Churchill turning his back on Poland

The USSR broke relations with Poland in 1943 after the Katyn massacre had been revealed, started targeting Polish Underground shortly afterwards.

Not quite, senior American diplomats warned the Allies that Teheran and what followed next would be a huge mistake. Even Churchill was not quite willing but Roosevelt convinced him eventually everything would be ok.
It wasn't just political mistakes, serious negotiation mistakes were made - mistakes obvious to any experienced diplomat/negotiator.

The author is a hard core Realpolitik practitioner, he don't care about the politically weak. What gets on his nerves is giving away for free or cheaply. He says both Churchill and Roosevelt were good leaders but ineffective politicians.

This is just one of them:
-----------------------------------------
A PROCLAMATION.
WHEREAS a Treaty between [...], HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN IRELAND AND THE BRITISH DOMINIONS BEYOND THE SEAS, EMPEROR OF INDIA, [...], THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND [...]
ARTICLE I
The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.
ARTICLE II
The High Contracting Parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means.
-----------------------------------------

Please, Hitler was a dead man walking in 1943. He had nothing to offer what Stalin couldn't have took himself.
The talks were at the end of 1943, the decisions were made a the end of the war in 1945. The Allies wanted it that way.

 

It's generally believed Poland didn't make any major political mistake in the thirties. Even with 20/20 hindsight it's hard to find something to improve, even in 1938 - after all Poland didn't have any worthwhile ally (France, as in the case of Czechoslovakia was noncommittal) and was threaten by two totalitarian empires.
Czechoslovakia asked for help France and the USSR, and both refused. They never asked Poland for anything, and Poland alone wasn't able to do anything anyway.
You can't help people who don't want your help, and don't even want to die for themselves.

 

Yet Poland was highly suspicious of the USSR before the war even started. This was not altered post the Soviet invasion on the 17th September 1939, and the actions and behaviour of the Polish Government in Exile, was more indicative of a desire to derail UK-Soviet relations, rather than win the war first.


"Not quite, senior American diplomats warned the Allies that Teheran and what followed next would be a huge mistake. Even Churchill was not quite willing but Roosevelt convinced him eventually everything would be ok.
It wasn't just political mistakes, serious negotiation mistakes were made - mistakes obvious to any experienced diplomat/negotiator."

As always, even with two people and a dog in the room, if the topic is serious, there will be disagreement. Such is the nature of human relations. Opinions are like a-holes; everyone has one. All the "senior diplomats" didn't warn. Whether "American" or not. Or if they did, they didn't do it forcefully enough. Diplomats have reservations about many things, including their careers. Decisions need to be made. You cannot solely make them based on Fear, especially with regards to allies.

Your example is just one example of not proving your case at all. All that states, Article 1 and 2, is that the UK and Poland shouldn't fight each other. Don't think they did.




"Please, Hitler was a dead man walking in 1943. He had nothing to offer what Stalin couldn't have took himself."

Please, read some real history to get context, and not your emotional novellas. Having context might aid in your searches to actually find and make relevant comments.

Stalin feared the West was playing him, the way he had tried to play Germany. The West feared Stalin would be tempted into a seperate peace or ceasefire with Germany. Without LL, an armed Soviet Union starves, and the Red Army logistics becomes a near impossible while fighting Germany. 2.5 ton studebakkers kept the ammo flowing, and the forces fed. BTW, LL shipping all but halted in Spring '43.... Meanwhile, Poland is all bitter about loosing territory in the East (some 850 kms and more West of Kursk). I beg your pardon, but the rest of the Allies still had the war to win. You don't wander around insulting the ally doing the Lion's share of the fighting, and expect to be thanked for it.

You absolutely refuse to acknowledge the bind in which Poland placed the Western Allies. There was no solution to the conundrum, that didn't see Poland either under Nazi boot or in a workers' paradise. This was clear from Polish and Soviet attitudes towards each other well before 1943. Bankrupt Britain could promise the moon if the Polish government needed them to in order for the Polish government to save face, but that doesn't make it more real.

 

It were several factors contributing to the break of relations between the Soviet Union and Poland, the Polish reaction to Katyn was just one of many.

