Ollie Garchy

[You guys are keeping me busy, I hope the boss continues to leave me alone for a while.]

A few more responses:

(1) The German "invasion" of Norway (like that of the Balkans) was reactive. One of the central themes in "just war" research is the Anglo-French plan for cutting off German Swedish iron ore imports. Churchill, for example, sponsored the invasion of neutral Norway to permit operations aimed at isolating Sweden. Hitler, owing to German industrial dependency on Swedish iron ore, was forced to respond or face certain ruin. The issue for the moralists is how Britain and France could countenance the invasion of Norway? This is a big issue for some people. Nobody today argues that "Fall Gelb" was expansionist. It was reactive.

[The Balkans was very similar. Yugoslavia was originally an ally of Nazi-Germany. The Pan-Slavists disliked the arrangement, sponsored a successful coup in Spring 1941, and declared war on Germany. Hitler, who feared that the action might interfere with Romanian oil shipments, and who was no longer amused by Mussolini's adventure in Albania-Greece, was forced to respond. The Pan-Slav declaration of war represented a similar fiasco for the Allies. That Tito threw Serbia into a crushing civil war/partisan operation also represented a true tragedy for the region.]

(2) [Not a response, but a point] The Anglo-French forces also invaded Belgium in summer 1940. Why? The French remembered WWI and desperately wanted to avoid fighting on French soil. They did not necessarily want to save Belgium. It was also disastrous. The move forced the Anglo-French forces to leave "inner lines" and establish new positions in what was believed the main German axis of attack. It complicated battle operations for the Allies, hindered the formation of a strategic reserve, and subjected the troops to wear and tear. This politically-inspired strategy, like Churchill's invasion of Norway, led directly to France's defeat and prolonged the war against Hitler. It represents one of the most stupid military decisions of all time (it was afterall political).

(3) What was the relative importance of Poland for the western Allies? None. Without any real industrial infrastructure, only 20 million people, and few natural resouces, the German occupation of the country did not enhance Hitler's war machine. The absorption of the Czech republic (considering the industry of the German-Austrian Sudetenland) did matter as everyone knows. Did the Germans use Polish aircraft or tanks or even artillery? No. Did the Germans use anything but Polish sausages? No. Why then enter a WORLD WAR against a major regional/ world power over sausages? It makes no military or geopolitical sense whatsoever. Again, political issues are another story altogether.

My Conclusions/Hypotheses:

(1) Why WORLD WAR in 1939? It was NOT a world war. [Unless of course you believe that western/central Europe is the world] The British historian Michael Howard, another example of the really wise people, in an interesting essay wrote that the period 1939-1941 reflected a European war that Germany won. Hitler then changed into ideological-mode and started WWII in 1941. He invaded the USSR and declared war on the USA. The European war, my hypothesis, was started by Paris-London in the manner of a preventive war that totally backfired. Hitler's WWII backfired even worse.

(2) Poland "started" WWI because it was directly responsible for the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939.

(a) Polish-Russian and Polish-German relations were always bad for longterm historical reasons. Prussia and Russia (with Austria) had carved up Poland a few hundred years prior to 1939 and the Poles generally wanted independence.

Germany had a large Polish population (I think about 3 million) prior to 1918 that was generally treated like the Scots, Welsh or Irish in Britain at the time. Ie. like colonial subjects. The same was true in the Russian region of rump Poland where the majority of Poles lived. During WWI, all sides tried to bring the Poles on board with promises of this land or that land or these borders.

The Poles, hardly content after the generous territorial concensions given at Versailles, were swept by nationalist fervour after 1918 and literally went overboard. Hastily organized troops collected Russian equipment and invaded (1) Germany, (2) the new Soviet Union, and (3) even annexed the capital of Lithuania (todays capital was not the capital back then).

The Soviets and Germans [alas, not the poor Lithuanians. They just took Memel from Germany instead. The Lithuanian government however got nervous after Hitler took power in 1933 and gave it back.] responded even though hampered by civil war and the consequences of WWI military defeat. German Freikorps troops successfully defended the German frontier. Trotsky's Red Army countered a real Polish invasion and battled the Poles near Kiev in the early 1920s. The new Polish state still counted millions of Germans, Ukrainians, White Russians and Hungarians, etc. The problem of national sovereignty would fuel the outbreak of war in 1939.

The Germans treated Poles poorly after 1918. This point is correct and often stated. Berlin generously believed that Poland was an artificial state, wanted a return to 1914, made life hard for the Polish economy, etc. From the German perspective, the Polish government however also proved a real pain in the ass for a variety of reasons: (1) there was rampant persecution of those Germans who remained in the ceded areas (farmers, etc.), (2) the attempt to extort favourable trade conditions using the threat of a anti-German whiplash, and (3) open Polish plans (actual operations) during the 1920s and early 1930s to invade Germany. Many Poles considered East Prussia an artificial state and wanted to annex the region up to today's borders. There was REAL tension and there were REAL problems. All of these problems led directly to the Nazi-Soviet decision to return Poland to 1914 by getting rid of it.

Policymakers in London never could understand the context of Nazi policy because they only thought in selfish geopolitical terms. Why? Because all policymakers in every country do this. The Poles were selfish, Stalin was selfish, and Hitler was REALLY selfish. In brief, it does not take a genius to understand that British policy in 1939 did not take the history of central Europe into account, or German-Polish tensions, or the aims of other powers. London switched from an earlier stance and suddenly pronounced the borders of Versailles sacred.

They could of course do this. But independent actions by Britain or London are NOT holy. They were not backed by the League of Nations, or the United States, or China, or Africa, or Asia, or South America or even most of Europe.

It was a uniquely stupid unilateral response to a contained regional crisis that dragged western/central Europe into a war against Hitler that Europe could not win without the Soviet Union. Europe in fact lost this war. It is purely cynical and false to argue that Britain and France believed they could bring Stalin into the fold at some later date.

Ollie Garchy