Russia at war 1941-1945

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"