Military Preparedness

Question 1

Ten year rule (3)

Answer 1

No war for 10yrs - armed forces expenditure dropped from £962 million to £115 million.
Not expecting war

Question 2

Public opinion (3)

Answer 2

Conservative candidate expected to win majority by 14,000 but lost by 5,000
WW1 was still raw -11million votes for League of Nations
Politicians aware it could lose them the election

Question 3

RAF built in 1934 (3)

Answer 3

Instead of building expeditionary force as felt public would be too against it
Martin Pugh - Britain placed too much emphasis on the RAF At the expense of building up other armed forces which led to “unbalanced form of rearmament
- less was done to help other forces and focus on raf

Question 4

Hitler rearmament (3)

Answer 4

1936hitler began rearming so Britain needed to invest in armed forces in case of attack

• 1936 DRC made year plan for rearmament
• 1936 £185 million spent on rearmament rose to £719 by 1939

Question 5

Army ill equipped (4)

Answer 5

• 1 division only had 10,000- 15,000men
• starved of funds- lack of investment in armoured vehicles (640 tanks)
• s.p Mackenzie- critical of army generals who anticipated slow build up to war
• Martin Pugh - Britain willing to expand RAF but opposed to. Developing new expeditionary force . Hitler fortified to the knowledge that there would be unlikely effective intervention by British

Question 6

Royal Navy (3)

Answer 6

Could take on German kriegsmarine 
• U.K. doubling Germans in submarine 
     -German submarine 36
    -U.K. - 71 
•battle ships 
  -German 5 
  - U.K. 19

Question 7

A.J.P Taylor -Navy

Answer 7

Britain did aim for superiority
However 3 power standard ( Britain would be as big as 3 rivals put together) was not achieved
Lack of time not money

Question 8

A.J.P Taylor RAF

Answer 8

Britain and France got whole military strategy wrong. Military experts gave wrong advice, politicians didn’t understand what they were being told and public didn’t understand politicians

Question 9

Government on the RAF

Answer 9

“The airforce cannot at the present time be said in any way for to undertake operations on a major war scale”

Question 10

Robert MacKay

Answer 10

Critical of government (and especially chamberlain) for thinking that war could be avoided and therefore not be fully prepared.

Question 11

A.J.P Taylor (economy)

Answer 11

The pace and scale of rearmament was dictated by what the taxpayer would stand

Question 12

Alan boxer

Answer 12

Navy weak and insufficient as funding went more into RAF

Question 13

Martin Pugh

Answer 13

Gov willing to expand Raf but opposed to developing an expeditionary force