ABSTRACT
B litzk rieg (Lightning War) In May 1940, the German Wehrmacht and Luft waffe unleashed their great offensive in the west and in a few weeks destroyed the French and Brit ish forces opposing them. The French sued for an armistice, while the British desperately tried to remove as many soldiers as possible from the evershrinking Allied pocket at Dunkirk (q.v.). The smashing victory in the west was seen as a vindi cation of the German doctrine of the Blitzkrieg, or lightning war, a triumph of combined arms opera tions, with ground and air working together as a well-oiled military machine.
