1939     


Hitler now made the surprise move of making an alliance with his Communist arch-enemy, the Soviet Union. In a secret paragraph of the Molotov-Ribentropp pact the two powers defined their “spheres of influence” in Eastern Europe. This was of course a euphemism for drawing a post conquest border between the two countries. In the agreement Poland was to be split up while the Baltic States and Finland were in the “sphere” of the Soviets. The Germans were to det the Baltic port of Memel. This port was made a free city after the war, but was soon incorporated in to Lithuania. In 1939 the city was duly reincorporated into Germany.

Italy, eager to emulate the German successes, invaded and annexed the small Balkan Kingdom of Albania. When Germany demanded the annexation of Danzig and an exterritorial connection to East-Prussia, the world braced for war. Poland refused and Britain and France made a Defence Pact with Poland. Germany cancelled the German-Polish non-aggression Pact and the German-British Fleet Treaty.

When Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Poland was defeated while the Soviets marched into their pre-arranged part of Poland under the pretext of protecting the White-Russian and Ukrainian population of Poland’s Eastern Provinces, while Lithuania was allowed to retake the Vilna area, as a compensation for Memel. Once Poland was conquered the war went into a phase called “the phoney war” A period in which both parties would sit behind their defences while nothing much happened.