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war. Adolf Hitler salutes troops marching to the Polish border. |
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Apart from Spain and areas of hitlerite rule the New
Year 1939 was celebrated in the whole Europe in an atmosphere of
euphoric joy. Chamberlain's words about the peace in our time were
taken seriously everywhere from Thames to the Urals. Whether in England
or Poland, France or Yugoslavia, Norway and even Italy people believed
in life, may be hard but anyhow bloodless. They did not feel that the
coming year would become the darkest one in their lives.
Józef Beck celebrated New Year on French Riviera. Of
course he did not go there just for entertainment. But his French
colleague, Georges Bonnet, did not even think that it would fit to
invite the Pole to Paris, and he did not take the trouble too to come
to the Riviera.
France's passivity towards German actions in the East
emboldened Adolf Hitler and confirmed him in decisions he had made
earlier. The Germano-French non-aggression pact concluded in December
1938 constituted another soporific injection. After all the French
apparently wanted to sleep and they were offended when some Britons,
who, like Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, were undertaking a complicated
process of reversal Islanders' sympathies from Germany. Meanwhile
Berlin
was getting confident that France had completely abandoned her East
European allies.
At that time statesmen used to travel by trains;
Neville
Chamberlain flying to Hitler, whatever can be told about him, was a
pioneer of air travels. Beck was coming back to Poland by traditional
mean of transport and the way was via Germany. The visit to Berlin was
of course arranged beforehand. Hitler did not leave Beck only to
Joachim
Ribbentrop, the German foreign minister - a toad actually incapable to
talk to anybody and assigned just to trumpet his master's opinions. In
that case the matter was even more sensitive and the Polish minister
was
with honours escorted to Obersalzberg, the winter residence of the Führer
of the Third Reich. But there he heard the same he could hear earlier
from Ribbentrop. Hitler demanded Danzig and an extraterritorial
motorway, but first of all he demanded closer co-operation towards
possible common expedition to Moscow.
Since some time Germany, Italy and Japan were bound
with
so-called Anti-Comintern Pact; officially it was concluded against any
actions of the Comintern, namely the communist international, and less
officially against the Soviet state. The Germans tried to involve
Poland
into the pact as a yet another member, particularly useful due to the
geographic location. During the talks with Beck Hitler emphasized a
common anti-Russian attitude of both regimes, drafted Polish
perspectives in the Ukraine and stated that every Polish division
engaged against Russia could spare a German division somewhere else. It
seems that Beck realised how fragile was his policy of "equal distance"
from Berlin and Moscow inherited from Józef Piłsudski: the distance
from
Berlin visibly decreased.
Towards the end of January 1939 Ribbentrop visited
Warsaw; the Germans still expected, that they would manage to drive
Poland into their plans of the conquest of the world. The schedule
Hitler had concocted foresaw first the conquest of France and the West
and then the turn towards the USSR; and there he seriously expected a
Polish assistance. Ribbentrop did not demand a Germano-Polish march
against France and Great Britain; he just suggested that Poland would
remain neutral, securing Germany from the east and preparing herself,
after the fall of Paris and London, to the common attack on Moscow. But
the visit had missed its goal. It caused a major change in the
hitlerite schedule.
On 30 January 1939, the sixth anniversary of the
seizure
of power, Hitler mentioned yet the Germano-Polish non-aggression pact
of 1934, but with a little emphasis. German expectations were melting
down day after day. And the Berlin again animated an apparatus of
anti-Polish propaganda. The German embassy in Warsaw had transformed
into a megaphone of complaints. Particularly the case of German
landlords in Posnania was exploited as they were deprived of their
possessions in course of nation-wide land reform.
On the other hand Polish military preparations had been
very conservative. Marshal Piłsudski until his death was stuck to the
experiences of the First World War and trusted only in traditional
infantry and cavalry. But in the end of 1930's they demanded motors.
The
old Marshal though remembered an aircraft crash he saw back in 1919 and
forbade introducing modern technics to the Polish army. It was not
until
his death that the works on modernization started. But the country was
poor, economically backward and every fractured pneumatic used to cause
a no mean problem. Besides, according to an unwritten Piłsudski's
testament army's main forces were deployed in the east.
According to Gen. Wacław Teofil Stachiewicz, then chief
of general staff, in 1936-1938 the main effort was put to work out the
strategic plan East, which was finished by the winter
1938/1939.
