German anti-aircraft gun on the German-held side of the Maritsa River
The month of March 1940 was proving to be a distressing one for Axis forces. By late March Generalfeldmarschall Hausser had managed to push his forces as far as the banks of the Maritsa River near the city of Plovdiv, but he had failed to effect a crossing and the city remained in Bulgarian hands. The entire front line had, in fact, changed little since the opening moves of the Bulgarian Campaign in late February. The defensive line that the Bulgarians had prepared in their country's mountainous interior was proving to be a very hard nut to crack and Tsar Boris III a much more capable enemy that the Germans had anticipated.
Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria
The Germans under Hausser were also facing another serious difficulty in addition to the difficult terrain and the tenacity of the Bulgarian defenders. In early March, Bulgaria had entered into an alliance with Great Britain. Though the British and their allies could not send troops to aid the Bulgarians, they were able to send support in the form of air power. By mid-March, several squadrons of British and Allied bombers had arrived in Varna and begun hammering the German positions. As most of Germany's fighter arm was positioned in the west at that time, the Allied air campaign in Bulgaria was able to achieve devastating results.
British Lancasters in flight above Bulgaria
While March was difficult for Germany, it was proving to be down right disastrous for Italy. Italian forces in the Balkans had initially advanced into Greece, having captured Ioannina and Edessa. However, by late March, the Italians had suffered several defeats which saw them pushed out of Greek territory. Before the Italian Army could recover from these setbacks, Greek forces crossed the border in the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia and captured Skopje. Wheeling northwest, the Greeks were now threatening to seize the old Albanian capital of Tirana and trap 70,000 Italian troops in southern Albania.
With the Germans halted and the Italians reeling, only Greece's refusal to enter into an alliance with Britain seemed to be preventing a complete Axis disaster in the Balkans. If Greece had joined the Allied powers, it would have given Allied forces the ability to land troops in Greece and turn the Balkans into a major front in the war against the Axis. Greece's reluctance to join the Allies stemmed from the hope that they could come to a reasonable peace with the Axis powers. The Greeks knew that if they did join the Alliance, Greece would be the main battlefield between the belligerents and they feared that the British would simply not be able to send them enough support to prevent the Germans from overrunning Greece as they had so many other countries. The Greeks would attempt to hold the line against the Germans while inflicting a major and humiliating defeat on the Italians that would force them to the peace table.
Though the Greeks did not seem as if they would join the Allies, Germany's war leaders were well aware of what the consequences would be should they change their minds. Hitler sent a message to Hausser insisting that Greece be defeated at the earliest opportunity. When Hausser sent back a reply that he simply could not spare enough men from the Bulgarian Front to effect a quick and successful invasion of Greece, Hitler reluctantly made a decision that was to have far reaching consequences. Throughout the beginning of 1940, the OKW had been massing troops near Warsaw for reasons unknown outside the closed doors of Hitler's conference room. Even the commanding officers of the troop formations sent to Poland had received no reason for the move, though speculation was rampant. Now, two of these formations suddenly received new orders. The XII. Armee and II. Motorisiert Armee were now headed for Gorna Dzhumaya in southern Bulgaria to join up with General von Manstein's II. Panzerarmee. The hope was that this force, possibly to be joined by Rommel's I. Panzerarmee should they not be needed to bail out the Italians in southern Yugoslavia, would overwhelm the Greeks and force their quick surrender.
Rodolfo Graziani- Commander of Italian forces in Africa
As bad as things were going for Italy in the Balkans, they were much worse in Africa. After capturing Tobruk in late February, British forces had pressed on into Mechili and defeated an Italian force in Barca. This move trapped 40,000 Italian troops in Derna who surrendered in early March. Continuing along the coast, British forces dealt a severe defeat to Italian commander Rodolfo Graziani in Bengazi on March 15, 1940. Following the defeat, Graziani gave the order for what remained of his demoralized force to retreat to Tripoli where he hoped that reinforcements would be waiting for him.
Italian armored column retreating toward Tripoli
Despite the Italian collapse in Africa and the serious situation in the Balkans, Hitler and his generals were actually drawing up plans for a
further expansion of the war, one not tied to the mysterious troop build up in Poland. Back on February 16, the German supply ship
Altmark had been corned in neutral Norwegian waters by the British destroyer,
HMS Cossack. The
Altmark, while claiming to be on commercial business, was carrying in it's hold 300 POWs captured by the
KMS Graf Spee. With three vessels of the Norwegian Navy looking on, British sailors boarded the
Altmark and freed the prisoners, killing four and wounding five members of the
Altmark's crew in the process. The attack raised deep concerns in Germany about Norwegian neutrality. If Norway was to join the Allies, or if the Allies were to cease to respect Norway's neutrality, Germany's precious supply of iron ore could be endangered. In the aftermath of the "Altmark Incident", as the episode became known, Hitler instructed his generals to draw up plans for an invasion of Norway and Denmark(the invasion of Denmark being necessary in order to set up a staging ground for the invasion of Norway).
The plan, Unternehmen Weserübung, was ordered implemented on March 24, 1940.
