The prospects of American participation

‘Everything – on paper – is against us’, Cadogan wrote at the end of 1940, ‘but we shall live. I don't frankly, see how we are going to win, but I am convinced that we shall not lose. And if you hang on – like a bull-dog – it's funny what things do happen. The enemy is a very good facade. But if it cracks, it will crack suddenly and cataclysmically…’. Although the British indeed hung on, that, however, was not what happened.

Britain had survived the Battle of Britain. In itself that was a success for the British and a frustration for the Germans, but it by no means foreshadowed an end to the war in Europe. Indeed the war was more likely to expand further. Hitler would pursue alternative policies. Churchill would look with increasing urgency for the support of the United States, even for its participation. The United States, recognising that the British had survived, backed them more effectively after the election had returned Roosevelt for a third term. Participation was another matter.

The Japanese had taken advantage of the defeat of France by making advances in northern Vietnam through a deal with the Vichy authorities. Otherwise they had sustained their customary caution. That was promoted in part by their concern about the Soviet Union, which had demonstrated its military prowess in the Far East and then made a non-aggression pact with the Germans.