In the air, the Luftwaffe targets towns and cities as well as airfields of the Polish Air Force. After their ultimatum to Hitler goes unanswered, Britain and France declare war on Germany in line with the agreements that they have concluded with Poland. In the largest engagement of the campaign, Polish forces launch a counterattack against the Germans along the Bzura river. After over a week of fighting, the attack stalls. Despite the propaganda narrative of heralding liberation, the invasion brought class war, occupation and annexation.
In the eastern city of Brest-Litovsk, German forces cede the district to Soviet rule, as agreed under a protocol to the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Before they do so, they hold a joint military parade with Red Army forces. Wishing to end the bloodshed, the Polish garrison in Warsaw agrees to surrender the city to the Germans. More than , Polish troops march into captivity. After the fall of Warsaw, the fortress complex at Modlin, north-west of the capital, also surrenders to the Germans.
It is the final engagement of the Polish campaign. While the Germans imported race war to western Poland, the Soviets brought class war to the east. Local communist militias quickly complied, targeting landowners and local officials.
Victims were simply dragged from their beds and lynched, or beaten to death. One court official was tied by his feet to a horse and cart, which was then driven around the cobbled streets until he was dead. Prisoners of war were also sorted according to their social class. Officers were routinely separated from other ranks for interrogation, along with those who were especially well dressed, or well equipped.
Beloruchki — those with white, uncalloused palms — were clearly not from the working class, and so were also detained. Many of them were then taken to prisons where they would be stripped of everything they had — watches, razors, belts — before being packed into cattle cars for the long journey eastward to an unknown fate. In some cases, Soviet class fury would be assuaged more immediately.
Two days later, the Panzers had corralled Polish forces into five isolated pockets centred around Pomerania, Pozan, Lodz, Krakow and Carpathia. Twelve of Poland's divisions were cavalry, armed with lance and sabre, and they were no match for tanks. Each pocket was relentlessly bombarded and bombed, and once food and ammunition had run out had little choice but to surrender. By 8 September the leading Panzers were on the outskirts of Warsaw, having covered miles in only eight days. Two days later all Polish forces were ordered to fall back and regroup in Eastern Poland for a last stand.
All hope was pinned upon a major French and British offensive in the west to relieve the pressure. However, despite assurances from Marshal Maurice Gamelin that the French Army was fully engaged in combat, all military action on the western front was ended on 13 September, when French troops were ordered to fall back behind the security of the Maginot line. Warsaw was surrounded on 15 September, and suffered punishing bombing raids without hope of relief. On 17 September the Red Army crossed the Polish border in the east, in fulfilment of the secret agreement within the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and ended any prospect of Poland's survival.
Those Poles who could, fled across the border into Romania, and many subsequently reached the west and continued the war as the Free Polish Forces.
Warsaw bravely held out until 27 September, but after enduring 18 days of continuous bombing finally surrendered at 2. Germany had gained a swift victory, but not the end of the war. Britain and France refused to accept Hitler's peace offer. His gamble had failed, and Poland had become the first battleground of World War Two. Bradley Lightbody is a writer, whose latest book is listed above. He is currently Director of Training with the education consultancies Quiet Associates and College UK, delivering training courses to the Further Education college sector.
Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled.
Moreover, Hitler and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin were theoretically at opposite ends of the political spectrum — the Communists and Nazis had viewed each other warily throughout the s. But the Allies' handling of the Sudetenland crisis spooked Stalin. He feared that Hitler would seek to annex portions of the Soviet Union next. He thought that the Western Powers — who had no love for either Hitler or Stalin — would be happy to leave the Communists to face the Nazis alone.
So in August , these historic enemies signed a non-aggression pact. The deal shocked the Allies, who had counted on the Soviet threat checking Hitler's territorial ambitious. What London and Paris didn't know was that the deal included secret provisions outlining how the two powers would divide up the smaller nations that lay between them — including Poland. So when German troops crossed the border into Poland, Stalin not only didn't object, he began making plans for his own invasion of Poland from the East.
Polish infantry marching in Wikimedia Commons. Not very. Poland was determined to resist Germany's invasion, and on paper it had a decent shot at doing so. Poland had 1. But the Polish military was no match for Hitler's war machine. While Poland and Germany deployed similar numbers of men, Germany's troops were much better supplied.
According to historian Max Hastings , Germany had armored vehicles against in Poland. Germany had twice as many airplanes as Poland did — and its planes were more advanced. So Poland found itself overmatched. And because the German army in was a lot more mechanized than it had been in previous wars, the Germans were able to make progress extremely quickly.
A little over a week after the start of combat, German troops had reached the outskirts of the Polish capital, Warsaw. It fell on September The Polish situation became even grimmer on September 17, when Russian troops began pouring across the border from the East. The Polish army had already been at a disadvantage, but when the Soviets attacked the Polish situation became hopeless.
German and Russian troops secured full control over Poland by October 6, Chamberlain front left meets with Hitler front right in September , a year before Germany invades Poland.
The Munich Accord the men negotiated at this meeting would be violated by Hitler's invasion of Poland. German Federal Archives. The British and the French had both promised to declare war on Germany in the event of an invasion of Poland.
But after Munich, Hitler doubted that Chamberlain had the stomach to go to war in defense of Poland. He was wrong. They aimed at air bases, fortifications, bridges, railroad lines and stations, but in the process they killed upward of 1, noncombatants. The Nazi ships were mostly big Heinkels, unaccompanied by pursuit escorts. Germany admitted losing 21 planes to Polish counterattack by pursuits and antiaircraft.
They claimed to have massacred more than half of a plane Polish squadron which tried to bomb Berlin. Recapture of what was Germany in was the first objective: Danzig, the Corridor, and a hump of Upper Silesia. It is believed that Adolf Hitler, if allowed to take and keep this much, might have checked his juggernaut at these lines for the time being.
Heroes this week were a handful of Polish soldiers left in charge of the Westerplatte munitions dump. Under steady bombing and shell fire, they held out as a suicide squad in the thick-walled fortress, replying from its depths with machine gun fire, resolved to blow up the dump and themselves with it before surrendering.
Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience. The Roosevelt version suggested to the magazine that the president might be priming Americans to get ready to take up arms—and after the attack on Pearl Harbor in , they did. Write to Olivia B.
Waxman at olivia. The front page of London's Evening Standard newspaper on Sept.
0コメント