Everything about The Phoney War totally explained
The
Phoney War, also called the
Twilight War by
Winston Churchill and
Sitzkrieg by
Germany (
German for "sitting war"), was a phase in early
World War II from September 1939 until May 1940 marked by few military operations in
Continental Europe, in the months following the
German invasion of Poland and preceding the
Battle of France. The great
powers of
Europe had
declared war on one another, yet neither side had committed to launching a significant attack, and there was relatively little fighting on the ground.
While most of the German army was fighting against Poland, a much smaller German force manned the
Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. At the
Maginot Line on the other side of the border, British and French troops stood facing them, but there were only some local,
minor skirmishes. The British
Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets on Germany and the first Canadian troops stepped ashore in Britain, while western Europe was in a strange calm for seven months. Meanwhile, the opposing nations clashed in the
Norwegian campaign. In their hurry to re-arm, Britain and France had both begun buying large amounts of weapons from manufacturers in the US at the outbreak of hostilities, supplementing their own productions. The
non-belligerent United States contributed to the
Western Allies by discounted sales, and, later,
lend-lease of military equipment and supplies. It should be noted that in the 1930s, in a much smaller scale, private companies in Britain and the US were also supplying Germany, without government sanction. Engines of a few German fighters were made in Britain, and American raw materials were being sold to Germany. German efforts to interdict the Allies' trans-Atlantic trade at sea ignited the
Second Battle of the Atlantic.
Other designations
The
Phoney War was also called "Funny War";
Winston Churchill called it the "
Twilight War". The term has equivalents in many other languages, notably the
German Sitzkrieg ("sitting war," a play on
Blitzkrieg) or
komischer Krieg ("funny war" or "strange war",
komisch having two meanings), the
French drôle de guerre ("strange war,"
drôle which can also mean "funny" stands for "strange" when used like this), the
Italian guerra fittizia and
finta guerra (respectively "fictitious war" and "false war") and the
Polish dziwna wojna ("strange war"). In Britain the period was even referred to as the "Bore War" (a pun on "
Boer War").
Saar offensive
Saar before withdrawing. At this time, France had deployed 98 divisions and 2,500 tanks against German forces consisting of 43 divisions and no tanks.
Winter War
A notable event during the Phoney War was the
Winter War, which started with the
Soviet Union's assault on
Finland on
30 November 1939. Public opinion, particularly in
France and
Britain, found it easy to side with democratic Finland, and demanded from their governments effective action in support of "the brave Finns" against their incomparably larger aggressor, the
Soviet Union, particularly since the Finns' defence seemed so much more successful than that of the Poles during the
September Campaign. As a consequence, the Soviet Union was excluded from the
League of Nations, and a proposed Franco-British expedition to northern
Scandinavia was much debated. British forces that began to be assembled to send to Finland's aid were not dispatched before the Winter War ended, and were sent to Norway's aid in the
Norwegian campaign, instead. On
20 March, after the Winter War had ended,
Édouard Daladier resigned as Prime Minister in France, due to his failure to aid Finland's defence.
German invasion of Denmark and Norway
The open discussions on an
Allied expedition to northern
Scandinavia, also without consent of the neutral Scandinavian countries, and the
Altmark incident on
16 February, alarmed the
Kriegsmarine and Germany, by threatening iron ore supplies, and gave strong arguments for a German securing of the Norwegian coast. Codenamed
Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of
Denmark and Norway commenced on
9 April. On
12–
15 April Allied troops were landed in Norway, but within two weeks most of Norway was in German hands and the Allied troops were evacuated from Northern Norway.
Change of British government
The debacle of the
Allied campaign in Norway, which actually was an offspring of the never-realised plans to aid
Finland, forced
a famous debate in the
House of Commons during which the
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was under constant attack. A nominal
vote of confidence in his
government was won by 281 to 200, but many of Chamberlain's supporters had voted against him whilst others had abstained. The humiliated Chamberlain found it impossible to continue to lead a
National Government or to form a government of national unity (in Britain often called a "
coalition government", to distinguish it from Chamberlain's existing national government) around himself. On
10 May Chamberlain resigned the premiership whilst retaining the leadership of the Conservative Party. The King,
George VI, appointed
Winston Churchill, who had been a consistent opponent of Chamberlain's policy of
appeasement, as his successor and Churchill formed a new
coalition government that included members of the
Conservative Party, the
Labour Party and the
Liberal Party as well as several ministers from a non-political background.
Later that day, German troops marched into
Belgium, the
Netherlands and
Luxembourg. It was the 10th of May, 1940, a short eight months after Britain and France had declared war on Germany. The Phoney War was over.
Most other major actions during the Phoney War were at sea, including the
Second Battle of the Atlantic fought throughout the Phoney War. Other notable events among these were the following:
- In October 1939 the British battleship HMS Royal Oak was sunk in Scapa Flow, Orkney (north of Scotland) by the German U-boat U-47.
- Luftwaffe air raids on Britain began on 16 October 1939 when Junkers Ju 88s attacked British warships at Rosyth on the Firth of Forth. Spitfires of No. 602 and No. 603 Squadrons succeeded in shooting down two Ju 88s and a Heinkel He 111 over the firth. In a raid on Scapa Flow the next day, one Ju 88 was downed by anti-aircraft fire, crashing on the island of Hoy. The first Luftwaffe plane to be shot down on the British mainland was a He 111 at Haddington, East Lothian, on 29 November, with both 602 and 603 Squadrons claiming this victory.
- In December 1939, the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee was attacked by the Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles in the Battle of the River Plate. The Admiral Graf Spee fled to Montevideo harbour to perform repairs on damage sustained during the battle. She was later scuttled rather than face a large British fleet the Kriegsmarine falsely believed was awaiting her departure. The support vessel for the Admiral Graf Spee, the tanker Altmark was captured by the Royal Navy in February 1940 in southern Norway (see: Battles of Narvik, Altmark Incident).
The warring air forces also showed some activity in that period, running reconnaissance flights and several minor bombing raids during this period. The
Royal Air Force also conducted a large number of combined reconnaissance and
propaganda leaflet flights over Germany. These leaflet flights were jokingly termed "Pamphlet raids" or "Confetti War" in the British press.
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