Hitler had begun the war by invading Poland. After this flurry of action little happened in the west for several months. The bombing raids that were expected to destroy British cities did not come. Mothers and children who had been sent to the country from the cities began to drift home. British planes dropped leaflets on Germany, which explained to the German people that Hitler was bound to lose the war. There were naval engagements, such as the Battle of the River Plate in which the German, battleship Graf Spee was sunk. German U-boats moved out into the Atlantic and began to sink British shipping. Russia became involved in a war with Finland, the winter war of 1939-40, which took Russia a long time to win. The British called this period 'the Phoney War' because nothing seemed to be happening. The Germans called it the Sitzkrieg, the 'sit-down war'.

In fact both sides were not really ready for war. Hitler was not yet fully equipped to take on a major war. The British were certainly not prepared, while the French were putting all their faith in their massive defence system, the Maginot Line.

Stalin wanted to safeguard the Baltic Sea approaches to Leningrad and placed soviet forces in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as agreed in the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Then the Soviet Union demanded territory from Finland and when the Finns refused Stalin ordered the attack on Finland. In this conflict the Finns achieved marvels of military skill, fighting in the depths of winter. Emerging swiftly on skis from the forests, wearing white coverings, they halted the Russian columns by attacking supply services and especially the field kitchens, making it difficult for the Russians to supply their troops with the hot food necessary in the cold weather. Then, splitting up the long columns of Russian troops, the Finns destroyed them piecemeal. They wiped out whole divisions.

On the Karelian Isthmus, the narrow strip of land which links Lake Ladoga with the Baltic Sea, the Finnish defence line-the Mannerheim line-consisted of guns in concrete 'pill-boxes'. The first Russian infantry attacks here at the end of November 1939 were halted by machinegun-fire, causing severe Russian losses. But later, in February 1940, when the Russians had overwhelming strength, they managed to break through the defence line. The Finns had to admit defeat and give up the Karelian Isthmus. But the Russians had taken a long time to win a 'little' war and, had been made to look both weak and inefficient. This led Hitler to believe that they could be defeated easily.