20-Nov-39: Luftwaffe Drops Magnetic Mines into Thames Estuary, British Minesweeper Subsequently Sunk; Dutch Air Force Shoots Down German Plane; SS Re-Establishes German Control Over Prague
Today is 20-Nov-1939, the 51st day of World War II; there are 2,112 days left in the conflict.
After experiencing successes by mining British territorial waters and North Sea shipping lanes, the German Luftwaffe begins dropping the magnetic mines into the Thames estuary itself. The British minesweeper HMS Mastiff explodes and sinks after attempting to recover a German magnetic mine using a fishing net.
Over the Netherlands, the Dutch Air Force successfully shoots down a German Luftwaffe aircraft which had strayed over neutral territory. Meanwhile in Berlin, Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler issues a revised directive for the attack on France through the Netherlands and Belgium, along with a revised date. Many other such revisions will be issued in the next six months.
In the Reichsprotektorate die Böhmen und Mähren (the former Czechoslovakia), German SS troops have re-established complete control over the city of Prague after days of student demonstrations, violence, executions and deportations.
19-Nov-39: Germans Erect Barrier Around Warsaw Jewish Quarter; Churchill Wants Mine Laying in Rhine River; Chinese Nationalists Order Winter Offensive Against Japanese
Today is 19-Nov-1939, the 50th day of World War II; there are 2,113 days left in the conflict.
German occupation authorities begin erecting a temporary barrier around the Jewish Quarter in Warsaw; it is a prelude to the later building of a permanent wall around the ghetto. Occupation authorities continue to crack down in the former Czechoslovakia; three more executions of student protesters, plus the arrests of over 50,000 people are reported.
In response to the sinking of five ships due to German Luftwaffe magnetic mining of British territorial waters and the North Sea, British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, still livid over the loss of life and shipping, urges the government to order the Royal Air Force to mine the Rhine River between Strasbourg and the Lauter River.
In Asia, the Chinese Nationalist government in Chungking, after the recent loss of the final viable port, Pakhoi, orders the army to conduct a winter offensive against the Japanese Imperial Army.
17-Nov-39: SS Troops Occupy Czech Universities, Execute, Imprison Students; Czech National Committee Formed in Paris; Allies Officially Adopt “Plan D;” German Battleship Arrives in Gdynia
Today is 17-Nov-1939, the 48th day of World War II; there are 2,115 days left in the conflict.
With violence continuing in Prague after a medical student’s funeral on 15-Nov, German SS troops occupy all universities after Reichsprotektor Konstantin von Neurath ordered them shut down. The SS executes nine student “leaders” and sends 1,200 other student participants to concentration camps. These events will become the basis for observing every 17-Nov as International Students Day.
In response to the events in Prague, a Czechoslovakian National Committee is established in Paris. Former President of Czechoslovakia Eduard Benes is appointed its leader. Britain and France officially recognize the committee a month later.
The third meeting of the Allied Supreme War Council in London endorses the Dyle (River) Plan, commonly referred to as “Plan D.” Proposed by French General Maurice Gamelin, the plan calls for defending against a German attack through Belgium by conducting defensive operations along a line from the Meuse River to Antwerp.
In the former Poland, the pocket battleship Deutschland arrives in the port of Gdynia after an Atlantic raiding cruise that resulted in her successfully sinking two merchant ships.
16-Nov-39: Finns Mobilize as Soviet Talks Break Down; Allies, Germany Reject Romanian Peace Offer; Prague Riots Violently Put Down by Germans; Inflation Increases in Britain
Today is 16-Nov-1939, the 47th day of World War II; there are 2,116 days left in the conflict.
The Finns mobilize their armed forces as talks with the Soviet Union over territory and border revisions end in mutually angry exchanges. The Soviets goal has been to protect its naval bases at Murmansk and Leningrad with strategic Finnish territory and long-term leases on Finnish ports; in exchange, the Soviets offer swamp and forest land in Karelia. The Finns have made counteroffers, but neither side has changed their respective general positions. The situation is considered critical.
Both the western allies and Germany officially reject an offer of peace mediation from Romania’s King Carol in Bucharest.
Another series of demonstrations and riots in Prague is put down by the German authorities in the Reichsprotektorate die Böhmen und Mähren; the Germans also declare martial law in the city and conduct mass arrests, deportations and summary executions.
The British government reports an inflation increase; the cost of living rose 2.5 percent in the previous month of October.
