Western betrayal, also called Yalta betrayal, refers to a range of critical views concerning the foreign policies of several Western countries between approximately 1919 and 1968 regarding Eastern Europe and Central Europe.[1][2] Historically it was intertwined with some of the most significant geopolitical events during the 20th century, including the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, the rise and empowerment of the Third Reich (Nazi Germany), the rise of the Soviet Union (USSR) as a dominant superpower with control of large parts of Eastern Europe, and various treaties, alliances, and positions taken during and after World War II, and so on into the Cold War.
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The perception of betrayal on the part of the peoples in the territories caught between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union comes about because the Western Allies promoted democracy and self-determination, signing pacts and forming military alliances prior and during World War II, but subsequently failed to meet the expectations raised by those pacts. Examples include policies or acts of appeasement before World War II in which the Allies of the West, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, were annexed or conquered by Nazi Germany without regard for earlier treaties that ostensibly provided support or protection, the ceding of countries and territories to the Soviet regime after World War II, and the refusal to take firm action against Soviet acts of repression or in support of uprisings while simultaneously claiming the role of supporting freedom and democracy.
In a few cases deliberate duplicity is alleged, whereby secret agreements or intentions are claimed to have existed in conflict with understandings given publicly. For example, there was Churchill's taking the position with the USSR (in secret) that the Atlantic Charter did not apply to the Baltic States.
In the case of the Yalta Conference and its aftermath, some historians argue that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had little or no option but to accept the demands of their erstwhile ally, the Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in the Tehran Conference, and later in the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference (attended by President Harry S. Truman after the death of Roosevelt).
Alternative suggestions include some of the causes to misjudgments by the Soviet Union, such as concerning Nazi Germany a decade earlier (with the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact). Other historians suggest that Churchill urged President Roosevelt to continue armed conflict in Europe in 1945 - but carried out against the Soviet Union, to prevent the USSR from extending its control west of its own borders. However, Roosevelt apparently trusted Stalin's assurances, and he was unwilling to support Churchill in ensuring the liberation of all of Eastern Europe west of the USSR. Without American backing, the United Kingdom, with its strength exhausted by six years of war, was unable to take any military actions in Eastern Europe.
Specific instances sometimes considered to exemplify the concept by historical and contemporary writers include the annexation of most of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany under the Munich Agreement of 1938, the abandonment of Poland during the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and during the Warsaw Uprising against Nazi Germany in 1944,[3] and the acceptance of the Soviet abrogation of the Yalta agreement of 1944. In the latter, the Major Allies against Nazi Germany agreed to secure democratic processes for the eastern countries that would be liberated from Nazi rule, such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania.
Also, there was the seeming lack of military or political support for the anticommunist rebels during the uprising in East Germany in 1953, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956,[4] and during the westward-oriented reforms in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (the so-called "Prague Spring"). Although the West did undertake covert operations such as "Operation Splinter Factor"; an ambitious CIA plan for the destabilisation of Eastern Europe that it hoped would lead to the collapse of communism. Splinter Factor began in the last days of World War II with British agent "Michael Sullivan", the head of a British relief agency, who set up a spy network in Poland with the purpose of creating widespread civil unrest by spreading rumours of food shortages and collectivisation. The CIA’s domino theory was that the non-Soviet communist states would topple as civil unrest spread. However, thousands died or were imprisoned in communist East Europe as a result of disinformation and false accusations spread during Operation Splinter Factor, but communism was to survive for several decades more.[5]
Starting in 1919, France maintained a policy of constructing a cordon sanitaire (quarantine line) in Eastern Europe that was designed to contain both the Germans and Soviets and their ideologies, which were metaphorically compared to diseases. The crushing of Béla Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 by the combined forces of Romania, Czechoslovakia, and France was an early example of an enforcement of the cordon sanitaire. In 1921, France signed a defensive alliance with Poland committing both states to come to each other's aid in the event of one of the powers being attacked by another European power. In 1924, the French signed a similar defensive alliance with Czechoslovakia, in 1926 with Romania and in 1927 with Yugoslavia.
In 1925, the French signed new treaties with Poland and Czechoslovakia, which tightened the levels of military co-operation between the signatory states. In addition, the French tried to turn the Little Entente of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia which had been set up as an anti-Hungarian alliance in 1921 into an anti-German alliance. In 1921, Poland and Romania signed a defensive alliance. This was as close as Poland came to joining the Little Entente. The French would have preferred to also see Poland a member, but antagonism between Czechoslovakia and Poland doomed the idea.
Beyond the Covenant of the League of Nations, Britain had no defence commitments in Eastern Europe in the 1920s and made clear that they wanted to keep it that way. In 1925, the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Austen Chamberlain had stated in public that the Polish Corridor was "not worth the bones of a single British grenadier".[6][7]
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a complicated set of alliances was established amongst the nations of Europe, in the hope of preventing future wars (either with Germany or Soviet Russia). In 1932 and again in 1934, Poland signed a 10 year non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. Also in 1932, the Soviets signed ten-year non-aggression pacts with Finland, Estonia and Latvia. In January 1934, Germany and Poland signed a ten-year non-aggression pact. In 1935, the Soviets signed treaties of alliance with France and Czechoslovakia. The Soviet-Czechoslovak treaty committed the Soviets to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia if attacked by a neighbor provided France did first.
