Phoney War

From Metapedia

The Phoney War was a phase in early World War II marked by few military operations in Continental Europe, in the months following the German invasion of Poland (September 1, 1939) and preceding the Battle of France (May 10, 1940). Although the great powers of Europe had declared war on one another, neither side had yet committed to launching a significant attack, and there was relatively little fighting on the ground.

While most of the German army was fighting against Poland, a much smaller German force manned the Siegfried Line, their fortified defensive line along the French border. At the Maginot Line on the other side of the border, British and French troops stood facing them, but there were only some local, minor skirmishes. The British Royal Air Force dropped propaganda leaflets on Germany and the first Canadian troops stepped ashore in Britain, while western Europe was in a strange calm for seven months. Meanwhile, the opposing nations clashed in the Norwegian campaign. In their hurry to re-arm, Britain and France had both begun buying large amounts of weapons from manufacturers in the US at the outbreak of hostilities, supplementing their own productions. The non-belligerent United States contributed to the Western Allies by discounted sales, and, later, lend-lease of military equipment and supplies. It should be noted that in the 1930s, in a much smaller scale, private companies in Britain and the US were also supplying Germany, without government sanction. Engines of a few German fighters were made in Britain and American raw materials were being sold to Germany. German efforts to interdict the Allies' trans-Atlantic trade at sea ignited the Second Battle of the Atlantic.