What would make Britain negotiate in 1940-1?

[wiking]

What would it take for Britain to negotiate and accept an unfavorable peace that still left the Empire mostly intact and Britain independent from Nazi domination?

Would the failure of the Dunkirk evacuation be enough? Sure the government prepared to lose most of the BEF, but the populace hadn't even realize the BEF was trying to escape from France! Would there reaction be dangerous enough to push ahead a negotiation?

Would a sustained, effective blockade be enough? By this I mean both an air and sea trade war that would wreck British ports, mine them, and sink ships at see with proper reconnaissance from more long range aircraft.

Would the RAF being driven out of Southern England in the Battle of Britain be enough? Would the British people feel abandoned or defeated if the RAF had to leave their bases and essentially leave much of the South Coast open to uncontested bombardment? Yes I'm aware the RAF was going to contest the skies still, but they would be far less effective if they had to travel the same distance if not farther to reach the battle than the Luftwaffe.

Would it have to come to a land invasion to bring Britain to the table? With Churchill talking about terms before he became Prime Minister, its obvious that he was open to some deal if the situation became bad enough, but what was bad enough for him?

Edit:
Italics above were edit added.

http://www.amazon.com/1940-Myth-Real.../dp/1566630363

It was the year of the glorious Battle of Britain, of the heroic evacuation of Dunkirk. It was the time when the mighty British empire declared its intention to fight the Nazis—alone if necessary—to the bitter end. It was, as Churchill dubbed it, Britain's "Finest Hour." In 1940: Myth and Reality, Clive Ponting reveals that it was nothing of the sort. Britain was broke in 1940 and utterly dependent on the United States for economic aid. The government fabricated German casualty figures after the Battle of Britain, suppressed knowledge of the complete fiasco that led to Dunkirk, and actually tried secretly to sue for peace that year. The British people were at best grimly resigned to the war; at worst they suffered appalling privations. Without denigrating the heroism of individuals, Mr. Ponting offers a startling account of the ineptitude and propaganda that marked much of 1940: Britain's stormy relations with France, its bizarre attempts to force a united Ireland, and the unpopularity of Winston Churchill. While he made rousing speeches in the House of Commons, Churchill rarely broadcast to the nation: his stirring "we shall fight on the beaches" speech was in fact broadcast by the actor who played Larry the Lamb on Children's Hour.

There was a lot going on in Britain's political scene that most histories don't discuss nor acknowledge, as for the early years after the war most historians focused on the image presented of a resolute Churchill and government that stood solid at all costs against the perfidious Nazis.
It seems Churchill was just as much for negotiating with Germany as Halifax while under Chamberlain, but upon becoming Prime Minister decided to hold out until the German invasion was defeated before restarting negotiations to get a better bargaining position.

So it seems that the situation politically in Britain was more fragile and less stoic than commonly believed, as even Churchill was discussing what terms would be acceptable to the Empire, going so far as to offer the German colonies back among other things.
With this its no longer enough to just state that Britain would have been 'in it to win it' no matter what anymore.

[LongVin]

Probably a combination of factors.

I could see something like this leading to the Brits asking for peace:

1. Failure at Dunkirk

2. Loss of Malta

3. Italians doing far better and driving deep into Egypt

If England doesn't get a single victory they Parliament might vote to boot Churchil and put someone else in power who is more willing to find a middle ground.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by LongVin

Probably a combination of factors.

I could see something like this leading to the Brits asking for peace:

1. Failure at Dunkirk

2. Loss of Malta

3. Italians doing far better and driving deep into Egypt

If England doesn't get a single victory they Parliament might vote to boot Churchil and put someone else in power who is more willing to find a middle ground.

Number 3 there is close to ASB. The Italian forces in North Africa were in a dismal state, poorly led, poorly equipped and poorly supplied. If you want them to perform better your POD is going to have to be long before 1940.

[Tom_B]

Originally Posted by wiking

What would it take for Britain to negotiate and accept an unfavorable peace that still left the Empire mostly intact and Britain independent from Nazi domination?

