Chapter Fifteen
After Munich
The immediate results of the Munich agreement were disastrous for Czechoslovakia. The provisions which might have mitigated its severity were disregarded: the international committee supervising the execution of the terms accepted the German claim that the Austrian census of 1910 should be the basis for their calculations, and 51 per cent German population in that year should constitute preponderance. Thus Germany secured as much territory as possible. Then the claims of Poland and Hungary had to be met. Throughout the Czechoslovakian crisis, Poland had insisted that any concessions made to the Sudeten Germans should also be extended to the Polish population in Teschen. After the Munich Conference the Poles were afraid that Germany might soon annex the remainder of Czechoslovakia, and so they stepped in with an ultimatum to Prague on 30 September. Polish troops occupied the Teschen area between 2 and 12 October 1938. Hungary laid claim to a long strip of territory on the southern frontier of Czechoslovakia, and also the whole province of Ruthenia. On 2 November 1938 the Axis powers ruled on these claims in the Vienna Award, which allotted the southern strip to Hungary but left Ruthenia in Czechoslovakia.
While these territorial changes were taking place, the structure of the state was being transformed. In November a new federal system of government was set up, with autonomous administrations in Bohemia-Moravia, Slovakia, and Ruthenia. In Slovakia, the National Front rapidly became the only political party, while the Ukrainian Rada controlled Ruthenia. Only in Bohemia-Moravia did the vestiges of parliamentary democracy remain briefly in existence. In the new hyphenated state of Czecho-Slovakia, German influence was predominant. Hitler received the new Foreign Minister, Chvalkovsky, on 14 October, and told him bluntly that he would destroy his country in twenty-four hours if it did not follow the German line. The Slovak National Front was under German influence, and Ruthenia had a tight economic agreement with Germany. The Vienna Award of 2 November was made without consultation with France or Britain, and without protest or comment from them, which indicated with apparent finality that the western powers had abandoned all interest in Czecho-Slovakia, and probably in eastern Europe as a whole. The balance of power in eastern Europe had tilted decisively in Germany's favour.
After Munich: Hitler's welcome in the Sudetenland.
Source: Hulton Archive Getty Images
The price paid to secure the Munich agreement was a heavy one. What did Britain and France hope for in return? They certainly sought a respite in which to gather their strength, and both countries pressed on with rearmament. But for a short time Chamberlain hoped for much more. At a private meeting with Hitler after the Munich conference, he had secured a joint declaration expressing the desire of their two peoples never to go to war with one another again. He believed that the Czechoslovakian settlement opened the way for further agreements with Germany, and so for a wider European settlement, though precisely what practical steps could be taken in this direction were unclear. Cadogan suggested going back to the question of colonies, which were Germany's only avowed territorial aim and apparently the only issue still outstanding between the two countries. In view of Hitler's earlier lack of interest in the matter, this did not seem hopeful; and in any case the predominant opinion in the Foreign Office was that Hitler would not be content with his recent gains in Europe. At the least he was expected to extend German economic predominance in south-east Europe and the Baltic states, while one gloomy and far-sighted official argued that Germany and Italy, with their dynamic ideologies, were not normal states with specific grievances but predators who would greet every concession with fresh demands.
The hopes for a wider agreement with Germany lacked substance from the start, and by mid-November they had faded away altogether. Relations between Germany and Britain, far from improving, worsened rapidly after Munich. As early as 9 October Hitler made a violently anti-British speech, followed by others denouncing Churchill and Eden as warmongers who might yet control British policy. The Kristallnacht attacks on Jews and Jewish property on 9–10 November brought universal condemnation in the British press, with equally strident reaction from Hitler against interference in Germany's internal affairs. On 14 November Halifax told the Foreign Policy Committee of the Cabinet that he had secret information that Hitler regarded the Munich agreement as a disaster because it had prevented a display of German strength. He now regarded Britain as Germany's worst enemy, was trying to break up the Anglo-French alliance, and was using Japan to harry Britain in the Far East. On 16 November Chamberlain explained to the Cabinet that the colonial question could only be dealt with as part of a general settlement, which was clearly impossible in existing circumstances.
There remained from the post-Munich optimism only the prospect of improving relations with Italy. The Anglo-Italian agreement on Mediterranean affairs of 16 April 1938 was brought into effect on 16 November. (This was supposed to await the departure of Italian troops from Spain, but partial withdrawal was taken to be sufficient.) Chamberlain and Halifax visited Mussolini in Rome on 11–14 January 1939. Mussolini liked being courted, but was not impressed by his visitors — ‘These … are the tired sons of a long line of rich men, and they will lose their empire’, he remarked.1 Chamberlain came home pleased with his welcome, and convinced that there was no great sympathy between Mussolini and Hitler. There were no practical results.
The relief afforded by Munich was thus short-lived, and early in 1939 the British government found the prospects steadily more alarming. In January and February they received a series of disturbing reports predicting German moves against Memel, Poland, Czechoslovakia, or the Ukraine, and, in the west, against the Netherlands and possibly Switzerland. These last were taken very seriously, and had far-reaching consequences. On 1 February 1939 the Cabinet agreed that Britain must go to war if Germany invaded either Holland or Switzerland: the Netherlands would pose a direct threat to British security, and Switzerland would be an unmistakable signal of an attempt to dominate Europe by force. There were also reports from Rome of the secret call-up of reserve officers, and the accumulation of alarms caused Chamberlain to declare in the House of Commons on 6 February that ‘… any threat to the vital interests of France from whatever quarter it came must evoke the immediate co-operation of Great Britain’.2
This was the firmest statement of support for France made by a British government for a very long time, and it was accompanied by a reversal of British attitudes towards a military commitment in Europe. On 1 February the Cabinet agreed to open detailed staff talks with France. The proposal was made on 3 February, the first round took place between 29 March and 4 April, and the discussions continued at frequent intervals thereafter. Even more important, a paper by the Chiefs of Staff on 20 February argued that British security was bound up with that of France, and that home defence might have to include taking a share in the defence of French territory. The Cabinet accepted this proposition, and with it the principle that in the event of war Britain should create a large, Continental-style army. It was the end of the doctrine of limited liability.
British policy was thus in the process of change in February 1939. The previous assumption had been that Hitler's aims were limited. It was now believed that the next German move against another state would signify that their aim was the domination of Europe — the phrase recurred more than once in discussion and correspondence. There was not the slightest hesitation in deciding that any such attempt must be opposed. The countries about which there was immediate alarm were in western Europe, but once accepted, the principle held good for the Continent as a whole. The policy of ‘appeasement’ had never meant peace at any price, but the acceptance of limited German advances. If German aims in fact knew no limits, then the British government would resist them, by war if necessary. This change in view was already under way in February 1939, though it did not become publicly apparent until March.
