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In Britain... The Royal Navy begins a world-wide hunt for the
German pocket-battleship Graf Spee. Four battleships, 14 cruisers
and 5 aircraft carriers are engaged in the effort.
In Rome... Mussolini reshuffles his cabinet, replacing
pro-Nazi members with neutral members. Six ministries and several secretariats
change. Starace is no longer Secretary of the Fascist Party. Count Ciano
remains Foreign Minister. Grandi, who is sympathetic to the British,
remains head of the Department of Justice. Mussolini believes in
occasional "shuffling" of government posts, and these changes
are not believed to reflect a change in foreign policy.
In Moscow... At a meeting of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet
Union, Molotov lectures Britain and France for continuing the war but
gives no more than moral support to Germany. He stresses that the
Nazi-Soviet agreements provide that the USSR shall be neutral if Germany
is at war. Meanwhile, the first of three further sets of discussions between the Soviets and the Finns over the recent Soviet demands for border revisions begins (the final meeting ends November 9).
Soviet negotiators demand strategic territory in the Karelian Isthmus,
the Hango naval base and the ice-free port of Petsamo in the Arctic in
exchange for Soviet territory along the eastern border. No agreement is reached.
In Occupied Poland... The death penalty is ordered for all
Poles disobeying German authority, with the accused to be tried in SS
courts.
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