According to the plan the Polish army was supposed to be ready for
full-scale military action in spring 1940. These preparations were
given
a priority before the strategic plan West, which after all was
deemed technically impossible. [1]
Only weak border guard troops were deployed on the German frontier. It
was not until 1938, annexation of Austria and dismemberment of
Czechoslovakia that Piłsudski's successor, Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz
got sober. The sobriety though had come somewhat vehemently. A
Germany's weakness had been presumed too long. Strategic plans require
years of work and a Polish defence plan did not exist yet in February
1939. And its inevitable operational imperfection unfortunately
composed with the destitution of defence budget. Meanwhile new events
were coming down in streams.
For three years then Spain had been burning in the fire
of the civil war. After the fall of monarchy the power in that country
was assumed by leftist forces rallied in the Popular Front. In July
1936 against the newly created republic had rebelled garrisons in
Morocco and Canary Islands. The rebellion, led by Gen. Francisco Franco
Bahamonde, soon got supported by some metropolitan regiments. The
rebels, who openly called themselves fascists, immediately obtained
support from Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who sent to Iberian peninsula
their troops, mainly armoured, mechanized and air units. The republic
received an effective help from the Soviet Union and some minor
democratic countries. But it is closer to Valencia from Naples than
from Odessa. Major powers had accepted the policy of non-intervention.
From many corners of the world volunteers rushed to Spain, where they
formed famous international brigades to fight fascism. But the
soldiers' rifles, bought secretly on world's arms marts, were a poor
match to Italian tanks and German aircraft, regularly, and together
with crews, shipped to Franco. On 27 February 1939 the Spanish drama
came to its end; British and French governments officially recognized
the rebel government. Within next weeks fell Madrid and Barcelona and Noche
Negra, black night of the fascist dictatorship, fell upon the
country. Hitler and Mussolini could hug themselves for their first
military victory on a wide scale. They did not fail to exploit it.
On 15 March 1939 German armoured columns entered
Prague.
Czechoslovakia became erased from the map of Europe. Carved out Bohemia
and Moravia became incorporated to a Reich protectorate; the pattern of
its statute was taken from statutes of French North African colonies.
Slovak chauvinists supported and often paid by Berlin created by
Hitler's grace a so-called Slovak State. It was Poland's strategic
defeat. Slovakia subordinated to Germany had constituted the second
claw
of gigantic grip around Poland. The president of Czechoslovakia, Dr.
Edvard Beneš, yet in October 1938 had renounced his post and made for
exile.
In March 1939 supreme German military commanders were
marching out to Prague with a foreboding of evil. They perfectly knew,
that a firm Czechoslovak defence, even supported just by the Poles,
would bring them a final military defeat. The German army still had not
been prepared to any war. But the Czechoslovak army surrendered without
a single shot, the Poles did not move as well. Some Slovak politicians
counted on the Warsaw yet on days of the Munich crisis. But the Warsaw,
with behemoth awkwardness, resolved to grab some scraps of Spish and
Orava. For the Poles it was a matter of few villages, for the Slovaks -
a matter of a national prestige. The more so Beck had entered political
manipulations in favour of incorporation the territory of
Transcarpathian Rus (Ruthenia) to Hungary. Thus was achieved a common
Polish-Hungarian border in insignificant outskirts of both countries,
what was inconsiderably promoted by Polish propaganda to a rank of a
national feast. And pro-Polish sympathies in Bratislava were completely
wasted. Whereas the Germans immediately occupied the Vah valley, the
shortest route from Vienna to Cracow. The rich armoured and air
equipment of the Czechoslovak army fell completely to the Germans, who,
fed with the Czechoslovak loot, could speed up further activities.
On 22 March they grabbed Memel (Klaipeda) from the
Lithuanians and next day forced the Romanians to sign a treaty, which
practically gave them the whole economics of that country. Since then
they had Romanian oil at their disposal. And thus got dissipated Beck's
dreams about the Greater Poland from sea to sea - a federation of lands
from the Gulf of Finland to the Aegean Sea under the Polish hegemony.
The Germans were plucking out of that unattained constellation a
country after a country with absolute passivity of democracies. Romania
was allied with France, Czechoslovakia and Poland, but France was
sleeping, Czechoslovakia did not exist, whereas Poland offered, with
Beck's voice, incorporation of a scrap of Transcarpathian Rus as big as
a quarter of a county. No wonder that king Charles II of Romania, a man
otherwise rather not serious, decided the flop to time less dangerous.
