On May 12, German tanks rolled into France from Belgium
through the Ardennes Forest. The French had thought that these wooded
hills were too dense to pass through, and had little anti-tank or anti-aircraft
guns ready. On May 17, the Germans simply went around the Maginot line
to the north, a series of forts protected by heavy guns and anti-tank
devices, stretching along the France-Germany border. The French were stunned;
with France’s tank forces poorly organized and its planes hugely outnumbered,
the end was inevitable.
On June 10, as the French wilted under German fire,
Italy joined Germany, declaring war on the Allies. The French capital,
Paris fell to the Germans on 14 June. To protect their people and land
from further death and destruction, the French government surrendered
to Germany on 22 June, leaving many Allied troops trapped in France. Despite
heavy bombing, Britain’s Royal Navy helped over 300,000 in Britain from
the beaches at Dunkirk. The amazing evacuation was done through
the help of every available vessel - warships, passenger ferries, fishing
smacks and pleasure boats, which ferried the 200,000 British, and 140,000
French and Belgian soldiers across the English Channel to safety in Britain.
Churchill becomes British Prime Minister
On May 10, as the invasion of the Low Countries (the low-lying
countries between Germany and France – the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg)
began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and was succeeded by
Winston Churchill. To his people and the rest of the world, Churchill
became the symbol of British determination, urging Britons to make the
war "their finest hour". He inspired his countrymen to go on
fighting bravely, with his famous words: "We shall not flag or fail...
We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence
and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever
the cost may be...We shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we
shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
