Before The Storm: Gearing Up (Part 1)

Summary

WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
Episode: Before The Storm: Gearing Up (Part 1)
Hosts: Al Murray & James Holland
Date: August 5, 2026

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Episode Overview

In "Before The Storm: Gearing Up (Part 1)", Al Murray and James Holland explore the tense, uncertain months following the outbreak of World War II in September 1939—known as the "phony war" or "Sitzkrieg." The discussion focuses on how the major powers (especially Germany and Britain) were preparing their militaries, economies, and societies for the possibility of a major escalation on the Western Front, and how myth and propaganda often obscure the true state of readiness and capability on both sides. The episode balances expert historical insight with the hosts’ trademark humour, tackling everything from German vehicle shortages to the social politics of the British Army’s uniform.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Setting the Scene: Europe in Limbo (01:36–05:38)

• Hitler’s Confidence vs. Everyone Else’s Doubt

  • Al channels Count Ciano, noting Hitler’s “assurance that does not admit of contradiction.”
  • Most leaders wanted to avoid escalation; only Hitler was bent on driving the war forward.
    • “Literally the one person who is not in that camp is Adolf Hitler.” (James, 02:23)

• Assassination Attempts and German Army Disquiet

  • Details on Franz Halder’s involvement in a plot against Hitler, and the failed Georg Elser bomb plot (02:52–04:50).
  • “Halder took to keeping a loaded pistol in his pocket in case the opportunity arose…” (James, 03:15)

The Reluctance for War and Blockading Strategies (06:28–10:18)

• British and French Political Fears

  • Both governments hoped to avoid open war due to political and economic fears—the British, in particular, feared the loss of empire and social upheaval.

• Economic Blockade as British Strategy

  • Confidence that Germany’s lack of natural resources and merchant fleet would doom it in a long war.
    • “Germany’s got a massive problem on its hands because it doesn’t have many natural resources, doesn’t have access to the world’s oceans…” (James, 09:32–09:55)

German Vehicle Shortages and Myths of Mechanization (10:45–19:35)

• The Eric "Winkle" Brown Story (10:45–14:00)

  • His brushes with the Luftwaffe and being arrested in Germany at the outbreak of war, only to be released with his MG car because, hilariously, “we have no spares.” (Al, 14:00)

• The Truth about German Mechanization

  • Stats reveal how un-motorized Germany was compared to Britain, France, and even Italy.
  • 1939: Germany had one vehicle per 47 people; Britain, one per 14; France, one per 8; Italy, one per 106.
    • “There are vehicle shortages in Germany, because Germany isn’t a car economy at all, not at all.” (Al, 14:00)

• Propaganda vs. Reality

  • Both hosts discuss how Nazi propaganda has “stuck,” creating the myth of an all-mechanized Nazi war machine.
    • “That’s Goebbels still speaking to you…” (Al, 16:14)
  • Of 53 German divisions in Poland, only 15 were mechanized. The rest were reliant on horses.

German Military Industrial Strain (19:35–24:31)

• Von Schell and the ‘Poison Chalice’ of Motorization

  • Adolf von Schell’s uphill battle to mechanize the Wehrmacht, having observed American industry firsthand (19:35–22:13).
  • Quotes warning Goering that only 50% of truck orders can be delivered by 1940—“An increase in production is unimaginable for several years…” (Al, 22:57)
  • The futile attempt to reduce truck types from 131 to 23 (James, 24:02).

• Talks of Militarizing the non-existent VW Beetle

  • The car existed only as a prototype, and the plan was essentially a Ponzi scheme (Al, 24:54).

The Domino Effect of Lack of Industrial Capacity (19:35–26:51)

• No Know-how, No Infrastructure

  • Few people could drive, repair, or build vehicles in Germany; the industry was small and scattered.
    • “If you don’t have as many factories, you don’t have as much know-how…” (James, 19:35)
  • 50% of civilian trucks to be requisitioned for military use.

• After Poland: The Illusion of Success

  • Victory in Poland papered over the Wehrmacht’s inadequacies.

German Army Structure & Mobilization (28:16–31:48)

• Horsepower Over Horsepower

  • Many new recruits (like Siegfried Knappe) were shocked to find themselves in stables, not tanks: “What’s the first job? Are you going to go and clean out those stables, please?” (James, 27:07)
  • At war’s outset: 684,000 fully trained, 410,000 trained reservists, and 1.7 million older reserve pool.

• German Division Structure

  • A division: 14–17,000 men. Army composed of 106 divisions in Sept 1939, only half first-rate.

British Mobilization, Mechanization & Doctrine (37:49–51:56)

• Britain’s Fully Mechanized Army

  • By 1939, Britain had the only fully mechanized regular army in the world.
    • “By September 1939, it is the only fully mechanized regular army in the world.” (James, 37:49)
  • Expansion: Territorial Army doubles; aim for 55 divisions by end of 1941.

• Pragmatism in Equipment and Uniform Design

  • Focus on functionality: the 1938-designed battledress, shorter, woollen, “generously supplied with pockets.” (James, 41:03–43:22)
  • The Bren Gun as an example of adopting and improving foreign tech (Czech Brno design).

• Why Britain Avoided a Big Army

  • Island logistics, reliance on French ground forces, emphasis on navy and airpower.
    • “Britain can’t have a large army because there’s nowhere to put it.” (James, 46:47)

• Doctrine by Industrial Policy

  • Discussion of ‘infantry tank, cruiser tank’ doctrine as a way to leverage different factories’ specialties.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Nazi Propaganda’s Endurance

  • "That’s Goebbels still speaking to you and how effective his message was… there’s something to be said for the Allies then reflecting that propaganda because you don’t want to admit to having been bitten by a horse drawn army, do you?”
    — Al Murray (16:14)

• On Vehicle Shortages in Germany

  • “They take him and his car to a cell in Munich... they’re told, because we have no spares.”
    — (James, 13:33)

• On German Division Structure

  • “A division is the main unit of scale for the German army and for all armies, isn’t it?”
    — Al Murray (29:23)

• On Battle Dress

  • “The point is that they meet with a very, very small overlap. And the reason for this is because they’re going to be mechanized. So you don’t want lots of flappy bits getting in the way as you’re jumping, leaping in and out of vehicles...”
    — James Holland (41:03)

• On Assassination Plotters

  • “Halder took to keeping a loaded pistol in his pocket in case the opportunity arose where he could just shoot the Führer on the spot...”
    — James Holland (03:15)

• On the importance of paperwork (dry humour)

