WORLD WAR II

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➤ The Second World War was a de ning event in Canadian history, transforming
a quiet country on the fringes of global a airs into a critical player in the 20th
century's most important struggle. Canada carried out a vital role in the Battle
of the Atlantic and the air war over Germany, and contributed forces to the
campaigns of western Europe beyond what might be expected of a small nation
of then only 11 million people. Between 1939 and 1945 more than one million
Canadian men and women served full-time in the armed services. More than
43,000 were killed. Despite the bloodshed, the war against Germany and the
Axis powers reinvigorated Canada's industrial base, elevated the role of
women in the economy, paved the way for Canada's membership in NATO, and
left Canadians with a legacy of proud service and sacri ce embodied in names
such as Dieppe, Hong Kong, Ortona and Juno Beach.

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➤ Memories of the First World War—the tragic loss of life, the heavy burden of
debt and the strain on the country's unity imposed by conscription—made
Canadians, including politicians of all parties, loath to contemplate another such
experience. Initially, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King warmly
supported British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing
German leader Adolf Hitler. When Chamberlain postponed war by sacri cing
Czechoslovakia in the Munich crisis of September 1938, King thanked him
publicly, and Canadians in general certainly agreed. Nevertheless, the shock of
this crisis likely turned opinion towards accepting war to check the advance of
Nazism. Only gradually did ongoing Nazi aggression alter this mood to the point
where Canada was prepared to take part in another great war. King himself had
no doubt that in a great war involving Britain, Canada could not stand aside.

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PHONEY WAR
➤ Phony War, (1939–40) a name for the early months of World War II,
marked by no major hostilities. The term was coined by journalists to
derisively describe the six-month period (October 1939–March 1940)
during which no land operations were undertaken by the Allies or the
Germans after the German conquest of Poland in September 1939.

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➤ 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 con ict between France and Germany
was con ned 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. The French
command decided to withdraw its divisions to the shelter of its own
Maginot Line.

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➤ 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 signi cant gains.
➤ By early 1940, however, both German leader Adolf Hitler and the Allies
were contemplating the expansion of the war into Scandinavia. As
rumours of a planned Allied violation of Norway’s neutrality swirled,
the Germans initiated preparations for an o ensive 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
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➤ 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 o ered a spirited defence of Oslo, sinking the
German heavy cruiser Blücher and checking the approach of German seaborne
forces. This e ort came to naught, however, when German parachute infantry
landed at the Oslo air eld and captured the city later in the day. 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.

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➤ The political e ects of the loss of Norway were immediate and far-reaching, however.
The government of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, whose war e orts were
characterized by former prime minister David Lloyd George as “always too late or too
little,” was subjected to a vote of con dence 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 lacklustre Allied performance in Norway, and, while
Chamberlain was making a last desperate attempt to save his administration, Germany
was preparing for another o ensive.
➤ 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 con rmed as prime minister at the head of a unity government.
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 THE INVASION OF THE LOW COUNTRIES
➤ Allied defences and the German plan of attack
➤ 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
elded 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.

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➤ 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 Luftwa e would bring to bear.

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➤ 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 eld a comparable number of tanks, they were dispersed
among infantry units rather than concentrated in dedicated armoured
divisions, and many lacked radios.
➤ The Allies believed that the broad strategy of the German attack would
follow the well-established Schlie en Plan, and indeed the initial Fall
Gelb (Case Yellow) plan proposed by Chief of the Army General Sta
Franz Halder did adhere to that model. Even before a copy of that plan
fell into Belgian hands in January 1940, Hitler had been indi erent
toward it, as he felt that it was too conservative and lacked ambition.
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➤ Hitler was thus receptive when Lieut. Gen. Erich von Manstein
proposed a bold alternative. The o ensive 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 Schlie en 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.

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THE FALL OF THE NETHERLANDS (MAY 10–14, 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 signi cant part of the Netherlands from any hope of
reinforcement from the south.

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➤ The French were relying on the Ardennes, which they believed to be
impassable to armour, to secure their right ank. This mistaken belief
would prove to be the foundation of Germany’s success and France’s
downfall.

