Across Britain, the Luftwaffe continued to pound British industry and harbours. Wehrmacht troops marched across the land and the Kriegsmarine escorted dangerously vulnerable convoys to the all-important ports of Dover and Grimsby. The German advance had stalled for the better part of December and early January, but now at last they were starting to make some headway. British Command assured Australian commanders that the North would hold against a German advance in spite of limited manpower to face them. Citizens and police across Yorkshire were deliberately attempting to confuse invaders by swapping sign posts or removing them outright, giving false directions and generally remaining noncooperative with the occupying forces. Although this worked, it did not have nearly the impact that the late January rains did. A mighty rainstorm crashed into the British Isles, turning roads and fields into muddy quagmires that bogged down the German advance. The port facilities of Kingston-upon-Hull were the prime objective of German Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, but he was two days late arriving at the River Basin which was in the midst of heavy flooding. It was too dangerous to descend into the flooded river valley and so the advance was called off until such time as the waters receded. Britain's weather had bought her time, but the war was not won just yet.
ANZAC troops make early moves towards Portsmouth, attempting to secure the city from an onrushing advance of German troops.
With their flank assured as secure, the ANZAC Corps in Britain advanced on the city of Portsmouth, hoping to stall a German advance. The rains here were not so devastating, though, and it seemed inevitable that Britain would suffer a fateful defeat. Despite constant urges to hold their ground, the British commander of the Portsmouth garrison surrendered on the morning of the 17th. New Zealand troops would meet heavy resistance that afternoon around northern Hampshire as German tanks turned north to meet the advancing colonials. Without an abundance of heavy firepower it would be difficult for the New Zealand infantry to face up to the German Armour.
NZ infantry and German armour clash once again in Hampshire. Australian cavalry move to support but struggle without heavy artillery or anti-tank support.
Several probing thrusts would be made by the rapidly moving Australian cavalry, who took back Winchester from a German infantry battalion and forced a victory over German armour at Basingstoke. This would not be enough, however, as reinforcements continued to pile in from the east and the advance ground to a halt. The Germans were already landing ships at the newly secured harbour in Portsmouth and desperately needed supplies were being distributed to the troops. Hitler's decision to allow Guderian more strategic control had paid off as the Wehrmacht was now able to put her full firepower to bear against the enemy. ANZAC forces in Hampshire outnumbered their German opposition, but this would not be enough to dislodge them quickly.
German troops continue to break out from their initial beachhead in Lincolnshire, dominating both banks of the River Humber and pushing south with relative ease.
Despite the flooding that had overtaken the North of England, German troops continued to make advances, crossing the River Humber into Southern Yorkshire and advancing south to increase pressure on the London defenses. Hitler was adamant that the landings should focus on supporting the capture of London, but permitted Guderian to designate troops for advance into Yorkshire, Northumberland and Lancashire. This would not prove as easy as Hitler believed it would be as fast-moving British forces began to cut off any quick mode of advance into the British industrial heartland.
Portsmouth was declared a lost cause - ANZAC forces were to withdraw to Liverpool to regroup and redeploy before the floods ceased and permitted easy movement into Yorkshire.
The advance into Hampshire was called off as German resistance continued to increase and casualties mounted. With no quick victory in sight and a potential collapse in London due to northern pressure, British Command agreed that the best thing ANZAC troops could do was to cut off any German advance along the River Hull. As Germans moved to take the flooded city, they came under heavy air attack by the RAF and were unable to make any real advance by day. By night movement was slow and treacherous and this kept them relatively pinned down. Nonetheless, this would eventually change and boots on the ground were required to prevent Britain from losing her only real fall-back territory. Every available working train, truck and car was scrounged up in the area and set to transport the bulk of the ANZAC Corps to Liverpool, where preparations were already underway to transfer them east to Yorkshire. The operation would take as many as three days to complete, but it was hoped that they would have enough time to get into position before the Germans could strike out.
Troops rapidly retreat from their positions across London and the River Thames.
Perhaps the troops would have been better spent reinforcing the Imperial capital - or perhaps it was already too late. Multiple crossings of the River Thames combined with armoured incursions from the north and east were taking a heavy toll on Allied defenders. As a light armoured division swung west, the city was rapidly in danger of being cut off. Countless thousands of Allied troops began to abandon the city as they realized the position was untenable. London was about to fall.
The trap was closed - countless Allied defenders of all nationalities were trapped here in London, unable to escape.
