Chapter 17: Section 2

Europe Goes to War

Setting the Scene• Churchill – believed

that sacrificing part of Czechoslovakia to preserve peace was a fatal mistake

• thought that the peace agreement would give Britain only a few more months of peace– “Britain and France

had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war.”

• March 1939 – Hitler occupies the western half of Czechoslovakia (despite his assurances that all he had wanted was the Sudetenland) and divides the rest of the country among his allies

• April 1939 – Italy invades and occupies Albania

Invasion of Poland• Britain and France end their policy of

appeasement and warn Hitler that any further expansion risks war

• formally pledge to support Poland, agreeing to help if Germany invaded

Hitler’s Pact with

Stalin

• August 1939 Hitler and Stalin sign a ten-year Nonaggression Pact – eliminating Hitler’s fears of a two front war– secret document divided

up the independent states of eastern Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union

• September 1, 1939 – Hitler invades Poland

• September 3, 1939 – Britain and France declare war on Germany

Lightning War• each German

division had more machine guns, artillery, and other weapons

• had tanks organized into separate (panzer) divisions

• blitzkrieg (“lightning war”) – fast, concentrated air and land attack that took the enemy’s army by surprise

• stuka – dive-bombing warplane

• using the blitzkrieg Germany was able to overrun Poland in less than a month

• imposed German laws and imprisoned and murdered Jewish citizens– this treatment of

Jews is known as the Holocaust

• mid-September, Stalin seizes eastern Poland

War in the West• after Poland fell, Britain and France held

back– American’s called it the “phony war”

• Germans called the lull in fighting a sitzkrieg or “sit-down-war”

Maginot Line

Advantages• provided housing

for troops, recreational areas, air conditioning, rail lines, thick concrete walls, heavy artillery

Disadvantages• protected only the

French border that faced Germany; not the border with Belgium

• all heavy guns pointed east toward Germany and would be useless if attacked from another angle

• massive string of fortifications along France’s border with Germany

Germany Attacks

• April 9, 1940 – Hitler attacks Denmark and Norway

• May 10, 1940 – launched a new blitzkrieg– Netherlands ~ taken in 5 days– Belgium ~ taken in less than 3

days– Luxembourg ~ taken in 1 day

• mid-May – Germany invades northern France, going around the Maginot Line and to the English channel– cut off northern France from southern;

dividing the French troops

Evacuation of Dunkirk• French and British

forces retreat to the coastal city of Dunkirk– a nine-day rescue takes

place; one of the greatest in history

– using tugboats, yachts, and other small craft about 900 vessels carrying 340,000 soldiers crossed the English Channel to Great Britain

The Fall of France

• June 10, 1940 – French government abandons Paris

• Italy declares war on Britain and France

• June 22, 1940 – France officially surrenders

Vichy France• French

government settled in the southern unoccupied part of the France, beginning with the vacation resort of Vichy

• adopted a policy of collaboration – close cooperation, with Germany

Free France

• government-in-exile in London – continued the struggle against Germany

• Resistance movement – underground group made up of French citizens who distributed anti-German leaflets or sabotaged German operations

The Battle

of Britain

• Hitler’s next invasion target was Britain, 20 miles away, across the English Channel

• “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

Relentless Attack

• Britain’s large navy prevented Hitler from getting through

• to neutralize the navy, Germany had to control the air– Luftwaffe – German air

force• Battle of Britain – intense

air attack, using thousands of planes and bombs

• 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare – prohibited attacks on civilians– at first the

Germans attacked only military installations, but when two bombers strayed off course and dropped bombs on London a new type of warfare developed

The Blitz• early September

1940 Hitler orders massive bombing raids on London and other cities to try to break Britain’s will to resist– firebombs carried a

mix of chemicals that burned hot enough to set buildings on fire

• this type of bombing (the Blitz) would continue off and on until May 1941

• during the Blitz some Londoners sought nighttime shelter in the stations of London’s Underground subway system

• authorities tried to prevent it, but could not stop the rush of people

• eventually London Transport allowed the nighttime campers

Elephant and Castle Tube

Station during the Blitz

Courageous Defense

• Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF)– courageously defended Britain, flew against

German bombers, avoiding fighter planes– “Never in the field of human conflict was so

much owed by so few.” ~ Churchill

• by the end of the Blitz, more than 20,000 Londoners had been killed, and 70,000 injured

• February 1940 – scientists in Britain cracked the German top-secret communications code– learned that Hitler would not invade Britain until

the Luftwaffe established air superiority – which it never did