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➤ “Fortress Holland” had been conquered in the space of a week.
Austrian Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart was appointed Reichskommissar
(commissioner) of the occupied Netherlands. He would implement a
reign of terror that saw the murder of hostages and the mass
deportation of the bulk of the Netherlands’ Jewish population (some
120,000 people) to extermination camps. After the war, Seyss-Inquart
was tried at Nürnberg and executed as a war criminal.

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➤ The panzer breakthrough
➤ The lead elements of Panzer Group Kleist (under Gen. Paul Ludwig von Kleist) crossed
the Meuse River on May 13.
➤ By the following day the Germans had breached the Meuse-Albert Canal line in force
and entered France just west of Sedan. Relentless pounding by Stuka dive-bombers
shattered the morale of the French defenders in this sector; French commanders had
believed so strongly in the impossibility of assault through the Ardennes that the
troops there were almost completely lacking in antitank weapons and antiaircraft guns.
➤ For its part, the Maginot Line had not been broken. The German penetration had
occurred at a weak extension of the line along the Belgian frontier, and the defences
that existed there were undermanned by troops of lesser quality. Nevertheless, the area
which the line had been meant to protect had been invaded, and that, in time, forced
the evacuation of the Maginot Line itself.
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➤ On May 15 Heinz Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps broke through the
French line and headed west into open country. The pace of the
advance was breathtaking, and by all previous standards of war it was
a disaster in the making. The German armoured salient was narrow
and its anks thinly held, if held at all, with its tip some 150 miles
(more than 240 km) from the main body of the German advance. To
the north lay the entire Belgian army, most of the British
Expeditionary Force (BEF), and at least two French armies, amounting
to nearly one million men, while the remainder of the French army lay
behind and to the south of them.

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➤ Indeed, Guderian’s superiors attempted to slow his progress to allow
for a consolidation of forces, but he perceived the importance of
maintaining his momentum. Characterizing his continued advance as
“reconnaissance in force,” Guderian pressed on. On May 17 Guderian
crossed the Oise River and entered the valley of the Somme, down
which he raced to its mouth at Abbeville. Having reached the English
Channel on May 20, Guderian had e ectively severed communications
between the Allied forces to the north and to the south. He paused
brie y to allow German mechanized units to reinforce his ank along
the Somme before swinging north to threaten the Channel ports of
Calais and Dunkirk on May 22.

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THE BELGIAN COLLAPSE
➤ Bock’s Army Group B had made short work of the Dyle Line, a planned defensive
position running from Antwerp to the French frontier. Antwerp and Brussels were
occupied in short order, and by May 19 BEF commander in chief Gen. John Gort had
begun contemplating an evacuation from the Continent by sea.
➤ On May 21 Gort delivered a surprising counterstroke to Rommel’s 7th Panzer
Division at Arras. Two BEF tank battalions supported by two infantry battalions and
elements of a French mechanized infantry division struck south, temporarily sending
the 7th Panzer and part of the Totenkopf (“Death’s Head) Wa en-SS division reeling.
➤ Although the British attack was made without air cover, signi cant artillery support,
or adequate intelligence regarding the disposition of German forces, it sent a shock
through the German army. By this point Allied communications had been so
disrupted, however, that the localized success could not be exploited, and Arras
would represent little more than a temporary setback in the German advance.
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➤ While Army Group A threatened the shrinking Allied pocket on the
Channel coast from the south, Walther von Reichenau’s Sixth Army
pushed the beleaguered Belgian defenders to the breaking point. On
May 24 German units were just crossing the canal defence line close to
Dunkirk, the only remaining port from which the BEF could be
evacuated, when an inexplicable order from Hitler not only stopped
their advance but actually called them back to the canal line.

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The advancing German Army trapped the British and
French armies on the beaches around Dunkirk.

300,000 to 400,000 men were trapped there and they were a

sitting target for the Germans.

Surrounded by the German army, the annihilation of the

entire Allied army was imminent.

