In the early hours of August 31, 1939, several soldiers from Germany broke into Grevitz, a German city. After several minutes of fierce fighting, the intruders managed to capture a radio station in the city and broadcast a four-minute anti-German manifesto.
When we first saw this passage, we didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong, it was nothing more than a mutiny in the army, a coup d'état in the country, and so on.
However, when added a precondition that this is a group of German SS in Polish uniforms, there is a sense of déjà vu.
Germans
Do you have any friends who know?
On the night of September 18, 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army, after a conspiracy, blew up a section of the South Manchuria Railway track built by Japan near Wicker Lake in Shenyang, China, and blamed it on the Chinese army. Later, under this pretext, he shelled the North Camp of the Northeast China Army and successively occupied the three northeastern provinces.
9/18 Incident
These two events are almost identical, so we probably know what will happen between Germany and Poland after that.
A few hours after the Grewitz incident, at 4:40 a.m. on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
In the face of the German attack, the Polish army had no counterattack, and soon the entire line collapsed, and a month later, all of Poland fell.
Germany invaded Poland
What are the lesser-known reasons behind the German blitzkrieg against Poland? In the face of the German offensive, why was Poland, with millions of troops, so "vulnerable"? As a neighbor of Poland, what did the Soviet Union do? And why did Britain and France, which had made the original commitment to 'protect Poland', finally choose to "watch from the sidelines"?
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Paris Peace Conference
As for the reasons for the German blitzkrieg against Poland, we can trace it back to the Treaty of Versailles signed by Germany as a defeated country at the Palace of Versailles in Paris, France, after the First World War.
The Treaty of Versailles contained a number of provisions, one of which was the assignment of a strip of land west of the city of Danzig that led directly to the Baltic Sea, the "Polish Corridor" or the "Danzig Corridor".
More than 90% of the inhabitants of Danzig are Germans, but the external affairs of Danzig are controlled by Poland, and the two sides are full of contradictions. Moreover, due to the loss of the "Danzig Corridor", the German region of East Prussia had to be separated from the mainland and became an overseas enclave. With the passage of time, Germany will be even more angry about this.
Danzig
The above is only part of the reasons for Germany's invasion of Poland, and the other reasons we can see from the situation in Germany.
After World War I, as a defeated country, about one-eighth of Germany's territory was divided, losing one-eighth of its population, half of its steel base, one-sixth of its coal-producing areas and all of its colonies. In addition, Germany also needed to pay a total of 132 billion marks of war reparations to the victorious powers, the unemployment rate at home remained high, the currency depreciated, prices rose, and the economy was on the verge of collapse.
German industry
Contradictions in Germany are growing, and the people are desperate for a strong government to take them out of their predicament.
On September 14, 1930, six.4 million German voters voted for Hitler, and on January 30, 1933, Hitler came to power.
After annexing Austria in 1938 and conquering Czechoslovakia in 1939, Hitler finally set his sights on Poland.
Hitler
Initially, Germany wanted to adopt a foreign policy of returning to the city of Danzig and building a road at the "Danzig Corridor" to connect East Prussia with the German mainland.
But the Polish government strongly refused all the demands made by Germany, and in this context, signed a treaty with Britain and France. In addition, it is worth mentioning that in this treaty, Britain and France made a commitment to protect Poland.
On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact.
Sign the treaty
A week later, under the cover of the Air Force, German tanks and mechanized units crossed the German-Polish border and launched an attack on Poland.
At that time, Poland's overall military strength ranked sixth in Europe, and the army claimed to be the fourth in Europe, with millions of troops. No matter how you look at it, Poland is not a rival that can be despised, so what is the reason that Poland fell within a month of the start of the war?
Germany invaded Poland
Let's start with Poland itself.
First, the political situation in Poland is not stable.
In the seventeenth century, Poland gradually weakened. In the eighteenth century, Poland was destroyed by the division of the Soviet, Prussian and Austro-Hungarian Empires.
Thereafter, it was not until 1919, after the end of World War I, that Poland tore off a large piece of land from Tsarist Russia and Germany at that time and successfully restored its country.
Poland before World War I
At the beginning of the country, in just seven years, Poland has changed fourteen different governments in a row, and there are many contradictions between various forces, and the political situation in Poland as a whole has been in turmoil.
