Did France or Britain ask Stalin to attack in May/June 1940?

[historygeek2021]

I'm curious if anyone knows whether Churchill or Reynaud reached out to Stalin in the dark days of May/June 1940 and asked him to break his truce with Germany and attack in the east. It seems like it would have been worth a shot, since nearly all of the German army was in the west and the east was weakly defended.

[wm]

Declaration of the Government of the German Reich and the Government of the U.S.S.R. of September 28, 1939

After the Government of the German Reich and the Government of the U.S.S.R. have, by means of the treaty signed today, definitively settled the problems arising from the collapse of the Polish state and have thereby created a sure foundation for a lasting peace in Eastern Europe, they mutually express their conviction that it would serve the true interest of all peoples to put an end to the state of war existing a present between Germany on the one side and England and France on the other. Both Governments will therefore direct their common efforts, jointly with other friendly powers if occasion arises, toward attaining this goal as soon as possible.

Should, however, the efforts of the two Governments remain fruitless, this would demonstrate the fact that England and France are responsible for the continuation of the war, whereupon, in case of the continuation of the war, the Governments of Germany and of the U.S.S.R. shall engage in mutual consultations with regard to necessary measures.

Moscow, September 28,1939.

For the Government of the German Reich:
J. RIBBENTROP

By authority of the Government of the U.S.S.R.:
V. MOLOTOV

But at the end of 1939, Churchill asked Stalin for friendly neutrality in exchange for forsaking by Britain Finland, and the Baltic States.

[Rob Stuart]

But at the end of 1939, Churchill asked Stalin for friendly neutrality in exchange for forsaking by Britain Finland, and the Baltic States.

What is your source for this? It certainly sounds dubious, since Churchill was not the PM until May 1940. If this was the policy of the Chamberlain gov't it would not have been communicated to the Soviets by the First Lord of the Admiralty.

[Takao]

But at the end of 1939, Churchill asked Stalin for friendly neutrality in exchange for forsaking by Britain Finland, and the Baltic States.

What is your source for this? It certainly sounds dubious, since Churchill was not the PM until May 1940. If this was the policy of the Chamberlain gov't it would not have been communicated to the Soviets by the First Lord of the Admiralty.

See
https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/ ... ic-part-4/
There has never been confirmation and nothing official was announced, the matter, if discussed was done in private.

[wm]

But at the end of 1939, Churchill asked Stalin for friendly neutrality in exchange for forsaking by Britain Finland, and the Baltic States.

What is your source for this? It certainly sounds dubious, since Churchill was not the PM until May 1940. If this was the policy of the Chamberlain gov't it would not have been communicated to the Soviets by the First Lord of the Admiralty.

According to Maisky, on 6 October he was asked to come to see Churchill at the Admiralty (at 10 p.m.!)
The starting point was that the basic interests of Britain and the USSR do not collide anywhere. Later Churchill asked what could be done to improve British and Soviet relations.

[Churchill:]
The Baltic states. The Soviet Union is going to be master of the eastern part of the Baltic Sea. Is this good or bad from the point of view of British interests? It is good. ... In essence, the Soviet Government's latest actions in the Baltic correspond to British interests, for they diminish Hitler's potential Lebensraum. If the Baltic countries have to lose their independence, it is better for them to be brought into the Soviet state system rather than the German one....
The Maisky Diaries

Seven days later Eden during lunch with Maisky used the same words and asked what could be done to improve British and Soviet relations.
Three days later Halifax summoned Maisky and said the British Government would like to improve Anglo-Soviet relations.

Later:

... And then, pulling on his cigar — we had already finished lunch — Churchill added thoughtfully: `... Were it not for Russia, the Battle of the Marne would have ended in our defeat and the entire outcome of the war would probably have been different. That is why I think that Britain and France owe Russia in general a historical debt, whatever Russia that may be — Red or White — and we now have a moral obligation to help Russia strengthen her position on the Baltic Sea.... Finland should not impede rapprochement between Britain and the USSR, which is my chief political objective.'
The Maisky Diaries

[OpanaPointer]

This might have something useful: https://www.worldcat.org/title/correspo ... lc/5257406

[OpanaPointer]

I have the color books online at my site, http://ibiblio.org/pha

[Steve]

On October 16 Churchill told a meeting of War Cabinet much the same as he told Maiskii which was

“No doubt it appeared reasonable to the Soviet Union to take advantage of the present situation to regain some of the territory which Russia had lost as a result of the last war ………….. It was to our interests that the U.S.S.R. should increase their strength in the Baltic, thereby limiting the risk of German domination in that area. For this reason it would be a mistake for us to stiffen the Finns against making concessions to the U.S.S.R.”

He was reminded by Halifax that the Finns had a right to independence.

[Rob Stuart]

On October 16 Churchill told a meeting of War Cabinet much the same as he told Maiskii which was

“No doubt it appeared reasonable to the Soviet Union to take advantage of the present situation to regain some of the territory which Russia had lost as a result of the last war ………….. It was to our interests that the U.S.S.R. should increase their strength in the Baltic, thereby limiting the risk of German domination in that area. For this reason it would be a mistake for us to stiffen the Finns against making concessions to the U.S.S.R.”