In November 1933, there were rumours in Paris that a "preventive war" option against Germany was being considered by the French, Belgian and Polish governments. The British historian Lewis Bernstein Namier claimed later that the Poles had proposed a preventive war to the French at this time, but the French declined the offer. However, there is no evidence in the French, Belgian or Polish archives that a "preventive war" was considered in 1933.
The term Western betrayal (Czech: zrada Západu) was coined after the Munich Conference (1938) when Czechoslovakia was forced to cede part of its area (the mostly German-populated Sudetenland) to Germany, losing the system of border fortifications and means of viable defence against the German invasion [8][9][10] (see Fall Grün - the country was eventually invaded and occupied in March 1939). This exposed Czechoslovak citizens to the Nazi regime and its atrocities. Czech politicians joined the newspapers in regularly using the term and it, along with the associated feelings, became a stereotype among Czechs. The Czech terms Mnichov (Munich), Mnichovská zrada (Munich betrayal), Mnichovský diktát (Munich Dictate) and zrada spojenců (betrayal of the allies) were coined at the same time and have the same meaning. Poet František Halas published a poem with verse about "ringing bell of betrayal".[11] Winston Churchill himself said: "Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war".[12]
After the Communist Party assumed all power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, the betrayal was frequently referenced in propaganda. This interpretation of history was official and the only one allowed.
After the First World War, Poland regained independence after 123 years of partitions. While the victorious Western allies proclaimed their support for an independent Poland, their actual support was limited. One instance was the affair of Silesia. Many French and British politicians desired the industrial region of Silesia to remain part of Germany, so that Germany would have an easier time paying the Great War reparations to France and its allies. Britain provided no aid to Poland during the 1921 Silesian Uprisings. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, a plebiscite was to be held to determine which areas of ethnically mixed Silesia were to be ceded to Poland and which were to remain with Germany. In some districts of Upper Silesia, the majority of the people were Polish and opted for Poland; the majority in the rest of Upper Silesia opted for Germany. After the plebiscite, the Germans balked at handing over any part of Upper Silesia, claiming that the Versailles treaty did not call for partitioning Silesia by districts. The German interpretation was that the majority of people in Silesia had chosen Germany and so all of Silesia should remain with Germany. The German view was supported by Britain. In fact, Versailles did clearly state that Upper Silesia was to be partitioned by districts after the plebiscite.[13][14]
However, France and the French military in Silesia generally took a pro-Polish stance during the 1921 Polish uprising. In the years immediately after World War I, it was French policy to weaken Germany as much as possible, and though the French did not champion the border that the Poles wanted in Silesia, the French attitude to the Polish cause in regard to the Silesian dispute was markedly pro-Polish and anti-German. Indeed, it was an ultimatum from Paris that compelled the Germans to withdraw their forces from Silesia in June 1921.
Ostensibly, the British view that all of Silesia ought to remain with Germany was based on the belief that it would allow Germany to more easily pay reparations to France; by 1921, London had largely abandoned any claims against Germany and was strongly pressuring both France and Belgium to lower their reparations claims against the Germans as much as possible. The British argument about reparations was mostly a bid to influence French public opinion; the real reason for London's pro-German stance was the belief that if Germany were to lose too much territory, this could undermine the fragile Weimar Republic and lead to extremists taking power in Germany . Thus, British policy towards Silesia in 1921 was largely motivated by the desire to consolidate German democracy. Though the British were prepared to support an interpretation of Versailles that violated both its letter and its spirit, and though the Poles were understandably angry with London's pro-German view in this matter, it is very hard to justify referring to the British refusal to support the Polish rebels in Silesia as a "betrayal" as Britain had never made any commitments to do so.
During the Polish-Soviet War (1918–1921), there was a debate among western politicians which side they should support: the White Russians (representing the former Imperial Russia loyalists), the new Bolshevik revolutionaries, or newly independent countries trying to regain their territory at the expense of the powers that lost the First World War. Eventually, France and Britain decided to support the White Russians and Poland; however, their support to Poland was limited to the few hundred soldiers of the French military mission. Further, when it seemed likely in early 1920 that Poland would lose the war (which did not happen), Western diplomats encouraged Poland to surrender and settle for large territorial losses (the Curzon line).