In 1926, Piłsudski staged a coup d'état and a new regime was established. It was only then that the political situation in Poland became relatively stable. However, piłsudski and the democratic parties have also been in constant conflict, and the political situation in Poland can only remain barely stable. Piłsudski died in 1935, and Polish politics was once again in turmoil.
Piłsudski
Second, Poland's economic situation is not very optimistic. Its territory is not small, and its population is not small, but the overall economic situation is not good. Poland is generally dominated by agriculture, its industry is backward, and its economic development is extremely slow.
The world economic crisis of 1929 made the Polish economy a mess. During this period, inflation and prices soared in Poland, the people's lives were extremely difficult, and the economy was on the verge of collapse on a sustained basis.
At the same time, in order to ensure its own security, Poland formed an army. The army was enormous, with millions of regular troops, and more than two and a half million reservists. At the same time, Poland also has more than 2,200 tanks and more than 2,100 aircraft.
Polish cavalry
But that was all, and polish regulars rarely conducted modern military training. Poland also lagged far behind Germany in terms of military and combat ideas.
In addition, the Polish army lacked equipment, and artillery, guns, etc. were also seriously backward. Although there were thousands of aircraft, most of them were old-fashioned aircraft from the First World War, and apart from some auxiliary aircraft, Poland could actually use fewer than five hundred aircraft for combat.
Moreover, Poland's external environment is not very peaceful.
Soviet-Polish war
Poland was between the Soviet Union and Germany, but its relations with the two countries were not good. Although it is not a common heaven, it is definitely not too much to describe it as incompatible.
First, after World War I, Poland acquired a large area of land in Germany, including the city of Danzig, and successfully formed a bond with Germany.
Then, taking advantage of the fact that the Soviet Union had not yet been established and a civil war broke out in Soviet Russia, and there was no time to take care of it, Poland sent troops to seize a large area of Soviet Russia, including Ukraine and Lithuania. In this context, when Germany invaded Poland, it was a fool's dream to expect the Soviet Union to send troops to save Poland.
Soviet-Polish war
Having turned to Poland's own situation, let us look at the situation in Germany.
After Hitler came to power, he began to increase the military budget on a large scale, and at the same time expanded the army, and the level of mechanization of the army also increased rapidly. The Germans were well-equipped and well-trained, which was one of the reasons for the rapid fall of Poland.
In 1939, half a year before the war began, there was a tension between Germany and Poland.
In early April, the German army received Hitler's secret instructions code-named "White Plan", with the Rapid Corps and Aviation Corps as the main forces, in conjunction with the large-scale mechanized corps, to prepare for an offensive against Poland.
Germany invaded Poland
On the northern frontier of Germany were the Third and Fourth Armies and the First Air Force, commanded by General Bork, commander-in-chief of Army Group North, including sixteen infantry divisions, three panzer divisions and two motorized divisions, for a total of twenty-one divisions.
On the southern border, the Eighth, Tenth and Fourteenth Armies and the Fourth Air Force, commanded by General Rondestedt, commander-in-chief of Army Group Group South, were stationed, including fifteen infantry divisions, three mountain divisions, eight new divisions, four armored divisions, four light divisions and two motorized divisions, for a total of thirty-six divisions.
The total strength of the German north and south fronts reached 887,000 people, with 2,800 tanks and nearly 2,000 aircraft.
Germans
Even as Germany was tightly entrenched in order to attack Poland, the Polish side did not relax its guard against Germany.
In the months leading up to the war, the Polish side was already secretly mobilizing for the war. By the end of August, Poland had deployed seven armies, four campaign clusters, nearly nine hundred light tanks and armored vehicles, more than nine hundred aircraft, more than four thousand artillery and mortars, thirty infantry divisions, eleven cavalry brigades, two motorized brigades, with a total strength of more than one million.
In addition, these main forces were dispersed by the Polish high command along the border from East Prussia to Slovakia, nearly two thousand kilometers.
Germany invaded Poland
Soon it was the early morning of September 1, 1939, and at 4:40, Germany invaded Poland.
The Luftwaffe took the lead in bombing, polish troops, arsenals, airfields, heavy loads, etc. were their main targets, and the aircraft located on the front line of the Polish war were scrapped in an instant, and artillery, vehicles and other materials were also directly destroyed.
At the same time, the warship Schleswig-Holstein also fired on time at the Polish garrison on the Westplatt Peninsula, firing the first shot in the European theater of World War II.
Five minutes later, two German armies from the north and south attacked Poland from the south, north, and west.
