Five Years of Dates

1935

June 18. Joachim von Ribbentrop and Sir Samuel Hoare sign Anglo-German Naval Treaty.

Oct. 3. Italy invades Ethiopia.

1936

March 7. Hitler remilitarizes the Rhineland.

July 18. Spanish Civil War begins.

Dec. 10. Edward VIII abdicates.

1937

May 28. Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister.

July 7. Japan invades China.

1938

March 11. Hitler occupies Austria.

April 16. Britain reaffirms Mediterranean "agreement" with Italy.

April 24. Konrad Henlein makes eight demands for Sudeten Germans.

Aug. 3. Britain sends Runciman mission to Prague.

Sept. 29. Munich.

Oct.1. Hitler takes the Sudetenland.

Nov. 23. Ribbentrop and Bonnet sign French-German non-aggression pact.

Nov. 30. During a Ciano speech, Italians began screaming for Corsica, Nice, Tunisia, Suez, Djibouti.

1939

Jan. 31. Having examined Hitler's Reichstag speech of the previous day (in which the Fuehrer demanded colonies), Chamberlain says he "very definitely got the impression ... it was not the speech of a man who was preparing to throw Europe into another crisis."

Feb. 27. Britain recognizes Franco Spain --which five weeks later joins the anti-Comintern powers.

March 13. Hitler takes remainder of Czecho-Slovakia.

March 22. Hitler takes Memel, and signs non-aggression pact with Lithuania.

March 23. Rumania signs economic agreement with Germany. Britain and France pledge armed assistance to Poland.

March 24. Secretary for Overseas Trade Robert Hudson goes to Moscow for Anglo-Soviet trade talks.

April 1. Spanish War ends.

April 3. Prime Minister Chamberlain invites "cooperation of any country" in the plan to encircle Germany.

April 7. Italy occupies Albania.

April 13. Britain and France announce guarantees of armed assistance to Rumania and Greece. Same week Russian Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Ivan Maisky flies to Moscow with a British plan for "limited Russian assistance" to the democracies, which Russia rejects.

April 26. Britain conscription begins. Hitler in a Reichstag speech asks for Danzig, denounces Anglo-German Naval Treaty and Polish Ten-Year Treaty.

April 28. Hitler accuses Britain of encircling Germany with alliances.

May 3. Maxim Litvinoff replaced by Viacheslav Molotov as Russia's Commissar for Foreign Affairs.

May 18. Norway, Sweden, Finland reject Germany's offer of non-aggression treaties, but Denmark accepts.

May 31. Molotov in speech to Supreme Soviet doubts British sincerity in anti-Hitler campaign.

June 7. Estonia and Latvia sign a non-aggression treaty with Germany.

June 10. British Foreign Office Counselor William Strang leaves on another trade mission to Moscow.

June 2Q. Halifax denies that encirclement is British aim.

July 23. Robert Hudson admits he has been negotiating with Nazi Helmuth Wohlthat for a -L-5,000,000,000 British loan to put Germany back on a peacetime basis.

Aug. 5. Third mission to Moscow headed by British Admiral and French General.

Aug. 23. Russian-German Pact.

Sept. i. Hitler invades Poland.

Sept. 3. Britain and France declare war on Germany.

Sept. 21. Hitler's Polish campaign successfully concluded.

Oct. 6. The Fiihrer offers peace, saying "there is no longer any real reason for prolongation of the war." Oct. IQ. Allies and Turkey sign 15-year mutual assistance pact which exempts Turkey from war with Russia.

Nov. 7. Belgium and The Netherlands offer themselves as mediators for peace.

Nov. 8. Munich Beer Hall explosion just missed by Hitler.

Nov. 9. Germany tells the Low Countries that in view of replies from Britain and France, Germany considers the Low Countries' peace proposals disposed of.

Nov. 30. Russia invades Finland.

1940

Jan, 5. War Secretary Leslie Hore-Belisha resigns, reportedly because Cabinet would not accede to his demands for more aggressive warfare.

March 13. Finland surrenders to Russia.

March 18. Hitler and Mussolini confer at Brennero.

March 21. Paul Reynaud succeeds Daladier as France's Premier.

April 9. Germany invades Norway "to forestall a British invasion."

May 10. Germany invades The Netherlands and Belgium. Chamberlain out, Churchill in.

May 14. The Netherlands capitulates.

May 27. Leopold surrenders over the heads of his generals and Cabinet.

June 10. Norway capitulates and Haakon flees to England.

June11. Italy enters the war.

June 14. Paris falls.

June 15. Russia invades Lithuania.

Spanish troops take over Tangier (international territory opposite Gibraltar).

June 16. Russia invades Latvia and Estonia. Reynaud out, Petain in.

June 17. France surrenders.

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