Few Allied defenders escaped London before the roads to the northwest were completely cut off. Devoid of supplies and reinforcements and consisting of armed citizenry and the Home Guard as much as the professional soldiery, the City of London would mount a brave but ultimately futile defense. They were outnumbered and outgunned by a superior German force and multiple counterattacks against the encirclement failed to cause any real harm to the Reich's forces, who were gaining momentum.
St. Paul's Cathedral is lit up by the flames of the City; although it is not immediately obvious, this photograph was taken just one street from the front lines where house-to-house fighting was becoming intense and destructive.
London defenders could not continue to maintain resistance against this kind of pressure and on the morning of January 20th, Westminster fell. The government had for the most part long since evacuated with only a few stubborn holdouts left in the city, mostly far right sympathizers who believed Hitler's fascist regime would do them no harm. The entire British leadership was in chaos and the military was the only force who had any kind of authority or organization left as the civilian government fled north. The old city was now in German hands and it seemed little would stop the rest from collapsing.
January 21st, Palermo falls into Italian hands. Australian presence in the Mediterranean is almost completely gone.
Australian commanders are forced to listen to Italian news broadcasts announcing the liberation of Palermo without a shot fired. It is a painful pill to swallow, but worse still would be letting Britain fall without a fight. Bingham-White insisted that he would one day return to this theater and face the Italians once again, and boldly claimed that next time "Australia would march into Rome as victors, no matter the odds."
London's last defenders gave in as the city could take no more punishment.
Just one hour after Palermo fell back into Italian hands, the news broke across the world that over 120,000 Allied troops had surrendered in the City of London. Low on food and munitions and without hope of victory, this was seen as the greatest defeat in the history of the British Empire. As the Reich's flag was hoisted over Westminster Palace, it is said that Hitler himself was flown in to tour the newly conquered city, which was by now well behind the front lines. Guderian's master plan had worked - the Werhmacht, unbeknownst to the Allies, had lost vast quantities of supplies invading the city. With the landings at Grimsby and the capture of Hampshire, vast quantities of supplies were able to be shipped in under the escort of the Toulousian French Navy.
The collapse of the British Empire was growing closer and closer by the moment. The loss of London was a devastating blow to morale across the world and the Allies began to doubt their chances of victory. So much blood had already been lost and although the British Army's Generals insisted they could still win, the hopelessness of the situation was increasing by the moment. Bingham-White also believed the Germans could be defeated, but many of his lesser colleagues doubted this and Allied Command became wrought with arguments about whether to stay or withdraw. The confusion alone would serve Germany well as she redistributed supplies and prepared to advance north and west into the Island Nation's vulnerable interior. Hitler called for a surrender from the British, but Churchill remained defiant and sent no response.
Coventry Cathedral is a devastated reminder of the power of the Luftwaffe's bombers.
On January 25th, Hitler's calls for a surrender from the British had not been heeded and he decided that enough was enough. The Werhmacht was ordered to advance along all fronts, rapidly seizing the city of Kingston-upon-Hull and breaking through most of Britain's defensive lines with relative ease. The back of Allied resistance had been broken at London and the United Kingdom was no longer in fighting shape. To encourage the citizens of the Empire to surrender, he ordered Göring to organize the first "terror bombing", ordering the city of Coventry to be destroyed by his air force. The RAF was unprepared for the sheer scale of the attack and 315 German bombers destroyed most of Coventry's interior over the course of the night.
British troops sift through the ruins of Bradford, astonished at the raw firepower that the Luftwaffe had brought to bear against them.
It was becoming clear that the Germans had increasing control of the skies over England - RAF resistance was weakening and the RAAF alone could barely handle this kind of front with barely 250 fighters and less than 100 remaining bombers at her disposal. The Luftwaffe could bring ten times that to the fight, the pressure was too much. When no surrender was forthcoming, Hitler again struck as Göring's bombers penetrated an RAAF screen to annihilate the centre of the town of Bradford. In a translated broadcast, Hitler warned the British people that failure to surrender could lead to their ultimate destruction, but he also plead that they save themselves. In an impassioned speech, he called the British people out to lay down arms, describing their battle as a 'Brother's War' and that the British had fought well and fulfilled the obligations of their alliance. The time for fighting was over.
Hitler's peacemaking attempts had little impact in the Far East, where Australian forces were effortlessly overrunning the Axis forces.
