The Little World

Air defence in the 1930’s was a complex thing – most nations had various plans in hand for offensive strategic war against their most likely enemies – and in some cases against their most likely allies. In some case the former was the least likely…

There were also equivalent plans for air defence, though it was felt by the various high commands that it was pretty well impossible to defend their countries against air attack. The bomber was envisaged as the primary strategic weapon to defeat an enemy without the need for trench warfare. In the event, trench warfare never really did succeed again and the air attackers and defenders did.

The first problem for the Royal Command was to determine which direction attack would most likely come from – Poland, Germany, Austria, or Czechoslovakia. France and Great Britain were ruled out but Russia was put on the possibles list. As it was felt that there would probably not be a Five-Power-Treaty against the Kingdom, plans were drawn up for a southern and northern air defence line. These were further divided into dealing with a Spring Offensive or an Autumn Offensive  – Winter being considered as out of bounds on the grounds of appalling weather and Summer as interfering with the tourists. The Royal Ruritanian Secret Information Service was given orders to send photos of the Kingdom in winter to the General Staffs of all possible belligerents to put the fear of fog into them.

The implementation of the Strelsau lines depended upon adequate early warning of attack. As the Kingdom had no radar, nor anyone capable of inventing it or understanding a radar screen, extensive networks of Strategic Crones were deployed on the borders and in the major garrison towns of Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc. These crones were grandmothers, aunties, spinsters, and women of negotiable virtue who kept a close eye upon the military of possible enemies and reported back regularly whenever there were troop movements or engines starting up in the night. They were spot-on, predicting, as they did, the 1939 air invasion from Czechoslavakia that was lost in the fog, the 1940 100-bomber raid from Berlin that pulverised Linz, and the 1941 Italian airborne assault on Napoli that was repulsed with bad language. They are still cackling about these to this day.

Note: I received several notices from the social network ” Facebook ” that these columns detailing the history of the RRAAF are considered to be ” spam ” and run counter to their code of morals. These notices were followed in a few hours with other notices that said they had reconsidered and the columns were fine.

I am overjoyed to find a seam of idiocy so close to the surface in my own back yard. I shall prepare further columns on the topic and see if I can mine it again. With any luck I can get myself delisted from the Mumbai Stock Exchange and permanently barred from the Argentine…