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Germany Takes Scandinavia
Bringing the Phoney War to an end on April 9, 1940, German forces occupied Copenhagen and other cities in Denmark. King Christian X of Denmark was not prepared to fight a losing war against the superior German force and surrendered almost immediately. At the same time, German warships entered major Norwegian ports and deployed thousands of German troops to occupy Norway.
The Germans were helped into Norway by Norway’s pro-fascist former foreign minister Vidkun Quisling. Hours after the invasion, the Germans established a puppet regime led by Quisling (whose name would become a synonym for “traitor”). The Germans wanted access to Norway’s vast coastline to re-establish the supremacy of their U-boats in the North Sea and, they needed access to Norway’s supply of iron to keep their war machine supplied for the coming years.
Germany Invades the Low Country
As the world waited to see what Hitler would do next, Neville Chamberlain resigned his position as British Prime Minister on May 10, 1940 and that post was taken up by Winston Churchill. On the very same day, Germany launched a massive invasion of the low countries (The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg) in an effort to penetrate into and take France quickly.
On May 13, Churchill addressed the House as their new Prime Minister and gave his famous Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat Speech.
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
It took Germany’s blitzkrieg machine less than a week to bring the Netherlands and Luxembourg to surrender. The Belgians held out long enough for the allies to develop a line of defense against the German onslaught. However, Britain and France had made a serious error.
While they strongly defended most of the French border, they stationed very few troops in the region of the Ardennes forest in southern Belgium. They were sure that the rocky terrain and thick forest would be enough to stop any German advance, but Hitler thought otherwise and sent the bulk of his armored tanks through that region while keeping the Allies distracted with Luftwaffe bombing and garrisons of troops to the north in Belgium and the south along the Maginot Line on the German-French border.
Dunkirk
The German forces pushed through the forest and surprised a weak Allied force at the city of Sedan. The Germans easily broke through the lines and quickly had the Allied troops encircled along the border of Belgium and northern France. Day by day, German forces pushed the Allies towards the coast with their backs towards the English Channel. By May 25th, the Allied forces of nearly 400,000 troops were pinned down in the port city of Dunkirk where they would be subjected to nearly constant bombing by the Luftwaffe, their only hope was evacuation.
To the surprise of the Allied forces, the advancing German Panzer divisions were ordered to stop twelve miles short of Dunkirk. Hitler agreed with many of his top aides that the Luftwaffe should be able to dispatch the remainder of the trapped forces within just a few days of bombing. Hitler turned his eyes south toward Paris. However, the Luftwaffe was thwarted by bad weather. Pouring rain, thick fog, and low cloud cover kept the Luftwaffe grounded.
This gave the British enough time to call for help. King George VI called for a National Day of Prayer on May 26th and the country responded. Later that same day, the evacuation plans began under the codename Operation Dynamo. More than 800 ships, mostly small civilian fishing trawlers and pleasure vessels manned by private citizens crossed the channel over the next 9 days, with the help of God providing the perfect conditions of smooth water and foggy low cloud cover, and rescued more than 350,000 soldiers.
While Churchill was thankful for the rescue, he told the House of Commons on in his famous “Never Surrender” speech on June 4th that “we must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuation.” He quickly followed that up by redoubling his earlier intention to continue to fight onward to victory.
We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
– Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940
The Fall of France
As Hitler turned his attention to Paris, the Luftwaffe began bombing the city on June 3rd. Mussolini had not been holding up his part of the agreement with Germany. But on June 10th, Italy finally joined, declaring war on both France and Britain.
France was in disarray since the failure of just a month before. The French government was forced to flee first to Tours then to Bordeaux. By June 13th, Paris was completely occupied by German troops and the French were on the ropes. They installed a new government and immediately began asking the Germans for an armistice. On June 22, 1940, the French signed the surrender documents in the same railroad car in which the Germans had surrendered in World War I. What Germany attempted to do for 4 years in World War I, Hitler had accomplished in just 6 weeks.
According to this agreement, Germany would occupy more than half of France, including Paris, the entire Atlantic coastline, and the northern section of the country. The rest of France would be under the control of a new government with its seat in Vichy, France. Many of the Frenchmen who had escaped to Britain refused to surrender. Instead, they organized under a leader named Charles de Gaulle and called themselves Free France. They continued fighting along with the Allies against the Axis Powers.
In the comments below, I would like you to put a question or comment that you have from the lesson above. Feel free to interact with and comment on each other’s comments. If you find a video or article that is interesting as you study, feel free to share it here as well.
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war is a messed up thing. i find it horrible and fascinating that a human can be so driven and wild that they kill other humans. i just dont get it. of course thats the pacifist in me talking.
I feel that Germany was pushing to hard to gain control for power. There starting all of these wars in Europe, then they also start ww2.
Why did Vidkun Quisling help the Germans when they were invading the very place he calls home?
Because they gave him power. He became the “head” of their government.
I just think that the odds of favorable weather when Operation Dynamo took place were rather long. I think God gave the Allies mercy and allowed them to be evacuated. According to the video, the whole British army would have been destroyed, which would have made stopping Germany nearly impossible with out France or Britain.
Thank you for recognizing this! I think we can look at Dunkirk as an example of a modern day miracle. The only way it could have been more obvious is if the English Channel just parted to allow them to cross on dry land.
I think the groundwork for Germany’s success was Hitler’s influence, his skill of persuasion. It took Hitler six weeks to do that which Germany attempted to do over the course of four years in World War One. Yes, Hitler seemed to be a brilliant strategist, but it takes loyal, determined soldiers to carry out plans effectively. Those soldiers were primed (whether directly or indirectly) by Hitler and his words.
Just imagine being Winston Churchill like the day you come to office Hitler lunches a massive invasion i wonder how he felt with all this. It’s also just mind blowing to me how hitler got so powerful and did all that damage like you’d think the people working with him would realize that he’s crazy and that they shouldn’t be murdering all those innocent people
Churchill had wanted to fight since before he was prime minister. He even predicted Hitler’s control of Eastern Europe! So, Churchill probably was not happy. However, he may have felt just a bit of the “I was right” mentality. Just saying.
Germany was ruthless and took what they wanted. Dunkirk was definitely a miracle and evidence that God can work against impossible odds.
How the tables turned on June 22, 1940! The French signed surrender documents in the very same railroad car in which the Germans had surrendered in World War I. I wonder if that could have possibly been a message to the rest of the world that the times were changing (if they hadn’t noticed already).
What really made the Miracle of Dunkirk a miracle was the amazing weather. There really wouldn’t have been a way to rescue the 338,226 troops during operation dynamo if it wasn’t for the weather.
You begin to see how unbelievably selfish Hitler was. He didnt care at all for other peoples lives. He just kept pressing on and just killing tons of poeple on both fronts to achieve what he wanted
I feel like Germany’s forces spread thin, did he gain more manpower by drafting citizens from the countries that he took?
He must have because Germany couldn’t cover that area and invade more countries with only his troops.
I don’t know. Most of the stats show that Germany had been building up troops and equipment preparing for the war. For instance, in the Battle of Britain, there were twice as many Luftwaffe planes than there were RAF. They made effective use of equipment instead of people when possible.
Its easy to see how greedy for power Hitler was, Germany kept starting wars and looking for power over and over. I don’t understand why anyone would do this but i’m glad the Miracle of Dunkirk happened to save all of those people
I finally commented on this