Battle of France, (May 10–June 25, 1940), during World War II, the German invasion of the Low Countries and France. In just over six weeks, German armed forces overran Belgium and the Netherlands, drove the British Expeditionary Force from the Continent, captured Paris, and forced the surrender of the French government.
The “phony war” and the invasion of Denmark and Norway
Gamelin, Maurice
1 of 2
Gamelin, MauriceMaurice Gamelin.
Maginot Line
2 of 2
Maginot LineMain entrance to the Schoenenbourg Fort on the Maginot Line, Bas-Rhin department, Alsace region, France.
After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, six months of relative calm descended on Europe. During a period dubbed the “phony war” by the press, the conflict between France and Germany was confined to a 100-mile (160-km) stretch of common frontier between the Rhine River and the Luxembourg border, and any pressure was limited to narrow sectors of this area. Gen. Maurice Gamelin, the French commander in chief, had argued that France’s only path to success would lie in “extending our front of attack” from the Moselle River to Maastricht, Netherlands, for an advance through Belgium and part of the Netherlands to the lower Rhine. He emphasized that, if Belgium and the Netherlands would not agree to this and if the French government was unwilling to override their neutrality, the prospect was dim. As this wider alternative was ruled out, Gamelin saw no point in courting heavy losses and wearing down the French army’s morale by pressing the attack on the Rhine-Moselle sector. The French had hardly dented the foremost layers of the German defense on the Franco-German frontier before the Germans had overrun Poland and returned to the West in force. The French command decided to withdraw its divisions to the shelter of its own Maginot Line.
German U-boats spent the “phony war” period sinking scores of Allied merchant ships, and the Germans sent out diplomatic feelers in the hopes that a negotiated peace would allow them to consolidate their already significant gains. By early 1940, however, both German leader Adolf Hitler and the Allies were contemplating the expansion of the war into Scandinavia. British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill had formulated a plan to mine the Norwegian port of Narvik in an effort to disrupt the flow of coal from neutral Norway to Germany, while Norwegian fascist Vidkun Quisling had personally urged Hitler to occupy his country. As rumours of a planned Allied violation of Norway’s neutrality swirled, the Germans initiated preparations for an offensive in Scandinavia. On April 7–8, 1940, the British began laying mines in Norwegian territorial waters; by that point, however, German plans were well advanced and the invasion was all but underway.
France, Battle of
France, Battle ofThe swastika flag of Nazi Germany flying over a fort in occupied Denmark, c. 1940.
In the early dawn hours of April 9, German troops crossed the Danish border, and German warships sailed into Copenhagen’s harbour. There was little organized resistance, and by noon the whole of Denmark was occupied. Simultaneously, German warships appeared in the fjord leading to Oslo, and German aircraft swarmed in the skies above the Norwegian capital. Norwegian shore batteries offered a spirited defense of Oslo, sinking the German heavy cruiser Blücher and checking the approach of German seaborne forces. This effort came to naught, however, when German parachute infantry landed at the Oslo airfield and captured the city later in the day. Elsewhere in Norway, German forces seized Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, and Narvik. Within two days, the Germans had taken most of the strategic centres of Norway, and the Norwegian army never had a real chance to mobilize.
Beginning on April 14, the Anglo-French Allies landed expeditionary forces on the Norwegian coast, at Åndalsnes and Namsos near Trondheim in central Norway and at Narvik in the far north. These groups were unable to get any heavy artillery or mechanized equipment ashore, and their antiaircraft defenses were largely nonexistent. British sea power could not disrupt the movement of men and supplies from Germany, whereas German air power proved more than capable of interfering with the landing of Allied reinforcements near Trondheim. After several failed attempts to penetrate Norway and link up with the Norwegian resistance, the Allied effort had to be abandoned and the troops withdrawn, except from Narvik. Following this operation, which was carried out in the first week of May, the Germans were uncontested masters of southern and central Norway. The Allied force at Narvik succeeded in taking that city in early June, only to be withdrawn days later. The Allied victory at Narvik was undone by the desperate need for troops in France, where the German blitzkrieg was making short work of the French defenses.
Germany invades Poland, September 1, 1939, using 45 German divisions and aerial attack. By September 20, only Warsaw held out, but final surrender came on September 29.
Britannica Quiz
Pop Quiz: 17 Things to Know About World War II
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
The military costs of the battle for Norway were relatively light, in accordance with the size of the forces engaged. The British lost several destroyers during the campaign, and the aircraft carrier Glorious was sunk while covering the evacuation convoys from Narvik. The political effects of the loss of Norway were immediate and far-reaching, however. The government of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, whose war efforts were characterized by former prime minister David Lloyd George as “always too late or too little,” was subjected to a vote of confidence on May 8. Although Chamberlain survived that motion, dozens of members of his own party voted against him, and his Conservative government was on the verge of toppling. Hitler was emboldened by the lackluster Allied performance in Norway, and, while Chamberlain was making a last desperate attempt to save his administration, Germany was preparing for another offensive. On the morning of May 10, German troops, tanks, and aircraft poured into the Low Countries. Within hours Chamberlain announced his resignation, and by that evening Churchill had been confirmed as prime minister at the head of a unity government.