There was also a great deal of mistrust within the British and French governments about Poland and the "Polish White Guards" and their leader Józef Piłsudski's intentions as revealed in the minutes of a meeting of the British Cabinet held at the House of Commons on 9 August 1920 where prevailing French attitudes to the Russo-Polish war (as it was referred to at the time) were discussed; "… a letter addressed to M. Millerand by the French Ambassador at Warsaw, containing a very grave indictment of the Polish Government, which habitually acted in defiance of the advice given by the Allies, both in political and military matters, with the result that the Allies were faced with the-present deplorable situation. Marshal Piłsudski was suspected of being ready to make peace at any price, even if this meant the setting up of a Soviet Government in Poland, provided only that his own position was assured. Notwithstanding the fact that the Soviet army was badly disciplined and had few supplies, it had encountered no serious resistance and was rapidly advancing, simply owing to the refusal of the Polish troops to fight; and, in the view of the French, treachery on the part of the Poles might be expected." [15] Also reported at the Cabinet meeting was the British public's opposition to intervention; "… great stress was laid on the very strong public opinion against intervention in the Russo-Polish War."[15]
The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George in a statement to the House of Commons on 10 August 1920 stated "… we made it quite clear that we could not support Poland in any act of aggression upon Russia, or upon any other border States. We made it quite clear that it was an essential condition of any Allied support, whether moral or material, that the Polish armies should retire to the ethnographical frontier of Poland."[16]
However the British and French Governments did agree to supply the Polish armies with military matériel for 22 Divisions; the British Government would be called upon for boots, clothes and saddlery and the French Government would be responsible for arms, munitions, etc.[15]
In July 1920, Britain announced it would send huge quantities of World War I surplus military supplies to Poland, but this was never going to be accepted by the Trade Union movement because previously on 11 May 1920 at the East India Dock in London stevedores employed onboard the S.S. "Jolly George" refused to work unless a quantity of guns and ammunition marked "OHMS Munitions for Poland" were removed from the ship as they thought the consignment to Poland was to be used against the Bolsheviks in a war against the USSR.[17] That same day the export branch of the Dock, Wharf and Riverside and General Workers Union unanimously passed a resolution calling on the Transport Workers' federation and the Parliamentary Labour Party to take such action as may be necessary to prevent the ship being loaded in any British port with munitions for Poland.[18] At the Triennial Conference of the Dockers' Union on 18 May 1920 the workers were called upon to withhold their labour if ordered, to resist any form of intervention in Russia. Ernest Bevin spoke out in support of the dockers action and went on to argue hindering support for Poland was justified because 'the present Government [do not have] the authority or the democracy of this country either to lend a single penny or to supply a single gun to carry on further war against Russia'. Bevin's view was that the 'great financial houses' had created the war to 'regain the grain belt' of Southern Russia'[19]
On 13 August 1920 the Trades Union Congress and Labour Party threatened to “call for any and every form of withdrawal of labour” [20] in defence of soviet Russia if Britain supported a war against the USSR — in other words a damaging General Strike that the British government could ill afford.
The British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had never been enthusiastic about supporting Poland, and had been pressured by his more right-wing Cabinet members such as Lord Curzon and Winston Churchill into offering the supplies. The threatened general strike was for Lloyd George a convenient excuse for backing out of any intervensionist commitments. The French were hampered in their efforts to supply Poland by the refusal of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland) dockworkers to unload supplies for Poland. Likewise, French efforts to supply Poland via land were hindered by the refusal of Czechoslovakia and Germany (both which had border disputes with Poland) to allow arms for Poland to cross their frontiers. However on July 29 Reuters reported that British troops in Danzig had begun unloading the steamer Triton, carrying munitions for Poland which German dockers refused to touch.[21] and in the British House of Commons Lieut. Commander Kenworthy asked the Prime Minister "whether the s.s. "Poznan," of London, was discharging Handley-Page aeroplanes at Danzig on or about 29 July last; whether the Dutch s.s. "Triton" was discharging British rifles at Danzig on or about the same date; and whether British soldiers were used to discharge munitions at Danzig from the latter ship.".[22]
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a complicated set of alliances was established amongst the nations of Europe, in the hope of preventing future wars (either with Germany or Soviet Russia). With the rise of Nazism in Germany, this system of alliances was strengthened by the signing of a series of "mutual assistance" alliances between France, Britain, and Poland (Franco-Polish Alliance and Anglo-Polish Alliance). This agreement stated that in the event of war the other allies were to fully mobilize and carry out a "ground intervention within two weeks" in support of the ally being attacked[23][24][25]
In the years following the end of World War I and the Polish-Soviet War, Poland had signed alliances with many European powers. The most important were the military alliance with France signed on February 19, 1921 and the defensive alliance with Romania of March 3, 1921. The alliance with France was a major factor in Polish inter-war foreign relations, and was seen as the main warrant of peace in Central Europe; Poland's military doctrine was heavily influenced by this alliance as well.
The Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact was signed on July 25, 1932 by representatives of the Second Polish Republic and the USSR. On January 26, 1934 another important treaty, the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact, was signed between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic in which both parties pledged to resolve any differences through bilateral negotiations and to forgo armed conflict for a period of ten years thus effectively normalising relations between Poland and Germany.
As World War II was nearing, both the French and Polish governments started to look for a renewal of the bilateral promises. This was accomplished in May 1939, when general Tadeusz Kasprzycki signed a secret protocol (later ratified by both governments) to the Franco-Polish Military Alliance with general Maurice Gamelin. It was agreed that France would grant her eastern ally a military credit "as soon as possible". In case of war with Germany, France promised to start minor land and air military operations at once, and to start a major offensive "(with the majority of its forces)" not later than 15 days after the declaration of war.
On March 30, 1939, the government of the United Kingdom pledged to defend Poland, in the event of a German attack, and Romania in case of "other threats". The reason for the British-issued "guarantee" of Romania and Poland was a panic-stricken ad hoc reaction to rumours (later proven to be false) of an imminent German descent on Romania in late March 1939. A German seizure of oil-rich Romania would ensure that in any future Anglo-German war, a British naval blockade would not starve Germany of oil. From London's point of view, it was imperative to keep the oil wells of Romania out of German hands.
The British "guarantee" of Poland was only of Polish independence, and pointedly excluded Polish territorial integrity. "The reasons for the guarantee policy are nowhere more clearly stated than in a memorandum by the Foreign Office, composed in the summer of 1939, which submitted that it was essential to prevent Hitler from "expanding easterwards, and obtaining control of the resources of Central and Eastern Europe," which would enable him "to turn upon the Western countries with overwhelming force."[26] The basic goal of British foreign policy between 1919-1939 was to prevent another world war by a mixture of "carrot and stick". The "stick" in this case was the "guarantee" of March 1939, which was intended to prevent Germany from attacking either Poland or Romania.
