WORLD WAR II BEGINS

This is the 3rd note on World War II I had written and is in continuation of my earlier 2 notes. 

Hitler attacked Poland on 1^st Sep 1939 morning at 4.45 AM with an army of 15 lac men. Hitler now unleashed a new method of warfare on Poland known as Blitzkrieg. In this, first the massed tanks attack the enemy army to be followed by heavy bombardment by the air force, and finally the infantry attack whatever is left of the Polish army.

The Polish army was simply no match for Hitler’s blitzkrieg despite being 10 lac strong. Specifically, the German air force known as the Luftwaffe created havoc among enemy soldiers by merciless attack. At that time the German air force was the number 1 in the world with 1180 fighters, 280 Stuka dive bombers, 2100 conventional bombers 550 transport planes, and 350 observation planes. By the time the Polish air force could offer any resistance, the Luftwaffe destroyed the Polish aircraft. They bombed out all the rail tracks and also power stations and other crucial areas in the cities.

The Polish tanks too were no match for Germany’s tanks. Ultimately Poland sent its mounted cavalry onto the German tanks and thousands of horses lay dead. Bereft of air cover their position became hopeless.

Britain and France then gave an ultimatum to Hitler to take back his forces which Hitler ignored. Finally left with no other option they declared war on Germany on 3^rd September 1939 and World War II started. Poland felt very happy but before Britain or France can do anything Warsaw fell on 8^th September just in a week.

Hitler sent the bulk of his army at that time consisting of 15 lac men to Poland and kept only 23 divisions near the line dividing Germany and France while France had 100 divisions ready. If France pushed forward with all its might on Germany then things would have been different but France did not have the guts to do so. That is why it is said victory favors the brave.

The entire Polish army was obliterated in 3 weeks, but even then they kept on fighting till the last drop of blood. Now Soviet Union entered the scene on 17^th September 1939 and launched an attack on Poland from the Eastern front. This shocked Britain and France. By 28^th September 1939, everything was over and Poland was occupied by German and Soviet forces.

For 7 months after that, there was a phony war between Germany and French and British forces on the German border. Neither attacked the other and time went on. But this time was used by both Britain and France to build their armaments. Hitler too started building a modern army with new types of modern weapons. Britain and France felt threatened by that and thought that they should cut off the iron supplies to Germany. Germany was getting its iron from Sweden. Iron is supplied to Germany by Sweden through Norway and Denmark. The allies appealed to Sweden requesting them to stop the iron supplies to Germany but Sweden did not agree to that.

On 19^th October 1939, Soviet Russia sent its army and occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Finland however, did not agree to receive Soviet forces into its territory. So, the Soviet Union now declared war on Finland on 10^th November 1939. Finland hardly had an army of 200,000 men. The Soviets expected Finland to fall in 3 days but it took them 3 months instead. In the war, while Finland lost 70,000 soldiers, the Soviet Union lost 200,000 men. This made the Soviet army lose a lot of reputation. This made the Soviet Union easy to get in the eyes of Hitler. Stalin became raving mad and killed the generals who led the army into Finland with a pistol.

Because Sweden refused to stop the supply of Iron to Germany Britain planned to send the allied armies into Norway and Sweden. But Hitler came to know of this plan, and before they could do anything Hitler attacked Denmark on April 9^th, 1940, and seized it in a few hours. From there he sent his armies into Norway where a battle was fought between Hitler and the allied army for 3 months when Germany emerged victorious. In this Norway attack Hitler for the first time in warfare used paratroopers. This easy defeat in the hands of Hitler made the British PM Chamberlain relinquish his post and Winston Churchill took over.

Perhaps Hitler wanted to give an inaugural gift to Churchill. Immediately. On the same day when Churchill took over, German forces attacked Belgium, Netherlands & Luxemburg. These were actually neutral countries veering neither toward the Allies nor Hitler, so why did he have to attack these countries? There was a strategy behind that.

After the 1^st World War, France feared Germany and constructed fortifications on the French-German border known as the Maginot Line which took 10 years to build. Now these fortifications are made of concrete and are impregnable. First of all, it is impossible to breach the Maginot line, and even if it is breached, Germany has to take a lot of losses in the process. Hence Germany had to find a way to attack France from another way.  

France while building the Maginot line did a foolish thing. After the Maginot line, there is a forest (Ardennes) on the French-Belgian border. Assuming that tanks cannot travel through forests France stopped the Maginot fortifications to that area. Since Belgium objected to it, France did not build the Maginot line on the remaining northern border with Belgium.

Hitler first attacked the Low Countries with great speed. Now France thought it knew Hitler’s game because the same thing happened in the 1^st World War when Germany attacked France through Belgium. Therefore to stop Hitler France sent its troops into Belgium. The British Expeditionary force too followed the French army further to the North. In the meantime, the Belgian army was doing its best to stop the German forces.    

Now defeating the combined British and French forces is no mean task for Germany. They had more number of tanks than Germany and also other equipment. Hitler now split his army into two groups “A” & “B”. Hitler sent his “A” group through the supposedly impassable Ardennes while the “B” group carried on the war with Belgium. Amazingly enough, the German army crossed the Ardennes in a single day. Hitler’s brilliance as a tactical commander shines through here.   

The German “A” group now attacked the Maginot line from the French side and took control. To delay the advance of the Allied forces Hitler got ordinary citizens of the Low Countries sent in front of them. Now after taking control of the Maginot line the German army “A” group followed the tracks of the French army and the British forces that moved into Belgium for fighting the German army group “B”. The French and British forces were caught in a pincer with German group “B” in the front and group “A” in the back. To compound their ill luck the Belgian forces that were fighting the Germans surrendered freeing the group “B” completely. About 400,000 Allied soldiers got caught in the pincer.

The new British PM Churchill then took a clever decision. He ordered his troops to retreat through a point called Dunkirk opposite the English Channel and named it “ Operation Dynamo”. About 330,000 British and French troops were evacuated through Dunkirk. But why did Germany let them evacuate from Dunkirk ? Hitler’s Field Marshal advised that a direct fight with the forces may encumber Germany with big losses and they may be allowed to evacuate. Hitler listened to his Field marshal which was a tactical blunder, if he pressed ahead and attacked the Allied troops then, he would have delivered a big blow to Britain and the Allies. Hitler gave the job of stopping the evacuation to the Luftwaffe which failed to do so.

The German army now marched towards Paris snuffing out all armed opposition. After confirming that the field is secure Mussolini now declared war on Britain and France. He started off occupying Southern France. Soon entire France came under the Axis powers and Paris fell into German hands. When the French officials surrendered, Hitler got the train carriage in which the Versailles pact got forcibly signed by the German officials and made the French officials sign the surrender. The French general De Gaulle fled to Britain.