Ian Thomson

The world in arms

Ian Thomson admires a lucid and wide-ranging account of the most destructive war of all time

issue 02 June 2012

The long summer that led up to the last days of peace in Europe in 1939 — the vigil of Hitler’s assault on Poland and the subsequent Phoney War — gave little hint of the storm to come. As German troops engulfed Poland, however, Britain at last declared war on Hitler.

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