The invasion of Poland has begun and so has the 'Blitzkrieg'. 'Lightening/fast war' in English. Poland did not stand a chance. The Germans and the Soviets carved up all of Poland in less than two weeks, during this time, Britain and France declared war on Germany. France at the time had not yet fully recovered from ww1 and was only capable for a defensive war, so they heavily fortified their border with a series of trenches and defences called the 'Maginot' line. At first the fighting on the western front was not that intense, and when winter struck both sides even stopped fighting for a while, they called this 'the phoney war'. As spring struck ,however, Germany prepared a huge offensive into France, instead of going through the heavily fortified Maginot line, the Germans decided to pass through the neutral countries of Belgium and the Netherlands that had a strong British influence. This was called the 'Schlieffen Plan', it was the same plan that had failed the Germans in ww1. The British did not offer much help since they were trying to avoid a repeat of ww1 trench warfare. Both countries fell in mere weeks, Germany then stormed on, past the Maginot line into France as the British retreated from Dunkirk. Even before this happened, Hitler had gained a interest in the Scandinavian region. He got most of his metals from trade with Sweden, so he decided to invade their neighbors who were British sympathisers: Denmark and Norway. The two countries held out the best they could with British support, but eventually they were no match for the German onslaught of para-troopers. After the Germans stormed past the main defence of France, the country did not hold on much longer, the British could not have saved any of their comrades. After Paris fell to the Germans, France had surrendered, creating the new fascist republic of Vichy France. Almost all French colonial conquests were now also under German control. All of western Europe now lie in the control of the axis, only one country stands alone against it: The United Kingdom. Hitler was making an ambitious plan, 'operation sea lion' or the invasion of Britain. His plan was to destroy the UK from the air, destroy both it's navy and trading system with U-boats, and then launch an amphibious invasion. This year-long plan had, however, failed. The UK defeated Germany in surprisingly both the air and the sea (with the help of US supply). Over 2,000 British civilians lost their lives to German air-raids or German submarine U-boats attacks on merchant vessels. On top of that the British had successfully broke German Enigma code, that meant that the UK (although lacking a strong ground force) could sabotage the German war effort.