  • “If there is one eternal lesson of history, it’s that paperwork matters.”
    — Al Murray (05:38)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 01:36 – Ciano’s diary, Hitler’s early war confidence
• 02:52–04:50 – Overview of attempted German resistance to Hitler and assassination plots
• 09:02–10:18 – British assumptions about blockades and Germany’s economic weakness
• 10:45–14:00 – The Eric “Winkle” Brown anecdote, German car shortages
• 16:14–18:16 – Myths of German mechanization vs reality, Nazi propaganda’s effect
• 19:35–24:31 – Adolf von Schell’s struggles with German motorization, plan to reduce vehicle types
• 28:16–31:48 – German army mobilization, structure of divisions and corps
• 37:49–43:22 – British army’s rapid mechanization, design of battledress and Bren gun
• 46:47–48:10 – Why Britain couldn’t (and wouldn’t) build a massive army
• 49:33–51:42 – British tank doctrine—industrial policy meets tactical doctrine

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Tone and Style

Throughout, Al and James combine detailed, critical analysis with a wry, conversational tone—balancing deep dives into industrial supply chains and army org charts with banter about itchy wool, officer’s mess cricket, and incredulity at Nazi myths that stubbornly persist. The hosts’ candour punctuates the narrative, dispelling received wisdom with sardonic humour (“what we need is more of what they’ve got [but] you’re quite right. Of 53 divisions in Poland, only 15 are mechanised...”).

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Next Episode Teaser

The episode concludes with a promise to tackle the French army’s preparations and realities in Part 2, setting the stage for a comparison that will further dissect the myths of Western Europe’s readiness in the face of Hitler’s aggression.

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Summary

This episode is an insightful, engaging primer on the realities behind the propaganda of early WWII mobilizations, valuable for both serious students of history and listeners eager for a myth-busting, accessible guide to the weeks before Europe’s “storm” truly began.

Transcript

[Al Murray]

Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com wehaveways.

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[Al Murray]

Hitler spoke for almost two hours and cited figure after figure without referring to a single note. What impressed me is his confidence in ultimate victory. Either he is bewitched or he really is a genius. He outlines plans of action and cites dates with an assurance that does not admit of contradiction. Will he be proved right? In my opinion, the game will not be as simple as he believes. I return from Germany with the strong convictions that the first months of the war will lead the Germans to believe in victory. But the longer it lasts, the harder it will be. And that was me there ventriloquizing Count Ciano in his diary from the 2nd 3rd of October 1939. Ciano, of course, Mussolini's son in law, Mussolini's foreign minister and a major power player in the Italian government and a witness to the beginning of the Second World War and in fact, the phony war as it's become known. And welcome to we have Ways we make youe Talk with me, Al Murray, James Holland. And we are talking, aren't we, Jim, in this series about the bit of the war, sort of not before the war, because there's obviously this stuff going on at sea. But we're trying to set the scene as things start to drift towards it, all going majorly kinetic on the continent in May of April and May 1940. So welcome everyone.

[James Holland]

It's a fascinating period and I think, you know, one of the things that we thought would be good with this one is to sort of set up where the main players are. And the main players at this stage are, you know, Britain, France, Germany and Italy. To a sale instant, I suppose. But, you know, how much has sort of myth got in the way of, of the reality? What were their armed forces like? What were their structures? More to the point, what was their kind of, you know, to coin a modern term, what was their resilience like in terms of setting themselves up for the war that was to come? I think one of the other things that I think is really, really interesting about this, it's a time where almost everybody wants the war to not really get underway. They want it to all go away. And I would say, literally the one person who is not in that camp is Adolf Hitler. Everyone else, I mean, Ciano and Mussolini are in a complete state of gloom because they know they can't afford a long war and they can't see how they could possibly beat Britain and France and they can't see how Germany can either. To be perfectly honest, most of the German commanders can't either. You know, this is the time where Franz Halder, for example, who was the chief of staff of the army and who we talked a lot about in our Barbarossa series, was part of an assassination plot to get rid of Hitler to avoid the catastrophe that was inevitably going to come if it kicks off of the West. And so Halder took to keeping a loaded pistol in his pocket in case the opportunity arose where he could just shoot the Fuhrer on the spot. But he kind of chickens out and he never does it and moves away from all that. Then you have another assassination attempt on Hitler, beginning of November, and Georg Elser, who, on the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler does a speech and he's got it all primed, he's set up the bomb, it's on a timer switch, it's all going to go boom and all the rest of it. Hitler unexpectedly cut short his speech by 13 minutes, and 12 minutes after he's left the building, boom, it goes up and kills seven people and, you know, wounds a whole load of others and all the rest of it. So there is quite a lot of feeling in Germany at this time that if it does kick off of Britain and France, it's going to end in disaster. And Hitler is also, at this time, as a backdrop to this post, Poland is having a go at all his planners and particularly the army going, get me a plan to attack the West. We need to Attack the West now before they can, you know, they've got too many factories. Well, they've, you know, rearmed too much and got ready. We need to strike while the arms hot. All this kind of stuff. So this is all this, all the stuff that's going on and it's a pretty, pretty kind of mental time, to be honest. This episode is brought to you by Refund Club.

[Al Murray]

Now, if there is one eternal lesson of history, it's that paperwork matters. The forgotten agreement, the line in the ledger. Often that's where the story changes and

[James Holland]

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[Al Murray]

Yep, the check takes about 60 seconds. I ran my details and a couple of old agreements popped out without needing any relic registration numbers.

[James Holland]

And it's completely free to check. You only pay a fee if your claim is successful.

[Al Murray]

How about that? The Financial Conduct Authority confirmed that millions of UK drivers were hit with hidden commissions. And if you finance more than one car since 2007, each could be a separate claim. With the average payout at 829 pounds a pop, it all adds up.

[James Holland]

If you're a driver in the UK,

[Al Murray]

visit refundclub.co.uk whw that's refundclub.co.uk whW for your free check. And meanwhile, the British government and the French government are both thinking, if there's a way of not having to do this, perhaps that would suit us fine. Because after all, they've sort of been, they have been dragged into events again by Hitler and his action and of course the Soviet Union giving the Germans freedom of action with the Nazi Soviet Pact in August of 39. And the French government have enough problems in the form of internal political instability. And the British government, really, if it could possibly avoid it, because they know it's going to be ruinous that a second global conflict that matches the last one they've had, that's basically game over for the British Empire and for the status quo. And they don't want to disturb the equilibrium any further than they absolutely need to. Let's not forget it's a conservative government in Britain who are trying by any outcome possible to avoid anything that might turf them out and cause a revolution, which is the thing that's been on conservative minds all this time. And so you have a real tension between the major players who are not interested in setting this off, but Also preparing like mad. I mean, that's the other thing we have to remember is that the British have been preparing like mad for this eventuality, actually building up their forces, laying down keels for warships and really pedalling hard to get up to speed. But although that's been policy for a different form of deterrence, the British are hoping to. Hoping to lay on the Germans, which of course hasn't worked because that's the other thing is that the Germans have misread British intentions just as the British have of misread German intentions. You know, British intentions are to rearm and be ready and fortress Britain and to create the impression that. And it's not an impression to create a scenario where we are ready to fight a blockading war and do it all again if we got to. But we'd rather not, let's be honest, we'd rather not. And that always strikes me as quite reasonable. But it's also based on a misapprehension of Germany. Again, there are so many currents flowing and I think it's always rather unfair to call it the Sitskrieg or the phoney war. And of course the Soviets are getting stuck into Finland too. So, you know, sort of off stage. There's another encounter and another player that in our roundup there, Jim, we didn't include fairly enough. The Soviets are not on the sort of not on the menu here because they're otherwise occupied.

