1-Oct-39: Chinese Successfully Repel Japanese Attack on Changsha; Poles in Warsaw Disarmed; Winston Churchill Makes His First Radio Broadcast of the War
Today is 1-Oct-1939, the 31st day of World War II; there are 2,162 days left in the conflict.
In a fight known as the First Battle of Changsha, Chiang Kai-Shek’s Chinese Nationalist Army scores a major victory over the Japanese Eleventh Corps in China’s northern Hunan province. The Japanese attempted to capture Changsha and the Tungting Lake region, but are forced to withdraw.
Japanese officials in Tokyo dismiss senior officers of the Kwantung Army stationed in Manchukuo (the former Manchuria). The firings are a result of the army’s failures in the border war, particularly their loss of the Battle of Khalkin Gol, which resulted in a capitulation to the Soviets in a treaty at Moscow.
Back in Europe, an estimated 100,000 Polish officers and men making up the garrison of Warsaw begin turning over arms and marching into captivity under the auspices of the German Wehrmacht. On the same day, the Polish garrison of the Hela Peninsula near Danzig, under heavy attack, including naval bombardment, since the early hours of the war, also surrender.
Meanwhile, Polish cryptologists arrive in Paris carrying two captured German Engima code machines, furthering the now legendary effort to break the Germans’ crucial codes.
The British Admiralty in London receives for the first time information about the existence of the German Kriegsmarine’s pocket battleships Graf Spee and Deutschland, thanks to the Graf Spee’s recent activity in the South Atlantic.
A historic moment also occurs in London as First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill broadcasts on the radio for the first time in the war. He uses the occasion to criticize the Soviet Union, claiming that the USSR has “pursued a policy of cold self-interest” where Poland is concerned. He also states, “We could have wished that the Russian armies should be standing on their present line as the friends and allies of Poland instead of invaders. But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.”
15-Sep-39: Japan, Soviet Union Sign Armistice; Warsaw Commander Refuses German Surrender Demands; First British Trans-Atlantic Convoy Sails from Halifax
Today is 15-Sept-1939. It is the 15th day of the war; there are 2,178 days left in the war.
Japan and the Soviet Union end the four-month-old “Nomonhan Incident” — in which the Japanese were disastrously defeated in the Battle of Khalkin Gol — with an armistice agreement signed in Moscow.
After their defeat in the battle (in which they lost over 17,000 soldiers), a new Japanese cabinet came to power and pressed for the armistice. The Germans had also been pressing for their two ostensible allies to come to an agreement and end the fighting ever since the 22-Aug signing of the Soviet-German Nonaggression Pact.
This armistice is another action designed to clear the decks for the Soviet invasion of Poland, planned for two days hence. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sends an urgent, top secret telegram to the Reich’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenberg. In it, he instructs the ambassador to convey to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov the following information:
“1. The destruction of the Polish Army is rapidly approaching its conclusion, as appears from the review of the military situation of September 14 which has already been communicated to you. We count on the occupation of Warsaw in the next few days.
“2. We have already stated to the Soviet Government that we consider ourselves bound by the definition of spheres of influence agreed upon in Moscow, entirely apart from purely military operations, and the same applies of course to the future as well.”
Ribbentrop instructs von der Shulenberg to give Molotov a thinly veiled warning: if the Soviets do not act and invade Poland as agreed in the 22-Aug Nonaggression Pact, the Soviet government might not like the results:
“From the communication made to you by Molotov on September 14, we assume that the Soviet Government will take a hand militarily, and that it intends to begin its operation now. We welcome this. The Soviet Government thus relieves us of the necessity of annihilating the remainder of the Polish Army by pursuing it as far as the Russian boundary. Also the question is disposed of in case a Russian intervention did not take place, of whether in the area lying to the east of the German zone of influence a political vacuum might not occur. Since we on our part have no intention of undertaking any political or administrative activities in these areas, apart from what is made necessary by military operations, without such an intervention on the part of the Soviet Government there might be the possibility of the construction of new states there.”
In other words, if the Soviets fail to act, they will find the German Wehrmacht at their borders along with possibly unknown and unwelcome new states along that border.
Ribbentrop then suggests that the Soviet government agree to the public issuance of a joint declaration, which would state:
“In view of the complete collapse of the previous form of government in Poland, the Reich Government and the Government of the U.S.S.R. consider it necessary to bring to an end the intolerable political and economic conditions existing in these territories. They regard it as their joint duty to restore peace and order in these areas which are naturally of interest to them and to bring about a new order by the creation of natural frontiers and viable economic organizations.”
The Reich’s foreign minister then urges his ambassador to speed the Soviets along:
“Since the military operations must be concluded as soon as possible because of the advanced season of the year, we would be gratified if the Soviet Government would set a day and hour on which their army would begin their advance, so that we on our part might govern ourselves accordingly. For the purpose of the necessary coordination of military operations on either side, it is also necessary that a representative of each Government, as well as German and Russian officers on the spot in the area of operations, should have a meeting in order to take the necessary steps, for which meeting we propose to assemble at Bialystok by air.”
Von der Shulenberg follows the instructions and presents Ribbentrop’s communique to Molotov.
Meanwhile, the fighting in Poland is increasingly going the Germans’ way; the Poles’ Poznan Army is encircled at Kutno and is steadily being destroyed by the Wehrmacht. Also encircled is the city of Brest-Litovsk, 120 miles east of Warsaw. The Bzura battles are also going badly for the Poles; the heaviest fighting is ending.
And in Warsaw itself, Major General Juliusz Rommel, the city’s military commander, receives a surrender proposal from German military representatives, but refuses to discuss it. The Poles will fight on in their capital.
The Romanian government in Bucharest makes a decision designed to at least partially placate the German government by granting asylum only to Polish civilian refugees fleeing the fighting by crossing the border into Romania proper. Any Polish military personnel who do the same will, the government declares, be disarmed and interned in camps.
The Germans make the decision to use captured allied flyers in propaganda radio broadcasts. On the air, they interview aircrew from Britain and New Zealand who were shot down and captured during the 4-Sept Royal Air Force raid on Wilhelmshaven.
On the high seas, a British TransAtlantic convoy departs Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and thus becomes the first such long-distance supply convoy of the war. The ships are supplying wheat and munitions from Canada and the United States.
From this point, all vital shipping will be required to travel in convoy form, scheduled by the military; naval forces from Britain and Canada will jointly provide protection for them from German U-Boats. Convoys are also organized for sailings from European ports to the British home isles such as Gibraltar, as well as ships sailing up and down the English/Scottish coasts and to Ulster and Ireland.