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one, although Keitel had been wounded. General Walther von Reichenau, Colonel-General Walther von Brauchitsch and General Hans von Kluge were also artillerymen, and General Paul von Kleist and Lieutenant-General Erich Manstein had been in the cavalry (although Manstein too had been wounded). Some generals, such as Heinz Guderian, had been in Signals, and others such as Maximilian von Weichs had spent most of the war on the General Staff. Whatever the reason, Hitler was not as cowed as an ex-corporal would usually have been among generals. Although he had been a mere Meldegänger, he would also have learnt something about tactics. It is possible that had Hitler been a German citizen he would have been commissioned; knowing this himself, he might well have emerged from the war with a sense of being capable of commanding a battalion, which only a technicality had prevented.8 Many of the generals of 1939 had spent the 1920s in the paramilitary militia known as the Freikorps and the tiny ‘Treaty’ Army that was permitted under Versailles. Before Hitler came to power, this had involved little more than Staff work, training and studying. That would not have overly impressed Hitler, whatever titular rank those serving in it had achieved. For all that former Lieutenant-Colonel Winston Churchill was to mock ‘Corporal’ Hitler for his lowly Great War rank in the trenches, the Führer seems to have been under no inferiority complex when dealing directly with soldiers who had wildly outranked him in the previous conflict.

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Plan White devoted sixty divisions to the conquest of Poland, including five Panzer divisions of 300 tanks each, four light divisions (of fewer tanks and some horses) and four fully motorized divisions (with lorry-borne infantry), as well as 3,600 operational aircraft and much of the powerful Kriegsmarine (German Navy). Poland meanwhile had only thirty infantry divisions, eleven cavalry brigades, two mechanized brigades, 300 medium and light tanks, 1,154 field guns and 400 aircraft ready for combat (of which only 36 Łoś aircraft were not obsolete), as well as a fleet of only four modern destroyers and five submarines. Although these forces comprised fewer than one million men, Poland tried to mobilize her reservists, but that was far from complete when the devastating blow fell from 630,000 German troops under Bock and 886,000 under Rundstedt.

As dawn broke on 1 September, Heinkel He-111 bombers, with top speeds of 350kph carrying 2,000-kilogram loads, as well as Dorniers and Junkers Ju-87 (Stuka) dive-bombers, began pounding Polish roads, airfields, railway junctions, munition dumps, mobilization centres and cities, including Warsaw. Meanwhile, the training ship Schleswig Holstein in Danzig harbour started shelling the Polish garrison at Westerplatte. The Stukas had special sirens attached whose screams hugely intensified the terror of those below. Much of the Polish Air Force was destroyed on the ground, and air superiority – which was to be a vital factor in this six-year conflict – was quickly won by the Luftwaffe. The Messerschmitt Me-109 had a top speed of 470kph, and the far slower Polish planes stood little chance, however brave their pilots. Furthermore, Polish anti-aircraft defences – where there were any – were inadequate.

In charge of the two armoured divisions and two light divisions of Army Group North was General Heinz Guderian, a long-time exponent of – indeed passionate proselytizer for – the tactics of Blitzkrieg. Wielding his force as an homogeneous entity, by contrast with Army Group South where tanks were split up among different units, Guderian scored amazing successes as he raced ahead of the main body of the infantry. Polish retaliation was further hampered by vast numbers of refugees taking to the roads. Once they were bombed and machine-gunned from the air in further pursuance of Blitzkrieg tactics, chaos ensued.

Hitler needed the Polish campaign to be over quickly in case of an attack in the west, but it was not until 11 a.m. on Sunday, 3 September that Neville Chamberlain’s Government