[James Holland]

Yes, yes, yes, they are. I mean, from Britain's point of view, there is a complete assurance of victory. No one's quite sure how long it's going to take, but there is an assumption that it's all going to be okay. And the reason for that is because of that economic block which is imposed on 3rd September 1939. And that means that yes, surface vessels can run the blockade, they can get through it, but nothing meaningful. And the point is there aren't ghost ships going through either. This is not like sort of Russia in 2026. So the big problem is that Germany doesn't have a merchant fleet, so it can't get the resources it needs. No one has the resources in their own country that you need to fight a long protracted war. And this is Germany's fundamental problem. So Britain looking at it logically rather than ide ideologically. And this is always a problem when you're assessing your enemy. You need to assess it from their ideological point of view as well as their pragmatic point of view. But from their pragmatic point of view, Germany's Got a massive problem on its hands because it doesn't have many natural resources, doesn't have access to the world's Asians. It's stuck in the corner, middle of Europe. It's got a little sort of bit of narrow channels in the Baltic Sea, that little bit of North Sea. And in the North Sea, which is your access point to the Atlantic, is the Royal Navy. And the Royal Navy is the world's largest. And so there's good reasons why the British would think we've got this.

[Al Murray]

Surely the journey Germans must know this. And surely the Germans don't want to suffer another defeat. And surely no one wants another one of these wars. I mean, I think what's really interesting is you can't forget that. And you can't forget the first world war is five minutes ago. In real terms, it's 21 years ago, the end of the First World War. And that's the thing you have to remember about, you know, if we need to see it from their point of view, in those terms. Anyway, you wanted to talk about resilience, Jim, and states of preparation, so we should start with.

[James Holland]

Well, I also think it's sort of relevant, but for now, as we're all sort of worrying about kind of what is the resilience for kind of any future conflict over here at the moment, all this stuff is quite relevant because you can see how people kind of manage their resources, manage their supplies and stuff. In the 1930s and 40s, I thought it'd be fun to start with Eric Winkle Brown, you know, a guy that we've talked about on and off over the last seven years. Scottish pilot, Fleet Air Arm, becomes the legendary test pilot in British aviation. In world aviation, I mean, no one has flown more types than him. 485. I think he's flown different types of aircraft in his career. But in the late 1930s, he is a Germanophile. His father is a former balloon observer and a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. And he takes his son Erich to Germany for the 1936 Olympics. And he's been invited there by Goering and Ernst Udet. And Ernst Udet, you know, is this incredibly famous pilot. He's a sort of Barnstormer in the 1920s, great pals of Goering ends up being the kind of procurement chief in the Luftwaffe, which ends of him actually taking his life eventually in 1941. But anyway, they become friends and he takes him up in a plane, Udet, and does an inverted flight over the airfield. And they're so low he almost can sort of scrape his head on the grass strip and it's absolutely terrifying and thrilling in equal measure. Anyway, Eric Brand, he returns to Scotland for university. He's part of the university air squadron in Edinburgh and then goes back to Germany in the summer of 1938 to work for the Foreign Office. There's all sorts of stuff that doesn't quite add up here, I have to say, and there's sort of strong evidence to suggest he ended up fighting for Franco in the. In the Civil War and all sorts of stuff. But anyway, be that as it may, he's still in Germany when war is declared on the 3rd of September, and he's in Saarland, Bavaria, and he's awoken by three SS officers who wake him up and go, ehmfed will have to come for us because our countries are now at war. And so they gather his belongings, including his car, which is a very nice little one of those little mgs. You still see them around, don't you? Occasionally, yeah. Red with a. Or British racing green with a kind of the spoked tire on the boot.

[Al Murray]

The kind you park by your pond at your country house if you have a. You need to have a pond outside.

[James Holland]

Exactly, exactly, yeah.

[Al Murray]

A friend of mine's uncle said to him, you'll know you're a gentleman when you have an MG parked by the pond out the front of your house.

[James Holland]

That's very good.

[Al Murray]

Okay.

[James Holland]

I think I've had my Jeep, to be honest. Maybe. Anyway, so he's got his MG and they take him and his car to a cell in Munich. He's freed three days later and taken to the Swiss border and he's told he can have his car back. And he's really confused and he goes, you've taken my boots, my money, my clothes, why are you giving me my car? And he's told, because we have no spares.

[Al Murray]

Unbelievable. They can't get the spares for the MG, so the MG's no good to them. And this is the thing we've talked about several times, and particularly people know this in the Barbarossa episode, and this is a point of comparison that we keep coming back to, which I think is really important, which is that there are vehicle shortages in Germany, because Germany isn't a car economy at all, not at all. 1935, there's one vehicle per every 65 people in Germany. 1939, they've made an effort, but there's one vehicle per 47 people, even though there are autobahn.

[James Holland]

The whole point of the autobahns is to have an east west axis to transport troops at a future stage where they have got lots of vehicles. But there's the autobahns with nothing on them.

[Al Murray]

I wonder what they're for then. Jim, if you're building these motorways that go from east to west, what could they possibly be for?

[James Holland]

Well, quite.

[Al Murray]

It's a poser, isn't it? Whereas in Britain it's in 1935 it's one vehicle per 23 people, in 1939 it's one vehicle per 14. So that the British start from a higher base and are making up quicker.

[James Holland]

Oh, and by the way, In France it's 1 to 8 and in Italy it's 106 people for every vehicle. So they're way behind. So one of the things that was slightly bugs me about portrayals of Berlin and stuff in the 1930s and 1940s, there's always way too many vehicles. I mean, I don't know if you've seen Babylon Berlin, which is just completely brilliant series.

[Al Murray]

I have, yeah.

