How do Poles feel about what the French did during the first few stages of WWII?

I've heard about accusations towards the Britons for their nonfeasance during the Nazi and Soviet partition of Poland, but I seldom hear about Poles blaming French for similar conducts...

Both French and Britons signed treaties ensuring tremendous military assistance to Poland in case that the Poles were attacked, but neither fulfilled their promise as far as I am concerned. French had always been an active ally of Poland, and in 1939 its military commander, Gamelin, promised a "bold relief offensive" within three weeks of German's attack, which turned out to be a tiny offensive to Saar... If the French had acted more swiftly and made substantial attacks, then it will greatly relieve the Polish army I think. It may even be more significant than British aids as French assaults were bound to be started on land borders, which will be dreadful for German military supplies as it would damage core German industrial areas like Saar and Ruhr, and also lead to Germany's war of two fronts

However it seemed that Poles tend to show their fury to British rather than French, why?

The initial cause was Nazi propaganda (as shown in the poster below) and that propaganda was then carried on by the Communist regime. After a lie has been repeated as a 'known fact' for 50 years, it takes a while for people to accept the truth.

The initial cause was that after six years of war Britain couldn't bother to put her foot down in dealing with Stalin and let him deal with Poland and Poles as he pleased. Only after all have been dusted Churchill started talking tall - too ******* late.

Which all leads nicely on to PiS in the modern day using exactly the same tactics.

I know Britons did stuff that are quite unacceptable and are criticized by Poles, but what about the French, don't Poles feel dissatisfied for their inaction? Or did Poles feel that the Fall of France later had already exacted revenge for the Poles?

What exactly was Britain in any position to do with regard to the USSR? Oh yes, nothing.


As it happens, the USA and Britain secured a promise that there would be free and fair elections in Poland after the war. Not their fault that Poles didn't bother to have those elections.


I do love it when people blame Churchill for things that happened after WWII, it really shows the depth of their ignorance about history.

Do what? To put her foot down and talk firmly to Stalin? Instead they have been agreeing on his all demands in regard to Poles and not bothering to communicate that to Poles at all?

If they would put it plainly to Stalin and they would fail, Nobody would say a word against them. The point i they have been concerned about everything else but Poland.

At least should demand from Stalin to tread AK soldiers as allied combatants not like illegal bands.


They secured nothing. who was to ensure that those election would fair and free? Red Army or NKVD?Don't even talk about that pompous cripple prick Roosevelt.


Election was neither free nor fair so what Britain done to ensure that Stalin keep his promise? A big fat zero!I telling that to you hundred times already.

Today is the last time if you are not able to comprehend that or your just plainly refuse to do that or you are just stirring the shyte here - no matter.

Next time if you would post something like that I will call you - a stupid little maggot. No mod can blame me for it.


I blame him for thing that didn't happen during the WWII>

As France had (sort of) joined the German side after 1940, the Nazis saw no need carry on the same anti-French propaganda that they did with the British. After the war the Soviets correctly assessed the French as no threat at all and not close allies of the Americans. The British were a different story and therefore the Commies carried on with the same propaganda that the Nazis had spread (and added to it new wrinkles, such as the lies about Polish representatives not being invited to the London Victory parade).


I wasn't aware that Stalin had been demanding free and fair elections in Poland. Oh, sorry, I forgot that he hadn't. Your knowledge of history is as laughable as ever.


Poles. But instead your people were living the lie that Britain was to blame for everything bad that happened to Poland during and after WWII. None of it was the fault of the millions of Poles who collaborated with the communist regime.


You're really showing severe ignorance of history if you want to blame FDR for him not doing things to help Poland after WWII.


I believe that Lenka has already given you a very specific warning about not insulting me (the same as the one she gave to me about you): you'd be well advised to pay attention to that warning.

Well if you intensionally are blaming Poles for the result of 1947 election you are a stupid little maggot who has no place in Poland.
I still maintain that Lenka cannot blame me for this and if she does so be it. It is matter of principle and I will not bend.

Majority of people think pretty much nothing about it, at least until some clown provoke them with "but you should be grateful to France (or GB) they went to war for you" crap.


I see the closet level of moderation is still going on.

Because he was warned to stop with personally abusing posters and then carried on doing so?

