1939: War breaks out in Europe
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War broke out in Europe on 1 September 1939, with the German invasion of Poland. Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September but otherwise dishonored their treaties with Poland by failing to provide Poland with military assistance. The Germans slashed through the Polish defenses, reaching Warsaw on 9 September.
In accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Red Army invaded Poland on 17 September, surrounding the Polish Army by the combined German and Soviet forces. The last operational unit of the Polish Army capitulated on 6 October. The Polish government refused to surrender and together with many of its remaining land and air forces (up to 120,000 Polish troops) evacuated to neighbouring Romania and Hungary. The majority of these troops later that year and in the next joined new Polish units in France and the United Kingdom where they went on to fight the Axis powers throughout the war.
After Poland fell, Germany paused to regroup during the winter of 1939-1940 until April 1940, while the British and French stayed on the defensive. The period would be jokingly termed "the Phony War," or the "Sitzkrieg," because so little ground combat took place.
Meanwhile, in the North Atlantic German U-boats operated against Allied shipping. The German U-boats make up in daring what they lack in number. One U-boat sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous while another U-boat managed to sink the battleship HMS Royal Oak in its home anchorage of Scapa Flow. Altogether just a handful of U-boats, which is all that the Germans had at the time, managed to sink more than 110 vessels in the first four months of the war.
In the South Atlantic, the Kriegsmarine pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee raided Allied shipping, then was scuttled after the battle of the River Plate.
The Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939, beginning the Winter War, which lasted until March 1940 with Finland ceding territory to the Soviet
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