WH WW2 Begins

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GERMANY’S TACTIC

•Blitzkrieg - taking the enemy by surprise🡪
“Lightening war”

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OCTOBER 1939 TO APRIL 1940 -

EUROPE WAS QUIET:

•Sitzkrieg or “phony war”
•APRIL 1940🡪Germans
invade Scandinavia
•Most important impact🡪
Chamberlain steps down
•Churchill becomes prime
minister of England

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HITLER BEGINS MOVING:

•Takes over Norway and Denmark
•Now he has access to a
water route
•Hitler then goes into
Belgium, Luxembourg,
and the Netherlands
•Around to Maginot line

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HIS NEXT BIG TRIUMPH…

•France

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FRANCE FALLS

•June 1940, France
signs an armistice
•Vichy government
under Petain
•De Gaulle is in
England
•French resistance is
formed

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WHO’S LEFT IN THE WEST?

•Britain
•To invade Britain, GER
needed air supremacy
•France is outnumbered
and outgunned and
must evacuate at
DUNKIRK

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DUNKIRK

•Was famous for an evacuation across the English Channel with the help of GB

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1940🡪 Germany goes against London,

in the famous Battle of Britain

•Also known as the Myth of
the blitz- all of Britain came
together to stop Hitler
•This battle stood between
German DOMINATION of
the world
•Luftwaffe--German air
force vs. RAF--great
Britain's royal air force
•Blitz🡪 series of air raids

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OPERATION SEA LION

•Planned land attack after air
•Never occurred!
•Churchill’s famous quote🡪 “Never in the
field of human conflict was so much owed to so many to so few”

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US Involvement

• Was the US involved yet? Not technically🡪 Many

wanted to remained isolated🡪 Isolationists!

• 1928--United States and 61 other nations signed

the Kellogg--Brian Pact, pledging never to make war again

• 1935, Congress passes a series of Neutrality Acts to

keep the U.S. out of future wars; The acts outlaw
arms sales or loans to nations in war

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The Spanish Civil War affects US neutrality🡪 Hitler and Mussolini help the fascist general Francisco

Franco defeat Spain’s elected
government

•Spain’s civil war is a test war for the Axis
military power

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US sends arms and supplies to China to
repulse the Japanese attack in July 1937

• FDR gives the “Quarantine

Speech” in 1937, calling
on peace--loving nations
to isolate aggressor nations and stop the spread of war; isolationist newspapers attack him

• Cash and Carry🡪

European democracies
could buy am. War
materials for CASH and
then had to TRANSPORT

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Destroyers for Bases🡪 GB received 50 destroyers in exchange for air

and naval bases

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Lend –Lease Act🡪 US would lend or

lease any supplies to a country whose

defense was vital to the US