French policy after Munich continued to be uncertain and ambiguous. On 6–7 December 1938 Ribbentrop went to Paris to sign a Franco-German declaration, similar to that produced by Chamberlain after Munich, vaguely aspiring to good relations and consultation. Ribbentrop later maintained that during this visit Bonnet had agreed that eastern Europe was a German sphere of influence. Bonnet consistently denied this; but whatever was said, all recent French actions pointed to the de facto acceptance of German predominance in eastern Europe. This acceptance, however, was not unconditional. France still maintained economic interests in the Balkans, and an economic mission visited Rumania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria in November 1938. There was a tacit assumption that German predominance in eastern Europe should be exercised with restraint. And in the background the army command believed that war with Germany was virtually certain, and Gamelin set out to make up the loss of thirty Czech divisions, preferably by securing a firm commitment from the British and persuading them to introduce conscription.
Towards Italy, French policy was much firmer. On 30 November 1938 there was an organised demonstration in the Italian Chamber, with chants of ‘Tunis, Corsica, Nice, Jibuti’. Daladier replied with a firm declaration that France was determined to maintain all her territory; and in January 1939 he made well-publicised visits to Corsica and Tunisia. British persuasion to find some concessions to sweeten relations with Italy was firmly rejected; and while Daladier allowed an unofficial mission by Baudouin, a director of the Bank of Indo-China, to go to Rome, he declined to follow it up.
In the five months after Munich, and before what is often seen as the turning point of March 1939, the British government lost hope of a general agreement with Germany, and moved instead towards a determination to resist a German attempt to dominate Europe by force, and towards a new position of support for France. France, though internally divided and conscious of her weakness, was firm in opposition to Italian claims and still nurtured an underlying conviction that the growth of German power must at some time be checked. It was already clear by February 1939 that Britain and France would be unlikely to repeat the pattern of 1938.
The Prague coup and its consequences
The key question after Munich concerned German policy. Would Germany be content to digest her recent gains, or seek further expansion? There was no serious doubt as to the answer, either in the long term or the short. In October 1938 Goering, under Hitler's instructions, set out a new armaments programme, including the impossible aim of quintupling the Luftwaffe by spring 1942. The development of the army was pressed forward, and in January 1939 the large-scale ‘Z plan’ for the navy was agreed on, to be completed by 1943–44. These preparations were directed towards large-scale war in three or four years' time, with Britain as a principal enemy. In the short term, German policy pursued two aims: the annexation or subjection of the remnants of Czecho-Slovakia, and negotiations with Poland to bring her into dependence on Germany.
Hitler privately declared his intention of annexing the rump of Czechoslovakia almost as soon as the Munich agreement was signed, and plans for an unopposed military occupation began to be worked out on 10 October 1938 and were completed by the 21st. In the same month Goering assured visiting Slovak politicians of German support for an independent Slovakia. On 12 February 1939 Hitler met Béla Tuka, leader of the Slovak National Party, and told him that the Slovaks should declare independence at once. German pressure was also at work in Ruthenia. Of the purpose of German policy there was no doubt, though in the event the final stages of the break-up of Czecho-Slovakia came so quickly that they took Hitler by surprise. As with Austria, the actual timing of the German take-over was decided by the victim. On 6 March President Hacha of Czecho-Slovakia dismissed the government of Ruthenia; on the night of the 9th/10th he did the same to the Slovakian government; and on the 10th he proclaimed martial law.
This convulsive attempt to preserve the unity of the state in fact precipitated its downfall. Hitler acted quickly. He invited the deposed Slovak Premier, Tiso, to Berlin, with the clear intimation that refusal would be met by immediate German invasion. Tiso arrived in Berlin on 13 March, and was presented with a declaration of Slovak independence which he agreed to put to the Slovak Parliament. It was accepted on the 14th, despite the doubts of some deputies. The Czechs were dealt with immediately afterwards. On 12–13 March the German press was full of stories of Czech attacks on the Germans still living in Bohemia. The Czech President and Foreign Minister asked for a meeting with Hitler to beg him to spare the existence of their state. Hitler received them in the small hours of 15 March, and told them that the German Army would enter their country at 6 a.m. the same day. (In fact, some units crossed the border during the night.) Their only choice, he explained, was between resistance, which would be crushed at once, and a peaceable occupation. Goering threatened to bomb Prague. President Hacha broke down under the threats, and signed a paper placing the fate of the Czech people in Hitler's hands.
On 15 March German forces occupied Bohemia and Moravia. On the 16th the provinces were declared a Protectorate of Germany, with the former Foreign Minister, von Neurath, as Protector. The SS moved in, responsible not to Neurath but to Himmler in Germany, a provision which spoke volumes as to the true nature of the new regime. The newly ‘independent’ Slovakia signed a treaty accepting German protection, including the stationing of German troops in the country. As for Ruthenia, Hitler disregarded an appeal for German protection and instead allowed Hungary to occupy the province, fulfilling an aspiration which Hungarian governments had cherished since 1919. The Hungarian Army moved in on 15 March.
The remains of the former state of Czechoslovakia were thus removed from the map in the space of two days, 14–15 March 1939. Shortly afterwards, on 23 March, Germany annexed Memel, a German city seized by Lithuania in the far-distant days of 1923. Orders to prepare for this had been issued on 21 October 1938, and in December local elections had played into the hands of the Nazis. The German ethnic claim to Memel was strong and its absorption into Germany had long seemed likely; but the impact of the occupation was still considerable. All over eastern Europe the disputes stored up after the First World War were flaring up, and the states created in the post-war settlement were crumbling away.
Between Czecho-Slovakia and Memel lay Poland, the other major object of German policy in the winter of 1938–39. Germany and Poland were divided by historic enmity, and after 1919 German resentment against the very existence of an independent Poland was strong. The new frontiers of 1919 cut East Prussia off from the rest of Germany, and placed about 800,000 Germans in Poland. The Free City of Danzig was overwhelmingly German in population (96 per cent in 1919), and after 1933 its internal administration was run by the Nazi Party, which (in alliance with another German party) controlled the Volkstag; but its foreign relations and customs regulations were controlled by Poland. This was a complicated arrangement, liable to create friction even with goodwill on all sides, which was rarely forthcoming. More important, Danzig represented a fundamental issue: for Germany, it was a matter of historic right and a German population; for Poland, it was a guarantee of access to the sea and a symbol of security.
These difficulties between the two countries were to some extent kept within bounds by the German-Polish agreement of 1934. On a number of occasions, notably in 1935 and 1937, Germany held out to the Poles the prospect of developing this agreement into an alliance against the Soviet Union, by which Poland might acquire territory in the Ukraine. More than once Hitler told the Polish Ambassador in Berlin, Lipski, that European solidarity ended at the Polish-Soviet border, where both Asia and Bolshevism began. Despite a hearty dislike of Bolshevik Russia, the Poles did not take up these suggestions, preferring to retain their independent position between their two great neighbours.
Between October 1938 and January 1939 the Germans took the matter up again in a number of conversations between Hitler and Ribbentrop on the one side and Lipski and Beck on the other. On 24 October 1938 Ribbentrop put to Lipski proposals for a new German-Polish agreement. Danzig should be incorporated in Germany, and a German-controlled road and rail link with East Prussia be established — a corridor across the Corridor. In return, Germany would guarantee her frontier with Poland, and extend the 1934 Non-Aggression Pact for twenty-five years. Finally, Poland should join the Anti-Comintern Pact, signed between Germany and Japan in 1936 and extended to Italy in 1937.3 In Warsaw, Beck at once saw the crucial nature of this last proposal. To adhere to the Anti-Comintern Pact would mean a breach with the Soviet Union and the end of Poland's balanced position. It would signify unqualified entry into the German camp, which would quickly lead to subordination to Germany. Beck ruled this out totally. When the Polish reply to Ribbentrop's proposals was eventually delivered on 19 November, it rejected the annexation of Danzig, referred evasively to consultations on the road and rail link, and did not even mention the Anti-Comintern Pact. Hitler himself then repeated the proposals when Beck visited Berlin on 5–6 January 1939. He emphasised that a strong Poland was a necessity for Germany because every Polish division engaged against the Soviet Union saved a German division. (This was presumably not encouraging from Beck's point of view.) Beck was non-committal in his comments. Again, on 26 January, Ribbentrop went to Warsaw and pressed for a decision, but without success.
The Poles would never agree to be absorbed into the German sphere of influence, even if the only alternative was to become Germany's next victim. Nazi Germany had encountered a new and surprising phenomenon: a neighbouring state which could not be bullied. The Poles, unlike the Austrians or the Czechs, would fight for their territory, their independence, and their honour. Beck put the matter thus to a meeting of senior officials in the Foreign Ministry on 24 March 1939. Poland had established ‘a straight and clear line…. Below this line comes our Polish non possumus. This is clear: we will fight.’ The line comprised the territory of Poland, but also any imposed solution over Danzig, because Danzig was a symbol, and Poland would not join those other states which allowed themselves to be dictated to. Hitler had not yet met determined opposition. ‘The mighty have been humble to him, and the weak have capitulated in advance. The Germans are marching all across Europe with nine divisions; with such strength Poland would not be overcome.’4 Such confidence was in military terms reckless, and Poland's moral position was rendered dubious by her recent seizure of Teschen from Czechoslovakia. But even if Polish judgement and morality were open to question, their courage was not; and from Polish courage and self-confidence there arose a crucial element in the European situation in 1939. Under pressure from Germany, Poland would fight rather than yield.
In mid-March 1939 there were thus two crises in Europe. One was open: the break-up of Czecho-Slovakia. The other was largely concealed: the German demands upon Poland. Then, in the course of a frantic fortnight, the effects of the Czech crisis rebounded upon the Polish crisis, and a new European situation took shape.
British and French reactions: the guarantees to Poland
News of the German occupation of Prague and the break-up of Czecho-Slovakia reached London in the morning of 15 March. The first British reaction was one of passive acceptance. The Cabinet agreed that there was no possibility of effective opposition, and that the Munich guarantee would not be carried out. Chamberlain observed, accurately if cynically, that the state to which the guarantee had been given no longer existed. In the House of Commons he expressed his regret, but added: ‘do not let us on that account be deflected from our course. Let us remember that the desire of all the peoples of the world still remains concentrated on the hopes of peace.’5 Yet another extension of German power was apparently to be accepted with only token protest.
Two days later Chamberlain gave another speech, in Birmingham. He still defended Munich, and the hope behind it, that with goodwill and understanding it was possible to resolve differences by discussion. But then the tone changed.
The events which have taken place this week in complete disregard of the principles laid down by the German government itself seem to fall into a different category, and they must cause us all to be asking ourselves: ‘Is this the end of an old adventure, or is it the beginning of a new? Is this the last attack upon a small State, or is it to be followed by others? Is this, in fact, a step in the direction of an attempt to dominate the world by force? … No greater mistake could be made than to suppose that, because it believes war to be a senseless and cruel thing, this nation has so lost its fibre that it will not take part to the utmost of its power in resisting such a challenge if it ever were made.6
The change was remarkable. What brought it about?
Part of the answer was that the change had been coming for some time, with the alarms of January and February which had caused the government to strengthen its commitment to France. It was already assumed that the issue was becoming one of the domination of Europe by force, though this had not yet emerged in public. The reaction of 15 March was thus more a reflex repetition of old formulae, while that of the 17th reflected the thinking of the last two months. Partly, too, Chamberlain was jolted into his forceful speech by a number of events between the 15th and 17th. There was a marked shift of opinion in the Conservative Party and the press. On 16 March the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Conservative Party advocated the introduction of national service, the formation of an all-party coalition, and even an alliance with Russia. Constituency party organisations showed their dismay at Chamberlain's speech in the House of Commons. The Times, previously a pace-maker for appeasement, was indignant about the Prague coup. Halifax urged on Chamberlain both the party political problems and the likely collapse of Britain's position in Europe if the coup were meekly accepted. There was also a sudden scare over Rumania on 16–17 March, when the Rumanian Minister in London, Tilea, produced an alarming story of a German near-ultimatum to his country over a demand for a monopoly on exports. Halifax had just seen Tilea when he helped Chamberlain make changes to his speech on 17 March. By the next day the story had been denied by the Rumanian government, and was thought dubious by the British intelligence services, but by then it had had its effect — the atmosphere after Prague was such that any reports of German aggression were bound to be taken seriously.
All these influences played their part. But the major explanation of Chamberlain's speech at Birmingham is probably the simplest: it had sunk in that he had been deceived. Hitler had departed from his declared principle of claiming only territories with German populations. Moreover, the blow was very personal: Chamberlain regarded the Munich agreement as above all his own achievement, and its repudiation struck home all the harder. This was not merely a matter of vanity, but of something very stern in Chamberlain's character. Churchill, who for so long opposed Chamberlain's policy towards Germany, wrote rightly that Hitler had misjudged his man: ‘He did not realise that Neville Chamberlain had a very hard core, and that he did not like being cheated.’7
On 18 March Chamberlain showed this hard core when he spoke to the Cabinet. Up to a week ago, he said, the government had believed it was possible to get on better terms with the dictatorships, whose aims were believed to be limited. He had now concluded that Hitler's attitude made this impossible. ‘No reliance could be placed on any of the assurances given by the Nazi leaders.’ His speech at Birmingham was a challenge to Germany as to whether or not she intended to dominate Europe by force. In this explanation, he struck two notes which were to characterise British policy for the next twelve months and more: resistance to German domination of Europe, and the conviction that Hitler could no longer be trusted. The first represented a long-standing principle in British foreign policy, going back to the wars against Louis XIV. The second was a largely instinctive reaction, belated but profound, against the methods and tactics of the Nazi regime, and of Hitler in particular. In this way the issues were simplified and personalised in a way which corresponded to an increasing feeling among the British people: something must be done to stop Hitler. During the next few days, and equally in the next few months, there was much in British policy that was hurried, muddled, and ill-conceived. Chamberlain still did not believe that war was inevitable, and continued to hope that it could be avoided by a mixture of deterrence and negotiation. But if the worst came to the worst, the British would fight.
