PRELUDE TO WAR
18 september 1931
Japan launched an attack on Manchuria. Within a few days Japanese armed forces had occupied several strategic points in South Manchuria.
The United States Minister to China reported to Secretary of State Stimson, in a telegram dated September 22, his opinion that this was "an aggressive act by Japan", apparently long-planned, and carefully and systematically put into effect. Minister Johnson found no evidence that it was the result of accident or the act of minor and irresponsible officials. He was convinced that the Japanese military operation in Manchuria "must fall within any definition of war" and that this act of aggression had been deliberately accomplished in "utter and cynical disregard" of Japan's obligations under the Kellogg-Briand Pact of August 27, 1928
27 March 1933
Japan gave notice of its intention to withdraw from the League of Nations.
1934
Italy adopted the name "Libya" (used by the Greeks for all of North Africa, except Egypt) as the official name of their colony, which consisted of the provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan. King Idris I, Emir of Cyrenaica, led Libyan resistance to Italian occupation During this time until the Africa campaign ensued.
7 March 1936
Hitler Orders the occupation of the Rhineland district of Germany. Bordering France, the Rhineland had been designated as a demilitarized zone by the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I.
7 July 1937
Japanese forces invade Beijing, China
(Battle of Lugou Bridge)
5 November 1937 4:15 to 8:30 PM
Adolf Hitler held a secret conference in the Reich Chancellery during which he revealed his plans for the acquisition of Lebensraum (living space) for the German people at the expense of other nations in Europe. Present at this conference were; German War Minister, Werner von Blomberg, Commander in Chief of the Army, Werner von Fritsch, Commander in Chief of the Navy, Erich Raeder, Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, Foreign Minister, Constantin von Neurath, and Colonel Friedrich Hossbach who took the minutes of the conference. The meeting has thus come to be known as the Hossbach Conference or Hossbach Memorandum.
13 march 1938
Germany annexes Austria
30 May 1938
Hitler signed a secret directive for war against Czechoslovakia to
begin no later than October 1.
30 September 1938
The Czechoslovak government capitulated and agreed to cede Sudeten territory to Germany
10 October 1938
German occupation of the Sudetenland (part ofCzechoslovakia) completed.
7 April 1939
Italian troops invade Albania
22 May 1939
Germany and Italy sign "The Pact of Steel," a formal alliance.
25 August 1939
Britain announced that her guarantee of Polish independence had been formalized by an alliance between the two countries.
29 August 1939
Germany signs non-aggression pact with Russia– The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.This assured Hitler that he could invade Poland without fear of Russian interference.
31 August 1939
21 staged attacks including the Attack on Gleiwitz radio station in which a group organized by Reinhard Heydrich (the butcher of Prague) and Heinrich MÃller (head of the Gestapo) seized the station and broadcasted a message that urged the Poles residing in Silesia to strike against Germans. After receiving a lethal injection Franciszek Honiok, a German Silesian known for sympathizing with the Poles and arrested the previous day by the Gestapo, was given gunshot wounds and left dead at the scene of the incident as evidence that he had been killed while attacking.
1 September 1939
Germany Invades Poland. In supposed retaliation, German tanks rolled across the Polish border during the early hours of the morning.
3 September 1939
At 9:00 on the morning, Sir Neville Henderson, Britain's ambassador to Germany, delivered an ultimatum stating that if hostilities did not stop by 11 AM, a state of war would exist between Great Britain and Germany. Germany did not respond and at 11:15 on the morning of September 3, 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain interrupted the regular radio broadcasts to announce to the British people that they were at war with Germany.
“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such understanding has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.” - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great Britain.
Thus beginning World War 2
By the time the U.S. entered WW2, war had been going on for nearly two years in Europe, ten years in China, and almost five years in Africa.
Wed Feb 24, 2021 12:05 am by 
Subject: Prelude to War 