Would the failure of the Dunkirk evacuation be enough?

Would a sustained, effective blockade be enough?

Would the RAF being driven out of Southern England in the Battle of Britain be enough?

Would it have to come to a land invasion to bring Britain to the table?

Would the failure of the Dunkirk evacuation be enough?
Maybe but probably not. The key to focus on is unless he is personally captured and tortured Churchill is not going to negotiate. So what we are really talking about is "what is needed for Churchill to fall replaced by someone who will (and the cliched choice is Halifax)" However as he only recently became PM I don't see Churchill falling due to failure at Dunkirk

Would a sustained, effective blockade be enough? Yes provided it was it was very effective and even then it would require several months.

Would the RAF being driven out of Southern England in the Battle of Britain be enough? Absolutely not.

Would it have to come to a land invasion to bring Britain to the table? Clarify. Simply establishing a beachhead in Kent and Sussex is insufficient. If the Germans can drive inland and threaten London, then yes.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by Tom_B

Would it have to come to a land invasion to bring Britain to the table? Clarify. Simply establishing a beachhead in Kent and Sussex is insufficient. If the Germans can drive inland and threaten London, then yes.

And that is has been explained many times pretty much impossible, heck there's a whole sticky devoted to the unmentionable sea mammal.

[mekilldyou]

A land invasion would not work, but a combination of these could:
-Failure at Dunkirk could help, but this could also anger the british and make peace talks even less likely
-Churchill isn't PM
-Blockade
-they believe a german invasion to be imminent
-loss of Malta, Gibraltar (if spain join the axis?), Cyprus (if Greece joins the axis?)...
-Axis victories in North Africa
-if the attack against the soviet Union is postponed, the USA is neutral, basically if the UK stays alone

[LongVin]

Originally Posted by Garrison

Number 3 there is close to ASB. The Italian forces in North Africa were in a dismal state, poorly led, poorly equipped and poorly supplied. If you want them to perform better your POD is going to have to be long before 1940.

If you had a failure at dunkirk and a sucessful invasion of Malta it might let the Italians succeed in North Africa.

Or, if Mussolini orders the invasion while the Battle of France is still going on they might be able to just overwhelm the British forces. I think during the BoF there were only like 40,000 British troops in Egypt compared to several hundred thousand of Italians in Libya.

[Bill Garvin]

Originally Posted by wiking

What would it take for Britain to negotiate and accept an unfavorable peace that still left the Empire mostly intact and Britain independent from Nazi domination?

Would the failure of the Dunkirk evacuation be enough?

Absolutely not. The British already anticipated losing the Army in France and were rebuilding a new Army in the U.K. Getting it back via Dunkirk was a bonus, not a necessity. In fact, Dunkirk itself went far better than its planners expected.

Would a sustained, effective blockade be enough?

It would if it was possible but it isn't so it won't. The idea of an effective submarine blockade of the UK is ASB. The PoD would have to be way, way back.

Would the RAF being driven out of Southern England in the Battle of Britain be enough?

Absolutely not. They were already planning to continue fighting in just that eventuality.

Would it have to come to a land invasion to bring Britain to the table?

No, because such an invasion is utterly impossible.

This is a real Alt-Hist problem. There is no conceivable, plausible way of getting Britain out of the war in 1940/41. After then, its too late. The best hope (and even then its very weak) is to engineer a change of leadership - and the window of opportunity to do that is limited. Halifax is indeed a cliched choice but he's about the only political figure of any importance who could fit the bill. R.A. Butler didn't have the seniority and Mosley was a marginalized nuisance. Halifax did send message to the Germans via Bjorn Pritz n June 1940 which is about as close as one can come but whatever it was Halifax had in mind (and whether he had any authorization for doing so) is unknown.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by LongVin

If you had a failure at dunkirk and a sucessful invasion of Malta it might let the Italians succeed in North Africa.

