Eighty years ago this week the mood in London becomes dangerously over-confident

 

Churchill delivered an optimistic survey of the war situation to the House of Commons. He claimed that he did not wish to raise false hopes but "No longer felt bound to deny" that victory would perhaps come soon. He gave a bullish picture of the allies' position in every theatre of the war. He allowed himself a eulogy of the British Churchill tank design, albeit describing it with a double irony as the most "thick-skinned weapon in Europe.......the Churchill can be or defensive or offensive as circumstances may require." 

The Times not merely echoed Churchill's premature view, but lapsed into full hubris. It depicted the British and Canadian breakout from the eastern front of the Normandy bridgehead as a precursor of the offensive launched 26 years before at Arras. Described by General Ludendorff as "the black day of the German army" this opened the Hundred Days campaign which led directly to the defeat of Germany.

The Polish Home Army resistance took full control of Warsaw in a planned and co-ordinated uprising. It had been triggered by the approach of Soviet forces and was intended to establish control of the capital by forces loyal to the London government-in-exile so as to pre-empt anything that could be represented as a liberation of the capital under the direction of the Polish National Committee, Soviet puppets who claimed to be the legitimate government of the country. The Red Army halted its advance into Poland to allow the Germans to crush the uprising at their leisure and to destroy resistance groups which might in turn have opposed the Soviets. The Germans launched a full-scale counter-attack into the city.