This declaration was further amended in April, when Poland's minister of foreign affairs Colonel Józef Beck met with Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. In the aftermath of the talks, a mutual assistance treaty was signed. On August 25 the Polish-British Common Defence Pact was signed as an annex to Polish-French alliance. Like the "guarantee" of March 30, the Anglo-Polish Agreement committed Britain only to the defence of Polish independence against a "a European power" but it was clearly aimed against German aggression. However the text of the treaty had been supplemented by a secret protocol which defined "a European power" as Germany, so the government of the United Kingdom did not have a treaty obligation to help Poland fight the Soviet Union.[27] In case of war, United Kingdom was to start hostilities as soon as possible, and joining the struggle on land as soon as the British Expeditionary Corps arrived in France. In addition, a military credit was granted and armament was to reach Polish or Romanian ports in "early autumn".
On May 4, 1939, a meeting was held in Paris, at which it was decided that "the fate of Poland depends on the final outcome of the war, which will depend on our ability to defeat Germany rather than to aid Poland at the beginning." Poland's government was not notified of this decision, and the Polish–British talks in London were continued. A full military alliance treaty was ready to be signed on August 22, but His Majesty's Government postponed the signing until August 25, 1939.
At the same time secret German-Soviet talks were held in Moscow which resulted in signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in the early hours of August 24. The full text of the treaty, including the secret protocol assuming a partition of Poland and Soviet military help to Germany in case of war, was known to the British government thanks to Hans von Herwarth, an American informer in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yet Poland's government was not informed of this fact either.[28]
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France declared war on Germany after ultimatums to withdraw expired on September 3. The pledge would not have obliged France and the United Kingdom to declare war on the Soviet Union due to the actual wording of the pact that specifically named Germany as the potential aggressor. This was kept secret for diplomatic reasons.[29] Additionally, the Polish government ordered its troops not to engage the Soviets in hostilities, to yield territory and to withdraw; it did not declare war on the Soviet Union, nor did it publicly acknowledge the existence of a state of war with the Soviet Union. The United Kingdom and France enforced a naval blockade on Germany and seized German ships starting with the declaration of war.
According to the Franco-Polish military convention, the French Army was to start preparations for the major offensive three days after the mobilisation started. The French forces were to effectively gain control over the area between the French border and the German Siegfried Line and to probe the German defences. On the 15th day of the mobilisation (that is on September 16), the French Army was to start a full scale assault on Germany. The pre-emptive mobilisation was started in France on August 26, and on September 1, the full mobilisation was declared. A French offensive in the Rhine river valley area (Saar Offensive) started on September 7. Eleven French divisions (out of 102 being mobilized) advanced along a 32 km line near Saarbrücken with negligible German opposition. However, the half-hearted offensive was halted after France seized the Warndt Forest, three square miles of heavily-mined German territory. At the same time the U.K., conducted a number of air raids against the German Kriegsmarine on September 4, 1939, losing two Wellington and five Blenheim bombers in the action.[30][31] On September 11, the leaflet raids were halted.
Both the pre-war reports of the Polish intelligence and the post-war testimonies of German generals (most notably of Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl) reported that there was an equivalent of less than 20 divisions facing France in 1939, as compared to roughly 90 French divisions. On the other hand, German orders of battle show 33 infantry divisions, plus eleven newly raised infantry divisions, plus the equivalent of six border guard divisions, all under command of Army Group C. Similarly, most of the Luftwaffe and all armoured units were then in Poland while the Siegfried Line was severely under-manned and far from completed, while most of the Bf 109 fighter units were still in the West, thus granting German air superiority. Knowing all of the above, the Polish commanders hoped that the French offensive would quickly break the German lines and force the OKW to withdraw a large part of its forces fighting on Polish soil back to German western frontier. This would force Germany to fight a costly two-front war.
The French assault was to be carried out by roughly 40 divisions, including one armoured division, three mechanized divisions, 78 artillery regiments and 40 tank battalions. All the necessary forces were mobilised in the first week of September. On September 12, the Anglo French Supreme War Council gathered for the first time at Abbeville in France. It was decided that all offensive actions were to be halted immediately. By then, the French divisions had advanced approximately eight kilometres into Germany on a 24 kilometres long strip of the frontier in the Saarland area. Maurice Gamelin ordered his troops to stop not closer than 1 kilometre from the German positions along the Siegfried Line. Poland was not notified of this decision. Instead, Gamelin informed marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły that half of his divisions are in contact with the enemy, and that French advances have forced the Wehrmacht to withdraw at least six divisions from Poland. The following day, the commander of the French Military Mission to Poland, General Louis Faury, informed the Polish Chief of Staff, General Wacław Stachiewicz, that the planned major offensive on the western front had to be postponed from September 17 to September 20. At the same time, French divisions were ordered to retreat to their barracks along the Maginot Line. The Phoney War started. The French remained in control of a pocket in the Saarland. As a symbolic gesture, the 1st Polish Grenadier Division later raised in the French Army was stationed to occupy this German territory.
