Petsamo, August 29th, 1944
The German 20th Mountain army begun to retreat into Lapland. For now the plans called for holding out Petsamo to secure its nickel supplies for the German war effort. Whether that was an advisable course of action in view of the Swedish invasion of Norway remained to be seen.
Ploesti, August 30th, 1944
The Soviet army entered the city. The wreckage of the western air campaign against the oil refineries were more than visible, with oil production down to a fifth of its prewar levels.
Shkodër, August 30th, 1944
The city was liberated by the Greek VIII Infantry division in the leftmost of the Greek front. Two days later the Greeks would cross the border into Montenegro which was already in all out revolt, with the Partisans and Chetniks fighting the Germans numbering about 35,000 men. Behind the Albania was on the verge of all out civil war with the National army and the LNC destroying surviving Balli Kombetar forces and just a step from fighting each other as both sides accused the other that instead of fighting the Ballists the were recruiting them into their own forces. But for now with large numbers of Western troops still in the country neither side was yet ready to pull the trigger...
Constantinople, August 31st, 1944
The evacuation of Constantinople by the Bulgarian army was complete. Order was now being maintained by Greek, British and a handful of French and Soviet troops on the European side and the Soviets on the Asian side. Communication between the two sides was free but very few of the Greeks and Armenians that had fled Scutari back in 1940 seemed to show much interest in returning there. The same could not be said of Turkish civilians, many apparently preferred the Asian side to what they feared would be outright Greek rule particularly in view of what had transpired since 1941.
Danube, September 1st, 1944
Soviet troops crossed the Danube into Bulgaria, reinforcing the Soviet forces that had reached the country by sea. The bulk of the Soviet army though was pursuing the Germans westwards towards Hungary.
Serbia, September 2nd, 1944
The Greek XVI Infantry Division under general Demetrios Psarros liberated Nis. The Allied advance north was in full swing even though by now it had to take ever more strenuous efforts to keep the advancing troops in supply. American and New Zealand engineering troops were doing prodigies repairing the Yugoslav railroad network and double-tracking the line from Thessaloniki to Nis and Belgrade but the speed of the Allied advance was outpacing their efforts. Greek and Bulgarian engineers were fast at work, not without some grumbling into finishing the connection between the Bulgarian and Greek railroad networks in the Strymon valley, the alternative for using the Bulgarian rail network was shipping supplies to Alexandroupolis and Constantinople, but it would take some time till the link was complete.
Bucharest, September 2nd, 1944
The Romanian government received the news that Hungary had declared war against it and Hungarian troops had entered Southern Transylvania with indifference if not outright jubilation. The formal armistice signed in Moscow with the Allies mattered more.
East of Oslo, September 4th, 1944
The German 270th Infantry Division joined the defense of Oslo. The Swedish thrusts against Trondheim and Mo-i-Rana had been stopped cold by numerically superior German forces. LXX corps defending Oslo was faring rather worse with its four divisions outnumbered nearly three to one by the Swedes and also having to face the bulk of the Swedish armor and air support. Urgently dispatching the 14th Luftwaffe Field Division from Trondheim had somewhat remedied the situation but the Swedish had still pushed 33 km since the start of the war. And worse yet the Germans were not the only ones bringing in reinforcements as the Swedes, concerned by the slowing pace of their advance threw into the fight the divisions and armor they held in reserve, bringing the total number of men fighting the Germans to nearly 340,000 men.
Belgium, September 5th, 1944
Two days earlier the British 2nd Army had liberated Brussels. Now British armor liberated Antwerp and most importantly intact, a major coup since the Allied advance in France was starting to outrun their ability to supply their forces. But utilizing the port would require clearing the Scheldt river estuary first, a task given to the Canadian army. Meanwhile there was considerable debate in the Allied high command on how to proceed with the offensive against Germany with both O'Connor and Patton asking to be given priority of supply, Eisenhower unhelpfully insisting on a broad front strategy that led to both ending under-supplied and increasing political pressure to put the recently formed 1st Allied Airborne Army with its 6 airborne divisions to use...
Saarland, September 7th, 1944
The missile rose in a pillar of fire. Minutes later it would hit liberated Paris slightly over 300 km away. Two more missiles fired against Paris would fail to reach their target. The next day the first V2 launched from the Hague would him London killing half a dozen civilians. Ballistic missiles had just turned from a curiosity to a serious weapon of war. A cost effective one for the huge resources Germany had thrown into them? That was a different question. But the British government had reasons to be concerned. V-1s were already a hedache, and they could be shot down by fast fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft guns. The new V-2s were impossible to intercept. The only way to protect London was to push the Germans beyond their missiles range...
Paris, September 9th, 1944
The French provisional government reorganized and formally established itself in Paris once more. The previous day the Belgian government had returned to liberated Brussels. The next day Luxembourg would be liberated in turn.
Britain, September 10th, 1944
Testing of the new Supermarine Spiteful, a heavily modified Spitfire with a laminar flow wing and a Griffon engine capable of reaching 777 km/h continued, the aircraft had made its first flight back in March. If all went well the first production Spiteful would fly in the coming January and Spitfire production lines would gradually convert to the newer variant afterwards.
Apennines, September 10th, 1944
The advance of the US 5th army had so far been mostly checked by the German 14th army. But with the British 8th army further east making increasing gains the Americans, anfd the Greeks, Irish, Brazilians and Italians under the 5th Army's command would launch one more push to break through the mountains...
Quebec, September 12th, 1944
The US and British governments came together for one more conference to coordinate policy. Agreement would be reached on the role of the Royal Navy in the war against Japan, the progress of the war in Europe made it possible to move an even larger portion of the fleet east, and continuation of US lend lease to Britain. The plans drafted by Henry Morgenthau for the future of Germany had been a more difficult pill to shallow and the future occupation zones in Germany a matter of contention, as both Britain and USA wanted to control the northern of the two western zones with the southern assigned to the other. Roosevelt might have had relented were it not for Churchill's raising again the matter of the future of Constantinople and the straits in the aftermath of the events of the city's liberation. With the two matters becoming intertwined Roosevelt would not budge on both. In the end compromise was reached with the US being assigned the northern occupation zone of Germany and Britain the southern occupation zone as the Americans desired...
Helsinki, September 13th, 1944
The newly formed "anti-fascist" provisional government of Finland under president Otto Kuusinen signed the official armistice between Finland, the Soviet Union and Britain. Finland was to pay $300 million in war reparations to the Soviet Union, declare war on Germany, and accept the 1940 borders. It could had been worse as Kuusinen had managed to convince Stalin against the proposals of some in the Soviet government to extend the borders beyond these of 1940 to include Viipuri and Petsamo.
Warsaw, September 13th, 1944
After six weeks the first Soviet aircraft begun dropping supplies to the rebels but they still refused letting Western planes to use Soviet air bases.