Principles and instincts were one thing; what to do was quite another. All attention was concentrated on eastern Europe, where it was not normally thought necessary for Britain to be involved. As the Rumanian scare died away, Poland seemed the most likely victim for the next German move, for which the pretexts in Danzig and the German minority were ready-made. The British also suffered from an acute, though hidden, fear that Poland might succumb to German influence: Beck had visited Berlin in January, and negotiations were known to be under way, which might well, so far as the British knew, succeed. To counter these dangers, some urgent British action seemed required. The first response, on 20 March, was a device which required only a low level of commitment: a proposal that Britain, France, Poland, and the Soviet Union should issue a joint declaration that if there were a threat to the independence of any European state they would consult immediately on the steps to be taken. This was unacceptable to the Poles, who refused any alignment with the USSR just as resolutely as they refused an alliance with Germany. In any case, it was too indefinite to meet the exigencies of the situation.
Something more definite was required, and the government considered the far-reaching step of a guarantee to Poland. Halifax put the arguments to the Foreign Policy Committee of Cabinet on 27 March:
We were faced with the dilemma of doing nothing, or entering into a devastating war. If we did nothing this in itself would mean a great accession to Germany's strength and a great loss to ourselves of sympathy and support in the United States, in the Balkan countries, and in other parts of the world. In those circumstances if we had to choose between two great evils he favoured our going to war.
Chamberlain said specifically that if Poland declined to accept a conditional guarantee, ‘we should be prepared to give her the unilateral assurance as regards the Eastern Front seeing that our object is to check and defeat Germany's attempt at world domination’.8 The argument was clear and emphatic: to secure Britain's position in the world, and to check the German advance, there must be a firm guarantee to Poland, even at the risk of war. That there occurred at this point another scare of an imminent German attack on Poland hastened Britain into action, but did not funda-mentally alter the position.
On 30 March Britain offered Poland a guarantee of her independence, which was at once accepted. Before it was announced, the Foreign Policy Committee considered but rejected a suggestion that it should be limited to cases of unprovoked aggression. It was thought that German techniques of aggression were such that Poland might be driven in self-defence to some action which could be construed as provocative: German tactics in Austria and Czechoslovakia had left their mark.
Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons on 31 March that, while consultations were going on with other governments:
In order to make perfectly clear the position of His Majesty's Government in the meantime before those consultations are concluded, I now have to inform the House that, during that period, in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence, and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power.9
The French government joined in this guarantee.
The precise significance of the guarantee has been much debated. It referred to Polish independence, not integrity, and thus left open the possibility of frontier changes; and in consequence it has been regarded as little more than appeasement under another name, with every chance of another Munich. On the other hand, it has been seen as making war virtually inevitable, by throwing down a challenge which Germany was bound to take up. Its real significance lay between these two extremes, and was publicly explained by Chamberlain on 19 May. Britain was trying to create ‘an assurance against forcible aggression, which may not, and we hope never will, arise’; or, in another phrase, ‘a peace front against aggression’, which would avoid the outbreak of war.10 The guarantee was designed as a deterrent, and if the deterrent worked, the guarantee would not have to be carried out. The trouble with this concept was that, after a prolonged series of concessions to Germany, the guarantee in itself carried little conviction and was an inadequate deterrent. Only the most determined military preparations by Britain and France (the introduction of conscription in Britain, and rapid supplies for the Polish Army and Air Force) might have conveyed a sufficient warning to check Hitler in his stride. As it was, the guarantee was enough to bring Britain and France into a war over Poland, but not enough to deter Hitler from launching one.
It is clear that the guarantee was issued without serious consideration of its military aspects; and indeed the British government had neither the intention nor the capacity to protect Poland militarily. The follow-up to the guarantee was no more than half-hearted on the British side. Beck visited London on 4–6 April, and offered to transform the one-sided guarantee into an Anglo-Polish alliance, but the negotiations on terms then dragged on until the end of August. At the end of April Poland asked Britain for a loan of –60 million to purchase military equipment. The British offered a loan of –5 million as long as France did the same, plus –8 million in export credit guarantees — by July, only the latter had been agreed on. A British service mission went to Poland in May, and General Ironside, Inspector-General of Overseas Forces, followed in July; but nothing was done to follow up these contacts. The French behaved in a similar fashion. In May a draft agreement was prepared to bring the existing Franco-Polish alliance into line with the new guarantee, but the signature of this agreement was delayed until 4 September. There were staff conversations in Paris on 15-17 May, and agreement was reached that in the event of a German attack on Poland or Danzig the bulk of the French Army would begin offensive action on the fifteenth day of hostilities. But Gamelin held that this agreement was subject to the conclusion of a political agreement — which was held up. The truth was, of course, as the French staff had just told their British counterparts, that France could not envisage a serious land attack on Germany without long preparation. Neither France nor Britain was prepared to come directly to the assistance of Poland, whose salvation would only be achieved after final victory. The major point, for Britain and France alike, was that these were not the actions of states preparing urgently for certain war. The British and French both hoped that gestures of deterrence would suffice. They would not.
Italy annexes Albania: the French and British reactions
On 7 April 1939 Italy enlarged the area of tension by landing substantial forces to occupy Albania. This country had long been under Italian political and economic influence, and in some circumstances the action might have been seen as little more than consolidation. But three weeks after the Prague coup and a fortnight after the German occupation of Memel, with the air full of rumours of war, the event assumed a very different aspect. It indicated a degree of co-ordination between Germany and Italian plans far greater than was actually the case. It was a palpable breach of the Anglo-Italian agreement of April 1938, brought into operation only the previous November. It was accompanied by reports of an imminent Italian assault on the Greek island of Corfu. Altogether the situation was highly alarming, and not for the first time Mussolini had thrown in Italy's comparatively modest weight at a moment when it carried maximum significance.
The British and French response was far-reaching. British attention was fixed on Greece, while France insisted on extending any guarantees to Rumania, not because it was under threat from Italy but because it had been left out earlier. Daladier took the initiative in these moves, but he was followed willingly by Chamberlain, who thought that Mussolini was behaving like ‘a sneak and a cad’.11 On 13 April Britain and France issued public guarantees to both Greece and Rumania, in the same terms as that to Poland. They thus extended their commitments in eastern Europe with astonishing prodigality. In the space of a fortnight (31 March-13 April) they had undertaken obligations in an area stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, most of which they had apparently abandoned only a few months before. On the other side, Italy had taken a step towards war in the Mediterranean. The logical consequence was a tightening of links with Germany, and negotiations for an alliance were taken up in April 1939.
