The Major International Treaties of the Twentieth Century by John Grenville Bernard Wasserstein

Author:John Grenville, Bernard Wasserstein [John Grenville, Bernard Wasserstein]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135192556
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2013-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

NEW ALLIES AND THE COLLAPSE OF FRANCE

In 1940 Britain lost the war on the continent of Europe and gained new allies, not by their choice but because they became victims of German aggression. Germany extended the war in the west by attacking Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940. Denmark was occupied virtually without resistance and Norway, despite Allied attempts to create a front in the central and northern regions of the country, fell a few weeks later.

Germany opened her military offensive against France a month later on 10 May 1940 by crossing three neutral frontiers, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. All three governments after the complete military collapse refused to sign an armistice with Germany, and transferred themselves to London to join there the Polish and Norwegian governments in exile. After the defeat of the British and French armies Marshal Pétain formed a new government which sought an armistice from the Germans. The Franco-German armistice was signed on 22 June 1940 and became effective three days later. It divided France into an occupied zone of northern France and the Atlantic coastline and an unoccupied zone. The ‘Free French’ under de Gaulle continued to fight on the Allied side but were not recognized as a fully-fledged government in exile. Meantime Italy had declared war on France and Britain on 10 June 1940 during the closing stages of the German campaign in France. Italy’s contribution to the growing number of Allied powers was to follow up her short campaign in France by attacking Greece on 28 October 1940. Greece now joined the war against Italy. Italian military ineptitude brought about German intervention when Germany attacked Greece on 6 April 1941.

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