler himself was
far from sure of success. (suspenseful music) "On land, I am a hero," He told the commander of the Kriegsmarine. (suspenseful music)
(people cheering) "At sea, I am a coward." There is evidence that the plan for the invasion, Operation Sea Lion, was more a political
than a military strategy. A device for strengthening
the peace party in Britain and forcing the enemy to
the negotiating table. In a sense, for Hitler, at least, a bluff. (suspenseful music) On the last day of July, 1940, Hitler held a meeting at the Berghof, his home near Berchtesgaden
in the Bavarian Alps. (suspenseful music) He was told of the difficulty
of obtaining suitable vessels to carry invasion troops
across the Channel, and about the problems of
massing troops and equipment. (suspenseful music) The German Navy argued for a postponement of the invasion until May, 1941. (suspenseful music) Hitler postponed to the start date, but only until September the 16th, allowing the Luftwaffe
time to clear the Channel of British warships and the skies over Southeast
England of British aircraft, repeating what had been
the first condition of Fuhrer Directive 16, that the RAF be so reduced
morally and physically that it is unable to deliver
any significant attack against the German crossing. (planes roaring)
(suspenseful music) As we have seen in the story
of the Battle of Britain, that had not happened. (plane sputtering)
(suspenseful music) Further, during the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had made 21 attacks on Royal Navy torpedo boats
operating in the Channel. (planes roaring)
(suspenseful music) It had managed to sink none of of them. Germany had virtually no landing craft and, given barely two months to assemble a seagoing invasion fleet. was obliged to convert more
than 2,000 river barges. (suspenseful music) Only about 800 of these were powered. The rest would have to be towed by tanks. (suspenseful music) (planes roaring) When the barges began to be
assembled in Channel ports, the RAF's Bomber Command
was ordered to target them. (suspenseful music) And about 10% were
destroyed at their moorings. When Hitler told his commanders that Operation Sea Lion
was indefinitely postponed, he cited the Luftwaffe's failure
to obtain air superiority and a general lack of coordination between the branches
of the German military. But it is difficult to feel that he ever really
believed in the invasion or its chances of success. (suspenseful music) With the cancellation
of Operation Sea Lion, Great Britain was left and
unsinkable aircraft carrier off the shores of Western Europe. On November the 11th, no
sirens sounded in London for the first time since July. (suspenseful music) The RAF had lost 915 aircraft. The Luftwaffe, 1,733. Turning his back on the British Isles, Hitler must have hoped or
imagined that, if not defeated, Britain had at least withdrawn behind her ramparts to bluster on, but not to interfere in his future plans. (suspenseful music) The danger that he overlooked
was that, above all else, the Battle of Britain ensured the survival of opposition to the Third Reich. And that opposition was
not a small island nation off the coast of the European mainland. It was an empire. (suspenseful music) (suspenseful music) Events in Europe that had changed the continent's political
complexion through 1940 now had an unexpected and
strategically significant effect on the opposite side of the globe in Asia. When France fell, its
collaborationist regime, the Vichy government,
headed by Marshal Petain, was, as we have learned, allowed to retain its colonies under the terms of the peace settlement. And one of the jewels in that
particular imperial crown was French Indochina, the modern states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. For expansionist Japan, occupying these territories was tempting. And, in the case of Vietnam, simply a matter of
walking across the border from occupied China, which, in September of 1940,
is exactly what she did. Japan's rationale for invasion, which, given there was a war
on, was reasonably legitimate, was that the nationalist Chinese were being supplied through
the port of Haiphong via the Sino-Vietnamese railway. (suspenseful music) (artillery booming) When the Imperial Japanese Army developed an invasion threat, the Vichy French administration yielded. And, on September 22nd, signed an accord which permitted the Japanese to station several thousand
troops on Vietnamese territory. - [Announcer] At the conference, the Japanese demanded bases
in Indochina and got them. (triumphant music) Meanwhile, the air raids
over China continue. Chongqing, the capital,
being bombed again and again. - [Narrator] Within a few hours
of the treaty being signed, columns from the Imperial Japanese Army moved over the border in three places and advanced on the
rail head near Lanzhou. The next day, on the 23rd of September, Vichy France protested the
breach of the agreement to the Japanese government. (suspenseful music) On the morning of the 24th, Japanese aircraft attacked
French positions on the coast. On the 26th, Japanese forces came
ashore south of Haiphong and moved on the port. (suspenseful music)
(guns popping) By the evening of the 26th,
fighting had died down. (suspenseful music)
(fire crackling) Japan was allowed, among other
concessions, three airfields. When, little more than a year later, Japan launched the offensive designed to create the Co-Prosperity Sphere, these and other air bases
would proved critical to providing air support
for the Japanese invasions of the British colonies
of Malaya and Singapore and of the Dutch East Indies. (suspenseful music) As well as Asia, the world war in these
months reached and flared as fierce fighting in
another continent, Africa. (suspenseful music) On the 23rd of September, a joint British-Free French
adventure was launched against a Vichy garrison in West Africa. (suspenseful music) By the 25th, the adventure had turned
into an embarrassing flop and the forces were withdrawn. (suspenseful music) A Royal Navy force with
General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French on board, ready to appeal to his
countrymen, approached Dakar, the capital of modern Senegal. Leaflets were dropped. Free French aircraft landed. But instead of being welcomed, its crews were taken prisoner. Shore and naval batteries exchanged fire and de Gaulle declared
that he did not want to be responsible for
Frenchmen killing Frenchmen. (suspenseful music) The task force withdrew. The affair had been
called, inappropriately, Operation Menace. (suspenseful music) September of 1940 also saw
the start of operations in what was to become the best known and most significant theater of operations on the African continent. The North African littoral. Italo Balbo, marshal of
the Italian Air Force, was one of the architects
of Italian fascism and the only leading fascist to oppose both anti-Jewish racial laws and Mussolini's alliance with Germany. He was responsible for
planning the invasion of Egypt. On the 28th of June, 1940, coming into land at Tobruk, Balbo and his crew were
mistakenly shot down by Italian gunners and killed. Friendly fire was a poor beginning to Italy's North African campaign. (suspenseful music) On September the 13th,
(crowd cheering) when it had become clear that Hitler was not
going to invade Britain, Mussolini ordered the invasion of Egypt. (suspenseful music) By the 16th, the Italians had advanced the best part of 100 kilometers beyond
the Libyan border. Their casualties were 3 1/2 thousand, but the British, falling
back into the desert, had taken only 150 casualties. (suspenseful music) The British commander, General, later Field Marshal, Archibald Wavell, had an advantage over
his opponents in armor. (suspenseful music) So he determined to counterattack and drive the Italians back
beyond the Libyan border, placing the crucial port
of Tobruk in Allied hands. (suspenseful music) (explosions booming) Wavell's force of 50,000 pushed
the Italians out of Egypt. 138,000 prisoners and
more than 200 guns fell to the Western Desert Force. "How many prisoners have you taken?" One British officer asked another. "Oh, several acres, I would
think," was the reply. (suspenseful music) The story of Italy's war
lives in the popular mind as a story of defeat,
retreat, and surrender. It is an unfair picture. What it fails to recognize
is the inferiority of Italy as a fighting machine.
