September 3: The Day the World Said Enough
There are days that do not begin wars. They announce them — standing at the edge of what has already been set in motion, making official what everyone has already understood. September 3 has had that function more than once: the date that formalizes an ending, ratifies a beginning, or simply states aloud what the situation already was.
On September 3, 1783, American and British representatives signed the Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War. The negotiations had taken two years. The Americans — Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay — had been instructed to defer to France, their wartime ally. They did not. They negotiated separately with Britain, presenting their French counterparts with a completed agreement. France, which had helped finance the American revolution and sent troops and a navy, was presented with a fait accompli by a nation that did not yet technically exist.
The treaty established the United States of America’s borders as running from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River and from the Great Lakes to Florida. It was an extraordinary territorial settlement, far more generous than Britain’s military position required. The British negotiators, led by David Hartley, had instructions from Lord Shelburne to offer generous terms on the theory that a friendly United States would be a more useful long-term partner than a resentful one. The theory was correct and the goodwill lasted approximately twelve years before Jay’s Treaty of 1795 nearly caused another war. But in September 1783, a new country took formal possession of a continent.
Britain, in the same treaty, also ceded Florida to Spain. It had been a complicated war.
One hundred and fifty-six years later, on September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany, two days after the German invasion of Poland. Neville Chamberlain, who had returned from Munich less than a year earlier with a piece of paper and a promise, broadcast the declaration from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street at 11:15 AM. His voice was not triumphant. He sounded like a man explaining a failure. He said he had done everything possible to prevent this. He said he was certain the cause was right. He said there was no other choice open to us.
The broadcast was heard by approximately 10 million people in Britain alone. Within minutes of its conclusion, air raid sirens sounded across London. The sirens were triggered by a single French plane making an unannounced crossing of the Channel. It was a false alarm. But the fear it created — the sound of sirens on the first hour of the second world war within living memory — was its own kind of message. People who had been children during the first one were adults now. They knew what the sirens meant. They did not know that this time would be worse.
France issued its own declaration at 5 PM the same day. Australia and New Zealand had already declared war that morning, following Britain automatically. Canada waited a week, to establish that its declaration was its own choice rather than an automatic consequence of British membership in the empire. The war was six days old before Canada formally entered it. The distinction mattered to them. It still does.
Germany did not respond to the British or French declarations. There was nothing to respond to. The invasion of Poland was already underway, moving faster than the Polish army could reposition, and would be over in five weeks.
September 3 marks the moment — twice — when a set of negotiations concluded and what came after them began. In 1783, what came after was a country. In 1939, what came after was six years that killed 70 million people. Both days began with signatures on paper. Both days ended as something else entirely.
The document does not know what it will become. That is the document’s only mercy.