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Poland's army in 1939 was totally unprepared for the new warfare it found itself in. Poland, like many armies, had large cavalry forces. What modern aircraft the Polish Air Force had were caught on the ground.

England and France wearily knew that they could not sacrifice Poland the way Czechoslovakia had been. On September 3, 1939, the Allies declared war against National Socialist Germany. The declaration did not save Poland. Lodz was about to fall, and Krakow fell on September 6. The fort at Danzig fell on September 7, after a week of direct fire from German battleships.

After a surprise Polish maneuver inflicted heavy casualties, the Germans rallied and took 100,000 prisoners. By September 16, German artillery ringed Warsaw, and the Nazis gave the Poles an ultimatum: surrender or face bombardment. The Poles demurred, and endured heavy shelling until September 27. German troops occupied Warsaw on October 1.

On September 17, Soviet troops entered Western Poland. They stopped at Brest-Litovsk, where Germans had allowed the Bolsheviks to withdraw from World War I. Again the two nations carved up Poland.

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15y ago

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