On the eve of World War II, the Polish mass exodus plan was code-named "Operation Nanking" and the backup plan was called "Operation Beijing".
In fact, the Poles took such two code names that could not be beaten by eight rods, just because the officers who replaced the number rose on a whim and randomly got a code name, do you believe it? There is no way to believe it, and that's the way it is.
After the end of The First World War, Germany suffered heavy losses, and Poland in the east had been divided between Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary, but it was not expected that Poland recovered under the intervention of other European powers during the first world war.
Not only that, Poland won the Danzig region of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, took the Polish Corridor, and became a coastal country, while the main body of Germany and East Prussia were separated by a hard force, and the Germans had always held hatred in their hearts.
Affected by the global economic crisis, Germany once again embarked on the path of large-scale external expansion, trying to use the war to pass on its own crisis and regain the benefits lost in the First World War.
In 1938, Germany took the Sudetenland incident as a test, wanted to see the attitude of European countries, did not expect that Britain and other countries would be treated in an appeased manner, sacrificing the interests of Czechoslovakia, hoping to exchange for German satisfaction.
But ambitious Germany refused to give up after the Munich Agreement was signed and blatantly swallowed Czechoslovakia.
By 1939, Britain, France, and other countries had a premonition that Germany was about to start over, and germany's most likely target was Poland to the east.
Before the premonition that Germany was going to attack Poland, in fact, Germany had already made a lot of moves on the European continent, but most of them were concentrated in the direction of the west and south, and there was no reaction to the east.
According to the Treaty of Versailles, After World War I, Germany was disbanded from the army, retained a standing army of 100,000, and abolished compulsory military service.
Not only that, but countries also forbade Germany to develop its own air force and naval strength, and the originally strong German military industry was actually dismantled on a large scale, and the strength of the military industry was greatly damaged.
However, a Germany that is too weak is not in britain's interests, and for France and others, if Germany is cut too hard, it may not be able to pay sky-high war reparations, so in the later period, the suppression of Germany by various countries has been eased.
Especially in the era of the great economic crisis, all countries have no time to take care of themselves, and there is no time to take care of Germany, and after the "Ruhr crisis", Germany regained the opportunity for development.
However, Germany is well aware of its situation, its east is the strong Soviet Union, the west of France and Britain is not easy to provoke, if Germany rushes to move, so that the left and right attack, then Germany will inevitably fail, so the offensive plan should be carefully considered.
Under the balance between left and right, Germany first signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union to stabilize the east.
According to Germany's idea, it has a chip to negotiate terms with the Soviets, not to mention that Germany and the Soviet Union do not directly border, there is a Poland in the middle, and France and Germany have always been at odds, and they are still close together, and the risk is huge.
If Germany had first attacked the west and stabilized the Soviet Union, then after taking over Britain and France, it could turn back to attack the Soviet Union, a behemoth, and finally achieve The goal of Germany dominating Europe.
To negotiate with the Soviets, of course, it was necessary to give enough benefits, and the benefits given by Germany were Poland.
Originally, Poland was divided by the Soviet Union's predecessor, Tsarist Russia, as well as Germany and Austria-Hungary, but it was resurrected after World War I, and became a barrier for the Soviet Union to the west, and the Soviet Union naturally had ambitions for Poland.
Germany first took Czechoslovakia, the industrial center of Austria-Hungary, and then prepared to attack Poland.
At that time, although Poland had more than half a million troops, it could not be compared with Germany, because its combat effectiveness was not good.
Before the war officially began, Poland organized a large-scale escape campaign with the help of the British and others, and the code name of this plan was called "Beijing Operation". Sounds thunderous.
Before the fight started, it was really not a good idea, and Poland refused to run away at first.
But seeing that the situation was getting more and more wrong, the Poles were afraid, and finally chose to compromise, and at the end of August 1939 agreed to the escape plan proposed by the British, and the Poles prepared to send all the capital ships to Britain.
At that time, the plan was made by Vice Admiral Joseph Urug, and the plans he made were one called "Beijing Operation" and the other called "Operation Nanjing", both of which were plans for escape.
The difference was that operation Nanking was to let the Polish fleet go to the North Sea under the cover of submarines and reach London, while the Beijing operation was a backup plan, in case of a German attack, then the Polish destroyers and submarines would run separately and act separately.
The reason for the name Beijing Nanjing is actually not particularly interesting, but because Urug himself was a German naval officer stationed in the Far East and was familiar with China, and this strange action code name was easier to keep secret at the time.
During World War II, such a mess of military operation code names was very large, which is not a strange thing.
For example, when Germany attacked Denmark, the code name was "African Tourism", and later when the Allies attacked Italy, the code name was "Eskimos", looking at the name, I didn't know what to do.
The plan drawn up by the Poles, with the Nanjing operation as the main one and the Beijing operation as a backup, was soon implemented.
The Polish fleet had to pass through the narrow Oresund Strait to britain, and was directly targeted by the Germans, although the Germans did not attack, but the frightened Poles directly launched the Beijing action plan, and the ships went their separate ways.
During the run, two Polish ships were directly attacked by the Germans, but did not last long.
In the end, the Polish ships successfully escaped the German stalking and attack, but before they arrived in Britain, Poland received the news that the German army launched a full-scale attack on Poland, and the Second World War officially began.