Thus, Britain & the United States were forced to walk a fine line in their relations between their allies Soviet Union & Poland. But, facts must be faced...The Soviet Union was the far more valuable Ally.

I presume that your "senior American diplomats" was one man, Willam C. Bullitt, Jr.

Contrary to Green Slime's surmise that he didn't argue forcefully enough, Bullitt argued quite forcefully, and FDR said he could not argue with Bullitt's facts or logic, but FDR had his own hunch about Stalin, and no amount of facts or logic were going to dissuade FDR from that hunch. It also did not help matters that Bullitt was falling from FDR's good graces, a break which would come later in that year, 1943.

Further, you neglect to mention the many senior presidential advisors and diplomats that were quite favorable to the "huge mistake," the two most important being Harry Hopkins, and Joseph E. Davies.

Given that the Soviet Union had it's military in Poland, and the government the Soviets wanted in Poland, while Western Allied armies were nowhere close to Poland, nor was the Polish Government-in-Exile in Poland, would place any Western Allied negotiators in quite a weak position.

Boy...Kissinger must really hate himself for giving away Vietnam for free then.

The realpolitik is that the Soviet Army was ensconced in Poland, the Western Allied armies were not.

Given Kissinger's "success" with Vietnam, he would not have done any better, and quite possibly would have done far worse.

Finally, Poland was not given away "freely or cheaply", it cost them the Soviets a presence in Japan.

Are you really going to quote the Kellogg-Briand Pact?

You do realize that the Pact was a failure because it had more holes in it than swiss cheese?

You do realize that because Germany never formally declared "war", there was no "war." This was one of the loopholes.

You do realize that the Declarations of War by Britain(and her colonies) & France against Germany were all illegal under the Kellogg-Briand Pact?

No, no. The decisions were made prior to the end of the war.

You are conveniently forgetting that there was still Japan left to defeat, and Soviet help was considered necessary for that undertaking.

 

Yes, indeed. But when the argument is in the generic, and sweepingly non-specific at that, it doesn't really warrant the effort of countermanding with details the poor individual apparently can't master anyway.

I wasn't entirely certain that some other person didn't at least sidle slightly with Bulitt. He was using the plural, along with his generic mad dash for the door, and was again not even specific as to when, who, or where it was to have occurred.

I didn't really feel like typing a whole bunch only to be told of some other tangent, focusing on how Churchill manipulated cheese prices in Asia to sponsor Soviet take-overs.

 

All true. Others did side with Bullitt, but "wm." was rather specific in mentioning "senior American diplomats" - as if the use of the term "senior" would give his argument more credibility.

Other than Bullitt, I cannot think of any other "senior American diplomats" that were giving such warnings.

 

Well, I did think of another, Ok, two, who warned FDR about Stalin & the Soviets, W. Averell Harriman and his translator, George F. Kennan. But, both thought that Poland was already a "lost cause."

 

Then please show a single action indicative of a desire to derail UK-Soviet relations.

So Hitler could have recovered and win the war after the Battle of Kursk, and after the Allies landed in Italy? It all happened in 1943.

They weren't that busy, they still found time to impose on Poland an illegal government.

 

Kissinger was a diplomat, he didn't run that war.
It was the United States Congress which cut the funding and threw the South Vietnamese under the bus at time when there were defending themselves from a communist invasion.

The Nazi leaders sentenced for crimes against peace in Nuremberg certainly didn't think so. See Principle VI of the Nuremberg principles based on the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
The Pact worked as designed.

It wasn't. For the simple reason the Kellogg-Briand Pact didn't mandate a declaration of war. It was another unrelated agreement that did.

No it wasn't, for the reason stated above.
But anyway, Germany attacked a defensive alliance, and that alliance responded to that blatant aggression.
The terms of the alliance weren't secret, they were publicly announced earlier.
The declarations of war were mere formality.

It was like NATO today: "the Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."

 

"Single Action"; I could name multiple, but what would be the point? You'd not admit them anyway.

And you're still just as sweepingly generic as you like to be, without ever committing any detail. Please re-read my comments again before posting such accusatory drivel. I know what happened in '43, and it wasn't just Kursk and Italy.

