The reason the west went to war with germany is pure BS

Other nations in Eastern Europe had successfully maintained good diplomatic relations with Germany.
Yes with a rifle on the head!

Many people believe that the diplomatic relations between Germany and Eastern Europe countries were good!
It’is false. The Rumanian and Hungarian peoples for example did not agree with the position of their government.
The Hungarians and Rumanians goverment didn’t want to undergo the same fate as Poland.
It was a economical relation not an ideology relation.
In fact, It was thus necessary in their interest to remain friend with Nazi.

“The problem was the sheer size of the Red Army (which outnumbered its German counterpart nearly 4:1 in the fall of '41)”

Actually by the fall of 41, thanks to the massive encirclements and complete destruction of many soviet armies, the german forces actually outnumbered the soviets for a time.

@crusaderiv:

In May, 1939, Gamelin undertook with general Kasprycki (Minister of the military affairs of Poland) on 3 protocols.
If Germany attacks Poland:

1. France will begin an air action.
2. 3 days after the general mobilization, France will start an offensive with limited objectives.
3. As soon as the German effort will sink in Poland, France will start an offensive action main part of his forces.

Gamelin make this promises without to consult French goverment!

It is true the agreement was initially negotiated between Gamelin and his Polish counterpart. But that agreement was later ratified by both governments.

The idea that Gamelin came up with those promises on his own seems a little far-fetched. Daladier served as the Minister of Defense under France’s Popular Front government. One would expect someone with that background to be particularly aware of the doings of France’s military.

Anything relating to France’s foreign policy (especially with respect to Germany) was of first importance to him. Gamelin was left in his position and was given overall command of France’s defense in 1940. It is not normal for generals to make foreign policy or diplomatic promises on their own. When they do, they are typically relieved of command–which Gamelin was not. The idea that Gamelin was solely responsible for the promises France had made to Poland smells a lot like something put forward by Daladier or his supporters, after the fact, to explain why France had not honored its promise to Poland of an invasion of Germany.

The French government knew very well that they were not ready to make war. They tried to make the peace with Hiltler but after the Anschluss, Czechoslovakia, Rhineland and numerous peace meetings.
The English and French goverment faced the evidence that Hitler wanted to make war.
War was inevitable. The big mistake of the French and English goverment was to overestimate the German strengths in September, 1939.

It is a common misperception that Daladier was personally interested in negotiating peace with Hitler. He was not; and only attended the Munich Conference in 1938 because Chamberlain pressured him into doing so. In 1938, Daladier told the British, “Today, it is the turn of Czechoslovakia. Tomorrow, it will be the turn of Poland and Romania. When Germany has obtained the oil and wheat it needs, she will turn on the West.”

Daladier’s words were a clear case of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hitler had nothing to gain by a war against Britain and France. Realizing this, he offered Britain and France a peace treaty after the fall of Poland. Both nations refused. After France fell, Hitler began looking into the possibility of a peace treaty with Britain. He was rebuffed. As a result, he found himself in exactly the kind of war Germany did not need: a long, grinding war in which Great Britain could take full advantage of its significant industrial potential, the resources of its colonies, and the aircraft manufacturing capacity of the United States.

Daladier was correct to note that Germany lacked wheat and oil. Hitler hoped to find both things in the East. His long-range goal was a successful war against the Soviet Union. The oil of Caucasus and the wheat of the Ukraine would considerably strengthen Germany; victory over the Soviet Union would secure Germany’s eastern front and would free the world from communism, and the Soviet Union had plenty of space in which Germans could settle.

However, Hitler faced opposition to this planned war from various democracies. In 1935, France and Czechoslovakia each signed a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union. From 1938 - the spring of 1941, Hitler’s policy towards the nations of Eastern Europe was to annex whichever nations had adopted anti-German or pro-Soviet foreign policies (such as Czechoslovakia) while leaving alone those nations which did not have anti-German foreign policies. This policy was intended to prepare the groundwork for his invasion of the Soviet Union.

