In the game of chess, a stalemate is a situation in which the player whose turn it is to move has no legal move.

If this happens, the game ends in a draw.

Forcing stalemate can be a strategy in which a player with weaker pieces remaining

might salvage a draw

in a situation when the stronger player would ordinarily be expected to win.

Once it became clear that Britain could not be defeated either by ground invasion or aerial bombing,

the German government and military sought other means of escaping the stalemate.

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The Episode 334.

Stale Mate

On June 30th, 1940, shortly after the armistice with France, the chief of staff of the OKW, the

Wehrmacht High Command, distributed a memo titled The Continuation of the War Against England.

In that memo, Alfred Yodel asserted that a German victory was only a question

of time and outlined three possible ways that the United Kingdom might be forced to end its

resistance against Germany. The first was the political solution, meaning Germany and Britain would negotiate an armistice.

On June 30th, many people believed Britain would quit the war shortly, but you know that would not happen.

The second was, in Yodel's words, making war against the English motherland,

meaning either a ground invasion and occupation, or a combination of aerial bombing and

blockade that would force the British to negotiate.

The Battle of Britain was all about implementing that strategy, and you know that didn't work either.

That left Yodel's third suggestion, again in his words, extending the war to the periphery.

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