Russia at war 1941-1945

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