World War Two, How the World Changed Forever

by Vern, Steven

  He was right. Behind the scenes, Hitler organized pro-Nazi parties in Slovakia (Czechoslovakia being made up of two federal states, one peopled mostly by the richer and more populous Czechs, and another by the Slovaks), and in March 1939, Slovakia seceded from the nation.

  Because of the events of the next few months and the outbreak of war in 1939, most people forget that it was not just Hitler who profited from the division of Czechoslovakia. Hungary was awarded part of the nation, as was Poland, and in mid-March, the Germans moved into the rest of the nation and annexed it into the growing German Reich (Empire).

  Hitler not only gained power, but he also gained tremendous resources, the most important of which were the great arms factories of Czechoslovakia. His actions were also being viewed by another powerful nation, the Soviet Union (also known as the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”, or “U.S.S.R.”).

  In the Soviet Union, dictator Joseph Stalin had actually intended to defend Czechoslovakia from Hitler, provided that Britain and France do the same. When he saw those nations back away from war, he realized that should Hitler begin to make demands on the U.S.S.R. or threaten Soviet interests, the Western powers (which were highly suspicious of Stalin and communist Russia and had been for a long time) would not come to his aid. Therefore, he determined that at least for the time being, he needed to come to an agreement with the Nazis.

  In Great Britain and France, the mood of relief that had followed the “success” of the Munich Agreements in September was followed by renewed pessimism when Hitler moved into Czechoslovakia. Though both nations had slowly been re-arming since 1936, they now accelerated the process. Even this was criticized as not enough by Winston Churchill and his now growing group of supporters. In England, people began to call for the resignation of Chamberlain and the election of Churchill as Prime Minister. In 1939, he was put in charge of the Royal Navy as First Lord of the Admiralty, the same position he had held at the outbreak of WWI.

  Almost immediately after his takeover of Czechoslovakia, Hitler began to make noises against, and demands of, another neighbor, Poland. At the Paris Peace Conference ending WWI, the Poles had been given their own nation, which they had not had for centuries. Parts of that nation were carved out of territory traditionally belonging to Germany, which now included many ethnic Germans. Hitler had railed against the Poles for years; he believed it to be an artificial country created at the expense of Germany and peopled by “sub-human” Slavic Poles. After the weakness shown by the other European powers in 1938, he determined that his next target would be Poland.

  Hitler began to demand that Poland return a slice of land to Germany that divided the nation in two: the mass of Germany in the west, and the state of East Prussia in the east. The Poles, stubborn, newly independent, and having been ruled by Germany (or as it was known before 1871, Prussia), Austria-Hungary, and Russia for centuries, had no intention at all of giving into Hitler's demands. They were also assured by their allies, Britain and France, that should Hitler declare war on Poland, they would declare war on Germany. Though Hitler did not believe this would happen, the governments of France and England, by this time, while not enthusiastic for war, had had enough of Hitler's demands and threats.

  Poland also had another “ace up their sleeve”, so to speak. Though the Poles and the Soviets hated each other vehemently, the Poles believed that it was in the interest of the Soviet Union not to allow Hitler's armies to sit on the Soviet border, and that should Hitler invade Poland, the U.S.S.R. might very well come to their aid. Wrong.

  For months, Hitler and Stalin (whose ideologies were exceedingly hostile towards each other) had been dancing around the idea of a non-aggression agreement with each other. In late August, to the surprise of the entire world, Hitler and Stalin reached an agreement not to go to war with one another. Two nations who had publicly declared the other the “enemy of humanity” were now partners. And what's more, the agreement they signed included secret protocols that the world would be made aware of shortly.

  After months of German threats, and months of Polish refusals to give in to them, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. 2 days later, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. World War II had begun.

  CHAPTER 2:

  PHASE ONE

  When Hitler decided to invade Poland, he needed to make sure that the giant U.S.S.R. remained on the sidelines. To do this, he entered into secret talks with Stalin, which were broadcast to a shocked world at the end of August 1939. The secret protocol that made the entire deal work was an agreement between the two dictators to divide Poland between them. Additionally, Stalin received German assurances that Hitler would not interfere when Stalin invaded the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which Russia had controlled until 1917. Stalin would also be assured of German neutrality when he claimed and moved against both Romania and Finland, for slices of their country that he coveted. In exchange, Germany was assured of Russian neutrality when it attacked the more populous and economically wealthy western part of Poland and its capital, Warsaw.

  Hitler did not truly believe that France and Britain would declare war on Germany over Poland. They had shown themselves to be weak over the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. Why would Poland be any different?

  So on September 1, 1939, the German Army (“Wehrmacht”) attacked Poland, and used tactics that were to define WWII and influence warfare to the present day. This is known as the “Blitzkrieg”, German for “lightning war”.

  For years, the German Army had been developing new ideas, incorporating the use of the tank and the plane (both of which had played a role in WWI, but had not been used to their full potential) in tandem with the infantry.