ANZAC would learn of the destructive power of the Luftwaffe, but that would not stop them from fighting. As Britain's will to fight wavered and they contemplated their fate, Australian troops under Major General Vernon Sturdee were making an excellent offensive north into the Kra Isthmus. Under his direct command, Australian infantry overran and forced the surrender of over 8,000 Thai infantry just south of the Isthmus, and on his advice the New Zealand cavalry would swing around side routes and cut off the retreat of a further 11,000 Thai troops, resulting in countless more prisoners of war. They would also cut off the retreat of a division of demoralized Indochinese press-ganged into the war by their Japanese overlords. As New Zealand infantry and Australian Mk Vs moved to deal with the nagging Indochinese threat, Sturdee's advance into Siam continued without real obstacle. His great success so far had impressed Allied brass and his exploits were becoming well known back home - if his success continued, promotion would not be far off for the talented General.
The first brigade of German paratroopers finishes training near the city of München. Hitler ponders where to use his new weapon first.
Although the news seems unimportant in the light of the war's intensity, word reaches the British Intelligence cells still inside Germany that the Wehrmacht had been expanding its arsenal of weaponry to include well-trained airborne infantry, who would parachute onto targets from above. Sporting high casualty risks and a confusing and difficult job, only the bravest or most foolish men volunteered for these new positions with the Fallschirmjäger and only the most capable of those made it through the tough training regimen. Hitler was eager to put his new forces to the test, but the question was where...
ANZAC would not surrender so easily. Troops move into position in Yorkshire to blunt the German offensive.
Even as German troops marched across the open fields of Yorkshire, they were oblivious to the rapidly moving ANZAC Corps. It wasn't until they blundered into the first hastily-assembled defence lines that they realized they had been cut off by Allied troops and an intense battle erupted east of Sheffield. Hundreds of Germans were cut down by entrenched machine guns with few losses on the Allied side, forcing the Germans to fall back short of their goal. Sheffield was one of the world's largest steel manufacturing facilities if not the largest - losing it would result in the complete collapse of British industry in the homeland. General Robertson, first to arrive on the scene, was prepared to sacrifice as many men as necessary to preserve the industry of the city for another fight.
ANZAC forces, having won the initial defensive battles, begin to push back.
Reinforced by three divisions of Australian infantry and their heavy guns, Field Marshal Cyril Bingham-White hatched a plan to cut off and destroy the German beachhead, starting with a daring counterattack on the River. Although his plan was criticized for lacking the condensed force necessary to crack the Germans completely, the initial assaults showed some success at pushing the Werhmacht back. In just six days of fighting, Jerry was forced to concede twenty-five miles of ground and was in danger of being pushed back into Lincolnshire should the Australian offensive continue. If the Australians could add some surgical precision to their pressure, the Field Marshal's plan might yet work after all.
Britain was beginning to collapse under the pressure of the German assault.
Multiple mechanized breakthroughs were being staged across Britain. It was here that Hitler hoped to put his new airborne men to the test, but Guderian heavily advised against it. British reserves were believed strong enough to defy any airborne landings and the force would be at risk of being cut off if it were used too soon or too ambitiously. Although the Führer was displeased to hear this, Von Manstein supported the front-line commander in this matter and Guderian promised him that he would find a way to use the Fallschirmjäger at a more appropriate time. Somewhat reluctantly, Hitler agreed to this and instead repeated his calls for the British to surrender to the Reich and spare itself further defeats.
News broke on February 6th - Photographs were published on both sides of the border just hours apart revealing the Führer meeting with the Duke of Windsor and his wife in the city of Paris.
Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, former Prince of Wales, once King of England and Emperor of India; since his scandalous abdication of the Throne several years ago, Edward had managed to keep himself mostly out of public light, largely due to the attempts by the British government to bury him. They were displeased with his interventionist nature as King and further displeased by his attempts to shatter the unity of the country by maintaining such friendly relations with the Germans. When the Battle of Britain began, he was declared missing as he could not be found following the evacuation of notable officials to Scotland and Canada - it was not until February 6th that Edward's location was revealed to be Paris. German press releases announced that Edward was negotiating a peace settlement along with a coalition of right-wing politicians who had, voluntarily or not, been brought to Paris. If Churchill would not surrender Britain, then the Führer would simply take matters into his own hands...
January 17th-February 6th
Royal Australian Army:
3,159 Soldiers killed in action
Royal Australian Navy:
1 Merchant ship sunk
Royal Australian Air Force:
5x Supermarine Spitfires fighters lost
22x Hawker Hurricanes fighters lost
10x Short Sunderlands patrol bombers lost
14x Fairey Battle light bombers lost
German Wehrmacht:
3,210 Soldiers killed in action
German Kriegsmarine:
2 Merchant ships sunk
German Luftwaffe:
21x Messerschmitt Bf109 fighters lost
13x Heinkel He 111 medium bombers lost
Royal Thai Army:
2,178 Soldiers killed in action
19,212 Soldiers captured
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