Vital lines had been drawn. German and Italian advances in CzechoSlovakia, Memel, and Albania, accompanied by alarms about Holland, Switzerland, Rumania, Poland, and Greece, had pushed Britain and France into crucial commitments. In western Europe, they would certainly fight in the event of any German or Italian attack. In the east, they staked all on deterring Germany (and to a lesser degree Italy) from any further advance, in the hope that in the time thus gained the immediate problems might yet be resolved. If deterrence failed, here too they were committed to war. It was quite certain that the Poles at any rate would not let them out by yielding to German pressure.
The principal question, therefore, was whether Germany would be deterred. There was no sign that she would. On 3 April, four days after the British guarantee to Poland, a directive by Keitel instructed the German armed forces to prepare for an attack on that country at any time from 1 September. On 6 April the negotiations with Poland which had been going on since the previous October were broken off. In the directive for Operation White (11 April), Hitler emphasised that Poland was to be isolated before being attacked. On 23 May Hitler addressed the service commanders, partly on the long-term armaments programme, still aimed at completion by 1943–44, and partly about Poland. The real objective was not Danzig, but to secure living space and food supplies. There would certainly be war: ‘We cannot expect a repetition of Czechia. There will be war.’ Poland was to be isolated, and war with Britain and France avoided; though Britain, as Germany's main enemy, would have to be fought sooner or later.12
Preparations for an attack on Poland thus went ahead with the utmost speed. German diplomacy worked intensively to secure the help, or at least the neutrality, of small states which were politically or economically important in preparing for war: Sweden, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey; and achieved much success. Among the great powers, Germany had worked in 1938 to create a triple alliance with Italy and Japan, which would paralyse Britain by pressure in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Far East. Japan proved recalcitrant, insisting on an agreement directed solely against the Soviet Union, while Germany wanted it to be against all other powers; and in 1939 the Germans went instead for an alliance with Italy alone. After a rapid negotiation, the so-called Pact of Steel was signed in Berlin on 22 May. This alliance was not even nominally defensive in its terms, and represented a virtually complete Italian acceptance of a German draft. Ciano stressed in discussion that war should not break out before 1943, because Italy was not ready; but Ribbentrop was
evasive on this point, and the text made no reference to the question at all. Germany secured the Italian alliance while retaining entire freedom of action.
With Italy secure (at least on paper), Germany moved to the next stage in the isolation of Poland and the undermining of the Anglo-French position by bidding for an agreement with the Soviet Union; but that belongs to a later stage in the narrative. Meanwhile, in May 1939 the German course was set for war with Poland, and its momentum was unchecked. The Anglo-French guarantees were failing to deter.
Negotiations for a triple alliance: France, Britain, USSR
If anything was to add to their power, it would have to be the support of the Soviet Union. A firm military alliance between France, Britain, and the USSR offered the best, and perhaps the only, chance of confronting Hitler with circumstances in which he would not risk war. The negotiations for such an alliance between April and August 1939 therefore assumed a crucial importance. Their main lines were simple, though the details were sometimes complicated. The three powers started in April from widely different positions. Britain proposed that each should give separate, unilateral guarantees to Poland and Rumania. France suggested a Franco-Soviet treaty, binding both to go to the assistance of Poland and Rumania. The Soviet Union proposed (17 April) a three-power treaty of mutual assistance, binding all three to go to the help of the states on the western border of the USSR, and accompanied by a military convention. In the following months, the French moved with increasing urgency, and the British with painful slowness, towards the Soviet position, which the Soviets maintained, with the occasional addition of further demands.
The British began by rejecting the idea of a three-power treaty (8 May), and then accepted it in principle (24 May) — when it was at once agreed by France. The negotiations which followed encountered several obstacles. The British sought to introduce into the proposed treaty a reference to the moribund League of Nations, to which the Soviets successfully objected. There was dispute as to which states should be nominated for assistance, and whether they should be named publicly. It was eventually agreed to name, in a secret protocol, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Rumania, Turkey, and Belgium; the USSR refused to include Holland and Switzerland. The British wished to conclude a political agreement first, and then proceed to a military convention; the Soviets insisted that the two should be signed and come into force simultaneously, and they gained their point. Finally, there was a problem over the definition of ‘indirect aggression’. All agreed that states should be protected, not only against armed invasion, but against subversion and pressure on the Austrian model; but the British jibbed at granting the Soviets freedom to intervene in neighbouring states on conditions which they themselves laid down. No agreement had been reached on this matter when negotiations were broken off.
Such was the pattern of the political negotiations. It was not until 23 July that the British accepted that military talks should begin with a view to simultaneous signature of political and military agreements. The French nominated their delegation on the 24th, the British after a further ten days. The delegations then travelled to Moscow by ship and train, which took some time. (Rather too much is often made of this point. The direct route, by land or air, across Germany was not available, and other air access to Moscow was not easy.) The French were instructed to secure the signature of a military convention in the minimum of time, the British to proceed slowly. Neither delegation was at first armed with plenipotentiary powers. Neither was over-eager to trust the Soviet General Staff with confidential military information, and so they sought to keep discussion on the plane of general principles, while the Soviets wanted to talk about precise intentions. The talks got off to a foreseeably difficult start, and rapidly came to a halt when the head of the Soviet delegation, Marshal Voroshilov, asked on 14 August whether Poland would accept the entry of Soviet troops before the event of a German attack. The Poles would not; and they declined to budge, despite urgent French persuasion, explaining simply that if the Red Army entered Polish territory it would stay there. In desperation, the French government on 21 August instructed its military delegation to agree that Soviet forces might enter Poland. Voroshilov asked whether Polish agreement had been secured. The answer could only be no, and the talks broke down.
Meanwhile, a parallel negotiation was in progress between Germany and the Soviet Union. This too moved slowly, until the final phase, when it suddenly careered along like an express train to a successful conclusion. The early stages of the German-Soviet rapprochementremain in some obscurity. On 10 March 1939 Stalin indicated to the Eighteenth Party Congress that he had no preference for either of the opposing blocs among the capitalist states; and it may be that Hitler responded to this hint when he handed Ruthenia to the Hungarians instead of occupying it himself, thus signalling that he did not intend to use the weapon of Ukrainian nationalism against the Soviet Union. If so, this diplomacy by sign-language led nowhere for some time.
