Blitzkrieg 1940: From the Invasion of Holland to the Fall of France - Warfare History Network

On May 10, 1940, during World War II, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France with over 2,000,000 troops. A short excerpt:

"The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu wrote, “Go forth to the enemy’s positions to which he must race. Race forth where he does not expect it.” There is no record that Adolf Hitler ever studied Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, but he certainly understood many of its principles, at least during the early phases of World War II.

After Hitler bloodlessly annexed his homeland of Austria in March 1938 and bluffed the Czechs, French, and British into giving him the Sudetenland in October, in January 1939 his armies invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia. In May 1939, he signed a “Pact of Steel” with Italy, and in August concluded a cynical nonagression pact with Soviet Russia. Then, on September 1, he launched his first blitzkrieg against Poland, causing France and Britain to declare war on the aggressor.
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Blitzkrieg, or “lightning war,” was an unprecedented war of movement using modern technology and methods in the form of paratroops, gliders, fast-moving tanks, mobile infantry and artillery, and aircraft, particularly the dive bomber. It was a devastating form of combined-arms warfare with an assault spearheaded by panzer (tank) divisions whose firepower and shock were magnified by their accompanying Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers."