[Doug64]

December 24, Sunday

Pope makes Christmas Eve peace appeal

In a delicately phrased Christmas address to his College of Cardinals today, Pope Pius XII speaks of the right of all nations—strong and weak—to life and independence. “When this equality of rights has been destroyed or damaged or imperiled, the juridical order calls for reparation and justice,” he adds.

Peace, he says, must be founded on disarmament. “The nations must be freed from the burden of armament races and from the danger that material forces may become not the defender but the tyrannical violator of right.” The pope appeals for a peace conference at which “lessons could be drawn from past experience.”

[Doug64]

December 25, Monday

King makes poetic broadcast to Empire

King George VI thanks the Empire in his Christmas Day broadcast for its sacrifices in coming to Britain’s aid in the war. “The Mother Country can never be sufficiently grateful to you,” he says. “We are all members of the great family of nations which is prepared to sacrifice everything that freedom of spirit may be saved.” He movingly quotes from God Knows, by Minnie Louise Haskins: “And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.’”

No peace on earth as armies realize that the war won’t be all over by Christmas

This is the day in the British Army when officers serve Christmas dinner to the other ranks. It is a tradition that belongs to the peacetime professional army of volunteers with a strong sense of regimental loyalty. In spite of the neither-war-nor-peace situation, the tradition has been preserved as far as possible. The mood is at once relaxed and uneasy. To the big question—why hasn’t the real fighting started?—nobody, it seems, has an answer.

On the other side, behind the fortifications of the Siegfried Line, Hitler is visiting the troops and joining in the Christmas celebrations. He is reported to have said that he will force Britain to its knees in eight months with his magnetic mines.

No grumbles at Christmas about the rations

Britons make the most of their traditional turkey and plum pudding Christmas dinner today. There may be less on the plates, but most families have hoarded sufficient quantities of luxuries like sweets and sugar to ensure a normal belt-loosening feast. If rationing is introduced, Christmas may become a much more spartan affair.

Preparation for the wartime feeding of 45,000,000 people has been underway for several months—with the Ministry of Food drawing on the last war’s experience to ensure fair distribution.

There have been several snags—the decentralization of London’s meat, fish, and vegetable markets, for instance, due to the threat of bombing, has caused chaos; and the government has found it difficult to cope with the large numbers of evacuees. Some areas have enjoyed a glut of bacon, others a shortage of butter; but real hardship is no worse than in peacetime.

[Doug64]

December 26, Tuesday

Australians fly in to join Britain

The main body of No. 10 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force, arrives today at Pembroke, Wales, from Australia to join Coastal Command. The squadron, equipped with Short Sunderland flying boats, is the first Dominion air force unit to be committed to active service in the European war. Australia’s Air Minister, J.V. Fairbairn, told them, “Australia is confident that you will play your part in whatever spheres you may be called upon to serve.”

Elements of all three Australian services have been committed to war roles after Australia declared it would stand by Britain. All vessels of the Royal Australian Navy have been put under British orders, and in October five Australian destroyers were sent to the Mediterranean to replace RN ships needed for home waters. But there are those who believe Australia must keep a wary eye on Japan, run by an aggressive military hierarchy and Germany’s ally through the anti-Comintern pact.

In September the Australian government decided that a 20,000-strong force, later designated the 6th Division, 2nd Australian Imperial Force, was to be created for service either at home or abroad. Earlier this month an advance party was sent to Palestine under the command of Lieutenant General Thomas Blamey, a veteran of Gallipoli in the Great War.

[Doug64]

December 27, Wednesday

Thousands die in Turkish earthquake

An earthquake devastates eastern and northern Anatolia, the central province of Turkey. It is feared that up to 20,000 may have died, with many thousands more now homeless in the bitter winter weather. There are seven violent shocks between 2 am and 5 am. The regions of Tokat and the Black Sea tobacco-growing centers of Samsun and Ordu are among the worst hit. An emergency relief operation is soon underway.

[Doug64]

December 30, Saturday

Japan and China sign secret treaty

A breakaway group of Chinese Nationalists led by the Kuomintang’s ex-Foreign Minister, Wang Chingwei, appears to have finalized agreement with Japan to set up a rival Nationalist government under Japanese protection. The Tokyo-educated Wang Chingwei, once Chiang Kai-shek’s main rival for the Kuomintang leadership, fled to Hanoi a year ago to start a peace movement in response to Japan’s call for a “new order in Asia.” Since the loss of Wuhan he has become convinced that the war against Japan is unwinnable.

