p The contact which Britain and France established with the Polish government in those days was of a very peculiar character. For example, the French representatives in Warsaw showed no intention at all to get the Polish government to agree to co-operation with the USSR in action against German aggression, but just wanted to get the right for themselves to make a statement in Moscow about Poland’s position which would enable the Three-Power military conversations to continue without in any way committing Poland. The member of the French delegation in Moscow, Beaufre, subsequently pointed out that the problem was not to secure a Polish reply to the question of whether or not they would allow passage of Soviet troops through their territory but to "find a pretext to continue the talks."^^132^^ 248 With the Nazi Reich’s attack on Poland only a few days away, the Polish ruling circles still flatly refused all cooperation with the USSR because of their flagrantly antiSoviet position. The French War Ministry stated in a memorandum about the progress of negotiations in Moscow: to make it easier for Poland to decide in favour of military co-operation with the USSR, the Soviet delegation very neatly limited the zone of passage of Soviet troops through Polish territory and determined them out of considerations of "purely strategic character”. However, Jozef Beck and the Polish Chief of Staff General Stachiewicz, showed " irreconcilable hostility".^^133^^ On August 20, 1939, Stachiewicz told the British military attache that "there could never be any question of Soviet troops being allowed to cross the Polish frontier".^^134^^ All the Polish government quarters consented to was the pretext suggested by French diplomacy.

p Such a position of the Polish rulers will be easier to understand if one takes into account the fact that they, as has since been made clear by the reminiscences of the Polish Ambassador in Berlin, Jozef Lipski, were still obsessed in those crucial days with their own plans of reaching an accommodation with the Nazi Reich. On August 18, Lipski suggested to Beck the idea of a visit to Berlin to negotiate with the Nazi chiefs. Beck agreed on the following day. On August 20, Lipski flew to Warsaw on an urgent mission to talk over with Beck the substance of the coming nego- tiations. ^^135^^

p The Polish rulers could hardly have any doubt about the character those “talks” might have and what they might end up in. For everybody still remembered only too well the similar “talks” between Hitler and President Hacha of Czechoslovakia in Berlin in the middle of March 1939. The Fiihrer is known to have forced him into "agreeing to a dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the establishment of a Nazi Reich’s protectorate out of what would be left of her by threatening to wipe Prague off tho face of the earth. The Polish rulers could not fail to realise that at a time when the Nazi Reich had massed its troops close to the Polish borders in order to carry out a devastating strike against her, something like it was bound to be imposed on Poland in the negotiations in Berlin. But they, evidently, were ready and willing to capitulate in the hope of becoming Hitler’s lieutenants in the Poland he would 249 enslave, as a result of this betrayal of their own people.

Hitler, however, was not at all disposed to have any negotiations with Poland’s representatives. He was not to be satisfied even with her voluntary surrender. He bad brought off his preparations for a military defeat of Poland and he wanted no other solution to the issue.