Text/Lonely Red Wine
On September 1, 1939, Germany sent 1.5 million troops to blitz Poland, provoking World War II. After Poland was invaded by Germany, Britain and France, as allies, chose to stand idly by. The Poles fought bloodily in the front, while the British and French soldiers watched the scenery on the border, so that the strange phenomenon of "sit-in warfare" appeared. As a result of the Anglo-French view, the isolated Poland was eventually divided between Germany and the Soviet Union. After Germany destroyed Poland, it quickly reversed course and launched a challenge to Britain and France, beating the two countries one by one raising the flag and surrendering, and the other fleeing into the wilderness, and Britain and France finally suffered their own consequences. Many people can't help but wonder, germany invaded Poland to provoke World War II, why did Britain and France watch from the sidelines?
First of all, Britain and France had no intention of dealing with it. Although Britain and France won the victory in the First World War, they were seriously injured by the fight, so they were frightened by the war. Neither the government nor the people of the two countries were willing to go to war again, so there was a policy of appeasement that had always compromised with Germany. Britain and France sat by and watched Poland be annexed, which was a manifestation of the policy of appeasement. Britain and France believed that the Germans wanted nothing more than to return to the territories taken by Poland in World War I, and that Germany would settle down as long as it satisfies Germany's appetite. Even if Germany is not satisfied, Germany will not provoke war with Britain and France, and Germany's target must be the Soviet Union.
On the one hand, germany's strength at that time was far inferior to that of Britain and France, and Britain and France had an overwhelming advantage over Germany. In World War I, Germany was defeated and almost lost its family, when Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany almost went bankrupt due to economic crisis, and by the outbreak of World War II, it was only six or seven years, and no matter how Germany developed, it was impossible to turn the sky upside down. Had it not been for the pacification of Britain and France, which allowed Germany to annex Austria and Czechoslovakia, Germany would not have been able to confront Britain and France. Even after Germany annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia and Poland, Germany's strength was virtually inferior to that of Britain and France. Even Germany's proudest armored forces, in both quantity and quality, were inferior to those of France. As for the navy, the German navy was simply not enough to look at in front of the British and French navies. Germany's only advantage was the Air Force, but it was only slightly superior to Britain and France. Britain and France believed that relying on the strong Maginot Line and strong family foundations, it was possible to block and consume Germany.
On the other hand, Germany belonged to the Western capitalist countries and was Germanic, completely incompatible with the Soviet Union in terms of ideology, system, and race. From the signing of the Anti-Comintern Pact on November 35, 1936, Germany and Japan show that the Soviet Union and Germany were ideologically incompatible. Coupled with the fact that both countries are ambitious and there are irreconcilable contradictions in geopolitical space, the two countries will inevitably destroy each other if they want to dominate Europe, so sooner or later the two countries will meet each other. Thus, Germany had the Barbarossa plan to invade the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union had a plan to invade Germany with a great thunderstorm. Relatively speaking, Germany and Britain and France were closer, because they were relatives and their own people, which is why Germany allowed France to surrender, and after the war, Britain and France were able to treat German prisoners of war well. After the partition of Poland between the Soviet Union and Germany, the territory of the two countries was completely bordered. Britain and France blocked the Western Front, Germany could only expand eastward, and the Soviet-German war was bound to break out. It can be said that Britain and France are harboring evil intentions, and they are deliberately doing it, hoping to bring disaster to the east and let Germany and the Soviet Union pinch each other so that they can reap the benefits.
But what Britain and France did not expect was that the Germans did not fool them, they underestimated the hatred and courage of the Germans for them. After the Germans divided Poland, they quickly turned their guns to war against Britain and France, catching off guard the Anglo-French coalition forces that were running free and trying to wait. Britain and France believed that they were fully capable of fending off Germany with a fortified defensive line and using their abundant overseas resources and strong family base to drag Germany down. But I did not expect that the crazy Germans would actually take a risky battle in the French campaign, cross the Ardennes Heights, disrupt the British and French positions, and almost put the Anglo-French allies in the front trying to wait for a while. The British, seeing that the situation was not good, left their allies and fled back to the mainland, while the French saw that the British had run away and simply surrendered. In this way, the Germans were lucky enough to defeat Britain and France.
After Germany defeated Britain and France, it quickly swept through Europe, and the European countries fell one after another. The victorious Germans gained enormous wealth and resources from the occupied territories, including the germans' most scarce oil. At the beginning of the war, Germany captured more than 8 million tons of oil, more than 1.6 million tons from France alone, and the Germans consumed only about 500,000 tons of oil in a series of wars. It can be said that the Germans have made a lot of money. These seized wealth and resources were the basis for Germany's continued large-scale war. If Germany had not taken over the countries of Western and Southern Europe, it is estimated that oil would have been exhausted long ago, domestic debt would have been high, inflation would have been severe, and economic collapse was only a matter of time. So to a certain extent, the victory of the Germans was very lucky, and the gains of the Germans far exceeded imagination, which made the Germans more and more crazy and their appetites bigger and bigger.
With the enormous wealth and abundant resources obtained from the occupied territories, Germany lived a period of prosperity in the early days of the war. But with the depletion of this wealth and oil, the Germans were no longer able to sustain a frenzied war. Due to the British refusal to negotiate and the Soviets' eagerness, the Germans had no choice but to pre-emptively attack the Soviet Union, hoping to maintain its continued war by obtaining soviet resources and wealth. If the invasion of the Soviet Union is successful, Germany will get rid of the dilemma of lack of resources, Germany will have enough capital to confront Britain, even if the Americans come, they will not be afraid, and Germany will inevitably dominate Eurasia. However, it did not occur to them that due to the unusually tenacious resistance of the Soviets, coupled with the assistance of the United States and Britain and the bad weather of the Soviet Union, Germany not only did not kill the Soviet Union in a wave, but fell into the quagmire of the Soviet-German war. In the end, Germany was dragged down in the ongoing war with the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain, and lost World War II.
Of course, the British did not take much advantage, and were seriously injured in the war, and lost their pants. On the contrary, France, due to its early hanging-up surrender, did not suffer much damage, and soon after the war, it was revived with blood and returned to the ranks of world powers. If Britain and France had not stood idly by in the Polish campaign, Germany might not have set off such a big storm, and the colonial hegemony of Britain and France might have lasted for some time.
References: History of World War II, Britain in World War II, World wartime