In his own words, the event left Winston Churchill “dumbfounded.” The Nazis didn’t believe they could win so quickly, either. Put simply, such a reversal defied steep odds. Within the first two weeks of the campaign, the German army outwitted a numerically superior force, which allowed them to carve up a numerically inferior one afterward. In the spring of 1940, Germany conquered France in forty-six days, decisively turning World War Two to their advantage. If one were to tell him, however, that less than nine months later the Nazis would launch an attack that defeated France within seven weeks, he would have likely scoffed. On August 23rd, 1939, as war between France and Germany loomed, a French soldier named Daniel Barlone confided in his diary: “We do not doubt our victory.” When he wrote these words, Germany had not yet invaded Poland, and France had not declared the war that Captain Barlone was certain would favor his homeland.
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