The French did not fight for Polish independence, but without the slaughter fighting the Germans at places such as Verdun (in WW1, for the historically challenged) Poland wouldn't have become independent.
Partially true. Poland became independent because of the Germany failure in the WWI, the October Revolution and most of all because of hard work of Polish diplomats, that managed to convince France and it's allies that a free, strong and independent Poland is crucial for the political and military stability of European continent. Poland reemerged because it was suppose to further weaken Germany (by taking back lands that used to be polish) and to become a boundary of the western civilization and Bolshevik Russia (the biggest threat to western Europe in the 20th century), primarily to separate Russia from Germany were the idea of communist revolution was becoming more and more popular. If Russia combined it’s power with the German commies the future of Europe wouldn’t look very cheerful.
In conclusion, French soldiers never fought for Poland, as for most of the war the idea of an independent Poland was considered by the western countries as an utopia, mainly because of the position of Germany and Russia that wanted to keep the polish issue as part of their inner politics. The reemerging of my country wasn’t an act of kindness from the side of France that should be thanked for, but it was just pure business and politics. We were precious for French as long as they had some interest in it. They didn’t had any problems with sacrificing their ally Poland for their good in 1925, where they signed the Locarno Treat, that ratified only the boundaries between France, Belgium and Germany, and didn’t said anything about the eastern boundaries of Germany. It was a clear but very delicate sign in which way Germans should expand in the future, mainly in the East (Poland) and not in the West (France). Sad but true.
Wrong! Their military strategists in 1940 were as bad as Poland's were in 1939 - when the Poolish army put in a terribly poor performance. No-one, mind you, likes to tell the Poles that with the army they had they could have done 10 times better against the Germans, because it's history and you can't change it.
Terrible performance? Interesting. Look at the map from the 1939, take into the consideration how long were the frontier line with the Germans, and if you come up with a better plan of defense than the Polish government did I will salute you.
Poles do love to distort things though!
Actually everybody does, not only Poles. The great thing about this forum is that we can all confront our visions of some historical events and myths.
Llooking forward to hear from you. :)
