August 23rd, 1939 (WEDNESDAY)
UNITED KINGDOM:
Lloyd's of London increases war-risk rates as Europe braces for war.
Destroyer leader HMS Kelly commissioned.
FRANCE:
France begins mobilisation.
French citizens are advised to leave Paris.
Churchill leaves France and returns to London.
Daladier asks the Permanent Committee for National Defence whether they could stand by and watch the disappearance of Poland and Romania; they agree that they cannot.
BELGIUM proclaims its neutrality.
ITALY:
Sir Percy Loraine (British Ambassador to Rome) is confident that the Italians will not
fight, and Mussolini declares himself ready to mediate.
U.S.S.R.:
Moscow: The Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact is signed. If either became involved in a war
the other would give no help to the enemy; nor would either join any group against the
other.
There was no clause stating that withdrawal was allowed if one signatory attacked a third
party, although this was customary in such treaties.
There was also a secret protocol providing, in the event of what was referred to as a
territorial transition taking place in Poland, for the partition of that country along the
line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Vistula and San. Allocating to the Soviet Union all the
Byelorussian and Ukrainian provinces of Poland, as well as the province of Lublin and part
of that of Warsaw. Germany was to take the western part of the country, though the
possibility of retaining a small remnant of a Polish state was kept open at this stage.
The USSR was to have a free hand in Finland, Estonia and Latvia; and Germany in Lithuania.
Soviet interest in the Rumanian province of Bessarabia was recognised by Germany.
Khalkin-Gol: Northern group reinforced by 212th Airborne Brigade seizes the Palets
Heights. In fierce hand to hand combat 600 Japanese soldiers are killed. Zhukov begins to
reduce the trapped Japanese forces.
U.S.A.: The Dow Jones industrial average, responding to the news of potential war in Europe, suffers a US$3.25 (US$40.12 in year 2000 dollars) drop to close the day at US$131.82 (US$1,627.41 in year 2000 dollars).