He was reminded by Halifax that the Finns had a right to independence.

Regardless of what Churchill may have said in October, the UK condemned the 30 November invasion of Finland by the USSR and attempted to provide material aid to the Finns, e.g., a number of Hurricanes were provided. And 6 October was not "the end of 1939".

[Loïc]

France asking Soviet Union to attack in may 1940...we are very far from that, at that time precisely France had a very heavily deteriored relationship with Soviet Union, followed a very anti-Soviet Union policy, hostile power perceived as nothing more than an ally to Germany, policy more voluntarist and agressive than Great Britain, at such point that this period is regarded as a first Cold War period between both countries to not say more, indeed it was planned bombing operations in Caucasus despite the lack of means, but also certainly very less reluctant to intervene than Great Britain, gathering an Expeditionary Force for Finland from Mountain Alpine troops, even sending at few hours from the Soviet-Finnish Armistice in march 1940 a French Air Bomber Squadron to support Finnish war effort, and to not say nothing about the fact that in France there was the Polish Governement in Exile with the Polish Army to count in the French-Soviet equation

[henryk]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pike
During 1939-1940, France and Britain were planning attacks on USSR

Operation Pike was the code-name for a strategic bombing plan overseen by Air Commodore John Slessor against the Soviet Union by the Anglo-French alliance.[2] British military planning against the Soviet Union occurred during the first two years of the Second World War, when, despite Soviet neutrality, the British and French came to the conclusion that the German–Soviet pact made Stalin an accomplice of Hitler.[3] The plan was designed to destroy the Soviet oil industry to cause the collapse of the Soviet economy and deprive Germany of Soviet resources.

After the conclusion of the German-Soviet Pact, Britain and France became deeply concerned that the Soviets kept supplying more oil to the Germans.[4]

Planning began shortly after the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 and gained momentum after Stalin launched the Winter War against Finland in November 1939. The plan included the seizure of northern Norway and Sweden and an advance into Finland to confront Soviet troops and to naval forces in the Baltic Sea. The plan was seen as costly and ineffective in dealing with the German threat and so was scaled back to the seizure of Norway and the Swedish iron ore mines. British and French politicians were for the continuation of the conflict between Finland and the Soviet Union to legitimize their attack on Soviet soil.

Planners identified the dependence by Germany on oil imports from the Soviet Union as a vulnerability that could be exploited. Despite initial opposition by some politicians, the French government ordered General Maurice Gamelin to commence a "plan of possible intervention with the view of destroying Russian oil exploitation", and US Ambassador Bullit informed US President Franklin Roosevelt that the French considered that air attacks by the French Air Forces in Syria against Baku to be "the most efficient way to weaken the Soviet Union".[4] According to the report by General Gamelin that was submitted to the French prime minister on 22 February 1940, an oil shortage would cripple the Red Army, the Soviet Air Force and Soviet collective farm machinery, which would possible widespread famine and even the collapse of the Soviet Union:

Dependence on oil supplies from the Caucasus is the fundamental weakness of Russian economy. The Armed Forces were totally dependent on this source also for their motorized agriculture. More than 90 percent of oil extraction and 80 percent of refinement was located in the Caucasus (primarily Baku). Therefore, interruption of oil supplies on any large scale would have far-reaching consequences and could even result in the collapse of all the military, industrial and agricultural systems of Russia.— Gamelin[4]

An important source of raw materials would also be denied to Germany by the destruction of the oil fields.

Serious preparation by the British began after the end of the Winter War in March 1940. By April, plans to attack oil production centres in the Caucasian towns of Baku, Batum and Grozny were complete. Bombers were to be flown from bases in Iran, Turkey and Syria in "Western Air Plan 106", which was codenamed "Operation Pike".[5] The French proposed accelerating the planning, but the British were more cautious for fear of a possible German-Soviet alliance if the allies attack the Soviets.[6]

The Soviet leadership anticipated Allied attacks, and from 25–29 March, the leading staff of the Transcaucasian Military District conducted the following map exercise. According to the scenario, the "black" forces, continuing their actions against the "brown" forces at the Western Front, attacked in co-operation with "blue" and "green" forces; they were repelled by the "reds" in the Caucasus, who then started a counteroffensive towards Erzurum and Tebriz.[7]

Some scholars do not take the British plans of attack seriously and regard them as mere contingency plans.[8] On the other hand, the Soviet historian Vilnis Sīpols (ru) noted that the British and French military staff had developed strategic plans for assaulting the Soviet Union from the south but that neither government had a political decision to invade.[9]

Reconnaissance missions
In March 1940, after the end of the Winter War, the British undertook secret reconnaissance flights to photograph areas inside the Soviet Union by using high-altitude, high-speed stereoscopic photography pioneered by Sidney Cotton.[10]

Using specially modified and unmarked Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra aircraft painted in a special blue camouflage scheme developed by Cotton, who led the RAF Photographic Development Unit (PDU), the Secret Intelligence Service launched high-altitude reconnaissance flights from RAF Habbaniya, a Royal Air Force station in Iraq. One such mission was flown on 30 March 1940. Flying over the mountainous region of southeastern Kurdistan, in Iranian airspace, across the coast of the Caspian Sea and then north towards Baku, the flight entered Soviet airspace at 11:45 after a four-hour flight. Loitering for an hour and making six photographic runs with its 14 in (36 cm) aerial camera, the aircraft left Baku at 12:45 and returned to RAF Habbaniya.[11]

Another reconnaissance sortie was flown on 5 April from RAF Habbaniya, this time crossing Turkish airspace to reach Batumi. The flight encountered Soviet anti-aircraft fire, and a Soviet fighter attempted an interception. The British had obtained everything that they needed for interpreting photographs and mapping the Soviet petroleum centres.