[James Holland]

There's too many cars, there's too many vehicles. It's absolutely pullulating with vehicles. And it's the same with my family's war or whatever it's called, Generation war. Again, there's just too many vehicles. They would have been lots of trams, lots of S Bahn and U Bahn and all that kind of stuff. Lots of trains, so lots of public transport, but there wouldn't have been lots of cars. And it is funny I think, because you know, there is this impression, isn't there, that Germany is all about modernity. It's all about this new Germany with its shiny swastikas and its huge great parade grounds and automaton SS types and blah blah, blah. And when we talk about the Blitzkrieg, we always talk about the Nazi war machine, don't we? I mean that's the phrase that always comes up and it's not really the case.

[Al Murray]

But this is propaganda, Jim. This is the point is this is how effective Nazi propaganda is. Is it still working? When people talk in these terms and they think of Germany in terms of modernity and a war machine in terms of modernity, that's the propaganda of the time. That's Goebbels still speaking to you and how effective his message was. Of course there is. There's something to be said for the Allies then reflecting that propaganda because you don't want to admit to having been bitten by a horse drawn army, do you? When you are trying to modernize and you also need to make the case for modernization and mechanization. So you're gonn. Well, what we need is more of what they've got. But you're quite right. Of 53 divisions in Poland, only 15 are mechanised in any way. The rest is horses.

[James Holland]

So that's 38 out of your 15 divisions.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. And infantry. Horses and infantry rather than panzer thrusts and all that sort of stuff. It's interesting, isn't it, because the invasion of Poland is ordered so suddenly, because after all, no one knows what Hitler's going to do next. Least of all Hitler. Because it's ordered so suddenly. Well, no, that's the, you know, you have someone making decisions like that. The flick of a coin backing himself into having to do it, in fact is the thing, you know. Cause he prevaricates like mad. It's little wonder that the French and the British are caught on the hop by the invasion of Poland because so are the Germans, so is the Wehrmacht.

[James Holland]

That's so true.

[Al Murray]

And you know, case whites ordered so suddenly, the test runs that they're going to do, the exercises they're going to do, the Germans are going to do, are simply flipped into being operations and it becomes the test run, becomes the invasion. And of course Poland, God bless it, and it fights hard. And it's not right to say that Poland just capitulates in the face of the German war machine because again, there we have Nazi propaganda sticking with us. Again, the Polands do what they can, but they can't be used as a yardstick for actually how good the Germans are. Because it's not a fair fight.

[James Holland]

Well, yeah, and the big problem is that mechanization is going to be this huge, huge problem because this is a modern age where mechanization is going to be key. And the truth is that the Germans just don't have enough. They don't have enough trucks, they don't have enough cars, they don't have enough anything. They just don't have enough mechanization. They don't have the wherewithal to be able to do this, to create this mechanization. And that's because of the 1920s and wheelbarrows of money and hyperinflation. Then they start to recover, but, you know, they lose everything in 1919, you know, the Versailles Treaty. So they've got to start from scratch, they've got to build up from scratch and at the same time they're building the Luftwaffe and at the same time they're building U boats and at the same time they're building the Bismarck and the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau and the Admiral Hipper and blah blah blah, and the Graf Spee and so on and so forth and creating this not big enough Navy, but big enough to be able to pull, you know, to absorb a lot of your resources. And they're having to build ammunition and they're having to build guns and they're

[Al Murray]

having to build everything else and run a normal economy as well. This is the other thing, this is why you end up with these guns or butter pinches in the German economy, isn't it? You've also got to keep the consumer happy, you've got to make things tick over normally. And so their economy is necessarily out of shape by all of this. And it's really well illustrated with a simple business of vehicles, isn't it?

[James Holland]

Well, it is, but you have to think of the kind of domino effects of having an underdeveloped automobile industry. And the big problem is you don't have many factories making them. If you're not producing a lot or there's not as many as other nations, you don't have as many factories. And if you don't have as many factories, you don't have as much know how. And if you don't have that many people driving cars, then there isn't that much need for petrol stations or gas stations, there's not that much need for garages and workshops that can repair your motor vehicle. So you don't have that many people who know how to do it, and you don't have that many people who know how to drive. So the problem is when you want to suddenly up your game and massively increase your number of vehicles, you don't have the capacity on any level. You don't have the infrastructure, you don't have the know how, you don't have the people, you know how to repair them, you don't have the people who want to drive them. So you literally can't just click your fingers. And we touched on this character, Adolf von Schell in the Barbara Rossa series, but he's a really interesting guy because he's one of the guys who's absolutely the heart of the military vehicle shortage problem. In 1939, when he's 46, a career soldier, fought in the First World War, Belgium, big Western Front battles, blah, blah, blah, Eastern Front as well. Wounded four times, awarded a wire Iron Cross first Class twice. Remains in the Reichswehr after the war, becomes a captain in 1930, which is not particularly advanced, ends up Doing this weird instructing in the infantry school in Fort Benning in the U.S. i mean, it's just amazing. But anyway, from his experience in America, he gets very into. Drawn into the kind of the automobile industry over there, what mechanization can do. Recognizes that this is Germany's way forward. So comes back to Germany and has this knowledge, you know, he's seen it firsthand in the United States and you know, he spent time at the Ford Motor plants in Detroit and all the rest of it. So he's then appointed the undersecretary in the Ministry of transport in 1938. And he's noticed not only by Goering, but also by Hitler himself. And then when Goering announces his massive increase in rearmament rate in November 1938, that is when Shell is plucked out and appointed the General Plenipotentiary of Motor Vehicles, which basically is a euphemistic title for basically saying you're in charge of running our pool of vehicles in the Wehrmacht. But I mean, talk about poison chalices, you know, because his job is a simple one to coordinate and oversee the mechanization of the Wehrmacht. Okay, how are you going to do that?

[Al Murray]

Yeah, well, and as you pointed out, Jim, they don't have the factories or the sort of skill set, the knowledge base. I mean, the other thing is the motor industry is atomized, is privatized, isn't it? So how you bring about a national effort, because after all Germany itself was atomized. The idea of a unified Germany is really quite recent politically. So Germany in itself is still kind of crazy paving, isn't it, in terms of the economic picture? And they're short on iron ore very much so they've lowered a quota. Fonshell warns Goering in March that only 50% of truck orders will be able to be delivered by the beginning of 1940. They'll then have to lay people off because there's a lack of.

[James Holland]

Because they'll be needed in the war.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, because they're going to be needed for the war.

[James Holland]

Well, it's a lack of war, but also because they needed as soldiers.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So here's your core problem of running a military economy alongside a so called normal one. And he says once this happens and an increase in production is unimaginable for several years, this would damage the motorization of the Wehrmacht, Zweich and commerce, from which it would hardly be able to recover.