The first definite move appears to have come from the Soviet side. On 17 April the Soviet Ambassador in Berlin told the permanent head of the German Foreign Ministry, Weizsäcker, that there was no reason why relations between their two countries should not be put on a normal footing and even improve further. (There is some doubt as to whether the Ambassador intended this to be a serious political initiative, an attempt to revive economic negotiations, or no more than an empty gesture.)13 On 3 May Litvinov, the Soviet Foreign Minister who had been associated with a policy of collective security against Germany, and was also a Jew, was removed from office and replaced by Molotov. At once the German press ceased its routine attacks on the Soviet Union and Bolshevism. On 30 May the Germans decided to reopen negotiations for an economic agreement, which had been tried without success earlier in the year. These continued into July, with no sign of haste on either side. The Germans then began to make the running, and switched the emphasis to political questions; at the end of July, Hitler and Ribbentrop prepared outline proposals for an agreement based on the partition of Poland and the Baltic states. As August went on, the Germans grew desperate. Hitler was then working to a deadline of 26 August for his attack on Poland (which was later changed), and needed an agreement before that date. On 12 August, under German pressure, the Soviets indicated that they were ready for political negotiations, to take place in Moscow. On 19 August an economic agreement was signed, and Molotov agreed to receive a visit by Ribbentrop on the 26th or 27th. This would not do, and on the 21st Hitler sent a personal message to Stalin that Ribbentrop must arrive in Moscow on the 23rd at the latest. This amounted to an ultimatum, and Stalin agreed within two hours.
Ribbentrop duly arrived, and on 23 August a non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union was signed. If either became involved in war, the other would give no help to the enemy; nor would either join any group directed against the other. A clause, customary in such treaties, allowing withdrawal if one signatory attacked a third country, was omitted; and the pact was to come into effect immediately upon signature. This allowed for the German attack on Poland which was by then imminent.
The published treaty was accompanied by a secret protocol providing, in the event of what was referred to as a territorial transformation taking place in Poland, for the partition of that country along the line of the rivers Pisa, Narew, Vistula, and San. This allocated to the Soviet Union all the Byelorussian and Ukrainian provinces of Poland, as well as the province of Lublin and part of that of Warsaw. Germany was to take the western part of the country, though the possibility of retaining a small remnant of a Polish state was kept open at this stage. Elsewhere, the USSR was to have a free hand in Finland, Estonia, and Latvia; and Germany in Lithuania. In Rumania, Soviet interest in the province of Bessarabia was recognised by Germany. Other Balkan matters were left vague.14 Some of these territorial provisions were to be altered later, and important economic arrangements were also to follow.
The Nazi-Soviet Pact, 23 August 1939. Molotov signing, Ribbentrop and Stalin beaming.
Source: Hulton Archive Getty Images
The Nazi-Soviet Pact ended the Anglo-Franco-Soviet negotiations, and removed all possibility of a triple alliance which might have been strong enough to deter Hitler from an attack on Poland. In asking why one set of negotiations failed and the other succeeded, the two must be taken together.
In terms of method, the British conduct of their negotiations was so slow and inept as to invite failure. The French tried hard but without success to instil a sense of urgency. Behind the British attitude lay their longstanding distrust of the Soviet Union and Bolshevism, sentiments which were particularly strong in Chamberlain himself, who in May was virtually coerced by his Cabinet to take up negotiations for an alliance. The British were unconvinced of the value of a Soviet alliance in the aftermath of the purges, which had gravely weakened the Red Army. Moreover, they were rightly afraid that such an alliance would alienate most of the states in eastern Europe, and perhaps drive them into the arms of Germany: if they were to be eaten by the one or the other, most preferred to take their chance with Germany rather than the USSR. Above all, Poland would not enter an alliance with the Soviet Union at any price. When the British committed themselves to Poland, they to all intents and purposes ruled out an alliance with the USSR unless they threw the Poles overboard first. All this led the British to try to get the advantages of negotiations without the onus of an alliance, and to hope that Germany would be impressed by mere display. This was an illusion which the French, alarmed by news of German military preparations, did not share.
Delaying tactics were not the monopoly of the British, and the Soviets played the same game when it suited them. The Deputy Foreign Minister, Potemkin, was due to attend the Council of the League at Geneva on 15 May, and there to meet Halifax; he did not do so, even though the meeting was deferred until the 21st to suit his arrangements. In the military talks, if somehow the French could have done the impossible and delivered Polish acceptance of the Red Army, another condition about naval operations in the Baltic was ready to be produced. In their tactics, the Soviets were much assisted by good intelligence — it is likely that they knew of the main British negotiating positions before they were put forward, and they certainly knew of Hitler's timetable for war in August.
So much for methods and tactics; but the key to success and failure lay in the substance of the negotiations. The Soviets held a central position, and could judge which set of talks would better serve their interests. We may assume two points about these interests. First, Stalin intended to keep out of a European war if at all possible, especially since the Soviet Union was already engaged in conflict with the Japanese in the Far East.15 Second, he wanted to gain territory and a sphere of influence in eastern Europe, to increase Soviet security. The British and French offered nothing substantial under either heading. An alliance with them might deter Germany from going to war, but if it did not would certainly involve the Soviet Union in conflict at once. The British were not prepared to pay the price for this risk, and accept that the band of states from Finland to Rumania should become a Soviet sphere of influence. In 1938 they had sacrificed Czechoslovakia to Germany, but in 1939 they had too recently taken up the stance of guarantor of small states to hand over a whole batch to the Soviet Union. It is true that necessity knows no law, but in this case the necessity was not thought sufficiently pressing. Only the French were finally willing to pay part of the price, and offer to sacrifice the Poles; but the Poles proved unwilling victims, and in any case it was too late.
The Germans on the other hand were able to meet both Soviet interests. Instead of a risk of war, they could offer certain neutrality. In terms of territory and spheres of influence, they came bearing gifts, ready to carve up Poland and to yield at once when Stalin asked for the whole of Latvia to be in his sphere instead of only a part, as Ribbentrop at first proposed. Moreover, the Germans could deliver the goods forthwith, whereas the British and French could deliver nothing.
Beween the two sides, the Soviet choice could scarcely be in doubt. It is only surprising that so much obloquy has been heaped upon Stalin's head for making the best deal that he could get, and that so much criticism has been levelled at the British for their dilatoriness when nothing could have enabled them to match the German offers. The competition was decided on substance, not on method.
The final crisis
The Nazi-Soviet Pact was a decisive event. The Anglo-French deterrent against Germany, feeble from the start, was now completely undermined. The way was open for a German attack on Poland, for which preparations were being pressed ahead at breakneck speed. The haste with which the German negotiations with the Soviet Union were conducted showed the intense urgency of people working to a deadline. The invasion of Poland had to be launched before the autumn rains. On 14 August Hitler told senior officers that he meant to deal with Poland in a quick war. He was sure even then that the Soviets would stand aside, and he did not think that the British would fight; if they and the French did intervene, Germany would stand on the defensive in the west. On 22 August he addressed another conference of senior commanders in particularly brutal terms. The aim of the war against Poland was not to reach certain lines but the wholesale destruction of Poland.
Strube cartoon: ‘But you told me it was stuffed!'. Hitler did not believe Britain could summon up the resolution to fight; but he was wrong to blame this error on Ribbentrop.
