Blitzkrieg September 1, 1939: a new kind of warfare engulfs Poland

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Warsaw Mayor Stefan Starzynski struggled valiantly to rally the city's defenders, leading volunteers in digging trenches, taking to the radio to broadcast instructions. And crowds gathered outside the British and French embassies to greet their declaration of war by singing God Save the King and La Marseillaise. The crowds' hopes of rescue were doomed, however, for the British military effort during these first days consisted mainly of dropping propaganda leaflets on German military installations (among the cautious Britons' other preparations for war: killing all poisonous snakes in the London zoo). The French attempted only one feeble probe against Germany's ill- defended western frontier. And the Poles' own political and military leaders, perhaps considering discretion the better part of valor, were already abandoning Warsaw to its fate.

They were not the best of leaders even under the best of circumstances. Partitioned three times by its hostile neighbors during the 18th century, Poland had re-emerged into independence only in 1920, thanks to the Versailles Treaty, and its rulers were a rather inept junta of colonels, political heirs to the late founding father, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. Not only was the government something less than a democracy, but also its fiercely anti-Soviet policy led it to a pro-German stance as late as 1938, when it joined with Hitler in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.

As early as Sept. 4, the Polish government began evacuating Warsaw. The Bank of Poland sent its gold reserves south, to a haven near the Rumanian border. On Sept. 7 the Foreign Ministry told all diplomats that President Ignacy Moscicki, Premier Felicjan Slawoj-Skladkowski and their Cabinet ministers were leaving immediately by truck convoy for Naleczow, a resort 85 miles southeast of Warsaw. Finding no telephone lines working and almost no electricity, the ministers and diplomats trekked onward the next day to Krzemieniec, some 200 miles farther southeast. Throughout this flight, they were repeatedly attacked by German planes, for the Germans had long since broken all Polish communications codes. U.S. Ambassador Anthony J. Drexel Biddle reported being bombed 15 times and strafed four times. Bombed again in Krzemieniec, the officials moved yet an additional 100 miles to Zaleszczyki, on the Rumanian frontier, where they were bombed once again.

Nearby, equally cut off from everything, was Poland's military high command. If the Poles had adopted a more cautious strategy in the first place, pulling back to form a defensible perimeter, they might have lasted longer. But the Poles refused to abandon an inch of their land, and the Germans' surprise attack across the unfortified frontier threw the defenders into confusion. Military units got separated and cut off; refugees jammed the highways; communications systems broke down; the Germans not only knew Polish codes but also broadcast false information on Polish radio frequencies.

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