The Allied attitude towards Poland in 1939 has been a subject of an ongoing dispute among historians ever since. Some historians[32] argue that if only France had pursued the offensive agreed on in the treaties, it would have definitely been able to break through the unfinished Siegfried Line and force Germany to fight a costly two-front war that it was in no position to win. At the same time, others argue that France and Britain had promised more than they would deliver — especially when confronted with the option to declare war on the Soviet Union for violating Poland's territory on September 17, 1939 the way they had on Germany on September 3, 1939 (though in fact the pledge would not have obliged France and the United Kingdom to declare war on the Soviet Union due to the actual wording of the pact that specifically named Germany as the potential aggressor) — and that the French army was superior to the Wehrmacht in numbers only. It lacked the offensive doctrines, mobilization schemes, and offensive spirit necessary to attack Germany.
Though the Germans asked the Russians to invade Poland on September 3 no such action took place until September 17, 1939.
After the war, General Alfred Jodl commented that the Germans survived 1939 "only because approximately 110 French and English divisions in the West, which during the campaign on Poland were facing 25 German divisions, remained completely inactive."
In the end, many Poles believe that although Poland held out for five weeks, three weeks longer than was planned, it received no military aid from its allies, the United Kingdom and France. Additionally Poland never surrendered to either the Germans or Russians. The agreed upon "two week ground response" never materialized, and it is contended that Poland fell to the Nazis and the Soviets as a result. It is uncertain whether the British or French had any real capacity to launch a successful offensive on the German-French border before mid-October 1939. Nevertheless, an offensive within a two-week timeframe was what they had promised the Polish government.
Soon after the Third Reich had invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, the Polish government-in-exile signed a pact with Joseph Stalin. Although the Poles wanted a declaration that all pacts the USSR had signed with the Nazis were null and void, Stalin refused to consider any suggestion that he surrender the territory he seized consequent to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Britain pressured the Poles to withdraw this demand, since, in Churchill's words, "We could not force our new and sorely threatened [Soviet] ally to abandon, even on paper, regions on her frontier which she regarded for generations as vital to her security." The Polish government-in-exile, based in London, conceded but only after Britain agreed to state in writing that all agreements which adjusted Poland's pre-war borders were null and void. The Soviet-Polish agreement was signed on July 30, 1941, and Anthony Eden formally notified the House of Commons of the arrangements that same day. In response to a parliamentary question about Britain's commitment, however, Eden stated that "The exchange of notes which I have just read to the House does not involve any guarantee of frontiers by His Majesty's Government."
The Poles were more successful in obtaining Soviet agreement to the creation of the Polish Army in the East, and obtaining the release of Polish citizens from the Soviet labor camps. Despite the difficulties the Soviet government made, many were freed from confinement and permitted to join the Polish Army formed formally on August 12, 1941. However, after the troops were withdrawn to the Middle East in March 1942, Stalin revoked the amnesty and in June and July arrested all Polish diplomats in the USSR.
Meanwhile, on September 24, 1941, Poland's government-in-exile and the Soviet Union signed the Atlantic Charter. It underlined that no territorial changes should be made that would "not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned". It was viewed by the Polish government as a warrant of Poland's borders, although it became apparent that some concessions would have to be made.
In December 1941, a Conference was held in Moscow between the USSR and the United Kingdom. Stalin proposed to base post-war Polish western borders on the Oder-Neisse Line and demanded that the United Kingdom accept the pre-war western borders of the Soviet Union. However, Stalin apparently meant the 1941 border with Germany. This was soon discovered, but the British government decided not to change the document. On March 11, 1942 Winston Churchill notified the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, Władysław Sikorski, that the borders of the Baltic States and Romania were guaranteed, and that no decision was made regarding the borders of Poland.
From the very beginning of Polish-Soviet talks in 1941, the government of Poland was searching for approximately 20,000 Polish officers missing in Russia. In April 1943 German news agencies reported finding mass graves of Polish soldiers as a result of Katyn massacre. The Polish government requested the Soviet Union examine the case and at the same time asked the International Red Cross for help in verifying the German reports.
On April 24, 1943, Sikorski met with Eden and demanded Allied help in releasing Polish prisoners in the gulags and Soviet prisons. Sikorski also declined the Soviet demand that Poland withdraw their plea to have the Red Cross investigate Katyn. Anthony Eden refused to help and the Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations with Poland on the following day, arguing that the Polish government was collaborating with Nazi Germany. Despite Polish pleas for help, the United States and the United Kingdom decided not to put pressure on the USSR.
In November 1943, the Big Three (USSR, USA, and the UK) met at the Tehran Conference. President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill officially agreed that the eastern borders of Poland would roughly follow the Curzon Line. The Polish government was not notified of this decision and the only information given was the press release claiming that We await the day, when all nations of the world will live peacefully, free of tyranny, according to their national needs and conscience. The resulting loss of the "eastern territories", approximately 48% of Poland's pre-war territory, to the Soviet Union is seen by some Poles as another "betrayal" by their Western "Allies".
However it was no secret to the Allies that before his death in July 1943 General Wladyslaw Sikorski, Prime Minister of Poland's London-based government in exile had been the originator, and not Stalin, of the concept of a westward shift of Poland's boundaries along an Oder-Neisse Line as compensation for relinquishing Poland's eastern territories as part of a Polish rapprochement with the USSR.[33] Dr. Józef Retinger who was Sikorski's special political advisor at the time was also in agreement with Sikorksi's concept of Poland's realigned post-war borders, later in his memoirs Retinger wrote; " At the Tehran Conference, in November 1943, the Big Three agreed that Poland should receive territorial compensation in the West, at Germany's expense, for the land it was to lose to Russia in the East. This seemed like a fair bargain." [34]
According to many historians, Churchill and Roosevelt promised Stalin to settle the issue with the Poles, however they never sincerely informed the Polish side. When the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile Stanisław Mikołajczyk attended the Moscow Conference (1944), he was convinced he was coming to discuss borders that were still disputed, while Stalin believed everything had already been settled. This was the principal reason for the failure of the Polish Prime Minister's mission to Moscow. The Polish premier allegedly begged for inclusion of Lwów and Wilno in the new Polish borders, but got the following reply from Vyacheslav Molotov: "There is no use discussing that; it was all settled in Teheran."[35]
Since the establishment of the Polish government-in-exile in Paris and then in London, the military commanders of the Polish army were focusing most of their efforts on preparation of a future all-national uprising against Germany. Finally, the plans for Operation Tempest were prepared and on August 1, 1944 the Warsaw Uprising started. The Uprising was an armed struggle by the Polish Home Army to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule.