The Germans invaded Poland
The Polish army collapsed at the touch of a button.
From the perspective of the natural strength of the two sides, the Polish side is not bad, but the military quality of Polish officers is quite different from that of the German army, and in addition, Poland is far inferior to Germany in terms of the quantity and quality of weapons and equipment.
Moreover, before the war began, the Polish high command dispersed the main force of the army along the border, which was also the reason why Germany was able to easily break through the Polish line. The Germans tore apart the 800,000 troops distributed along the Polish border into several pieces, and the Polish army was quickly divided and surrounded.
Old photographs from the German invasion of Poland
After that, with the theory of modern blitzkrieg, the strong attack of mechanized troops, and the cooperation of tanks and air forces, the main forces of Germany on both the north and south sides advanced towards the Polish hinterland at a speed of 50 to 60 kilometers per day.
The Polish army knew almost nothing about the model of modern warfare, and its thinking remained stuck in World War I. Despite the bravery of the Polish army, the fate of defeat was already doomed.
Six days after the war began, the Polish government withdrew from the capital, Warsaw, and moved to Lublin.
Warsaw
By 8 September, the Germans had completely annihilated the Pommerian Army And severely damaged the Modlin Army, successfully occupying the "Danzig Corridor".
On 16 September, the Germans surrounded all Polish forces between two rivers, centered on Lublin.
In late September, the armies of Lublin and its vicinity surrendered one after another.
On 27 September, the Germans attacked Warsaw.
On 6 October, all of Poland fell.
The fall of Poland
The war lasted about a month, and the German army suffered more than 30,000 casualties, more than 10,000 dead, and the number of missing people was around 3,000. The Polish army suffered more than 130,000 wounds and more than 60,000 dead, and about 700,000 were captured by the Germans.
For the first time in this campaign, the German army used blitzkrieg. The latest weapons developments in the air and on land, aircraft and tanks, have also seen new ways of fighting.
At the very beginning of the campaign, the Luftwaffe took the most important step in the theory of blitzkrieg, namely, the seizure of air supremacy. Subsequently, the air force closely coordinated with the armored forces to carry out a deep advance, and Poland, with millions of troops, was immediately defeated, and in just one month, all of Poland fell.
German-Occupied Poland
As we mentioned before, the relations between the Soviet Union and Poland were not good, and it could even be said that the relations were very tense. So what was the Soviet Union doing when Germany invaded Poland?
To answer this question, we have to start with the Soviet-Polish war.
After the end of World War I, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Poland was successfully restored. However, the border issue between Poland and Soviet Russia was not elaborated in the treaty.
Poland naturally wanted to restore its former territory, but Soviet Russia was very tough and unwilling to cede land.
At this time, the Soviet-Russian civil war was in disarray, and Ukraine and Belarus were demanding independence.
Seeing this opportunity, Poland decided to send troops to expand its territory to the east.
In April 1919, Polish troops invaded Lithuania and captured the capital, Vilnius. In May, Polish troops invaded Ukraine.
As the internal and external wars were fought at the same time, Soviet Russia was overwhelmed. Faced with this situation, the Soviet Union made a compromise and proposed that Minsk and the Khmelnytsky region be assigned to Poland.
In December, negotiations began, and four months later, Poland finally realized that Soviet Russia was dragging its feet.
In April 1920, Poland went to war again, conquering Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.
Kiev during the war
In May, The Soviet Union finally freed its hand, and the situation on the battlefield began to reverse.
In July, the Russian army successfully recovered the cities of Kiev, Minsk, and Vilnius.
In August, the Polish army was completely defeated, and the Russian army attacked the Polish city of Warsaw.
Scenes from the Battle of Subo
In order to contain the intervention of Soviet Russia, Britain and France, and other countries, military support was provided to Poland. In addition, there was a rise in nationalism in Poland, coupled with leadership disputes within the Soviet army. In the end, Soviet Russia was defeated and Poland was victorious.
In October, the two sides ceased hostilities. Regarding the territorial dispute, Russia made substantial concessions.
In March 1921, Russia and Poland signed the Riga Treaty, and parts of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and Lithuania were ceded to Poland, ending the Soviet-Polish War.
On December 30, 1922, the Soviet Union was officially established.
USSR
Under this "deep hatred", it is more realistic to expect the Soviet Union to lend a helping hand to Poland than to watch the Soviet Union attack Poland.
In August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact.
