Declarations of War during World War II
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File:Judea-declares-war-on-germany-1933.png
London Daily Express newspaper, 24 March 1933 following the January election victories of the German NSDAP: "Judea Declares War on Germany: jews Of All The World Unite".
- See also: Causes of World War II
Timeline of Declarations of War[1] during World War II:
1939
File:War declared by Britain and France.png
The beginning of World War II in Europe; Daily Herald from 4 September 1939.
File:Campaign In Norway, Norwegian Dispositions And Initial German Operations, 9 April 1940.png
Germany was dependent on iron ore from Sweden and was worried, with justification, that the Royal Navy would attempt to disrupt those shipments, 90% of which originating from Narvik. Operation Weserübung was therefore planned and executed without war declaration. The "enemies" were not Norway or Denmark, but the British, and the United Kingdom had already declared war on the German Reich on 3 September 1939.
- 25 March 1939 - Poland begins mobilisation of its armed forces against Germany[2]. Mobilisation is generally considered a de facto declaration of war.[3][4][5][6]
- 30 August 1939 - Poland accelerates her full mobilisation against Germany.
- 31 August/1 Sept 1939 – Polish threat/declaration of war against Germany (around Midnight)[7][8][9]
- 1 September 1939 – After their mobilisation and numerous Polish provocations at Danzig, and the bloody persecution of ethnic Germans[10][11][12][13] since 1919 by Poland in the occupied German territories of West Prussia, Posen, and parts of Lower and Upper Silesia, the government of Germany considered these actions as constituting acts of war.[14] These continued, including the attack on "Sender Gleiwitz", and the government put into operation "Case White", the Poland Campaign (), to defend it's people.
- 3 September 1939 – United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany and plunged Europe and the world into World War II (= Causes of World War II).
- 3 September 1939 – India, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Germany.
- 6 September 1939 – South Africa declared war on Germany.
- 10 September 1939 – Canada declared war on Germany.
1940
- 10 May 1940 – The Netherlands declared war on Germany.
- 10 June 1940 – Italy declared war on UK and France.
- 23 November 1940 – Belgian government in exile declared war on Italy.
1941
- 25 June 1941 – Finland declared war on the Soviet Union.
- 27 June 1941 – Hungary declared war on the Soviet Union.
- 7 December 1941 – Empire of Japan declared war on the United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
- 7 December 1941 – United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand declared war on Finland, Romania and Hungary.
- 7 December 1941 – Panama declared war on Japan.
- 8 December 1941 – The United States of America, United Kingdom, Australia, Costa Rica, The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, The Netherlands[15], New Zealand and Nicaragua declare war on Japan.
- 9 December 1941 – Republic of China declared war on Japan[16], Italy and Germany.
- 11 December 1941 – Germany and Italy declared war on the United States of America.[17]
- 11 December 1941 – The United States of America declared war on Germany and Italy.
- 12 December 1941 – Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia declare war on the United States of America and Great Britain.
- 13 December 1941 – United Kingdom, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa declare war on Bulgaria.
- 14 December 1941 – Croatia declared war on the United States of America and Great Britain.
- 16 December 1941 – Czechoslovak government in exile declares war on all countries at war with the United States of America, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.
- 17 December 1941 – Albania declared war on the United States of America.
- 19 December 1941 – Nicaragua declared war on Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.
- 20 December 1941 – Belgium declared war on Japan.
1942
- 6 January 1942 – Australia declared war on Bulgaria.
- 25 January 1942 – Great Britain, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa declare war on Thailand.
- 22 May 1942 – Mexico declared war on Germany, Italy and Japan.
- 22 August 1942 – Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy.
1943
- 2 April 1943 – Bolivia declared war on all Axis powers of Axis members.
- 9 September 1943 – Iran declared war on Germany.
- 13 October 1943 – Italy (after switching sides) declared war on Germany.
1944
- 25 August 1944 – Romania (after switching sides) declared war on Germany.
- 21 September 1944 – San Marino declared war on Germany.
1945
- 7 February 1945 – Argentina and Paraguay declared war on Germany and Japan.
- 12 February 1945 – Peru in state of belligerency with Germany and Japan.
- 15 February 1945 – Venezuela and Uruguay declared war on Germany and Japan.
- 23 February 1945 – Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan.
- 24 February 1945 – Egypt declared war on Germany and Japan.
- 26 February 1945 – Syria declared war on Germany and Japan.
- 1 March 1945 – Saudi Arabia declared war on Japan.
- 3 March 1945 – Finland declared war on Germany.
- 11 April 1945 – Chile declared war on Japan.
