THE STRATEGIC GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHEASTERN ENGLAND

On the two following pages TIME presents a map of Southeastern England. For centuries men have been accustomed to describe it as the political, financial and cultural centre of the British Empire. Its military geography was generally dismissed with one word, invulnerable. Across its wind-whipped moat--the English Channel--no invader passed to establish a position on British soil in nearly 900 years, except with the consent of feuding Britons. Yet in this area, at Pevensey in 1066, William and his mailed Norman horsemen beached the open boats in which they had crossed from the estuary of the Somme and marched inland to conquer England. And thrice since then this coast has been seriously threatened by an invading army.

In 1588 watch fires burned on its cliffs when the world's greatest fleet approached bearing the flower of Spain's Army. That great Armada was worsted in fierce fighting with Effingham's Fleet and practically destroyed by a storm in the North Sea. In 1759 Louis XV's Army waited in Brittany for Admiral Conflans to break the British blockade of Brest, abandoned its plan to invade Britain when Admiral Sir Edward Hawke dispersed the French Fleet at Quiberon Bay. Again in the winter of 1804-05 Napoleon gathered a host of 150,000 men across the Channel, but his indecisive admirals never succeeded in luring the British Fleet away to the West Indies and finally he turned his back and marched off to beat the Austrians at Ulm.

But the 18 miles of water between Calais and the chalk cliffs of Dover justly retained its reputation as an unpassable rampart so long as Britain remained mistress of the seas. It would still be so in 1940 had not Britain in the last seven years allowed herself to become blinded to the fact that to have the world's greatest navy is no longer to be secure.

The difference has been made by air power. Weeks ago Germany's air fleet closed the coast of Southeastern England to British shipping far more effectively than it was ever closed by submarines in 1914-18. Months ago German air power made the restricted waters of the Channel unsafe for the heavy units of the British Fleet and the fall of France underscored that fact. With the capture of the Channel coast near Calais it also became possible for Hitler to emplace heavy artillery units to command not only the Channel but the British shore opposite--guns which because they fire from steady platforms can outshoot those of the British Fleet.

To Hitler two possible types of attack on Britain then opened: 1) to besiege it, 2) to assault it. The siege began late in June. German submarines, inactive since March, put to sea again, and British shipping losses rapidly mounted. At the same time the air arm supplemented the U-boat campaign by attacking convoys and docks as well as bombarding industrial objectives.

With an air siege being conducted for the first time in history, Southeastern England immediately became a strategic area of the first importance. Bombers in limited number first began raiding industrial establishments, mostly at night, with inevitable casualties to women and children. This was interpreted as preliminary to much heavier raids on R. A. F. fields, to wreck shops and trap airplanes on the ground, drop tons of bombs at the establishments that furnish Britain with its munitions of war, its food, its utilities such as gas, electricity and water. Prime objectives for this bombardment are the docks of the Thames estuary, the great industrial area encircling London, the vast manufacturing district in the area near Birmingham, which is to England what the Pittsburgh area is to the U. S.

So highly developed is the economy of Southeastern England, that natural bombing objectives lie almost end to end from Folkestone to Birmingham, from Bournemouth to Lowestoft. On the map, factories and other industrial establishments are shown by white buildings, naval bases by anchored ships, main power plants by miniature power houses at Hove and Watford, big oil storage centres by tanks. Among these chief objectives are: aircraft factories at London, Feltham, Hatfield, Kingston, Hayes, Weybridge, Birmingham, Coventry, Cowes; munitions works at Portsmouth and Chatham; automotive works at Coventry, Birmingham, Oxford.

As mature as Southeastern England's economic muscular system is its system of arterial communications. The British railway system radiates from London south to the Channel coast, west to the great coal and iron supplies of Wales, northwest to the Midlands, north to the industrial and naval establishments of Scotland. Developed for peaceful commerce, it is an ideal system for movement of troops and supplies, complete to a belt line running along the south coast which serves as the forward supply line for Britain's defending Army. It is also highly vulnerable to bombing attacks. Directed at the junctions and yards, they can snarl up Britain's military supply system. Recently large rush orders for rails were placed in the U. S. in anticipation of repairs that would be needed. Supplementing the railroads for slower supply are the rivers and the main canals. Less vulnerable to bombing attacks, these water passages could also be closed if bombers could sink ships and barges in narrow channels or topple bridges into streams.

Previously no population with the fortitude of the British had been exposed to total air attack. But Britain, assuming that she could not be starved and strangled into submission by attacks on her shipping, disorganization of her communications, and damage to her industrial plants, early this summer laid plans to meet a German assault as the culmination of the siege. German military writers have long speculated on the possibility of taking Britain by storm. Many of them (notably Strategist Ewald Banse, author of Germany Prepares for War) have written that with the Channel ports in German hands, invasion is no trick at all.

As early as June the British evacuated all women, children and foreigners from all areas within 20 miles of the coast shown on the map. Bridges were blown up, low areas flooded, and men with guns--both soldiers and parashots--were to be seen behind every shrub. Gun emplacements and trenches were constructed throughout this area, which became virtually an armed camp.

The region of greatest danger was the area opposite the narrow Strait of Dover, which German guns and air power seemingly made impassable for all but the lighter units of the British Navy. With only these light vessels to oppose them, this region obviously became the most tempting for a German landing.

Landing attacks are of all military operations the most difficult. For minutes while they are in small boats heading for the beach, troops are helplessly exposed to fire from shore. By sudden descents initial landings may be made, but then they must be quickly widened and deepened to five miles or more to keep the field artillery of the defenders from pounding the landing parties on the beachhead. Next, to land heavy equipment including larger guns and tanks as well as men in numbers for a major invasion it is necessary to bring large vessels into shore. To protect these a penetration of 15 to 20 miles is necessary so that heavy artillery cannot hammer the landing facilities.

Winston Churchill recently estimated that it would take 200 to 250 vessels to land five divisions, and such large convoys would also invite fleet attacks at sea. But if large units of the British Fleet attempt to operate in the narrow waters near Dover they would be exposed to heavy German air, U-boat and artillery attack, and would probably suffer losses.

The British of course suspected that with the enemy in control of the entire European coast from North Cape to the Pyrenees, the Germans might make simultaneous descents on various parts of the British Isles, including Eire. Initial landings of small units of 1,000 men or so the British did not hope to prevent entirely. But their vigilance was aimed at confining such landings to the beachheads until the British Fleet could come up to cut off the landing parties from all reinforcements except by air.

Their plans looked to the further possibility that under these circumstances the fate of action might be decided by command of the air. If the British could command the air locally, as they appear to have done for a time at Dunkirk, they could put the invaders in an extremely uncomfortable position. If the Germans could command it they could lend their landing parties the equivalent of artillery support before artillery was actually landed. They could also land parachute troops and others to assist in the penetrations necessary to protect beachheads. Even if the original landing operations were not themselves successful, the British Fleet might so expose itself that it would lose too many vessels to be able to continue the defense of Britain. These were the grim possibilities which the British had to face when they again studied the strategic problem of defending their southeastern coast.

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