15-Nov-39: Czech Student’s Funeral Turns Into Bloodbath, Neurath Closes Czech Higher Education; Ribbentrop Rejects Peace Appeal; French Add Work Hours; Last Chinese Port Falls to Japanese
Today is 15-Nov-1939, the 46th day of World War II; there are 2,117 days left in the conflict.
In the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, several thousand students attend the funeral for medical student Jan Opletal, shot in the stomach by German troops during anti-occupation demonstrations in Prague on 28-Oct, who died 11-Nov.
Opletal (1-Jan-1915 – 11-Nov-1939) was a student of the Medical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague. The thousands of students attending his funeral turned it into another anti-German rally and 12 are reportedly injured.
In response, Reichsprotektor Konstantin von Neurath, governor of the former Czech lands, closes all Czech universities and colleges, and sends over 1,200 students to concentration camps; nine students will be executed on 17-Nov, which will later be commemorated as International Students Day by the International Union of Students and other groups.
Opletal’s remains are transferred to his native village of Náklo in the Olomouc Region; a post-war monument will be erected in his honor, and many Czech cities will name streets after him.
German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop issues a formal rejection of the offer of neutral mediation made by Belgian King Leopold and Dutch Queen Wilhelmina. Ribbentrop gives the news to official representatives of Belgium and the Netherlands during a meeting in Berlin. He claims the rejection is prompted by what he terms the “blunt rejection” of the German peace appeal by Britain and France. The “German government considers the matter closed,” Ribbentrop concludes.
As munitions and other war-related industries rachet up in France, the government officially adds three hours to the work week; workers will now be required to work 43 hours per week.
The south China port city of Pakhoi is captured by Imperial Japanese troops. It is the final Chinese port occupied by the Japanese since their campaign began in July 1937.
In action on the high seas, British tanker SS Africa Shell is sunk in the Mozambique Channel two miles off Portuguese East Africa in the Indian Ocean by two bombs placed in her hold by an boarding party wearing British lifebelts from a 10,000-ton German raider. Africa Shell’s crew identifies the German raider as the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer.
14-Nov-39: Allies Meet Secretly with Belgians; Dyle Plan Accepted; Dutch, Belgian Royal Peace Offers Rejected by Germany; Prague Demonstration Violently Suppressed; Sikorski Arrives in London
Today is 14-Nov-1939, the 45th day of World War II; there are 2,118 days left in the conflict.
Allied military commanders on the Western Front meet secretly with Belgian military commanders in mostly inconclusive meetings, but there is agreement that British and French troops should immediately advance to a position known as the “Meuse-Antwerp Line,” southeast of Brussels, if the Germans invade. The secret agreement is referred to as the “Dyle Plan” or “Plan D” after the Dyle River.
After negative responses are recorded in Paris and London to a previous joint offer of peace negotiations given by Netherlands Queen Wilhelmina and Belgian King Leopold II, it is noted in Berlin that the Germans are also responding in the negative. The war will continue.
In Prague, police violently disperse a Czech Fascist Party demonstration injuring 12 marchers.
Polish President-in-Exile General Wojtech Sikorski, having been based in France since the German invasion of his country, arrives in London for an official visit.
7-Nov-09: Fall Gelb Postponed Due to Weather; Czech Exiled Government Warned of German Invasion by Double Agent; Western Polish Jews Rounded Up; Dutch, Belgian Royals Appeal for Peace, Offer to Mediate
Today is 7-Nov-1939, the 38th day of World War II; there are 2,125 days left in the conflict.
Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the invasion of France scheduled for 12-Nov, is officially postponed by German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler due to bad weather. It is the first of 14 such postponements extending into January of 1940.
The Czechoslovakian government-in-exile in London receives reports of Fall Gelb from a man named Paul Thummel, who will later be unmasked as a double agent.
A German edict issued previously in occupied Poland consigning Warsaw’s Jews to an official ghetto area is temporarily withdrawn, even as Jews in western Poland are rounded up for deportations to ghettos in other Polish cities.
Dutch Queen Wilhelmina in the Hague and Belgian King Leopold III in Brussels officially issue a joint appeal for peace; they an offer of mediation to both the allies and Germany.
28-Oct-39: Molotov Takes Aggressive Stance Towards Finns; Tiso Named First President of Slovakia; Himmler Issues Lebensborn Decree; RAF Shoots Down First Bomber
Today is 28-Oct-1939, the 58th day of World War II; there are 2,135 days left in the conflict.
