Submitted by George Callaghan…
We are so often told it was the good war. This is the one war that really was worth fighting. The Second World War is presented as a moral imperative. We are led to believe that this was a Manichean clash of the titans. We have been sold a pup. The Holocaust is so often cited as irrefutable proof that this war was clear cut case of angels versus devils. The Shoah did not begin in earnest until 1942. No one cited genocide as a reason to declare war in 1939 since no genocide had started in the Third Reich nor did it seem remotely likely at the time.
There is so much tub thumping jingoism in the UK about this war. This also applies to some other countries which were on the Allied side.
It is true that the Third Reich was wicked and committed countless atrocities on an enormous scale. But very little of this was apparent in September 1939. The wickedry of the Nationalist Socialists was not the reason why the United Kingdom and the dominions proclaimed war on Berlin.
Ponder awhile the frightful consequences of this war. Picture if you can sixty million corpses. Imagine cities from Cologne to Tokyo a pile of smoking ruins. The British Empire had overtaxed its financial resources and willpower and was soon to dissolve as a direct result of the war. A force for extraordinary scientific, educational and economic progress was so often replaced by brutal kleptocracies.
Britishers often bring up the Second World War as proof positive of their country’s virility and rectitude. There is of course the elephant in the living room. The Soviet Union did the bulk of the fighting. The British Army was seldom victorious. On its own it was almost never victorious. Only when amply assisted by Indians, Nepalese, Ugandans, Kenyans, Jamaicans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans not to mind other Allied countries did the British prevail.
Why declare war?
The ostensible reason for London to declare war on the German Reich was the invasion of Poland. Why would the average Britisher care a fig for Poland. As was said by Marquess Curzon of Keddleston the Polish Border was not worth the bones of a British Grenadier. Had Curzon not drawn the line himself? I am not polonophobic. I wish them well. They are to be pitied for being invaded. Their lot under occupation would not be a life of gaiety. However, in 1939 there was little reason to suppose that it would be much worse than an ordinary occupation. As we know occupation by Germany turned out to be egregiously horrid. There were many massacres of civilians both Jewish and Gentile. Poles were made slaves in Germany. Some women were forced into whore houses. But this is all a post factum rationalization of the decision to declare war.
In 1939 Sir Oswald Mosley kicked his peace campaign into high gear. Mosley was a vile anti-Semite. That did not make him wrong on everything single issue. ‘Mind Britain’s Business’ he argued. He asked ‘who the heck would die for Beck?’ He alluded to the Polish Foreign Minister Josef Beck.
The UK gave the Polish Guarantee in 1939. The Poles had not even asked for this. Chamberlain knew that he could not honour this guarantee.
Poland had profited from the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Indeed the land allotted to the Poles – Teschen – was an area to which the Poles had an arguable claim. But it reduces Poland’s claim to moral purity.
In October 1938 Neville Chamberlain had consented to the German annexation of the Sudetenland. He said Czechoslovakia was ‘a far away land of which we know little.’ Exactly the same applied to Poland. What had changed in a year? It is true that by September 1939 the UK had beefed up its armed forces considerably. The bad faith of the Third Reich was blindingly blatant in 1939. The British were smarting from the humiliation of being conned. Was it over that Britain fought? Was it wounded pride? Will Britons do anything not to lose face.
There was a palpable lack of gung ho in the UK in 1939. People were subdued at best.
The Franco-British declaration of war did little to help the Poles. The French and British were entirely defensive minded. They did not launch a sustained offensive against western Germany which was lightly defended. That would have obliged Hitler to dispatch some troops from the Eastern Front back to defend the West and thereby given the Poles some slender hope.
If the French and British were committed to Poland they would have stationed soldiers there before the war began to help the defence of that country should it be invaded. These soldiers would also have acted as a deterrent against would be aggressors. The whole purpose of a deterrent is to prevent an attack in the first instance. Because of French and British pusillanimity in the 1930s Adolf Hitler had every reason to conclude that the French and British were bluffing in 1939. He had called that bluff several times before. Even after Paris and London declared war on the Reich the lack of fighting spirit on behalf of the French and British was apparent.
After the spring of 1939 the German Reich demanded session of certain territories held by Poland. These lands had previously been German sovereign territory prior to Versailles. German had no legal title to them in 1939. Germany has signed Versailles and that was that. It is true some of the districts that the Germans wanted back had ethnic German majorities. But nonetheless theses areas were integral parts of Poland. The Poles had the right to defend the integrity of their national territory. However, it is hard not to perceive but a little merit to the German case. Yes, Nazism was foul. That does not mean that every single claim that the Nazi Government made was entirely devoid of justice. Can the devil speak true? Yes, he can occasionally. Under 5% of Poland’s populace was of German stock. In truth Hitler was misusing the German ethnic minority in Poland as casus belli. We now know he had no intention of seizing only those areas were ethnic Germans were a majority. He wanted to seize the whole of the country as he had done to Czechoslovakia only six months earlier.
