Posted on 03/14/2010 6:00:32 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm
http://www.onwar.com/chrono/1940/mar40/f14mar40.htm
Poles reveal Nazi designs on USSR
Thursday, March 14, 1940 www.onwar.com
In Angers... The Polish government-in-exile publishes a white paper today giving a general view of Poland’s relations with Germany between May 1933 and October 1939. Among the revelations is that Hitler tried to involve Poland in a plot to attack the Soviet Union. It was proposed by Goring during a visit to Warsaw in February 1935. In a discussion with the Polish leader, Marshal Pilsudski, he suggested that Poland and Germany should mount a joint invasion of the Ukraine. The Poles insist that they gave the Germans no encouragement whatsoever.
In Germany... Goring decrees that all articles made of copper, bronze, nickel and other useful metals must be given up for the war effort.
In Finland... The evacuation of 470,000 people from the territories ceded to the Soviet Union commences. (It is completed on March 26th.)
In China... Twenty-seven out of 30 Chinese fighter planes are shot down by 12 Japanese Zero fighters over Chengtu. The Japanese suffer no losses.
In Australia... Prime Minister Menzies forms a new coalition Cabinet to improve the direction of the war effort.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.etherington/month/thismonth/14.htm
March 14th, 1940
FRANCE: Angers: The Polish government in exile published a white paper today giving a general view of Poland’s relations with Germany between May 1933 and October 1939. One of its most interesting revelations - which will not please Stalin - is that Hitler tried to involve Poland in a plot to attack the Soviet Union.
It was proposed by Göring during a visit to Warsaw in February 1935. In a discussion with the Polish leader, Marshal Pilsudski, he suggested that Poland and Germany should mount a joint invasion of the Ukraine. The Poles insist that they gave the Germans no encouragement whatsoever.
Paris: The French government learns from its spies in Turkey that the Soviets had commissioned American experts to assess “whether and how a fire in the Baku oil fields, arising from a bomb attack could be combated successfully.” Allegedly the US experts replied that given the output of the oil fields so far, the ground would be so saturated with oil that a blaze would be bound to spread instantly to the entire neighbouring region; it would be months before the fire could be put out, and years before oil production could be resumed.
At the same time foreign embassies in Moscow reported that at the beginning of March, the Soviet High Command transferred troops into the Caucasus, on 6 March, Voroshilov, the People’s Commissar for defence, paid a visit to the Caspian Sea area.
Destroyer depot ship HMS Hecla launched.
Escort carrier HMS Dasher laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
GERMANY: Göring decrees that all articles made of copper, bronze, nickel and other useful metals be given up for the war effort.
U-375 laid down. (Dave Shirlaw)
FINLAND: 470,000 Finns evacuate the area ceded to Russia.
The President of the Republic of Finland Kyösti Kallio gives a Mannerheim radio speech to the nation. “I dare to hope that the necessity of a Scandinavian defensive alliance has became clear during this war also to our neighbours.” (Mikko Härmeinen)
CHINA: 27 out of 30 Chinese fighter planes are shot down by the Japanese over Chengtu.
AUSTRALIA: The Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, forms a coalition cabinet.
U.S.A.: The motion picture “Road to Singapore” premieres in New York City. Directed by Victor Schertzinger, the film stars Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Bob Hope, Charles Coburn, Anthony Quinn, Jerry Colonna and Monte Blue. This is the first of the Crosby and Hope “Road” pictures. (Jack McKillop)
Yup, that's right. We will be celebrating Stalin and the Soviets. Posted here on numerous threads and confirmed by reading a link to Stars and Stripes.
No word if they will be forced to carry a hammer and sickle flag. I guess Obama is still pondering that.
As was said in the movie “Patton,” “to hell with the mongoloid Russians!”
In 1935 Goring proposed to Pilduski an alliance with the Poles in war against the communists.
Clever Poles, they held out and eventually england and france guaranteed them against any war with..... Germany........
Didn’t matter. They were screwed either way. They knew that. They played for time and time ran out. That’s what happens when you have Socialism on either side.
What ifs are always just fantisies, but it is almost impossible to imagine a worse outcome than that which ensued by the way the cards were played in Europe during the thirties.
You did not want war; you loved peace, work and progress; but you were forced into a struggle in which you have achieved great deeds, deeds that will shine for centuries in the annals of history.
Photo: SA-KUVA
Mannerheim issues Order of the Day Nr. 34
Soldiers of the glorious Finnish army!
Peace has been concluded between Finland and Soviet Russia, a harsh peace in which Soviet Russia has been ceded nearly every battlefield on which you have shed your blood on behalf of everything we hold sacred and dear.
You did not want war; you loved peace, work and progress; but you were forced into a struggle in which you have achieved great deeds, deeds that will shine for centuries in the annals of history.
Soldiers! I have fought on many a battlefield, but never have I seen such warriors as you. I am as proud of you as if you were my own children; I am as proud of the man from the northern fells as of the son of Ostrobothnia's plains, of the Karelian forests, the hills of Savo, the fertile fields of Häme and Satakunta, the leafy glades of Uusimaa and Varsinais-Suomi. I am equally proud of the sacrifice of the factory worker and the poor crofter as of that of the wealthy.
With joy and pride my thoughts dwell on the women of the Lotta Svärd - on their spirit of self-sacrifice and untiring work in myriad fields, work which has freed thousands of men to fight at the front. Their noble spirit has given inspiration and support to the army, and they have thoroughly earned our gratitude and respect.
A place of honour has also been earned by the thousands of workers who, often as volunteers and during air raids, have worked on their machines to provide the army with vital supplies, and those, too, who have laboured unflinchingly under fire to strengthen our defensive positions. On behalf of our native land, I thank you all.
I feel somewhat somber with the end of the Winter War. Finland had fought hard and showed that they were a far superior force to the Soviets, but still, the Soviets, with numbers and material on their side, carried the day.
It is somewhat disappointing when I think on how the Allies behaved during the crisis. As was stated by David Lloyd George, it was always too little, too late. Daladier just now announce that an expeditionary force is ready to go. The Roosevelt troops, which were not the doing of the British government, never got out of London. And the harsh words of Hore-Belisha are just Chamberlain’s actions coming back to bite him.
It’s pretty common knowledge that the fall of Norway or more specifically, the failure of Britain to do anything timely to defend it was the final nail in Chamberlain’s coffin. By the following May he was out. But it seems that this debate on the Allies conduct with Finland is what really started the rumblings. The following Scandinavian failure will just take this rumble and amplify it to a roar.
You left out Mannerheims magnificently worded conclusion. So tragically true for each nation which defended Europa against the savages from the east.
“We are proudly conscience of the duty which we will continue to fufil; the defense of Western heritage which has been ours for centuries, but we know that we have paid to the very last penny any debt we may have owed to the west”.
http://worldwar2daybyday.blogspot.com/
Day 196 March 14, 1940
The Finnish Parliament meets to debate ratification of Moscow Peace Treaty.
Over 450,000 Finnish civilians start leaving their homes in Karelia and the Salla region, after these territories are ceded to USSR in The Moscow Peace Treaty. They will all be gone within 12 days, leaving only burned villages for the Soviets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evacuees_from_East-Finland.jpg
In the aftermath of the Finnish surrender, British Foreign Minister Lord Halifax asks to get back the small amounts of war materiel sent to Finland. The Finnish ambassador to London, G.A. Gripenberg, reminds Halifax that Finland bought everything and intends to hang on to it. Halifax drops the matter.
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