After a series of failed negotiations, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov addresses the Supreme Soviet in Moscow and asserts the right and duty of the USSR to adopt strong measures to insure its security, vis-a-vis Finland. He demands territorial concessions from the Finns.
In Bratislava in the former Czechoslovakia, Joseph Tiso is named the first president of the First Replublic of Slovakia. Meanwhile in the Czech capital of Prague, German police forces fire on student demonstrators who were marching in observance of the 20th anniversary Czechoslovakian independence.Later in the day, ethnic Germans fight with Czech nationalists; a student is killed and 16 are wounded. The Germans arrest over 3,000 people.
German Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler issues a Lebensborn (“Fount of Life”) decree. The Lebensborn program was started in 1935 and provided for maternity homes and financial assistance to the wives of SS members and to unmarried mothers; it also sets up orphanages and relocation programms for children. The purpose was to increase birthrates of pure Aryans in the German Reich. In the decree, Himmler wrote:
“Beyond the boundaries of bourgeois laws and customs which may in themselves be necessary, it will now become the great task, even outside the marriage bond, for German women and girls of good blood, not in frivolity but in deep moral earnestness, to become mothers of the children of soldiers going off to war … On the men and women whose place remains at home by order of the state, these times likewise more than ever the sacred obligation to become again fathers and mothers of children.”
London reports indicate that the British Expeditionary Force in France has enough food for its 200,000 soldiers to last for over 45 days; more supplies are on the way.
The Royal Air Force meanwhile shoots down a German Luftwaffe Heinkel He-111 bomber east of Dalkeith, southeastern Scotland. It is the first German aircraft to be shot down over the British Isles in the Second World War; two injured survivors are captured by authorities on the ground. The He-111, a plane of Luftflotte 2 had been attacking shipping in the North Sea from a base in far northern Germany.
12-Oct-39: Germans Begin Jewish Deportations in Central Europe; Chamberlain Rejects Hitler Peace Move; Finns Meet With Soviets for Border Negotiations
Today is 12-Oct-1939, the 42nd day of World War II; there are 2,151 days left in the conflict.
In a secret move, the German Central Office for Jewish Emigration, under the auspices of the Shutzstaffel (SS) begins to carry out the deportation of Jewish people in the Ostmark (the former Austria) and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (the former Czechoslovakia). Deported Jews are moved by the SS into parts of now-occupied Poland. This first move to render the Greater German Reich Judenrein (Jew-Free) is under the direction of SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Adolf Eichmann.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain officially announces that the government has rejected German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler’s 9-Oct Reichstag speech proposal for a European peace conference. Chamberlain declares that to “consider such terms would be to forgive Germany for all aggressions;” he further warns that Germany “must choose between permanent security arrangements in Europe and war to the utmost of our strength … since past experience has shown that no reliance can be placed upon the promises of the present German government.”
As the implications of this announcement are being felt around Europe, the War Office in London reports that the British Expeditionary Force has completed its planned deployment and is occupying its assigned stations along the border between France and Belgium, between the towns of Maulde and Halluin.
After a week of feverish military preparations in Finland for a possible Soviet invasion, representatives of the two countries finally meet to discuss the Soviets’ border proposals. These include the turnover of Finnish territory near Leningrad, control of islands in the Gulf of Finland, use of the port of Hanko and other alterations as far north as Murmansk. In return the Soviets offer some land concessions. However, the Finns inform their neighbors that they will only be able to agree to a limited range of concessions.
3-Oct-39: Chamberlain Rejects Various Peace Overtures; Germans Begin Troop Movements Westward; Soviets Wily Over Lithuania
Today is 3-Oct-1939, the 33rd day of World War II; there are 2,160 days left in the conflict.
The New York Times reports that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tells a “wildly cheering House of Commons” that Russian and German collaboration on peace initiatives will not change Great Britain’s determination to “put an end to successive acts of German aggression … no threat will ever induce this country or France to abandon the purpose for which they entered this struggle.” He adds that his government is ready to consider any proposal that holds the prospect of stable peace, but also warns that “no mere assurances from the present German government could be accepted by us.”
But a counterpoint to his speech is made by former Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who led the country to victory in the First World War, startled the House by “counseling the Allies to move slowly while there yet remained a chance of avoiding another slaughter.”
“The words of the patriarchal elder statesman, envisaging the possibility of a world conference that would include Italy, Russia and possibly the United States to discuss the restoration of Czecho-Slovakia as well as Poland in some form, the redistribution of colonies and disarmament, fell like a bombshell in the House, whose members heard him through in silence.”