Danzig was a League of Nations city. It was 90% ethnically German. The great majority of these people voted to join German. But the Poles came in and ran the city as an extension of Poland. Was there not some logic say that this city should become part of Germany again? Legally the city was not part of Germany. I am not asking you to agree that it should have been given to Germany in 1939. Only acknowledge there was a reasonable case to be made.
There was no overriding good reason for the UK to fight to keep Germans from reuniting with Germany. Of course we are not aware that Hitler intended to annex the whole of Poland. But we need to judge the decisions made in 1939 based on the information that was available 80 years ago.
But why should all this be any great concern of the United Kingdom? Poland is not the first country in history to be invaded. Newsflash: the UK invaded more than a few countries. Why was this one to be so different?
There was the Chaco War in the 1930s. Paraguay fought against Bolivia. No one ever said that the UK should weigh in there. There was no British interest at stake. These countries were thousands of miles from the British shore. They were both landlocked. Why then should the UK fight for Poland? What had Poland ever done for Britain? The British owed the Poles nothing.
Poland has made a tremendous contribution to science and music. So much about the country is admirable. It staggers me that the Nazis could believe that the Poles of all people are racially inferior. Racism is always nauseating. But despising the Poles seems so blatantly imbecilic. Despite Poland’s marvelous culture the UK was no obligated to save that country. As we shall see the British war effort did almost nothing to help Poland.
When the war ended in 1945 there was no British soldier within 200 miles of the Polish border. It was the Soviets and the Polish Resistance that bested the Wehrmacht there.
I know of no evidence that Adolf Hitler had any hostile intentions towards any of his Western neighbours. Consider this. Why on earth would he build the ruinously expensive Siegfried Line if he planned to attack West? As the Fuhrer himself wrote ‘We must stop the perpetual German march to the south and west and turn our eyes to the east: principally towards Russia and the border states subject to her.’ He tried to do almost everything he said he would in Mein Kampf.
Poland was a military dictatorship. At least the British did not pretend to be fighting for democracy.
Germany had no designs on an inch of British soil. Even when Germany was offered to discuss getting some of her overseas colonies back they said no.
Once Poland was subjugated the Third Reich publicly offered to make peace in 1939. It was the British who rebuffed this. It was made plain 1,000 times that the Germans were not trying to get into a war against the UK. In July 1940 Hitler made his ‘last appeal to reason’. This was another peace offer to to the British. Yet again it was dismissed.
Consider my native land. Eire stood aloof from the conflagration. What did the Southern Irish lose by staying out of this fearful war? Who has ever criticized Eamonn de Valera for keeping our country at peace? It would have been sheer folly to join the Allies on a madcap venture in 1939 when it appeared that the Axis would win. The citizens of the fledgling state were united and loyal to the government by Dublin’s sagacious policy. The Irish Government plied a middle course between Axis and Allies until it became patent that the Allies’ arms would be blessed with victory. At that point Irish policy tacked towards the Allies.
The real threat
In the 1930s a monstrous tyranny stalked Europe. The spectre of this savage system haunted the chancelleries of Europe. A vicious political movement had overthrown democracy at home. It was trying to spread the bacillus of his ideology abroad. A criminally insane cult of the personality prevailed in this country. It had locked up political prisoners by the millions. It sent people to labour camps without even a pretence of a trial in half the cases. It used the foulest tortures as standard. It was violently intolerant of the mildest dissent. It practised the Big Lie theory of propaganda. It deprived people of religious liberty. It was philistinism on steroids – destroying beautiful old buildings and burning the books of the ideologically unsound. It propagandized relentlessly in school and through all media. This brainwashing turned people into zombies. Rule by fear had never been so perfected. It deliberately created famines that killed several million people. The government denied there was any famine. Foreign food aid was refused. Famine victims were not allowed to leave their home districts in search of comestibles. The regime was driven by pathological paranoia. This satanically cruel regime was not in Germany. This barbarous regime was open about its intention. It was hellbent on taking over the world. It had already conquered several countries that it had recognized as independent in the 1920s. In 1939 this country invaded 5 countries and Germany only invaded one.
Bear in mind the infernal cruelty of some of Britain’s allies. The moral clarity of the Allied cause is impugned. Do not demonise Axis countries too much. The Finns were simply fighting to regain the land sequestrated from them in 1939. Romania was also battling to regain land taken at gunpoint.
There was rapine and rape committed by the Allies too. The Axis certainly pillaged. But do not imagine that the Allies were purer than pure.
By 1939 the Third Reich was certainly brutal. Several thousand people had already been killed by the Nazis. Action T 4 had already begun. This was slaying mentally and physically disabled people. We do that today only we call it abortion. But T 4 was a clandestine programme. People abroad did not know about it. It was never stated as a reason to declare war.
