Invasion: Operation Sealion 1940
13 Sep 04

“Any Nazi invasion of Britain was doomed to fail due to their flawed planning and strategy.”
Martin Marix Evans

In the summer of 1940 Hitler prepared to invade England. Immense resources were devoted to the endeavour, codenamed Operation Sealion. Many believe this invasion would have resulted in victory for the Nazis. This new, alternative history produces evidence that, whilst the tactics and courage of the Nazi army were indisputably masterful, their failure to plan would ultimately lead to defeat.

Following events in Europe from the attack on Poland by Germany in September 1939 to the Battle of Britain a year later, this book (Invasion: Operation Sealion 1940) includes the details of the preparations the Germans made for Operation Sealion. The strategy, tactics and events of 1939 and 1940 form the foundation for the rest of the book, a conjectural narrative account of what might have taken place had the invasion happened.

The historical facts have been respected, informing the fictional account of Sealion. The author has drawn upon German Army handbooks in his personal collection as well as German maps in the collection of the Bodelian Library and the work of leading German scholar Dr Peter Schenk.

The book makes some contentious assertions, including the author’s belief that the German’s fears of the Royal Navy were unfounded. He states that: “The Royal Navy would have been deeply reluctant to be drawn into resistance of Sealion prior to landings in England and tentative about intervention afterwards”.

He also exposes the German’s Achilles heel that would have lead to failure. The popular perception of the German Army is of a fighting force that possessed technical superiority in arms and tactics, considerable courage and determination, and superb powers of planning and staff work. The first two characteristics were demonstrated in Norway and France, but the planning and staff work is another matter. Almost every German campaign foundered with the over-reaching of supply lines, just as it had in the spring of 1918.

In the event Operation Sealion was not put into action in the autumn of 1940. If it had gone ahead, Marix Evans believes it would have failed, not on the sea but on land. The German’s neglect of planning and supply lines would have left the German Army paralysed, its tanks standing useless without petrol ("A tank without fuel is just a badly-built bunker," says Marix Evans), its army crippled by lack of resources.

Invasion: Operation Sealion 1940, published by Longman, August 2004. Buy online from www.pearson-books.com before 11th October 2004 to save 10% on the RRP of £19.99. Click here for further information or to purchase.

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