Prime Minister Chamberlain is urged to make an immediate response:
“Mr. Chamberlain, who had listened carefully to one of the bitterest critics of his appeasement policy, rejected flatly the proposed closed session, and said that a discussion of peace terms that had not been submitted was ‘premature,’ pointing out that when a peace offer came it might be ‘one which no self-respecting government could consider.’”
Meanwhile in Poland, the final cohesive Polish army units surrender en masse near the city of Luck. Over 700,000 Poles are prisoners of the Germans and another 200,000 are in the hands of the Soviets, although many will escape and make their way west. Polish casualties are extremely high, but the losses to the German Wehrmacht total 10,000 dead and 30,000 injured.
Fresh from their victory, German forces begin to withdraw from Poland for rest and redeployment to the western front. The Tenth Army is the first unit to do so. The Germans also begin the assessment of the successes and failures of the campaign; official staff thinking is that tanks are useful auxiliaries, but the infantry continues to be responsible for carrying the most important load in a campaign.
On the western front itself, in order to straighten the front line, the British Expeditionary Force orders the First Corps to hold down a section of the French/Belgian border at the same time that French troops withdraw from German territory, specifically the Warndt Forest and the Saarbrucken Salient.
German Ambassador to the Soviet Union Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenberg sends another in a series of diplomatic cables from Moscow to German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin noting that dealing with the Soviets will be full of ups and downs over the longterm; Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov is now being difficult over Lithuania:
“Molotov summoned me to his office at 2 p. m. today, in order to communicate to me the following:
“The Soviet Government would tell the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, who arrives today, that, within the framework of an amicable settlement of mutual relations (probably similar to the one with Estonia), the Soviet Government was willing to cede the city of Vilna and its environs to Lithuania, while at the same time the Soviet Government would indicate to Lithuania that it must cede the well-known portion of its territory to Germany. Molotov inquired what formal procedure we had in mind for carrying this out. His idea was the simultaneous signing of a Soviet-Lithuanian protocol on Vilna and a German-Lithuanian protocol on the Lithuanian area to be ceded to us.
“I replied that this suggestion did not appeal to me. It seemed to me more logical that the Soviet Government should exchange Vilna for the strip to be ceded to us and then hand this strip over to us. Molotov did not seem quite in accord with my proposal but was willing to let me ask for the viewpoint of my Government and give him a reply by tomorrow noon.
“Molotov’s suggestion seems to me harmful, as in the eyes of the world it would make us appear as “robbers” of Lithuanian territory, while the Soviet Government figures as the donor. As I see it, only my suggestion enters into consideration at all. However, I would ask you to consider whether it might not be advisable for us, by a separate secret German-Soviet protocol, to forego the cession of the Lithuanian strip of territory until the Soviet Union actually incorporates Lithuania, an idea on which, I believe, the arrangement concerning Lithuania was originally based.”
Both governments continue their jockeying over eastern Europe.
2-Oct-39: Germans Send Warning to U.S.; American Nations Declare 300-Mile Defense Zone; Czech Army-in-Exile Created in France
Today is 2-Oct-1939, the 32nd day of World War II; there are 2,161 days left in the conflict.
The German government advises the United States Embassy in Berlin that all merchant ships in international waters, including American ones, will be subject to boarding by the Kriegsmarine, as well as a search for contraband.
Also in Berlin, the British Royal Air Force conducts a leafletting raid on the city, its first nighttime foray over the German capital.
The Inter-American Conference, convening in Panama City, Panama and attended by representatives of 21 countries establishes a 300-mile security zone off the coast of both American continents. An act of war committed within the zone is to be considered as a hostile attack on the country off whose coast the incident occurs.
In London, the government’s special tribunals begin operating; they must make decisions on the status and disposition of the estimated 50,000 enemy aliens who are registered in the capital city’s region.
The Czechoslavakian government in exile reaches an agreement in Paris with the French government aimed at creating a Czech National Army in exile.
29-Sep-39: British Lose Five Bombers in Heligoland Raid; Chamberlain Dashes Peace Hopes on Munich Pact Anniversary; US Jails American Nazi Leader
Today is 29-Sept-1939, the 29th day of World War II; there are 2,164 days left in the conflict.
A British census gets underway to help with rationing and mobilization efforts; ironically, it is the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Munich Agreement by Chamberlain, German Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler, Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, which permitted the Germans to annex the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The annexation was declared by Hitler to be his “last territorial demand in Europe,” and was hailed by Chamberlain as “Peace in our time.”
