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Day 16
Saturday 16 September 1939

Moscow publishes the terms that stop four months of fighting on the Mongolian frontier, Berlin claims the ring at Kutno is tightening while Warsaw radio says the city still holds, and a broadcast from Washington puts the American arms embargo back at the centre of the argument five days before Congress meets.

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The day in dispatches

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Communiqué

Extracts from the Soviet-Japanese armistice terms published in Moscow

Allied Press Service

MOSCOW Extracts only. TASS, the official Soviet agency, published the agreement in this morning's Moscow press, and what follows is the operative part as transmitted: the hour of cessation, the line to be held, the exchange of prisoners and dead, and the commission. The Allied Press Service does not have the full Russian text. Passages describing the negotiations themselves are not reproduced here because they have not reached us.

Official text

Japanese and Manchukuoan forces on one side, and Soviet and Mongolian forces on the other, are to cease all military activity in the area of the conflict at two o'clock in the afternoon, Moscow time, on 16 September.

Both sides are to remain on the lines they held at one o'clock in the afternoon, Moscow time, on 15 September.

Military representatives of both sides are to put the cessation into effect without delay.

Prisoners and the dead of both sides are to be exchanged.

A commission is to be formed to demarcate the boundary between the Mongolian People's Republic and Manchukuo in the area of the conflict. It is to have four members, two named by the Soviet and Mongolian side and two by the Japanese and Manchukuoan side.

The agreement was reached in Moscow between Vyacheslav Molotov and the Japanese Ambassador, Shigenori Togo.

Correspondent

The embargo fight now has a voice outside the Senate

The New York Register

WASHINGTON Two nights, two broadcasts, and the shape of the September session is starting to show.

Senator Borah spoke against repeal on the 14th from inside the Senate. Colonel Lindbergh spoke against it last night from outside everything. He is not in Congress, he is not in the administration, and the talk named nobody he was speaking for. That is the part of it Washington is chewing on this morning.

The embargo is a flat ban. American arms cannot be sold to Britain or France, and they cannot be sold to Germany. The President wants it repealed so that the first two can buy. Repeal needs the Senate, and the Senate convenes on the 21st.

Wire

Lindbergh broadcasts against American entry into the war

Allied Press Service

WASHINGTON Colonel Charles Lindbergh has broadcast a nationwide address arguing that the United States should stay out of the war in Europe.

The talk went out from Washington late last night over the NBC, CBS and Mutual networks. It is titled "America and European Wars".

Lindbergh's argument is that American defence should stop at this continent, and that the pressure on American opinion to take a side is coming from outside the country. He holds no office and the talk names no organisation on whose behalf he speaks.

Congress meets in special session on 21 September to consider the arms embargo, which bars the sale of American arms to Britain and France exactly as it bars them to Germany.

The text runs in this morning's New York Times.

The day in pictures

Warsaw and Kutno as the two sides describe them, 16 September 1939. Graphic by LIVE WW2.Graphic by LIVE WW2. Positions as claimed by the German High Command and by Polish radio on 16 September 1939.

Where things stood at the start of the day

Poland
Berlin's claim that the ring around Warsaw was closed reached the agencies on the 15th. Polish radio was still transmitting.
Western Front
The French advance reached the German fortified line. The artillery preparation was still going on.
Baltic
Estonia interned the Polish submarine Orzeł at Tallinn and began disarming her.
Far East
Moscow was reported to have stopped the fighting with Japan. No terms had been published.
Washington
Senator Borah told a national audience that repealing the arms embargo would mean intervention. Congress meets on 21 September.
India
The Congress Working Committee set out the terms on which it would support the war. The Viceroy had not replied.
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