The Phony War: 1939-1940

by Tom Shachtman

This is the vivid, vigorously written, anecdote-filled story of the bizarre interval-the hush before the tempest-that preceded the full-scale horrors of World War II. In range and resonance it compels the reader's spellbound interest.

Genres: War

289 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Since I always wanted to be a writer, I consider myself fortunate to have had my work published and produced in many forms—40 histories, novels, and books for children, plus filmed documentaries and TV dramas, poetry, plays, songs, newspaper columns, magazine articles, even a comic book.

My newest book (January 2020) is THE FOUNDING FORTUNES: HOW THE WEALTHY PAID FOR AND PROFITED FROM AMERICA’S REVOLUTION. This completes a trilogy of books on the Revolutionary Era; the earlier ones are GENTLEMEN SCIENTISTS AND REVOLUTIONARIES, and HOW THE FRENCH SAVED AMERICA.

My book ABSOLUTE ZERO AND THE CONQUEST OF COLD, about 400 years of research into low temperatures, became the basis for a two-hour documentary special for BBC and PBS. The program and my script for it won the American Institute of Physics’ science writing award for 2009. The book itself was praised by The New York Times Book Review as written “with passion and clarity,” by the Library Journal as “truly wonderful,” and by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as “an absolute delight.”

Many of my other books have also received welcome critical praise. Library Journal wrote of RUMSPRINGA: TO BE OR NOT TO BE AMISH that is provided “a near-unprecedented glimpse into the inner lives of Amish society.” The Economist called AROUND THE BLOCK “a near-classic,” The New Yorker “A grand idea, splendidly executed,” and The Washington Post Book World “thoughtful, interesting … a good and useful book.” THE INARTICULATE SOCIETY was judged as “perceptive and disturbing” by The Washington Post, and by The Wall Street Journal as “a provocative examination of the American way with words.” Business Week labeled SKYSCRAPER DREAMS “fascinating history … the stuff of grand comedy,” and The New York Times cited it for “superb reporting on the industry’s wheeling and dealing.” “Fascinating … illuminating … stunning detail,” the Chicago Tribune wrote of THE GILDED LEAF (written with Patrick Reynolds).

I’ve also written books for children, including three novels, BEACHMASTER, WAVEBENDER and DRIFTWHISTLER, now published in several languages. My non-fiction children’s books include THE PRESIDENT BUILDS A HOUSE, about the work of Habitat for Humanity and, with my wife Harriet Shelare, VIDEO POWER.

My collaborations with criminologist Robert K. Ressler, the man who coined the term serial killers and knew more about them than anyone else, include WHOEVER FIGHTS MONSTERS and I HAVE LIVED IN THE MONSTER, both multi-million-copy best-sellers overseas.

My articles have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, Smithsonian, and the Hoover Digest, as well as on the websites of The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, History News Network, and the Journal of the American Revolution. My occasional column for THE LAKEVILLE JOURNAL (CT), “The Long View,’ provides historical context to current events.

I am a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America, a longtime member of The Authors Guild, and a former president of the board and current trustee of The Writers Room in New York City, an urban writers’ colony. I’ve also served as a trustee of the Connecticut Humanities Council, and of The Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Area.

Reviews

[John McNair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good book, on a subject that little seems written about (or, if it is, only specific instances of that roughly nine month period are written). This describes the War before it truly became a "world war", with events more or less confined to Europe (well, the Graf Spree incident was nicely described in this book, and that took place during this period), influenced nonetheless by elsewhere (i.e. America). I liked that both the tactical and strategic/political levels were brought into the narrative. It read well and was engaging, although reading it before sleep never seemed to last more than 20 minutes and I was then gone to never-never land! Written in 1982 by an American, likely a good thing as it was well researched and written with a largely impartial eye. In other words, a truthful and dispassionate accounting. Perhaps some poetic license taken at spots (e.g. who's to say the "air was warm, the trees were in bud, a few birds chattered" in the garden at 10 Downing Street the afternoon of 9 May 1940?) but certainly doing so only added depth to otherwise well recorded and slightly dry history. It's easy to see how this period set the stage and forged events that later took place during the "real war" that followed. Recommended!

