sincerity of the Western Allies in wishing to enter into a military alliance. On board, the British and French confer in the children’s playroom. French captain André Beaufre notes how agreeable life is on the City of Exeter with ‘copious repasts of curry served by Indian stewards in turbans’.
5 August, C HARTWELL (Westerham, Kent)
Churchill has written an article for this week’s Picture Post on the outbreak of the Great War, twenty-five years ago this week. The magazine asks: ‘Will There Be War Again?’
7 August, S OENKE -N ISSEN -K OOG (German-Danish border)
Birger Dahlerus hosts a meeting between Goering and seven British businessmen. They tell the field marshal both orally and in a memorandum that Britain will stand by its obligations to Poland. Goering gives them his solemn assurance ‘as a soldier and statesman’ that he will do everything he can to avert war. Dahlerus will be continuing his unofficial peacemaking for the rest of the month, going backwards and forwards between Britain and Germany.
8 August, L ONDON
Winston Churchill broadcasts to the United States. He tells his American listeners, ‘If Herr Hitler does not make war, there will be no war. No one else is going to make war. Britain and France are determined to shed no blood except in self-defence or defence of their Allies.’ He finishes by calling for a future system of human relations ‘which will no longer leave the whole life of mankind dependent upon the virtues, caprice, or the wickedness of a single man’.
8 August, W ORTHING
‘News still bad from Danzig and Hitler ominously quiet – ugly!’ (Joan Strange)
9 August, B ERLIN
Luftwaffe chief Goering is reported as saying, ‘The Ruhr will not be subjected to a single bomb. If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Goering: you can call me Meier.’ (Meier is the German equivalent of Smith or Jones.)
9 August, M ARGATE
Fifteen London holidaymakers take part in a snap poll on the international situation. ‘Do you think we should go to war to defend Danzig?’ they are asked. Seven say yes, four no, and four are undecided. They are then asked, ‘Do you think there will be a war?’ Eight say no, four yes and three are undecided. ‘Do you think Hitler wants war, or is he bluffing?’ is the final question and all fifteen reply, ‘No, he’s bluffing.’
9 August, W EYMOUTH
King George VI inspects 133 ships of the Royal Navy’s Auxiliary Fleet. Many people are reminded that a similar review by the King’s father took place just before war broke out in 1914.
9 August, L ONDON
There is a practice blackout in the capital tonight. Superintendent Reginald Smith of the Metropolitan Police’s ‘K’ Division goes to the top of Marble Arch to see how effective it is. The superintendent thinks London looks like ‘a Gruyere cheese with a candle behind it’. In blacked-out Trafalgar Square a number of drunks splash in the fountains, bawling out the song, ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’.
10 August, B ERLIN
Reinhard Heydrich gives orders to SS major Alfred Naujocks to simulate an attack on the Gleiwitz radio station near the border with Poland. It must look as if the attacking forces are Poles.Heydrich tells Naujocks, ‘Practical proof is needed for these attacks of the Poles for the foreign press as well as German propaganda.’ Heydrich gives the operation the codename Himmler after his chief, the head of the SS.
11 August, O BERSALZBERG
League of Nations High Commissioner in Danzig, Swiss diplomat Carl Burckhardt, has an audience with Hitler, ‘the most profoundly feminine man’ he has ever encountered. Burckhardt has also never met before ‘any human being capable of generating so terrific a condensation of envy, vituperation and malice’ as Hitler does. The Fuehrer tells Burckhardt that ‘the Polish army already has the mark of death stamped on its countenance’. Then Hitler, with astonishing frankness, tells the Swiss that everything he is
5 August, C HARTWELL (Westerham, Kent)
Churchill has written an article for this week’s Picture Post on the outbreak of the Great War, twenty-five years ago this week. The magazine asks: ‘Will There Be War Again?’
7 August, S OENKE -N ISSEN -K OOG (German-Danish border)
Birger Dahlerus hosts a meeting between Goering and seven British businessmen. They tell the field marshal both orally and in a memorandum that Britain will stand by its obligations to Poland. Goering gives them his solemn assurance ‘as a soldier and statesman’ that he will do everything he can to avert war. Dahlerus will be continuing his unofficial peacemaking for the rest of the month, going backwards and forwards between Britain and Germany.
8 August, L ONDON
Winston Churchill broadcasts to the United States. He tells his American listeners, ‘If Herr Hitler does not make war, there will be no war. No one else is going to make war. Britain and France are determined to shed no blood except in self-defence or defence of their Allies.’ He finishes by calling for a future system of human relations ‘which will no longer leave the whole life of mankind dependent upon the virtues, caprice, or the wickedness of a single man’.
8 August, W ORTHING
‘News still bad from Danzig and Hitler ominously quiet – ugly!’ (Joan Strange)
9 August, B ERLIN
Luftwaffe chief Goering is reported as saying, ‘The Ruhr will not be subjected to a single bomb. If an enemy bomber reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Goering: you can call me Meier.’ (Meier is the German equivalent of Smith or Jones.)
9 August, M ARGATE
Fifteen London holidaymakers take part in a snap poll on the international situation. ‘Do you think we should go to war to defend Danzig?’ they are asked. Seven say yes, four no, and four are undecided. They are then asked, ‘Do you think there will be a war?’ Eight say no, four yes and three are undecided. ‘Do you think Hitler wants war, or is he bluffing?’ is the final question and all fifteen reply, ‘No, he’s bluffing.’
9 August, W EYMOUTH
King George VI inspects 133 ships of the Royal Navy’s Auxiliary Fleet. Many people are reminded that a similar review by the King’s father took place just before war broke out in 1914.
9 August, L ONDON
There is a practice blackout in the capital tonight. Superintendent Reginald Smith of the Metropolitan Police’s ‘K’ Division goes to the top of Marble Arch to see how effective it is. The superintendent thinks London looks like ‘a Gruyere cheese with a candle behind it’. In blacked-out Trafalgar Square a number of drunks splash in the fountains, bawling out the song, ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’.
10 August, B ERLIN
Reinhard Heydrich gives orders to SS major Alfred Naujocks to simulate an attack on the Gleiwitz radio station near the border with Poland. It must look as if the attacking forces are Poles.Heydrich tells Naujocks, ‘Practical proof is needed for these attacks of the Poles for the foreign press as well as German propaganda.’ Heydrich gives the operation the codename Himmler after his chief, the head of the SS.
11 August, O BERSALZBERG
League of Nations High Commissioner in Danzig, Swiss diplomat Carl Burckhardt, has an audience with Hitler, ‘the most profoundly feminine man’ he has ever encountered. Burckhardt has also never met before ‘any human being capable of generating so terrific a condensation of envy, vituperation and malice’ as Hitler does. The Fuehrer tells Burckhardt that ‘the Polish army already has the mark of death stamped on its countenance’. Then Hitler, with astonishing frankness, tells the Swiss that everything he is
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