The British guarantee to Poland: 31 March 1939 Posted on: 28 March 2019 Knowing the English and the traditions of British foreign policy, I could not accept that Chamberlain would make any firm commitments in Eastern Europe.1 On 31 March 1939, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the House of Commons that ‘in the event of any action which clearly threatened Adolf Hitler (Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13774/ Polish independence, and which the Polish Heinrich Hoffmann/CC-BY-SA 3.0) Government accordingly considered it vital to resist, His Majesty’s Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power.’2 The French Government endorsed this pledge. This guarantee was to lead Britain to declare war on Nazi Germany 6 months later. It was welcomed by those who thought Chamberlain had waited too long to challenge Hitler’s aggression in Europe, and surprised those who had not expected him to deviate from his insistence that the appeasement of Europe remained a realistic goal. Only 2 weeks earlier Chamberlain pronounced the international outlook ‘serene’, Anglo-German trade talks were planned, and his response to Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia on 15 March was one of sorrow more than anger. Why now pledge the British government to defend Poland, an Eastern European country vulnerable on all its borders? Where will Hitler strike next? The key to the Polish guarantee was the fact that the French would fight for Poland, as they would not fight for Czechoslovakia. The Chiefs of Staff told Chamberlain that if Britain had to fight Germany, it was better to do it in alliance with Poland and France. The French were willing to have meaningful staff talks and there was close intelligence liaison, although they were sceptical about imminent German aggression in the West.3 Secret reports received in London in late March indicated Hitler planned to move against Poland, but they were treated with caution, in view of an embarrassing false warning passed on to Washington in January.4 Yet rumours abounded:
Hitler was about to attack Holland, or Romania Italy was about to invade Albania (as it did in April), or demand colonial concessions from France the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis was about to become a firm military alliance, that Franco might join; Germany sought Polish help in an attack on the Soviet Union
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