Hitler’s Blitzkrieg Enemies 1940

Denmark, Norway, Netherlands & Belgium

Hitler’s Blitzkrieg Enemies 1940 cover

Hitler’s Blitzkrieg Enemies 1940

Denmark, Norway, Netherlands & Belgium

Description

The armies of Scandinavia and the Low Countries bore the first crushing impact of Hitler's mighty Blitzkrieg war machine in Western Europe, in campaigns that astonished and terrified the world.

The German Wehrmacht was millions strong, equipped with the latest guns, tanks and aircraft, and had the priceless advantage of having learned the realities of modern warfare in Poland the previous September. The defenders of Scandinavia and the Low Countries were raised from small populations, and were inadequately funded, trained, equipped and armed. Their modest numbers, inexperience, and largely indefensible borders condemned them to rapid defeat - in a few hours (Denmark), a few days (Holland), a couple of weeks (Belgium), and at most two months (Norway). For this reason they have tended to be neglected by history - in many cases, unjustly. Vastly outnumbered - and, in the case of the neutral Low Countries, with their potential French and British allies reeling under simultaneous attacks - thousands of soldiers fought heroically in the hopeless defence of their homelands against the Nazi juggernaut.

Tiny Denmark had only 6,600 troops when it was invaded on 9 April 1940 by six times as many Germans with air and tank support; resistance lasted only four hours. On the same day, mountainous Norway, with 25,000 men mainly scattered in small numbers along its cliff-bound coastline, was invaded by the first elements of seven German seaborne and airborne divisions totalling 100,000 men. A British, French and Free Polish force landed to support the Norwegians, but despite the serious casualties inflicted on the German forces the country was finally forced to surrender two months later on 9 June 1940.

In the mean time the massive German Operation Yellow, undertaken by 2.75 million troops backed by strong air forces, had fallen on the neutral Netherlands and Belgium (10 May), and on France (16 May). The 250,000 Netherlands troops put up unexpectedly stubborn resistance, but were ordered to surrender on 15 May after the German bombing of Rotterdam. Belgium had mobilised some 900,000 troops, and received some help from Britain and France, but the resistance faltered as Panzergruppe Von Kleist outflanked them through the supposedly impassable Ardennes; Belgium requested an armistice on 26 May, and surrendered on the 28th. Between 26 May and 4 June the survivors of the British Expeditionary Force were evacuated from Dunkirk. On 10 June the Germans crossed the Seine; the French government fled Paris on the 12th; on the 17th Marshal Pétain requested an armistice, and France finally capitulated on 22 June.

Informed by the latest research and drawing upon archival records and period photography, this absorbing study explains the organization and combat performance and depicts the appearance of the armies of Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium as they sought to counter overwhelming German forces in the fateful spring of 1940.

Table of Contents

Introduction /The Danish Army: organisation, battle record, uniforms and insignia /The Norwegian Army: organisation, battle record, uniforms and insignia /The Royal Netherlands Army: organisation, battle record, uniforms and insignia /The Belgian Army: organisation, battle record, uniforms and insignia /Bibliography /Plate commentaries /Index

Product details

Published Feb 18 2014
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 48
ISBN 9781782005964
Imprint Osprey Publishing
Illustrations 10 b/w
Dimensions 248 x 184 mm
Series Men-at-Arms
Short code MAA 493
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Nigel Thomas

NIGEL THOMAS PhD is an accomplished linguist and m…

Illustrator

Johnny Shumate

Johnny Shumate works as a freelance illustrator li…

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