page_title: Blockade of Germany (1939–1945)
section_title: Fall of France
hierarchical_section_title: Blockade of Germany (1939–1945) / Second phase / Fall of France
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Contre torpilleur Mogador English: French destroyer leader Mogador burning after shellfire at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940.
context_page_description: The Blockade of Germany (1939–1945), also known as the Economic War, was carried out during World War II by the United Kingdom and France in order to restrict the supplies of minerals, metals, food and textiles needed by Nazi Germany – and later Fascist Italy – in order to sustain their war efforts. The economic war consisted mainly of a naval blockade, which formed part of the wider Battle of the Atlantic, and included the preclusive buying of war materials from neutral countries to prevent their sale to the enemy.
  There were four distinct phases of the blockade. The first period was from the beginning of European hostilities in September 1939 to the end of the "Phoney War," during which the Allies and Axis Powers both intercepted neutral merchant ships to seize deliveries en route to the enemy. The blockade was rendered less effective because the Axis could get crucial materials from the Soviet Union until June 1941, while harbours in Spain were used to import war materials for Germany. The second period began after the rapid Axis occupation of the majority of the European landmass which gave them control of major centres of industry and agriculture.
context_section_description: The signing of the armistice with France in the Compiègne Forest on 24 June 1940 greatly changed the conditions of the Economic War. Hitler assumed control over the whole of Western Europe and Scandinavia (except for Sweden and Switzerland) from the north tip of Norway high above the Arctic Circle to the Pyrenees on the border with Spain, and from the River Bug in Poland to the English Channel. Germany established new airfields and U-boat bases all the way down the West Norwegian and European coasts. On 30 June 1940 German occupation of the Channel Islands began. In early August Germans installed Dover Strait coastal guns.
  From early July the German air force began attacking convoys in the English channel from its new bases and cross-channel guns shelled the Kentish coast in the opening stages of the Battle of Britain. On 17 August, following his inability to convince the British to make peace, Hitler announced a general blockade of the entire British Isles and gave the order to prepare for a full invasion of England codenamed Operation Sea Lion. On 1 August Italy, having joined the war, established a submarine base in Bordeaux. Its submarines were more suited to the Mediterranean, but they successfully ran the British gauntlet through the Straits of Gibraltar and joined the Atlantic blockade. On 20 August Benito Mussolini announced a blockade of all British ports in the Mediterranean, and over the next few months the region would experience a sharp increase in fighting.
  Meanwhile, in Spain, which had still not recovered from her own civil war in which over one million died and which was in the grip of famine, General Francisco Franco continued to resist German attempts to persuade him to enter the war on the Axis side. Spain supplied Britain with iron ore from the Bay of Biscay, but, as a potential foe, she was a huge threat to British interests as she could easily restrict British naval access into the Mediterranean, either by shelling the Rock of Gibraltar or by allowing the Germans to lay siege to it from the mainland. Although Spain could gain the restoration of the rock itself and Catalonia under French administration, Franco could see Britain was far from defeated and that British forces backed by its huge powerful navy would occupy the Canary Islands. At this point Franco saw that the Royal Navy had reduced the German navy in Norway to an impotent surface threat, the Luftwaffe had lost the Battle of Britain, the Royal Navy had destroyed much of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, had also destroyed Italian battleships at Taranto and the British Army was routing the Italian army in North & East Africa. Franco continued to play for time. Franco made excessive demands of Hitler which he knew could not be satisfied as his personal price for participation, such as the ceding of most of Morocco and much of Algeria to Spain by France. Operation Felix failed to materialise.
  American opinion was shocked at the fall of France and the previous isolationist sentiment, which led to the Neutrality Acts from 1935 onwards, was slowly giving rise to a new realism. Roosevelt had already managed to negotiate an amendment to the acts on 21 September 1939, known as Cash and Carry, which though in theory maintained America's impartiality, blatantly favoured Britain and her Commonwealth. Under the new plan, weapons could now be bought by any belligerent providing they paid up front and took responsibility for delivery, but whereas Germany had virtually no foreign exchange and was unable to transport much material across the Atlantic, Britain had large reserves of gold and foreign currency, and while U-boats would be a threat, the likelihood was that her vast navy would ensure that the majority of equipment safely delivered to port.
  The US now accepted that it needed to increase spending for its own defense, especially with the growing threat of Japan, but there was real concern that Britain would fall before the weapons were delivered. Despite the success in evacuating a third of a million men at Dunkirk and the later evacuations from S
caption: French destroyer Mogador burning after shellfire following the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir to prevent it from falling into German hands
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