  The basic idea behind blitzkrieg tactics called for the infantry and artillery to probe for a weak point in the enemies' lines (This could also be done before hand through the use of intelligence gathering). The infantry and artillery would mass at that point, and blow a hole through the front lines of the enemy. At the same time, German planes would be flying towards enemy airfields to eliminate the threat of enemy air attack.

  Close on the heels of the infantry, and sometimes in tandem with them, would be formations of tanks. In WWI and in the years since, various nations experimented with tank tactics, but none more than the Germans, who realized that the best use of tanks was not to scatter their armored strength by mixing them in with infantry units, but to use them together, as an “armored fist”, massing their firepower and harnessing their mobility.

  Once the tanks had broken through enemy lines, they were to drive to a pre-assigned objective, whether a river, bridge, enemy position, city, etc. Some in the German Army believed that if formations of tanks spearheaded a way through enemy lines, they would then be in danger of being surrounded and/or outflanked themselves. The key for the Germans was to keep the tanks moving as fast as possible and using them to disrupt enemy communications, sow panic behind the lines, and to envelop the enemy front line positions from the rear.

  Another key for the Germans was that if things went according to plan, and the Poles were defeated quickly, then Germany could send their troops westward to defend their western borders from the British and French. However, Hitler gambled that the British and French, even if they declared war, would not move on Germany, but would wait behind their defensive positions in France. This is almost exactly what happened.

  A couple of facts about the German war in Poland that most people do not know. Firstly, though the Germans advanced rapidly and defeated the Poles (who were attacked from the east by the Soviet Union on September 17), the conflict was still a war by two populated European states and casualties for the Germans, while low considering what was to come, amounted to nearly 17,000 killed and 30,000 wounded. The Poles suffered much more, with 60,000 dead, and more than 100,000 wounded. This was a campaign that lasted 4 weeks. To put the war in Poland in a modern context: the United States lost 55,000 men in the 10 years of the Vietnam War. The war i
n Poland, although “easy” compared to what came later, was hardly bloodless as many history books make you think.

  Secondly, because the Germans unleashed a new type of warfare in Poland, and because it was so successful, many believe that the German army was absolutely overflowing with tanks. It was not. As a matter of fact, most of the German Army and its supplies moved on foot or by horse-drawn cart. It was the manner in which they used their tanks that made the difference. That, and the fact that Poland had virtually no tanks at all, and an air force that was outdated and destroyed on the ground in the first days of the battle.

  On September 3rd, 2 days after the battle for Poland began, the British and their French allies declared war on Germany. World War II had started – sort of. Although there was an initial movement of French troops about 5-10 miles into one small area of Germany, the allies did nothing. They hoped that the Germans would attack them, and that the defensive fortifications (and the French army, the largest in Europe) that the French had built along the German border would crush and destroy the Nazis and end the war.

  For Poland, the end of the fighting was just the beginning. No other country, as a percentage of its total population, was to see more death than Poland. Even worse, people from around Europe were transported into Poland to be killed in the extermination camps built in the country to carry out Hitler's vision of a Europe without Jews.

  And the fighting in Poland was to continue. Polish and Jewish underground units fought the Germans on occasion, with the two most notable occasions happening in Warsaw in 1943 and 1944. In 1944, the Soviet Red Army broke into Poland and months of vicious fighting then took place between them and the retreating Nazis.

  In the years 1939-45, Poland was an absolute slaughterhouse.

  CHAPTER 3:

  “PHONY WAR”

  On September 3, 1939, shortly after the British declared war on Germany, air raid sirens went off all over London. People flocked to subway stations and bomb shelters, and prepared for the beginning of what they were sure would be a long and costly war. Except, it was a false alarm.

  While the Germans were busy in Poland, the British, the French, and their friends in Belgium and Holland called up conscripts and prepared their defenses for a German attack.

  In the 1930s, as it became clear that the French were more concerned with developments in their own country (mostly because of the Depression), they became less and less interested in taking an active role in Germany, as they had in the 1920s. French politics was a jumble of conflicting parties and after the tremendous cost of WWI, very few in France had the stomach for another war.

  This was doubly so for an offensive war. France had lost approximately 2 million men during the war, and most of these occurred during pointless and fruitless attacks against fortified positions. Therefore, the French believed that in the next war, they would let the Germans batter themselves on French defenses until they could not fight any longer.

  There were a number of problems with this strategy. First, WWI was the last war, not the next one. The development of the plane and the tank were to change war forever in 1939, but the French High Command refused to see this.

  Second, the main line of French fortifications, the Maginot Line (named after the French Minister of War in power when construction began in the early '30s), while formidable in the extreme, had a major problem – it was not long enough (stories about the guns of the Maginot Line cannons not being able to fire to the rear are largely untrue). The line covered France's border with Germany, but not France's border with Belgium (an ally). If the French built a defensive line on the Belgian border, the Belgians might start to believe that the French had prepared to abandon them to the Germans before a war even started, and might very well seek an agreement with Hitler. Therefore, the Franco-Belgian border, especially at the Ardennes Forest, was left free of strong defensive positions. This was noted by Hitler.