There was racial discrimination in Nazi Germany. Naturally this is despicable. But that is not a sufficient reason to declare war. Many states in the US had Jim Crow laws. Should Britain have declared war on the United States? There were racist laws in some British dominions such as Rhodesia and South Africa. Should the UK have made war upon herself? Enough of such cant and hypocrisy!
Despite the villainy of the Third Reich it was by no means the worst regime in the world at the time. It became the worst in the world in about 1942. But no one knew that in 1939!
No one predicted the Holocaust. One-third of German Jews had not left in 1939. If they suspected that they would be killed then they would have got out no matter how old or poor they were.
STRENGTH
Perhaps who believe that the British were morally right to declare war in 1939. That is all very well. But you should only fight if you have a good chance of winning. That is one of St Augustine’s rules of a just war.
The British and French did not have the capability to win much less the stomach for the fight. The League of Nations Union had run a peace ballot in the UK several years earlier. A high majority of British people voted that they would never fight no matter what. The Oxford Union ran the famous King and Country debate the month after Hitler became chancellor. A majority of these Oxonians voted that they would not fight for King and Country under any circumstances. That was the mood of the country. The popular mood had shifted a bit by 1939. Opinion polling was in its infancy back then.
The Imperial General Staff had written in 1935 ‘we must stress the importance of political action to avoid war.’
Why?
North Korea is tyrannical should we declare war on them? I have yet to meet a single person who says yes. There are many unsavoury regimes in the world. We do not go invading all of them.
Why not fight over other territorial disputes? Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Kurdistan, Transdnistria, Ukraine, the Spratly Islands, Taiwan, the Huwar Islands, Nagorno Karabakh and so forth – should the UK fight over these areas? If not why not? What was qualitatively different about Poland in 1939?
Collective security was a dead letter by then. The UK had tacitly acknowledge this. In 1936 Italy completed the conquest of Abyssinia. London had managed to infuriate Mussolini. In a desperate attempt to mend fences with the fascist thug the British had retroactively recognized Italian sovereignty over Abyssinia. This was a flagrant rejection of the Covenant of the League of Nations.
Containing the Third Reich had become an ignominious failure before September 1939. The UK should have armed to the teeth and stayed out. The Swedes and the Swiss face geographical disadvantages. They have few natural resources. Yet despite this they are very prosperous and have been free for centuries. Why are they like this? Because they have not been to war for over 200 years! Peace is the best economic policy.
Britain’s heart was not in this war. As Churchill said before El Alamein there was never a victory. This was a slight oversimplification as Abyssinia had been liberated in 1940. ‘I can’t get the victories’ he lamented.
There was no reason to suppose that the United States was going to weigh in on Britain’s side. The America First Committee which was committed to keeping the US out of this war was very popular. President Roosevelt received thousands of letters a weak imploring him to maintain neutrality.
American military equipment was vital for the UK. But the British did not know that the US would pass these derogations to the Neutrality Acts which in other circumstances would have prohibited selling materiel to a belligerent nation.
Joseph P Kennedy was the US Ambassador to the Court of St James at the time. The father of John F Kennedy wrote back to Washington that the UK would soon lose. People have accused Kennedy of anglophobia. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why would he want to live in London despite risking being killed by a bomb if he was anti -English? On an objective sifting of the evidence in 1940 Kennedy’s assessment seemed correct.
When the US did come into the war it was only because the Germans declared war on them. The British had no reason to think that the Reich would be that moronic. Even then it was not obvious that the Americans would say Europe first.
Only a fool would get involved in a fight which is not his. This is especially so if you have no war spirit and your enemy is bristling with ferocity.
The whole war was to uphold the principle of national sovereignty. It was a principle that the UK wanted to violate with regard to Norway. Only Hitler beat them to it. The British cheerfully breached the principle of national sovereignty by occupying Iceland against the express wish of Reykjavik. The British also invaded Iran. London even considered invading the Irish State. So much for the sanctity of sovereignty!
The UK had despots on its side. The colonies were run undemocratically. This was not a war for democracy.
The march to war was partly due to Churchill’s insensate bellicosity. It is true that Churchill was a backbench MP at the time but he was very influential. By 1939 he was no longer a voice crying in the wilderness.
Sixty million people were killed in this war. After the war tens of millions lived in tyranny for decades more. What if the UK had no declared war? The Poles would have suffered grievously. But would six million of them have been killed? It is very improbable that so many would have been killed in peacetime. If the Third Reich was at peace with most of the world it would not have been able to conceal its crimes. It would have been more sensitive to world opinion. Escaping the Nazis would have been easier.
What is so shameful about peace? War necessarily involves committing shameful acts against the enemy. Civilians will be killed as well as military personnel. Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans. Do not imagine all German soldiers were demonic any more than all British soldiers were morally upstanding.
I might be timorous. But I am not wrong.
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