45

p The German attack on Poland put the British and French governments in difficulties. They were committed to assist their eastern ally in the event of an attack, but had no intention of living up to their obligations, still hoping that the German armies would confine their actions to the East only.

p Mussolini, who used Chamberlain’s and Daladier’s mood, suggested a new conference, similar to that in Munich, on September 2, 1939. The British and French were quick to express consent, though with some reservations. So did the Polish Government. Again, political leaders of these states began speaking of "general appeasement".  [45•1  Addressing the French parliament, Daladier assured the world no Frenchman would ever fight to conquer foreign soil.  [45•2  Hitler understood this to be a reassurance that Poland’s allies would leave her in the lurch. Berlin, having regarded Mussolini’s initiative as a way of sounding out Britain and France, was now sure of its ground. The nazi government rejected the idea of a new international conference out of hand.

p Chamberlain and Daladier, meanwhile, were faced with a public outcry they could not control. Discontent over 46 their policy of appeasement, tantamount to encouragement of aggression, ran high. The more farsighted Western leaders saw the imminent danger of a nazi assault. Besides, to bow to Germany once more and flout the commitments given to Poland meant relinquishing important international positions and recognising Germany as victor in the imperialist struggle, as hegemon in bourgeois Europe, thus reducing Britain and France to second-class powers.

p It was impossible to continue the Munich policy by previous means. New methods were required. Britain and France declared war formally on September 3, 1939, giving as the reason their commitment to Poland, a lofty motive intended to give the Anglo-French war against Germany a just liberative complexion.

p But continuing the Munich policy by new means could be .neither just nor liberative. It was an imperialist policy of phoney war, its purpose being merely to convince Germany that the British and French governments were determined to maintain their international position and compel her to accept a new deal with the ultimate aim of a world-wide imperialist crusade against the Soviet Union.

p This war aim was revealed by top British statesmen. Chamberlain, for one, named Hitler’s betrayal of his anti- Soviet promises as the main cause of Britain’s entry into the war. Hitler had sworn for years, he said, "that he was the mortal enemy of Bolshevism; he is now its ally".  [46•1  And Halifax, speaking in the Commons on October 4, 1939, said that by signing the non-aggression treaty with the USSR, the rulers of Germany reversed "the most fundamental principles of their policy, which they had for long years most vehemently proclaimed."  [46•2  The same idea was set out at greater length by Lord Lloyd in a brochure published in November 1939 in London with an introduction by Halifax.  [46•3  Chamberlain, too, indicated, that Britain declared war on Germany because Hitler, who had promised war against Bolshevism, had "betrayed ... the whole Western civilisation" by concluding a non-aggression pact with the USSR.  [46•4 

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p Thus, the British and French rulers were least of all concerned with combating fascism or halting its aggression,, but purely with channelling aggression in the direction they desired. This was the reason for their reluctance to aid Poland and the reason why they viewed her tragic plight so dispassionately.

p Here is how Zbigniew Zaluski, the Polish war historian, describes Britain’s and France’s policy in September 1939: "Poland, the victim of Hitler Germany’s brazen attack that threatened her biological existence, counted on the help of her allies, while these allies were bent on appeasing Hitler Germany and goading her to fight against the Soviet Union, to fight on Poland’s ruins against the only country with a vested interest in defending Poland’s independence, the only country that had for a long time endeavoured to safeguard that independence, the only country able to deliver Poland from the nazi yoke."  [47•1 

p Regardless of the intents of the British and French governments, their declaration of war on Germany was also undeniable evidence of the sharpness of the imperialist contradictions. These contradictions between the United States, Britain and France, on the one hand, and Germany, Japan and Italy, on the other, obstructed their new deal against the Soviet Union.

p The Anglo-French declaration of war was received differently by aggressor and victim. The former was quite sure that the Western powers would take no field action. "That they have declared war on us...,” Hitler said, "does not mean they are going to fight."  [47•2  Meanwhile, the Polish Government trusted that it would get help; doubly so on receiving an official reply to its specific operational proposals from the French Foreign Ministry. "Tomorrow, or at the latest in the morning of the day after,” it said, "a strong attack by French and British bombers will be made against Germany, which may even be extended to hit the rear formations on the Polish front."  [47•3  But in vain did Poland in her agony wait for help, even if only from the air. The few British and French planes that appeared over Germany confined themselves to dropping leaflets denouncing the policy of the Hitler 48 government that had flouted the promise of acting jointly with the Western powers against the USSR.

_p The Anglo-French betrayal of Poland was no casual act. It was part of a deliberate and planned policy. The British Chief of Staff had decided in July 1939, months before the nazi assault on Poland, that it would be undesirable to relieve German pressure on Poland at the beginning of the war and more advisable to wait for the final outcome.  [48•1 

p ’

p The Anglo-French war against Germany between September 3, 1939, and April-May 1940, was contemptuously christened a "phoney war”. It was war without acts of war. While nazi troops sowed death and destruction in Poland, the Anglo-French command entertained its soldiers, passively installed in the front-line, with football matches.

p The balance of strength in the West offered the British and French abundant opportunities. At the beginning of September, France had no divisions, with a British expeditionary corps of five divisions arriving to reinforce them.  [48•2  Germany mustered but 23 poorly armed divisions against them, and after the war Hitler’s generals admitted that if the allies had mounted a strong offensive, the Wehrmacht would have collapsed, because "the bulk of the combat-ready German formations had been flung against Poland, while the Western front was manned mostly by unready divisions incapable of offensive action".  [48•3 

p German weakness in the West derived not only from the main forces having been deployed against Poland. There was a political reason. The underlying purpose was to persuade Britain and France that Germany had no intention of attacking in the West. The Western powers were inclined to accept this version. For their part, they gave to understand that they had no unfriendly intentions either, despite the state ,of war. This attitude had a corrupting influence on the army and rear in France, eroding faith in the need for repulsing the aggressor. Defence preparations were stepped down, with the "phoney war" and its politico-moral and military effects preparing the ground for France’s defeat.

p Progressives, all true patriots: in France and Britain denounced the "phoney war”. They saw through it. They saw 49 its secret sense—the intention of the British, French and US governments to facilitate a German attack on the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and Germany’s intention to secure favourable conditions for smashing her Western friends, now turned foe. Disclosing the secret went against the interests of either side. To conceal it, the French Government, for one, mounted a repressive offensive on the home “front”.

p The anti-Soviet and anti-democratic campaign in France, Britain and the United States reached its peak during the Soviet-Finnish war. It seemed then that international reaction was close to achieving its aim: the launching of an anti-Soviet crusade. The general staffs in France and Britain were fitting out an expeditionary corps to help Finnish reaction and preparing an attack against the Soviet Union in the South. Neither did they scrap their war planning (against the Soviet Union) after the conclusion of the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty. The French General Staff had completed a plan for Operation Bakou, envisaging a sudden air assault on the Soviet Union’s key economic centres, undermining the country’s military-economic potential, to be followed by a ground invasion. The plan was submitted to the government on April 4, 1940, and soon thereafter the final date for the attack was set for the end of June or early July, I94I.  [49•1  Britain’s Chiefs of Staff Committee took part in drawing up the plan. It continued work on it even after France lay crushed, and even when the prospect of a German invasion loomed large for Britain herself. On June 12, 1941, the Committee decided on steps setting the stage for a swift air strike from Mosul against the oil refining plants in Baku.  [49•2 

At the height of the danger to the survival of the peoples of Eastern and Western Europe, instead of repulsing the enemy, the rulers of Britain and France dreamt of an alliance with it and plotted an attack on the Soviet Union—the only country capable of delivering the world from the brown plague of fascism.