[James Holland]

So this is for a matter of years. He's saying years. So he's saying this in the spring of 1939. And he's saying, once this happens in 1940 and we haven't delivered enough, we're going to be stuffed for several years. This is why so many people in the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht are going, don't go to war. This is all smoke and mirrors. It all looks very impressive. We've got away with it so far in the Sudetenland, then Czechoslovakia. Before that Austria, before that the Rhineland. Let's not push our luck because we don't have the capacity for this.

[Al Murray]

And he puts together this shell plan and the idea is, this is what you're going to need to do. You're going to need to reduce the number of vehicle types from 131 trucks to 23.

[James Holland]

131 to 23. I would say 23 is probably 20 too many, isn't it?

[Al Murray]

Well, you could argue that. And certainly when we look at what the Allies end up doing, where there are more or fewer types, as it were, you increase the number of vehicles to work with with gas generators and solid fuel instead of petrol, because you're going to have fuel shortages and you need the petrol for the. Basically the frontline combat vehicles. Encourage production of the militarized Volkswagen.

[James Holland]

But can you see a scenario in 1939 where you're going to have more and more vehicles in your ultra modern new army operating with gas generators?

[Al Murray]

Yeah, I'd stick with the horses if I were you.

[James Holland]

It's not going to happen, is it?

[Al Murray]

No, it's not. The Volkswagen Beetle is seen as the, you know, the Hitler car, isn't it? But that's a Ponzi scheme that the Germans.

[James Holland]

It's people's car.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, but it's. But it's a Ponzi scheme. No one gets one. They pay into the pot for one, but no one gets one. Before the war, there is no VW Beetle. There's a prototype that gets, or show models that get shown off, but no one actually ever ends up with one because it's a con. And so you're then going to militarize this, this thing that doesn't really exist. I mean, the bucket car, the Kubelwagen, is what we end up seeing in. You know, they're the cars that of course, explode the minute they fall in a ditch in Where Eagles Dare or whatever. They're made of dynamite, Kubervagens. But here's the thing, there aren't enough of these anyway. He wants to improve maintenance, so that's the creation of a home motor pool organization, which is Again, repair shops and garages are still privately owned, but they're under Wermar control. I mean this also requires a massive extension of state control. This if nothing else. Although war always does compulsory requisitioning. So 50% of civilian trucks need to be taken in for military use. And this is all to come to fruition for 1942.

[James Holland]

So von Schell will be having a good conversation with Admiral Raeder who's embarked on his Z plan for the Navy, which is going to come to fruition in 1944. I mean, this is the whole problem with going into war in September 1939. They're not ready. And the comparatively cheap victory of Poland is papering over are huge amounts of cracks, many of which have become apparent during the Polish campaign.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, and what's interesting about this is that this part of Prussia, the part of Prussia bordering Poland because after all there's the lump of East Prussia inside Poland as it were anyway, that's theoretically, you know, for want of a better word, the most backward part of Germany anyway. So there aren't the vehicles, there aren't the workshops, the roads in Poland itself are really bad. So you're straining your vehicles and inexperienced drivers don't know how to handle that kind of terrain.

[James Holland]

That's one of the biggest problems that no one ever thinks about is that these guys are not used to driving this stuff because they're not used to driving vehicles, you know, because they just don't exist. Yeah, yeah, it's a real problem. You just have this escalating one thing leads to the next thing leads to the next problem which leads to the next problem. You know, the example of Siegfried Napper is really interesting. So he's an artilleryman and he joins the German artillery as a 19 year old in October 1936. His father had been a naval gunnery officer in the first World War and he had always been compelled by an image of a modern mechanized, formidable Wehrmacht. This is what he wants. And he's absolutely shocked when he joins the artillery vote because he sold first day, you know, what's the first job? Are you going to go and clean out those stables, please? He's like, what? I'm not expecting stable blocks. What do you mean you're still using horses? What about all the kind of vehicles I see in the newsreels and in the Wehrmacht magazines and stuff of the day? And he says to them, you mean they still pulled the artillery fifth horses? Yes, I am afraid so, replies his companion. I mean, so instead of kind of speeding along the Highways aboard the autobahns with, with kind of modern trucks and gun tractors. Instead his job is to kind of muck out the stables every other day. And he says, I still could not believe it. I was actually in the horse drawn artillery. It all seems so backford in this modern age.

[Al Murray]

Are they ever going to have enough horses, though? It's the other thing that in itself, I mean, the main advantage of a horse is if your lorry breaks down, you can't eat it, can you? Whereas if the horse has had it, you can at least eat the horse.

[James Holland]

I suppose so.

[Al Murray]

For when things aren't as dark going as well.

[James Holland]

Silver clouds.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. At the start of the war, Germany has 684,000 fully trained regular troops. Another 410,000 reservists who are fully trained. Then 709,000 reservists with rudimentary training. So probably know which end of the rifle's which. And then there's the older reserve pool, which is 1.7 million people, which includes First World War veterans, so blokes in their 40s. So the field army is two and a half million men. The replacement army is 1.2 million. So just at a glance, they can only really afford to do one thing at a time. The German army, they can't afford to be dealing with more than one emergency. And they're divided up as follows. So the division is the main unit of scale for the German army and for all armies, isn't it?

[James Holland]

Yes, the division is very much the unit by which we judge the scale of armies from the Second World War.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. And so in a German division, there's 14 to 17,000 men. And this is before the big reorganization that happens later on the war where they rationalize it all. And that's roughly the same for everyone else, the British, the French, the American, the Italian armies. And two divisions make a corps, two corps make an army. So a corps is a body, isn't it? A body of men, so to speak. Two divisions make a core. A collie is an army. Two armies are an army group. Yes.

[James Holland]

I mean, we should also add that you can have more than one, you have to have at least two, and you have to have at least two corps to make an army. But you could have five corps in

[Al Murray]

an army or three and things that can be triangular often. Yeah, yeah.

[James Holland]

And you could have six divisions in a corps, but you've got to have at least two.

[Al Murray]

The divisions are made up of their core regiments, typically. So you'd have a panzer division, which is its core regiment. Is armored Panzer Grenadier, which is motorized, which means fellas in half tracks and trucks, and infantry, which means Foot slogging. PBI. And then there's three regiments in a division, three battalions in a regiment. Roughly speaking, there's 3,250 men in a regiment, 800 or so in a battalion. I mean, all of these figures are subject to variants.

[James Holland]

Ballpark figures. Ballpark figures. This just give people a sense of kind of, you know, the scale of this stuff. We always talk about all these corps and divisions and regiments and stuff, and I know we've talked about how they're made up in the past, but I think it's always good to kind of. Of recap so that people got a sense of how it all works. But as I say, divisions are very much the unit of size currency at this time.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. So the German army in September 1939 is 106 divisions, but only half of these are what they call first wave troops. So the people sent to Poland, who, after all, are doing their rehearsal for real in Poland. And Gnapper, our artilleryman, he becomes a keen horseman.