Or, if Mussolini orders the invasion while the Battle of France is still going on they might be able to just overwhelm the British forces. I think during the BoF there were only like 40,000 British troops in Egypt compared to several hundred thousand of Italians in Libya.

How many do you think there were when the Western Desert Force crushed the Italians? Here's the relevant Wiki page:

Operation Compass

[wiking]

Originally Posted by mekilldyou

-Failure at Dunkirk could help, but this could also anger the british and make peace talks even less likely

Why would it anger the British people? They were already war weary by 1940 because nothing had happened, then their army retreated after barely fighting and here would have been captured without early any battle honors, rather just dishonor.

Originally Posted by Bill Garvin

It would if it was possible but it isn't so it won't. The idea of an effective submarine blockade of the UK is ASB. The PoD would have to be way, way back.

I never said naval blockade. The Luftwaffe never bombed British Western ports consistently for months with large forces, despite having the capability to do so at night, where historically they suffered ultra low losses even bombing Scotland. Wreck the major ports and the Brits cannot import food, fuel, or raw materials. This would of course have to start in July 1940 and forego the Battle of Britain.

[ivanotter]

It is something we have been debating pretty much lately.

As horrible as it is, it is hard to find a way for any peace negitations in 1940/1.

1) Chamberlain was not into peace after Munich and after Hitler basically made him look liek a fool

2) Churchill was ot into peace

3) Halifax, despite everything, was not into peace after France

4) If we remove all of those, (a bomb at the "right" place), then what? who is there to take over?

No one event, Malta, Africa, Gib, anything, would convince the British that it would be time to seek terms.

Even if US would stay neutral (unlikely as it was), still nothing.

HORRIBLE THAT WE CANNOT TWIST HISTORY THIS FAR!

[wiking]

Originally Posted by ivanotter

It is something we have been debating pretty much lately.

As horrible as it is, it is hard to find a way for any peace negitations in 1940/1.

1) Chamberlain was not into peace after Munich and after Hitler basically made him look liek a fool

2) Churchill was ot into peace

3) Halifax, despite everything, was not into peace after France

4) If we remove all of those, (a bomb at the "right" place), then what? who is there to take over?

No one event, Malta, Africa, Gib, anything, would convince the British that it would be time to seek terms.

Even if US would stay neutral (unlikely as it was), still nothing.

HORRIBLE THAT WE CANNOT TWIST HISTORY THIS FAR!

http://www.amazon.com/1940-Myth-Real.../dp/0929587685
This suggests otherwise. Even Churchill is recorded as willing to offer terms and give back the German colonies. He wanted to wait until the German invasion failed to get the best terms, but then found out the Germans were getting ready to invade Russia and decided to hold out.

There is some interesting info about morale during the Blitz and plans to enact martial law in case of further riots.

[Bill Garvin]

Originally Posted by wiking

I never said naval blockade. The Luftwaffe never bombed British Western ports consistently for months with large forces, despite having the capability to do so at night, where historically they suffered ultra low losses even bombing Scotland. Wreck the major ports and the Brits cannot import food, fuel, or raw materials. This would of course have to start in July 1940 and forego the Battle of Britain.

With respect, you are grossly overstating the ability to close down ports by bombardment. They're huge, hard to hurt seriously and very easy to repair unless the damage is done up close and personal by skilled demolition teams. To give you some idea of the problems, between 25th August 1958 and 1st October 1958, the Chinese Communists pumped 445,000 artillery shells into Kinmen Island. Not only did they fail to stop any resupply of the Nationalist forces on the Island but the port capacity there actually increased during the bombardment. That's with artillery firing precision barrages at a range of less than three to nine miles. Trying to achieve that using bombers at night simply isn't a practical proposition.

If you want another example, take Kobe after the earthquake there a few years back. Despite being completely flattened, it was back in operation within two days and back to full capacity within three weeks. Or you might try the German ports in WW2; they were never closed down and the Allies were much better at bombing things than the Germans ever were.