[Potemkin]

December 30, Saturday

Japan and China sign secret treaty

A breakaway group of Chinese Nationalists led by the Kuomintang’s ex-Foreign Minister, Wang Chingwei, appears to have finalized agreement with Japan to set up a rival Nationalist government under Japanese protection. The Tokyo-educated Wang Chingwei, once Chiang Kai-shek’s main rival for the Kuomintang leadership, fled to Hanoi a year ago to start a peace movement in response to Japan’s call for a “new order in Asia.” Since the loss of Wuhan he has become convinced that the war against Japan is unwinnable.

Every nation has its Quisling or its Petain, convinced that they have to do the “sensible” thing and collaborate with the enemy.

[Doug64]

December 31, Sunday

Honors are equal in the war at sea

Despite the recent destruction of the Graf Spee, the year-end balance sheet of the war at sea is little better than even. Britain has lost 422,232 tons of shipping, compared with around 224,322 tons for the Germans. The British figure amounts to only two percent of the fleet, but the smaller German loss is five percent of their fleet. Britain’s blockade has resulted in the confiscation of around one million tons bound for Germany. But German naval activity may lead to the rationing of essential foodstuffs in Britain.

Hitler declares his “new order” in Europe

In his New Year message to the German people, Hitler says, “We shall only talk of peace when we have won the war. The Jewish-capitalistic world will not survive the twentieth century.” He looks forward to the creation of a new Europe under German leadership, a Europe liberated from “British tyranny.”

His message, with its emphasis on the “capitalistic enemy,” seems to be partly aimed at offering reassurance to Stalin. One of the most significant events of the past year, he says, was “the conclusion of the non-aggression and consultative pact with Soviet Russia.”

In a separate Order of the Day to the armed forces, Hitler is in a more somber mood. He tells them that in the effort to create a new order in Europe “the hardest struggle for the existence of the German people lies before us.”

Goering, for his part, strikes a bombastic note. He tells his Luftwaffe crews that, when Hitler gives the order, they will unleash against Britain “such an onslaught as has never before been known in the history of the world.”

In Finland Russians pushed back on 150-mile front

The battle which has been raging outside Suomussalmi for the past week has ended in the destruction of two Russian divisions. Some 270,000 Russian soldiers have died and their frozen bodies are stacked like cordwood in the forests. The Finns, who lost only 900 men in this classic battle of ambush and destroy, have now pushed the Russians back over their own border and General Wallensius, the commander of the Finnish Northern Army, has revealed that his men are now operating on Soviet territory. “We won’t let them rest,” he says, “we won’t let them sleep. This is a war of numbers against brains. We train our men to fight individually and they can do it, whereas the Russian can never rid himself of his natural gregarious instincts.”

Colonel Hjalmar Siilasvuo, who planned and led the destruction of the Russian divisions, has been promoted to general and sent south with the objective of inflicting a similar fate on another Russian division trapped by the “White Death” Finns in the forest at Kuhmo. The Russians have also been driven back over their frontier further south after their defeat at Tolvajarvi where they lost 2,000 dead and 600 prisoners. “There were,” say the Finns, “more Russians than we had bullets.”

[Potemkin]

Goering, for his part, strikes a bombastic note. He tells his Luftwaffe crews that, when Hitler gives the order, they will unleash against Britain “such an onslaught as has never before been known in the history of the world.”

[Doug64]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPNMO1pnZOc

To be fair, Goering was right ... until the US entered the war.

[Doug64]

January 1940

January 1, Monday

Your country needs two million of you

A total of two million men aged between 20 and 27 are now liable for call-up into the British armed forces following a royal proclamation this evening.

Since war was declared men have lined up to enlist voluntarily, although in nothing like the numbers of 1914. The new move is intended to structure the supply of men to the services, boosting Britain’s military potential to three million men.

Call-up groups are based on year of birth. Men aged 19 will register, but will not be liable for service until they are 20. First to be summoned for service (on March 1st) are those aged 23, and other groups will soon follow. All those eligible will be in uniform by the end of the year.

[Doug64]

January 2, Tuesday

Cod liver oil cures blackout blindness

People in Britain are being advised that they will see better in the blackout if they ensure that there are adequate amounts of Vitamin A in their diets. Recent experiments show that it improves the ability of the eyes to adjust quickly going from light to dark—as happens on going outdoors in the blackout. Cod liver oil capsules are recommended.

A survey shows that one person in five has had an accident in the blackout. Deaths in road accidents in the blackout have exceeded 2,000 in the four months since it began, 1,700 more than the average for the period in peacetime. Most of them are pedestrians.

