HY 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 85: Chester W. Nimitz, Manpower 4, Erwin Rommel
1 Jun 2018
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I.The Outbreak of Hostilities and the Fall of France
A. Poland
1. Hitler demanded the abolition of the Polish Corridor
2. Poland stood firm, but Hitler attacked on September 1, 1939
3. Britain and France sent a warning to Germany
a. Germany ignored the demand
b. Britain and France declared war on September 3, 1939
4. The Blitzkrieg (lightning war)
5. Soviet troops invaded from the East
6. Poland fell in four weeks
B. The phony war
C. Scandinavia—Germans took Denmark in one day (spring 1940)
D. May 10, 1939: Germans moved through Belgium toward France
E. The fall of France
1. French army overwhelmed by the German advance
2. French army poorly organized
3. French refugees fled south
4. Dunkirk—three hundred thousand British and French troops evacuated to England
5. June 18, 1939: the Germans reached Paris
6. June 18, 1939: French surrendered
. Germans occupied northern France
a. Southern France fell under the Vichy regime, headed by Marshall Pétain
7. The Free French movement
II. Not Alone: The Battle of Britain and the Beginnings of a Global War
. The Battle of Britain (July 1940-June 1941)
1. Forty thousand civilians dead
2. Stalemate in the air
3. British resistance
A. Winston Churchill (1940-1945, 1951-1955)
1. Talented but arrogant
2. Language and personal diplomacy
3. Convinced FDR to break with American neutrality
4. Lend-Lease
B. A global war
1. The battle of the Atlantic
. German submarines ("wolf packs") sank millions of tons of merchant shipping
a. British development of sonar and aerial reconnaissance
b. Breaking the German codes
2. North Africa
. British needed to protect the Suez
a. British humiliation of Italian invasion force in Libya
i. Forced Germany to intervene
b. Afrika Korps and Erwin Rommel
c. British defeated Italian navy in the Mediterranean
d. Rommel's invasion of Egypt defeated at El Alamein (1942)
e. United States landed in French territories of Algeria and Morocco
3. Conference at Casablanca
. Allies discussed the course of the war
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