A Successful Sealion

A Successful Sealion

Point Of Divergence is an amateur press magazine and also a forum for discussing AH and AH-related ideas. Here is my comment section.

We had a recent discussion in POD, the alternate history magazine, about what it would have taken for the Germans to have knocked Great Britain out of the war in the summer of 1940. I want to start out by saying that even given the most favorable combinations of circumstances a successful German invasion of Great Britain was unlikely. A negotiated peace that left Britain weak and susceptible to German domination was somewhat more likely.

One of the other members of POD suggested that if Winston Churchill had been killed rather than injured in an incident in the early 1930s a successful German invasion might have been possible.

As I said, it would take a lot to get a successful Sealion. Not having Churchill around would help the Germans quite a bit. He added a backbone to the British government that it otherwise conspicuously lacked.

Let's put together the most German-favorable set of conditions for early summer 1940 that might have resulted from no Churchill, and then see if they could have been enough for the Germans to knock Great Britain out of the war in some way.

The German Fleet In Working Order: The German fleet was no match for the British Fleet in any case, but in the early summer of 1940 it was of very little consequence becaise it had been battered by the Royal Navy during the German invasion of Norway. The British lost heavily during that campaign too, but they could easily absorb losses that essentially eliminated the German surface fleet as a factor. To keep the German fleet relatively intact for SeaLion the German invasion of Norway would have to be delayed or eliminated. If that a reasonable consequence of no Churchill? Possibly. The German navy had its own reasons for wanting to invade Norway, but Churchill was pushing for a British occupation of Norway and several aggressive British actions in the area helped push the Germans into invading when they did.

If the Norway invasion had been postponed until after the invasion of France, it might not have happened, or Norway might have decided that they had no choice but to allow a German occupation. No Norway invasion would have meant that the German navy would have been in much better shape for Sealion

The German Airborne Forces Ready to Operate: While most historians picture the Netherlands as a minor speedbump in the battle for France, the Dutch fought pretty hard during the five days they were in the war. They caused very high casualties in the German airbonne forces, essentially removing them from the German order of battle until they could be rebuilt.

So is there anything in Churchill being out of the picture that would have kept the German airborne forces from being chewed up? Maybe, sort of, indirectly. No Norway invasion would have meant that the invasion of Holland would have been the first large-scale use of airborne forces in history rather than the second. That probably would have meant that German airborne forces got less chewed up in Holland, and they might have succeeded in their attempt at a decapitating strike at the Dutch government.
A German Invasion Plan Ready to go: The Germans didn't have an invasion plan for Britain ready to go after they took France. They had a limited amount of time--essentially until the end of September at the very latest--to launch an invasion. After that, weather conditions in the Channel made an invasion impossible. If they had a plan for invading Britain before the Battle of France started, even if it was just for a large-scale diversionary raid as a contingency plan in case they were able to take Belgium and Holland but not knock France out of the war that would help. The Germans got a very late start on planning and organizing Sealion.

That still wouldn't be enough for a successful Sealion. Chamberlain would have had to make some crucial mistakes.

Losing the Bulk of the BEF at or before Dunkirk. So how could Chamberlain have lost the bulk of the BEF during the Battle of France? Chamberlain wasn't the inspirational leader Churchill was. He might not have been able to inspire the small ship portion of the Dunkirk evacuation. That was a bottom-up type of thing to a large extent though, so I'm not sure he would have as much influence on that as he would need to have. More likely: he might push British commanders to follow through on French plans to try to cut through the 'panzer corridor' cutting Allied forces in Beligium off. If he kept up that effort long enough he might end up with the BEF cut off from the channel. Also, if Holland fell more quickly the Germans might use the forces there to cut through Belgium more quickly. I'm not sure what impact that would have. If the British lost the trained men of the BEF along with their weapons they would be much more vulnerable for much longer than they were historically. It takes longer to replace men than to replace weapons.

Losing More of the Royal Airforce in France: Another key potential mistake might have been losing more of the RAF fighters in the Battle of France. Historically the British kept 600 fighters for home defense after Dunkirk at a time when the French desperately needed air support. How might some of those planes been frittered away? Well Chamberlain might have sent more planes to France in the aftermath of Dunkirk. The French pleaded with the British to do so. Maybe Chamberlain wouldn't have resisted those demands. If another couple of hundred RAF planes got shot down in France and many of those pilots were lost, the Battle of Britain would get much harder for the British.

I'm not sure how likely that would be. Chamberlain did a lot of things that hurt the Allies in the runup to World War II, but a lot of his actions were motivated by fear of what German planes would do to Britain in case of war. He probably wouldn't risk those planes for an already defeated France. He might risk some of them if the British Expeditionary force was trapped in Belgium, but still had a chance to break out to the coast, or break through south to the part of France not yet occupied by the Germans.
Losing the Secrets of Ultra and/or of Radar: If the Germans bagged the bulk of the BEF, they might catch someone with knowledge of Ultra or inside knowledge of radar. If they got one or both of those secrets the Germans would gain a major advantage. Ultra gave the British insights into German preparations for SeaLion, which showed them that the Germans weren't really prepared for an invasion. That gave Churchill confidence that he didn't have to sue for peace in the summer of 1940.

Radar was a force multiplier that allowed the British to always meet the German bomber streams, and avoid getting caught on the ground. If the Germans had understood the importance and limitations of British radar they could have gone after the radar stations more vigorously. The Germans might also have figured out how to spoof British radar with chaff. The British figured out how to use that against German radar a few years later.

Given all of this, there are two possibilities for a German victory: First, under Chamberlain the British might have tried negotiating with Germany in late June 1940 and ended up with another Munich-style fiasco. The Germans wouldn't actually have to invade or even have the capacity to invade if the British leadership thought that they did and were willing to accept a German-imposed peace. The problem with that scenario is that the British knew after Munich that Germany under Hitler woudn't necessarily keep its word. Any paper promises the Germans made would be worthless. That means that the British would only negotiate if they felt they had no other choice.

Second, the British could try to hold out and get invaded. Even with all of the advantages I've given the Germans over the historical situation, that wouldn't be easy. With radar less effective and with few planes and pilots at the start, would the RAF still be able to hold out? A lot would depend on the Germans. It's possibility (actually likely) that under Chamberlain the British wouldn't bomb Berlin and divert the Luftwaffe toward city bombing. The British always had the option of withdrawing their fighters beyond the range of the Luftwaffe if the attrition got too bad, but that would leave British industry, dock facilities, and military installations open to German air attack. An important aspect of that: it would allow the Germans to use their dive-bombers, which were devastatingly accurate against point targets (some sources claim up to ten times the accuracy), but extremely vulnerable to fighters.

Given the most German-favorable permutations of all of that, Sealion would still be very difficult for them to pull off. I would say that a British loss of nerve in late June of 1940 is the more likely scenario. If so, where would things go from there? What would Hitler demand? How would the US react? How would Japan, Spain, the Soviet Union, and the various nationalist groups in the British empire react? How would Britain react when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, which they almost certainly would? Would the Germans go on to defeat the Soviets and then gradually chip away at whatever remained of British independence? Kind of a grim scenario, frankly.

Revised on Feb 4, 2012.

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