Western Civilization - History Of European Society

Europe in an Age of Total War: World War II,1939–45 581

The Blitzkriegcame to western Europe in May 1940
with a German assault (a 4 A.M. sneak attack) on the
Low Countries (as a way of flanking the fortifications of
the French Maginot Line) and then on northern France.
The great cities of Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Brussels
all suffered bombardment; the great port-city of Rotter-
dam (despite being declared an open city) was virtually
flattened in withering Stukaattacks, which reduced two
square miles of the city center (including twenty-five
thousand private residences) to rubble. The destruction
of Rotterdam convinced the British Royal Air Force
(RAF) to bring the same sense of total war to German

cities, and this strategy would devastate Germany later

in the war. The Dutch army suffered 100,000 casualties

(25 percent of the army) in just five days of fighting,

enough to force a surrender. The queen, and a govern-

ment in exile, managed to escape to Britain, leaving the

Dutch under the brutal rule of a Nazi governor, Arthur

Seyss-Inquart, a meek little man who plundered the

country for nearly five years and sent more than five

million Dutch citizens to forced labor in Germany.

(Seyss-Inquart would be executed as a war criminal in

1946.) A simultaneous Panzerattack on Belgium sliced

between France and Belgium, and Brussels fell. The

Corsica

Sardinia

Sicily

Crete Cyprus

TU

RK

E Y

ROMANIA

London

Vichy

Rotterdam Berlin Warsaw

Paris

Rome

Algiers

Casablanca

Tunis

Yalta

Stalingrad

Leningrad

Murmansk

Dunkirk

Gibraltar

Alexandria

Teheran

Kursk

Kiev

AlameinEl

NORWAY

SWEDEN

SPAIN

PORTUGAL

ITALY

ALBANIA

LIBYA

ALGERIA

TUNISIA

MOROCCO

SPANISH

SAHARA

EGYPT

TRANS-

JORDAN

LEBANON IRAQ

KUWAIT

PALESTINE

IRAN

HUNGARY

GERMANY SLOVAKIA

BELG.

NETH.

GREAT DENMARK

BRITAIN

EIRE

FINLAND

E. PRUSSIA

LITHUANIA

LATVIA

ESTONIA

SYRIA

Balearic GREECE

Isla

nds

BULGARIA

SWITZ.

VICHY

FRANCE YUGOSLAVIA

NORMANDY

North Sea

Atlantic

Ocean

Black Sea

Ca

sp

ia

n

Se

a

CanalSuez

Bal

tic

Se

a

Ebro

R.

Rhin

e

R.

Danube

R.

Euphr

ate

s

R.

Tigri

s

R.

NileR.

Vo

lga

R.

Medit

erranea

n Sea

Arctic Ocean

PoR.

0 300 600 Miles

0 300 600 900 Kilometers

German-Italian Axis: 1939

Axis satellites and allies: 1941

Axis conquests: 1939–1942

Allied powers and areas

under Allied control

Neutral nations

Axis offensives: 1939–1942

Farthest Axis advance: 1941–1942

Allied offensives: 1942–1945

Soviet annexations: 1939–1940

World War II: Europe and Africa

MAP 29.2

World War II in Europe and North Africa