UK & France Re: USSR Invasion of Poland

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, sure, but then again the British did not believe the treaty was fair and did in fact legitimize Germany's transgressions by signing the London Naval Agreement.

...I do not see how what you say in any way contradicts me saying "Britain and France failed to punish Germany between 1933 and 1939?"

What is the purpose of the statement? I am confused.

[Flagg]

Yeah, sure, but then again the British did not believe the treaty was fair and did in fact legitimize Germany's transgressions by signing the London Naval Agreement.

I'd like to hear more about that if possible, I'm not disagreeing but I've not really heard of that treaty or at least I can't remember the details at the moment.

Well, remember how Versailles limited the German Navy to a few small cruisers and very, very old BBs? And how Hitler started rearming his Navy? None of that was done in secret, in fact the Germans told the British point-blank that they were building submarines. Germany had already well started design work on the Admiral Hipper-class and had started construction on the Scharnhorst 3 days prior to the signing of the treaty.

Instead of declaring war and invading, Britian decided to enter into an agreement with Germany by which it allowed Germany to legally build 35% of the tonnage of the British Navy and the same number of subs as Britain had. So in effect they decided to legalize Germany's blatant treaty violation as they did not particularly feel like going to war over it. So they tried to save face and attempt to get better diplomatic relations.

It is a cruel irony of history that none of that reconciliation was present when it was needed most and present when it could be exploited most by the Nazis. more info at the wiki article.

I don't see how Britain's unilateral agreement to appease Hitler when they were but one of many signatories of the Treaty of Versailles actually refutes what I or Simon said regarding the Allied powers essentially allowing Germany to violate the treaty without reprecussions in the 1930's. I mean it kind of confirms it.

[Thanas]

...I do not see how what you say in any way contradicts me saying "Britain and France failed to punish Germany between 1933 and 1939?"

It was not a contradiction, as evidenced by the positive at the start of the sentence. It was an explanation for Britain acting like they were.

[Simon_Jester]

...I do not see how what you say in any way contradicts me saying "Britain and France failed to punish Germany between 1933 and 1939?"

It was not a contradiction, as evidenced by the positive at the start of the sentence. It was an explanation for Britain acting like they were.

In the English dialects I'm familiar with, the phrasing

"Yeah, sure, but then again [statement]..."

Is typically construed to mean "what you say is technically true, and/or I grudgingly concede it's truth, BUT there's this major [statement] that undermines what you said."

I believe it would be more typical, given your stated intentions, to say something like

"Yes, and as an example, [statement]..." or
"Yes, and the Xes were doing it because [statement]" or something along those lines.

[Thanas]

I don't see the difference between what I wrote and "Yeah, but then again they had no real interest in that time to do so." Which I also could have posted but would have conveyed less information.

[Flagg]

...I do not see how what you say in any way contradicts me saying "Britain and France failed to punish Germany between 1933 and 1939?"

It was not a contradiction, as evidenced by the positive at the start of the sentence. It was an explanation for Britain acting like they were.

In the English dialects I'm familiar with, the phrasing

"Yeah, sure, but then again [statement]..."

Is typically construed to mean "what you say is technically true, and/or I grudgingly concede it's truth, BUT there's this major [statement] that undermines what you said."

I believe it would be more typical, given your stated intentions, to say something like

"Yes, and as an example, [statement]..." or
"Yes, and the Xes were doing it because [statement]" or something along those lines.

Meh, his last post said he wasn't contradicting it, so I don't see the point of getting into an argument on grammar. And I took it the same way you did. But it was a misunderstanding that's been cleared up, so... **Shrug**

[Simon_Jester]

I wasn't so much trying to argue over it as explaining why I'd thought Thanas was disagreeing with me.

[shrugs too]

[Lord Revan]

Tbh I dout the fact that UK and France failed to prevent the increased militarization done by the Nazis was never being questioned. However one can argue about if it was even realistically possible to prevent that or did UK and especially France shoot themselves in the foot long term to appeace their ego short term by making the demans for the Treaty of Versalleis so harsh that they were unacceptble to pretty much anyone.

We have to remember that unlike World War 2 there wasn't any easy target to cast blame for World War 1

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yeah, sure, but then again the British did not believe the treaty was fair and did in fact legitimize Germany's transgressions by signing the London Naval Agreement.

Wait, I'm a bit confused. Germany wasn't involved with the London Naval Agreement, so far as I am aware. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement was separate, and like 4 or 5 years later. Was there an actual connection between the two or are you using the term London Naval Agreement more loosely than just referring to the 1930-1 conference/treaty?

[Thanas]

You will find that answered in the link I provided

[Sea Skimmer]

BTW, I would never suggest that Britain or France would or should have declared war on the USSR, I just wondered if there was an actual context there or if they were just being hypocrites (it would have been sane and even necessary hypocrisy, no question there).

They were not being hypocrites, they were being realistic. Declaring war on Germany and the USSR in 1939 would have seen the swift defeat of the allies. This would do no service to Polands future! This is the same reason why France launched no serious offensive against the Germans in 1939, far too much risk of a quick defeat, as it was obvious that Poland would quickly collapse no matter what, only about 50% of Polish troops had mobilized by the time the Germans invaded.

