In a period known as the Phoney War, soldiers on both sides trained for war and the French and British constructed and manned defences on the eastern borders of France. There was little fighting over the months that followed. By 1 October, Poland had been completely overrun. A British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was sent to the Franco-Belgian border, but Britain and France did not take any direct action in support of the Poles. Within three weeks, the Red Army of the Soviet Union invaded the eastern regions of Poland in fulfilment of the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany, launching the Second World War. Today, little remains of Britain's anti-invasion preparations, although reinforced concrete structures such as pillboxes and anti-tank cubes can still be commonly found, particularly in the coastal counties. Sea Lion was never taken beyond the preliminary assembly of forces. The rapid construction of field fortifications transformed much of the United Kingdom, especially southern England, into a prepared battlefield. The British Army needed to recover from the defeat of the British Expeditionary Force in France, and 1.5 million men were enrolled as part-time soldiers in the Home Guard. British anti-invasion preparations of the Second World War entailed a large-scale division of military and civilian mobilisation in response to the threat of invasion ( Operation Sea Lion) by German armed forces in 19.
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