1939 - Political Events

Political Events

A mutual nonaggression pact signed at Moscow August 23 stuns the world by effecting a rapprochement between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Adolf Hitler has taken over the rest of Czechoslovakia, occupying Bohemia and Moravia (see 1938), and has annexed Memel. Britain's Military Training (Conscription) Act has received royal assent May 26; an Anglo-French mission has arrived at Moscow August 4 to discuss cooperative action against Hitler but is far too late: Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, 46, signs the agreement, as does Josef Stalin's new commissar of foreign affairs V. M. Molotov, now 49, who has replaced the Polish-born Maxim Litvinov May 1; the British sign a pact with Poland August 25 pledging aid in the event of an attack on the Poles. The Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact (Hitler-Stalin pact) contains secret protocols providing for a Soviet takeover of the Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (see 1940).

World War II begins September 1 as German troops and aircraft attack Poland, bombing Warsaw and using well-armored Czech-built tanks to supplement their less substantial German-made machines. Hitler has demanded August 26 that the Poles cede Danzig (whose population is largely German) and mutual assistance pacts with Britain and France be scrapped. The French have evacuated 16,000 children from Paris August 30 in anticipation of the conflict and Paris declares martial law September 1. Britain begins evacuating city children to the countryside, billeting them in the homes of volunteers for the duration (see Children's Overseas Reception Board, 1940). Polish forces who resist the German invasion are quickly overpowered, but some 20 Polish mathematicians have been working to break down the secret German "Enigma" code (see 1938); one of them, Marian Rejewski, has found the key to deciphering the complicated machine-based code, he has offered it to the French and they have shown little interest, but London-based Canadian business tycoon (and World War I RAF ace) William S. Stephenson hears of the coding machine before the German invasion and he alerts British intelligence. The Germans issue new sets of instructions each day on how to set up the wiring for their transmitters and receivers, and it will take the British months even to begin to penetrate Enigma's complexities (see 1940).

Britain and France declare war on Germany September 3, honoring pledges to support Poland, and 10 hours later a German U-boat commander sinks the 13,581-ton Cunard liner Athenia west of Scotland, believing her to be an armed merchant cruiser. She has been carrying evacuees from Liverpool to Canada, the destroyers H.M.S. Electra, Escort, and Fame pick up survivors, as do the freighters City of Flint and Southern Cross, but 118 of the 1,103 passengers and crew from the Athenia are lost, including 28 of the 316 Americans aboard. Adolf Hitler gives orders September 4 that no more passenger ships are to be attacked under any circumstances (but see 1940).

French troops cross into the Saarland September 4 (Britain, like Germany, has since last year been spending 15 percent of her Gross National Product on armaments, but Britain's GNP is larger than Germany's).

Krupp of Essen increases its output of tanks to meet the needs of the Wehrmacht (see 1933). In the next 5½ years it will provide a continuing supply of munitions and armaments, moving entire factories from occupied countries back to Germany, using the labor of more than 100,000 concentration camp inmates (of whom an estimated 70,000 will die), building submarines in the Netherlands, and developing new weapons that will be tested in Sweden.

President Roosevelt declares U.S. neutrality September 5; former president Herbert Hoover spearheads a U.S. nonintervention movement with support from Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Sen. Harry F. Byrd (D. Va.), Sen. William Borah (R. Idaho), Sen. Burton K. Wheeler (R. Mont.), Henry Ford, and Charles A. Lindbergh. Lindbergh makes his first anti-intervention speech on U.S. radio September 17, arguing that Stalin is as much to be feared as Hitler (see 1940; America First, 1941).

Two torpedoes from a German submarine 350 miles west of Lands End hit the 22,500-ton converted British escort carrier H.M.S. Courageous September 17; the first Royal Navy casualty of the war, she goes down in 15 minutes, killing 576 men, including 26 from the Fleet Air Arm and 36 RAF servicing crewmen.

Soviet troops invade Poland from the east September 17, Warsaw surrenders to the Germans September 27, and Poland is partitioned September 28 between Germany and the USSR.

Hungary's pro-fascist, anti-Semitic premier Béla Imrédy resigns February 16 following revelations by the opposition that he himself is of Jewish descent. Minister of education Gróf Pál Teleki, 59, becomes premier and works to dissolve the country's various fascist parties while permitting anti-Semitic laws to stand. A delegate to the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919, Teleki has advocated a revision of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon and supported last year's dismemberment of Czechslovakia in hopes of gaining German help to recover territories lost under terms of that treaty. Former premier Kálman Darányi dies at his native Budapest November 1 at age 53.

London and Paris recognize Spain's Franco regime February 28, and the Spanish civil war ends March 28 with the fall of Madrid to Generalissimo Franco. The Second Republic's president Manuel Azaña y Díaz goes into exile in France, Germany and Italy withdraw their forces by late June, and Spain will be neutral in the new European war, having lost upwards of 410,000 in battle or by execution (more than 200,000 have died of starvation, disease, or malnutrition, and some estimates put the total dead at well over 1 million).