The figures should improve. Cars are getting fewer and motorists have to paint the bumpers and running boards white. Curbs and tree trunks are being whitened. Cycle rear lights are compulsory. Next month a 20 mph speed limit will apply after dark and “summer” time begins on February 25th.

[Doug64]

January 3, Wednesday

Unity Mitford comes home on a stretcher

Unity Mitford went to Germany when Hitler’s brand of fascism attracted many English admirers. She returns today by stretcher, nursing a self-inflicted bullet wound.

Miss Mitford, aged 24, is a member of the large and remarkable family of Lord Redesdale; her sisters are renowned for their politics, writing, and socialite connections. Unity became known as the Storm Trooper Maiden in the Osteria Bavaria restaurant in Munich after Hitler invited her to his table; but when war broke out she went to the Englischer Garten and put a gun to her head.

[Doug64]

January 5, Friday

Minister quits after rows with generals

Leslie Hore-Belisha, Britain’s Secretary of State for War, has resigned from the Cabinet. Mr. Chamberlain has told him that he can have another senior post, but must be moved from the War Office. Mr. Hore-Belisha, who has quarreled with the army generals over strategy and his own insistence on better welfare services for the troops, has retorted that he prefers to leave the government.

[Doug64]

January 6, Saturday

Russia forced to go on the defensive

The Finns have succeeded in doing what the world thought was impossible: they have not only stopped the Russians, they have thrown them back on the defensive.

The Russians have been forced to abandon their purely offensive tactics and are now digging in opposite the entire middle of the Mannerheim Line which they have tried so strenuously and at such great cost to break.

They are barricading themselves behind tank traps and barbwire, building pillboxes, using dynamite to blow trenches in the frozen ground and siting their guns in defensive positions.

However, what is not certain is whether these positions are purely defensive or form a screen behind which a massive new offensive is being prepared.

The Russians have learned quickly how to fight a winter war; they have brought in their most modern aircraft, and now that the sea has frozen solid they have moved big guns over the ice to bombard the Finnish positions.

It is also understood here that General Timoshenko is to replace the failed Voroshilov and Meretskov as leader of the invaders. This shaven-headed, granite-faced soldier should exercise the iron control over the Russian forces which has been missing until now.

With his determination allied to rigorous training and new equipment, the Red Army may emerge from its defensive positions with renewed power.

BBC chief to be nation’s morale booster

Sir John Reith, the founder of the BBC and its first Director-General, is to take over as Minister of Information. He inherits a troubled ministry whose 999 civil servants, based in the Senate House of London University, have been criticized in press and parliament for their ineptitude at raising morale against the constant sniping of Germany’s “Lord Haw-Haw.”

Many functions of the Ministry of Information (MoI) have been taken away. The Press and Censorship Bureau is independent under Sir Walter Monckton, British propaganda to enemy countries is a joint effort of the MoI, the Foreign Office, and the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and postal censorship is a War Office function. The resulting muddle has left the MoI open to the charge that it has no information and no use.

Irish premier takes emergency powers

Eamon de Valera, the Prime Minister of Ireland, is calling for new emergency powers to aid a nationwide crackdown on the IRA. The move comes swiftly following an Irish High Court ruling which set free 53 men detained under the Emergency Powers Act. An amended and draconian version of the act has been proposed in the Dail, the Irish parliament.

The amended act would allow the government the right to arrest and detain suspects without trial. Most of the freed men—including several IRA leaders—are almost certainly “on the run.”

[Rich]

It is also understood here that General Timoshenko is to replace the failed Voroshilov and Meretskov as leader of the invaders. This shaven-headed, granite-faced soldier should exercise the iron control over the Russian forces which has been missing until now.

This was a Soviet invasion not a Russian invasion. Vorshilov and Timoshenko were both Ukrainians acting under the orders of Joseph Stalin, a Georgian.

[Doug64]

This was a Soviet invasion not a Russian invasion. Vorshilov and Timoshenko were both Ukrainians acting under the orders of Joseph Stalin, a Georgian.

Stalin turned on Ukraine, using deliberate mass starvation against them. And wherever these two generals might be from, the army is Russian--something Stalin will make serious propaganda use of in a couple years. Whatever else the USSR might be, it is also a Russian empire.

[Doug64]

January 8, Monday

Finns celebrate victory

The Finnish victory over two Soviet divisions at Suomussalmi is even greater than first reported. Details of the battle released by Finland’s General Staff today show that it ended with the utter annihilation of the 44th Division, trapped while going to the support of the defeated 163rd Division. Among the booty captures by the victorious Finns are 102 field guns, 43 tanks, over 300 vehicles, and 1,170 horses.

