In the fall of 1939,
tranquility relative including Europe
benefited from the end of the First World War
ended abruptly when the ruler of Nazi Germany,
Adolf Hitler, ordered the invasion from Poland on September 1.
Huge chaos ensued.
Tanks crossing the border,
crushing everything that stood in their way,
while bombs rained down from the sky,
ravaging the cities,
terrorizing all who tried to flee under this deluge of iron.
Men, women and children
were killed during this merciless attack.
Although many were those who fought bravely
to defend the capital Warsaw,
on September 17, while the armies Soviet allies of the Germans
invaded the country by the borders north of the Polish Republic,
the outcome of the battle was clear.
Poland waited in vain for the help England and France had promised.
She couldn't delay any longer the inevitable occupation of its soil.
On October 6, when the Nazis invested Warsaw,
the Poles could not than preparing to face their fears.
The invasion of the Polish Republic was an event that changed the face of the world.
Germany, a nation embittered by poverty
and the disgrace following his defeat during the First World War,
was able to take over territory
that she considered return to him by right.
The Glorious Age of Empires French and British was coming to an end.
As Hitler launched his armies across Europe,
it became clear that the power devastating third reich
opened a new chapter
oh how scary of world history.
While the Red Army and the Wehrmacht swept over Europe,
it took a while for the Allies to arrive
to deal effectively the inexorable advance of the invader.
The months from January to March 1940,
would not be marked only by careful movements
and timid maneuvers.
Although this period of World War II
is generally nicknamed the funny war,
the clouds were gathering on the sea, on land and in politics.
Hostilities between European nations could only experience an escalation.
Facing Terror in Occupied Poland and the fierce fighting in Finland,
in combat on the high seas and to the growing tensions at the borders,
everything matched to guess
how the first front lines would be drawn
in a conflict would prove most devastating in the history of mankind.
Adolf Hitler thought that so that his homeland comes out
from the economic abyss where she was immersed,
a terrible and violent conflict was absolutely necessary.
According to the Führer since the French Revolution,
the world moved slowly towards a massive confrontation
and it was Germany's duty to secure one's own existence
by all possible means.
He promised the Germans a better economy,
the return of the territories lost after World War I
and redemption from humiliation that the country had suffered
when signing of the Treaty of Versailles.
Hitler also had more personal grievances
and in the first place a deep hatred Jews and Communists.
The alliance against nature with the Soviets,
as he invaded Poland,
showed that he could tolerate communism for the moment,
while making plans for the extermination of the Jewish race.
Hitler was ready to initiate revenge
and to show in the world than any attempt
to reason with him through diplomatic channels was futile.
The events leading at the declaration of war
demonstrated that Hitler was not a trustworthy man.
With a war machine who seemed invincible,
sweeping over the countries that the Nazis claimed as their extent.
Any nation that would come get in their way
was destined to be crushed.
Hitler's Star was still brilliant.
Czechoslovakia had been occupied without firing a shot.
Austria had been forced to unite with Germany.
Whereas the 30's were coming to an end,
Poland was the third nation
to see nazi soldiers cross its borders.
having signed an agreement with Poland,
England, allied with France,
had no choice but to enter at war with the Third Reich.
The way to counter supremacy Hitler's troops was not ready.
As the Allies watched the events unfold without intervening,
the month of January 1940 marked the beginning of a very uncertain year.
Nothing had been attempted to cope Nazi and Soviet invasions.
While the war was raging in Poland,
there were few reasons to joyfully celebrate the new year.
Moreover, after the terror from the initial attack,
German occupation turned out to be even more terrible.
Hitler had no no respect for Poles
that they barely considered better than sub men,
and it was obvious that it was the whole country he wanted.
From the start, Hitler was committed to creating more space
for German civilians.
He therefore planned to rid the Poland of its people,
allowing only a handful of survive to work as slaves.
The crisis in which was plunged Poland was simply dramatic.
In January they started to draw the plans of similar camps
to those who existed in Germany
and who should be built on Polish territory.
The best known of these was located on the edge of the small village of Auschwitz
and until today,
this simple name
summarizes all the horrors of World War II.
Many Poles were there systematically sent to be killed there,
as well as countless Jewish men, women and children,
because the persecutions against the Jews were only growing.
