I’m reading my way through this book about WWII. This book focuses almost exclusively on the military and political strategies of the war. It’s an excellent book so far and you can get it really cheap at B&N on the bargain rack if you like.
Anyway I’m only about 100 pages in (700 page book) and Germany has just rolled into France. Liddell does a great job explaining the strategic aspects of the campaigns but the thing that really sticks out at me so far is just how fast most of Europe rolled over for Hitler.
Let me see if I absorbed what I’ve read so far (I’m really bad at dates and memorization so forgive me if I mix stuff up here:
Britain pretty much handed Germany Czechoslovakia in a “if we give him something over there he will leave us alone. Peace at last!”. They seemed to do this VERY quickly.
Then Germany decides to take Poland, with Russias backing. Britain says “No way we’ll stop you” but never really came to the aid of Poland.
Finland falls to Russia.
Germany takes Norway, almost on a fluke it seems.
Then Denmark.
Then they roll through Belgium.
Finally France (thus far in the book).
Now, France seemed to fall victim to sound military strategy in the distraction caused by the attack on Belgium. The rest of the countries, except Poland, seemed to just roll over and play dead pretty much as soon as Germany came knocking.
Why was this? Liddell states many times that Germany was outnumbered and could have been taken down numerous times early on but no one put up the tough fight needed to do it.
Was it the awe of German tanks? The Luftwaffe? What were these countries more afraid of than losing their sovereignty? The whole thing reads, militarily any way, like most of Europe just gave up before the fight even began.
I do have alot more of the book to read and the answers are probably within but I’m curious what the SDMB perspective is.
ETA:
Actually, please let me know if I am misunderstanding what I’m reading. DID Europe lay down for Germany as it seems so far?