Also, without a Battle of Britain, the British RAF will be able to put most of its resources into the night battle. The ability to intercept formations flying to the same targets at long range, night after night won't stay primitive and those losses won't stay low for long

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by wiking

What would it take for Britain to negotiate and accept an unfavorable peace that still left the Empire mostly intact and Britain independent from Nazi domination?

Would the failure of the Dunkirk evacuation be enough?

Would a sustained, effective blockade be enough?

Would the RAF being driven out of Southern England in the Battle of Britain be enough?

Would it have to come to a land invasion to bring Britain to the table?

1) For a single item, a 50-70% reduction in UK imports over at least a 6 month period including the Jan-March Period. Food is the key issue and once the average person is below a starvation diet (1400 calories). Since people who do manual labor eat a lot more calories, they were in the range of 2800-4500 per day back then, so you need at least 50% decrease in exports to even worry about. Then you have to burn through stockpiles an local harvest (why jan-mar is critical). Now the UK can/will help itself by limited luxury food items (tea, fresh fruit, foods with lots of water) and rationing. But it will suffer due to lack of fertilizers.

IMO, the collapse of the UK industrial base would not be enough, nor would merely hungry people unless these conditions went on for more than two years.

2) Dunkirk helps, and could be part of a chain of events. Also would take Vegetarian off the table.

3) A sustained, lesser blockade is enough, but it would be winter of 42/43 before it could hope to win, unless you get very, very high kill rates. Don't even worry about this item until you get over 50% of merchant marine sunk (net lost tonnage) or 50% reduction in imports over 3+ months. You will not be to surrender alone, but you have to start worry about each setback then.

4) No. RAF would eventually return. Now it is part of a possible chain of events.

5) No, UK will make peace before land invasion at least 95% of the time. If you start doing the steps need for an invasion, you will have to defeat the RN and RAF. Once these two events have happened, the UK collapse because of almost no imports. IMO, the RN will send as many ships as needed to break up an invasion, including the very last cruiser, battleship or submarine. In the at least 6 month window need to assemble a credible invasion, you can starve the UK.

Now I would love to see a SeaLion in a TL, even if it does not work properly. Germany might even be better off attempting the operation if its land losses are light enough and the RN losses are high enough. It is a cold calculation, but trading 10 regiments and the German surface fleet for half the RN would be a German advantage.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by Bill Garvin

With respect, you are grossly overstating the ability to close down ports by bombardment. They're huge, hard to hurt seriously and very easy to repair unless the damage is done up close and personal by skilled demolition teams. To give you some idea of the problems, between 25th August 1958 and 1st October 1958, the Chinese Communists pumped 445,000 artillery shells into Kinmen Island. Not only did they fail to stop any resupply of the Nationalist forces on the Island but the port capacity there actually increased during the bombardment. That's with artillery firing precision barrages at a range of less than three to nine miles. Trying to achieve that using bombers at night simply isn't a practical proposition.

If you want another example, take Kobe after the earthquake there a few years back. Despite being completely flattened, it was back in operation within two days and back to full capacity within three weeks. Or you might try the German ports in WW2; they were never closed down and the Allies were much better at bombing things than the Germans ever were.

Also, without a Battle of Britain, the British RAF will be able to put most of its resources into the night battle. The ability to intercept formations flying to the same targets at long range, night after night won't stay primitive and those losses won't stay low for long

Also the Butt Report concluded that only about a third of Bomber command aircraft reached their target in the early part of the war. I can't imagine that the Luftwaffe will be able to do much better and of course they are limited to medium bombers delivering much lesser payloads. And yes if the Germans switch their efforts in such a way the British will doubtless respond; even if their success was limited why should anyone assume that this version of the 'Blitz' will work any better than the OTL one?

[BlondieBC]

Originally Posted by LongVin

3. Italians doing far better and driving deep into Egypt

I don't see this happening, and it is not really the quality of the troops that is the issue, but logistics. A lot of pro-Montgomery stuff pushes the idea the if El Alamein is lost the Germany takes Persia. This is understandable PR.

