Sarah Paine

If it wants to get to Russia, which is its big ally in World War I and World War II, it's either got to go way up north around the Norwegian coastline,

and you get up into places like Murmansk and Archangel, or it's got to go way around through this very narrow sea, the Mediterranean, through the choke point of choke points, which is the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, into the Black Sea, and the main port back in the day was Odessa.

And then if you compare French and British access to the high seas, France has got a pretty good coastline that just gets it right into the oceans.

But Germany, if it wants to send merchant traffic or naval traffic, it's got to go through these narrow seas.

And then it's got to get by Britain, which is its big enemy in the two world wars, which is the dominant naval power.

So that's complicated.

For Britain, if it wants to get to its empire back in the day, it wants to go through the Suez Canal.

That requires the cooperation of Spain, France, Italy, and if it wants to get to Russia, Turkey as well.

Well, Turkey didn't cooperate very well in either war.

And if you think in World War II, well, fall of France, fascist sympathies of Spain, and then Italy as part of the access.

Britain is in real trouble.

And what do you do about this?

Britain has this big empire that it wants to protect.

It's got a massive basing system, more bases than anybody else does, in order to protect this empire from this, which is a very resentful Germany.

Doesn't much like the Versailles settlement of World War I.

It's a divided country in that a Polish corridor separates East Prussia.

And the Germans start trying to solve this problem.

Initially, they're taking Austria, the Sudeten-German parts of Czechoslovakia in 38.

Then they take all of Czechoslovakia in 39.

And they've already dealt with the Rhineland, which is supposed to be demilitarized per the terms of the Versailles Treaty.