[Paul W · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Germans called it the ‘Sitzkrieg’. Churchill called it the ‘Twilight war’. But for most the period between the outbreak of World War 2 in September 1939 and Germany’s invasion of France and the low countries in May 1940 is known as the Phony War.

In March 1939 Britain and France had issued guarantees to Poland, a country which, Shachtman reminds us, ‘was a near dictatorship, and one that had professed admiration for the Nazi state. … The Polish government was autocratic, elitist, anti-Communist and anti-Semitic…’
The French Commander-in-Chief, Gamelin ‘had told Poland that France would attack Germany in substantial force within fourteen days of mobilization if Germany attacked Poland.’ But Gamelin had been counting on Russia as an ally in the event of war. The German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in August 1939 changed everything.
Stalin had told the Soviet Presidium that ‘War was coming; war between Germany and Russia, a costly and sanguinary conflict. The war would last for years and weaken both states to exhaustion. After a stalemate, after millions of souls had died, when both belligerents were defeated, the jackals would come.” Stalin was concerned that the “British and the French and even the Americans would roll in and easily pick up the spoils.” At this late hour, he could promise but one thing: he would do everything in his power to prevent this vision from coming to pass.’ And so he entered into a Non-Aggression Pact with Germany.

Things were set in motion towards war on 25 August with hostilities scheduled to start at 0430 on 26 August. But late that afternoon, Hitler had second thoughts. Worried about the French and British reaction he tried to cancel the attack. But ‘the men who could transmit the orders could not immediately be found… At nearly the last moment, the orders were sent’. In the intervening week, Hitler was assured by Ribbentrop and Göring ‘that the English were willing to step back from the brink’ and so Germany’s invasion of Poland proceeded on 1 September 1939.
The resultant French and British ultimatums to Germany came as a shock. ‘Hitler glared fiercely at Ribbentrop; Göring was nearly sick; … their worst fears were being realized.’ Europe was at war.
Defying British predictions that Poland, Europe’s fifth largest military power, would be able to hold out for six months, the Germans overran the Polish defences in days. Hitler had read Colonel de Gaulle’s book on motorized warfare employing full units and “learned a great deal from it.” The Germans introduced the world to what would later be called ‘Blitzkrieg’ notwithstanding that much of the Wehrmacht still relied on horse-drawn transport. Poland was already all but defeated when the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 September 1939. Despite the Soviet Union's invasion of a country they had guaranteed, the British and French did nothing.

Shachtman highlights the almost farcical nature of the early response by Britain and France to the outbreak of war.
With their forces engaged in Poland, the German forces behind the Siegfried Line were ‘skeletal — thirty-three divisions, of which eleven were untrained reserves.’ Shachtman could have added that French forces outnumbered German troops in the west by two and half or three to one. Despite this the British and French did nothing—Britain had only limited troops; France wanted to avoid fighting another war on its soil.
In the first week of the war, air raid sirens sounded over London. Two British fighters which scrambled to meet the “enemy” collided over the city and one pilot was killed.’ The 'attack' turned out to be a false alarm.
Despite their explicit promises to Poland that they would take immediate air action against Germany, the British and French refused to bomb Germany military targets for months. The British Secretary for Air Kingsley-Wood fretted about the impact of bombing private property. The French worried about German retaliation. When they did attempt to bomb a German port, they ended up bombing a town in Denmark, and losing 70% of their planes in the process.
France’s tentative forays into Germany came to naught as the troops withdrew behind the supposed safety of the Maginot Line after just a fortnight. Shachtman could have built on May's comment in Strange Victory that “A French attack [in September 1939] against the weak German defensive front on the Siegfried line…would, as far as it is humanly possible to judge, have led to a very quick military defeat of Germany and therefore to an end of the war.”
Shachtman highlights Churchill’s constant and unhelpful interventions, debunking the myth that has grown around Churchill as a leader. One of Churchill’s first decisions was ‘to order submarine-hunting ships to sail separately from convoys’, despite all the lessons from World War 1. Churchill obsessed over the design of a trench cutting tank – aptly named the White Rabbit – despite mobile warfare rendering it obsolete.
In The end of the Affair: The collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance, Gates notes that because ‘the western front had remained the quiet sector… the Allies probably devoted more of the verbal energies to discussions of far-away fronts that were not expected to be decisive than to the one theater that was from the start recognized as crucial.’ Shachtman could have explored this aspect of the phony war more. Churchill thought Britain should try and extend the conflict throughout the Balkans, repeating his obsession with the Balkans in World War 1. As Roberts has noted in his biography of Halifax, The Holy Fox, ‘Had Churchill had his way, friendly Turkey might have fallen and Italy probably would have come in against the Allies far earlier than she did.’ History encountered a pivot point when torpedoes fired by U-56 at HMS Nelson when Churchill was aboard failed to explode.
History encountered another pivot point when Britain and France contemplated sending aid to Finland after it had been invaded by the Soviet Union at the end of November 1939. This set off a Churchill inspired debacle in Scandinavia, with an ill-fated Anglo-French expedition to Norway. Britain, cajoled by Churchill and France both wanted to send large number of volunteers to support Finland, even contemplating a declaration of war against the Soviet Union. Shachtman could have explored this further. Then both Churchill and Chamberlain ignored warnings of an imminent German invasion of Norway believed that an amphibious landing was beyond the Wehrmacht’s capabilities. When the invasion did occur in April 1940 Churchill’s interference first delayed and then divided the deployment of British troops to Norway contributing to their defeat and withdrawal. Paradoxically, although he was the member of the Cabinet most responsible for everything which had gone wrong in Norway, Churchill became Prime Minister when Chamberlain was forced to resign as a result of the Norway fiasco.