In reality, as the Italians/Germans do better, there are a lot of additional problems.

The Nile makes a nice defensive line. Even if the Axis take this, they have not reached the Canal which also makes a workable defensive line. Now taking Cairo and Alexandria is a huge win since it means the RN leaves the Eastern Med.

Once this is done, the Axis will have to rebuild the port of Alexandria, and resupply. The UK has two functional ports on the Suez Canal, and troops and supplies from ANZAC will arrive here. So there will have to be another battle for the Suez. Then the north Sinai has a nice defensive line location, and the UK can still supply from Aqaba, Duba, or Jedda with some minor railroad work (under 90 days work.) To cut off Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, the Axis has to drive east of the Dead Sea.

Then there is another set of logistical issues to make it into Iraq.

And the UK will simply divert traffic around South Africa, admittedly at a significant cost in extra transit time for the ships.

[merlin]

I think it needs some earlier changes:

- Churchill killed in a car accident, doesn't press for re-armament, which is delayed,
- lack of funds and priority slows down Radar - Lw are able to bomb where they like with less interference,
- the US is more isolasionist - no Lend-Lease, or destroyer deal,

A Britain, alone, lacking in leadership, vulnerable, and fast becoming broke - is more likely to find a way out.

[von hitchofen]

more/different rotors on the Nazi Enigma/Lorenz machines...perhaps

Lord Halifax in charge, maybe

Lord Rothermere in charge, definitely

British capitulation in WW2 is ASB territory, really

Britain has Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa on its side in 1940-41

Nazi Germany has Italy, Hungary, Rumania

[wiking]

Originally Posted by Bill Garvin

With respect, you are grossly overstating the ability to close down ports by bombardment. They're huge, hard to hurt seriously and very easy to repair unless the damage is done up close and personal by skilled demolition teams. To give you some idea of the problems, between 25th August 1958 and 1st October 1958, the Chinese Communists pumped 445,000 artillery shells into Kinmen Island. Not only did they fail to stop any resupply of the Nationalist forces on the Island but the port capacity there actually increased during the bombardment. That's with artillery firing precision barrages at a range of less than three to nine miles. Trying to achieve that using bombers at night simply isn't a practical proposition.

If you want another example, take Kobe after the earthquake there a few years back. Despite being completely flattened, it was back in operation within two days and back to full capacity within three weeks. Or you might try the German ports in WW2; they were never closed down and the Allies were much better at bombing things than the Germans ever were.

Also, without a Battle of Britain, the British RAF will be able to put most of its resources into the night battle. The ability to intercept formations flying to the same targets at long range, night after night won't stay primitive and those losses won't stay low for long

Bombers carry much more tonnage than artillery shells, unless we're talking the 350mm caliber and above, then its a 1/2 ton shell with 600 lbs HE, and then even the HE111 carried 2 tons worth of bombs with larger percentages of HE to shell container.

Armor penetrating bombs can burrow in concrete and steel and do even more damage, but its the incendiaries like Thermite that causes the most trouble. Historically the British determined that German incendiary bombs caused roughly 10x the damage of HE to steel and concrete.

What caliber of artillery were the Chinese using? I'm betting it wasn't anything above 155mm, which is less than 100lbs of HE per shell. You're not going to hurt much of the concrete and steel with that. And there really aren't thermite artillery shells that I'm aware of; also did the ChiComs have White Phosphorus?

How much effort did the Allies try to put into closing German ports? AFAIK ports were relatively useless to the German war effort as far as production goes, unless we're talking about subpens and the like, which the Allies created the Grand Slam bomb for, which did a damn fine job of knocking out those pens. The US and RAF put most of their efforts into bombing cities and factories, only later switching to infrastructure (rail roads) and oil production. They weren't able to safely bomb Germany reliably until 1944 either by day or night.

