The German invasion of Poland was dramatic, and drew the attention of the entire world, but fighting had actually begun even earlier as Germany sought to press its territorial ambitions. Often overlooked, actual combat occurred six months earlier, and not far from the Polish border with Czechoslovakia, in a tiny, autonomous region with several names, including, for a time, the Republic of Carpatho-Ukraine.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.