Newsfronts of War - 1940

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 5th Year

Issue

Issue No.

8

Date Released

1939

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Newsfronts of War - 1940

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: To meet the growing public demand for stories and pictures of day-by-day happenings of the world, New York’s great newsgathering organisations are today busier than ever before. In Rockefeller Centre are the main offices of the largest and oldest U.S. agency, the Associated Press, whose editors and reporters have been the first to receive word of many of modern history’s greatest newsbreaks. Since 1848 A.P. stories have been on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. Today the A.P. has 664 full-time foreign correspondents, and the European staff is four times greater than that which covered the First World War. On the home newsfront in 1939 Americans were faced with many national problems, but far overshadowing politics and party strife was the turn of world events reported by A.P.'s foreign correspondents. From the Shanghai bureau came despatches describing the second year of Japan’s war with China, and hinting at the Japanese aims to close the Orient to Western trade. Through A.P.'s London office, central clearing point for European news, came the story of the fall of Madrid, bringing to an end reports of a civil war which in three years had cost over a million lives. Every day new developments were noted in that 1939 military partnership - the Rome-Berlin Axis. First came rumours of Italian demands in French North Africa. But more terrifying was the reality of Hitler’s subjugation of Czechoslovakia, to be followed by another "bloodless" conquest - Memel.

Of all 1939 events, none was more startling than Hitler’s deal with Stalin, and the subsequent, long-feared news that Hitler’s armies had marched into Poland, bringing upon Europe a disaster, the outcome and significance of which it is impossible to estimate. But from Hitler’s new alliance another "newsfront of war" Russia has come into the first line of importance. On the 22nd anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Stalin’s Foreign Minister, Viacheslav Molotov, announced that once again Russia would take part in Europe’s game of power politics. He denounced England and France as capitalist instigators of war, criticized the U.S. as an unneutral war profiteer. Soviet Russia today contains an abundance of the raw materials which Germany needs to fight this war. New cities have been developed around the Ural mountain iron deposits, Russia is the second largest gold-producing country in the world, and its oil fields could provide enough fuel for the greatest of military machines. Hitler has assured his people that Russia will be an inexhaustible source of raw materials for Germany, but qualified observers in both countries are agreed that there is one problem, as yet far from solved - transportation. Although Soviet industries have been speeded up and totally reorganized, railroads and canal systems of this vast territory - covering one sixth of the earth’s surface - are inadequate for home distribution, let alone for the task of exportation which now faces them. Germany could dodge the British blockade by way of Leningrad, through the White Sea-Baltic Canal to Murmansk, but this waterway is frozen solid for four months of each year, and in any case can only accommodate ships of shallow draft. Already Russia has gained by her deal with Germany, has barred Hitler’s road to the East, and extracted military and naval bases from small Baltic states. Still untested and unknown is the Soviet’s military strength, but certain is the fact that in 1940 Moscow will once again be amongst the foremost "newsfronts of war".

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.6 No.4 of the US edition.

Keywords

Newspapers; War and conflict

Written sources

Fielding, Raymond. The March of Time 1935-1951 (New York, 1978)   p267.
The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis
Today’s Cinema   20 December 1939, p15.

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.