Anna M. Cienciala. April 2011. Prefatory Note to Poland and the Western Powers 1938- 1939. the Book – Printed in England
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Anna M. Cienciala. April 2011. Prefatory Note to Poland and the Western Powers 1938‐ 1939. The book – printed in England and Canada, so with English spelling ‐‐ is a revised version of my Ph.D. dissertation based on Polish archival, diplomatic documents, also on archival and published western diplomatic documents available at the time. After March 1939 (British guarantee of Polish independence), the Epilogue carries the story up to the German and Soviet attacks on Poland in September 1939. A more detailed account, based on archival and published sources available since 1968, is given in the article “Poland in British and French Policy in 1939: determination to fight – or avoid war?” (The Polish Review, vol. XXXIV, 1989, no.3; reprinted with minor abbreviations in Patrick Finney, ed., The Origins of the Second World War, London, New York, Sidney, Auckland, 1997, pp. 413‐432). There are some errors in the book, written without the benefit of Google and online sources, unavailable at the time. On page 1, note 1, instead of the text, lines 7‐8 on Roman Dmowski: “he spent the last years of his life in exile, returning to die in Poland,” should read: He spent the last two years of his life on his sickbed, dying on January 2, 1939. 1 On page 119, par. 1, line 9 from bottom, (Hitler suggesting Poland agree to ceding Germany a strip of land through the Polish Corridor for the German Autobahn [Highway] and railway line to East Prussia). I misread the letter m in the document; instead of: thirty miles wide, the text should read: thirty meters wide. On page 254, lines 2‐3 from the bottom state that in 1939‐40 “almost 2,000,000 Poles were deported from the eastern territories, most of them to die in Soviet labour camps.” Russian documents, published since the early 1990s, show that according to NKVD figures, 320,000 Polish citizens (of whom about 67% were Poles) were taken away in three mass deportations from former eastern Poland between February 1940 and June 1941. These numbers do not include people arrested individually and sentenced to deportation, nor some 200,000 men conscripted into the Red Army, nor voluntary workers, nor tens of thousands of refugees, mainly Jewish, who fled ahead of the advancing German army in summer 1941. (See KATYN. A Crime Without Punishment, edited by Anna M. Cienciala, Natalia S. Lebedeva, Wojciech Materski, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 2007; reprint with corrections, 2009.) 2 There may well be other errors, which I failed to catch. If readers find them, please write to the author at: [email protected]. Anna M. Cienciala Lawerence, KS, 04/28/11 3 POLAND AND THE WESTERN POWERS 1938-1939 A Study in the Interdependence of Eastern and Western Europe by ANNA M. CIENCIALA LONDON: Routledge & Kegan Paul TORONTO: University of Toronto Press JOZEF BECK Foreign Minister of Poland, 1932*1939 First published 1968 in Great Britain by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd and in Canada by University of Toronto Press Printed and Bound in Great Britain by Bookprint Limited, London and Crawley Copyright Anna M. Cienciala 1968 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism CONTENTS J6zef Beck, Foreign Minister of Poland, 1932-1939 frontispiece Preface pagevi The Background, 1918-1938 I The Anschluss II The Czechoslovak Crisis: Uncertainty and Possi- bilities; January - June, 1938 54 III The Czechoslovak Crisis: Western Pressure and Polish Adjustment; June -12 September 1938 81 IV The Czechoslovak Crisis: The Betrayal and its Consequences; 12 September - 1 October 1938 107 V The Aftermath of Munich and the Failure of the 'Third Europe' 149 VI Danzig and the Corridor: Interlude before the Storm 177 VII The Parting of the Ways: The British Guarantee to Poland 207 Epilogue 238 Conclusion 251 Bibliographical Essay 264 Maps I Ethnic map of Western Poland 292 II Western Part of the Polish-Czechoslovak Border• land 293 Index 294 v PREFACE HE object of this study is twofold. In the first place, the Tauthor seeks to explain the nature and historical roots of the problems facing Polish foreign policy in 1938-39 and the manner in which they were approached by the men who shaped and directed Polish diplomacy. Secondly, the author's aim is to illustrate the political interdependence in these years of Eastern and Western Europe. This interdependence hinged on the German problem. The attitude of France and Britain towards Poland and Eastern Europe as a whole was primarily a reflection of their policy towards Germany; at the same time, this policy was the decisive factor in the individual reactions of Germany's eastern neighbours to the threat of resurgent German power. As far as Poland was concerned, she not only had to strive to