In fact, U-boat commanders had been ordered not to attack passenger liners and Hitler himself issued an order that no further attacks should be made on passenger liners unless it was obvious that they were travelling in convoy. Millions of leaflets were dropped over Germany. The main result of these initial raids was that the Germans stepped up their anti-aircraft batteries.
It is certainly true that the general public would have liked a more robust response to the attack on Poland. If our bombers were capable of dropping leaflets, it was surmised, then they should be capable of dropping bombs on important industrial targets to let the Germans know that we meant business. It brought into being. Immediately the war started, the public faced a torrent of prohibitions — what they could not do — and requirements — what they had to do.
Such a move did attract a considerable amount of criticism even within Parliament. Imprisonment without trial and the effective suspension of Habeas Corpus were, indeed, controversial. During the Phoney War, blackout was rigidly enforced until it became obvious that problems on the roads had to be resolved. Other areas soon followed. But no night time lighting of any description was allowed within 12 miles of the south-east coast.
Five million men were mobilised in France at the start of World War Two. The army was reputed to be one of the strongest in the world, certainly every bit a match for the Germans. Along the eastern frontier ran the supposedly impregnable Maginot Line, a series of more than 50 ultra-secure fortresses. About 17 million soldiers died during six years of the war. Even more civilians, men, women and children died from bomb attacks, illnesses or starvation. Many cities and industries in Europe and Asia were completely destroyed by bombs and large areas of land were devastated.
On September 27, the Polish capital of Warsaw fell to the Germans. By October 5, , the Polish army had been defeated. In contrast to the war in Poland, western Europe remained eerily quiet. The Germans referred to this situation as the sitzkrieg, or sitting war. At Munich, Chamberlain got an international agreement that Hitler should have the Sudetenland in exchange for Germany making no further demands for land in Europe.
The major causes of World War II were numerous. They include the impact of the Treaty of Versailles following WWI, the worldwide economic depression, failure of appeasement, the rise of militarism in Germany and Japan, and the failure of the League of Nations. On 10 May , eight months after Britain and France had declared war on Germany, German troops marched into Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, marking the end of the Phoney War and the beginning of the Battle of France.
During the eight months of the Sitzkrieg Germany rapidly rearmed, adding a million new soldiers, vastly increasing its ammunition stockpile, and trippling the number of medium and heavy tanks. Germany attacked in the west on May 10, The expression Maginot mentality refers to any military strategy that is exclusively defensive and therefore flawed.
It also refers to military planning that is aimed at the past. However, the Maginot Line had two major failings — it was obviously not mobile and it assumed that the Ardennes was impenetrable. Any attack that could get around it would leave it floundering like a beached whale. Blitzkrieg was the means by which Germany simply went around the whole Line. The Maginot Line did not extend across the northern border with Belgium. The Maginot Line still exists, but is not maintained and not used for military purposes anymore.
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