Italian forces invade Albania April 7. Victor Emmanuel III has called Benito Mussolini's plan to take over the Balkan nation an unnecessary risk, but Mussolini has demanded that Kong Zog accept occupation in an ultimatum delivered March 25, his troops easily overcome Albanian resistance, the king flees with his family to Greece, and Mussolini sets up a puppet government headed by the richest man in Albania. Brussels-educated law teacher Enver Hoxha, 30, loses his teaching post for refusing to join the newly-organized Albanian Fascist Party and opens a tobacco shop at Tiranë (see 1941).

Romania's premier Armand Calinescu resists his country's Iron Guard, there are reports that he plans to set the Ploesti oil fields ablaze to keep then out of fascist hands, but assassins from Germany kill him at Bucharest September 21 at age 46 (see 1940).

A British expeditionary force of 158,000 is in France by late September. "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," says Winston Churchill in a radio broadcast October 1. Churchill has been first lord of the admiralty since September 3 and has set up the Special Operations Executive "to set Europe ablaze" through sabotage and subversion (see 1940).

The Sten (submachine) gun issued to British Commonwealth troops fires at a rate of 550 rounds per minute (see Bren gun, 1937), but its 32-round box magazine tends to jam if more than 30 rounds are loaded. It weighs just over six pounds unloaded, is 30 inches long, has a 7½-inch barrel, and its readily removable steel-frame butt makes it easy to hide. Hundreds of thousands of the weapons will be distributed to Europe's underground resistance forces in the next few years.

Three torpedoes from a U-boat hit the 31,200-ton Royal Navy battleship H.M.S. Royal Oak at her moorings in Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands October 14; the first British capital ship to be lost in the war, she rolls over and sinks within 15 minutes, 391 men of her 1,234-man crew are saved, but the 833 killed include her commander and 24 officers.

British intelligence director Sir Hugh Sinclair dies November 4 at age 66, having used his own money to set up the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park in 1919 and headed SIS (later M16) since 1923.

A new Neutrality Act adopted by Congress November 4 contains a "cash and carry" formula devised by presidential adviser Bernard Baruch that permits belligerent nations to buy U.S. arms and strategic materials if they pay in cash and transport the material in their own ships (see 1937; 1941).

Belgian World War I hero Adolphe Max dies at Brussels November 6 at age 69, still burgomaster of his native city.

Iraq's king Ghazi I is killed in an auto accident April 4 in Switzerland at age 26 (see 1936). Official accounts say the king was drinking, but the country has had seven military coups in this decade, and Iraqi nationalists say the British arranged the accident; the British consul is stoned to death in the ensuing riots at Mosul. Ghazi is succeeded by his 3-year-old son, who will reign until 1958 as Faisal II (see 1941).

Former Iraqi administrative inspector Gen. John B. Glubb of Transjordan's Arab Legion becomes commander of Jordan's internal police force, which he joined in 1930 as a brigadier. Now 42, he will transform the Legion into a disciplined army that will see action in support of the Allies in the war.

A British White Paper issued in May by London effectively repudiates the pro-Zionist Balfour Declaration of 1917 (see 1938). Britain has ruled Palestine under a League of Nations mandate since 1922. While the White Paper does authorize admission of 25,000 Jewish refugees, it limits admissions of Jews to 50,000 for the next 5 years, envisioning the establishment of an independent nation that will be predominantly Arab with Jewish immigration restricted; immigration is to cease completely by 1944 (see 1941).

Turkey signs a mutual assistance pact with Britain and France at Ankara October 19 and receives the Syrian province that includes Antioch, which the Turks will call Antakya.

The Women's Royal Navy Service (WRNS) recruits 3,400 "Wrens" by November to serve in antiaircraft batteries and naval command centers. The Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), the women's branch of the British Army, has 24,000 women aged 18 to 35, the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), which is linked to the RAF, 8,800 (it has raised its age limit to 50 for women with experience in radar plotting of enemy aircraft), and nursing services 8,000. Some 25,000 women have registered for the Women's Land Army and recruiting has been suspended. Women in all the uniformed services find to their dismay that they have been assigned mostly to menial positions such as cooking, cleaning, and clerical work, but many are pressed into use as drivers and mechanics. The Women's Voluntary Service for Civil Defence (WVS) founded last year by the Marchioness of Reading has had 500,000 volunteers.

Stalin renounces a Finno-Soviet nonaggression pact November 28 and demands that Finland turn over some territory to safeguard approaches to Leningrad and Murmansk from possible German control, but the Finns refuse. Soviet troops invade Finland November 30, and Soviet planes bomb Helsinki and Viipuri. Former prime minister Väinö Tanner, now 58, becomes foreign minister and supports his government's hard line against Soviet demands. The Finns put up a spirited defense, and their successes expose the vulnerability of the Red Army; Stalin dismisses the general in charge December 23 (see 1940).

Siam's dictator Luang Phibunsongkhram changes his nation's name to Thailand (see 1938; 1940; 1946).