It wasn't a matter of Hitler potentially winning unconditionally the War in the East in 1943, but the possibility of a seperate peace or ceasefire!

Had Hitler or a potential post-coup German government been willing to accept a return to the borders of 1941, there is every likelihood the Soviet Union would have accepted, as was indicated by Soviet Radio broadcasts in German during '43.

 

There was no possibility of a separate peace. Do you really think Stalin was an idiot? That would forsake such great victory, such an enormous opportunity?
He dwarfed the inept Western leaders in his political skills. He and his minions had lots of fun observing their awkward political efforts.


------------------
In 1942 I took part in all the negotiations for a second front in Europe. From the first I didn't believe they would do it. I remained calm and realized this was a completely impossible operation for them. But our demand was politically necessary, and we had to press them for everything. I don't doubt that Stalin too believed they would not carry it out. But we bad to demand it! For the sake of our people. They were waiting for some kind of Allied military aid. For us that piece of paper had vast political significance. It raised our spirits, and in those days this meant a lot.
Churchill flew to Moscow and insisted they couldn't open a second front in Europe in 1942. I saw that Stalin accepted this calmly. He understood it was impossible. But he needed that paper agreement. It was of great importance for the people, for politics, and for future pressure on the Allies.
[...]
They started in Italy. Even this was helpful to us. In the end, we fought not for England but for socialism. That's the point. To expect help from them in defense of socialism? The Bolsheviks would have been idiots! But in order to pressure them, we said: What knaves! You say one thing but do another. This also put them in an embarrassing position in the eyes of their own people. For the people sensed that the Russians were fighting and they were not.
[...]
They weren't Marxists, and we were. They woke up only when half of Europe had passed from them. Then Churchill, of course, found himself in a quandary. To my mind, Churchill, as an imperialist, was the cleverest among them. He sensed that if we smashed the Germans, little by little feathers would fly in England. That's the way he felt. But Roosevelt thought, they will come groveling to us. A poor country with no industry, no bread—they will come begging. They will have nowhere else to go. But we viewed the situation quite differently. All our people were prepared for sacrifice and struggle. We didn't believe in a second front, of course, but we had to try for it. We took them in: You can't? But you promised... That was the way.
Vyacheslav Molotov in Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics

 

Kissinger was a diplomat, yes. He negotiated the Vietnam ceasefire with Le Duc Tho, and he gave away Vietnam cheaply, so that American troops could be withdrawn, and Nixon could have his "peace with honor."

You sure?

Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
Italian invasion of Abyssinia.
Japanese invasion of China
German and Russian invasion of Poland.
Russian invasion of Finland.
Soviet invasion of the Baltic States.

That's six wars just off the top of my head...For a Pact that was supposed to "outlaw" war. Kellog-Briand was an abject failure.

Nuremberg & Tokyo were "Victor's justice".

Still, Kellogg-Briand was carried over in a modified for to the UN Charter. But, as is easily proved, that has not brought an end to "war", nor has it ended territorial acquisition through war.

So, Kellogg-Briand was, and still is a failure.

Of course, as the argument went, if war is not declared, war does not exist.

No, sir.

Nations had a right to self-defense(although this is not stated in the terms of the pact, and was argued over for ever after). So unless, British, French, et al. had their territory attacked, they were bound by the terms of the pact to refrain from war.

Please re-read Article II

So, the Allied declarations of war are illegal under Kellogg-Briand. They resorted to means other than pacific to settle their dispute with Germany.

The terms were not secret? Hmm...

Seems some were.

 

Are you really this obtuse, or do you just like to pretend?

It is not about Stalin. Nor about what you or I think of him. It is about what the Western allies believed Stalin might do. In the period from 22nd June 1941 to November 1943, and the Soviet Public declaration of the demand for the unconditional surrender of Germany.

After 1943, it's about still needing Soviet co-operation against Japan. The ultimate blow that killed off all Japanese hopes, far more than the Atomics.

 

So they acted on their nighttime fears not facts? Because the Soviets never even mentioned it.