These prototypes of concentration camps
were only the first plans of Hitler against the Polish nation.
They wanted every trace of Polish culture is erased.
Universities were closed or destroyed
and teachers, teachers and intellectuals arrested and executed.
Teens, boys and girls,
were sent to Germany to work in factories,
while the blond-eyed children blue and possessing other Aryan traits
were torn to their parents
to be raised like Germans
in order to become the children of the Third Reich.
There was no doubt that the attack unleashed by Hitler against Poland
was a war of total annihilation.
When the conflict ended in 1945, almost a fifth of the Poles will have been killed.
This is the highest casualty rate in all the countries involved in the conflict.
Three million Poles who were killed were Jews.
As the Nazi forces concentrated more to the West,
events in Poland took an even more dramatic turn,
because the Nazis were not the only ones to persecute the Poles.
Western Poland being under the yoke of the German occupation,
to the east, its citizens faced to the threat of Russian invasion.
Unlike previous fights
the Red Army did not initially encounter only a very low resistance,
consequence of efficiency pro-Soviet propaganda
Ukrainians, Belarusians and communists in the country.
These thought that the Soviets were there for their own good
and they welcomed invaders with open arms.
In confusion, many of Poles believed that the Russian soldiers
were coming to fight the Nazis.
Soon it became more obvious that despite their differences,
the Germans and the Soviets
were working in concert.
The Poles would suffer as much Russian hands than German ones.
August 1939, the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler
which ensured that in case of conflict, the Russians would get along with the Nazis.
There was a secret protocol
which will not be discovered that at the end of the war
which revealed that Stalin and Hitler had made plans
for divide up Eastern Europe
and divided the spoils.
In compensation for Stalin's help for the conquest of Poland,
Hitler let the other Eastern countries to the Soviets.
Russians were allowed to occupy Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania, without opposition from Germany,
while taking hold territories in Finland.
At the same time, Hitler was pushing west
to seize essential natural resources
to survival of the Third Reich.
On the military level, relations between the Soviets
and the Germans seemed beneficial,
but in reality, under the facade smiles,
this alliance was fragile,
political ideologies being radically opposed.
It was of an unnatural arrangement.
For his part, Stalin established a zone buffer between his country and the West
by installing its troops in the ports around the small baltic countries
which were soon to collapse under Soviet pressure.
At first of October 1939,
Stalin began to make offers to Finland.
He wanted to secure areas near Leningrad,
the islands of the Gulf of Finland
and access at Hang Naval Base
and in return he offered the Finns pieces of soviet territory
along from their eastern border.
Finns were far from convinced.
The Finns and the Soviets had one long and complicated story.
Until the beginning of the 19th century, Finland was part of Sweden
until Tsar Alexander Iᵉʳ
make cross the frozen Baltic to his troops
for them to face the Finns in 1808.
A year later, Sweden lost the eastern third of its territory
where is established the Grand Duchy of Finland
doing part of the Russian Empire.
There was little change for almost a century,
until that revolutionary ideas
are part of the conscience millions of Russian workers
and that the borders of the Empire begin to tremble.
Millions of Russian soldiers dying on Great War battlefields
and dire food shortages being felt on the back of the forehead,
the revolution eventually broke out in the country in 1917.
Quickly, the Red Army, champion of the Bolshevik cause,
walked in the streets of St. Petersburg
and it took little for the regime of the tsars and his mighty empire crumble,
plunging the country in a bloody civil war.
The shock wave resounded throughout the country
and affected all nations part of the Empire.
While in Russia the Red Army and communism prevailed,
when the war touched Finland,
the white army which supported the monarchy was victorious.
Lenin regained the reins of power of the Soviet Union,
emerging from the ashes of the Old Regime.
Finland became an independent state
and freed himself from the yoke of the old Russian regime.
It was certain that the Soviets were always dangerous adversaries.
Just on the other side from the eastern border of Finland,
the man who led the white army of Finland to victory,
the baron Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim,
wanted to walk to St. Petersburg to repel the Bolsheviks.
In the end, the Finns were content to build strong fortifications
near from the Soviet border.
Along this camp homage to the Baron, the line was called Mannerheim.