But the other issue isn't just the ports. Its getting material off the docks before it can be destroyed. In Liverpool where the greatest import capacity was in 1940-1 and Britain handled 87% of its imports in 1940-1, it didn't have a direct connection between the docks and the rail lines, so required trucks to take imports from the warehouses to the trains. This means that filling the streets with rubble would seriously disrupt the ability of the ports to discharge goods to the trains and distribute it to the rest of the country.
In London they found that delayed action bombs and unexploded ordnance from even single raids took weeks to clear and blocked roads during that time.

Plus there is the matter of the dockworkers, who were, IOTL with the limited bombing of cities like Liverpool, increasingly absent from work because they were 'Trekking' to avoid bombing raids. Increase those raids to several times a week on special targets like Liverpool and finding the men to work the docks is going to get harder and harder, especially as they have no place to live and their families aren't safe in the cities any longer.

As to British night defenses, the Luftwaffe was bombing Britain by night consistently, though not in concentrated formations, from June 1940 through May 1941. By May 1941 the loss rates from all causes, losses to enemy and accidents was only about 1% and there were still major raids that were not being intercepted at all. Considering that the Germans stopped daylight raids, except for small ones, in October the British didn't improve their night defenses enough to inflict even a 1% loss rate on the Luftwaffe after 7 months of sustained night bombing, including after a small firestorm in London on the night of December 29th.

As to precision, the Luftwaffe had developed Radio Navigation and pathfinder formations pre-war, which allowed them to achieve as good of and in some cases better precision (within 100 meters) at night than during the day during the Battle of Britain and beyond.
The British tried to jam the German beams, but even as late as May 1941 the Germans were still able to use X-Gerät without trouble if they took precautions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Blitz

The May blitz

May 1941 saw a renewal of the air assault on the region; a seven night bombardment that devastated the city.[3] The first bomb landed upon Wallasey, Wirral, at 22:15 on 1 May.[4]
The peak of the bombing occurred from 1 – 7 May 1941. It involved 681 Luftwaffe bombers; 2,315 high explosive bombs and 119 other explosives such as incendiaries were dropped. The raids put 69 out of 144 cargo berths out of action and inflicted 2,895 casualties[nb 1] and left many more homeless.

One incident on 3 May involved the SS Malakand, a ship carrying munitions which was berthed in the Huskisson Dock. Although its eventual explosion is often attributed to a burning barrage balloon, this fire was put out. However flames from dock sheds that had been bombed spread to the Malakand, and this fire could not be contained. Despite valiant efforts by the fire brigade to extinguish the flames, they spread to the ship's cargo of 1,000 tons of bombs, which exploded a few hours after raid had ended. The entire Huskisson No. 2 dock and the surrounding quays were destroyed and four people were killed. The explosion was so violent that some pieces of the ship's hull plating were blasted into a park over 1 mile (1.6 km) away. It took seventy-four hours for the fire to burn out.[5]

Bootle, to the north of the city, suffered heavy damage and loss of life.[6] Over 6,500 homes in Liverpool were completely demolished by aerial bombing and a further 190,000 damaged.
[edit]

Originally Posted by Garrison

Also the Butt Report concluded that only about a third of Bomber command aircraft reached their target in the early part of the war. I can't imagine that the Luftwaffe will be able to do much better and of course they are limited to medium bombers delivering much lesser payloads. And yes if the Germans switch their efforts in such a way the British will doubtless respond; even if their success was limited why should anyone assume that this version of the 'Blitz' will work any better than the OTL one?

Yeah, the RAF was much worse at night bombing that the Luftwaffe in 1940-1941. The Germans had radio navigation devices in 1938, which the British only developed in 1942. The Luftwaffe also had pathfinder units ready in 1939 that played a major role in the accuracy of German raids IOTL (within 100 meters with pathfinders and radio guidance).

The British did respond IOTL when the Germans switched to night bombing virtually exclusively in October 1940, though the Luftwaffe had been night bombing since June 1940 over the British Isles and had launched small raids in 1939 at night.
The loss rate between June 1940-May 1941 from all causes during night bombing raids was never much above 1% and mostly even less. This is with Britain pulling resources into airborne interception radar and Beaufighters for the 7 months of the Night Blitz at a high rate and really since 1935 when they started research into nightfighters and airborne radar, before anyone else in the world.

