Quick questions on Course of the European war 1939-1941: HSC Modern History Peace and Conflict

Five German armies invaded Poland on 1 September 1939: Army Group North under Bock, Army Group South under Rundstedt, attacking from East Prussia, Slovakia, and Silesia. The Wehrmacht deployed around 1.5 million men, 2,500 tanks, and 2,000 aircraft.

The Western Front remained largely quiet through the winter. Britain dispatched the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to France under Lord Gort; both Allied armies took up defensive positions along the Belgian frontier and behind the Maginot Line. The Saar offensive (September 1939) was a token French advance that withdrew within days.

Operation Weserubung began on 9 April 1940 with simultaneous German invasions of Denmark and Norway, partly to secure iron-ore supplies from neutral Sweden through Narvik. Denmark surrendered the same day. Norway fought on with Allied support; British and French forces landed at Narvik but were withdrawn after the German offensive in the west.

Operation Fall Gelb began on 10 May 1940. The plan, refined by Manstein and Halder (the Sichelschnitt or "sickle cut"), concentrated German armour in Army Group A under Rundstedt for a thrust through the Ardennes, considered impassable by the French High Command.

Hitler's Directive 16 (16 July 1940) ordered planning for Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain. The precondition was air superiority over southern England.

Italy's invasion of Greece (28 October 1940) failed; the Greeks counter-attacked into Albania. The Italian Tenth Army's attack into Egypt (September 1940) was destroyed by General Wavell's Operation Compass (December 1940 to February 1941), which captured around 130,000 Italian prisoners.

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the USSR, began at 3.15 am on 22 June 1941. Three German Army Groups attacked: - Army Group North under Leeb advanced from East Prussia towards Leningrad. - Army Group Centre under Bock attacked through Belorussia towards Moscow. - Army Group South under Rundstedt attacked through Ukraine.

Richard Overy (Why the Allies Won, 1995) treats German operational excellence as resting on an inadequate strategic and economic foundation; the wins of 1939 to 1941 created the conditions for the defeat that followed.

Frieser shows it was largely a postwar construction; the 1940 victory was substantially improvised.

Poland's army fought hard; the defeat was geographical, not technical.

17 September 1940, not 31 October.

The Wehrmacht failed at Moscow in December 1941. The campaign had reached its operational limit.