This turned out to be vital. in the defense of Finland
when World War II gained momentum.
At the end of the month of November 1939,
negotiations between Finland and the Soviet Union dragging on,
Stalin's impatience came to a climax
and the Red Army ordered to attack.
Baron Mannerheim was once further called to take command,
this time against Soviet General Meretskov
who had it promised his men
that he would be in Helsinki, the capital from Finland in less than ten days.
While the generals Soviets finalize their plan
and worked to their strategy,
they could not imagine how much the fights against the Finns
were going to be difficult.
Without winter clothes and without provisions for a long campaign,
soviet troops marched towards the Mannerheim line.
The second coldest winter of the century prevailed in northern Europe.
Although much fewer than the Russians and badly equipped,
the Finns, on the other hand, were well trained in winter operations.
They succeeded to keep control of operations.
Wearing outfits adapted camouflage
and evolving on their snowy terrain on skis,
finnish troops had a serious advantage
and the losses Soviets feel it.
Court in January one of the most famous battles of the winter war,
the battle of Suomussalmi
was coming to an end.
Coming from the North and the South,
two Russian divisions had planned to meet at the village of Suomussalmi
before heading west
to the city of Oulu
and cut thus the country in two.
Measuring the danger of seeing the Russians attack on two fronts,
the Finns resisted with determination.
Ski Troops carried out encirclement maneuvers
and could isolate by surprise of the units of the rear guard
and middle of the division coming from the North.
In addition to the south,
frozen lakes were veritable deadly traps.
When they crossed them,
the Soviets with their uniforms dark were very visible targets
and the troops of the Finnish Home Guard
who counted many snipers
put them out of action, one by one.
Simo Aya
was the sharpest shooter effective in the history of this war
with over 500 victims to his credit.
Finns, lacking sophisticated anti-tank weapons,
improvised gasoline bombs
according to the principle molotov cocktails,
after the name of a minister of Russian Foreign Affairs.
They turned out very effective
since they made it possible to destroy almost 2000 tanks during this conflict.
In the face of such fierce opposition,
the red army was forced to retreat
remaining easy prey for Finnish troops on skis.
Suffering low temperatures,
Russian troops found themselves divided and in isolated groups.
When they gathered around the fire to warm up,
they were surrounded and eliminated.
snowy forests,
the lakes and the roads of Finland
were literally littered of bodies of frozen Russian soldiers.
On January 8,
the defeat of the Russians during the battle of Suomussalmi was consummated.
Finland not only had won a decisive victory,
but had also succeeded to seize tanks and ammunition
than the Russians had abandoned.
However, it was only a battle in the course of a violent war.
The Finns couldn't hold on anymore a long time without the assistance of the allies.
In England and France, the emotion was at its height
for these brave Finns.
Even in the USA, yet attached to their neutrality,
there were many who supported them and wanted to help them.
A handful of volunteers even went to fight alongside them.
While the winter war continued,
Hitler was afraid to see the Allies come to the aid of the Finns
and feared that English and French soldiers
venture as close combat areas.
Finland was a bit too much close to Sweden and Norway,
neutral country, but vitally important
for the machine nazi war
due from their iron mines.
If the Allies wanted to send troops to Finland,
they would have no difficulty then to cross these two countries
and block the ports
dealing a terrible blow to the economy of the Third Reich.
In order to prevent the Allies to pose such a problem to the Reich,
the german general Gerd von Rundstedt
urged the Führer to start preparations
to get the basics strategies in Scandinavia,
before the English and the French don't.
However, the British government was reluctant to take action,
preferring to stick to a more defensive position.
Only the voice of Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty,
continued to alert public opinion on Hitler's intentions,
praising bravery finnish troops
and urging politicians to send reinforcements as quickly as possible.
He blamed Norway and Sweden to remain neutral in a shock formula
the one who hopes that the other will feed the crocodile enough
will end anyway by being devoured.
The Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who had worked so hard
to keep Europe at peace until the outbreak of war,
stubbornly continued its appeasement policy
even if that Hitler was marching on Poland.
He hesitated yet to intervene,
considering that it would be a hostile act not only against Nazi Germany,
but above all against the Soviet Union.
