In Europe

help the Finns against the Soviet Union. Thisdecision, in the analysis of the distinguished British war historian A.J.P. Taylor, defied all rational explanation. The very idea of starting a war with the Soviet Union while the Allies had already declared war on Germany, he noted, was complete and utter madness, unless, of course, there was something very different behind it: a conscious attempt, for example, to channel this nascent war in an anti-Bolshevik direction, and to forget and end as quickly as possible the conflict with Germany. Whatever the background, the campaign came too late and led to nothing. The Finns capitulated in the month the Franco-British force was raised.
    In the end it was Hitler who broke the silence. On 9 April, 1940, he invaded Denmark and Norway. For the British, this came as a hideous surprise. All winter, they themselves had been working on a similar plan of attack. Neutral Norway was of vital importance to the German war industry; in winter, all major ore shipments from Sweden left from Norwegian ports. As soon as Churchill became secretary of the navy in September 1939, he proposed the idea of a surprise conquest of the Norwegian ports and the blocking of German shipping routes with mines. The British intended to carry out their plans in early April. Admiral Erich Raeder, Churchill's German counterpart, had come up with the same idea in October: an attack on Norway to secure its ports. The Germans won, only because they were faster and better organised. The British landed in wintry Norway without skis and equipped only with tourist maps of the country. ‘Missed the bus!’ was what enraged Members of Parliament shouted at Chamberlain. The fiasco cost him his position as prime minister, and cleared the way for Churchill.
    The strategy of Hitler's great offensive was highly reminiscent of the old Schlieffen Plan. Just as they had in 1914, the German armies swung like a scythe through north-western Europe, but this time the swathe was much wider and cut straight through the Low Countries. Hitler could easily have followed the ‘platonic way’ of the French, eternally prolonging the phony war of the British and ultimately ridding himself of the entire Polish question by means of negotiation. But that was not his way. His ultimate goal lay to the east: the creation of German
Lebensraum
in Poland and the Soviet Union. But to make sure that Germany would not again become caught in a war on two fronts, he first had to make short work of France and the Low Countries.
    At 3.15 a.m. on 10 May, the first shots rang out: at the Dutch border station of Nieuweschans the guards were eliminated, to allow a German armoured train to roll unobstructed towards Groningen. Paratroopers landed behind the lines to seize vital positions in the Hague and Rotterdam. The Dutch government had dismissed as ‘alarmist’ the emphatic warnings of a resistance group within the
Abwehr
, the German intelligence service. Here and there the Germans met with stout resistance, but the Dutch – who had not experienced a war on their own territory for more than 150 years – were generally in a state of shock. They had always thought of their country as a kind of Switzerland, neutral and inviolable. By flooding strategic strips of land in the case of an emergency, they thought, this corner of the continent could be converted into an island like Britain. On that day, however, the Dutch realised that their special position in Europe – half inside, half outside – was gone for good.
    Alongside that was the non-militaristic character of the Netherlands. The concept of an ‘enemy’ was completely new for many. The writer Anton Coolen described the great trouble to which his neighbours in North Brabant province went to give direction to a couple of German soldiers. ‘They crowded hurriedly and willingly around the car, craning their necks to understand the question in German … A few women came out of the house carrying trays with steaming cups of coffee, they brought them to the Germans, who folded up their maps and laughed.’
    I found a letter that my own grandfather sent to his daughter, my mother, shortly after the German invasion. ‘The garden looks lovely at the moment, the violets are already blooming,’ he wrote. ‘Now I sit in my office like a king. And I'm going to practise resigning myself to the new situation. Practise being content with all that overcomes you.’
    On Tuesday, 14 May, Rotterdam was