As it was the British were incredibly ineffective until 1943 in their night defenses.

As to why the Germans had a decent shot at night bombing, they didn't really try to concentrate their bombers for missions. Goering kept changing strategies weekly and ordered so many bombing targets that the Luftwaffe was too dispersed to achieve anything. Even London was only sporadically bombed from September 1940-May 1941 and it was the heaviest his city in Britain. Nevertheless the Luftwaffe bombed every major city in Britain, but didn't concentrate against any one for long enough to achieve anything. The British intelligence services were so confused by the dispersed bombing they concluded that the Germans were simply trying to terrorize all of Britain, instead of going after specific targets, as Goering did actually order. He just ordered so many targets that none were actually knocked out. Focus on three main targets for several months and that could have changed:
Liverpool/Merseyside
Avonmouth/Bristol
River Clyde/Glasgow/Clydeside
These port areas handled 95% of all British imports from the Fall of France to the German invasion of Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Blitz

Liverpool, Bootle, and the Wallasey Pool were strategically very important locations during the Second World War. The large port on the River Mersey, on the North West coast of England, had for many years been the United Kingdom's main link with North America, and this would prove to be a key part in the British participation in the Battle of the Atlantic. As well as providing anchorage for naval ships from many nations, the Mersey's ports and dockers would handle over 90 per cent of all the war material brought into Britain from abroad with some 75 million tons passing through its 11 miles (18 km) of quays. Liverpool was the eastern end of a Transatlantic chain of supplies from North America, without which Britain could not have pursued the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz#Night_attacks

Regardless, the Luftwaffe could inflict huge damage. With the German occupation of Western Europe, the intensification of submarine and air attack on Britain's sea communications was feared by the British. Such an event would have serious consequences on the future course of the war, should the Germans succeed. Liverpool and its port became an important port for convoys heading through the Western Approaches from North America, bringing supplies and materials. The considerable rail network distributed to the rest of the country.[122] Operations against Liverpool were successful. Around 75% of the ports capacity was reduced at one point, and it lost 39,126 long tons (39,754 t) of shipping to air attacks, with another 111,601 long tons (113,392 t) damaged. Minister of Home Security Herbert Morrison was also worried morale was breaking, noting the defeatism expressed by civilians.[121] Other sources point to half of the 144 berths rendered unusable, while cargo unloading capability was reduced by 75%. The roads and rails were blocked and ships could not leave harbour. On 8 May 1941, 57 ships were destroyed, sunk or damaged amounting to 80,000 long tons (81,000 t). Around 66,000 houses were destroyed, 77,000 people made homeless, and 1,900 people killed and 1,450 seriously hurt on one night.[123] Operations against London up until May 1941 could also have a severe impact on morale. The populace of the port of Hull became 'trekkers', a term used to describe the mass exodus of people from cities before, during, and after attacks.[121]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestorm

Sir Arthur Harris, the officer commanding RAF Bomber Command from 1942 through to the end of the war in Europe, pointed in his post war analysis, although many attempts were made to create deliberate man made firestorms during World War II few attempts succeed:
"The Germans again and again missed their chance, ... of setting our cities ablaze by a concentrated attack. Coventry was adequately concentrated in point of space, but all the same there was little concentration in point of time, and nothing like the fire tornadoes of Hamburg or Dresden ever occurred in this country. But they did do us enough damage to teach us the principle of concentration, the principle of starting so many fires at the same time that no fire fighting services, however efficiently and quickly they were reinforced by the fire brigades of other towns could get them under control."

[LongVin]

Originally Posted by Garrison

How many do you think there were when the Western Desert Force crushed the Italians? Here's the relevant Wiki page:

Operation Compass

Correction noted. I thought there were more troops in Egypt by the time the Italians launched their invasion.