India's British viceroy Linlithgow declares war without consulting India's political leaders. The provincial ministries in Congress resign in protest, and nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose is imprisoned for civil disobedience (see 1938); put under house arrest to await trial, he escapes, makes his way to Berlin by way of Peshawar and Afghanistan, and asks Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to support him in an invasion aimed at ousting the British from India. Bose makes propaganda broadcasts to Britain and India, but although he receives permission to organize prisoners of war into an Indian Legion the legion's command and training remain in German hands (see 1942; Bose, 1943).

Tokyo scraps the anti-Comintern pact of 1936 at news of the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact, protesting the German action. Manchurian and Mongolian forces have been fighting since May in a conflict between Soviet Russia and Japan; Japan has taken the international treaty port of Shautou (Swatow) June 21, and Soviet and Mongolian troops have decisively beaten the Japanese August 20 in the Battle of Nomonhan; most of the best Soviet officers have been liquidated in Stalinist purges, but tank commander Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov, 43, has survived and defeats the Japanese 6th Army in Outer Mongolia. Former Chinese warlord Wu Peifu dies at Beijing (Peking) December 4 at age 66.

Former Cuban president Gerardo Machado y Morales dies in exile at Miami Beach March 29 at age 67.

Peru has a presidential election in December that ends in victory for Lima banker Manuel Prado Ugarteche, 50, who has been supported by the Apristas. He succeeds Gen. Oscar Benavides and will serve until 1945, supporting the Allies in the war with the Axis powers.

A federal court convicts veteran Kansas City Democratic Party political boss Thomas J. (Joseph) Pendergast, 66, of evading taxes on an income of $443,550 (allegedly including a $315,000 bribe accepted from some fire-insurance companies for siding with them in a rate-increase dispute). Pendergast has run the city's political machine for nearly 25 years; he will serve a year and a day in a federal prison.

The Hatch Act (Federal Corruption Practices Act) passed by Congress August 2 bars U.S. federal employees from taking an active role in political campaigns (see Corrupt Practices Act, 1925). The purpose of the measure is to "prevent pernicious political activities," keep party politics out of government agencies, and prevent a return to the spoils system (see Pendelton Act, 1883); the coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats that has pushed through the bill will adopt another bill early next year restricting political activity on the part of many state employees (see 1940).

Onetime U.S. opera singer Helen Douglas (née Gahagan), 38, becomes chair of the John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Migratory Workers. Wife of Hollywood actor Melvyn Douglas, the Boonton, N.J.-born beauty resigns in September as U.S. communists begin objecting to the anti-fascist stands of liberal organizations. Douglas writes to her friend Congressman H. Jerry Voorhis that she finds herself "in the absurd position . . . of most liberals today. The communists call us reactionary and the reactionaries call us communists" (see 1944).

The U.S. submarine Squalus sinks in about 250 feet of water off Hampton Beach, N.H., May 23, drowning 26 of the 59 men aboard when a valve fails to close (the 33 others remain alive through the efforts of a crewman who keeps the forward compartment relatively dry by shutting a watertight door, some escape by using artificial lungs devised by naval officer Charles Momsen, the others by using a diving bell, or rescue chamber); the British submarine Thetis sinks in Liverpool Bay June 1, killing 99.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Pierce Butler dies at Washington, D.C., November 16 at age 73. The most reactionary member of the court, he has consistently opposed progressive taxes, welfare legislation, and efforts to limit the freedom of large corporations; he has refused to resign.

The Battle of the River Plate December 13 off the South American coast ends with the British cruiser H.M.S. Exeter sustaining heavy damage from the 11-inch guns of the German cruiser (or pocket battleship) Graf Spee, whose guns can fire 670-pound shells 17 miles and whose catapult-launched plane can spot prey. The Exeter's sister cruisers H.M.S. Ajax, commanded by Admiral Charles Woodhouse, 46, and H.M.N.Z.S. Achilles attack the Graf Spee from both sides, making it impossible for her to fight them both off, and drive her into Montevideo Harbor. International law requires that a warship leave any neutral port within 72 hours; the Graf Spee's captain is persuaded by false radio reports that a superior British force is about to arrive, has his crew transferred to other vessels, and orders the ship scuttled in the harbor December 17 to keep her advanced technology from falling into British hands (when he learns that he has been tricked he will commit suicide).

A U.S. Army test pilot takes off from San Diego's Lindbergh Field December 29 in a prototype B-24 bomber. Built by Consolidated Aircraft and powered by four 1,200-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engines, the low-altitude bomber is 67 feet long, has a 110-foot wingspan, weighs 36,500 pounds empty, can reach a speed of 290 miles per hour at 25,000 feet but has a cruising speed of 215 mph, a range of 2,100 miles, and the first tricycle landing gear to be installed on a heavy operational aircraft. The B-24 Liberator is slightly smaller than the B-17 Flying Fortress and will be mass produced from late 1941 through May 1945, not only by Consolidated (at Fort Worth as well as at San Diego), Ford Motor Company (at Willow Run), Douglas Aircraft (at Tulsa), and North American Aviation (at Dallas), with a total of 18,188 coming off the assembly lines.