Helsinki is celebrating this crushing victory tonight. Church bells are ringing, flags fly from the houses, and strangers are embracing each other in the streets.

Eyewitness reports emphasize the ferocity of the fighting, with white-shrouded Finns hiding in pits dug along the forest tracks, waiting to engage the Soviet tanks with “Molotov cocktails” at close range. The effect of these weapons can be seen inside the burned-out tanks whose four-man crews met horrifying deaths by fire. Other Soviet troops froze to death, with nothing to protect them from the bitter cold except crude shelters of spruce branches.

The Finns, far better trained for winter warfare, allowed cold and hunger to do much of their work for them. They cut the Soviet supply lines and then waited for ten days while the bitter cold and dwindling food supplies sapped the Soviet Army’s resistance. When the Finns attacked, some of the opposing troops were too weak to stand, too cold to fight.

Hungry? A smear of butter, a spoonful of sugar, and a slice of bacon is your ration

Four months after the war began, rationing is introduced in Britain today when housewives have to take their ration books to buy butter, sugar, and bacon from the retailers with whom they have registered. The most keenly felt sacrifice will be of butter at only four ounces a week. Adults are allowed twelve ounces of sugar and four of bacon or uncooked ham—less of cooked ham.

Hotels are allowed to serve one-sixth of an ounce of butter—a circular pat the thickness of three pennies—with each meal, including afternoon tea. Some have installed special weighing machines. They can serve one-seventh of an ounce of sugar, or two lumps.

Rationing began in Germany last August and includes bread, meat, milk, margarine, cheese, and jam. The weekly ration is smaller than in Britain—approximately three ounces of butter and eight ounces of sugar per person.

British housewives will be allowed extra sugar for making marmalade by the Ministry of Food, providing that the Treasury and Board of Trade permit the import of Seville oranges. Obtaining the rationed food from Ireland is punishable by six months’ imprisonment, unless it is sent as small gifts.

[Rich]

Just to note on Ukraine. There is a pervasive idea that the Holdomor was committed as part of a policy of de-Ukrainisation. This is completely wrong, while the average person can be excused for their ignorance, professional historians have no excuse for peddling this untruth. De-Ukrainisation was a result of the Holdomor not its cause. The Soviet Union was never a nationalist project. This is very different from the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Korean or the Cambodian Communist parties that were strongly nationalist from the start.

In the early years of the revolution, Russian nationalist identity and Russian Orthodox Christianity were seen as the main internal enemies of the regime. Therefore minority languages and religions were encouraged. The policy of collectivisation was implemented across the Soviet Union. It just so happened that Ukraine became the centre of resistance to collectivisation. There's no doubt that the Soviet authorities were then in part motivated by a policy of collective punishment, but this was never the original aim. In the chaos of the Holdomor Ukrainian identity came to be seen as dangerous, hence the 180 degree about turn from Ukrainisation to de-Ukrainisation.

Still even in the Winter War, as far as I'm aware Russian nationalism was no part of Soviet propaganda, that would come later.

[Doug64]

Just to note on Ukraine. There is a pervasive idea that the Holdomor was committed as part of a policy of de-Ukrainisation. This is completely wrong, while the average person can be excused for their ignorance, professional historians have no excuse for peddling this untruth. De-Ukrainisation was a result of the Holdomor not its cause. The Soviet Union was never a nationalist project.

From Wikipedia:

While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made, whether the Holodomor constitutes a genocide remains in dispute. Some historians conclude that the famine was deliberately engineered by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement. Others suggest that the famine was primarily the consequence of rapid Soviet industrialisation and collectivization of agriculture. A middle position, held for example by historian Andrea Graziosi, is that the initial causes of the famine were an unintentional byproduct of the process of collectivization but once it set in, starvation was selectively weaponized and the famine was "instrumentalized" and amplified against Ukrainians to punish them for their rejection of the "new serfdom" and to break their nationalism.[[/list]

Still even in the Winter War, as far as I'm aware Russian nationalism was no part of Soviet propaganda, that would come later.

Yes, in a couple years, I said as much. And it worked because the USSR was mostly Russian.

[Doug64]

January 9, Tuesday

Jobless total rises despite war footing

People are shocked that, after only four months of war, the British unemployment figure for January stands at 1,603,000. Despite the call-up of over 1,500,000 men, the unemployed have increased by 120,000 over the average for last year.

The harsh winter weather is partly responsible, by reducing outdoor employment, together with a slump in the building trade. Because of government restrictions on civil building and the shortage of timber, 250,000 building workers have been laid off. Germany states that it has only 18,000 unemployed.