However, the Allies did not have sufficient military power
to face them both together.
Since the invasion of Poland, the English were preparing for war,
accelerating their military production
and increasing the number of soldiers by conscription.
The Germans benefited from several years
to build their military power
and they were in fact in a much higher position.
Plus, the English would have time to strengthen their army,
their navy and air force,
the more luck they would have to survive a long war.
military exercises and training sessions were organized
to ensure that all soldiers would be in their best physical condition,
could to be sent into battle
and would be fit to defend the soil of England.
Many Allied soldiers coming dominions were coming to England.
Australian soldiers,
New Zealanders and Canadians
arrived by boat to take arms and fight with the allies.
in addition preparations for war,
arrangements were made for anticipate bombardment on English soil.
Masks gas were distributed
to answer fear of gas attacks,
like those that took place during the World War One.
Spotlights were installed around major cities
to identify enemy planes,
and the nocturnal blackout imposed itself on the British way of life.
After the damage done by zeppelin raids
during WWI,
great efforts were made to protect England's national treasures.
Sandbags were used to protect the most important buildings,
we dismantled stained glass windows in churches
and we took down the paintings from the National Gallery.
The manuscripts priceless from the British Museum
were stored in bombproof shelters.
It was also necessary consider the civilian population.
Several children had been evacuated from English cities to the countryside.
In January 1940,
without sign of an imminent threat,
children returned home.
One could wonder if
if a real war would ever take place against Hitler and Nazism.
Although there was no direct combat,
the British were beginning to feel the effects of the war in Europe.
Great Britain imported 55 million tons of food every year
and the German government thought that if it were possible
to cut off those supply lines, the country would soon be brought to its knees.
German submarines and combat ships
attacked the ships English merchants since autumn 1939
and even with the principle of convoy navigation,
there were heavy losses.
Several English sailors had to evacuate their ship
sinking during his first months of war,
and those who couldn't were not taken prisoner.
This military confrontation would become the longest of World War II,
and Churchill baptized it the Battle of the Atlantic.
food stocks were shrinking.
The government decided of a rationing which was decreed
in the first weeks of January 1940.
Everyone was equipped of a ration book.
The tails were forming at the entrance to the shops,
the people patiently waiting their turn
to receive their ration of butter, bacon or sugar
carefully weighed.
The following months, more and more of products were rationed
because the reserves were melting
and imports had declined three quarters of the normal amounts.
It was just the beginning impressive changes
who would touch the English during the war.
If Hitler intended to break thus the morale of the English,
he would quickly learn that he had to more to undermine their tenacity.
He was quite predictable that the situation would deteriorate
and gradually and as the war progressed,
leading to a decrease even more severe imports.
The British government encouraged men and women of the country
to grow his own food,
even if that meant that the lawns,
sports fields and even public gardens
were to turn into a vegetable garden.
Flowers were replaced by cabbages.
Politics urged citizens to garden.
The surface of British territory used for food production
increased by 80%.
Speech by Lord Wolton:
" Are you ready
to help England win war on the food front?
If you manage to produce the essential what you eat at home,
if you grow vegetables on every plot you can find,
if you only eat what you need to live
and not what you like to eat,
you help us to win the war."
Posters bloomed on all the walls,
subway stations in the office,
encouraging everyone to plant for victory and other slogans.
Although the production of local food increased,
it became clear that after decades rural exodus to factory work,
england lacked farmers.
Fifty thousand workers, especially men, were recruited by the army.
It was time for the women of England take their part.
The so-called Women's Land army was quickly mobilized
to maintain the business of British farms.
It was new for 20th century women,
because they abandoned their role traditional in society
to take on jobs generally reserved for men.
As the conflict progresses,
they were going to be recruited by the factories and even by the army,
air force or navy,
and thus become as active than their fathers, husbands and sons
who fought for king and country.
While the English were mainly concerned
by surviving on rations reduced while preparing for war,
the Nazi threat was much closer than they imagined.
Raw materials from Scandinavia were not Hitler's priorities,
because west of germany and therefore easily within reach of France,
stood what the Führer described
like the Achilles heel of the Third Reich,
the Ruhr Valley.
