When B. M. Shaposhnikov said that the Soviet Union was ready to make available
against the aggressor 120 infantry divisions, sixteen cavalry divisions, 5,000 medium and heavy guns, 9,000 to 10,000 tanks, and 5,000 to 5,500 bomber and fighter
planes, General Heywood, a member of the British Mission, talked about five
infantry and one mechanised divisions. This in itself was enough to suggest a
frivolous British attitude to the talks with the Soviet Union.
[IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 169, quoting from AVP SSSR (Foreign Policy Archives), Anglo-
French-Soviet Negotiations in 1939, v. Ill, f. 138.]
The History does not, however, mention the suggestions of the French, who had a numerically far larger army than the British.
The military convention the Russians proposed was to be based on three eventualities: 1) IF THE BLOC OF AGGRESSORS ATTACK FRANCE AND BRITAIN. In this
case the Soviet Union will make available seventy per cent of the armed forces that France and Britain will direct against the "main aggressor", i.e. Germany. Thus, if they use ninety divisions, the Soviet Union will use sixty-three infantry divisions and six cavalry divisions, with the appropriate number of guns, tanks and planes—
altogether about two million men.
In this case Poland must participate with all her armed forces, in view of her
agreements with Britain and France. Poland must concentrate forty to forty-five
divisions on her Western borders and against East Prussia. The British and French Governments must obtain Poland's undertaking to let the Soviet armed forces pass
through the Vilno Bulge and, if possible, through Lithuania to the borders of East Prussia, and also, if necessary, through Galicia.
2) IF THE AGGRESSION IS DIRECTED AGAINST POLAND AND RUMANIA.
In this case, Poland and Rumania must make
use of all their armed forces, and the Soviet Union will participate by as much as 100 per cent of the forces employed against Germany by Britain and France... In
this case, an indispensable condition of the Soviet Union's participation is that Britain and France should immediately declare war on the aggressor. Moreover, the Soviet Union can take part in such a war only if the British and French
Governments come to a clear understanding with Poland and Rumania (and, if
possible, with Lithuania) about the free passage of the Soviet armed forces through the Vilno Bulge, Galicia and Rumania.
3) IF THE AGGRESSOR ATTACKS THE SOVIET UNION BY MAKING USE
OF THE TERRITORIES OF FINLAND, ESTONIA OR LATVIA. In this case
France and Britain must not
only declare war on the aggressor (or the bloc of aggressors) "but must also start active and immediate military operations against the main aggressor", putting into operation seventy per cent of the forces employed by the Soviet Union (the Soviet Union would put into operation 136 divisions). "Since Poland is bound by her agreements with Britain and France, she must intervene against Germany, and
must also, by agreement between herself on the one hand and Britain and France on the other, give free passage to our troops through the Vilno Bulge and Galicia...
Should Rumania be drawn into the war, a similar agreement should be made
between Rumania, France and Britain concerning the free passage of Soviet troops
across Rumanian territory."
[ IVOVSS, vol. I, pp. 169-70, quoting AVP SSSR (Soviet Foreign Policy Archives).]
According to the Soviet version Admiral Drax thanked General Shaposhnikov for
outlining his plan, but it was not accepted by the British and French, and there were no serious British or French counter-proposals. Instead, both the French and the British made the most of the "Polish obstacle". The British had, indeed, no intention of bringing pressure to bear on the Polish Government.
The attitude of General Doumenc, head of the French Mission, was rather different:
"Twice he cabled the French War Ministry saying he intended to send General Valin, a member of the Mission, to Warsaw, in order to obtain the Polish Government's consent.
But the result was only a telegram from the French War Ministry to the French Military Attaché in Moscow proposing to postpone Valin's visit to Warsaw."
[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 170 quoting a French document originally captured by the Germans, and found in the German Foreign Office archives by the Russians. This episode is
confirmed by Paul Reynaud in La France a sauvé l'Europe (Paris, 1947), vol. I, p. 580.]
All that the French and British found to propose, according to the Soviet History, was that the Soviet Union should declare war on Germany in the event of a German attack on Poland, but should take no military action before the German troops reached the Soviet borders. "All this shows that they were much less interested in helping Poland than in getting the Soviet Union involved in a war against Germany."
[Ibid., p. 170. ]
Already in June 1939 the governments of Latvia and Estonia, frightened of both Germany and Russia, had, under German pressure, concluded "friendship pacts" with Germany.
But Poland's position presented by far the most urgent problem since by August 15 the Germans were poised to invade her at any moment. Even in these conditions no progress was made in the Anglo-Franco-Soviet military talks in Moscow. On August 17, says the Soviet History, the talks were postponed until August 21, so that the British and French Missions could be given time to discover the real attitude of their respective governments to the passage of Soviet troops through Poland. The Admiral was still not in a hurry, whereas General Doumenc held that nothing was lost yet, but that there was no time to lose. He considered that, on that day, the Russians were still in dead earnest about the military convention. In his dispatch to Paris on August 17 he wired "There is a definite will on the part of the Russians not to stay outside as spectators, and a clear desire to commit themselves right up to the hilt. There is no doubt that the USSR wants a military pact; but she does not want from us a meaningless scrap of paper; Marshal Voroshilov assured me that all questions of mutual help, communications, etc., would be discussed without any difficulty, once what the Russians call 'the cardinal question'—the Russian access to Polish territory—has been satisfactorily solved."
