Britain and France Declare War

                  September 1, 1939 was a huge turning point for many countries, and many were re-evaluating their ties and bonds with their neighboring and allied countries. German troops swarmed across the Polish border, and and performed a giant attack against the country. Hitler had been planning this attack since March ever since his troops took occupancy of the rest of Czechoslovakia. The Poles suspected an attack so they tried to prepare their defense as much as possible, which as learned before- wasn’t enough. Their horses and defense based on World War l was no match to the tanks that were going to be overly used in World War ll, leading to the Nazi Germany taking over all of the Poland territory.

                  Because of the attacks on the Polish, Britain and France who are both allies of Poland declare war on Germany. The first casualty of this declaration was not on the Germans but the British. Their ocean liner called, “Athenia” was sunken by a German U-30 submarine that had assumed that it was armed and of danger to them. There were more than 1,1000 passengers on board of this ship- 112 people lost their lives. Twenty-eight of the people were claimed to be American citizens. However, this act did not even faze President Roosevelt as he declared that no one was to “thoughtlessly or falsely talk of America sending its armies to European fields.” At this point of the war, America would stand neutral and not associate themselves with the conflict at all.   

                  Britain showed no fear and took a clear standpoint against the situation. They decided to drop 13 tons of anti-Nazi propaganda leaflets all over Germany. Soon after this they began bombing all sorts of German ships on September 4, which caused in many deaths of the Germans. While they were working under strict orders to not harm any German civilian, German military had no limits in that aspect.

                  At this point France decided to take charge and come in offensively on German’s western border. While they thought this would be a strong approach, they were proven wrong by a narrow 90-mile window that lead to the German front. This was surrounded by the borders of Luxemborg and Belgium, who had the time were both neutral countries and they didn’t want to disturb. The Germans mined or blocked this passage, which put a great stall on the efforts of the French. While there was not a great amount of countries involved at this point, it would shortly escalate and leave the whole World desperate and fighting for freedom and peace.