BELGIUM - ABOUT MAY 10, 1940

 




Belgium: May 10th is the same as April 9th ​​in Denmark

It was today – May 10th – that Nazi Germany attacked Belgium, the Netherlands and France. A total of 750,000 German troops launched an unannounced frontal attack on the three countries.

This attack was systematically prepared by the German side. On August 23rd, 1939, Germany entered into an agreement with the Soviet Union on the division of Poland, and that the Soviets had a free hand to occupy the Baltic countries. On September 1st, Germany attacked Poland – and a few days later, England and France declared war on Germany in response. Poland was divided with the Soviet occupation of the eastern part of Poland in mid-September.

Several hundred thousand British and French troops were stationed in Belgium and in northeastern France.

After that, not much more happened in the war until Germany occupied Denmark and Norway on April 9, 1940 (German claim: to prevent a British occupation of these countries).

Now Germany felt that it had a free hand to move on. And this happened, as mentioned, a month later: on May 10, 1940. Frontal attacks on the neutral countries of Belgium and the Netherlands and against France. This resulted in hard fighting. The Netherlands capitulated on May 14 - and Belgium on May 28. The French followed on June 25.

At the same time, the evacuation of the British and French forces from Belgium and France was in full swing. This happened in the days from May 26 to June 4. Virtually the entire British army was surrounded by the Germans in the area. The code word for the evaluation was Operation Dynamo. This happened especially with about 700 small boats - fishing boats, pleasure boats, rescue boats and the merchant navy. A total of 338,226 soldiers were evacuated to England – 198,220 of them British and 139,997 French. Around 30,000 Allied soldiers died during the evacuation, and around 30,000 were captured by the Germans.

The entire evacuation is shown in the film DUNKIRK from 2017. And another blockbuster film from the same year, THE DARKEST HOUR, showed the days around Churchill’s takeover in London on 10 May and the following days, when things looked very dark for the English and many very important decisions had to be made.

 

So today – 10 May – is very important for the Belgians, the Dutch, the French and the English.

 

Comments

  1. Niels Jørgen Thøgersen May 12, 2025 at 3:46 AM

    Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France all established a government in exile in London for the rest of the war.
    PS: But the war was not over yet. The resistance movement in the occupied countries grew larger and larger over time. At the end of August 1944, Paris was liberated. Northern France and Belgium followed. Belgium was largely liberated in October 1944. But then came the German counter-offensive with the Ardennes Offensive in December-January 1944-45, where Belgium and northern Luxembourg were invaded by large German troop forces. They were defeated around Christmas 1944 by American forces in particular. Both sides suffered heavy losses.
    The liberation of the Netherlands, Northwest Germany and Denmark came on May 4, 1945.

    ReplyDelete

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