- 6 July 1945 - Norway declared war on Japan
See also
- Phoney War
- Causes of World War II
- Campaign in Poland
- Bombing of Germany during World War II
- Germanophilia
Literature
- Adolf Hitler: The Great Tragedy: Germany's Declaration of War against the United States of America,[18] 2012, ISBN 978-1300127703
- Julia S. Torrie: "For Their Own Good": Civilian Evacuations in Germany and France, 1939-1945, Berghahn Books (2010), ISBN 978-1845457259
- Nicholas Harman: Dunkirk: the Necessary Myth, Jove (1990), ISBN 978-0340517857
- German White book
External links
References
- ↑ A declaration of war is an act by which one nation goes to war against another. It may take several forms such as the expiry of an ultimatum, or mobilisation. A formal declaration may be a performative speech (not to be confused with a mere speech) or the signing of a document by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more states. The official international protocol for declaring war was defined in the Hague Convention (III) of 1907 on the Opening of Hostilities
- ↑ Poland had begun partial mobilisation as early as March 25th which continued throughout the summer ~ Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939 edited by Professor E. L. Woodward, M.A., F.B.A.,, Rohan Butler, M.A., and Anne Orde, M.A., Third Series, vol.v, 1939, HMSO, London, 1952, p.266., and requested "a British loan to Poland for Military purposes" on 23 April 1939.
- ↑ French General Raoul de Boisdeffre told Tsar Alexander III in 1894 that mobilisation is war, to which the Tsar replied That is as I understand it. ~ Owen, Robert L., USA Senator, The Russian Imperial Conspiracy 1892 - 1914, New York, 1927, p.13.
- ↑ Fabre-Luce, Alfred, The Limitations of Victory, English-language edition, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1926, p.51.
- ↑ Fay, Sidney Bradshaw, The Origins of the World War, MacMillan, New York, 1928, vol.1, p.120.
- ↑ In an Urgent Telegram of the German Chancellor to the Imperial German Ambassador in Paris on 31 July 1914 concerning the full Russian mobilisation, he states mobilisation inevitably implies war. ~ The German White Book, English translation, issued by the German Government August 1914, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1914, Appendixes, Exhibit 25.
- ↑ Table of Acts of Malice, Aggression and Declarations of War Beginning in September 1939
- ↑ Meldung des Polnischen Rundfunksenders Warschau vom 31. August 1939 23 Uhr
- ↑ At 7.41 p.m. on 31 August the British Ambassador at Warsaw telegraphed Viscount Halifax in London that "Polish mobilisation is proceeding according to plan and smoothly." ~ Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, Third Series, vol.vii, 1954, p.453, no.612.
- ↑ People of German ethnicity (rather than citizenship), thus including Germans living beyond the borders of the Reich, as far as they were not of jewish Religion.
- ↑ Orphans of Versailles - The Germans in Western Poland 1918-1939 by Professor Richard Blanke, University of Kentucky Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8131-1803-4
- ↑ The German Minority in Interwar Poland by Professor Winson Chu, Cambridge University Press, 2012 (paperback 2013), ISBN 978-1-107-00830-4
- ↑ On 14 Dec 1931 the British Manchester Guardian reported: "The minorities in Poland should disappear.....This policy is driven forward recklessly and without the slightest regard to the world's public opinion, to international treaties or to the alliance of nations. Galicia has become an inferno under Polish rule [the mandate]....The goal of Polish politics is the disappearance of national minorities, on paper and in reality.
- ↑ http://www.allworldwars.com/German%20White%20Book.html
- ↑ The Kingdom of the Netherlands considers itself in a state of war with Japan.
- ↑ With whom she had been engaged in a total but undeclared war since July 7, 1937.
- ↑ Something they were bound to do under the terms and conditions of the Tripartite Pact signed on 27 September 1940.
- ↑ The German declaration of war against America marked a decisive turning point in World War II. This speech was is a personally written explanation by Hitler of the background to the outbreak of the war, its subsequent dramatic developments, why he decided to attack the Soviet Union in June 1941, Roosevelt's hostile policies toward Germany, a short overview of the Germany's place in the struggle for Europe, and the German leader's desire for peace at any cost. The day after this speech was delivered, a highly inaccurate an edited version appeared in American newspapers. This is the first complete and accurate English translation. "Just as Rome once made her immortal contribution to the building and defense of the continent, so now have the Germanic peoples taken up the defense and protection of a family of nations which, although they may differ and diverge in their political structure and goals, nevertheless together constitute a racially and culturally unified and complementary whole".