Despite the fact that Polish and later Royal Air Force (RAF) planes flew missions over Warsaw dropping supplies from 4 August on, the United States Air Force (USAF) planes did not join the operation. The Allies specifically requested the use of Red Army airfields near Warsaw on 20 August but were refused by Stalin on 22 August (he referred to the insurgents as 'a handful of criminals'). After Stalin's objections to support for the uprising, Churchill telegrammed Roosevelt on 25 August and proposed sending planes in defiance of Stalin and to "see what happens". Roosevelt replied on 26 August that "I do not consider it advantageous to the long-range general war prospect for me to join you in the proposed message to Uncle Joe."[36] The commander of the British air drop, Air Marshal Sir John Slessor, later stated, "How, after the fall of Warsaw, any responsible statesman could trust the Russian Communist further than he could kick him, passes the comprehension of ordinary men."
Various scholars (including Norman Davies in his 2004 book Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw) argue that during the Warsaw Uprising both the governments of United Kingdom and the United States did little to help Polish insurgents and that the Allies put little pressure on Stalin to help the Polish struggle.
In 1945, Poland's borders were redrawn following the decision made at the Tehran Conference of 1943 at the insistence of the Soviet Union. The Polish government was not invited to the talks and was to be notified of their outcome. Polish representatives did present arguments concerning borders at the Potsdam conference, however, and Polish demands for German territory were agreed to. The eastern territories which the Soviet Union had occupied in 1939 (with the exception of the Białystok area) were permanently annexed, and most of their Polish inhabitants expelled: today these territories are part of Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania. The factual basis of this decision was the result of a forged referendum from November 1939 in which the "huge majority" of voters accepted the incorporation of these lands into Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. In compensation, Poland was given former German territory (the so-called Regained Territories): the southern half of East Prussia and all of Pomerania and Silesia, up to the Oder-Neisse Line. The German population of these territories was expelled and these territories were subsequently repopulated with Poles expelled from the eastern regions. This combined with other similar migrations in Central and Eastern Europe to form one of the largest human migrations in modern times. Stalin ordered Polish resistance fighters to be either incarcerated or deported to gulags in Siberia.
Many Poles believe that Western leaders tried to force Polish leaders to accept the conditions of Stalin. Some view it as a 'betrayal' of Poland by Churchill (which can be seen as part of a larger 'betrayal' to 'allow' it to fall entirely into the Soviet sphere of influence).
At the time of Yalta over 200,000 troops of the Polish Armed Forces in the West were serving under the high command of the British Army. Many of these men and women were originally from the Kresy region of eastern Poland including cities such as Lwow and Wilno. They had been deported from Kresy to the Soviet gulags when Hitler and Stalin occupied Poland in 1939 in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. When two years later Churchill and Stalin formed an alliance against Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the Anders Army and marched to Persia to create the II Corps (Poland) under British high command.
These Polish troops were instrumental to the Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy, and hoped to return to Kresy in an independent and democratic Poland at the end of the War. But at Yalta, Churchill agreed that Stalin should keep the Soviet gains Hitler agreed to in the Nazi-Soviet Pact, including Kresy, and carry out Polish population transfers. Consequently, Churchill had agreed that tens of thousands of veteran Polish troops under British command should lose their Kresy homes to the Soviet Union.[37] In reaction, thirty officers and men from the II Corps committed suicide.[38]
Churchill defended his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a vote of confidence. During the debate, many MPs openly criticised Churchill and passionately voiced loyalty to Britain's Polish allies and expressed deep reservations about Yalta.[38] Moreover, 25 of these MPs risked their careers to draft an amendment protesting against Britain's tacit acceptance of Poland's domination by the Soviet Union. These members included: Arthur Greenwood; Sir Alec Douglas-Home; Commander Archibald Southby; the Earl of Ancaster and Victor Raikes.[38] After the failure of the amendment, Henry Strauss, the Member of Parliament for Norwich, resigned his seat in protest at the British treatment of Poland.[38]
When the Second World War ended, a Communist government was installed in Poland. Most Poles felt betrayed by their wartime allies. Many Polish soldiers refused to return to Poland, because of the Soviet repressions of Polish citizens, the Trial of the Sixteen and other executions of pro-democracy Poles, particularly the so-called, cursed soldiers, former members of the Armia Krajowa). The result was the Polish Resettlement Act 1947, Britain's first mass immigration law.