Rumors abound in London that private channels between British and German officials are open and may lead to formal negotiations toward a peace treaty, now that Poland has ceased to exist and Germany and the Soviet Union has carved it up between them.
However, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain lets the air out of the optimists’ balloon when he informs Parliament during a speech in the House of Commons that Britain and its ally France are at war in an all-out effort to “stop Nazi aggression” and that there is nothing happening that is changing that.
In the skies over Europe, eleven British Royal Air Force bombers make a daylight raid on Germany’s Heligoland Bight in two waves. In the first, six Hampden bombers attempted to hit two destroyers, but failed. By the time the second wave of five bombers came over, the Germans were better prepared and shot down all of the attacking planes.
In the United States, Fritz Kuhn, the Führer of the German-American Bund, is sent to prison. Born in Germany, Kuhn earned an Iron Cross as a leutnant in the German infantry during World War I. After the war, he earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Munich, then moved to Mexico. In 1928, he moved to New York City and in 1934 became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Elected head of the Bund, Kuhn was known as the “American Führer” and was introduced to Hitler during the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Kuhn’s imprisonment happens after New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia instructs city prosecutors to investigate the Bund’s taxes in an effort to curtail its political activities. The investigation discovers that Kuhn had embezzled over $14,000 from the Bund, and that part of the money has been spent on Kuhn’s mistress. New York District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey (later the governor of New York and the Republican presidential candidate in 1944 and 1948) obtains a criminal indictment and Kuhn is convicted at trial. In spite of his guilt, the Bund’s members continue to respect him.
Although he will be released within two years, upon the outbreak of war between Germany and the U.S. in 1941, Kuhn will be arrested again, this time as an enemy agent. He will be imprisoned in an internment camp in Crystal City, Texas, until the end of the war in 1945, when he will be released, sent to Ellis Island for a short period, and then deported to Germany. He will die an obscure chemist in Munich in 1951.
22-Sep-39: Germans, Soviets Link Up at Brest-Litovsk for Joint Victory Parade; Gen. von Fritsch Killed at Warsaw; Allies Hold Second Meeting; Rationing, Blackouts Cause British Problems
Today is 22-Sept-1939, the 22st day of World War II; there are 2,171 days left in the conflict.
In eastern Poland, Soviet Red Army forces capture the cities of Lvov and Bialystok; they also meet up with German Heer forces and conduct a joint victory parade in the city of Brest-Litovsk. The mood is extremely jovial, even though the Poles are still fighting both armies.
Near Warsaw, a dramatic end came to a famous incident in Germany of 1938; an incident which would have serious, long-term effects on the German Wehrmacht.
In 1938, two related scandals, the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair (also known as Blomberg-Fritsch-Krise or Blomberg-Fritsch crisis) deeply disturbed both the political and army hierarchies of the Third Reich, and resulted in the subjugation of the Wehrmacht completely to Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler. The two highest ranking military officers in the Reich, Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, General Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, and Commander-in-Chief of the Heer (Army) Werner von Fritsch, were felled by unrelated crises in early 1938.
On 12 January 1938, the 59-year-old widower von Blomberg married his second wife, a 26-year-old secretary; Hitler and other Reich leaders attended the event. Hitler served as a witness and Luftwaffe commander in chief Hermann Göring had been the best man. But when a policeman reported that the young bride had previously posed for pornographic photos, was possibly a prostitute and had a criminal record sent shock waves through the German establishment. Hitler ordered Blomberg to annul the marriage in order to avoid a scandal and to preserve the integrity of the army. Blomberg refused, but Göring threatened to make his wife’s past public knowledge; Blomberg therefore resigned all his posts and retired effective 27-Jan-1938.
Hitler thought the crisis had passed, but Göring and Reichsfuerhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler had decided to get rid of Fritsch as well, since Fritsch would succeed Blomberg and become Göring’s superior, while HImmler wanted to weaken the Wehrmacht itself in order to strengthen his Schutzstaffel (SS) organization and build up the Waffen-SS as a competitor to the Heer. Göring and Himmler devised a plot.
A few days after the Blomberg affair passed, Himmler and the SS accused Fritsch of being a homosexual; a police file was produced which the Geheime Staatspolizei had Göring and Himmler presented new evidence in the form of a witness. It was said that Fritsch was encouraged by General Ludwig Beck to carry out a military putsch against Hitler, but that he declined. Fritsch was given now choice but to resign and did so on 4-Feb-38. The witness against Fritsch later withdrew his accusation, but was then murdered. Fritsch demanded an Army trial and was acquitted on 18-Mar-38; however, the damage was done and his career was over.