Germany’s plans for an offensive in the west in early 1940 were disrupted by a series of improbable events. A Luftwaffe officer with orders for the invasion, had a few beers in the officers’ mess and decided to hitch a ride to Münster with a reserve pilot trying to get his hours up who was flying a plane (a Bf-108) he had never flown before. After taking off into heavy fog and mist they got disoriented in the clouds during a snowstorm. The pilot panicked and in fumbling with the instrument panel he cut off the plane’s fuel supply. Thinking they were landing in Germany, they crashed in Belgium where the Luftwaffe officers attempts to burn the plans were foiled by an alert Belgian officer. This series of events was so improbable that British and French intelligence wondered whether the recovered documents had actually been planted.
Shachtmann narrates how this series of unfortunate events had two significant consequences.
Firstly, it caused the Germans to issue fresh orders changing the timing and plans for the attack on the west. This only happened however when General Manstein’s plan for an invasion through the Ardennes, which had been rejected by the German High Command, was enthusiastically taken to Hitler by his chief adjutant.
Secondly, it caused the French to propose that, in the event of an attack, the Allied forces should go even further north into Holland.French war games in 1938 had proved French General Georges contention that it was possible for German divisions to come through the “impenetrable” Ardennes forest area. But Gamelin refused to publish, or take any action as a result of, the results. Staggeringly the French removed antitank barriers at the edge of the Ardennes forest, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a cleared road could be traversed both directions.

At the outbreak of war, Italy, Germany’s partner in the ‘Axis of Steel’, declared non-belligerency – a new diplomatic concept suggesting not neutral, but not a combatant. Shachtman touches on this, but leaves the reader uninformed about how Britain and France’s overtures to Italy, shaped their decisions and actions during the Phony War. Another area left under-explored is the clandestine approached which Britain made, and Churchill later denied, to reach a peace agreement with Germany.

Instead, Shachtman extends his narrative to a description of the Battle of France and concludes with Britain’s ‘war’ against Vichy France and the sinking of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria, events outside the 'Phony War'.

Will the fall of France, Britain and her Commonwealth were left with the Quixotic task of defeating Hitler. In the end it took the combined might of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Commonwealth and five more bloody years, to bring Hitler’s tyranny to an end. Sadly for Poland, in defence of whose freedom war was declared, and Eastern Europe they merely replaced Nazi tyranny with Soviet tyranny.

Shachtman’s exploration of this at times surreal period at the beginning of World War 2 is engaging and rewarding. It is well researched and informative, suffering only from not having explored its central premise enough and being distracted by the post ‘Phony War’ Battle of France.