WW2 Tweets from 1940

1,600 Jewish refugees, who fled from Poland to escape the Nazi invasion, have arrived in Palestine after 6 month's travel across Europe. British colonial troops have interned them for illegal entry.

London Times: "Thoughtful observers in Paris expect no change on the Western Front for a long time to come. Given their basic policy of 'no rash adventures', the Allies must compel Hitler to foolishly attack Maginot Line- which he is not expected to do."

French General Gamelin complains: "First we had Daladier, who wanted us to do nothing. Now we have Reynaud, who wants us to do everything!"

French PM Reynaud has also privately suggested mining the river Rhine with air-dropped parachute mines, or mining Norwegian coastal waters to block German iron shipments.

UK War Cabinet have unanimously rejected secret proposal, by new French PM Reynaud, to bomb Soviet oil fields- the British don't want to start war with USSR.

Today's Daily Mail (UK newspaper) declares: "Goebbels has had a walkover in the propaganda war" & calls on government to jam German radio propaganda.

The French government has expelled a leading Soviet diplomat: the USSR's Ambassador in Paris, Jakob Suritz, was sent home after he sent telegram of congratulation to Stalin for victory over "Anglo-French warmongers" in the Finnish war.

A suspicious British public is demanding harsher treatment & more spying on Germans in the UK. London Times: German-born "have been seen as persecuted refugees, but may harbour many enemy spies".

Wilhelm Solf, an Austrian undergraduate at Oxford University, has been interned in a British prison after being caught photographing a crashed RAF plane.

Stalin has declined a request from Adolf Hitler to meet face-to-face & discuss the shared border between Germany & the USSR. The dictators, though joined by the Nazi-Soviet pact, have never met in person.

It's Easter, but Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill is hard at work: "Memo: More backgammon sets on warships- it's a quicker game than cards."

Telephones, telegraph & short-wave radios have stopped working across the western hemisphere, as severe sunspots are temporarily disrupting them.

UK government has banned British servicemen who are taken prisoner from speaking on German radio: Britons have being tuning into Nazi propaganda stations, hoping to hear voices of missing loved ones.

UK hopes to strangle the German economy, cutting off oil from Romania & the USSR, & blockading iron ore from Sweden. Lord Halifax tells British cabinet this blockade will end the war in "2-3 years".

British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax has warned the USSR to respect Romania's neutrality: Britain "will go to war with the Soviet Union" if they seize Romanian territory.