 Complete the following phrase:  In French historiography the outbreak of the Second World War is generally set at September 1939, which was when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland, respectively from the west, and from the south and east. The French government, partly in response to British pressure, responded very quickly by declaring war on Germany; but on the streets of Paris - even, to a lesser extent for foreign political refugees who had taken refuge in the city - daily life did not change so much. A more traumatic development, in May 1940, was the German invasion of France, which culminated in French acknowledgement of military defeat, formalised in a 26 year-old old but symbolically important railway wagon near Compiègne on 22 June 1940. The Mussolini government, having hitherto stood back from becoming involved in the European war, declared war on 10 June 1940, launching its own short-lived 