Stalin полностью

Chamberlain’s guarantee of Poland’s independence, not its borders, presupposed further territorial revision, provided this was not achieved by force. The PM appears to have imagined that the British guarantee would strengthen Poland’s hand in “negotiations” with Nazi Germany over Danzig and the Corridor. Chamberlain’s idea was that London would be able to exert control in any possible Anglo-Polish alliance.¹⁸⁸ He warned Warsaw not to do anything rash to precipitate German military action—which, however, showed that, despite his assurances to the contrary at a cabinet meeting, the guarantee had, to an extent, placed the question of war or peace with Germany in the hands of a third country.¹⁸⁹ The dominant player in Poland’s ruling triumvirate, Foreign Minister Beck, was not fully trusted in London (or in Paris), and his idea of what was “reasonable” in negotiations with Germany differed from Chamberlain’s.

Chamberlain’s announcement of a British guarantee for Poland, which was soon publicly joined by France, happened to occur the same day (April 1, 1939) that Madrid, the last Republic holdout in Spain, fell to Franco’s forces.¹⁹⁰ Britain and France had already recognized his regime on February 27. On March 26, the caudillo had declared Spain’s adherence to the Anti-Comintern Pact. Although he had forged a politically and militarily unified Nationalist cause, a successful Popular Front on the right, he had still required thirty-two months, some 100,000 combined Italian and German troops, immense quantities of foreign weaponry, disorganization and mini civil war in the Republic camp, the timidity of France, and the active collusion of Britain to triumph. Altogether, probably half a million perished on both sides combined, including civilians, but after his victory, Franco would put to death more people than had all the kings of Spain combined; he offered no amnesty, instead forcing still more Spaniards into labor battalions or exile (Stalin refused to take them in). The victorious Nationalists in the locales, too, exacted vengeance, mostly on the Republic’s former rank-and-file officialdom (top leaders escaped).¹⁹¹ Franco was a criminal. The putsch he helped launch and the methods he used to prosecute the ensuing civil war constituted massive crimes against humanity. But his illegal action had galvanized the very leftist threat he had wanted to preempt. Stalin had chosen to hold back the Spanish Communist party, for the time being, but because of the inexorable ascendancy of the Communists in just about any extreme situation in which they are present in force, a Franco victory had become the lesser evil (as the fullness of Spain’s history would demonstrate). History rarely delivers moral clarities.

The British government and establishment were more or less pleased. But Britain’s reputation had suffered, France had been weakened, and Italy had become alienated from France and Britain, which had opened the path to Germany’s Anschluss with Austria. While the Spanish experience had further encouraged Chamberlain in his hopes that Britain could avoid war regardless of what happened on the continent, it had further convinced Hitler that Britain and France were afraid. Stalin had drawn the same conclusion.

Two weeks after Chamberlain’s gesture toward Poland, he issued, under French pressure, a similar guarantee for Romania, also a dictatorship. But the PM resisted calls in Britain for a “grand alliance” against Hitler, meaning one that involved the Soviet Union. He argued that such a bloc too closely resembled the old alliances that catastrophically had spawned the Great War.¹⁹² His domestic critics, numerous and vociferous, were neither consistent nor unified—not even just the conservatives—over a viable alternative policy.¹⁹³ In May 1939, the Bank of England would transfer to Nazi Germany gold valued at ₤6 million, held in London accounts by the erstwhile Czechoslovak National Bank.¹⁹⁴ Inside Whitehall, appeasement was far from dead, even after the debacle of Czechoslovakia: when the British cabinet discussed the guarantee for Poland, its members agreed that it would be operative only if the Poles did not demonstrate “provocative or stupid obstinacy” regarding Danzig and the Corridor.¹⁹⁵ The guarantee further required that the Poles themselves mobilize to fight the Germans, an action that London kept warning the Poles not to take. For all that, however, the guarantee had been publicly proclaimed. The nightmare Chamberlain had strenuously tried to avoid was now upon him: a possible second Europe-wide war.