State of the War

Filed 4 October 1939, 08:00 GMT

Neville Chamberlain told the Commons yesterday that Britain will examine any peace proposals, but that no threat will make Britain or France give up the purpose for which they went to war. This is everything that reached us between 09:30 and 23:20, and where it stands as you read this.

Yesterday · Tuesday 3 October

09:30	Latvia’s foreign minister, Vilhelms Munters, held two hours of talks in Moscow with Vyacheslav Molotov, with Stalin present, the Moscow papers report. Lithuania’s foreign minister is due in Moscow next.
15:00	The German High Command says more German troops have entered Warsaw, and that it is still counting the prisoners and the large stocks of weapons captured in the city and at the Modlin fortress.
17:15	Chamberlain said Britain will examine any peace proposals but cannot accept mere assurances from the present German government. He called the German-Soviet agreement an attempted fourth partition of Poland.
17:35	Chamberlain told the Commons German submarines have sunk no British ship for more than a week. He said the carrier Ark Royal came through last week’s North Sea air attack undamaged, though Germany claimed it was sunk.
19:00	David Lloyd George urged Britain to take time over any peace offer and proposed a conference including the United States. Alfred Duff Cooper said his words would sound abroad like “a suggestion of surrender”.
20:00	Government departments will again give news directly to the press from Monday, Chamberlain said. Sir Walter Monckton becomes Controller of Censorship, and the Ministry of Information’s role is reduced.
23:00	The 21 American republics meeting in Panama declared a safety zone off their coasts, where they say countries at war from outside the Americas should commit no hostile act.
23:20	Italian sources in Rome expect no immediate Italian peace move after Count Galeazzo Ciano, the foreign minister, returned from talks with Hitler in Berlin and reported to Mussolini.

Clement Attlee, the Labour leader, backed the Prime Minister but said Britain would need “deeds, and not merely words” before there could be any real basis for peace. “Poland will rise again,” he told the Commons.

Not confirmed

Survivors of the British steamer Clement, landed in Brazil, say they believe their ship was sunk by the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. London has said only that an unidentified armed raider sank her.

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