Yalta was used by ruling communists to underline anti-Western sentiments.[39][40] It was easy to argue that Poland was not very important to the West, since Allied leaders sacrificed Polish borders, legal government and free elections.[41][42][43]
With this background, even Stalin looked like a better friend of Poland, since he did have strong interests in Poland. The Federal Republic of Germany, formed in 1949, was portrayed by Communist propaganda as the breeder of Hitler's posthumous offspring who desired retaliation and wanted to take back from Poland the "Recovered Territories".[44] Giving this picture a grain of credibility was the fact that Federal Republic of Germany until 1970 refused to recognize the Oder-Neisse Line and the fact that some West German officials had a tainted Nazi past. Thus, for a segment of Polish public opinion, Communist rule was seen as the lesser of the two evils.
Defenders of the actions taken by the Western allies maintain that Realpolitik made it impossible to do anything else, and that they were in no shape to start an utterly un-winnable war with the Soviet Union over the subjugation of Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries immediately after the end of World War II. It could be contended that the presence of a double standard with respect to Nazi and Soviet aggression existed in 1939 and 1940, when the Soviets invaded eastern Poland, and then the Baltic States, and then Finland, and yet the Western Allies failed to declare war.
What the Western allies sacrificed is also disputed. Some argue that Poland's borders had been re-drawn many times in history, the country had not had free elections since 1926 and throughout the 1930s it had endured increasing political repression under an authoritarian Sanacja government. On the other hand, the Polish government in exile was composed entirely of the pre-war democratic opposition and all political parties of the Polish Secret State underlined the need to follow the democratic traditions of March 1921 constitution, rather than the autocratic April constitution of Poland of 1935.
The chief American negotiator at Yalta was Alger Hiss, later accused of being a Soviet spy and convicted of perjuring himself in his testimony to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. His espionage was later confirmed by the Venona tapes.
Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile, was killed in an air crash over Gibraltar in July 1943. As he was the most prestigious leader of the Polish exiles, his death was a serious setback to the Polish cause, and was certainly highly convenient for Stalin. It was in some ways also convenient for the western Allies, who were finding the Polish issue a stumbling-block in their efforts to preserve good relations with Stalin .
This has given rise to persistent suggestions that Sikorski's death was not accidental. Many historians speculate that his death might have been effect of Soviet, British or even Polish conspiracy. This has never been proved, and the fact that the principal exponents of this theory in the west have been the negationists David Irving and Rolf Hochhuth has not encouraged many western historians to take it seriously.
In November 1944, despite his mistrust of the Soviets, Sikorski's successor, Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk resigned to return to Poland and take office in the new government established under the auspices of the Soviet occupation authorities. Many of the Polish exiles opposed this action, believing that this government was a facade for the establishment of Communist rule in Poland, a view that was later proved correct; after losing an election which was later shown to have been fraudulent, Mikołajczyk left Poland again in 1947.
Meanwhile the government in exile had maintained its existence, but the United States and the United Kingdom withdrew their recognition on July 6, 1945. The Polish armed forces in exile (officially the "Polish Armed Forces under British Command") were disbanded in 1947.
Out of approximately 265,000 Polish armied forces in the West in 1945, only 105,000 returned to Poland, but close to 160,000 stayed in Western (mostly British) territory.
The London Poles had to leave the embassy on Portland Place and were left only with the president's private residence at 43 Eaton Place. The government in exile then became largely symbolic, serving mainly to symbolise the continued resistance to foreign occupation of Poland, and retaining control of some important archives from pre-war Poland. Ireland and Spain were the last countries to recognize the government-in-exile.
Originally the British Government invited representatives of the newly recognised regime in Warsaw to march in the 1946 victory parade in London but the delegation from Poland never arrived – the reason was never adequately explained, pressure from Moscow being the most likely. Bowing to press and public pressure, the British eventually invited representatives of the Polish Air Force under British Command to attend in their place. They in turn refused to attend in protest at similar invitations not being extended to the Polish Army and Navy. In the resulting humiliation the only representative of the fourth largest allied military at the parade was Colonel Jozef Kuropieska – the military attaché of the Communist regime in Warsaw.
At the war's end many of these feelings of resentment were capitalized on by the occupying Soviets, who used them to reinforce anti-Western sentiments within Poland. Propaganda was produced by Communists to show Russia as the Great Liberator, and the West as the Great Traitor. Moscow's Pravda reported in February 1944 that all Poles who valued Poland's honour and independence were marching with the "Union of Polish Patriots" in the USSR.[45] Capitalism was shown as being inherently bad, because capitalists only cared for "their own skin", while communism was portrayed as the great "uniter and protector".
Ryszard Kaczorowski, the last president of the government-in-exile, passed the presidential insignia to Lech Wałęsa in 1990 after Poland regained independence from the Soviet sphere of influence.
In the final days of the war, masses of refugees from Nazi-abandoned Eastern Europe and Croatia were fleeing from the Red Army and Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslav Partisans.
In Operation Keelhaul, British troops gathered these thousands of refugees in Austria including Cossacks, Ustaše, Croatian and White Russian troops, and civilians. The Soviet and Russian citizens were turned to Soviet-occupied Germany, where in many cases they were summarily shot.
In the Betrayal of the Cossacks at Lienz, Cossacks of the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps of the Waffen-SS were forcibly delivered to areas of Germany controlled, at the end of World War II, by the Soviet Union. Cossacks had been fighting the Russian government since the Third Russian Revolution. No Western country had entered any alliance with the Cossacks.
Although many Poles feel betrayed by a lack of aggressiveness with which the western allies pursued the war against their invaders, the western allies did maintain their commitments to declare war on Germany. For the Baltic States, however, who also had their fate sealed by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, the western allies failed to take up the defence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania when the Soviet Union invaded in 1940 as they had for Poland in 1939. On the other hand, France and Britain had no formal, legal commitments with regard to the Baltic States.