But anyway please show a Roosevelt's statement saying that he feared Stalin might do it (he was running the show so it would be preferable), or at least Churchill's statement.
But please don't bother with his "The Second World War", in all six volumes there is only a single relevant hit for "separate peace".
He mentions there an agreement with Stalin (at the very beginning of the 1941 war) unconditionally forbidding a separate peace with Hitler.

See, this is what I meant. They bought Stalin's support, and paid with bones of the East Europeans.
Mr Kissinger, the master of realpolitik, approves.

Of course I could mention that the US was at least 4 times larger/powerful country than Japan, and that the Chinese Army was 5.5 million strong at the end of 1945 (only lacked heavy weapons), but see the opinion of Mr Molotov.

 

What you mean by cheaply? Isn't it what the American people want? The end the war at all cost? As a diplomat he did what they he was asked to do.

Of course they were. All the agreements, conventions, pacts, and even international law were victor's justice, based on some consensus among major powers. This was a feature not a bug.
Who was going to do the non-victior's justice anyway? God, Superman?

Even today the US quite correctly refuses to sign away its sovereignty to some international court or a world government, as the Americans are afraid of justice delivered by foreigners: Russian, Chinese, Iranians or North Koreans.
At that time they were too.

It wasn't perfect so the the Habesha or the Chinese were left in the cold. Bad luck I suppose, we live in the real world, not in one of those liberal/socialist dreams.

Stating the will to defend a country you are allied with is not an aggression.

This wasn't secret: "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"

Nothing else mattered.

Defending an attacked country is an act of courage not another aggression anyway.

 

David Kennedy's Freedom from Fear (612) states:
"Even larger anxieties proliferated about Soviet intentions. In midsummer 1943 Stalin had withdrawn his ambassadors from both London and Washington. In September came rumors that the Germans had extended a peace feeler to Moscow through Japan stimulating anew the fear of a separate settlement in eastern Europe before a second front had even opened in the west. One observer detected "an atmosphere alarmingly reminiscent of that which had preceded the Molotov Ribbentrop pact of August 1939."

There's a footnote to Foreign Relations of the United States (1943) and Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, 734.



Martin Folly Churchill, Whitehall and the Soviet Union, 1940-45:

"The Soviets were perceived to be deeply suspicious about the ANglo-American desire to cooperate and therefore sensitive to any signs to the contrary. If they felt that the British and Americans were attempting to 'gang up' on them, dictate the policy of the Grand Alliance and impose their own post war settlement, then they would be tempted at the least to attempt a 'reinsurance policy' as a concurrent alternative, or else turn their backs entirely and retreat into isolation."

"The Soviet alternative to cooperation given most attention by British policy-makers in 1941-43 was isolationism. it was a distinct possibility that Soviet leaders would be satisified with their minimum war aim: the recovery of Soviet territory. Whether they made this choice depended on a number of variables, the major ones being their attitudes towards Germany and towards their allies, and the strength and outlook of the Red Army. Uncertainty about these factors meant that a separate peace between Germany and the Soviet Union was something that could not be discounted, though concern ranged more broadly than that, for such limited aims carried serious implications for Britain."

"It was certainly believed possible that Stalin was capable of concluding a separate peace should Hitler offer acceptable terms,..."

"...the Soviets would either cease fighting once the Germans had been expelled from the USSR, or make their own settlements of eastern European questions and not take any interest in collaboration with the western Powers."

"These were regarded as real possibilities because of Soviet suspicions and their overriding concern to achieve security against Germany, which would lead them to take whatever course most likely to achieve it."

"The signs were anxiously read to discover what the Soviets had decided. The evidence was not definite, but the broad conclusion the Foreign Office reached by the start of 1944 was that Stalin had decided to relegate independent action to the status of reinsurance policy. By contrast, the US State Department suspected the Soviets favoured unilateralism."


And then finally, the coup-de-grâce

Reviewing the collection of Roosevelt-Churchill correspondence:

"Future relations with the Soviet Union presented the most baffling problem. "The Russians are today killing more Germans and destroying more equipment than you and I put together," Roosevelt reminded Churchill in April, 1942. "I think it is an awful thing," Churchill himself noted to Harry Hopkins in February, 1943, "that in April, May and June not a single American or British soldier will be killing a single German or Italian soldier while the Russians are chasing 185 divisions around." The correspondence makes clear how, in a time when the Russians were doing most of the fighting, the fear of a separate Soviet-German peace prevented Churchill and Roosevelt from taking the hard line against Stalin that armchair strategists urge on them in retrospect."