[Paul Reynaud, op. cit., vol. I, p. 587.]
That day, in desperation Doumenc even sent one of his aides, Captain Beauffre, to
Warsaw to see Marshal Rydz-Smigly, but to no avail; his reply was a repetition of his remark to the French Ambassador: "With the Germans we may lose our freedom, with the Russians we shall lose our soul."
[ Paul Reynaud, op. cit., vol. I, p. 587.]
Finally, on August 21 Admiral Drax said that he had received no further information
from London, and proposed that the next meeting take place in three or four days.
[IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 172, quoting AVP SSSR, Anglo-Franco-Soviet
Negotiations, f. 204.]
At this point the Russians asked for a clear answer as to how the British and French visualised Soviet participation in mutual assistance in view of the Polish attitude; no reply was received.
In his conversation with the French Military Attaché on August 23—the day of
Ribbentrop's arrival in Moscow—Voroshilov said: "We could not wait for the Germans to smash the Polish Army, after which they would have attacked us... Meantime, you
would be stationed at your frontier, tying up perhaps ten German divisions. We needed a springboard from which to attack the Germans; without it, we could not help you."
[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 172, quoting Archives of Ministry of Defence of the USSR.]
It was with a touch of melancholy that Voroshilov said about the same time to General Doumenc, who had informed him of Daladier's latest telegram ordering him—without
anything having been settled about Poland—to sign "the best possible military
convention, with the Ambassador's consent
, and subject to the French Government's
subsequent approval": "We have wasted eleven days for nothing. We raised the question of military collaboration with France many years ago [an allusion to the abortive offer already made in 1935 by Soviet Ambassador Potemkin to M. Jean Fabry, then French
Minister of War]. Last year, when Czechoslovakia was on the edge of the abyss, we
waited for a signal from France; our Red Army was ready to strike. But the signal never came. Our government, and the whole of the Soviet people wanted to rush to the help of Czechoslovakia and to fulfil the obligations arising from the treaties. Now the British and French governments have dragged out these political and military talks far too long.
Therefore other political events are not to be ruled out. It was necessary to have a definite reply from Poland and Rumania about our troops' right of passage. If the Poles had given an affirmative answer, they would have asked to be represented at these talks."
[ Paul Reynaud, op. cit., vol. I, p. 588.]
Although, in the Russian view, France was at least as much to blame for Munich as
Britain, the breakdown of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet military talks in 1939 is attributed much more to Britain than to France. At the root of the trouble there was, among other things, that inept "guarantee" to Poland, which had only encouraged the Poles in their suicidal anti-Soviet policy—a guarantee the dangers of which the French Government
had seen at once. In Russian eyes, the inconclusive talks with Admiral Drax
demonstrated Chamberlain's continued resistance to a firm military alliance with the Soviet Union, as well as his determination not to overcome the Polish Government's
objections to direct Russian aid. On the other hand, it seems obvious that Stalin and Molotov had been extremely distrustful of Britain and France throughout and had never been really enthusiastic about the alliance. Even if concluded, it might still have produced a "phoney war" in the west, and have helped Russia no more than the British "guarantee"
helped Poland when it came to the test. Without the strongest military commitments by France, Britain and Poland, the alliance offered no attraction to them. Short of such commitments, a last-minute deal with Hitler was almost certainly at the back of Stalin's mind from April or May onwards.
Chapter II THE SOVIET-GERMAN PACT
It is customary to look for turning points in history. Much has, of course, been read into Stalin's speech of March 10 with its phrase about the "chestnuts", suggesting a "curse on both your houses" and a desire to keep out of any military entanglements. Even more has been made of Hitler's speech of April 28, 1939, in which both the Polish-German non-aggression pact and the Anglo-German naval agreement were denounced, and in which
the Führer refrained from his habitual attack on the Bolshevik menace. A shrewd
observer like Robert Coulondre, the French Ambassador in Berlin, had at once
considered this omission as very significant, and, in his dispatches to the Quai d'Orsay, had quoted authoritative German sources in support of his assessment. Gafencu also
looked upon this Hitler speech of April 28 as a starting point: "Facing the failure of his Western policy, the Führer already contemplated an about-turn in his Eastern policy.
Such a change ... would obviously find support among the German General Staff... as
well as in German economic circles."
[ G. Gafencu, op. cit., p. 175.]
This was written in 1945 and since then there have been a variety of data to show that the matter was not as simple as that. We know, for instance, that it took Hitler a very long time to get used to the idea of a pact with Moscow, and that Ribbentrop, in particular, became enthusiastic about it some time before the Führer did. But none the less, it is probable that, already in April, after the British guarantee to Poland, he kept the
possibility of an agreement with Moscow up his sleeve.
Although there is evidence to show that there were earlier contacts, the Soviet History now claims that it was the Germans who made the first tentative approach to Russia on May 30, 1939, while the Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks "were already in full swing".
