Am I ready to start my war?

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

I read Blair, but I'm a little fuzzy on this. Did BDU know that war was that imminent and they hurried them into position, or were they planned deployments to synchronize with the start of war, or was BDu just aware that war was imminent and they were getting boats into place jus in case?

From what I've read, they (meaning the KM higher-ups) knew that an incursion into Poland was imminent, and IIRC by mid-August they had been informed of the date it was expected to begin. Nobody knew for sure how England and France would react, but of course they knew that both countries were bound by treaty to come to Poland's aid in the event of aggression by Germany.

Given what Hitler had already gotten away with over the previous few years, it was no doubt hoped (and maybe to some degree expected) that the rest of Europe would look the other way or perhaps send a strongly worded letter to Berlin and that would be it.

Nevertheless, the possibility of war with England (and France) was always a potential result of aggression against Poland, so as many boats as could be made ready were sent out in order to have them on station should that possibility become reality. I think I even read somewhere about various people being called back early from leave when their superiors got word of what was coming, they were really scrambling to be as prepared as possible for the potential fallout.

For the KM, war with England was a "worst case scenario" they knew they might have to deal with and at a great disadvantage given the current state of the KM vs. the Royal Navy. So, yeah, they were very much trying to get as much of a jump on things as they could.