Princeton University Press has brought out Churchill & Roosevelt, The Complete Correspondence in three large volumes totaling (not including the index) 2,094 pages. You are more than welcome to actually read, rather than pull crap out of your rear and guess.

Too much for you to do?

Volume 1

Page xliii
C-114x, Sept. 5 (1942) Forwards a message from Stalin requesting a second front; also forwards Churchill's negative reply to Stalin; expresses fears that the Soviets are considering a separate peace with Germany.


page 393:
"Although Churchill had originally agreed with Eden, the fear that Stalin might negotiate a separate peace with Hitler led the Prime Minister to reconsider."


Why should I even bother? Short of resurrecting Churchill and getting him to meet you in person, you're not going to accept anything anyone else tells you about reality.


BTW; Examine US estimates of casualties for the invasion of Japan...

Do you have any more tripe to contribute with?

 

Please, I didn't ask for any of these. I asked for a shred of evidence that the Allies feared that Stalin would exit the war because of their lack of cooperation with him in his designs in Central Europe.
Because it would be a highly illogical and highly damaging to the Soviet Union move.

I know that they feared the Soviet Union would ask for separate terms with Germany. I post the words of Mr Molotov saying exactly that. That they played on those fears and were successful in this.
Those fears were reasonable and logical, as it was possible the USSR, because of the crippling defeats, wouldn't be able to continue the war.
The Allies didn't know how many divisions the Soviets were left with, soldiers, tanks or planes. They didn't know the Soviet military capabilities, what they were thinking, their assessment of their own military situations.
The Allies didn't know because the Soviets would tell them and deceived them at every opportunity anyway.
So the fears of a Soviet eminent military collapse was more or less correct. After all it wasn't the first time, Russia really collapsed during the Great War.

Both developments have nothing in common, the latter was a real and serious problem with possible disastrous consequences, the "no separate peace" agreement was irrelevant in this case. Collapse is collapse.

The former would have no military consequences at all. The "no separate peace" agreement was fully relevant here. The probability that Stalin would take his toys and go home was nil.
He never said he would do it, the Allies never said it could have happened.

In fact at the same time the Allies refused the Stalin's demands in Central Europe: first in December 1941, and the in May 1942. There were clearly unconcerned that their refusals could have resulted in his exit.

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Premier Stalin to Prime Minister
4 Sept 41
This has weakened our power of defense and faced the Soviet Union with a mortal menace. The question arises how to emerge from this more than unfavorable situation. I think there is only one means of egress from this situation - to establish in the present year a second front somewhere in the Balkans or France, capable of drawing away from the Eastern Front 30 to 40 divisions, and at the same time of ensuring to the Soviet Union 30,000 tons of aluminium by the beginning of October next and a monthly minimum of aid amounting to 400 aircraft and so tanks (of small or medium size). Without these two forms of help the Soviet Union win either suffer defeat or be weakened to such an extent That it will lose for a long period any capacity to render assistance to its Allies by its actual operations on the fronts of the struggle against Hitlerism.

Former Naval Person to President Roosevelt
5 Sept 41
The Soviet Ambassador brought the subjoined message to me and Eden last night, and used language of vague import about the gravity of the occasion and the turning-point character which would attach to our reply. Although nothing in his language warranted the assumption, we could not exclude the impression that they night be thinking of separate terms.
The Cabinet have thought it right to send the attached reply. Hope you will not object to our references to possible American aid. I feel that the moment may be decisive. We can but do our best.
-------------

 

Why not? It possible to ask him in person. This below is all he wrote about the Polish question during Tehran Conference in 1943. There is nothing there about:
"the fear of a separate Soviet-German peace prevented Churchill and Roosevelt from taking the hard line against Stalin that armchair strategists urge on them in retrospect".
And there is nothing about that fear in the entire book.
He plainly says that Stalin's promise to enter the war against Japan was of the highest importance, the rest of presumably little importance, and nothing else.
View attachment 25060 View attachment 25059 View attachment 25058 View attachment 25057

Do I really have to take an opinion of Martin Folly, a man who wasn't there, over Winston Churchill's own words?