avert the danger of German revisionism, the realization of which would have made her a vassal of Berlin, but she also had to consider the possibility of Soviet expansion at her expense. This study is, however, primarily concerned with Polish attempts to obtain security with regard to Germany and, in the period in question, this was the main objective of Polish diplomacy. In contrast to the intense diplomatic activity on the German sector, Poland's relations with the USSR were virtually in a state of 'cold war'. Nevertheless, the Polish government's aversion to any close co-operation with the Soviet Union was naturally a factor of great importance in its overall attitude towards the German problem, although it never led even to the consideration of an anti-Soviet alliance with Germany. Poland's relations with the smaller countries of Eastern Europe, partic• ularly with Czechoslovakia, were primarily governed by the Western attitude towards Germany and the fear of any growth of Soviet influence in this area. Since this is a study in diplomatic history, Polish domestic history has been touched upon only in so far as it had a bearing on foreign policy. This applies particularly to the criticism of the government's diplomacy by the leading parties of the opposition. Although Pilsudski seized dictatorial power in May 1926, Poland could not thereafter be called a totalitarian state. The govern- vi PREFACE ment majority in Parliament, first the 'Non-Party Bloc of Co• , operation with the Government > and subsequently the 'Camp of National Unity', did not eliminate the influence of the opposition on the political life of the country. Even after the opposition parties had boycotted the elections in protest against the constitution of April 1935, which gave virtually dictatorial powers to the President, they still retained a strong influence through their press. Since they were strongly in favour of co• operation with France and critical of the government's relations with Germany, and since their criticism was widely reflected in the public opinion of the country, the government was obliged to formulate its foreign policy with this factor constantly in mind. This book originated as a doctoral thesis for Indiana Univer• sity (1962), written under the guidance of Professor Piotr S. Wandycz who read the drafts and the final manuscript and whose valuable advice and comments have been of immeasur• able help in my work. The basic sources for this study are the published documents on Polish, German, British, and American foreign policy and unpublished Polish documentary material. At the time of writing, documents on French foreign policy were available only for the first few months of 1936, while the official Soviet docu• mentary series had only reached the year 1927. The Italian diplomatic documents for this period had not yet been published. I trust, nevertheless, that the Polish documentation made avail• able to me for this study is extensive enough to trace and elucidate Polish diplomacy in this critical period of European history. The interpretation of these documents is, of course, entirely my responsibility. The gathering of the materials for this book involved travel and study in North America and Europe. It could not have been accomplished without the generous assistance of the Ford Foundation. The publication was made possible by a grant from the Social Science Research Council of Canada, using funds provided by the Canada Council, and by a grant from the Publications Fund of the University of Toronto Press. I should like to express my great appreciation for the aid given me by these institutions. It is also a great pleasure for me to express my gratitude to the vu PREFACE following institutions which gave me access to their archives and libraries: the General Sikorski Historical Institute, the Polish Research Centre, the British Foreign Office Library, and the Institute of International Affairs in London, England; the Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford, California, the National Archives, Washington, D.C., , the Jozef Pilsudski Institute of America, New York, and the i f curators of the archives of the former Polish Ministry of Foreign Afiairs, N^ireal^jCanada; the Polish Ministry. of Foreign Affairs, the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw, the Ossolineum Institute in Wroclaw, and the Provincial Archives in Gdansk, Poland. Many friends and colleagues have taken the trouble to read and comment on my work. For this time-consuming labour and for the valuable advice I received, I should like to thank the following: Professors Charles L. Lundin and Robert F. Ferrell of Indiana University; Professor Harold I. Nelson and Dr. Bohdan Budurowycz of the University of Toronto; the readers of the Social Science Research Council of Canada, and Miss M. J. Houston and Miss M. L. Pearson of the University of Toronto Press.