Like other French leaders from 1918 - 1940, Daladier believed in keeping Germany as weak as possible. Neither French leaders nor the leaders of other Western democracies had any kind of clear plan for a counterweight to Soviet expansionism. Hitler very much wanted to be that counterweight, but at every turn France’s actions served to turn his attention westward. After WWI, France gave large slices of German territory to Czechoslovakia and Poland–thereby creating a serious source of tension between those two nations and Germany. Then in 1939, France exacerbated that tension by promising the Polish that France would launch a full  invasion of Germany if Germany attacked Poland. That promise was the foundation for Poland’s (deeply misguided) foreign policy in 1939.

Perhaps Hitler would have failed to win his war against the Soviet Union even without the efforts of France, Britain, and the United States to undercut Germany and support the Soviets. But there is no obvious reason why the Western democracies should have sided with the Soviet Union instead of with Germany in the war between those two nations. Hitler had wanted an alliance with Britain; and had hoped the United States would remain neutral and isolationist.

French foreign policy ultimately succeeded in its goal of a weak Germany. In 1945, Germany was prostrate. Its women and children were raped and murdered in what historian Antony Beevor described as “the worst mass rape in human history.” The horror and brutality of Soviet communism had spread west into the heart of Europe. At that point, only the United States had the military strength to prevent the Red Army from overrunning the rest of Germany, conquering France, and reaching the Atlantic.

Unexpectedly, the U.S. did, in fact, provide a deterrent to Soviet expansionism. I use the word “unexpectedly” because as of 1940, the American political spectrum was divided into conservative Republican isolationists and pro-communist interventionists such as FDR. Few politicians from either political party had advocated interventionism against communism. But in 1948, a new breed of American politicians got elected to Congress–politicians who believed in the idea of interventionism against communism. That fortuitous development was one of two factors which saved France from the consequences of having successfully destroyed what (up to that point) had been the sole deterrent to Soviet expansionism: the armed might of Germany.

The other development which may have saved France from the consequences of its own foreign policy was the death of Stalin in the early '50s. In the late '40s and early '50s, the Soviets had much stronger conventional forces in Europe than did the Western democracies. Truman recognized this, and knew that if the Soviets invaded, the Americans would be pushed west. He planned to use tactical nuclear strikes on the invading Soviet forces–a plan which did not please the Germans; among whom those nuclear bombs would fall! However, the United States did not have very many nuclear bombs, and Stalin was confident of his nation’s ability to shoot down nuclear bombers. (As an aside, Germany would have been the U.S.'s main ally in such a war; because France was too pro-communist to be relied upon.)

Those who believe Stalin had been planning WWIII state that he allowed the Korean War to be launched as a test of American military readiness. This was a test the U.S. failed to pass–which made Stalin confident in his preparations to move forward with a larger European conflict. However, Stalin died (or was murdered) before having the opportunity to launch this war. His successors proved more cautious.

I think that France and UK entered the war because they saw the horrors of WWI firsthand and another thing like that all across Europe should’nt happen again. They didn’t hit the Soviets cause they didn’t start it. They were scavengers getting the leftovers from the big kill. Actually Russia did Poland a favor. They prevented it all from being taken from Germany and allowed Poles to join specific army units made just for them. Granted the Poles lost thousands in the Soviet invasion but think of how many Jews were saved for Hitlers reign of terror?

@Pvt.Ryan:

I think that France and UK entered the war because they saw the horrors of WWI firsthand and another thing like that all across Europe should’nt happen again. They didn’t hit the Soviets cause they didn’t start it. They were scavengers getting the leftovers from the big kill. Actually Russia did Poland a favor. They prevented it all from being taken from Germany and allowed Poles to join specific army units made just for them. Granted the Poles lost thousands in the Soviet invasion but think of how many Jews were saved for Hitlers reign of terror?

The russkies did polish communists a favor
they didn’t do Poland a favor
they slaughtered thousands of Polish officers and stood by while the krauts killed off all the commie opposition

@Pvt.Ryan:

I think that France and UK entered the war because they saw the horrors of WWI firsthand and another thing like that all across Europe should’nt happen again. They didn’t hit the Soviets cause they didn’t start it. They were scavengers getting the leftovers from the big kill. Actually Russia did Poland a favor. They prevented it all from being taken from Germany and allowed Poles to join specific army units made just for them. Granted the Poles lost thousands in the Soviet invasion but think of how many Jews were saved for Hitlers reign of terror?