After the failure of the First World War,
France had occupied this territory
including the production of coal, iron and steel
had made the region the richest in Germany.
The occupation of the Ruhr by the French contributed to the economic disaster
which had touched Germany at the end of the 20's.
Although French troops have left the Rhineland more than ten years ago,
in 1936, Hitler had ordered
his troops to enter in this area to secure it.
The war depended of the possession of the Ruhr,
and one of Hitler's greatest fears was to take it away again.
In a speech to his relatives he warned:
"if England and France cross Belgium and Holland for the Ruhr,
we are in great danger".
Consequently, he was ready for action, declaring:
"I will attack France and England at the propitious and quietest time.
Overriding Belgium's neutrality and Holland is not a problem.
No one will hold us accountable when we win."
What Hitler Proposed was a battle plan already implemented
when German troops had invaded Belgium 20 years earlier
during WWI.
The result of this tactic was not satisfactory
according Hitler's point of view.
He had fought in the trenches for his adopted country
and he was upset by the humiliation inflicted on Germany
when the countries of the Entente had been victorious.
Anime out of a desire for revenge,
Hitler was preparing to send his army to Belgium
to achieve what he hoped for since the armistice of 1918.
With growing fear to lose the precious Ruhr valley,
Hitler ordered to conquer the Netherlands without notice
to prevent France to occupy them first.
A Nazi Occupation in Holland and Belgium
would ensure success of an air and sea campaign
long-winded against Great Britain,
a nation Hitler feared.
Prime Minister Chamberlain who hesitated, did not worry the Führer.
It was not the same with the first lord Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
Hitler counted no doubt about the element of surprise.
While England continued to watch and wait,
the German plans were going to be unbelievably discovered.
On January 10, 1940,
a surveillance plane departed from Berlin with Hitler's invasion plans on board
and headed towards Cologne for a meeting.
The plane should never to reach the destination
and his fate would change the course of the war.
Lost in the fog,
the pilot reaches the Meuse which flows from Belgium to the Rhine.
When the plane got into trouble,
he was miles away of his route,
forced to crash-land in around Mechelen, Belgium.
After the two officers who were on board were rescued from the wreckage,
Belgian border guards discovered documents
and put them back to intelligence services.
Therefore, the plans for an attack by the Belgium and Holland were discovered.
In a few hours, this crucial information
was analyzed by military and political leaders.
Once informed Hitler's plans,
King Leopold III of Belgium telephoned immediately to the Queen of Holland
using the code phrase: "Be careful, the weather is threatening."
Then he said to the Grand Duchess from Luxemburg:
"Beware of the flu."
Those strange words warned him of an imminent German attack.
Most important, he immediately informed the commander
French chef Maurice Gamelin,
who gathered his staff in order to make a decision.
Although there are still doubts on the validity of these documents
who could very well to be an attempt at hoax,
Gamelin lives there a perfect opportunity
to put pressure on neutral Belgium
in order to authorize the French army to enter the country.
Of course, the French, as Hitler had anticipated,
planned to lead an attack on Germany
as soon as he reached sufficient military power.
Just a few days before the date forecast of the German attack,
Gamelin dictated to the first and third army to advance towards the Belgian border.
The new arrived at Lord Gort,
the commander of the expeditionary force British, already stationed in France
and ready to fight.
Information that the documents
were in enemy hands arrived in Berlin.
Hitler was furious
and relieved of their duties those whom he considered responsible for this disaster.
While its chief operating officer, General Alfred Yodel,
judged the catastrophic situation.
The Belgians had nevertheless maneuvered well hiding the extent of their discovery.
The Germans did not really know not who possessed these documents
and if this information was really in the hands of the enemy.
However, complications appeared in the camp of the allies.
To authorize the French troops and English to cross their border,
the Belgians wanted guarantees that in the event of war,
the integrity of their territory and their colonies in Africa would be protected
and they would receive financial assistance.
If French Prime Minister Daladier hastened to confirm these guarantees,
the British government, he was not ready for it.
Time was deteriorating in Belgium.
A thick blanket of snow now covered the border area.
It seemed unthinkable that the Germans can go on the attack.
Like Prince Leopold, neutrality activist,
received the response from the English, he opted for a new strategy.
