17.2: The Early War

War came in September of 1939. The Nazis claimed that Poles had been abusing and mistreating ethnic Germans in Poland, which was perpetuated by the Nazi propagandists. Using this excuse, the German army invaded Poland. Realizing that appeasement had failed, France and Britain declared war on Germany. As part of the pre-war agreement with Germany, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east as German forces invaded from the west.

German strategists had learned from World War I to overcome trench warfare. Military technology had advanced rapidly between the wars, with the major nations developing fast-moving, heavily armored tanks and heavy bombers supported by fighter planes. It would be possible to strike much more quickly and much harder than had the ragged lines of charging soldiers “going over the top” twenty years earlier.

Likewise, as American intervention had proved in World War I, the Second World War combatants recognized the key role industrial production played. Who won the war would also be decided by who could continue to churn out weapons and equipment at the highest rates for the longest time. In that sense, industrial capacity was as important as fighting ability. German strategists had learned all of these lessons, and the German army - the Wehrmacht - struck with overwhelming force, backed by an industrial base designed to support a lengthy war.

When Germany finally attacked Poland in September of 1939, the Wehrmacht unleashed (what the Allies called) Blitzkrieg, lightning war, which consisted of fast-moving armored divisions supported by overwhelming air support. Behind those armored divisions, the main body of German infantry neutralized the remaining resistance and succeeded in taking thousands of prisoners of war. With Poland defeated, global attention shifted to the border of France.

(Blitzkrieg had originally been conceived by a French officer, Charles de Gaulle. It was rejected by the French General Staff but was acquired by the Germans and implemented by the Wehrmacht. The irony is that De Gaulle would go on to become the leader of the anti-Nazi Free French forces in the war after France itself surrendered.)

While France had declared war on Germany immediately, it did not actually attack. After WWI, the French built a huge series of bunkers and fortresses along the French-German border known as the Maginot Line. There, from September 1939 until May 1940, the French military essentially waited for Germany to invade. (This period came to be referred to as the "drôle de guerre,” or “joke war” by the French. The British called it the “phony war,” and the German's sitzkrieg or “sitting war”.) Most people believed the Maginot Line would hold the Germans back, so there was no need to attack Germany.

Instead, the Germans had the idea to go around the Maginot Line. In April, German forces invaded and swiftly defeated Denmark and Norway, despite a valiant resistance by the Norwegians. Then, on the 10th of May, they attacked the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, sending the bulk of their forces through a forest on the French - Belgian border that the French had thought was impassable to an army. The Germans proved far more effective than the French or British at using tanks and artillery, and they immediately began driving the French and British forces back. The Maginot Line, meanwhile, went unused, with the German invasion simply bypassing it completely with the Belgian invasion.

Figure 10.2.1: German forces invaded France through southern Belgium, bypassing the Maginot Line’s “strong fortifications” entirely.

In late May, over 300,000 British and French soldiers retreating from the Germans were pinned down on the coast of the English Channel near the French town of Dunkirk. There, a flotilla of navy and fishing vessels managed to evacuate them back to England while the British Royal Air Force held off the opposing German Luftwaffe (air force). This retreat counted as a success by the standards of the Allies at the time, although British Prime Minister Winston Churchill reminded his countrymen that successful retreats were not how wars were won.

Next, the French sent their armored forces toward Holland while the Germans smashed into France itself. The British and French proved inept at working together, and Allied morale collapsed completely. The French did not realize the potential of tank warfare: they treated tanks more as mobile artillery platforms than as weapons in their own right, and they had no armored divisions, just tanks interspersed with infantry divisions.

In the end, France surrendered to Germany on June 22. Germany occupied the central and northern parts of France but allowed a group of right-wing French politicians and generals to create a Nazi-allied puppet state in the south. That state became known as the Vichy Regime. There, the Vichy government rapidly set up a distinctly French fascist state, complete with concentration camps, anti-Semitic laws, and a state of war with Britain.

Thus, as of June of 1940, no major powers remained to oppose Germany but Britain (the United States remained neutral). Hitler had initially hoped that the British would agree to surrender the continent, so he could turn against the USSR. Instead, Britain refused to back down and handed over power to an emergency government headed by the new prime minister, Winston Churchill.

Starting in July of 1940, the Luftwaffe began a campaign to utterly destroy the (British) Royal Air Force (RAF) and to terrify the British into surrendering. German plans revolved around a naval invasion of the British Isles across the English Channel, but German strategists conceded that they would have to cripple the RAF for the invasion to be possible. The resulting months of combat in the skies came to be known as The Battle of Britain. It was the “greatest” series of air battles ever fought, lasting from July through September of 1940, with thousands of planes battling in the skies every day and night.

The British were quite well prepared. They had the newly-created technology of radar, which allowed them to anticipate German attacks. In addition to the RAF, the British had numerous batteries of anti-aircraft guns that inflicted significant losses on the Luftwaffe. Many British pilots survived crashes and were rescued, whereas German pilots who were shot down either died or were captured. Most importantly, British factories churned out twice as many new planes as did German ones over the course of the war. Thus, the RAF was able to counter German attacks with new, effective fighters and increasingly seasoned pilots. By the end of September, much to Hitler’s fury, Germany had to abandon the immediate goal of invading Britain.

Meanwhile, the United States stayed out of the war due to the policy of “isolationism”. In part because of the heroism of the British defense, the US Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act in March of 1941 which authorized unlimited support for Britain, mostly taking the form of food and military supplies provided on credit. With German blockades preventing imports, every aspect of the British economy (especially agriculture and other forms of food production) was directed by emergency wartime ministries to keep the British population from starving.

In September of 1941, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact. The Pact stipulated that any of the three powers would declare war on a neutral country that declared war on one of the others. Germany hoped that the Pact would make US politicians think twice about joining Britain in the war effort. In hindsight, it backfired against Germany, since the Japanese attack on the United States led Germany to honor its agreement and declare war on the US.

Figure 10.2.2: The sinking of the battleship the USS Arizona by the Japanese during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

In the meantime, a series of events shifted the focus of the war to North Africa, Greece, and the Balkans. Mussolini had ordered the Italian army to invade British territories in Africa (most importantly Egypt) and to attack Yugoslavia and Greece in 1940. The Italians were largely ineffective. All their attacks did was inspire a spirited British counter-offensive and a strong anti-Italian resistance movement in the Balkans. However, the Germans needed food and oil from the Balkans and southeastern Europe. It would be literally unable to continue the war if the Allies managed to take over these regions.

Thus, Germany sent forces to the Balkans and Africa to support their Italian allies. By the spring of 1941, the Germans held all of southeastern Europe and had pushed the British back in Africa. Important victories, but a setback to the Nazi's war timetable. Another setback occurred when the Spanish dictator Franco indicated that Spain was simply too poor and weak to join the Axis, despite the obvious political affinity between fascist Spain and Nazi Germany.