For the German high command, September 1940 brought a realization they had never anticipated.

that will, determination, and refusal to accept defeat could matter as much as tanks, aircraft, and military genius.

That some opponents cannot be intimidated into surrender.

That some nations, when pushed to the brink, discover reserves of strength that no amount of rational analysis could predict.

The victory parades planned for Berlin never happened.

The triumphant invasion never launched.

The quick clean end the war in the West never came.

Instead, the war ground on for five more years, consuming nations and lives on a scale that dwarfed even the catastrophic battles of 1940.

But in September 1940, when Hitler and his commanders met and decided to postpone Sea Lion indefinitely, they didn’t know this yet.

They only knew that their assumptions had proven wrong, that their certainties had dissolved, that their opponent had refused to behave as expected.

Britain would not surrender.

Britain would not see reason.

Britain would not quit.

And in the end, that made all the difference.

The German high command had conquered most of Europe in a matter of months.

They had defeated armies, toppled governments, occupied nations.

They had demonstrated military prowess unprecedented in modern warfare.

But they could not break the will of a people determined not to be broken.

Some chicken indeed.

Some neck.

 

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