On the other side of the Polish state territory the Lithuanians also
gave up. A year earlier the Poles, amidst a savage anti-Lithuanian
hysteria and under a military threat, forced them to establish
diplomatic relations non-existent since 1922 when Poland occupied
Vilnius (Wilno). Now they came to a conclusion that nobody would
support them against hoodlums grabbing an important Baltic port and
started to look more and more often eastward.
But could Poland fight for Slovakia, Romania,
Lithuania?
Of course she could not do it alone. Although the Warsaw believed in
possibility to deliver an efficient defence, nobody even considered a
successful single offensive action. After Czechoslovak capitulation,
after the seizure of Czechoslovak arsenals by the Germans, Poland could
only trust in allies.
The momentum hitlerites gathered in March finally
disillusioned even Chamberlain. The British felt menaced by growing
German might. The panic spread in London: one seriously was afraid,
that
Poland too would bind herself with Germany. That would mean a complete
ruin of the traditional British political principle known as the
balance
of power. A country to disturb the balance of strengths on European
continent automatically used to become a Great Britain's enemy. France
used to be such an enemy in the past. Now, second time in the 20th
century, Germany emerged as a major threat.
On 31 March Chamberlain declared before the House of
Commons to lend the Polish government all support in British power in
the event of any action, which clearly threatened Polish independence.
The declaration was preceded by hectic diplomatic soundings between
Warsaw and London. On 2 April Beck arrived in the British capital, and
on 6 April was published the common Anglo-Polish announcement. It
stated, that the Chamberlain's declaration became supplemented by
Polish declaration, it means Poland's will to help Great Britain shall
she be menaced and a further conclusion of the formal Anglo-Polish
alliance was announced.
Next day, on Good Friday 7 April, Italian troops landed
in Albania. It was the most bizarre one out of crippled Mussolini's
conquests. The escape of king Ahmet bej Zogu with his wife, beautiful
Hungarian countess Geraldina of Apponyi and their new-born baby (as
well
as the state treasury), became one of those romantic episodes, which
are
always interesting to infantile readers of tabloids. Actually Mussolini
could be contributed with the conquest of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), where
his tanks and aircraft within months overcame a stubborn defence of
barefoot warriors, but in comparison to Hitler's successes he was left
far behind. By striking against Albania he tried to compensate his
inferiority complex. But the seizure of the Balkan bridgehead had
brought not only a personal compensation. Italian regiments were often
hungry and barefoot, incomparably worse equipped than the German ones,
poorly trained, undisciplined and first of all deprived of that
Teutonic
arrogance, which transforms Berlin or Hamburg townsfolk into bloody
beasts. But those were the regiments of the effective force similar to
the German ones, inspired with a similar ideology and with their very
mass created another claw of the grip menacing not Poland alone, but
the
whole East Europe.
The rapprochement between Warsaw and London had caused
of course a fury in Berlin. It took however some time before reaction
came out. The Germans were surprised by Britons' decision; they did not
expect it from phlegmatic Islanders, who so far used to avoid
engagement
east to the Rhine. It was not until 28 April that Hitler delivered an
angry speech. While spitting and snorting, he renounced the
Germano-Polish non-aggression pact and the Germano-British naval
treaty.
Simultaneously he disclosed first time in public demands towards
Poland;
in return for their fulfilment he promised a guarantee of the
Germano-Polish border. But there were no more fools, ready to believe
his promises.
On 5 May before the Polish parliament Józef Beck
delivered a speech on Polish-German relations. Originally members of
parliament did not listen him attentively, some even fell asleep - who
likes to listen to such boring formalities? Suddenly they became
awakened by a firm thump on the pulpit. Beck did it to strengthen his
key phrase: Poland will not let to push her away from the Baltic.
[2]
The silence fell upon the chamber. Not only the chamber though - the
whole Poland expected those words.
Peace is a valuable and desirable possession,
concluded Beck. Our generation, bleeding in wars, certainly
deserves
peace. But peace, like everything in this world, has its price. We in
Poland do not recognize the concept of peace at any price. There is
only
one thing in life of men, nations and states that is above price - and
that is honour. [2]
The speech, made almost immediately after Hitler's
shrieks of 28 April, elicited enthusiasm, but it definitely buried
Poland's policy of balancing between Germany and the USSR. Warsaw
officially rejected German offer and started partial, secret
mobilization of some groups of reservists. Soon first army units were
sent from the east towards East Prussia's frontier.
