Unable to face the British with cruisers and battleships, Nazi Germany began mass-producing U-Boats. Britain was relying heavily on imported goods, and a lot came from Canada and the USA. During World War II, the allied shipping suffered high losses due to German submarine attacks.
They lacked spares and equipment, and very few crews had been trained to fight with them. The campaign in France in 1940 quickly revealed how ill-equipped Britain's tank force was. The cruisers and light tanks lacked the armour to withstand German anti-tank guns.
The First and Second World Wars
Both wars left Britain weakened and less interested in its empire. Although Great Britain emerged as one of the victors of World War II, it had been economically devastated by the conflict. The British Empire gradually gave way to the Commonwealth.
During the early war years, mainly from 1940 to 1942, the British Army suffered defeat in almost every theatre of war in which it was deployed. But, from late 1942 onwards, starting with the Second Battle of El Alamein, the British Army's fortunes changed and it rarely suffered another defeat.
In 1939 the British Empire and the Commonwealth together comprised a global power, with direct or de facto political and economic control of 25% of the world's population, and of 30% of its land mass.
Though far weaker and poorer than the mighty United States or the British Empire, China played a major role in the war. Some 40,000 Chinese soldiers fought in Burma alongside American and British troops in 1944, helping to secure the Stilwell Road linking Lashio to Assam in India.
In September 1939 the Allies, namely Great Britain, France, and Poland, were together superior in industrial resources, population, and military manpower, but the German military, or Wehrmacht, because of its armament, training, doctrine, discipline, and fighting spirit, was the most efficient and effective fighting ...
In 1942, around 100,000 British and Australian troops surrendered to Japan in Singapore despite having a much larger army. Japanese forces took advantage of good intel and poor command on the British side, securing an easy win in what would be remembered as one of the most humiliating defeats in British military ...
No surrender
But to Germany's surprise, Britain, although apparently defeated and certainly painfully exposed and isolated, did not surrender. It did not even seek to come to terms with Germany.
The most probable reason was that the German Army had overstretched its supply lines. The Germans did not have substantial resources to fight an urban battle against thousands of British and French troops.
British Empire could not colonize China because of following reasons. China was too big, and populous. British Empire did not have enough power and troops to conquer a nation of 300–400 million people.
Like the Romans, the British fought a variety of enemies. They also had the distinction of being defeated by a variety of enemies, including Americans, Russians, French, Native Americans, Africans, Afghans, Japanese and Germans. Even in defeat, there is something glorious in losing to so many different foes.
The Suez Crisis of 1956 is considered by some commentators to be the beginning of the end of Britain's period as a superpower, but other commentators have pointed to World War I, the Depression of 1920-21, the Partition of Ireland, the return of the pound sterling to the gold standard at its prewar parity in 1925, the ...
Second World War
Although the Japanese invasion force was half of the size of the defending force, Japanese air attacks on the city and lack of water proved decisive. Prime Minister Winston Churchill considered it to be the worst defeat in British military history. Battle of Midway (1942).
In either case, with Britain defeated, American entry into the war against Germany would have become even less likely and German forces would have been free to throw more resources into the invasion of the Soviet Union, perhaps leading to a different outcome in that theatre.
Germany's failure to defeat the RAF and secure control of the skies over southern England made invasion all but impossible. British victory in the Battle of Britain was decisive, but ultimately defensive in nature – in avoiding defeat, Britain secured one of its most significant victories of the Second World War.
Hitler's air force could have won a pivotal World War II battle if it had attacked earlier and changed tactics, a study says. Between May and October 1940, the German Luftwaffe fought British-led fighter pilots – including Australians – over the skies of southern England in the Battle of Britain.
If there had been no lend-lease, then the UK would have lost the war. In 1941-2 we started to lose shipping to U boats faster than we could build them so we would eventually have brought to starvation without the US Liberty ships. Our tank production was lower than Germany's and the quality was appalling.
Operation Sea Lion, also written as Operation Sealion (German: Unternehmen Seelöwe), was Nazi Germany's code name for the plan for an invasion of the United Kingdom during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War.
According to historian Niall Ferguson, France is the most successful military power in history.
In the summer of 1940, the Germans defeated France and drove the British out of Western Europe. Hitler had quickly accomplished what his First World War predecessors had failed to do in four years.
Did the French win the Hundred Years' War? Yes, the French eventually won the Hundred Years' War. Following their defeat at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French soon recovered and won several battles and finally fully defeated the English at the Battle of Castillon in 1453.
Between December 1941 and August 1945, British Commonwealth troops and their allies fought a bitter war against the Japanese in Asia. The fighting took place in malaria-ridden jungles during drenching monsoon rains and on remote islands in searing tropical heat, but always against a tenacious and often brutal enemy.
The Second World War pitted two alliances against each other, the Axis powers and the Allied powers; the Soviet Union served 34 million men and women, Germany 18 million, the U.S 16 million, Japan 9 million, and Great Britain 6 million. It is estimated that in total, 127 million people were mobilised during the war.