Having taken a personal oath to Hitler (the 1934 Reichswehreid — ironically ordered by Blomberg himself), many officers of the Wehrmacht declined to take action regarding this double-pronged assault on their brother officers and the independence and aristocratic leadership of the Heer. From that point, the Heer was, for the most part, a reliably compliant, pro-Hitler organization. This would lead to the destruction of both Hitler and the Wehrmacht itself.
Prior to the Polish invasion, General von Fritsch was recalled, and chose, once the invasion was underway to personally inspect the front lines as an Honorary Colonel of the 12th Artillery Regiment. It was a very unusual activity for someone of his high rank.
And now, on 22-Sept-39, comes the denouement: In the Warsaw suburb of Praga while the capital is under siege, a Polish bullet from either a machine gun or a sharpshooter hit General von Fritsch and tore an artery in his leg. The general’s adjutant, a Leutnant Rosenhagen, is an eyewitness to von Fritsch’s death and writes of the death in his original, official protocol:
“[…] In this moment the Herr Generaloberst received a gunshot in his left thigh, a bullet tore an artery. Immediately he fell down. Before I took off his braces, the Herr Generaloberst said: ‘Please leave it,’ lost consciousness and died. Only one minute passed between receiving gunshot and death.”
Generaloberst Werner von Fritsch thus becomes the second German general to be killed in combat in the war (the first being Generalmajor der Ordnungspolizei and SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Fritz von Roettig at 14:15 on 10-Sep-39 near Opoczno, Poland. Von Fritsch’s death was thus carefully investigated. The investigation concluded that the Generaloberst deliberately sought death on the front lines. He was given a ceremonial state funeral four days later in Berlin.
Ironically, nearby in Praga, Hitler himself arrives and observes the shelling of Warsaw by his troops, not far from the scene of von Fritsch’s death.
In the west, the Allied Supreme War Council meets for the second time of the war, this time in Sussex, England. Even though it is supposed to be secret, the meeting attracts a large crowd outside, while inside, British Prime Minister Chamberlain, British Foreign Minister Lord Halifax, and Minister for Coordination of Defense Lord Chatfield, meet with French Premier Eduard Daladier, French Commander in Chief on the Western Front General Maurice Gamelin, and Chief of the French Naval Staff Admiral François Darlan. The group releases a communique after the meeting stating that the leaders discussed supplies of munitions and other related issues.
The British begin the rationing of gasoline. A report by the London Metropolitan Police Commission states that there has been a tripling of road accidents in the three weeks since the blackout was imposed; the municipal courts are overloaded with blackout violation cases.
12-Sep-39: Allied Supreme War Council Has First Meeting; Poles Evacuate Gdynia; French End Border Incursion
The first meeting of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council takes place in Abbeville, France. Representing the British are Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and Minister for Coordination of Defence Lord Ernie Chatfield; the French delegation is headed by Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, and General Maurice Gamelin. At the same time, the Czechs are forming an army-in-exile to join the allied effort.
French troops are now five miles deep into the Saarland of Germany along a 15-mile front. The French assert that the invasion forced the Germans to withdraw six divisions from the Polish invasion; British observers are doubtful of the claim, however. The French are now within a half-mile of the Siegfried Line, but a frontal assault on the German defenses is considered impossible. General Gamelin therefore calls an end to the offensive, a decision which is approved by the Supreme War Council in their Abbeville meeting.
The city of Gdynia, near Danzig, is evacuated by the Poles. Fighting continues near Lvov and German troops are moving north from their bridgeheads over the San River. The Polish army around Poznan cancels a planned advance on Berlin and instead turns around and attempts a flanking action on the German Eighth Army, thus kicking off the Battle of the Bzura River. Polish troops push Wehrmacht troops back 12 miles south of Kutno and recapture the city of Lowicz.
The eastern Polish city of Krzemieniec (Kremenets) had been declared an open village from the beginning of the invasion and the Warsaw international diplomatic community had sought refuge there. But today, the German Luftwaffe bombs the refuge, killing an unknown number of people.
In southeastern Europe, German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop informs officials in Bucharest that Polish officials crossing the border into Romania are not to be given asylum. The Germans promise military retaliation if asylum in such cases is granted.
Across the Atlantic, the United States Navy starts regular neutrality patrols up and down the east coast and in the Caribbean.