Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II

Blood, Tears and Folly: An Objective Look at World War II
Len Deighton

Drawing on the author’s deep understanding of military history and weaponry, and of the strengths and frailties of politicians and generals, this is Len Deighton’s classic myth-puncturing analysis of the opening years of the Second World War.Reissued by William Collins, ‘Blood, Tears and Folly’ offers sweeping analysis of six theatres of war: the Battle of the Atlantic, Hitler’s conquest of western Europe, the war in the Mediterranean, the battle for the skies, Operation Barbarossa and the German assault on Russia, and the entry of Japan into what was from that point a truly global war.This is the period during which the Allied powers were brought to the brink of utter defeat, and Deighton offers an unflinching account of the political machinations, the strategy and tactics, the weapons and the men on both sides who created a world of terror and millions dead, of the Holocaust, and of nuclear devastation.As Deighton writes: ‘the time has come to sweep away the myths and reveal the no less inspiring gleam of that complex and frightening time in which evil was in the ascendant, goodness diffident, and the British – impetuous, foolish and brave beyond measure – the world’s only hope.’

Blood, Tears and Folly

An Objective Look at World War II

LEN DEIGHTON

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com)

First published by William Collins in 2014

First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape in 1993

Copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2014

Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Cover design: Antoni Deighton

Cover illustration: Gunther Prien’s U-47 (U-Boot Type VIIB built by Germaniaweft Krupp in 1938); cover photograph shows four WRNS with Webley revolvers practising at the pistol range © Imperial War Museum Archive

Source ISBN: 9780007531172

Ebook Edition © February 2014 ISBN: 9780007549498

Version: 2017-03-15

To your children, and ours

‘Death and sorrow will be the companions of our journey; hardship our garment; constancy and valour our only shield.’

Winston Churchill, addressing the House of Commons, 8 October 1940

CONTENTS

Title Page (#uae072a1e-f96a-5fa0-8097-18ddfe0aad54)

Copyright (#u99bad0b5-d30a-5ab9-8c53-93583a617220)

Dedication (#u68dc3d8c-cb12-5e81-bfbf-4746d653aa43)

Epigraph (#uba3bcd60-84c5-5817-a87b-ad433122ca0a)

Cover Designer’s Note

Illustrations

Introduction

PART ONE: The Battle of the Atlantic

1 Britannia Rules The Waves

2 Days of Wine and Roses

3 Exchanges of Secrets

4 Science Goes to Sea

5 War on the Cathode Tube

PART TWO: Hitler Conquers Europe

6 Germany: Unrecognized Power

7 Passchendaele and After

8 France in the Prewar Years

9 An Anti-Hitler Coalition?

10 German Arms Outstretched

11 Retreat

PART THREE: The Mediterranean War

12 The War Moves South

13 A Tactician’s Paradise

14 Double Defeat: Greece and Cyrenaica

15 Two Side-Shows