  In Britain, troops were called up, and troops in the British colonies and Dominion put on their uniforms. A “British Expeditionary Force” (“BEF”) sailed to France, and with the French Army, prepared to move into Belgium to meet the anticipated German attack.

  By late 1938, the British, who, since the end of WWI, had done all it could to avoid another European war, were beginning to understand the fact that they were going to eventually have to fight Hitler. To this end, they began a massive re-armament program, especially as it pertained to the Royal Air Force (“RAF”), but many believed that it might be a case of “too little, too late.”

  What happened between October 1939 (when the Polish campaign ended) and April 1940 has been called the “Phony War”. This gives the impression that nothing happened. That is not so, but for the most part, the giant land armies of France (augmented by the BEF) and Germany stood across the border from each other, and went about minding their own business. In some isolated cases, there was a brisk trade in cigarettes and other goods between men of the French and German armies. No one, however, believed the “peace” would last.

  It wasn't really a peace, anyway. The British mined German ports, and the Germans sent their submarines (“U-Boats”) out to sink British naval vessels and Britain-bound merchant ships. On October 14, a daring German sub commander made his way into the main port of the British Home Fleet and sank the battleship “Royal Oak”, with the loss of over 800 British sailors. As the war went on, the submarines continued to take a mounting toll, until adequate defensive measures were adopted.

  Meanwhile, in northern Russia/southern Finland, the war was anything but “phony”. In late November, after making a series of demands on Finland that were rejected, Stalin's Red Army attacked the former Russian colony. He got more than he bargained for, as the Finns fought the Russians to a near standstill and took a tremendous toll on the Red Army in the forests of Finland during one of the worst winters on record.

  The Finns, who were outnumbered sometimes 10 to 1, illustrated to the world, and especially Hitler, that the Red Army was weaker than expected. During the 1930's, Stalin had eliminated much of the Red Army officer corps out of paranoia and his endless hunger for more power, and many of those left were nothing but “yes men”, who were terrified to take independent action, lest they displease the Soviet dictator.

  Eventually, however, the Finns had to come to the negotiating table with Stalin – the numbers were dramatically against them. Finland agreed to give up lands and islands near their borders and on their coast that Stalin had coveted. The war forced Finland to look for a powerful European ally, and the closest one was Germany.

  Germany and Britain were eyeing the far north of Europe as well. Their focus was on the long coast of Norway, which, in German hands, could threaten the eastern coasts of England and Scotland. Just as the Allies were finishing talks with the Norwegians that would allow them to post troops at key positions throughout the country, the Germans acted. Using paratroops, and naval and air transport, the Germans took the Norwegian capital of Oslo after brief fighting. On the same day, they conquered their small neighbor, Denmark, without a fight. Then troops were sent northward with a German naval escort as British ships carrying British and French troops made their way to northern Norwegian sea ports.

  Though the British navy made a gallant stand and took a heavy toll of German destroyers and other vessels, after heavy fighting in the northern cities of Trondheim and Narvik, the Allies were forced to withdraw from Norway. They did not have the manpower to adequately defend enough of Norway to make a difference, and the Germans controlled the air over the country. Furthermore, the British and French anticipated that when the weather improved, the Germans would be making their move in mainland Europe and they would need every man they had to defend themselves there.

  CHAPTER 4:

  GERMANY SHOCKS

  THE WORLD

  In 1914-1918, millions of German soldiers attempted to conquer France. In their initial attack, the Germans poured through the neutral nation of Belgium and attempted to swing around be
hind the French and their defenses along the German border. Only the swift reaction of the French and British prevented them from capturing Paris in the late summer/early fall of 1914.

  Though they controlled a portion of northern France until the war ended, the Germans could never find a way to breakthrough and defeat the French and British for good. When the Americans joined the war in 1917, everyone but the most deluded knew that Germany had lost the war.

  Behind the massive fortifications of the Maginot Line, the French felt safe. They and the British had also planned that should the Germans attack into Belgium again, they would quickly move their forces into that country to prevent it (and northern France) from being invaded once again.

  Great plan. Truly. With one small problem. Or rather, two. First, the Germans anticipated the Allied plan. Second, the Allies overlooked a gap in their defenses. Actually, they did not overlook this gap at all – they believed there weren't any gaps, for the hole in their defenses that the Germans meant to exploit was a route that the Allies though impassable.

  The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests and rough terrain, primarily located in Belgium and Luxembourg, but stretching into Germany and France. Even today, parts of the Ardennes are only traversed by narrow roads that run through dense pine forests. In 1940, many, if not most, of the roads were dirt, narrow, and thought to be impassable to a large modern army. Therefore, the French and Belgians left it lightly defended, which is exactly what the Germans had been hoping for.

  As you can see from the map above, the German armies were divided into three “Army Groups”. It was the task of Army Group C to make the French believe the main German assault would come in the area of the strongest Maginot Line defenses and force them to hold their forces along the German border. Meanwhile, the other two Army Groups would attack westward, with the most important stroke coming through the Ardennes Forest. As the British and French moved into Belgium to defend that country, the Germans (it was hoped by Hitler) would have already gotten behind them and cut them off.