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By the spring of 1940, war had already begun, but the world had yet to see the full fury that would define the coming years. The invasion of Poland in 1939 had been swift, a brutal yet one-sided display of German military power. The winter war between Finland and the Soviet Union had been bloody but isolated. Then came April 1940, and with it, the true storm of World War II. In just three months, the war exploded into full-scale, continent-spanning violence, as Germany unleashed its blitzkrieg upon Western Europe, crushing nations in rapid succession while the Allies scrambled in disarray.
The first strike came in Scandinavia. On April 9, Germany launched Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Denmark and Norway. Denmark fell in a single day, overwhelmed by sheer force, but Norway fought back with British and French support. It was here that the Allies first clashed with German forces in open battle, yet despite early successes, they were outmaneuvered. The sinking of the German heavy cruiser Blücher in the Oslofjord was a rare victory for the Norwegians, but it wasn’t enough. By early June, Norway had fallen, its king fleeing to Britain. Even worse, the Allies’ failure in Norway led to the resignation of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, paving the way for Winston Churchill to take the helm—a change that would reshape the war’s course.
But the true horror came in May, when Hitler turned his gaze westward. The long-dreaded German invasion of France and the Low Countries began on May 10, 1940, with overwhelming force. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg were attacked simultaneously in a carefully orchestrated assault. Paratroopers dropped behind Dutch lines, Belgian forts crumbled under massive German guns, and in Luxembourg, resistance was crushed in mere hours. Within days, it became clear—the Allies were outmatched.
France had prepared for a repeat of World War I, relying on the supposedly impregnable Maginot Line, a series of fortifications along its border with Germany. But Hitler did not strike where they expected. Instead, the Germans executed one of the most daring and brilliant maneuvers of the war—the Ardennes Offensive. Believing the dense Ardennes forest was impassable for tanks, the French had left it weakly defended. The Germans, led by Panzer divisions under generals like Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian, smashed through the trees, bypassing the Maginot Line entirely.
Within days, chaos erupted. German forces cut through northern France with terrifying speed, trapping British and French troops in Belgium. The Belgian army collapsed, surrendering on May 28. The Dutch had already surrendered on May 15 after Rotterdam was bombed into submission. The French, realizing their defenses had been completely outflanked, fell into retreat.
By late May, the British Expeditionary Force and tens of thousands of French troops were backed against the sea at Dunkirk, surrounded and facing annihilation. Then came Operation Dynamo, one of the war’s most improbable rescues. In just over a week, between May 27 and June 4, an armada of over 800 ships—military vessels, fishing boats, pleasure yachts—sailed across the English Channel to pull 338,000 men off the beaches. It was a miracle, but it was also a humiliation. The British had escaped, but without their heavy weapons, and France was left to its fate.
On June 5, Hitler launched Fall Rot, the final assault on France. The French, exhausted and leaderless, could do little as German tanks stormed deeper into their country. On June 10, Italy opportunistically joined the war, invading France from the south. Just four days later, German troops entered Paris. On June 22, in a cruel twist of irony, France surrendered in the very same railway carriage in which Germany had signed its own surrender in 1918. The war in the West was effectively over.
In just three months, Germany had conquered six nations, obliterated the myth of French military superiority, and forced Britain into a desperate struggle for survival. The world had seen its first true taste of what total war looked like. And the worst was yet to come.