WW2 outbreak

[LDeska]

New anniversary - new post Today is 68th anniversary of WW2 outbreak. At 4.45 in the morning on 1st September, as each year, ceremony to commemorate this fact was held at Westerplatte - Polish outpost in Gdańsk (ger. Danzig). I wrote about it in other thread, concerning "Last stand". It was an outpost where part of the Vistula river enters Baltic Sea - it's duty in case of war was to hold offensive for half of day until reinforcement arrive. On 25th August battleship Schleswig-Holstein arrived at Gdańsk with for a "courtesy trip". On 1st September at 4.45 it opened fire at Westerplatte. This outpost was defended by 205 men (they had one heavy cannon, two anti-tank cannons, four mortars, 41 machine guns, 160 rifles, 40 pistols, 1000 grenades) and was attacked by 3500 German soldiers on land plus battleship, Stuka diving bombers and heavy artillery. After 7 seven days commander of outpost - major Henryk Sucharski - surrended. 15 Poles died in action, 1 was killed because he denied to give cipher codes to Germans.
This outpost was and still is a symbol of Polish defence in the beginning of WW2. My primary school had the name of "Bohaterów Westerplatte" (The heroes of Westerplatte).

Two more things - first is that Hitler proposed to Poland secretly a pact (like to other nations that accepted it and joined Axis) to counter Soviet Russia. Poland rejected of course, but it is interesting how Nazis external politics were made: they sign a Ribbentrop-Molotov pact with Soviet Union to attack together Poland (what they did, starting the WW2) but they also want to have a pact with Poland against Soviets...
Second thing is that I never find anything about 'phony war' when I look at English webpages. Look here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/1/newsid_3506000/3506335.stm
This is a link from BBC front page "on this day" section. They only write:

Britain and France were forced to declare war after Germany ignored their separate ultimatums, delivered on 3 September 1939, demanding the withdrawal of German troops from Poland.

but there is never a mention that though those states had mutual protection pacts with Poland, they didn't shot a single bullet at Nazis until they were attacked by them directly.

One interesting thing at the end - lately original order issued by Hitler was found in Polish archives. It is the original order to start the invasion of Poland. Here is a link to Polish news portal with a shot movie showing this document:
http://www.tvn24.pl/-1,1519863,wiadomosc.html
Hitler's own words in this document (it's twice traslated - from German to Polish by professionals and then from Polish to English by me ):

After all political means have been depleted, undertaken to peacefully remove beastly situation of Germans at the Eastern border, I decided for a military solution

 

[Verbose]

but there is never a mention that though those states had mutual protection pacts with Poland, they didn't shot a single bullet at Nazis until they were attacked by them directly.

Yeah well, having more than four weeks in order to do something for Poland would have helped.

And "not firing a single shot" a is a bit of an overstatement. Britain declared war on 3 Sept. On 4 Sept. British bombers made a run at the Admiral Scheer (unsuccessfully) as the first British act of war in WWII. They kept on bombing things too.

The French army only concluded mobilisation on 21 Sept, four days after it was clear to the Allies that the Polish campaign was already lost. Nevertheless the French army attacked and occupied the German salient around Saarbrücken already on 8 Sept. German infantry and tanks tried to recapture in on the 28th, but where repulsed.

None of this was of any consequence for the Polish campaign of course, and dismally insufficient for the British and French themselves. But the question still stands, that given the timeframe within which to act, what would be a reasonable expectation on them? Hindsight is great and all, but you never get it in advance.

It's not as if anyone, least of all the Polish military command, expected Poland to effectively lose a war with Germany in 2 1/2 weeks. Had the Allied miliary attachés petitioned the Polish command prior to the war to tell them that in their opinion Poland would be creamed in such a timeframe, the Poles would have been livid over the implied insult to their ability.

The fate of Poland in 1939 was almost as big an upset as the French crumbling in 1940.

 

[LDeska]

Our fate was sealed on 17th September, when Soviets invaded Poland. So it is 2,5 weeks indeed, however if UK and France would do something to show that they are about to invade Germany, Stalin wouldn't attack Poland. I think that he postponed invasion by this 2,5 week to check the reaction of UK & France. How long does it take to run an offensive using only regular army? 2,5 week is not enough? I think it is enough, during this time those countries could mobilise rest of army and maybe then resolve the Nazi problem in September '39 instead of June '45 and save over 6 millions of Poles that perished during those 6 years (plus tenths millions of victims from other states).

