Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and Glossary
- 1 The Anglo-American Relationship and the Need for Historical Interpretation
- 2 The Evolution of Transatlantic Aircraft Supply Diplomacy, 1938–40
- 3 The Diplomacy of Critical Dependency, 1940
- 4 Lend-Lease and the Politics of Supply, 1941
- 5 The Limits of Dependency: American Aircraft in Action, 1940–2
- 6 Heavy Bomber Supply Diplomacy, 1941–2
- 7 The Problem of Quality: the Fighter Supply Crisis of 1942
- 8 Collaboration and Interdependency
- Appendix RAF Air Strength by aircraft type on 3 September 1939, 1940, 1941 and 1942
- Unpublished Sources Cited in Text
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - The Diplomacy of Critical Dependency, 1940
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and Glossary
- 1 The Anglo-American Relationship and the Need for Historical Interpretation
- 2 The Evolution of Transatlantic Aircraft Supply Diplomacy, 1938–40
- 3 The Diplomacy of Critical Dependency, 1940
- 4 Lend-Lease and the Politics of Supply, 1941
- 5 The Limits of Dependency: American Aircraft in Action, 1940–2
- 6 Heavy Bomber Supply Diplomacy, 1941–2
- 7 The Problem of Quality: the Fighter Supply Crisis of 1942
- 8 Collaboration and Interdependency
- Appendix RAF Air Strength by aircraft type on 3 September 1939, 1940, 1941 and 1942
- Unpublished Sources Cited in Text
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
We are in an exposed position, and cannot be expected, alone and unassisted, to give our lives merely to save the rest of you. If you are unwilling to send us aid, you cannot compel us to fight your battle for you.
Herodotus' account of the Thessalian embassy to the Greeks before the invasion by Xerxes.As France fell before the German onslaught in the summer of 1940, the British would adopt a similar position in their diplomacy towards the criticality of American aid to their continuing resistance. In his correspondence with Roosevelt, Churchill would repeatedly raise the prospect of British defeat without American aid. At one stage, this approach was characterised by a Foreign Office official as ‘… rather like blackmail, and not very good blackmail at that’. These assertions of critical dependency informed aircraft supply which remained at the forefront of the Anglo-American supply relationship through Roosevelt's ‘all aid short of war’ support for Britain throughout the crisis of 1940 and the evolution of Lend-Lease which followed. It can be assumed that this approach was a product of the exceptional circumstances of 1940 but, as Herodotus indicates, it had a long pedigree in diplomacy. The key point is to determine how far British supply diplomacy in 1940 reflected genuinely critical military needs, and how far it served broader diplomatic goals.
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- The Arsenal of DemocracyAircraft Supply and the Anglo-American Alliance, 1938-1942, pp. 64 - 99Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2013