Today the United Kingdom and France gave guarantees to Poland against an invasion. The decisive step towards war
Today was the forgotten anniversary of the day the Second World War was decided. Today, the United Kingdom and France gave Warsaw guarantees to intervene in the event of any action and invasion that threatened Polish independence. This decision automatically led to war in September of the same year when Germany invaded Poland. From now on, the path towards the great tragedy was remotely controlled, almost automatic.
If France had a military agreement with Poland since the 1920s, the real novelty was the alliance between Warsaw and London. Nelville Chamberlain, the prime minister of “ Appeasement ” with Germany, of the Munich Pact, the one who a year earlier had promised “The peace of our age” now ran towards war with this pact and also with the intensification of the orders of armaments. Yet Chruchill had never believed in his peace negotiations, and his words remained famous after Chamberlain's return from Munich. “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.” “You could choose between war and dishonor: you chose dishonor, you will have war”.
At the end of March 1939, perhaps the only doubt could have been against whom Great Britain would go to war: against Germany or against the Soviet Union. We recall that Stalin then also invaded Poland, in agreement with the Fuehrer, and that Moscow then incorporated the Baltic republics and fought the Winter War against Finland. But German ambition decided otherwise.
How damaging guarantees, in 1939 as today, we must think that history is cynical and coffin and almost always comes to collect them. Chamberlain was perhaps aware of it at the time. Are we aware of it now?
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The article Today the United Kingdom and France gave guarantees to Poland against an invasion. The decisive step towards war comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/oggi-il-regno-unito-e-francia-davano-le-garanzie-alla-polonia-contro-una-invasione-il-passo-decisivo-verso-la-guerra/ on Fri, 31 Mar 2023 20:43:46 +0000.