ABSTRACT
The Second World War took some time to assume its global character. For the Germans the first campaigns were a series of expeditions from an invulnerable heartland. They invaded and defeated Poland in the autumn of 1939 with the collusion, and later the active participation, of the Soviet Union. In the West the ‘Phoney War’ gave way on 10 May 1940 to an all-out German offensive, and within eleven days the leading forces of Army Group A carved their way to the English Channel. The greater part of the British Expeditionary Force escaped by way of the port of Dunkirk, at the price of abandoning its heavy weapons and equipment, and the French gave up the fight on 25 June.