The supposedly panicky Roosevelt's letter:
-------------------------
April 3, 1942 11pm
The White House
Washington
Dear Winston
What Harry and Geo. Marshall will tell you all about has my heart & mind in it. Your people and mine demand the establishment of a front to draw off pressure on the Russians, & these peoples are wise enough to see that the Russians are today killing more Germans & destroying more equipment than you & I put together.
Even if full success is not attained, the big objective will be.
Go to it! Syria & Egypt will be made more secure, even if the Germans find out about our plans.
Best of luck - make Harry go to bed early & let him obey Dr. Fulton, U.S.N., whom I am sending with him as super nurse with full authority.
As ever F.D.R.
-------------------------

Nothing there about the fear.

Churchill's statement "that in April, May and June not a single American or British soldier will be killing a single German or Italian soldier" was in response to Stalin's demands for more supplies, after they redirected their shipping resources from Russia to Torch and the invasion of Sicily and left him in the cold.

 

A contrarian view from Henry Kissinger:

-------------------------
Churchill wanted to reconstruct the traditional balance of power in Europe. This meant rebuilding Great Britain, France, and even defeated Germany so that, along with the United States, these countries could counterbalance the Soviet colossus to the east.
Roosevelt envisioned a postwar order in which the three victors, along with China, would act as a board of directors of the world, enforcing the peace against any potential miscreant, which he thought would most likely be Germany - a vision that was to become known as the "Four Policemen."
Stalin's approach reflected both his communist ideology and traditional Russian foreign policy. He strove to cash in on his country's victory by extending Russian influence into Central Europe. And he intended to turn the countries conquered by Soviet armies into buffer zones to protect Russia against any future German aggression. [...]

Restoration of the 1941 Soviet frontiers was nearly impossible to prevent. A more dynamic Western policy might have achieved certain modifications, even the return of some form of independence to the Baltic States, perhaps linked to the Soviet Union by treaties of mutual assistance and the presence of Soviet military bases.
If this had ever been attainable, it would only have been so in 1945 or 1941, when the Soviet Union was teetering at the brink of catastrophe. And it was understandable that Roosevelt should have been loath to burden Soviet decision-makers with such distasteful choices at a moment when, America not yet having entered the war, the greatest fear was an imminent Soviet collapse.
After the battle of Stalingrad, however, the issue of Eastern Europe's future could have been raised without risking either a Soviet collapse or a separate peace with Hitler. An effort should have been made to settle the political structure of territories beyond the Soviet frontiers and to achieve for these countries a status similar to that of Finland. Would Stalin have made a separate peace with Hitler if the democracies had been more insistent?

Stalin never made such a threat, though he did manage to create the impression that it was always a possibility.
Above all, a separate peace, even along the 1941 frontiers, would have solved nothing for either Stalin or Hitler. It would have left Stalin face to face with a powerful Germany and the prospect that, in another conflict, the democracies would abandon their treacherous partner.
And it would have been interpreted by Hitler as advancing the Soviet armies toward Germany without any assurance that they would not resume the war at the earliest opportunity.
-------------------------

I would say it's rather interesting that British apologists have nothing better to offer than the two "Russians are killing more Germans" letters, which were dealing with local, not global, problems.
And both problems were resolved very quickly.
The Allies landed in Italy drawing 33 divisions from the Soviet front, exactly as Stalin requested (the first letter).
And they resumed convoys to Russia, exactly as Stalin demanded (the second letter).
At the time of the Tehran Conference both problems were old news.
It should be remembered that till the middle of 1943 the Allies killed or took prisoner over 400,000 enemy soldiers. So the impression that they were doing nothing is incorrect.

 

What a load of tripe.

1) The letter I referred to (C114x), is from Churchill...

Divergent, uncomprehensive ramblings, with non-relevant near-illegible thumbnails without proper reference to source.

Well, I did ask if you had any more.

Regardless, Churchill's memoires post war were rather less than documentary.

All the rest is your opinion.