France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg were invaded in May 1940. Only then did the allies really start to fight back. Polish allies did nothing until France was invaded.
I agree there was not really a great solution after WW2 for Poland, the Iron Curtain was basically inevitable given how shaky the alliance between the USSR and the West was.
France and Britain's response was to promptly declare war on Germany, which is a little more than doing nothing given that just 21 years earlier they had taken most of the casualties in the defeat of Germany in the world's largest war.
> Polish allies did nothing until France was invaded.
On the contrary [0] - "Germany had started low-intensity undeclared war on Czechoslovakia on 17 September 1938. In reaction, the United Kingdom and France on 20 September formally asked Czechoslovakia to cede its territory to Germany, which was followed by Polish territorial demands brought on 21 September and Hungarian on 22 September."
> Polish allies did nothing until France was invaded
You know what, just draw us a battle plan in which the WAllies beat Germany in 1939, that would revolutionize the academic understanding of early WWII.
I don't know what the right action would be, but the action taken -- essentially do nothing -- was clearly the wrong move and led to Germany taking over Western Europe for several years.
> but the action taken -- essentially do nothing -- was clearly the wrong move
What was the right move then? Please detail. Would it be an “attaque à outrance” with an unready French army and an embryonic BEF against fortified German positions, with neatly inferior air forces, not enough siege artillery to break the Siegried line, a flimsy logistic branch, and following a totally hurried plan due to an uncooperative Belgium which screwed up all pre-war planning? And all that within a nation which already suffered humongous and material human losses barely 20 years before and could not really afford the same thing again, neither from a political nor a practical perspective if it was to handle a long war.
No, I argue that even with hindsight, globally, the right call was made: there was absolutely no way to save a Poland which happily sacrificed every opportunity to get military allies less than 1,500km away during the whole interwar period; the only playable hand was to bet on a long, tracted war where the French and the British could economically strangle Germany like they did in 1918 and free Poland afterwards – implicating, on the ground, turtling behind the border defenses long enough for the blockade to do its job. Problem: (i) Belgium royally screwing up the plan, (ii) USSR joining the waltz, (iii) the incredibly lucky strike of the Germans in the Ardennes.
AFAIK, they just didn't want to get dragged into another war by the Germans, and perceived the joint UK/FR/BE war plan as provocative towards Germany, and left it to proclaim their neutrality. Unfortunately for them, proclaiming their neutrality didn't save them in 1914, and it didn't save them in 1939 either.
Now I totally understand why they were not fond of FR/UK deliberately planning to sacrifice half their country to establish strong defensive lines on their rivers, but sometimes you can't have it all and just have to go with the less shitty plan.
I’d imagine that the literal millions of dead under Belgian soil, and the total destruction wrought by WWI made them hesitant to take any sides in potential conflict. You don’t position yourself in the middle a fight between two heavyweight boxers when you are a flyweight.
Perhaps doing nothing was the best move. Perhaps making a move would have resulted in Germany focusing more on the Western front and maintaining good relations with Russia. Very different conflict at that point. Without the losses on the Eastern front, perhaps Germany is able to fend off a French and British offensive, and end up invading both France and Britain.
I think they meant Poland was promised support in case of an attack and ended up getting screwed over by all their supposed allies, who after the war didn't even have the decency of trying to help them regain their independency.
the Phoney period began with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France against Nazi Germany on 3 September 1939, after which little actual warfare occurred, and ended with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries on 10 May 1940. Although there was no large-scale military action by Britain and France, they did begin some economic warfare, especially with the naval blockade, and shut down German surface raiders. They created elaborate plans for numerous large-scale operations designed to cripple the German war effort. These included opening an Anglo-French front in the Balkans, invading Norway to seize control of Germany's main source of iron ore and a strike against the Soviet Union, to cut off its supply of oil to Germany. Only the Norway plan came to fruition, and by April 1940, it was too little, too late.
Patton was a fan of doing exactly that: he was probably right. If the USSR had been aborted early on, look at all the suffering that would have been avoided (Holodrome, etc.)
> Patton was a fan of doing exactly that: he was probably right
Yeah, sure, good luck beating the RKKA in 1945. No A-bombs ready, industry centers are behind the Urals and untouchable by the allied air power; absolutely 0 support from the civilian populations in the West, whereas the Soviet civilian population would be galvanized by the backstabbing; the UK is already at the end of its manpower; the US would be fighting an ocean behind its logistic base; the RKKA is in full swing in Europe and overwhelming the WAllies in the ETO in men and material; best case is the WAllies get thrown to the Atlantic and a white peace is signed, worst case ends in a nuclear apocalypse.
Operation Unthinkable is very fun in wargaming, but it doesn't hold water in practice.
> look at all the suffering that would have been avoided (Holodrome, etc.)
The Holodomor that happened 10 years BEFORE 1945? Do you even have any idea what you're talking about?
Also 'Holodomor' is somewhat of a political creation. Recent authoritative biography of Stalin by Stephen Kotkin, for example states that the early 1930s famine was a pan-soviet famine, not restricted to Ukraine or any specific ethnic region.
France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg were invaded in May 1940. Only then did the allies really start to fight back. Polish allies did nothing until France was invaded.
I agree there was not really a great solution after WW2 for Poland, the Iron Curtain was basically inevitable given how shaky the alliance between the USSR and the West was.