Source: Strube/Daily Express 4/9/1939
In the morning of 25 August, Hitler was still expecting the British and French governments to be shaken by the Nazi-Soviet Pact. ‘What news do you bring of Cabinet crises?’ he asked Otto Dietrich, who monitored the foreign press for him.16 There was no such news, but even so Hitler pressed on, and confirmed that afternoon that the attack on Poland was to begin at 4.30 a.m. on the 26th, after propaganda preparations which were no longer thought to be important — no one would question the victors. At that point, he was surprised by two developments. Britain and Poland, undeterred by the Nazi-Soviet Pact, signed a treaty of alliance; and Mussolini went back on his obligations and announced that Italy would not go to war. In desperate haste, the orders for invasion were countermanded during the night of the 25th/26th. However, this was not cancellation but postponement: Hitler's aim was to gain a little time to detach Britain from Poland. On 25 August he made an extraordinary proposal to the British for a general settlement, and even an alliance, after the Polish problem was solved. But by now this overture was recognised by the British Cabinet as merely a divisive ploy, and it was disregarded. In the event, the German delay was only short, though it was used to great military effect — no fewer than 25 extra German divisions became available during the six extra days.17 The last possible date to start the invasion of Poland in order to finish the campaign in good weather was set at 2 September, and Hitler did not wait until then. At 6.30 a.m. on 31 August the order was issued for attack on 1 September, to be carried through even if war with France and Britain resulted. The offensive opened at 4.45 a.m. on 1 September 1939.
Hitler was a man in a hurry, and was determined on war with Poland to a timetable which he set himself. The six-day delay from 26 August to 1 September was no more than a pause. Ciano grasped the reality of the situation when he met Ribbentrop and Hitler in Germany on 11–13 August: the decision for war was certain, and the Germans would fight even if they were offered more than they asked for. What lay behind this driving haste? In personal terms, Hitler was much exercised by fear of an early death, whether by disease or assassination, and the necessity to accomplish his aims before he was struck down. Economic pressures were strong: the vicious circle in which armaments were built up to make conquests and then more conquests were necessary to expand armaments reached an explosive stage in 1939, when raw materials, labour, and food were all needed to sustain the pace. An economic agreement with the Soviet Union would do much to help; but so would war, not least by striking terror among those, like the Rumanians, who were being recalcitrant under other forms of pressure. The military situation was favourable, particularly in the air, so that even a general war could be risked. Hitler banked heavily on air power, and while the Luftwaffe of 1939 had serious limitations, and was still being built up for a general war in 1942, it was far superior to any other air force. Hitler drew his main impressions of air power from the ebullient Goering, and may well have been unaware of the Luftwaffe's weaknesses; but even if he knew of them there was still a lead which offered an opportunity for war in favourable circumstances which might not recur.
For all these reasons Hitler pressed on towards war with Poland. He expected the British and French to remain neutral, partly because he was misled by the general tone of the British press as reported by his advisers, and partly because he accepted Ribbentrop's view that the British were bluffing. He was therefore momentarily shaken when the British stood firmly by their commitment to Poland, so that he found himself on the brink of a general war instead of the anticipated single combat with the Poles. His plan to isolate Poland, which seemed to have gone well, misfired at the last moment. But even this had to some extent been discounted in advance, and provision had been made for a defensive posture in the west. Hitler was set on war with Poland, and the only way in which such a war might have been avoided was for the Poles suddenly to cave in and accept all German demands without fighting. Polish determination was such that this was virtually impossible; and in any case it was almost certain that this time Hitler would not allow any peacemaker to deprive him of his war. A German-Polish war was as certain as anything can be in human affairs. Hitler was also prepared to risk war with the western powers, though this might have been avoided if Britain and France, contrary to their undertakings, had chosen to abandon Poland to her fate. Despite some appearances to the contrary, that was highly unlikely.
During the evening of 25 August some senior British officers were canvassing the odds for and against war. Lord Gort offered 5 to 4 against, and General Ironside 5 to 1 on. Neither was anywhere near right. The odds on war were by then overwhelming. It is true that there were flurries of last-minute activity. On 29 August Germany demanded that a Polish representative should come to Berlin within twenty-four hours to receive German terms relating to Danzig and the Corridor. A document setting out the German demands was prepared on 30 August. It comprised sixteen points, including the annexation of Danzig by Germany, a corridor across the Corridor, a plebiscite in the Corridor area to be held in twelve months’ time, and a later exchange of populations. The port of Gdynia was to be recognised as Polish, thus leaving Poland with access to the sea. The substance of this was of little importance: it was never intended to be accepted, and it was not put to the Polish Ambassador until 1 September, when it was too late. It was intended to drive a wedge between Britain and Poland by demonstrating German reasonableness.
Nothing came of these proposals. The British were willing to go partway down this road: Halifax thought there was something in the idea of an exchange of populations, and Chamberlain at one point thought mistakenly that the Poles might accept the annexation of Danzig by Germany. But the Poles had no intention of following the examples of Schuschnigg and Hacha and accepting a summons to be bullied by Hitler, and on this occasion the British did not try to coerce them to do so. In marked contrast with their conduct in 1938, the British did not apply to Beck the sort of pressure they had brought to bear upon Benes?; though they did urge the Polish government to delay full mobilisation on the grounds that it would impede negotiations.
There were other last-minute attempts at peacemaking. A Swedish businessman, Dahlerus, flitted between Berlin and London without achieving anything, except perhaps confirming Hitler in his belief that the British would still give way. On 31 August Mussolini tried his hand and proposed a conference, to be held on 5 September; but in contrast to 1938 his role as peacemaker was no longer in the script. He persisted with the proposal even after the German attack on Poland had begun, and had some success with Bonnet; but the British insisted that a precondition for a conference must be the withdrawal of German forces from Poland, which was inconceivable.
The only significant question in these manoeuvres did not concern war between Germany and Poland, which was certain. It was whether Britain and France would stand by Poland. At the time, and for a long time afterwards, such was the suspicion that gathered round the motives and personality of Chamberlain that it was widely believed that he sought another Munich at the expense of Poland, and that he was propelled into war only by the wrath of the House of Commons. It is true that in July 1939 there were secret conversations in London between Wohlthat, an official of the German Economics Ministry, and British officials, including Sir Horace Wilson, who was a close confidant of the Prime Minister. These talks sought to revive the idea of a general Anglo-German settlement, and referred to the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the Danzig question. However, they were not pursued. It is also true that Chamberlain hoped to the last for peace, and that there was a long delay between the German attack on Poland and the British declaration of war, which seemed to indicate an attempt to evade British commitments. On 2 September, a day and a half after the German assault began, Britain had still not declared war or even sent an ultimatum to Berlin. The anger of the House of Commons broke round Chamberlain's head that evening, and the surprising figure of Sir John Simon, formerly a dedicated appeaser, led something like a Cabinet revolt against Chamberlain's delay in sending an ultimatum.18 But the principal reason for the delay was not a search for another Munich, but the unavowable one of trying to keep in step with the French in going to war.