He ordered the Belgian troops to leave the obstacles on the border
and push back any enemy unit
who would try to violate the territory Belgian, whatever his nationality.
Gamelin was furious
and insisted to Daladier so that he forces the Belgians
to face to their responsibilities,
but Belgium remained neutral.
In Germany, Yodel was surprised to see that the allies had quickly been informed
and understood that the Belgians had had access to the invasion plan captured at McAllen.
The surprise effect had been lost
and on January 16, Hitler was persuaded that he was going to have to repel the invasion.
For now at least,
the phoney war continued.
The McAllen incident was far to be a total disaster for the Nazis,
since they now knew how the Allies would react.
Hitler insisted on erecting new plans of attack
and its most able generals began to plan new attacks.
She planned not only movements by the North,
but the passage of the bulk of the troops through the south through the forest of the Ardennes.
This plan, baptized the sickle cut,
was going to see the crash of all allied resistance
and lead inevitably to the fall of France.
On the Allied side, the general staff was delighted to see that the danger had passed
and that the target was no longer the border Belgian but the events in Finland.
After the disastrous Russian defeat in January,
Stalin had dismissed and then shot most responsible commanders
and entrusted the whole operation to Marshal Semion Tymoshenko.
Finland had to be beaten whatever the price
and large reinforcements were ordered to march on Western Karelia.
A Soviet army a million strong,
began to advance with air support.
At the beginning of February,
the Finns were under fire Russians who started the bombardments
whose aim was to destroy both civilian and military targets.
The emotion was great in the world entire as far as Finns are concerned
and an English politician, Anthony Eden,
condemned the attacks Soviets in these terms:
"Russia and also Germany bear a terrible responsibility
in the events taking place in Finland".
Hitler, Ribbentrop and their politics
returned aggression by Stalin possible.
Finally on February 4, 1940 in Paris, at a Supreme Council of War,
the Allies drew up a plan to send a Franco-British army in Finland.
However, there remained the problem of neutrality of Norway and Sweden.
Troops were scheduled to land in the Norwegian port of Narvik
and had to join Finland by Sweden
by securing supply routes.
While the allied politicians were deliberating,
the Finns, them, were almost out of ammunition.
The Soviets, through artillery barrages,
tried to crush their defensive position.
February 14th,
the Finns eventually withdrew.
The Germans who were fine-tuning their plan of attack for the invasion of France
watched carefully events in Scandinavia.
Things were moving when a tanker, the Halte Mark,
arrived in Norwegian waters.
On board were hundreds of prisoners,
sailors whose ships had been sunk in the previous months.
Unfortunately, the inspectors Norwegians could not examine the hold
and allowed the ship to cross the pass,
but an English plane spotted him and sounded the alarm.
The English Navy went into action
and one of his ships, the Cossack, rushed in pursuit.
February 16,
the Royal Navy reached to board the German ship
and after a hand-to-hand combat, the crew was put out of action.
After months of captivity,
english sailors were released
and despite the freezing Norwegian climate that awaited them,
they rejoiced to leave their floating prison.
They left quickly at sea
and the next day HMS Cossack returned to a Scottish port,
seamen lined up on the bridge.
The navy had won a rare victory in these months of phoney war,
but it would incite the Germans to closer to total domination
of Western Europe.
Hitler had been warned that
the English did not count respect Norwegian neutrality.
Two days after the rescue,
he made the invasion from Norway and Denmark,
operation code name V0 Bund,
a priority.
Consequently, the invasion of France would wait a bit.
This flagrant violation territorial waters of a neutral country
had other repercussions,
making furious norwegians
so that when the Allies wanted access to transit
to help Finland on March 2, it was refused.
The King of Sweden was also affected
fearing that his country is a field of war between the Germans and the Allies.
He refused these permission to transit
in order to help to the Finns.
Despite the promises assistance from the Allies,
it was obvious for the Finnish commander Mannerheim
than with its losses in men and its ammunition consumption,
more help would be late in arriving,
more losses for his nation would be heavy.
As of March 5,
the Soviets had advanced from 10 to 15 kilometers beyond the Mannerheim line
and entered in the suburbs of Viipuri.
