The Blitz and Revolution

I was reading a review of a new book on the Blitz recently, and this bit caught my eye, especially the Attlee quote:

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If authorities had wildly miscalculated the number of fatalities, they had correctly estimated the number of houses that bombs would render uninhabitable. For every person killed, 35 were “bombed out.” One in six Londoners would be made homeless at some point during the Blitz; although few houses were destroyed, repairmen couldn’t nearly keep up with the rate of damage. The greatest problem that confronted Londoners and the authorities charged with their welfare wasn’t shelter from the bombs—the image of Tube stations crammed with plucky cockneys singing “Roll Out the Barrel” may dominate the public imagination, but in fact even at the height of the Blitz only one in seven Londoners used the public shelters— but homelessness. That the Luftwaffe concentrated its attacks for the first several days of the Blitz almost exclusively on the militarily legitimate target of the East End docklands enormously exacerbated the potentially disastrous consequences of homelessness. The poor and working-class neighborhoods there—dense, flimsily built, and badly governed—engendered tens of thousands of confused, angry, near- hysterical bombing victims. Every subsequent analysis confirms the government’s internal intelligence assessment at the time: during the first week of the Blitz, parts of the East End came perilously close to a breakdown of public authority and to mass panic.

Once again, Germany’s mercurial bombing strategy delivered the British. After six days, the Luftwaffe extended its range of targets to include the heavily residential and prosperous West End. Although the Germans made the change in part to intensify the coercion of the city’s population, its effect was exactly the opposite. The shift somewhat relieved the East End from intense bombing, which bought the authorities time to establish systems to aid the bombed-out. More important, the Germans mended the socially corrosive rift their initial strategy had (unintentionally, if usefully) created between London’s poor and bombed and its rich and safe. As Clement Attlee, the deputy prime minister and Labour Party leader, told Nicolson, “If only the Germans had had the sense not to bomb west of London Bridge there might have been a revolution in this country.” After Buckingham Palace was bombed on September 13, the queen declared: “I’m glad we’ve been bombed. Now I feel we can look the East End in the face.”

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http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200804/britain-blitz

My knowledge of the Blitz and the Battle of Britain is pretty minimal, but have others read the same thing? I've always thought of strategic bombing/Douhetism as BS, but does this example suggest it's viable if it can exploit internal divisions in a country?

arguing that had the Germans bombed the radar stations, then they would have won the Battle of Britain, had the Germans bombed the airfields more often, England would have collapsed, had the Germans bombed the cities more, the British would have surrendered. The argument, it seems, is that had the Germans done virtually anything other than particularly what they had done, they would have won.

And perhaps they are right. It is theoretically possible that a sufficiently effective bombing campaign, a sufficiently terrifying bombing campaign, would convince the enemy country to surrender. Yet it's difficult to imagine how the Allies could have bombed more terrifyingly than they did in Dresden, but it still required ground troops to end the war. It's difficult to imagine how the Germans could have bombed more effectively than in Spain, yet they needed troops to win. Off the top of my head, the only example where bombing did succeed in convincing the enemy to surrender was Japan. Theoretically, I think they're right that it is possible to end a war with strategic bombing, but it is so difficult a task, that barring luck or the overwhelming firepower that is the nuclear bomb (not even firebombing or napalm succeeded), it can be largely ignored

I have heard references to Atlee's point before, although never the exact words or date. I do recall reading many years ago, no do not ask where, that the bombing of Southampton, a major port, led to a breakdown of law and order, so much so that the military were nearly called in. This suggests the impact of Luftwaffe bombing was not limited to London.

davidbfpo

You also have to put Atlee's comments in the context of their times. There was a very real fear (brought on by some of the reactions to aerial bombardment during World war I and the writings of Douhet et.al.) that air power could easily break the will of the people to continue fighting. That fear played into the hands of those who also wanted to see social breakdown just around the corner (another outgrowth of WW I and the Bolshevik coup in Russia...not to mention the virtual anarchy that played out in Germany).

Was it likely that German attacks on population centers could bring about the result feared by Atlee? No. There are far too many counter-examples out there (Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo). But was his fear real given the context of his times (in other words...was it real to him)? Sure. No one knew what air power could or couldn't do in 1940.

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Originally Posted by Steve Blair

You also have to put Atlee's comments in the context of their times. There was a very real fear (brought on by some of the reactions to aerial bombardment during World war I and the writings of Douhet et.al.) that air power could easily break the will of the people to continue fighting. That fear played into the hands of those who also wanted to see social breakdown just around the corner (another outgrowth of WW I and the Bolshevik coup in Russia...not to mention the virtual anarchy that played out in Germany).

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Sure, although those fears were much higher in the Twenties (especially in Britain, were Sir Henry Wilson and many other soldiers and politicians thought revolution was right around the corner).

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Was it likely that German attacks on population centers could bring about the result feared by Atlee? No. There are far too many counter-examples out there (Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo). But was his fear real given the context of his times (in other words...was it real to him)? Sure. No one knew what air power could or couldn't do in 1940.

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Yes, that's what I found interesting about this, that it runs counter to every other example of strategic bombing, which seems to strengthen the will of the bombed nation. But both Germany and Japan, I would think, had a more homogeneous and unified population, partly due to totalitarianism.

The reviewer did say something along the lines of "every evaluation at the time found that a serious breakdown in public order in the East End was only narrowly averted." It's this attempt (completely unconsciously by the Germans) to use strategic bombing to exploit pre-existing social divisions that stands out. It would make for great counter-factual history if nothing else.

The Blitz did little to facilitate potential German invasion. By May 1941, the imminent threat of an invasion of Britain had passed and Hitler's attention was focused on the east. While the Germans never again managed to bomb Britain on such a large scale, they carried out smaller attacks throughout the war, taking the civilian death toll to 51,509 from bombing. In 1944, the development of pilotless V-1 flying bombs and V-2 rockets briefly enabled Germany to again attack London with weapons launched from the European continent.


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Without the pre-existing social division, nothing would have happened from the bombing. So I think this says more about the social conditions in the UK at the time than it does the efficacy of bombing campaigns.

I think most of the serious Operational Analysts have looked at this and conclude that the Luftwaffe did not need to gain air superiority for an invasion. It seems far more likely that it was one of Goerings "isms" or opinions.

The Luftwaffe was very serious about sinking the British Home Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow, but did not think it could be done, as it was out of dive bomber range at it lacked an effective torpedo bomber. The Germans were not that confident about trying to sink surface platforms from level bombing. The only real option was dive bomber attack Ju-88, and that was far less accurate than Ju-87. IIRC, in 1940, the only Luftwaffe torpedo bomber was the Heinkel 115.

All in all the technical development of the Luftwaffe prior to 1939/40 indicates they did not take air power, that seriously. As the historian Ted Hooten noted, "it was like children playing marbles with diamonds!"

My recollection of what I've read over the years on this was that the German air attacks on military/industrial targets in England were beginning to have serious effects, while the British night bombing campaigns of similar targets less so. So a concious decsion was made be the Brits to start bombing German cities in the hope that the Germans would reciprocate and shift their focus to the cities as well. So the Brits bombed Berlin, and the Germans responded as they hoped, taking the pressure off of critical military targets in England. If this is true, then it seems the Brits were not too worried about any uprising among their populace, and I have never seen or read anything that would indicate that the British populace was anything but united in the effort to preserve England and avoid falling under German control.

First Brit attack on Berlin, though fairly minor, was 25 Aug 1940. On 5 Sep Hitler gave the order to begin attacking British cities. Prior to that shift they were having significant impact on military targets. Does not prove that this was a concious British strategy, but the dates do support the theory.