1 September 1939

On September 1st., 1939, 1.8 million German troops invaded Poland. The beginning of World Ward II is a fact.
The German army had a substantial numerical advantage over Poland. It had some 2,400 tanks organized into six panzer divisions. The Polish army had to do it with 180 tanks. The Luftwaffe forces consisted of 1,180 fighters where the Polish had to do it with 420 fighters.

The main axes of attack led eastwards from Germany through the western Polish border. Supporting attacks came from East Prussia in the north, and a co-operative German-Slovak tertiary attack by units from German-allied Slovakia in the south.
The never seen before “Blitzkrieg” tactics and bombing of towns and refugees caught the Poles off-guard.
By September 14th. Warsaw was surrounded.
By this time the Poles reacted, holding off the Germans at Kutno and regrouping behind the Wisla (Vistula) and Bzura rivers.

Although Britain and France declared war on September 3rd. the Poles received no help it had been agreed that the Poles should fight a defensive war for only 2 weeks during which time the Allies could get their forces together and attack from the west.

Despite the fact that Poland was only just beginning to modernise her armed forces and Britain and France forced her to delay mobilisation because they claimed it might be interpreted as aggressive behaviour, only about one-third of her total potential manpower was mobilised, Polish forces ensured that the September campaign was no "walk-over".
The Wehrmacht had under-rated Polish anti-tank capabilities that they had gone into action with white "balkankreuz", or crosses, prominently displayed in eight locations. These crosses made excellent aiming points for Polish gun-sights. At that time the Polish anti-tank gun was one of the best in the world. Also the Polish light tank, the first in the world to be designed with a diesel engine, proved to be superior to German tanks of the same class inflicting serious damage to the German forces, limited only by the fact that they were not used in concentrated groups. They were absorbed by the Germans into their own Panzer divisions at the end of the campaign.

On September 17^th, in accordance with a secret protocol of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet forces invaded from the east. Two weeks later Warsaw surrendered. On October 2nd the garrison on the Hel peninsula had to surrender. The Polesie Defence group surrendered on October 5th, after fighting on two fronts against both German and Soviet forces.
The Poles had held on for twice as long as had been expected and had done more damage to the Germans than the combined British and French forces managed to do in 1940. The Germans lost 50,000 men, 697 planes and 993 tanks and armoured cars.
Thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians managed to escape to France and Britain whilst many more went "underground" . A government-in-exile was formed with Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz as President and General Wladyslaw Sikorski as Prime Minister.

1 September 1939 Invasion of Poland 

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