They sure were working hard at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam discussing the future of Poland, supposedly dealing on our behalf and with our best interest in mind but not bothering to invite Polish representatives from the Polish government in exile to take part in at least the part of the discussion dealing with our future. Those closed door discussions shaped the future of post WWII Europe.


Not honoring the treaty is one thing, we can only speculate what the future might have been like, besides inaction affected us all the same but the true betrayal lies at Yalta, it's precisely that agreement that sealed our future for the next 40 some odd years. French did not partake in that shameful act btw. I hope that partially answers your question. Whatever spin Harry might put on those events and brags how hard the Brits were working to secure our so called free elections it still does not change the fact that we had to live that glorious future handed to us on a silver platter by the Brits while you were shaking in your boots, being scared sh*tless in fear of the Eastern bloc and a big bad bear you were so generous to just a few years earlier thanks to our good friends and allies the Brits and the Yanks. If you expect us to lick your boots for such generosity or keeping it all under the rug so to speak as the truth might hurt your feelings then good luck with that.

it is the British who used Poland to focus German aggression towards Poland, British used Polish soldiers to fight for their interests and after war they collected payment for every bullet and every provision issued to Polish army from gold in Canadian bank.

British negotiated with Stalin and decided Polish fate without notifying Polish government in England. Poland had the fourth largest army fighting on allied side much bigger then French army and British insisted that the French will have permanent membership in U.N. disregarding Poland and the fate of Polish soldiers that save their Anglo-Saxons a s s e s. To summarized French had no say in fate of Poland after ww2 but British had and they used Poland and they betray all the Polish soldiers that fought for them, and I do not understand why Poland would join the evil colonial power NATO.

"decided the fate" ?
Yep, the fate was free and fair elections. No fault of the British that you didn't hold those.

"the fourth largest army"?
There are a few Chinese out there who might disagree with you about that.

British and French are both to blame for doing next to nothing.

However, the Brits were by far the biggest cowards. I wish no one helped them in BoB. Theyd be turned to smoke.

What lie? You mean the Phoney War or drôle de guerre, as the French called it, didn't happen?


"Didn't bother"? How can you be insolent?

OK I see, Poles despise Brits over their action after war rather than before the war, is that right? Hmmm it seemed acceptable for Poles to be more angry to Brits as they betrayed you twice while French betrayed less... Those Yalta thugs did so to China as well, trying to please commies as much as possible...


Well all historians do agree that Poland is the fourth largest contributor on the European Theatre, that's how they mean I think, after all a maximum estimation of 1 million Polish armed forces participating in the Ally cause is much smaller than the Chinese figure of 2-5 million troops. But even if all Allies are counted, Poles are with little doubt the 5th biggest contributor to the Ally cause. And this figure is quite enough for the Allied Powers to put more consideration on Poles than they've actually did, and at the same time the French contribution is not enough to gain a seat in UNSC in my opinion, although I think French accession to UNSC cause generally positive effects.


As the Allies had already handed over Poland to the Soviet spheres of influence, they've in fact banned Poles from elections, everyone knew within the bottom of their hearts that nobody under Soviet influence could ever have these elections. You seemed to be unaware of the sacrifices of Cursed Soldiers.


Everyone knew that Ruskies are disguting stuff, so Brits treat Polish by handling them to Stalin for creating another sort of Congress Poland is totally unacceptable by all means. Congress Poland is a product due to the failure of Napoleon and Poles, while when the Poles eventually did win in a war with massive contributions it was still treated like Nazi protectorates like Romania, nobody enjoys looking this going on except the NKVD and Stalin and a thuggish and foolish Churchill who disregard the contributions and strategic importance of Poland. Erm I'm not trying to offend but are you a Polish... cuz I think that myself even as a Chinese seemed more sympathetic to Poles compared with you...

Oh dear, the reason for your thread appears to be becoming clear. Perhaps you could go into detail about the 'betrayals' you alleged took place? I'm very happy to give you details about the text-book example of betrayal that Poland performed on the Ukrainian National Republic, as you clearly have no idea what the word 'betray' means.


Hmm, you sure about that? 195,000 Poles in the western command Polish army at the end of the war in Europe, a maximum of 200,000 in the eastern command Polish army, 400,000 in the Polish resistance (not all of whom were armed), total of 795,000 (all numbers from here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_resistance_movement_in_World_ War_II). Hmm, the Yugoslav people's army peaked at 800,000 to 850,000; you sure about what all historians agree on?


