As the Polish September Campaign ended, Hitler offered Britain and France peace on the basis of recognition of German European continental dominance. Poland fell within five weeks, with its last large operational units surrendering on 6 October after the Battle of Kock. The Polish government evacuated the country for Romania. On 17 September the Soviet forces joined the invasion of Poland, although remaining neutral with respect to Western powers. This period of the war is commonly known as the Phoney War. The British Expeditionary Force was sent to France however, neither French nor British troops gave any significant assistance to the Poles during the entire invasion, and the German–French border, excepting the Saar Offensive, remained mostly calm. On 3 September 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany, and other allies soon followed. Germany and the Soviet Union were sworn enemies, but following the Munich Agreement, which effectively handed over Czechoslovakia (a French and Soviet ally, and the only remaining presidential democracy in Central Europe) to Germany, political realities allowed the Soviet Union to sign a non-aggression pact (the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) including a secret clause partitioning Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland between the two spheres of influence.įull-scale war in Europe began at dawn on 1 September 1939, when Germany used so-called Blitzkrieg tactics and military strength to invade Poland, to which both the United Kingdom and France had pledged protection and independence guarantees.
Main articles: Invasion of Poland and Phoney War Other smaller powers also later joined the Axis throughout the war. Japan and Germany had already signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in 1936, to counter the perceived threat of the communism of the Soviet Union. Later, the Empire of Japan, under the government of Hideki Tojo, would also join as an Axis power. Many Germans blamed their country's post-war economic collapse on the treaty's conditions and these resentments contributed to the political instability which made it possible for Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party to come to power.Īfter Hitler took Germany out of the League of Nations, Mussolini of Fascist Italy and Hitler formed the Rome-Berlin axis, under a treaty known as the Pact of Steel. Germany was humiliated in front of the world and had to pay very large war reparations. Germany was defeated in World War I, and the Treaty of Versailles placed punitive conditions on the country, including significant financial reparations, the loss of territory (some only temporarily), war guilt, military weakening and limitation, and economic weakening. Main articles: Events preceding World War II in Europe and Causes of World War II The Allied powers fought the Axis powers on two major fronts (the Eastern Front and Western Front) as well as in a strategic bombing offensive and in the adjoining Mediterranean and Middle East theatre. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the Western Allies conquering most of Western Europe, the Soviet Union conquering most of Eastern Europe and Germany's unconditional surrender on (9 May in the Soviet Union) but fighting still occurred on the Eastern Front until 11 May, 1945 with the surrender of Nazi Germany’s armed forces elsewhere in Europe. The European theatre of World War II was the main theatre of combat during World War II.
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