I. On Friday, 1st September, 1939, the long series of the German aggressions reached Poland, to whom Britain had given her pledge of assistance in conjunction with France. The bombs that cascaded from the German machines upon the ancient cities of Cracow and Warsaw heralded the entrance of Britain, the British Commonwealth, and the French Republic into a war to check and destroy the Nazi domination first of Europe and then of the world at large. Britain's pledge to Poland, had been given with the knowledge of the major members of the Commonwealth, and quickly the whole Commonwealth with the exception of Eire was at war with the Nazi Reich.
2. At the outset of the war the advantages of Germany were for the most part actual and immediate, those of Britain and her Allies potential and needing time for their development. The German war machine was in full swing. She possessed a greatly favourable balance in immediate power,
measured in terms of weapons. She was a single well-integrated State, fighting on interior lines, with the prestige of recent victories, and supported by industry already thoroughly mobilized for war. She soon displayed also a typical technique of war-making, the Blitzkrieg, in advance of that of her enemies. Of the Allies, Poland was divided from the help of Britain and France by geography, while the western Allies themselves, though cooperating to the full, were still two nations, with two languages and governments, and two sets of armed forces. Their combined fleets, however, were able to deny to Germany access to the raw material, industrial and agricultural resources of the Americas while able to use these resources for themselves. Their own industrial resources were great but still keyed mainly to peace-time production. Their combined manpower was greater than that at the disposal of Germany but, so far as Britain and the Commonwealth were concerned, largely untrained.
3. The German strategy by which she hoped to obtain a quick victory was first demonstrated against Poland. Air power blasted communications behind those Polish forces already assembled and frustrated the attempts to complete mobilization. Work in towns and cities was disorganized
while an efficient espionage service enabled the Luftwaffe to seek out and blast special targets such as military headquarters. Dive-bombers were used to smash the defence lines, through which poured the German armour at great speed to fan out in the rear. The motorized infantry followed
while artillery joined with air power to shatter the encircled forces. This procedure was followed in great and small engagements. The campaign was over, so far as the main forces were concerned, in twenty-seven days. Such was the German Blitzkrieg. It has ultimately Been beaten not by
different but by essentially similar methods, for fiercer weapons, more devastating air-power and superior training, coupled with the technique of maritime assault, have combined to produce a kind of amphibious onslaught capable of inflicting on the German armies disasters greater than
those that befell the Polish divisions in 1939.
01 September 1939 Poland invaded by Germany.
03 September 1939 Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany
03 September 1939 British and French Ultimata to Germany expired
03 September 1939 Declarations of War by Britain and France against Germany
06 September 1939 South Africa declares war on Germany
10 September 1939 Canada declares war on Germany
27 September 1939 Fall of Warsaw
29 September 1939 Germany and U.S.S.R. settle a common frontier in Poland
