January 1940
Politics:
24th: The Soviet Union suggests a conference with Finland and Sweden to discuss peace terms.
27th: The German Fuhrer begins his European tour, delayed by need to co-ordinate the defence of Germany, with a visit to his longstanding personal and political friend, the Italian Duce. The German leader oversaw new road construction, took in the sights in Rome and inspected the 'Centauro' Armoured division in it's new station just West of Turin. Some time was also spent in private negotiations, which were reported to have been very satisfactory to both sides. The tour is planned to continue in February, encompassing Finland, Bulgaria, Rumania, Turkey, Yugoslavia and Hungary.
Manoeuvers:
Nineteen-Forty was still only hours old when the artillery barrage began. Belgian troops massed all along the narrow frontier, knowing that the twenty-one years of peace were about to end... a whistle blew and as one the Belgians poured out of their trenches into the dull light of a cold January morning....
... an hour earlier, with their airfields still shrouded in darkness, a squadron of Wellingtons rattled into the air from the AEF base in Antwerp, followed shortly by their Spitfire escorts they head southeast to their targets around Aachen. As they swept over Dutch airspace, they glimpsed a score of silhouettes against the dawn sky- German fighters. Almost as if they knew the British were coming...
3rd: Saarbrucken captured by French forces
5th: First Swedish ground forces enter combat alongside 9th Finnish division against 44th Rifle Division in the Karelian isthmus. The Soviet division is entirely destroyed within 36 hours.
10th: Aachen captured by Belgian forces
11th: German counterattack begins, Allied offensive action declines
17th: Strasbourg captured by German forces
18th: Weight of German offensive shifts to the Saar
30th: Germany breaks through the Maginot line near Mulhouse
The maximum Allied advance was 50km from the French start line into the Eiffel region, with an advance on a broad front from the Saar to the Dutch border. The greatest German advance is a 40km deep, 10km wide salient near Mulhouse. Because of the loss of Strasbourg- a city of 300,000 people- the territories exchanged are of approximately equal value. However the fighting has been so intense- especially around the Saar, the most significant German area captured- that there is a net loss to boths sides.
With the exception of the dramatic breakthrough near Mulhouse by XI Panzerkorps, the front has been stable since the fall of Strasbourg. Losses of men and material are roughly equal on both sides though Germany is understood to have taken slightly higher casualties. Allied sources also claim to have damaged or destroyed up to one thousand German AFVs, compared to only a negligable number of Allied vehicles lost. The German counter-claim is that the Luftwaffe can operate over any part of France with impunity, though both sides claim to have taken fewer air losses than the enemy
Naval Encounters:
A quiet month for the Battle of the Atlantic.