[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 174.]
On that day Weizsäcker, the permanent head of the German Foreign Office, told G. A.
Astakhov, the Soviet chargé d'affaires in Berlin, that "there was a possibility of improving Soviet-German relations". He pointed out that, in renouncing the Carpathian Ukraine—which had been handed over to Hungary in the partition of Czechoslovakia—
Germany had eliminated a casus belli with the Soviet Union. And he went on to say: "If the Soviet Government wishes to discuss an improvement in Soviet-German relations,
then it should know that such a possibility now exists. If, however, the Soviet Union wants to persist, together with Britain and France, in its policy of encircling Germany, then Germany is ready to meet the challenge."
The Soviet History reports that, at this stage, the Russians merely replied that the future of Soviet-German relations depended primarily on the Germans themselves, in itself a curious way of "rejecting" their advances. And then, on August 3, according to the Soviet History:
Ribbentrop told G. A. Astakhov that there were no insoluble problems between the
USSR and Germany "in the whole area between the Baltic and the Black Sea. All questions could be solved if the Soviet Government accepted these premises."
Ribbentrop made no secret of the fact that Germany had been conducting secret
negotiations with Britain and France, but declared that "it would be easier for the Germans to talk to the Russians, despite all ideological differences, than with the British and the French". Having said that, Ribbentrop then resorted to threats.
"If," he said, "you have other solutions in mind, if you think, for instance, that the best way of settling your problems with us is to invite an Anglo-French military
mission to Moscow, then that's your business. For our own part, we don't mind all the screaming against us in the so-called West-European democracies. We are
sufficiently strong to treat all this kind of thing with ridicule and contempt. There isn't a war which we couldn't win."
[IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 174, quoting Archives of the Ministry of Defence of the USSR
(Arkhiv MO SSSR).]
Ribbentrop then proposed that Germany and the Soviet Union sign a secret protocol
dividing into spheres of interest the whole area between the Black Sea and the Baltic.
"Unwilling to enter into such an agreement with Germany, and still hoping for a successful conclusion of the military talks with Britain and France, the Soviet
Government informed Berlin on August 7 that it considered the German proposal
unsuitable, and rejected the idea of the secret protocol."
[ Ibid., quoting Soviet Foreign Policy Archives (AVP SSSR).]
In his dispatch of August 8, Astakhov expressed the view that the Germans would
not observe seriously, or for any length of time, any obligations they might enter into under such an arrangement. "But I believe that, on a short-term basis, they would like to come to some kind of agreement with us along the lines suggested, and so to neutralise us... What would happen next would be determined not by any
obligations entered into by the Germans, but by the new international situation that would be created."
[IVOVSS, vol. I, pp. 174-5, quoting Soviet Foreign Policy Archives (AVP SSSR).]
We need not here deal in detail with the familiar story of how the Nazi leaders,
determined to strike at Poland, were growing more and more impatient at Moscow's
reluctance to commit itself, and with the frantic "very urgent" telegrams that were being exchanged between Ribbentrop and the German Embassy in Moscow, or with how, in the
end, in reply to Hitler's telegram, Stalin gave his assent to the pressing proposal that Ribbentrop arrive in Moscow "on August 22 or, at the very latest, on August 23 ". What is new
is the way in which this whole episode is now handled by the Russians:
By the middle of August, the German leaders had become acutely worried. The German
Embassy in Moscow was getting frantic wires asking what was happening about the
Military Missions. Before these talks had started, Schulenburg [the German Ambassador]
asked the Italian Ambassador, Rossi, to find out from Grzybowski, the Polish
Ambassador, whether Poland would accept Soviet military aid. Schulenburg then
promptly informed Berlin of the Polish Ambassador's reply: On no account would Poland allow Soviet troops to enter or even to cross Polish territory, or let the Russians use Polish airfields. At the same time Schulenburg was instructed by Weizsäcker to tell the Soviet Government that if it preferred an alliance with England, Russia would be left face-to-face with Germany. By choosing instead an understanding with Germany, the
Soviet Union would have her security guaranteed.
[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 175, quoting DGFP, series D, vol. VII, p. 13.]
Similar tempting promises were made to Astakhov, who reported:
The Germans are obviously worried by our negotiations with the British and
French military. They have become unsparing in their arguments and promises to
avert an agreement. I consider that they are today ready to make the kind of
declarations and gestures which would have been inconceivable six months ago.
[Ibid., quoting AVP SSSR (Soviet Foreign Policy Archives).]
On August 15, Schulenburg told Molotov:
At present they [the British and French] are again trying to push the Soviet Union into a war against Germany. This policy had very bad consequences for Russia in
1914. It is in the interests of both Germany and Russia to avoid a mutual massacre for the benefit of the Western democracies.
[ IVOVSS, ibid., quoting Soviet Ministry of Defence Archives.]
Schulenburg then proposed to Russia a non-aggression pact, complete with a protocol on the respective spheres of interest. Again the Soviet Government " declined ", and Schulenburg, much discouraged, reported to Berlin that the Soviet Government took
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