The Memel territory was separated from German East Prussia in 1920, and put under French administration. The area had been conquered by the Teutonic Order in the Middle Ages, and had belonged to Prussia for 500 years. It was inhabited by Germans as the largest part of the population, while a quarter declared itself Lithuanian, and another quarter, as local Memelländer and/or Klaipedians depending on language.
In 1923, Lithuanian forces occupied the area during what is called the Klaipeda revolt. The French forces put up a token resistance and left, and later the annexation of the area now called the Klaipeda region by Lithuania was confirmed by the international community.
At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, a decision was made by the Allies to cease their support of the royalist Chetniks, and switch allegiances to Josip Broz Tito's communist Yugoslav National Liberation Army.
As the Kingdom of Yugoslavia under its Prince Regent Paul Karađorđević began to approach the German sphere of influence in the late 1930s, relations with the west deteriorated. However, two days after Yugoslavia's signing of the tripartite pact on March 25, 1941, a western-sponsored coup brought the underage King Peter II to power along with General Dušan T. Simović who became the new Prime Minister. Days after the pro-western government was installed, German forces invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, and had completely occupied the country by April 17, 1941. The King and his government managed to escape into exile in the United Kingdom, and were granted the full support of the West.
In Yugoslavia, two resistance movements emerged. The People's Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (NOV i POJ), known simply as the Partisans, was a left-wing, socialist, and republican movement led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and Tito. The movement supported a post-war Yugoslav federal republic, with full rights for its five non-Serbian nations (as opposed to the unitarianist pre-war monarchy). While the predominantly Serbian Royalist Chetnik movement led by Draža Mihailović supported the exiled King, and a unitary post-war Yugoslav monarchy with a strong predominance of its Serbian population ("Greater Serbia").
The West (primarily the United Kingdom) had initially supported the Chetniks, providing assistance via RAF and the Special Operations Executive (SOE) prior to 1943. However, from very early on the Chetniks found common ground with the Germans against the Partisans, and as the war drove on they became increasingly dependent on their relationship with the occupation forces. By 1943 the vast majority of the movement served as an Axis auxiliary militia, holding captured ground against the Partisans and aiding the large German offensives against the resistance. With the failure of several of these Axis offensives the Partisans, despite the union of their adversaries, destroyed large Chetnik forces and became vastly more numerous and popular in Yugoslavia, in addition to being the only resistance movement seriously combating the occupation.
The people of Yugoslavia had by and large already abandoned the monarchy, given how the kingdom deteriorated after the death of King Alexander and especially how it crumbled in March and April 1941 when it was invaded. Therefore it would be difficult to speak of a "Western betrayal of Yugoslavia" in the context of the 1940s and later decades.
Supporters of the Chetniks contend that if the Allies had maintained their assistance support for their cause, the Karađorđević family would have been restored to the Yugoslav throne. This argument has been the subject of considerable controversy. Opponents of this viewpoint have argued that the Allies had no other choice than to sever their support for the Chetniks as the Chetniks were collaborating with the Axis while the Partisans were resisting the Axis. They also add that the Partisans were superior both in numbers, popularity, and tactics to the Chetniks, who were losing support because of their collaboration and militia organization (as opposed to the mobile operational groups of the Partisans). Therefore, it is argued that the Chetniks would have been defeated regardless of any weapons shipments they received, and that they were already being generously supplied with arms by the Axis.
The Western Allies had never entered any obligation whatsoever with the Independent State of Croatia, indeed it was a fascist puppet-state of Nazi Germany that was never part of the Allies, so it is difficult to talk of a betrayal in the generally understood sense (betrayal of an ally).
During the final days of the war, large numbers of refugees were fleeing from the Red Army and Yugoslav Partisans. These refugees consisted of three main groups:
On May 5, in the town of Palmanova (50 km northwest of Trieste), between 2,400 and 2,800 members of the Serbian Volunteer Corps surrendered to the British. On May 12, about 2,500 additional Serbian Volunteer Corps members surrendered to the British at Unterbergen on the Drava River.
On May 11 and 12, British troops in Klagenfurt, Austria, were harassed by arriving forces of the Partisans. In Belgrade, the British ambassador to the Yugoslav coalition government handed Tito a note demanding that the Yugoslav troops withdraw from Austria.
On May 14, Marshal Tito, the Partisan supreme commander and Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, dispatches a telegram to the headquarters of the Slovene Partisan Army prohibiting "in the sternest language" the execution of prisoners of war and commanding the transfer of the possible suspects to a military court.[46]
On May 15, Yugoslav Partisan forces in Austria under Allied control. A few days later he agreed to withdraw them. By May 20, Yugoslav troops in Austria had begun to withdraw.
On May 15, 1945 the refugees from the Independent State of Croatia attempted to surrender to British forces in southern Germany (Austria) near the village of Bleiburg. They were rejected by the British authorities as Yugoslav civilians and were passed on to the custody of the Yugoslav army for repatriation.
Around June 1, the Croatian Home Guard, the Ustaše, and the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps who surrendered to the British were turned over to the Yugoslav forces as part of what is sometimes referred to as Operation Keelhaul. The Partisans proceeded to execute the prisoners of war (POWs) in what became known as the Bleiburg massacres.
The Ustaša POWs were executed while the survivors were marched back to Yugoslavia.