Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

On May 19th Chamberlain in Commons refused “an alliance between ourselves and other countries,” and pointed with satisfaction to “that great, virile nation on the borders of Germany which under this agreement [of April 6th] is bound to give us all the aid and assistance it can.” He was talking about Poland! He seemed not to realize that Poland was much weaker than the Czechoslovakia he had wrecked in 1938, but he should have known better, because the French clearly knew better. Poland, indeed, was opposed to any agreement of the Western Powers with the Soviet Union, and refused either to be guaranteed by the latter or to accept military assistance from her, even if attacked by Germany. Poland feared that if Russian troops ever entered the areas which it had taken from Russia in 1920, they could never be persuaded to leave. When Russia suggested in May that the Polish-Romanian Alliance of 1926, which was directed exclusively against Russia, should now be extended to oppose Germany as well, Poland refused, although Romania was willing.

In the same month, Romania agreed to allow Russian troops to cross the country to oppose Germany if needed, and Romania’s position was more delicate than Poland’s regarding territory previously taken from Russia because Russia had never recognized the Romanian acquisition of Bessarabia. On June 6th Latvia, Estonia, and Finland sent a flat refusal to be guaranteed by Russia. The next day Estonia and Latvia signed non-aggression treaties with Germany, and probably secret military agreements as well, since General Franz Halder, the German chief of staff, went at once to these countries to inspect their fortifications which were being constructed by Germany.

Strang arrived in Moscow only on June 14th, almost two months after Britain had opened these discussions. By July new difficulties arose because of the Russian insistence on a military convention as an integral part of any treaty. Britain demurred but finally reluctantly agreed to conduct the military negotiations at the same time as the political negotiations. However, the members of the military mission took a slow ship, chartered for the occasion (speed thirteen knots), and did not reach Moscow until August nth. They were again negotiators of the second rank: an admiral who had never been on the Admiralty staff, a purely combat army general, and an air marshal who was an outstanding flyer but not a strategist. To negotiate with these three the Soviet Union named the commander in chief of the Russian Army, the commander in chief of the Russian Navy, and the chief of the Russian General Staff. In London, according to rumor, neither side wanted an agreement, and the military mission had been sent to Moscow to spy out Russia’s defenses. From this time on, the obstacles to an agreement were clearly coming from the Russian side, although, considering Chamberlain’s secret efforts to make a settlement with Germany, there is no reason to believe that he wanted an agreement with Russia. But perhaps his negotiators in Moscow did; certainly the French did.

From August 10th on, the Russians demanded specific answers, and raised their own demands with every answer. They wanted an exact military commitment as to what forces would be used against Germany in the west so that she would not be free to hurl her whole force against the east; they wanted guarantees whether the states concerned accepted or not; they wanted specific permission to fight across territory, such as Poland, between Russia and Germany. These demands were flatly rejected by Poland on August 19th. On the same day, Russia signed the commercial treaty with Germany. Two days later France ordered its negotiators to sign the documents offered by Russia, including the right to cross Poland, but the Soviet Union refused to accept this signature until Poland consented as well.

On the same day, it was announced that Ribbentrop was coming to Moscow to sign a nonaggression pact. He arrived with a staff of thirty-two persons in a Condor plane on August 23rd and signed the agreement with Molotov late that night. The published portion of the agreement provided that neither signer would take any aggressive action against the other signer or give any support to a third Power in such action. The secret protocol which was added delimited spheres of interest in eastern Europe. The line followed the northern boundary of Lithuania and the Narew, Vistula, and San rivers in Poland, and Germany gave Russia a free hand in Bessarabia.

This agreement was greeted as a stunning surprise in the Entente countries. There was no reason why it should have been, as they had been warned of the possibility on numerous occasions by responsible persons, including Germans like Kordt and Weizsacker. It was also stated that the negotiations leading up to the agreement had been going on for months and that the Anglo-Soviet discussions accordingly were always a blind. The evidence seems to indicate that the first tentative approaches were made in May 1939, and were reported to Paris at once by the French ambassador, Robert Coulondre, from Berlin. These approaches were distrustfully received by both sides and were broken off completely at Hitler’s order on June 29th. They were reopened by the Germans on July 3rd. Only on August 15th did Molotov announce his conviction that the Germans were really sincere, and the negotiations proceeded rapidly from that point.

While it is untrue to say that the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact made the war inevitable, it certainly made it possible for Hitler to start his war with an easier mind. On August 25th he gave the order to attack on August 26th, but canceled it within a few hours, as word arrived that the British had signed an alliance with Poland that same day. Now began a week of complete chaos in which scores of people ran about Europe trying to avoid the war or to make it more favorable to their side. The British begged the Poles and the Germans to negotiate; the Italians tried to arrange another four-Power conference; various outsiders issued public and private appeals for peace; secret emissaries flew back and forth between London and Germany.

All this was in vain, because Hitler was determined on war. Most of his attention in the last few days was devoted to manufacturing incidents to justify his approaching attack. Political prisoners were taken from concentration camps, dressed in German uniforms, and killed on the Polish frontier as “evidence” of Polish aggression. A fraudulent ultimatum with sixteen superficially reasonable demands on Poland was drawn up by Ribbentrop and presented 10 the British ambassador when the time limit had already elapsed. It was not presented to the Poles, perhaps because they were so afraid of a second Munich that they hardly dared to talk with anyone. Indeed, the Polish ambassador in Berlin had been ordered by Beck not to accept any document from the Germans. The German invasion of Poland at 4:45 a.m. on September 1, 1939 did not by any means end the negotiations to make peace, nor, for that matter, did the complete collapse of Polish resistance on September 16-17. Since these efforts were futile, little need be said of them except that France and Britain did not declare war on Germany until more than two days had elapsed. During this time no ultimatums were sent to Germany, but she was begged to withdraw her forces from Poland and open negotiations. While Poland shuddered under the impact of the first Blitzkreig, British public opinion began to grumble, and even the government’s supporters in Parliament became restive. Finally, at 9:00 a.m. on September 3rd, Henderson presented to Schmidt, Hitler’s interpreter, an ultimatum which expired at 11:00 a.m. In a similar fashion France entered the war at 6:00 p.m. on September 3rd.

XIV. WORLD WAR II: THE TIDE OF AGGRESSION, 1939-1941

Introduction