A secret plan meanwhile was begun to wage war with the USSR at a slightly later date, by launching a bomber offensive out of the mid east to destroy the Russian oil fields at Baku in a surprise attack. Attempts were also begun to get the use of Greek bases from which to bomb the other source of Hitlers oil in Romania. These were not huge operations by any standard, about 100 planes each, but it was thought in both cases largely correctly that the oil fields were not defended by modern fighters at the time.

All of this was preempted in turn by the Norwegian campaign.

[K. A. Pital]

This is the same reason why France launched no serious offensive against the Germans in 1939, far too much risk of a quick defeat, as it was obvious that Poland would quickly collapse no matter what, only about 50% of Polish troops had mobilized by the time the Germans invaded.

Risk of a quick defeat? Germany's western border at the time was rather poorly defended and would not be able to withstand a full French onslaught in 1939. While it is clear that declaring war on the USSR would do nothing except make a future Soviet-UK alliance much less possible, the French inaction can't be so easily explained by the risk of defeat. Poland's collapse has little to do with that.

[Thanas]

France had precious little resources for an offensive, their whole doctrine and strategy was centered on not making the same mistake as they did in 1914.

[Flagg]

France had precious little resources for an offensive, their whole doctrine and strategy was centered on not making the same mistake as they did in 1914.

True, but if they had the forces and inclination for an offensive into Germany, the idea that they would have been defeated quicker is pretty ridiculous given how little the Western border of Germany was defended during the Polish campaign. But then you get the old butterfly effect thing going on with "If France had a more measured military doctrine as opposed to "Hide in our forts, rush into Belgium, and assume the Ardennes forest was impassable", then Germany likely would have better defended their border."

[K. A. Pital]

France had precious little resources for an offensive, their whole doctrine and strategy was centered on not making the same mistake as they did in 1914.

They actually started an offensive that was met with miniscule resistance, but halted it themselves. Of course, it was not entirely the fault of the French: they were at one point ready to continue the all-out offensive, but Britain told them to stop. I think it was one of the first Anglo-French war council meetings, or the very first one in, still in 1939.

[Sea Skimmer]

True, but if they had the forces and inclination for an offensive into Germany, the idea that they would have been defeated quicker is pretty ridiculous given how little the Western border of Germany was defended during the Polish campaign.

I will point out that a number of German 'lol' propaganda statements made postwar lie about the number of German troops in the west, usually claiming it was only 25 or even 23. In fact it was 35 divisions on outbreak of war (sometimes given as 34 as one airborne division was not complete), and as soon as France and the UK declared war it was reinforced by 9 more by September 10th.

Against this the French could 53 divisions in France, not counting those which had to face Fascist Italy, but including 13 static divisions which manned the Maginot Line system and had no other weapons except small arms.

So about 40 French divisions including several small mechanized divisions could have attacked 35-44 German second line divisions, past which point both sides could have begun reinforcing, France from more mobilization and shipped in men from North Africa (if Italy did not enter the war, remember nobody knows this in September 1939) but Germany could move men from the Polish front even quicker.

Also while Germany had few modern planes deployed west, the French had almost no modern bombers period and only a few hundred sort of modern fighters. Any shift of the Germans away from Poland would have had instant local command of the air wherever it decided to go. The defeat in 1940 was against much better odds in the air.

But then you get the old butterfly effect thing going on with "If France had a more measured military doctrine as opposed to "Hide in our forts, rush into Belgium, and assume the Ardennes forest was impassable", then Germany likely would have better defended their border."

In fairness the Ardennes was impassible to large amounts of heavy artillery, the Germans however obtained total command of the air and used a lot of concentrated bombers to make up for it and quickly cross the Meuse river. Of course France had many other problems in the Belgium plan.

But the point of mentioning that being decisive air power concentrations like that was exactly the kind of thing the French feared if they pushed forward with a part measure. They try to cross a river and the Germans WILL bomb the crossing to ruins ect. That kind of rules out doing anything useful in strategic terms. About the only thing France did have in good supply was artillery spotting planes. French aviation was damn screwed up for political reasons, though a slew of about a half dozen different emergency fighter programs were all on the verge of breaking out mass production by May 1940.

Meanwhile French Army equipment in general was deficient in detail, such as 70% of artillery shells were duds in the 1939 offensive for example, largely because no new fuse had been produced for the heavy calibers since 1919. And the infantry had no mine detector gear, and advanced into the first giant bouncing betty minefield they ever saw. The West Wall had a lot of mines.

A French 1939 would just fail. Poland needed to hold out strongly for some weeks for the Allies to come up with some kind of win plan here, and even if they could do so fully mobilized (which I doubt, also blame the allies for delaying Polish mobilization!) the USSR stab in the back thing rendered any such plan actually hopeless.

[crueldwarf]

A French 1939 would just fail. Poland needed to hold out strongly for some weeks for the Allies to come up with some kind of win plan here, and even if they could do so fully mobilized (which I doubt, also blame the allies for delaying Polish mobilization!) the USSR stab in the back thing rendered any such plan actually hopeless.

I must point out that 'the stab in the back' from USSR wasn't a decided thing by the time. Yeah, there was an agreement about spheres of influence but there was no actual joint plans or something like that. Hitler himself was very much in doubt about would the Soviets attack Poland till September 14 or so.

I'm in agreement with the point that France was not in position to help Poland anyway but if we assume a strong Allied offensive on Germany in September then Soviets would not invade most likely.