If the British and French had of taken the threat of Nazi Germany seriously they would of gone on the offensive from the beginning instead of sitting behind the maginot line and letting the naval blockade of Germany does it work for the second time. In reality both the British and French knew that it would be a very bloody affair fighting all the way to Berlin, so they wrongly assumed that the Nazi regime would either fall apart either from internal problems or the long term implications of a naval blockade.

What they didnt realise is that in late 1939 Germany wasnt actually anywhere near as strong as it looked to most observers and its quick victories were not acheived by mass of numbers or technological prowess but mostly by superior tactics and leadership. Had there been that sort of leadership, tactical skill and the political will to use it within the ranks of the British and French the war could of been fought to at worst a stalemate by which time the German people would not be keen to repeat the starvation of large numbers of populace like during WW1. The only thing that kept Hitler in power aside from his uncanny luck was the fact that the early military victorys over Poland, France and the Low Countries were so easily achieved which made him seem like an almost godly figure to the German people who suffered so much at the hands of the French.

As far as Russia doing Poland a favor it did no such thing in my opinion, during the Warsaw uprising for instance the Soviets did nothing to assist the Polish resistance fighters so they knew they would have less strong opposition to the Soviet regime post war. The Soviets acted in their own self interest, liberating Poland was just part of the plan because it was on the way to Berlin. Also Poland ended up with a totalatarian regime similar to what the Nazi’s would of instituted post war anyway. So the Russians didnt do the Poles any favors but by the same token either did the Allies, we let them help us fight the Nazi’s and they fought with great courage and made many sacrifices only to be told they now have to live under the Soviet regime.

The jews you mentioned as being saved by the Soviets at least an equal number of Poles who opposed the Soviets were executed/imprisoned when the Soviets took power (mostly due to the fact nearly 90% of Polish Jews were already dead), when you add to that the number of Poles who died in the Warsaw uprising because the Soviets chose not to intervene its all suddenly not so rosy.

Well I suppose I’ve gone toe to toe against another history fan. Please tell me you don’t have a Masters Degree  :oops:. Anyway my point is that I think it would have been worse for the Poles to live under Germany but I may be wrong once I take a second look at the Soviets. Anyway no Britain and France were in no condition to fight Germany once they declared war. Doe’s anyone know the starting army sizes once the war started?

@Pvt.Ryan:

Well I suppose I’ve gone toe to toe against another history fan. Please tell me you don’t have a Masters Degree  :oops:. Anyway my point is that I think it would have been worse for the Poles to live under Germany but I may be wrong once I take a second look at the Soviets. Anyway no Britain and France were in no condition to fight Germany once they declared war. Doe’s anyone know the starting army sizes once the war started?

No masters degree yet but I am history student as well as being a WW2 history buff since age 7  :-)

How life would of been under the Nazi’s for the Poles is definetly an interesting question, they werent seen as being as racially inferior as the likes of the Russians and Roma. So the Nazi’s plan was for Germanic peoples to settle the best parts of Poland/Ukraine and parts of Russia and then the Poles were to be relocated to live on the lesser agricultural land in Russia. They were seen as useful tools for use in the new empire of the 3rd reich who would provide the food and raw materials. After all theres no point wasting an “Aryan” in a coal minefor instance when they can be doing so much more for the world or so the Nazi’s believed. The Nazi’s needed labour in the long and the Poles were one of the only groups the Nazi’s could of used to further the “Aryan” race, especially after wiping out many of the Slavic and Russian people had Barbarossa been sucessful.

So I dont think the day to day life of a Pole would of been that bad under the Nazi’s after they had the initial purge of anyone who opposed the Nazi’s, it probably would of been similar to the way the Soviets ran Poland at least at first. With the compliance of the Polish people in their new role they may very well of ended up better off under the Nazi’s than the Soviets. Although that would depend on a number of factors and after all this is just a theory.