[James Holland]

So, you know, by this time he's a leutnant, by the way. By this point he's an officer.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah. And he gets to. He comes to love his horses. Him and the remainder of his regiment stay in their base at Plowen in southeast German, waiting for their replacements. They then move over to the Luxembourg border and begin intense, an intense training program. But there's still no Allied attack by the end of September. And Knapper and his mates, they joke that after the invasion of Poland, the whole war is now over. And, you know, I think, fingers crossed. Lots of Germans think that, don't they? They.

[James Holland]

Yeah, a lot of them do.

[Al Murray]

An awful lot of them do. And understandably, because they also know what calamity the first war was. And lots of Germans are sold on the idea that you need to reverse Versailles, but that doesn't mean you need to reverse Versailles by fighting a great big bloody war all over the continent. Hans von look, who's great friend of the show. Yeah, I suppose so, yeah. I mean, the man who offered the odd tall, tall tale, he doesn't share these thoughts, really. He's a soldier, fought in Poland, and he wants the war to be ended politically now that the Polish campaign is over. And General von Volumant, who's the deputy chief of operations of staff at the Oberkommanderdev Wehrmacht, so basically, right up at the top of things, he wants to negotiate, he wants to get on the phone to the British and the French, go, you know what? Poland crumbled. You aren't doing anything to protect Poland, and let's just call the whole thing off. However, after the break, we will find out exactly how hard uphill Volemont's point of view would be pushed and whether he's got any chance of getting what he wants. As we look at the plans to strike west, we'll see in a moment.

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[Al Murray]

Welcome back to we have ways of making you talk with me. I'm Murray and James Holland. Now, Jim, we ended the first half with General Voltaire Lemont, who's the Deputy Chief of Operations Staff, okw. So, you know, kind of as high up as you possibly can be within the army structure.

[James Holland]

Yeah, he's part of the planning at the okw. The okw, just a reminder, is Oberkommando de Verma, which is the General staff. So to try service this, an inherently good idea, but not used that way, but basically used as Hitler's mouthpiece for the most part. And Wohlamont, of course, is one of those stars of the World at War, the 1970s Granada TV series. So he appears on that and wrote a great book memoir called Inside Hitler's Headquarters. So we get a lot from him and he's very interesting about it all.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

But, yeah, so they have this immediately after Poland. Everyone's sort of thinking, good, we got that done. Hopefully we can all just sue for peace. We can negotiate, sit back, that's the end of the war.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. Surely they're scared of us. Look at what we've just done. Surely they must be thinking, crikey, this is too big a prospect. However.

[James Holland]

But then General Keitel, who is the Chief of Staff of the okw, informs them all that Hitler wants to launch an attack on the west immediately, which is what we were touching on right at the top of the series. And Wormt is absolutely dumbstruck by this. I mean, he just thinks this is insane because Poland has exposed all these shortcomings in the Wehrmacht and they're just not ready. They don't have enough to take on mighty France and mighty Britain. And Hitler has never discussed any of this with his senior generals, not even Guru, who is obviously the commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, but also effectively his number two. And it's worrying from the vehicle standpoint. The shortages are already accumulating. The Polish campaign has exposed a terrible lack of training amongst many of the divisions, but just not good enough. Hitler completely has failed to understand that the Wehrmacht needs time to build up its strength again in the same way that he wanted to strike Britain and France before they'd had the opportunity to do the same. So he's kind of sort of saying we need to be careful and make sure that Britain and France don't get too strong, so we need to strike while the iron's hot. But he needs to allow Germany to get efficient and strong, because they're not. Also, winter's coming. So that has a massive impact on the efficiency and, of course, operational capacity of all forces, because, as we know, winters in the 1940s were particularly bad. So what this exposes is Hitler's fundamental misunderstanding of the operational art of war. He's just looking at numbers and he's seeing it from purely his own perspective. And this is one of Hitler's great failings, that he does always view everything through the prism of his own narrow worldview. And they're just not ready to go to war against the west in any shape or form in November. October, November 1939.

[Al Murray]

It's interesting this, isn't it, that Volemont, he then takes things into his own hands, doesn't he? He tells the Army General Staff what Hitler wants to do and despite being sworn to confidence and the army does nothing with the tip off, that amounts to nothing for Volumont. And a week later, on 27 September, Hitler assembles the Commander in Chief, Keitel and Volume, and the Reich Chancellor in Berlin to announce this is what he's planning. And I think it's quite well known this now is that Hitler's attention turns to the Soviet Union way before you might think it might, that he's in June, he's already. June of 1940, he's already going, right, that's what's next. This is certainly the way he operates, isn't it? His imagination completely outruns the people around him. He's always so far down the line with what he wants to do next that it catches everybody out. So we should go and look at the state of the British, right? Because if he's going to attack the West. Let's see what exactly that might amount to. So the British army has always aspired to be fully mechanised, hasn't it? Since the end of the First World War, the future is mechanization and obviously there's been some kicking and screaming about that from cavalry people, but that's the direction of travel.

[James Holland]

By September 1939, it is the only fully mechanized regular army in the world. So that doesn't include the non regular army. So the yeomanrys, for example, like the Sherwood Rangers, they're still on their horses, but the regular army is 100% mechanised. It's the only army in the world that is.

[Al Murray]

And also undergoing massive expansion though. This is the other thing. It's the that the huge expansion that the government lays on, it brings its own problems. But the Territorial army doubles from 13 to 26 divisions in March of 1939. This is all part of the grim expectation there's a war coming. There's the National Service act which is passed after the outbreak of the war, which is full conscription and the aim Is to equip 55 divisions by the end of the second year of the war, which is 1941, including divisions from the Dominions, because they've got this other man pool they can draw on, but they know that's going to take time.