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
On September 17, the Soviet Union invaded Poland and occupied western Ukraine, western Belarus and other regions.
Soviet Army
It is clear that the soviet attack on Poland was not complicated by the fact that it was necessary to recover the land that had been forced to be ceded.
Although it was not good for the Soviet Union to choose to cooperate with Germany in the joint division of Poland, it was really inseparable from the war waged by Poland that year.
"The country is small and not humble, the strength is small and not afraid of the strong, the rude and insulting neighbor, the greedy and clumsy, can die." "Han Feizi" said so.
We will stop here with regard to what the Soviet Union has done. Next, we will turn our attention to Britain and France.
On the third day after the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. On the Western Front, the French mobilized 110 divisions, the British mobilized 4 divisions, and the Germans only garrisoned 23 divisions. However, until the fall of all Poland, Britain and France, which had gathered millions of troops, did not take any action, and neither side even let go of a shot. As allies of Poland, why did Britain and France finally choose to "watch from the sidelines"?
First of all, the damage caused by the First World War has not been recovered by Britain and France. The First World War cost all the countries involved in the war dearly. After World War I, Britain and France suffered huge losses. Britain's economy is in a predicament, with debt to the United States amounting to £850 million. France has been struggling in the mire of economic crisis and the Great Depression for many years, and it has not been able to break free for a long time.
In addition, in the war, the total number of British and French casualties exceeded five million, and the people of the two countries had a strong anti-war and war-weary mood for a long time, and they were unable to avoid war.
Moreover, Britain and France themselves were not ready for war. As early as April 1939, after the directive code-named "White Plan" was issued, Hitler quickly transferred the main force to the Western Front in order to defend against the Anglo-French attack. However, in the face of this situation, Britain and France have never been able to respond positively. Until the day before germany attacked Poland, Britain and France were still mediating over meaningless peace talks.
Dunkirk evacuation
In addition, Britain and France lacked sober forecasts of the development of the war. Britain and France lacked an objective and accurate judgment on the future direction of war. Under the influence of the policy of appeasement, Britain and France retreated against Germany and were always reluctant to have a frontal conflict.
Moreover, Poland's defeat was so quick that Britain and France had never expected it. Britain and France always had to put their own national interests first, and in the British and French visions, the war between Germany and Poland could last for at least half a year, and when Germany fell into a war with Poland and could not get out, it was the best time for them to attack. In this way, Britain and France could not only fulfill their commitments with Poland, but also win victory at the least cost.
In addition, while Britain and France passively avoided war, Germany was not ready to go to war with Poland, Britain and France at the same time. Hitler had always used "peace" as smoke bombs, declaring that he had no intention of fighting Britain and France. Naturally, without Germany's pushback, it is not surprising that Britain and France have declared no war.
In order to avoid the spread of war in their own countries and to fight against the nascent Soviet power, Britain and France chose a policy of appeasement, not resisting aggression, but constantly retreating and indulging, but things did not go as they expected, and fascist Germany soon rose.
Hitler Youth
Germany then turned its guns on Britain and France.
On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded France.
On 14 June, the Germans captured Paris and France fell.
Not only that, but even the Anglo-French coalition forces in France were almost completely captured by the Germans, and if it were not for Hitler's erroneous military order to the armored forces that surrounded the Anglo-French forces at that time, I am afraid that the consequences would be worse than they are now.
The Germans conquerEd France
Of course, the situation in the early days of World War II was not much better.
Germany plundered vast amounts of wealth and resources from the occupied territories, and the national war machine was moving rapidly, and countries such as Britain and France paid a huge price for it.
Without the resources of the occupied areas as a backing, it is difficult for Germany to march forward. To a certain extent, at the beginning of World War II, Germany's victory was also full of luck and uncertainty. It was precisely because of the step-by-step retreat of Britain, France and other countries that the ambitions of fascist Germany began to expand step by step, and eventually the tiger was in trouble.
The German blitzkrieg against Poland was the beginning of the European theater of World War II. Since then, the war has gradually spread until it spreads to the whole world.
In the end, Britain and France did not get the peace they wanted.
Relying on the mercy of the enemy is unrealistic in itself, and the iron needs to be hardened. Peace can only be obtained by oneself, and only by earnestly improving one's own comprehensive national strength can we guarantee the long-term peace and stability of the country.
Old photographs from the World War II period
War has brought too much pain, and peace has not come easily, and it is done and cherished.
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