From what i’ve read it was a generally well accepted that France could go toe to toe with Germany by it self in the event of war in 1939. They had roughly the same amount of tanks and combat aircraft but those assets werent committed in any meaningful way. Much of the French airpower was destroyed on the ground quite quickly I believe, so air cover was very hard to come, so that was another factor that put the war in Germany’s favour. Germany committed roughly 140 divisions to the invasion of France and the French/BEF had roughly 144. However the French had an additional 5 million reservists/veterans to call on if the war wasnt over so quickly.

The lack of French armoured divisions were a factor that cost the French the battle, because the policy at the time was an equal allocation of armoured resources to each infantry division. So when the Germans attacked with full Panzer divisions the small amount of French armour that would be facing them was obliterated quite quickly.

Had the British and French taken the German threat seriously and not relied so heavily on the Maginot line/low countries fortifications so heavily and actually prepared for a possible German attack the war could of gone very diffferent. I have heard both first hand from my Grandfather and also from books that the BEF was in no shape to fight a war, they had the vehicles and weapons but they lacked even the basics like adaquate stores of ammunition. Some troops had little to no ammunition so they covered their retreat to Dunkirk with whatever they had which was often large numbers of smoke grenades.

With a serious offensive throwing everything they had at the Germans while a large portion of their army was still comitted in Poland they could of easily got past the mostly still unbuilt Sigfried line. On September 1st, 1939 the Sigfried line was still mostly unfinished, unfourtunetly the Allies werent aware of that, they saw the German propganda footage of the finished parts of the line and thought the whole line was like that especially after small French probing attacks were rebuffed quite easily by the German defenders. Much like the fall of France had the Sigfried line been breached the fall of Germany could of come very quickly if the Germans were not allowed to regroup after sustained attacks which could of been possible with nearly a million men comitted and nearly 3,000 tanks committed against Polish forces.

Even after the fall of Poland, all was not lost on the Western front.

With better tactics, communication, and especially leadership, it is my opinion that the French and British could have stopped the Blitzkrieg in France.  No Dunkirk, no German occupation of France, etc.  That would have been an interesting turn of events…how would a Russian supported Germany fare against the French and British (with backing from the USA)?  With the Russian support, how effective would the Allied blockade be?  How long would the German-Russian alliance last before it fell apart?  Would Germany’s advance weapons (ME-262, V-2, etc.) enable a victory before the superior resources of the UK and French empires (with the industrial might of the USA) overwhelmed her?  What would Japan do different (if anything)?

Regarding the Poles, I think in the event of a German victory, they would fare about the same as they did under the Soviets.  The Germans would probably have either exterminated the Russians, or pushed them past the Urals.  The Poles would have been moved to the Russian terrritory (but they were somewhat moved into former German territory after WWII by the Russians).  Not much difference in my opinion, though I think culturally, the loss of the “homeland” of Polish cities like Warsaw would be a difficult thing for the Polish culture.

Read “world war 2 behind closed doors” by laurence rees

There was a secret part in the treaty between the french, british and poles which the brits and the french promised military assistance against a German attack not a Soviet attack and remember they did not help in the war between the poles in the soviets in late 1910’s and early 1920’s but instead suggested the curzon line (which the Molotov-Ribbentrop line basicly followed)

Also the soviets at Tehran were more interested in soviet post war borders than they were in actually winning the war and remember in 1943 this was not a certainty. They wanted to keep there pre 1941 gains.

This is just a brief overview of some othe parts of the book I suggest you read it. It is very good.

The brits and the french could have attacked the siegfried line before the germans finished it and probably would have been succesful and because they did not co-operate with the Belgium people (I don’t know the correct word) and the dutch because the later two did not want to appear co-operating with the allies because at that time they were neutral. The Germans had a brilliant strategy in attacking (the aaa territory North West Europe) and then following nit up with the tank drive through the ardennes they cut of the Elite French and British troops from the rest of the army. They shouldn’t have allowed Dunkirk and should have forced the British and French into the sea and this would come back to haunt them.