80 years ago today - Britain Declares War on Germany

[Eric Mc]

vonuber said:

Germany's best strategy after may 1940 would have been to secure North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Initially, they had no interest in that part of the world at all but found themselves having to get involved in an effort to bail Italy out of its problems.

[Eric Mc]

The gist of the thread is intended to reflect on where we were 80 years ago - but the odd bit of diversion into other WW2 events is not that concerning to me - as long as it doesn't deviate into wild "What if?" type speculation.

Luckilly, somebody has opened a separate thread for that sort of thing so hopefully, the wilder stuff will be restricted to that thread.

No big events occurred this day in 1939 apart from continuing action in Poland. Saudi Arabia broke off diplomatic relations with Germany - why, I don't know. Maybe they came under pressure from British and American oil interests to make sure none of that oil made it to the Germans.

It would be interesting if anybody has any further information on that particular point.

[Eric Mc]

And caused problems later when Russia became an ally.

[Eric Mc]

aeropilot said:

Not really.

USA after WW1 had gone done the non-military interventionist route, and there politicians had even largely dismantled much of its arms industry, and not allowed any arms exports.

I would say it was a potential super power - and probably already was from a business and industrial point of view. However, it's military had been deliberately kept small all through the 1920s and most of the 1930s due to massive non-interventionist sentiments which all prospective Congressmen, Senators and Presidents had to respect.

Roosevelt began to increase military expenditure surreptitiously towards the end of the 1930s but he had to walk a very narrow path and hid a lot of the expenditure and planning meetings with industry leaders.

[Eric Mc]

James Holland's book "The War in the West - Volume 1" covers a lot of this. It's a very good read and provides a lot of background as to what was going on in the US from 1933 up to 1941.

[Eric Mc]

Don't forget that a large chunk of the US population were 1st or 2nd generation Germans and Italians - so there wasn't a massive amount of enthusiasm for fighting against countries where these people still had living relatives - many of whom they were still in contact with.

Also, as we can see all too well today, there is a strand in American society that can empathise with Fascist tendencies. The America First movement (which seems to have been revived) was at its peak in the 1930s.

And finally, the mood amongst Irish Americans (who were quite powerful from a political point of view) was that America should not be fighting alongside "the auld enemy".

[Eric Mc]

Ironically, Kennedy became the US Ambassador to Britain. His reports back to Washington about Britain's chances in the war were decidedly defeatist.

There were other Senators and Congressmen who adopted anti-British stances.

Roosevelt often had to write them stern letters.

[Eric Mc]

To understand old Joe Kennedy's mind set, you need to understand his family background. His grandparents had left Ireland due to The Famine and, like a lot of Irish people who went to the USA so that they wouldn't starve to death, blamed Britain (quite rightly, on this occasion) for their predicament. Why Roosevelt gave him the job of US Ambassador to the UK seems rather strange. Maybe he just wanted him far away from Washington.

Joe's two oldest sons did their bit during World War 2. As mentioned above, John served in the US Navy and had his ship sunk under him. Joe Jnr also joined the US Navy as a pilot and was killed in action in 1944.

[Eric Mc]

XCP said:

he was also a bootlegger who had his own daughter lobotomised IIRC. An odious character at best.

Nobody is claiming he was a nice guy.

[Eric Mc]

And he was by no means alone in his way of thinking. Having scrabbled against prejudice to get the wealth he did, he had plenty of prejudices of his own to throw about.

[Eric Mc]

September 12 -

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor returned to the UK after spending the years since the abdication in France.

The British and French military held a meeting at Abbeville in order to co-ordinate military strategy (that went well!).

[Eric Mc]

Today 1939 - French Premier Deladier set up his War Cabinet (fat lot of good they turned out to be).

[Eric Mc]

Been too busy over the past two days.

September 14

The Polish town of Gdynia fell to the Germans and the U-Boat U-39 was sunk and the crew captured (as mentioned above). It was the first German U-Boat to be lost in action.

September 15

A Polish submarine, the Orzel, sailed into the (then) neutral Estonian harbour of Talinn and it and its crew interned.

in the USA, famous aviator Charles Lindbergh made a public speech (which was carried live on national radio) imploring the US to stay out of this and any future "European" wars.

[Eric Mc]

Today 1939

The Poles actually won a battle today (the battle for the town of Jarowow).

The French pulled their troops back out of the Saarland (they'd only been there a few days), ending the "Saar Offensive".

A British trawler, the "Rudyard Kipling" was sunk by U-27 in the Irish Sea.

[Eric Mc]

Agreed.

I have the boxed set.

It's great unique selling point is that many of the surviving movers and shakers of WW2 were interviewed so it was a unique chance to hear some very important politicians and senior soldiers, sailors and airmen of all sides being interviewed.

It's downside is that an awful lot more information has come out on the period 1939-45 that simply wasn't known in 1973 and so didn't get the coverage it deserved.

But it is a truly great series in its own right and well worth watching.

[Eric Mc]

JagLover said:

The most important of which was the opening of the soviet archives after the end of the cold war. Vast reams of material in there that changed the understanding of many events in the war on the eastern front.

Honourable mention as well to the revelation of the cracking of enigma, which I think was also released to the public after the world at war.

I have often thought they should do a documentary just on the eastern front, with all that they know now, with a similar scale and gravity as the world at war.

All those things plus the fact that UK government files have opened over the decades giving better insight into government discussions and decisions.

[Eric Mc]

Ayahuasca said:

Two days early with that front page..

[Eric Mc]

George Formby film was the most successful entertainer in the UK at that time - so the release of a new film by him would have been a very popular thing. Apart from that, however, today is also quite a biggie when it comes to major World War 2 events.

The really big event of today is that the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. This more or less ensured that there was no hope of Poland surviving as an independent nation. This was immediately obvious and the Polish leaders fled to Romania.

Also, the Royal Navy had a major loss with the sinking of the aircraft carrier HMS Courageous by U-29. 519 crewmen went down with the ship - including the captain.

[Eric Mc]

The World at War boxed set has some additional material including a talk by the producer of the series, Jeremy Isaacs, in which he talks about the making of the series and what he would do differently now if were to do it again.

[Eric Mc]

JagLover said:

It is worth pointing out that Russian defeat in the war with Poland in 1921 had left the borders with Poland close to that before the first partition of Poland, but the old Polish/Lithuanian commonwealth had been an empire not a nation state so this left a very significant Belorussian and Ukrainian minority within Poland's eastern borders post 1921. Which would have meant that any Russian government would have regarded themselves as having unfinished business with the Poles.

With the growing power of the red army post 1921 that was a serious strategic mistake by the Poles IMO.

Interesting background.

These continental territorial disputes had been going on for centuries and a lot of what went on in World War 2 was based on various countries trying to resolve these disputes in their own favour. Even today, what constitutes the definitive boundary between one country and the next is still not absolutely settled. Look at what is going on in Ukraine and other former Soviet territories.

Poland was no shrinking violet in the inter war period so other countries on its borders were harbouring anti-Polish sentiments which were released once the war kicked off.