None of this was quite what Churchill had in mind when calling the British people to brace themselves to their duties, or speaking of the Empire that might last a thousand years.
丘吉尔完全没想过这些，他号召英国人民谨守自己的责任，还说帝国会常青一千年。
But duty and empires did not solve ciphers, and Churchill never bargained for an Alan Turing.
但是责任和帝国并不能解开德国密码，而丘吉尔却从未期待过艾伦·图灵。
If the danger of direct invasion diminished, the attack on shipping was itself an invasion of the British metabolism.
如果说直接侵略的危险减小了，那么对贸易的攻击，就是对英国运转机制的侵略。
In the first year of war the sinkings by U-boats had not been the dominating problem.
在战争的第一年，被U型潜艇击沉并不是最重要的问题，
More significant were the disposition of the merchant fleets of newly occupied and neutral countries,
更重要的是新占领的和中立国家的商船队的部署，
the closure to trade of both the Channel and the Mediterranean, and the reduced capacity of British ports and inland transport to absorb whatever arrived.
海峡和地中海贸易的中断，还有英国港口吞吐量的减少。
From late 1940, however, the position began to clarify.
不过，从1940年末开始，情况变得清楚了。
The British-controlled merchant fleet had to supply an island separated by only twenty miles from an enemy continent, and to do so from bases thousands of miles across submarine-infested seas.
英国的商船队需要供给一个离敌人的大陆只有20英里的岛，而且中间经过了一个潜艇遍布的海域。
Britain also had to continue the economic system on which vast populations around the globe depended, and to remain at war at all,
英国还要维持全球的贸易网点，而且为了保持交战状态，
had to attack Italy in a Middle East which was now as distant from Britain as was New Zealand.
还必须去攻击意大利，对英国来说，意大利现在就像新西兰一样远。