The Neutrality Acts were passed by the United States Congress in the 1930s, in response to the growing turmoil in Europe and Asia that eventually led to World War II. They were spurred by the growth in isolationism and non-interventionism in the US following its costly involvement in World War I, and sought to ensure that the US would not become entangled again in foreign conflicts.
The legacy of the Neutrality Acts is widely regarded as having been generally negative: they made no distinction between aggressor and victim, treating both equally as "belligerents"; and they limited the US government's ability to aid Britain and France against Nazi Germany. The acts were largely repealed in 1941, in the face of German submarine attacks on U.S. vessels and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
On 29 March 1939, the Secretary of State for War announced that the Territorial Army was to be increased in establishment from 130,000 to 170,000, and then doubled in numbers. Each of the existing first line Territorial Army units and formations were required to form duplicate (or second line) units and formations. Although the personnel came forward, equipment for them was scarce.
Conscription was introduced on 27 April 1939 for the first time in British peacetime history. The Military Training Act required all males to serve in the Armed Forces for six months on reaching their twentieth birthday. On completion of six months service, the conscripts were required to serve in the Territorial Army or Special Reserve. This measure had only just been instituted by the outbreak of war, with only one intake of 35,000 men called up on 15 July.
Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and in consequence, in accordance with Polish-British Common Defence Pact, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany with effect from 3 September 1939. The British Army had started mobilizing on 1 September, but was woefully ill-equipped and ill-prepared for war. Much of the strategy, tactics and equipment dated from the Great War. The first elements of the British Expeditionary Force left for France on 3 September 1939, just over twenty-five years since its predecessor had crossed the English Channel bound for war.
Prior:
At the dawn of 1939, the likelihood of another European war was growing ever greater. Germany had invaded, and then annexed, Austria in March 1938. In October that year, contrary to the Munich agreement, German troops occupied the Sudetenland which was part of Czechoslovakia.
In March 1939, Germany occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia, and war seemed inevitable. H.M. Government began to change its policy of appeasement, and full-scale rearmament of the British Armed Forces commenced (although it can be argued that some form of re-armament commenced in the mid-1930's, contrary to popular belief). Plans were drawn up for the British Army to send an expeditionary force of two corps (each comprising two infantry divisions) to France at the outbreak of war. This was in anticipation of defending France in a similar manner to the circumstances of the Great War.
Before the Pentagon was built, the United States Department of War was headquartered in the Munitions Building, a temporary structure erected during World War I along Constitution Avenue on the National Mall. The War Department, which was a civilian agency created to administer the U.S. Army, was spread out in additional temporary buildings on the National Mall, as well as dozens of other buildings in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In the late 1930s, a new War Department Building was constructed at 21st and C Streets in Foggy Bottom but, upon completion, the new building did not solve the department's space problem and ended up being used by the Department of State. When World War II broke out in Europe, the War Department rapidly expanded in anticipation that the United States would be drawn into the conflict. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson found the situation unacceptable, with the Munitions Building overcrowded and the department spread out.
The Pentagon is the world's largest office building, with about 6,500,000 square feet (150 acres; 0.60 km2) of floor space, of which 3,700,000 sq ft (85 acres; 0.34 km2) are used as offices. Some 23,000 military and civilian employees, and another 3,000 non-defense support personnel, work in the Pentagon. It has five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 miles (28.2 km) of corridors. The central five-acre (2.0 ha) pentagonal plaza is nicknamed "ground zero" on the presumption that it would be a prime target in a nuclear war.
On 11 September 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked and flown into the western side of the building, killing 189 people. Of those killed, 64 were on the hijacked airplane, and 125 were in the Pentagon. It was the first significant foreign attack on Washington's governmental facilities since the city was burned by the British during the War of 1812.
