Scott Smith wrote:schroedinger wrote:Scott Smith wrote:Roberto wrote:Scott Smith wrote:But mostly it could have been settled without war. The Allied guarantee virtually made war inevitable because it meant that the Allies could not back down without losing face.
What war is the Reverend talking about? Hitler's attack on Poland, or the Sitzkrieg in the West that followed the timid declaration of war by Britain and France?
The Polish border dispute that led to world war, of course.
It was no "border dispute". One week before the assault on Poland Ribbentrop and Molotov signed a pact with its secret addition dividing Poland between them. See:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html
Of course, Mr. Physicist. The border dispute goes back to 1919 and became acute once the Allies, rather reactively, guaranteed Polish borders in March, 1939--thus forcing the Danzig problem to be settled by military force.
This logic basically means: When a woman is raped and gets injured it is her own fault - why would she try to defend herself? Thus the rapist had been forced to use violence.
Scott Smith wrote:The question was how to do it without involving the Russians in the Allied counterpoise. That solution was solved with Ribbentrop-Molotov by demarcating Soviet/German spheres of interest in Eastern Europe. Stalin got most of the old Russian empire back. Thus, Germany would be allowed to use military force against Poland and the Soviets would be allowed to claim half the territory.
With the Soviet Union out of the picture the Poles should have started backpedalling furiously because only supplication to the Führer on those border issues could save them now. Hitler's demands were still reasonable. Instead, they were puffed by their English friends. Albion was still a world-power but less and less so on the continent.
There were no "reasonable" demands of Hitler. All these Danzig and Corridor talks were just smokescreening; Hitler's real aims went further:
"Danzig is not the subject of the dispute at all. It is a question of expanding our living space in the East. There is, therefore, no question of sparing Poland, and we are left with the decision to attack Poland at the earliest opportunity. We cannot expect a repetition of the Czech affair. There will be fighting. Our task is to isolate Poland. The success of this isolation will be decisive. The isolation of Poland is a matter of skillful politics."
(Hitler, May 23, 1939)
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/proc/12-04-45.htm
Scott Smith wrote:It isn't all that hard to understand.
No, it isn't. Hitler wanted Poland and he got it.