Those "military actions" you have mentioned are really not worth mentioning Germans managed to bomb many Western Polish cities on the first day of war. They didn't managed to bomb Warsaw during first days as Polish Air Force defended it, but after few days they started to bomb our capital. Why French couldn't do the same to the most important industrial areas of Germany (for example Ruhr region) - German would have to move some troops from Poland to defend from UK and French invasion, Stalin would think twice before invasion of Poland, then we could defend , fully mobilise and counter-attack... ?

 

[Verbose]

Our fate was sealed on 17th September, when Soviets invaded Poland. So it is 2,5 weeks indeed, however if UK and France would do something to show that they are about to invade Germany, Stalin wouldn't attack Poland. I think that he postponed invasion by this 2,5 week to check the reaction of UK & France. How long does it take to run an offensive using only regular army? 2,5 week is not enough? I think it is enough, during this time those countries could mobilise rest of army and maybe then resolve the Nazi problem in September '39 instead of June '45 and save over 6 millions of Poles that perished during those 6 years (plus tenths millions of victims from other states).

Which requires the UK to stop fooling around with the notion of a diminutive professional army after the end of WWI, and for the French not to select Pétain to mastermind the coming decades of French military planning in 1926 (according to de Gaulle).
Then these things can change. With the historical situation, Hitler and the German general staff would be well aware that a credible military threat wasn't going to materialise on their western border, at least not if they could take Poland out before winter.

So yeah, hindsight is great, and wouldn't it have been wonderful, for Poles and French alike quite possibly, if people in charge had listened to de Gaulle, and others, sooner.

Of course this would have meant trying to tell the veterans of WWI in the UK and France, and the new generations growing up, that "next time" they should expect to fight the opening stages of a WWII exactly as the French army tried to fight the war in 1914 — adopt a VERY aggressive stance and expect to go tearing hell for leather into Germany.
Nice in theory, but we all know how well that worked out for them in the opening of WWI, which also says why no one would propose anything like it, and hope to have a political or professional military career afterwards. France would need to refight WWI, but with motorisation and mechanisation, i.e. do what damn near cost them the war last time, instead of sticking to the defensive concept of slow-but-steady that won them that war.
It's just not going to happen. Unless the British decide to build a huge conscript army, armoured divisions and all, but that's probably even more far fetched than having the French adopting an offensive military doctrine.

Those "military actions" you have mentioned are really not worth mentioning Germans managed to bomb many Western Polish cities on the first day of war. They didn't managed to bomb Warsaw during first days as Polish Air Force defended it, but after few days they started to bomb our capital. Why French couldn't do the same to the most important industrial areas of Germany (for example Ruhr region) - German would have to move some troops from Poland to defend from UK and French invasion, Stalin would think twice before invasion of Poland, then we could defend , fully mobilise and counter-attack... ?

I didn't say they mattered, just that they constituted shooting.

 

[Lotus49]

It would have been better if the UK hadn't guaranteed Poland's independence in late March '39. The Western Allies should have stayed out of it, and let Hitler continue rampaging east as planned, beating his head and bleeding his army dry against the Soviet wall. Then, the West could come in -fresh- at the opportune time, and dominate the beleaguered and cracked war-weary nations to their east.

On the note of September 1st, it should be noted that in Germany, the vast majority of the public genuinely did not realize that Germany had started the war (with Poland), until after WWII had ended. Now that's effective propaganda.

As for the alliances... it's all a moot point. Hitler's aims were always the same; to put eastern Europe and the heartland of NW Asia under the boot of the Reich, and exploit them to the max, while simultaneously materializing/exercising/experimenting their National Socialist cultist ideas and breeding the ultimate Herrenvolk society. The alliance offer with Poland was indeed genuine, but of course it was actually ultimately going to be the kiss of death for Poland, once the USSR had been conquered, dissolved, and occupied.

 

[challenger]

"If" is such a tiresome question...

 

[Ace]

"On the note of September 1st...", technically, WWII did not start until September 3rd when France and the UK declared war on Germany. And, if you really want to nitpic, it started much earlier with the Japanese invasion of China, or the Manchurian incident. Althrough, until September 3rd, it was not officially a world war, just several isolated wars between individual countries....