Did Britain Betray Poland?

How would you feel if Nicaragua was obliterated by a meteorite tomorrow? Sad for the human beings involved, of course, but would you really care that there was no longer a country called Nicaragua? I wouldn't – not really. What if it was Japan, with its thousands of years of history and culture? A terrible tragedy, but could you truly, genuinely empathise with the thousands of Japanese survivors who would no longer have a country to go home to? I couldn't – not truly. This is how nationhood works. It's like family. Nobody who isn't part of a nation, or a family, can truly feel its loss, because we all have nations and families of our own, and they are more important.

There might be a foreign country that you like, even love. Perhaps you've lived in that country, or spent wonderful holidays there. Would you risk your life for that country as you might for your own? Young men with nothing to lose sometimes do this, but would you do it if it also meant risking your life and the lives of your family and their homes and their futures? You'd have to be crazy.

The Poles lost their nation in 1939. It was taken from them with treacherous violence, and nobody tried to save them. Britain and France did almost nothing. They were right to do nothing. Attacking Germany would have been a foolish, even treasonous, risk to take with the lives and wellbeing of their own citizens.

The primary responsibility of any government is to protect the security and wellbeing of the people it governs, just as the primary responsibility of any parent is to protect the security and wellbeing of their children. No matter how terrible or unjust the tragedy you see unfolding, you make sure your family is safe first. No matter how terrible or unjust the invasion it is witnessing, a government must think of the security of its citizens first. A government must do this. If it does not, it does not deserve the trust and loyalty of its citizens.

Hitler did not do this. He put his personal ambition and ideology above the safely and wellbeing of the citizens he governed. He risked all their lives on a wild bet, with terrible and long-lasting consequences. Any leader who does this, democratically elected or otherwise, deserves to be reviled in history, even before the crimes they commit against other nations are taken into account.

Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, is doing the same thing today. He is risking the lives and wellbeing of his citizens in a cynical strategy to secure his own leadership. No matter how tempting it is for the governments of South Korea or the United States to step in and 'save' the North Koreans from their tyrant, they will not, because it would be a wild and unnecessary risk to take with the lives of their own citizens. Whatever the rhetoric, it is no good pointing to Iraq or Afghanistan as counter-examples – no nation was there to save the Iraqis or the Afghans, they were there to ensure their own security. That's how global politics works, it always has and it always will.

I reiterate; Britain and France were in the same position in 1939. The governments of Britain and France did everything they could to prevent the invasion of Poland, short of risking the lives and wellbeing of their citizens. That was exactly the right judgement. That's exactly what any government should do. If Germany had attacked France instead of Poland in September 1939, the Polish government would have been incompetent and wrong if it had tried to save France. Does anybody really believe that Poland would have risked its military strength attacking Germany if it had the option to wait and defend?

What about the treaty between Britain and Poland that promised: "military assistance between the nations in the event either was attacked by some European country?" It was signed on August 25, 1939 – five days before the German invasion of Poland. It was part of a long process of negotiation and diplomacy intended to control Germany, not the statement of a romantic brotherhood between Poland and Britain. Treaties are instruments of politics and international relations, not the result of eight year olds spitting on their hands and swearing in the playground. Britain and France did not declare war against Germany in 1939 to save Poland in the same way that Britain and France did not declare war against Germany in 1914 to save Belgium.

Critics say it would have been easy, that Germany was weak and unprotected in the West. They say that superior British and French forces could have marched to Berlin virtually unopposed. Maybe it really would have been the only easy war in history. We will never know, because no rational government could take that risk. If you lived at a time when the memory of five years of slaughter and stalemate in World War I against exactly the same enemy were fresh in everybody's mind, would you have taken that risk? Would you have taken the chance that no bombs would fall on the millions of citizens that looked to you for their security? No government worth the name should have taken that chance, and no government did. Nobody saved Poland, and no rational person should have expected it. For a nation with millions of citizens potentially at the mercy of mass bombing, declaring war against a strong, industrialised Germany was a grave step. It was almost a fatal step. France fell quickly and Britain only survived because
it had the natural barrier of the sea. Nobody saved France. Nobody saved Holland or Belgium or Denmark and nobody saved Britain. Britain’s closest and most natural ally, the United States, did not come and save us – it would have been foolish of them to do so.

Britain and the United States did not save Poland in 1945 either. To do so would have meant committing to a war against the Soviet Union that would have cost millions more lives and destroyed what remained of Europe. Winston Churchill even drew up a plan for this option: it was called Operation Unthinkable. Would it have been worth the cost to ensure that Poland, and, let us not forget, many other nations, did not languish under Soviet occupation? No rational government could have answered that question in the positive.

Poland was lost in 1939 because it was not strong enough to defend itself. In the 15th century it would have been strong enough – in 1939 it was not. This was not the fault of Poland, it was the fault of those foreign governments that ruthlessly took advantage of Poland’s weakness. Poles are understandably bitter that they fought on the winning side in a global war but ended that war occupied and devastated. This was nobody’s fault but the nations that occupied and devastated Poland.

All nationalities are prone to romanticising history. The British tend to regard their successful resistance against Nazi Germany as the result of national resolve. It wasn’t – it was the sheer luck that there were 27 miles of choppy seawater between us and them. Poles tend to regard their national disasters as the result of betrayal, never as the result of their own failings. We all need to learn a more realistic view if future disasters are to be avoided.

Jamie Stokes