Phoney War

A period of the Second World War between October 1939 (i.e., the fall of Poland) and April 1940 (i.e., the invasion of France and the Low Countries) was called the Phony War, or, in a pun on blitzkrieg, sitzkreig. There was relatively little U.K. combat during this period.

The two major incidents were the Battle of the River Plate, after which the German "pocket battleship" Graf Spee was scuttled, and the raid on the British naval base at Scapa Flow in Scotland, in which the German submarine U-47 sank the battleship Royal Oak.