For Finland, there was no more interest in continuing the fight
and they admire their defeat on March 12,
signing a peace treaty and ceding important territories.
The troops were evacuated
and many civilians began a long journey to new lives.
Barbed wire marked the boundaries between Finland and Russia.
Churchill, furious, wrote:
"Now, the ice will melt
and the Germans will be the masters of the North".
Churchill still had right about hitler
and the dangers to which the world was going to have to face.
As first lord Admiralty,
despite being well informed, he had no power.
Prime Minister Chamberlain still hesitant to face Hitler,
but trust that the public granted him declined.
French prime minister Daladier had also failed
in his will to support Finland.
He was forced to give it up.
What was happening in Finland was extremely serious for the allies,
while events in Europe and in Scandinavia were accelerating.
On the other side of the Atlantic,
the Americans were waiting with fear the course of events.
At that time, relations were strained
between the American president and the English Prime Minister.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a lot of effort
to strengthen ties between the two nations.
Some months before the outbreak of war,
he had invited King George VI
and Queen Elizabeth to make a state visit
and this one had certainly helped to improve relations.
Roosevelt's concerns concerning Hitler's activity in Europe
exceeded cordial feelings towards Great Britain.
He feared that the European conflict generates a new order
who would not be in favor American interests.
Roosevelt decided to send a representative in Europe,
Summer Wells,
responsible for studying what was possible to consider in order to keep the peace
before the phoney war does not turn into generalized conflict.
The first destination of Summer Wells was Italy
at the end of February,
where he tried to dissuade Mussolini to go to war with the Germans.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was also Mussolini's son-in-law,
hated openly the Germans
and gave Wells reason to hope that
the Italians would accept to break their alliance with Berlin.
Mussolini, far from wanting to deviate from his German friends
and animated by his desire to recreate the Roman Empire,
was not inclined to choose for a peaceful solution.
March 10, Wells had moved to London,
where he had meetings with important politicians,
as well as an audience with King George VI and the Prime Minister.
Wells was surprised at the fear that Chamberlain showed Germans
while his policy was always to avoid war.
He was reassured because Prime Minister hoped
appease Berlin by colonial concessions in Africa.
He paid a visit to the Admiralty to meet Winston Churchill,
but it was another story.
For Churchill the only way forward was to fight to the end.
He categorically rejected any peace solution
because he cared the elimination of Herr Hitler.
The Judgment of Winston Churchill couldn't have been better.
During the visit of the American envoy,
German bombers crossed the North Sea to the Scottish coast
where the English fleet secretly dropped anchor at Scapa Flow.
On March 18 a hundred bombs were dropped in 25 minutes,
affecting several ships,
injuring many sailors
and killing a man,
the first civilian killed on British soil
during the Second World War.
The pilots of the R.A.F. then went into action
and flew to Germany in retaliation.
The Phoney War Continued
and the hopes for peace of those who lived in Europe were moving away.
flying above from enemy territory,
the R.A.F. attacked the airbase on the island of Sylt.
The damage caused were minimal,
but it was clear that the desired peace by Roosevelt was becoming utopian.
On the very day that these air raids had place on German and English soil,
Hitler was in talks in the Alps Austrian Italian with Mussolini.
It was their first meeting from Munich in 1938
and against all American expectation to see Italy refuses aid to Germany,
Mussolini informed Hitler that he was now ready
to join it and its allies
in the war against England and France
at the decisive moment.
All attempts at peace had been carried out in vain.
The political scene was getting hotter and hotter.
France and Great Britain
were contemplating the invasion from Norway and Sweden
to deprive Germany iron supply.
March 28,
the supreme council Franco-English war
decided to start to mine Norwegian waters,
But he was already too late.
Hitler had given his orders
and German ships were already on their way.
The Phoney War was about to meet a sudden end
and the battle was actually going to start.
In the spring of 1940,
it was understood that the conflict to come would be long, violent and dramatic.
All hopes for peace with Adolf Hitler had failed.
As he gathered around him its partners in the Axis forces,
a general war had become inevitable.
What had happened rather in Austria, in Czechoslovakia and Poland
had irreversibly changed the course of history.
The waiting time and observing
on the theater of European operation was closed.
Now the lines future battles were mapped out.