In France, Daladier had asked the Permanent Committee for National Defence on 23 August whether they could stand by and watch the disappearance of Poland and Rumania. The committee, made up of senior ministers and service chiefs, agreed that they could not. The French government as a whole did not move from this stance during the days that followed. They were certain that Britain intended to stand by her guarantee to Poland, and therefore that to negotiate with Germany would mean acting alone, which was out of the question. France had finally come to the end of the line of concessions, and had virtually no choice but to fight. The fascist politician Marcel Déat asked, in a newspaper article which later became famous, whether Frenchmen should die for Danzig, but the government knew that Danzig was not the issue. The choice, as Gamelin said, was between going to war now, at the side of Poland, and being attacked later when Poland had been eliminated. Bonnet, indeed, thought otherwise, and tried to pursue Mussolini's idea of a conference, asking as late as 3 September whether the Germans would not make a merely symbolic partial withdrawal in Poland and so allow the meeting to take place. But Bonnet's attitude was not widely shared. Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac has demonstrated the striking difference between the nervousness and doubts of many of the politicians in Paris and the firmness of French opinion as a whole. Daladier gave a determined lead in favour of war, and the French people followed, reluctantly but steadily.19 The Council of Ministers, meeting on 31 August, was firm in its support for Poland, and general mobilisation was ordered on 1 September. The high command, however, was anxious to complete the process of mobilisation before declaring war, and it was a combination of this desire with Bonnet's last-minute stalling in the hope of a conference that caused delay in a French declaration.
The hesitations on both sides of the Channel were only superficial. Both governments, however reluctantly, knew that they had no choice. The long line of concessions to Germany had come to an end, and they could go no further. On 3 September 1939 both Britain and France declared war on Germany, though they did not manage to do so together: the British declaration was at 11 a.m., the French at 5 p.m.
For the Poles, who had fought alone for two and a half days, this was rather late, but none the less welcome for that. Crowds took flowers to the British and French embassies in Warsaw — the only echo of the enthusiasm with which some had greeted the coming of war in 1914. Everywhere else, the mood was one of silent resignation. Even in Germany, where Nazi propaganda had been hard at work on warlike themes for several years, the streets were quiet. Yet this resignation was accompanied by a profound determination. In France, the most commonly heard remark was ‘Il faut en finir’ — We've got to finish with it. In Britain, replies to a Gallup Poll question at the end of September showed 89 per cent in favour of fighting until Hitlerism was done away with — a remarkable figure, though the wording was vague. In Germany, the mood was sober. Official reports described public opinion as being ‘calm and self-possessed, but depressed and apathetic’. People were said to be obeying the call to war ‘in reluctant loyalty’.20 Events were to prove that the German people would sustain the conflict tenaciously, in defeat as well as in victory. The war was nowhere welcome or popular in any gaudy or flag-waving sense, but it was widely felt to be inevitable. Countries where many still remembered the last great war accepted the burdens of another with something akin to fatalism.
War became increasingly inevitable as 1939 went on, a development which was strengthened by a striking similarity in the strategic intelligence assessments made in Germany, Britain and France. German intelligence reports from sources in Paris and London confirmed Hitler in his belief that France and Britain would not go to war in support of Poland, and therefore that a war on Poland could be localised. British and French intelligence agencies, for their part, took a more optimistic view of the military balance than they had done in 1938, and so encouraged the governments and political leaders to be firmer than they might otherwise have been, and to believe that Germany might yet be deterred from going to war. Each side thus misconceived the intentions of the other, giving rise to an optimistic frame of mind which in the event contributed to the outbreak of war.21
When war came, it was a surprise to hardly anyone. It could only have been avoided in one of three ways. First, Germany might have chosen to settle for her gains of 1938 in Austria and Sudetenland, consolidate her new position, and allow Europe a period of calm, or at least of respite. Second, if Germany chose otherwise and continued to press for expansion (which was what happened) then her potential opponents in France, Poland, Britain, and the USSR might have combined together in a coalition so formidable and forbidding that Germany would have been deterred from further adventures by fear of the consequences. Peace might thus have been preserved by threats and the deployment of superior force. Third, those same potential opponents, individually or together, might have decided to accept German expansion, yield with as much grace as possible, and get the best terms they could for themselves. War might thus have been avoided by acquiescence in German demands. In the event, none of these things came about. Germany pressed on. The grand alliance against her never materialised. The Soviet Union struck a bargain with Germany, but Poland, Britain, and France did not. War was expected, and war came.
References
1. Ciano's Diary, 1939–1943 (London 1947), p. 10.
2. House of Commons Debates, 5th series, vol. 343, col. 623.
3. The Anti-Comintern Pact (November 1936) provided in its public clauses for co-operation against Comintern and its agents. A secret protocol bound the signatories not to sign any political treaty with the USSR.
4. W. Jedrzejewicz (ed.), Diplomat in Berlin, 1933–1939: Josef Lipski (New York 1968), pp. 503–504.
5. House of Commons Debates, 5th series, vol. 345, cols 437–40.
6. Quoted in Roger Parkinson, Peace for our Time (London 1971), p. 116.
7. W. S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. I (London 1948), p. 269.
8. Both quoted in Simon Newman, March 1939: The British Guarantee to Poland (Oxford 1976), pp. 152–153.
9. House of Commons Debates, 5th series, vol. 345, col. 2415.
10. House of Commons Debates, 5th series, vol. 347, cols 1833, 1839.
11. Neville Chamberlain to his sister Hilda, 9 April 1939, quoted in Ernest R. May, Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France (New York 2000), p. 183.
12. DGFP, series D, vol. VI, no. 433.
13. See the different interpretations in Jonathan Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933–39 (London 1984), p. 212
14. Geoffrey Roberts, The Unholy Alliance (Bloomington, Indiana 1989), pp. 124–128
15. Geoffrey Roberts, ‘Infamous encounter? The Merekalov-Weizsäcker meeting of 17 April 1939’, Historical Journal, 35 (4) (1992), pp. 921–926.
16. DGFP, series D, vol. VII, nos 228, 229.
17. Silvio Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936–1941 (London 2002), p. xiii goes further than this, asserting that Stalin wanted to avoid entanglement in European war at all costs. [My italics.]
18. D. C. Watt, How War Came. The Immediate Origins of the Second World War (London 1989), pp. 464–465.
19. Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Germany and the Second World War, vol. II, Germany's Initial Conquests in Europe (Oxford 1991), p. 77. The military advantage in the postponement has been very little noticed.
20. David Dutton, Simon. A political biography of Sir John Simon (London 1992), pp. 279–282.
21. J.-L. Crémieux-Brilhac, Les Français de l'an 40 (2 vols, Paris 1990), vol. I, pp. 55–134, provides a detailed analysis of French opinion. See also Peter Jackson, France and the Nazi Menace: Intelligence and Policy Making, 1933–39 (Oxford 2000), pp. 337–338, 379, on the change in public mood.
22. Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Germany and the Second World War, vol. I, The Build-up of German Aggression (Oxford 1990), pp. 11–12, 123.
23. See Richard Overy, ‘Strategic Intelligence and the Outbreak of the Second World War’, War in History, vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 451–480.