(suspenseful music) One statistic tells the tale. (suspenseful music) In 1938, Italy's military
expenditure was $746 million. Germany's was 7 billion 415 million. (suspenseful music) Wavell's force typified the
strength of the British Empire. British troops fought side-by-side with soldiers from faraway
New Zealand and South Africa and divisions from India.
(suspenseful music) Every Indian who fought
under the British flag was a volunteer. Their motives for volunteering
were generally practical. Soldiering was a job that fed
and clothed and housed them. The soldiers from the
dominions like New Zealand were resolutely patriotic. They were fighting for
their king, George VI, and the mother country. The war would challenge
the imperial sentiments of the white dominions and
transform the loyalties of the Indian troops.
(suspenseful music) Mussolini, frustrated in North Africa by Wavell's motley army, had meanwhile and, in a
typically feckless way, turned his attention elsewhere. (suspenseful music) Renewing the Balkan ambitions that had seen him invade Albania and using that small
country as the springboard, Mussolini launched an invasion of Greece on October the 28th. (suspenseful music) Il Duce had only informed Hitler of his intentions the
day before the attack. (suspenseful music) He met the Fuhrer on the day
that Italian troops moved. (suspenseful music) This was war by vanity. Greece was neutral. Greece was irrelevant
to Hitler's war aims. But Greece and the Balkans could, or so Mussolini hoped,
boost Italian prestige to match Germany's
achievements in the war. (suspenseful music) Hitler, angered by his ally's rashness, nonetheless offered troops to
support the Italian invasion. But Mussolini declined.
(suspenseful music) This was to be an Italian triumph. Greek prime minister,
General Ioannis Metaxas, himself a right-wing dictator, similarly declined
Britain's offer of support. Instead and unaided, he mounted a counter attack
against the invading Italians on November the 4th. (suspenseful music) Within days, the Italians
had been driven back all the way into Albania. The reversal owed much to
the conditions, winter, and the terrain, the
northern mountains of Epirus. (suspenseful music) The outcome had been foreseen by the Italian chief of staff,
Marshal Pietro Badoglio, who resigned when his counsel
was ignored by Il Duce. (suspenseful music) (planes rumbling) On November the 11th, London's first day without
an air raid warning, the Italians suffered another setback of a very different kind. Venerable British
Swordfish torpedo bombers, operating off of the
carrier HMS Illustrious, attacked the Italian fleet at its moorings in Taranto Harbor. The British cheered the
first thing in over a year that had even smelled like a victory. The Italians counted the cost of three badly damaged battleships, one never to put to sea again. And the Japanese Naval
attache in Berlin hurried to the scene to take detailed notes of what a carrier-borne attack on a fleet at anchor could do. (planes roaring) (explosion booms) (planes roaring) December the 4th, five weeks
after the invasion of Greece, the Italian undersecretary
of state for war, General Ubaldo Soddu, was recommending an armistice. Winter had already
frozen military activity, with the armies facing each other on what had formerly
been Italian territory. (suspenseful music) In January, Hitler would
announce military support for his Axis partner, marching to Italy's
aid firstly, in Greece, and then in North Africa. (artillery booming)
(suspenseful music) (explosion booms) Also in January, the British would launch their offensive against the Italians
in the Horn of Africa. In Somaliland and in Abyssinia, whose emperor, Haile Selassie, the Italians had chased from his throne. (suspenseful music) But much greater events were
to occur in the year ahead. As 1941 dawned, President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt broadcast to the American people. "My friends," he said, "this
is not a fireside chat on war. "It is a talk on national security." He told the international audience, for many were listening around the world on shortwave radios, "We must be the great
arsenal of democracy." And he concluded, "We have
no excuse for defeatism. "We have every good reason for hope. "Hope for peace, yes. "And hope for the defense
of our civilization "and for the building
of a better civilization "in the future." (dramatic music) (dramatic music) In the next episode of
"The Price of Empire," it is the year 1941. The year that was to transform the war and the world in a way that few single years can
be said to have effected the narrative of history. (suspenseful music) Germany would invade the Soviet Union and Japan would force the United States into the war at a place
called Pearl Harbor. (suspenseful music) (explosion booms) (dramatic music) (suspenseful music)