The invasion of the Low Countries
Allied defenses and the German plan of attack
Battle of France
Battle of FranceMap of the Battle of France (1940).
Unlike Norway, the Low Countries had been expecting, or at least fearing, invasion for months. Both the Netherlands and Belgium were almost fully mobilized, and both had concluded agreements regarding their joint defense. Between them, the Netherlands and Belgium fielded some 900,000 troops, although much of their equipment was obsolete or of dubious quality. Their joint air force did not exceed 900 planes and was well short of that number in modern combat aircraft. The superbly armed and trained British Expeditionary Force was stationed just south of the Belgian border with France. Together with the French armies immediately south of the Belgian frontier between Sedan and the sea, these troops amounted to perhaps 750,000 potential reinforcements for the Dutch and Belgian armies. Although there was also a considerable Allied air presence in reserve, it could not compare to the force that the Luftwaffe would bring to bear.
Listen to Winston Churchill delivering his first speech as prime inister in 1940
Listen to Winston Churchill delivering his first speech as prime inister in 1940Winston Churchill addressing Parliament in his first speech as prime minister, May 13, 1940.
See all videos for this article
German military strength in May 1940 amounted to some 3.5 million men, more than 5,500 aircraft, and 10 panzer divisions. While the Allies could field a comparable number of tanks, they were dispersed among infantry units rather than concentrated in dedicated armoured divisions, and many lacked radios. The Dutch defense relied heavily on the prospect of flooding certain areas in the path of an invading army. Belgian defenses were more robust; their line paralleled the Meuse River as far as Liège, and from there it stretched along the Albert Canal, a waterway with steep banks that made for a formidable obstacle. Central to the Belgian defense was a series of forts along the canal; Eben Emael, the largest of these, was a massive and seemingly impregnable fortress that commanded the approaches to the Dutch city of Maastricht and key bridges across the Albert Canal. As a joint Dutch-Belgian defensive line, this system had one glaring weakness. It did not link the Albert Canal or Belgian Meuse lines with the Dutch lines, and this gap would be one of the main contributing causes to the speedy isolation and defeat of the Netherlands.
Schlieffen Plan of 1905
1 of 2
Schlieffen Plan of 1905
Manstein, Erich von
2 of 2
Manstein, Erich vonErich von Manstein, 1938.
The Allies believed that the broad strategy of the German attack would follow the well-established Schlieffen Plan, and indeed the initial Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) plan proposed by Chief of the Army General Staff Franz Halder did adhere to that model. Even before a copy of that plan fell into Belgian hands in January 1940, Hitler had been indifferent toward it, as he felt that it was too conservative and lacked ambition. Hitler was thus receptive when Lieut. Gen. Erich von Manstein proposed a bold alternative. The offensive would be carried out by three army groups: Gen. Wilhelm von Leeb’s Army Group C would demonstrate against the Maginot Line, and Gen. Fedor von Bock’s Army Group B would carry out the invasion of Belgium and the Netherlands. Allied armies would thus be drawn forward into Belgium in accordance with their expectations of a repeat of the Schlieffen Plan. Meanwhile, Gen. Gerd von Rundstedt would lead the third German army group, the 1.5 million men and more than 1,500 tanks of Army Group A, in an armoured thrust through the Ardennes, bypassing both the Maginot Line and the Allies’ most capable divisions.
The fall of the Netherlands (May 10–14, 1940)
Rotterdam, Netherlands; France, Battle of
Rotterdam, Netherlands; France, Battle ofRuins of the 15th-century Laurenskerk (Church of St. Lawrence; centre) amid the of destruction in Rotterdam, Netherlands, after a Luftwaffe bombing raid on May 14, 1940.
When the Germans struck the Netherlands on May 10, the ground attacks proceeded from several points, all converging toward The Hague, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam. The most powerful of these drove across Dutch Limburg toward Maastricht, and its prompt success isolated a significant part of the Netherlands from any hope of reinforcement from the south. It was here that the gap existed between the Belgian defense lines, which at Liège and just west of Maastricht turned west along the line of the Albert Canal, and the Dutch water defense positions some 40 to 50 miles (64 to 80 km) to the north. The only other practicable method for bringing Allied or Belgian troops, other than by sea, to the Rotterdam area would be across the long bridge over the Meuse at Moerdijk. However, this bridge was seized on the first day of the attack by German parachute infantry and held tenaciously until the bulk of German ground forces could arrive.
In Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and The Hague, German airborne troops captured key airfields and bridges, while Dutch commanders concerned themselves with possible acts of sabotage by fifth column agents. Within hours of the commencement of the German attack, British and French troops left their prepared positions in northern France and hurried north across Belgium to meet the enemy. The French Ninth Army moved north from the general vicinity of Sedan, a city that marked the end of the Maginot Line proper. The French were relying on the Ardennes, which they believed to be impassable to armour, to secure their right flank. This mistaken belief would prove to be the foundation of Germany’s success and France’s downfall.