World War II (1939–1945)

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The resulting conflict ended in March 1940 with Finnish concessions.

France and the United Kingdom, treating the Soviet attack on Finland as tantamount to entering the war on the side of the Germans, responded to the Soviet invasion by supporting the USSR's expulsion from the League of Nations.

Slide 44

German troops by the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, after the 1940 fall of France.

In Western Europe, British troops deployed to the Continent, but in a phase nicknamed the Phoney War by the British and "Sitzkrieg" (sitting war) by the Germans, neither side launched major operations against the other until April 1940.

Slide 45

The Soviet Union and Germany entered a trade pact in February 1940, pursuant to which the Soviets received German military and industrial equipment in exchange for supplying raw materials to Germany to help circumvent the Allied blockade.

Western Europe (1940–41)

In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden, which the Allies were attempting to cut off by unilaterally mining neutral Norwegian waters.

Slide 46

Denmark immediately capitulated, and despite Allied support, Norway was conquered within two months.

British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Winston Churchill on 10 May 1940.

Germany launched an offensive against France and, for reasons of military strategy, also invaded the neutral nations of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on 10 May 1940.

Slide 47

That same day Britain invaded Iceland to preempt a possible German invasion of the island.

The Netherlands and Belgium were overrun using blitzkrieg tactics in a few days and weeks, respectively.

As a result, the bulk of the Allied armies found themselves trapped in an encirclement and were annihilated.

Slide 48

British troops were forced to evacuate the continent at Dunkirk, abandoning their heavy equipment by early June.

On 10 June, Italy invaded France, declaring war on both France and the United Kingdom; Paris fell on 14 June and eight days later France surrendered and was soon divided into German and Italian occupation zones, and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime. On 3 July, the British attacked the French fleet in Algeria to prevent its possible seizure by Germany.

Slide 49

In June, during the last days of the Battle of France, the Soviet Union forcibly annexed Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and then annexed the disputed Romanian region of Bessarabia.