On 25 March Hitler talked to Walther von Brauchitsch,
the commander-in-chief of the German land forces, that one had to avoid
seizure of Danzig by force for that would push Poland towards Britain.
He also explained, that he intended to destroy Poland to such a degree,
that it could not be considered as a political factor for generations.
Finally on 11 April he signed directions to commence the plan Fall
Weiß (Case White),
foreseeing assault on Poland without declaration of war and
annihilation of Polish defence before possible interference of third
countries. He ordered full readiness of armed forces by 25 August.
Britons' determination finally woke up the French. On
13
April Daladier had stammered words of solidarity. Considering
sluggishness of the French diplomacy one frankly can name it a
lightning hurry. Some days after the Beck's speech General Tadeusz
Kasprzycki, Poland's war minister, went to Paris and during the talks
with General Maurice Gamelin, designated for the French supreme
commander in case of war, and tried to obtain a commitment that the
French army would engage against Germany immediately after an expected
attack. It was not until after the war, that Gamelin revealed his
anti-Polish feelings. For short, he regarded the Poles for warmongers,
who tried to drag France into unpopular war. He promised Kasprzycki,
that the French air forces would undertake an action against Germany
immediately, whereas land forces would undertake limited offensive
operations on the third day of mobilization and would unfold them with
bulk forces on the fifteenth day of mobilization. Seven years later he
admitted: I had accepted a formula, which always could be logically
interpreted. [3]
The most important is the fact, that conclusion of a protocol, which
would contain those promises, was postponed until conclusion of a
general French-Polish political agreement. Bonnet however preferred to
wait a while with such an agreement. And subsequently he was waiting
until the war broke out.
The British were more sincere. They promised no
wonders,
they did not try to conceal the weakness of their land forces. So one
relied upon their mighty navy, capable to cut Germany from overseas
supplies of raw materials. But one mostly relied upon them as an
economical power. Unfortunately, neither British nor French loans were
able to solve the problem. Both powers demanded that the loans would be
spent on their markets. But they did not offer modern weapons. In
Poland, when after Piłsudski's death it was decided to modernize the
army, two opposite options were considered: to buy armaments abroad or
to develop domestic defence industry. Quite reasonably, the latter was
accepted. Unfortunately this reasonable solution was frustrated by
another nonsense: modern weapons were sold out abroad and thus
remainders of time, money and intellectual potential were wasted. It
even came to an absurd paradox: poor Poland sold to Great Britain, one
of the world's leading economic powers, over 200 most modern 40mm
anti-aircraft guns, manufactured in Poland after purchase of a licence
from the Swedish Bofors. Those guns had stood the test during
the critical days of the Battle of Britain in 1940, while in 1939
Poland was deprived of anti-air defence.
The annual budget of the Polish state at the time did
not exceed a sum of two and half of billion zlotys, what makes about a
billion US dollars. In 1934-1939 Poland, extending military shares in
annual budget beyond safe limits, spent on armaments about two billion
and 600 million US dollars. At the same time Germany spent on armaments
about 90 billion marks, what makes 80 billion US dollars. French loans
granted in 1937 and spring 1939 theoretically aided Poland with 300
million dollars, but they were wasted on mostly obsolete equipment;
besides, French factories used to sell defective items, and long
deadlines left many orders unfulfilled. As to the tiny loan of about 80
million dollars granted by Great Britain in spring 1939, it was simply
stolen away by corrupted officials. [4]
Looking for additional sources of cash, Polish
government had appealed to the society for help. The Loan of the
Anti-Air Defence floated, soon had brought marvellous effects - 400
million zlotys, about 80 million US dollars, donated by citizens within
one month. By June it was collected enough money and valuables to buy
about a thousand of most modern fighter planes. However a large part of
these funds miraculously vanished and its fates are still unknown. [4]
Nevertheless the Poles looked forward with optimism. Of
course they knew, that the Reich could oppose 35 million Polish
citizens with 80 million its own ones, but they were not aware of
differences in Poland's and Germany's potentials, moral and military
weakness of allies, threat of new weapons and new military doctrines.