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HITLER’S FIRST MISTAKE
➤ With German generals ready to wipe out the forces of England and France
in one major action, Hitler refused to give the command.
➤ One of the reasons put forward for Hitler not ordering an attack was that
he believed that Britain had su ered from the might of the Wehrmacht
once and that this experience would be su cient for Britain to come to
peace terms with Hitler.
➤ In his memoirs, Field Marshall Rundstadt, the German commander-in-chief
in France during the 1940 campaign, called Hitler’s failure to order a full-
scale attack on the troops on Dunkirk his rst fatal mistake of the war.
➤ That 300,000 to 400,000 soldiers were evacuated from the beaches at
Dunkirk would seem to uphold this view.
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DUNKIRK
➤ The beach at Dunkirk was on a shallow slope so no large boat could
get near to the actual beaches where the men were.
➤ Therefore, smaller boats were needed to take on board men who
would then be transferred to a larger boat based further o shore.
➤ 800 of these legendary “little ships” were used.

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➤ The Royal Air Force asserted at least temporary air superiority over the
Luftwa e in the area, and the Royal Navy, with daring and precision,
assisted by French naval craft, stood close to shore and not only
covered the evacuation but took o thousands of men in overloaded
destroyers and other small craft.
➤ In addition, a motley eet of some 700 civilian boats assisted in the
rescue e ort.
➤ The success of the near-miraculous evacuation from Dunkirk was
partly because of ghter cover provided by the Royal Air Force from the
English coast, but it was also due to Hitler’s fatal order of May 24 to
halt the German advance.
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➤ That order had been made for several reasons: chie y, Hermann Göring, head
of the Luftwa e, had mistakenly assured Hitler that his aircraft alone could
destroy the Allied troops trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk; and Hitler
himself seems to have believed that Great Britain might accept peace terms
more readily if its pride were not wounded by seeing its army surrender.
➤ After three days Hitler withdrew his order and allowed the German
armoured forces to advance on Dunkirk. They now met stronger opposition
from the British, who had had time to solidify their defences, and Hitler
almost immediately stopped the German advance again, this time ordering
his armoured force to move south and to prepare to complete the conquest
of France. By June 4, when the operation was concluded, about 198,000
British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops had been saved.
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 ➤ Itis thought that the smallest
boat to make the journey
across the Channel was the
Tamzine – an 18 feet open
topped shing boat now on
display at the Imperial War
Museum, London.

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➤ Despite the near-miraculous success of the evacuation, the BEF had
been forced to abandon virtually all of its heavy equipment, and more
than 50,000 British troops remained stranded on the Continent. Some
11,000 of these men were killed in action, and most of the remainder
were captured by the Germans. The courage and operational brilliance
displayed at Dunkirk became a rallying point for the British, and, upon
completion of the evacuation on June 4, Churchill went before the
House of Commons to declare:

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 ➤ “We shall not be content with a defensive war. We have our duty to
our Ally. We have to reconstitute and build up the British
Expeditionary Force once again…We shall go on to the end, we shall
ght in France, we shall ght on the seas and oceans, we shall ght
with growing con dence and growing strength in the air, we shall
defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall ght on the
beaches, we shall ght on the landing grounds, we shall ght in the
elds and in the streets, we shall ght in the hills; we shall never
surrender.”

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FALL OF FRANCE
➤ On June 15 the capture of Verdun placed German armies well behind the
Maginot Line, and the following day Reynaud, President of France,
resigned as premier. He was succeeded by Philippe Pétain, who had rallied
his country at the World War I Battle of Verdun with the cry, “Ils ne
passeront pas” (“They shall not pass.”).
➤ Although Pétain’s cabinet included Weygand as defense minister, its
composition left little doubt that the government had been formed to bring
the war to an end. Absent was Reynaud, who had advocated a continuation
of the ght from French North Africa, while prominent posts went to
appeasers such as Pierre Laval, who urged cooperation with the Third
Reich at virtually every turn. On June 17 Pétain asked the Germans for
honourable terms of armistice.
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 ➤ There were delays, as the Germans were now in no hurry, but on June
21, 1940, the surrender terms were dictated, in the presence of Hitler,
in the same railway car at Compiègne where the armistice of
November 11, 1918, had been signed. The following day the French
accepted the terms, but they were required to conclude a separate
armistice with the Italians before the German armistice became
e ective.
➤ On June 24 the Franco-Italian armistice was concluded at the Villa
Incisa outside Rome. News of that event was radioed to Berlin, and six
hours later, at 12:35 AM on June 25, 1940, hostilities between France,
Germany, and Italy were ended.
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