[James Holland]

I think one of the things that's quite interesting, Al, is everyone's hoping and praying that it can come to a negotiated peace and, you know, they're not in for the long haul and, you know, this will all fill, you know, peter out but at the same time they're having to plan for a long war.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

And very much part of Britain's strategy is the longer the war continues, the harder it will be for Germany to fight.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[James Holland]

The more we will win because economically we'll be able to sustain it in a way that Germany won't and so therefore we will win. So they're planning for a long term war, Hoping for a short war.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah. Whereas the Germans are hoping for a short war because that's all they could do. And you know, there's the field force which is going to go to France, is going to be renamed the British Expeditionary Force in homage to the army of 1914. And by the end of September you have 160,000 army personnel have been shipped to France with 22,000 vehicles, 10,000 people from the Royal Air Force, 36,000 tons of ammunition, 25,000 tons of fuel. And although this expansion means there is a Shortage of kit. And you know, my grandfather's letters, homes from this period, cause he went, he shipped to France, you know, in the autumn of 1939, are all about how they're out, they haven't got the stuff and the uniforms are old and also how bad the winter is. His letters are full of how cold it is. Notwithstanding these things, the British army is still the most modern in the world. But it is kind of drawing, it is writing checks. It can't quite draw yet, but it has no horse drawn artillery. Infantry are taken from A to B in lorries. In trucks, you've got lorries manufactured by Bedford and Morris because there is a motor industry in Britain. Artillery is good and it ought to be because artillery is one of the things that was really perfected in the First World War. And the guns have pneumatic tyres and are towed by low loaders and heavy tractors rather than horses. And we touched on this earlier, you know, German propaganda, which some people are still sort of under the influence of today, has been so successful. It's one of the reasons the British army mechanizes and modernizes so rapidly. So they're thinking, Christ, we've got to keep up with the Germans. Even though the Germans have, you know, the Germans, the Germans have. All they've had on display is the shop window rather than the full inventory. And it's. And it's that display that's encouraged the British to modernize. So I mean, you're a big fan of the battle dress. Jim, of course, goes without saying.

[James Holland]

Well, it goes without saying, but a lot of the guys who are going over in sort of September, October 1939 to France, they still haven't, you know, it takes time to change over your uniform. It doesn't just happen overnight. But the army is changing and the battle dress has been designed in 1938 and it's hard wearing cocky wool. So his jacket, the short, it comes up to your navel, to your belly button and there are buttons which attach it to the trousers and the trousers in those days come up to your stomach. So the point is that they meet with a very, very small overlap. And the reason for this is because they're going to be mechanized. So you don't want lots of flappy bits getting in the way as you're jumping, leaping in and out of vehicles. The whole point about the battle dresses is it's very tight and neat and serviceable. And what it's got is it's very, very roughly made. So you know, this is not something to you know an exciter, Savile Rotator or anything. But it's very generous under the arm so you can crawl on the ground very easy, you can lift your rifle up very easily and so on. So it's got contingency of room where it needs to. It's also generously supplied with pockets. So it's got two big breast pockets and then it's got two big inside pockets as well, which are on the inside of the chest. Then the trousers have got two normal pockets and then they've got one on the side of the leg which is also very, very generous. So you've got the pocket space that you would normally have from a longer tunic, but without having a longer tunic. And the point about the younger tunic is you can be saving yourself 20 to 24 inches of wool just by not having a thigh length tunic. Because if you think about what that distance is between your navel and halfway down your thigh, well, it's certainly a good foot, if not two feet. And so it's incredibly pragmatic and it makes lots of sense. And of course, because we associate it with Dad's army and ineptitude and a whole kind of sort of narrative that suggests that sort of the British are old fashioned and all the rest of it, the modernity of the battle dress has been completely ignored. But you know, as the war progressed, more and more people adopted it. I mean, like the Germans, Ike, Americans.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, but you've so many complaints about it being itchy and it not fitting and it. And also people hate being in the army, so they hate the uniform is where so much of that comes from.

[James Holland]

But it's no more itchy than the First World War uniform. I mean, wool has far resistance tendency. You know, it is far resistant. To a certain extent, it has because of the sort of natural oils in it. It can also be so slightly waterproof. It's warm and even when it's wet, it can be warm. It's uncomfortable, but it can still be warm. So there are lots of sort of pragmatic reasons for using wool surge rather than another material. The other one, of course, is because there's lots of sheep and that's what we have lots of. So it makes sense.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. I think so much of what's thought about battle dress comes from the interaction of conscripts with the army, full stop. They're not thinking this is a pragmatic piece of kit. They're thinking, I hate being in a bloody army. I've had to give up my life wearing this.

[James Holland]

Itchy shit.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That extends to all equipment, all soldiers are ever issued with. It's never good enough. It's never, you know, in the modern parlance it's never ally enough. You know what is quite good though is the new light machine gun that they've got, which is the Bren gun. In the First World War, the Lewis gun, which is not light by any stretch of the imagination, was the section infantry maneuver weapon. Because after all the idea is it's down in every infantry section is there is a Bren gun. And you know, cynics would also say that the British army in the ends up the infantry section's job is to maneuver the Bren gun forward. That's what the other riflemen are actually for, is moving the Bren gun around. That's a cracking piece of kit. It's 500 rounds per minute, theoretically, but it's a magazine clip so there's no way that's ever going to happen. Its optimal rate is that, that rate, because otherwise it might overheat and also you don't want to churn through ammunition. British army has always been concerned about conserving ammunition. It's got a thick barrel, it's got a wooden grip.

[James Holland]

Well, and the advantage of the thick barrel is that it doesn't then melt very quickly. It doesn't lose its shape because it's thicker.

[Al Murray]

Exactly.

[James Holland]

It's got that wooden grip on the top of it which you can lift it up, you know, so you can change it really easy as well.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, it's a light machine gun operated by just one man. I mean, it's also, you know, let's not forget the British Army's also thinking, what's a good machine gun for the Hindu Kush? Right. They have other fish to fry, the British army at this period of history. They need a properly manned, portable piece of light kit. And this is taken from a Czech design in brno in Czechoslovakia. And it's modified in Enfield, which is why it's called a Bru en, isn't it? Every schoolboy knows that. And rearmament is focused on the Royal Air Force and the Navy. There is this feeling you can't have another massive man intensive meat grinder campaign like before. And you can't for lots of reasons. You can't because, you know, straight up humanitarian thing, you don't want to get a lot of your fellow citizens killed. Secondly, you want your workforce intact after the disaster, don't you? And if you're chewing through young men, then you're reducing your economic possibilities after the war. And thirdly, if you could possibly avoid getting lots of people killed, your society will be probably more stable afterwards, because after all, the great era of revolution follows the First World War. It's a direct result of the calamity of those wars. And the, you know, the British have managed to avoid their revolution and they don't. They don't want another again, so. So you end up with this steel, not flesh.