The more difficult it is to understand the optimism of the state
leadership. They did not lack an information about the real state of
matters. Nevertheless they expected a miracle: that the Germans would
not dare to launch a final adventure, that German economic and social
structures would collapse, that alliances would unfailingly do. With
time those dolts had coined a slogan "We are strong, united, ready" (Jesteśmy
silni, zwarci, gotowi) and let the society believe in invincibility
of the Polish cavalry. The enemy meanwhile had new experiences. Spain
became a range, where the Germans and Italians had gained valuable
experiences and practically tested theories of the modern warfare. The
Spanish civil war attracted attention of military specialists from all
over Europe, among others from Poland too. But Polish specialists had
driven very particular conclusions. For example, they insisted that
tanks got damaged very easily, so on Polish roads, especially in bad
weather conditions, armoured vehicles would prove to be useless.
Meanwhile British and French governments were
exploring,
since spring, possibilities of conclusion a military co-operation with
the Soviet Union. The Soviet government declared an aid to
Czechoslovakia yet during the Munich crisis, but the Soviet offer was
rejected mostly due to hostile Poland's position. Now the Russians
offered France and Great Britain an alliance of the last chance, which
might eventually hold back Hitler's attempts. This however required
introduction of Soviet troops to the immediate vicinity of German
frontiers, it means Polish territory. In a desperate attempt to save
remnants of his policy of balance, Beck refused downright on 19 August.
After the pressure from western capitals he agreed to undertake talks
with Moscow, but only after a possible aggression. The political
situation had though changed rapidly. As the Soviet Union was already
menaced by Japan, which was carrying out hostilities in the Far East,
the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had decided to secure western frontiers
of his state in some measures directly. On 23 August in Moscow was
concluded the Germano-Soviet non-aggression pact.
The day before Hitler had summoned a conference of high
rank commanders and ordered the attack on Poland on 26 August morning.
He claimed that it would cause dismissals of democratic governments and
a political chaos in Europe. He also called to ruthlessness, to killing
women and children. A gang of criminals, called the German general
staff, listened to its Führer with reverence. After all German
"fifth column" had already been killing women and children. On 28
August
a crowd of passengers was massacred on the railway station in Tarnow by
explosion of a time bomb terrorists had concealed in a luggage
carriage.
And Danzig's Gauleiter Albert Forster was already preparing the first
in
that area concentration camp in Stutthof. But on 25 August in London
was
signed the Anglo-Polish pact and the Berlin got panicked. Hitler had
decided to postpone the onslaught till 1 September. German divisions
were halted literally at the very last moment. A unit, which had not
received new orders on time, struck according the old schedule against
Jablunkov pass. It was driven back with heavy losses and a German
commander had to apologize for, as it was formulated, "irresponsible
escapade of an insubordinated officer".
The postponement of the attack had to secure Hitler
some
time to shake democratic powers. He expected that he would be able to
induce them to abandon Poland. His expectations were not completely
baseless. The British foreign minister, Lord Edward Wood Halifax, in a
talk with Polish ambassador unfolded a concept of a new political
compromise with Berlin. Halifax, with Chamberlain, was responsible for
Munich tragedy. Now both were looking in dismay at the results of their
own deeds and at the ruin of their policy. Yet still they hoped against
hope, that they would induce the Poles to make concessions. They made
Polish government to call out the general mobilization proclaimed on 29
August. On the same day Hitler demanded from the British ambassador,
Sir Neville Henderson, that the British government would prompt the
Poles to send a plenipotentiary envoy, ready to accept and sign German
conditions. Those conditions were not revealed till the next day when
Ribbentrop had mumbled them to Henderson, without presentation of any
document though. Henderson was appalled by the form of his reception,
but he did not understand, that Hitler did not desire ho have any
conditions accepted; all he needed was to spark the war under any
pretext. And the pretext was duly delivered.
On 31 August the radio station in Gleiwitz broadcast an
appeal to the Polish minority in Silesia to launch an uprising against
Germany. That was a heavenly gift. At 12:30 the orders were issued. The
attack had to start next day at dawn, namely at 4:45. The battleship Schleswig-Holstein
fired her guns exactly on time. But land troops opened fire against
Westerplatte at 4:17. Some German units crossed Polish borders at 3:55.
German aircraft started bombing Polish cities soon after 4:00. Big was
invaders' impatience.
- W. T. Stachiewicz, Przygotowania wojenne w Polsce
1935-1939
- J. Beck, Dernier report. Politique polonaise
1926-1939
- M. Gamelin, Servir
- I. Jurczenko, K. Kilijanek, Ludzie z "Żelaza"
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