Oh dear, either you are badly mistaken or you are very simply lying. It is not possible to hand over something which one has never possessed; perhaps you can tell us when the USA and Britain ever controlled Poland in order to hand it over to the USSR?


Please see the above about handing things. You may also wish to note that in reality the majority of Polish soldiers in the western command army were given British citizenship after the war and that tens of thousands of members of their families were brought to Britain for them. Your statement may have been a mistake the first two times you made it, but now the error of your ways has been pointed out to you, repeating that statement will very simply mean that you would be lying.

Unfortunately, it must be borne in mind that the Poles did the dirty work.

Maybe slightly off-topic, but I do feel it is worth a mention. When i first started coming to Poland, around 3 years ago, I was made very aware that the British account of the events and actions that took place were incredibly skewed (I am a Brit myself btw). After much reading, I have to say that I was forced to agree. I am very happy to see though that this seems to be in the process of being corrected, with more and more memorials being erected to those of other nationalities that died in a particular place (not only Polish, although in my home county of Hertfordshire there was a large contingent of Polish pilots flying both Spitfire and Hurricane fighters). I can only hope that this trend continues as i feel that a more honest and open accounting can only benefit us all.

On topic, i have had many conversations about WW2, not only with my Polish girlfriends father (who is an amateur historian specialising in the subject) but many other adults of a similar age group. I have never encountered the "hatred" that others have mentioned in this thread. Regret? possibly, but never said in anger, even when the Wodka and Piwo have been flowing for many many hours!

Well they could have given more significant influence on the issue... They are capable for providing more support to the Underground State in my mind, sadly they did the opposite. OK let's stop talking about British.


Well in fact that is what really want to know... And then it turned out to be accusations to Britain, those I've already known.


Well I am ready to listen about all sorts of statements other than those I received from, please go ahead. And perhaps you can speak in a more, say, courteous way? Holding opposite opinions does not necessarily means to talk in a way which makes everyone uncomfortable, I dont mean you I mean everyone.

s.

accusations? no just stating facts there are many books about it written by Polish soldiers and how they fell about England.

reminds me of this, oft quoted here Mark Twain "I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me."

*so insolent


Unfortunately, it must be borne in mind that those Poles wouldn't be able to do that dirty work if it wasn't for the Soviets.

Do you understand that, delph?
Btw, are you Harry's spokesperson? lol I've noticed he often doesn't answer my questions/comments.



Hold your horses, cowboy lol
Poles don't despise the Brittish and I don't think Churchill was thuggish and foolish.


It's "Russians", not "Ruskies". And how can you call a nation "disguting stuff"? o_O


+1


+1


lol

We have jokes about the French in such spirit ;)

I think the most popular is probably about the French tank.

French tanks have three gears to move backwards and one to move forward. The one for moving forward is used in case the enemy will surprise the French from behind.

- Why there are no fireworks in Euro Disneyland?
- Because every time they were fired the French would surrender.

- Why are there so many trees by Champs-Élysées?
- So the Germans could march in a pleasant shadow.

- What do you call 100 000 French men with their hands in the air?
- An army.

An ad in a French newspaper: "Rifle for sale. Never used, dropped once."

etc. etc.

Absolutely, won't catch me arguing with that statement. I think it's worth pointing out that at least for some of those people, it was a perfectly acceptable reaction to what had happened before. I was reading some account somewhere of some Polish guy explaining that he bought into the system because he didn't want a return to the days of the mid 30's - and he blamed the politics of hate for Poland's destruction afterwards. Fair enough, and not for me to criticise.

What "reaction" are you talking about? Doing the dirty work?


lol


Really, delph? You seem to criticise often and a lot on other occasions...

Well, if you had suffered immensely as the result of one extreme ideology, it's somewhat understandable that you would adopt another extreme ideology to make sure that the original one that made you suffer never comes back.


In this case, it's fair enough.

The only people I don't have time for are the ones who betrayed others freely. It was one thing to denounce others after being pushed to breaking point, but those who willingly threw themselves into betraying others should have been shot as traitors.

What extreme ideology?


What breaking point?

The rather horrible rise of the far right in Europe, mid 30's onwards.


Those who were imprisoned by the Communists.

Seems to me that delph swallowing a lot of SB made BS.
On the other hand he made be tailored like that being from Scotland. Naturally sympathetic that is:
scottishcommunists.org.uk