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An account of the Allied defeat in Norway
The document isan account of the Allied defeat in Norway, owing to what is known as the PhonyWar phase of World War II (WWII) wherein Britain and France went on the defense instead of engaging the Germans on the Western front. The document alsooutlines the now-reviled outcome of the European policy of German appeasementin the skirmishes leading up to the war. It details the failure of the infamousBritish Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in curbing German aggression,especially after the Allied loss of Scandinavia in the 1940s. The voice of thedocument's author is one that was far too muted in the onset of the war; itlaments Europe and Britain's underestimation of German capabilities and thesituation on the ground.
Following the invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939, most of the Allied forces were slow to react. Britain and France were the only two nations in Western Europe to attack Germany right away; theSoviets had actually gone as far as to sign a treaty of non-aggression with theNazis, welcomed by Hitler as a means of consolidating the war into a singleEuropean front. European general appeasement of Germany was shocking; even theScandinavians who would later fall under the flag of the swastika did notventure to defend themselves. With the exception of what would become thedominated Norwegian armies, Scandinavia fell despite British and French aide.European inaction and failure to mobilize cost the Allies dearly, with Germany easily able to repel the French and send the Allied forces reeling. The reluctanceof Europeans to answer the call to war was lamented by scholars throughout thecontinent, but was accentuated by the fact that none of the countries attemptedto stop Germany until the Nazis came within striking distance. The British wereespecially awed by German military prowess as most of the German conquests wereby land and air, avoiding the powerful British navy.
The document's speaker isharshly critical of what it perceived as European self-obstruction, pointingtowards the British Prime Minister's attempts to control the damage done to hisreputation. Defending the outcome of the German sacking of Scandinavia, theBritish Prime Minister gave a reasoned argumentative case for failure, citingheavy German losses as a sort of ironic victory in defeat. The speaker firstchides the Prime Minister as wars are not won by explanation of an event butrather decisive and swift action. Lamenting the talks in which Europe took part, the speaker's voice is harshly critical of the Prime Minister's toutingof a victory that was not, in his/her eyes, significant in the least. TheScandinavian front was the last in which Britain could effectively makesignificant use of its Navy, its most powerful military branch. The documentcontinues to call for a swift change in government as wartime leaders are notgood in peace and vice versa. The speaker claims that the duty of thegovernment is to exhibit the kind of leadership necessary to win a warrather than simply deconstruct why it failed. While the speaker is assured thatprocrastination is a virtue in politics, he argues that peacetime lawmakersdo not understand its damning effect in war.
The document is a remarkablyreliable historical source as it goes into the foreign policy aspect of WWII,which is largely ignored in most historical accounts of the war that involvesignificant military victories or successful rebellions. The disgust thespeaker has for the appeasement policies of his own government, in addition tothe inability exhibited by the Prime Minister once he actually assumed amilitary state was an insurmountable affront to the war effort and the desireof peace throughout the land. Document A is also important is it predicates theascension of Churchill to a combination of both military and politicalfailures.
The document is perhaps themore important to the student of history than the other two, for the specificreason that it touches on so many different dimensions of history, from themilitary to that of the political and the greater good. Not only does documentdeconstruct the military inefficacies in the first part of the war, but it alsoshows the pivotal point of British victory to the instatement of a more hawkishadministration than that of the appeasement-endorsing Chamberlain leadership.
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