[James Holland]

But fifthly, Britain can't have a large army because there's nowhere to put it. If you. If you've got a large army, you've got to base it somewhere and you've got to be able to transport it. How are you going to transport it? Because we're an island, we're a small island. So practically you can't really have a very large army. You know, you can have a million or whatever. But, you know, there is a sound, pragmatic reason for not having a large standing army. And also we've renewed our military alliance with France and start of 1939. And, you know, France has got a huge army and it's on the continent already and, you know, they can do the army bit. That's the point, you know. So there are no plans at all to increase the army size by more than. Despite Germany having 100 divisions by September 1939 and France having a similar number. And everyone is in agreement with this. And so the priority for defence spending in the 1930s is the Navy and the air force. And the consequence of this is by 1939 we have the world's fully own, fully coordinated air defense system. No one else has an air defense system that is even remotely comparable to that of Great Britain. And we've got the largest navy in the world and one of the most modern ones as well. So the army is small and modern and mechanised, but it is small.

[Al Murray]

And its actual task is policing the Empire, not fighting a continental encounter. Because after all, that threat's gone away, hasn't it? It's been decided against and it's been ruled out. And as you say, Jim, the thing we can do is blockade with the navy, that's what we. Blockade with the navy. And the extension of the blockade through a putative strategic bombing campaign is the thinking, should it come to it. And obviously the army has this fantastic system of regimental culture, which is, I think, when you start to look at it, obviously this means that you've got hard pockets of loyalty within the army. People are loyal to their regiment, the regiments then all come with their etiquette their traditions, their standards. If you're in an officer's mess, that probably means you have to be good at cricket, you probably have to be good at polo if you're pig sticking. Exactly. And all that sort of stuff. And drinking gin. And the cavalry is still massive social cachet within the army, doesn't it? Still looks down on the tank corps as a novelty and a bit grubby and lacking the sort of finesse. And lots of cavalry people are very, very, very unhappy about how they have to mechanise, drag kicking and screaming, really. I mean, to the point where members of the Royal Scots Greys, they lobby parliament against mechanization in 1938 and write angry letters to the Times.

[James Holland]

That's just amazing, isn't it?

[Al Murray]

It is incredible, but it also, it shows that, you know, that regimental tradition has its pluses and its minuses, and that's one of its minuses, isn't it? It is that they can't see the wood for the trees in that instance. But tanks are really important. And I think the thing is, again, German propaganda credits the Germans with all the tank thinking, but that's just not the case. And there's been an awful lot of thought and debate in Britain, and particularly within the Royal Armored Corps, who have no money and yet have been doing the thinking and working really hard on what they want and come up with a doctrine. And it's interesting because that the infantry tank, cruiser tank doctrine is also an industrial policy. That's the other thing to remember about, is that you're leaning into the fact different factories will be good at different things and should specialize in different things, rather than trying to get everyone to do the same thing. So the infantry tank, the Matilda 2, which we end up with, has the thickest armor of any tank in the world, which means German gunnery can't deal with it when the crunch comes. And the two pounder is the most advanced anti tank weapon at the start of the war in the world as well. The field version is a brilliant bit of kit. The gun carriage on that is absolutely fantastic. That allows you to traverse the gun through 360 degrees. Super portable. The cruiser tank, they haven't quite got right yet, but the idea is that you've got different people specialising, so different people working on it rather than relying everyone to get the same thing right. It's very. It's not just a doctrine in terms of military doctrine, it's an industrial policy. And by the beginning of the war, they've got the Matilda 2, the cruiser tanks on their way. And the two pounder gun, which is a really awesome piece of kit.

[James Holland]

And the field artillery is really good. The 25 pounder, there's nothing wrong with that at all. I mean, it's arguably the best field gun of the war. So they're in good fettle. It's just they've got a lot of stuff, that's the point. And so by August 1939, it is literally only the Omni regiments that are still using lots of leather and horses. Regiments like the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry. They do feel a bit archaic. They're certainly not representative of the rest of the armed forces as a whole.

[Al Murray]

I'd say they're in Palestine, aren't they, where, you know, do you need tanks or is being able to zip about on a horse probably as useful, given their possible role there?

[James Holland]

Well, yeah, and they just don't have enough tanks anyway, so, you know, I mean, it's kind of irrelevant, but.

[Al Murray]

So there's no panic in this part of the war and no real impetus to do anything because the French army is enormous. British sovereignty isn't under threat and in fact, it's German maritime sovereignty that's under threat, really, in this stage of the war, quite comprehensively. There are also 16 new ordnance factories that were authorised in March. There's 29 more authorised in December.

[James Holland]

Just to reiterate the point, on 1st September 1939, there are only six ordnance factories in the entire United States.

[Al Murray]

Yes. In sleeping giant news. Yeah. Yeah. But half of all government expenditure is planned for arms in the crossover from 1939 into 1940.

[James Holland]

So we've gone from defence spending of. This is really interesting. So it's 3% in 1935, goes up to 3.54%, I think, in 1936. 38. And by 1940, it's 42%.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. Amazing. And we're talking about the largest global economy in the world at that point. That's doing that, you know, not Britain now. Don't think of it as Britain now. Think of it as this gigantic global order at our disposal. Anyway, that's a look at Germany and a look at the British as the phony war sort of beds in. Join us for our next episode as we'll move on. We're gonna have to look at the French, aren't we, Jim?

[James Holland]

Gonna have to.

[Al Murray]

We're gonna have to, I'm afraid. We hope you've enjoyed this. If you want to hear the next episode immediately, then become a Patreon. Go to the. We have ways of making you talk Patreon become a member where there's to of stuff up loads of audiobooks lately I've been recording a ton of stuff to go with our recent series about Oudna disaster. Yeah, a lot of it very illuminating. And even the poems of Richard Spender, Lieutenant Richard Spender, the Rupert Brooke of the second World War. He's been described as. I recorded some of those too, which are worth listening to. We will see you for our next episode as the phoney war continues in its phoney fashion. Cheerio.

[James Holland]

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[James Holland]

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[Al Murray]

near beer Athletic Brewing Company Fit for all times. I'm not giving up. I am selling the building. The final season of FX is the Bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either going to be okay. No.

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[Al Murray]

We are outgunned and we are outmanned. But we have each other. FX's the Bear the final Season, all episodes now streaming on Disney.

[James Holland]

Hey guys, it's Anthony Scaramucci from the Rest Is Politics. Us Catty K and I want to tell you about our North American tour in October. Donald Trump is rewriting the history history of the United States.

[Al Murray]

From trade wars to immigration crackdowns to global conflicts. We are here to make sense of all of it.

[James Holland]

You know, we're in an era defined

[Al Murray]

by depolarization and American institutions are breaking under Donald Trump.

[James Holland]

Katty and I will be live on stage breaking down what's really happening, sharing insider perspectives and answering your questions.

[Al Murray]

This October, we're heading heading to Toronto, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C. a host of other American cities to get into

[James Holland]

all of the political action. We would love to see you there. Come and join us.

[Al Murray]

So head to the restispoliticsus.com to get

[James Holland]

your tickets and come see us.