Preparations for air campaign
Analysis of the photography by the PDU revealed that the oil infrastructure in Baku and Batum were particularly vulnerable to air attack, as both could be approached from the sea and so the more difficult target of Grozny would be bombed first to exploit the element of surprise. Oil fields were to be attacked with incendiary bombs, and tests conducted at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich revealed that light oil storage tanks at the oil processing plants could be detonated with high explosives.

As of 1 April, four squadrons comprising 48 Bristol Blenheim Mk IV bombers were transferred to the Middle East Command and were supplemented with a number of single-engined Wellesley bombers for night missions. A French force of 65 Martin Maryland bombers and a supplementary force of 24 Farman F.222 heavy bombers were allocated for night operations during the campaign. The French were preparing new air fields in Syria that were expected to be ready by 15 May. The campaign was expected to last three months and over 1,000 short tons (910 t) of bombs were allocated to the operation: 404 × 500 lb (230 kg) semi-armour-piercing bombs, 554 × 500 lb (230 kg) and 5,188 × 250 lb (110 kg) general-purpose bombs and 69,192 × 4 lb (1.8 kg) incendiary bombs.[12]

German capture of Allied plans
The German Blitzkrieg and the swift Fall of France on 10 May 1940 derailed the plans, when the French military failed to hold back the Wehrmacht advance. The Germans captured a train stalled at the village of La Charité-sur-Loire that contained boxes of secret documents evacuated from Paris. Among them were documents dealing with Operation Pike. On 4 July, in a propaganda campaign to justify the invasion of France, the Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro (German News Bureau) released excerpts of the captured documents relating to Operation Pike and asserted:

Germany must be credited with saving these other states [including the Soviet Union] from being drawn into this chaos by Allied schemings... because she took timely counter-measures and also crushed France quickly.— DNB[13]

The strategic bombing campaign against Soviet targets was postponed and eventually abandoned.[14]

[Steve]

At the cabinet meeting on October 16 Churchill also proposed mining the Swedish port of Lulea and possibly occupying Narvik and Bergen in Norway if they would not cooperate in stopping iron ore reaching Germany. He put forward this argument “small nations must not tie our hands when we are fighting for their rights and freedom. The letter of the law must not in supreme emergency obstruct those who are charged with its protection and enforcement”.

At a Military Co-ordination Committee on the 20th he argued that the allies should occupy the iron oar mines at Galliavare in Sweden and if necessary fight the Soviet Union. He said “we should make a friendly offer of assistance to the Scandinavian countries as was proposed by the French, but we should make it quite clear that whether they accepted it or not we should come in and take possession of the mine fields (around Gallivare)”.

On December 22 the War Cabinet decided that they needed the consent of the Scandinavian countries for a landing.

Taken from Churchill by Clive Ponting page 417.

When the British were half-heartedly trying to negotiate an agreement with the Soviets in 1939 the Soviet side put forward a strikingly similar argument regarding the Baltic States to Churchill’s regarding Norway and Sweden. They proposed that the Soviet Union would have the right to decide if and when the Baltics needed protection. The British rejected that proposal

[wm]

Although it was two different things.
The British had the right to act against Norway/Sweden - two neutral countries that helped an aggressor and thus committed a hostile act against Britain.
The Convention relative to the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in case of War on Land (1907) declared that:

A neutral cannot avail himself of his neutrality
(a) If he commits hostile acts against a belligerent;
(b) If he commits acts in favor of a belligerent

In the second case, the Soviets clearly planned an act of aggression - according to the Kellogg–Briand Pact and the subsequent definition of aggression.

[wm]

That Britain/France were hostile or friendly towards Stalin was immaterial.
It was Stalin who decided to trigger the war, destabilize Europe, and then, G-d willing, pick up the pieces.
As his plan was quite promising he wasn't going to accept any, contradicting it, offers and pull the chestnuts out of the fire for capitalists.

[Futurist]

On October 16 Churchill told a meeting of War Cabinet much the same as he told Maiskii which was

“No doubt it appeared reasonable to the Soviet Union to take advantage of the present situation to regain some of the territory which Russia had lost as a result of the last war ………….. It was to our interests that the U.S.S.R. should increase their strength in the Baltic, thereby limiting the risk of German domination in that area. For this reason it would be a mistake for us to stiffen the Finns against making concessions to the U.S.S.R.”

He was reminded by Halifax that the Finns had a right to independence.

How'd Churchill subsequently react to Halifax?