Should HMG compensate Poland and/or Polish veterans?

It's trite to say that HMG breached Article 5 of the treaty of mutual assistance and the jury's still out on other Articles of same, particularly Article 1.

Should HMG compensate Poland and/or surviving Polish WW2 veterans? Breach of contract but also loss of opportunity spring to mind as potential causes of action (ie the reasons and factors behind why compo ough to be paid).

I reckon that as and from the Teheran Conference (December 1943) compensation ought to be calculated, if not before. Britain (and the USA to be fair) 'bought' Stalin's compliance and co-operation (whether or not that was already there is a different argument) at the expense of Poland falling under Communist hegemony, amongst other concessions acquiesced to. Maybe that's fair enough, but the time has come to pay the piper, or in our case, the sacrificial lamb. Or is Poland and the relevant Polish people out of time in making such a claim? Would it be fair for the current British Govt. to have to dip into tax revenue to pay the compensation?

In responding, please confine arguments to relevant issues. I'm not interested in arguments like "Poland should pay the hire fees for the planes they used in saving GB during the BoB" or like nonsense.

No...

Why? A few of reasons:

* How do you judge Britain's preparedness (logistical, strategical & psychological) for war?

* How does one quantify the damages to the individual in question?

* The litigious carousel would never stop.

I was thinking more along the lines of strict breach of contract (Art 5) rather than the more nebulous issues with Art 1. In any event, it's up to HMG to show evidence as to their preparedness and if on balance their preparedness was objectively such that they discharged their obligation of doing all in their power to assist, then they're fine. If however they didn't show that they did all in their power (an objective test, not subjective) then they breached Art 1. It's that simple.


Difficulties in setting out quantum of damages shouldn't bar compensation being paid should it? Perhaps a principal lump sum plus interest at say 9% per annum (as and from say Dec 1943) to the current Polish Govt to then be divvied up to genuine Polish claimants at the Polish government's discretion. There could be components of special damages, general damages, economic loss, pain and suffering and so on. That would be, in our hypothetical, up to the Polish claimant to set out.


It never does my friend. It's just a question of jumping on then jumping off at the right times. In any event, ‘opening the floodgates’ arguments are usually left for the legislature when formulating laws rather than used during litigation to try to stop same.

how come you don't have the same issue with the french?

No. Nowhere it states "militairy aid" in the agreement. All it says "to the best of her abilities", and that is what Great Britain did. That this might not be enough in Polish eyes is not to be blamed on the British.

en.wikisource.org/wiki/Agreement_of_Mutual_Assistance_between_the_United_Kingdom_and_Poland-London_(1939)

What I am more interested in however, are the secret protocols attached to it, especially this part:


So, in case of a German invasion of any of the countries mentioned in this secret protocol, war would erupt. From the secret protocols as well as the document itself, it's pretty clear that it served as diplomatic foundation for the fact that Britain would use any further invasion by Germany as casus belli. When Germany invaded Poland later on, it declared war on Germany and performing all that was within her powers to assist, thus keeping her part of the deal, which did not include any militairy presence in Poland.

What I am curious about is, however, why wasn't a copy of this agreement provided to the countries mentioned in the secret protocol? As far as I know, the Dutch govt never received a copy of it, whereas it concerned her independence as a casus belli as well.

Edit: furthermore, you make the mistake to involve the Teheran conference into this agreement. Teheran had as such nothing to do with it.

>^..^<

M-G (haec hactenus)

Precisely...

Why were the Poles NOT full mobilized?

The question I don't understand is why Poland attempted to fight a conventional war in the first place. With two much bigger enemies either side, it would have made much more sense to fight like the Swiss - hit and run.

pland was fully mobilized, actually but the nazis were suprior in nubers and technology

I do love the way that our favourite little racist keeps banging on about Tehran and the British (although he usually uses a racist slur instead of the word "British") sold Poland but he can never explain how the agreement to move Poland's borders west is a threat to Poland's independence. Perhaps he'd do better to look at how his own nation viewed Poland in 1939. As for the 'damages', perhaps we could agree that Poland should just keep the 59 million roubles it got from the USSR and keep quiet instead of looking like a serial pedophile who complains that his two steroid crazed neighbours raped him after he repeatedly abused three local children.

I think it's a major fail of Ozi dan to involve the Teheran conference in it. The Teheran conference has NOTHING to do with the topic at hand. Ozi dan reveals himself now as a revisionist, unfortunately and disqualifies himself. Sorry, Ozi dan. You have disqualified yoursefl as serious historian and. Goodbye.

Edit: that's what you get when you try to make real historians ridiculous.

>^..^<

M-G (I am not regarding his useless remarks about my sigs and all)

Because Poland is a large flat plain while Switzerland is all impassable mountains and deep passes?

The main problem here is that Poland was fighting a cordon defence along its entire border rather then retreating to the great rivers, as it is the allies really did a number on Poland promising aid in the way they did.

Reperations though are ridiculous, the western betrayal is so heavily denied and so much time has passed that it'd only serve as making Poland ridiculous.


Only 60% of the armed forces were fully mobilised, the remainder were either en route to concentration areas or there already.

To be correct, polish army was fully mobilised but not fully assembled, thanks to the allies again.

Perhaps the leader of your junta shouldn't have been talking smack about how Poland wanted war with Germany if Poland wasn't actually ready for war. Or do you blame the Allies for that too?

The fact that you continue to denigrate me despite the fact that we had a mutual understanding to remain civil whilst in disagreement merely cements my suspicion that you deeply fear me and what I have to say on this forum. The further fact that you failed to accept my offer that I would not use the term "Pom" in exchange for you not using derogatory words is of itself testament to the fact you really don't care about addressing and diminishing 'racism' but rather you thinking that the endless and embarrassing propagation of a lie will somehow make you more convincing and me less so. Not being able to respond in any meaningful fashion, you resort to calling me racist at every opportunity.


The fact that HMG acquiesced to the border shift, the change of Poland's post War geo-political make up and descent into Stalinist hegemony without Poland's knowledge or consent and without telling Poland that this would happen speaks for itself as to that information being crucial and a relevant matter re what information ought to have been shared per Art. 5. If you cannot or will not accept that self-determination as to borders is of itself a prima facie exercise of political and national independence and that foreign and unilateral changes as to same threatens and indeed extinguishes that independence then you fail to understand what national sovereignty and independence mean.


This seems to be another example of what you think being at odds with the reality of the situation. Given that I posted the thread and clearly set out that it was my view that Art 5 was breached having regard to what occurred at Teheran, I fail to see your logic unless of course you know my thoughts better than I do myself?


A revisionist? Me? That would make for an exciting argument. Pray tell what leads you to that conclusion, setting out what I have said and then comparing that to what a revisionist statement is. Would you have to show that objectively or subjectively?


I see the comments I made to you the other week re questioning your 'historian' credentials are still upsetting you. I'm sorry you still feel that way.

In any event, I've never said I'm a historian, though I suppose, like you, I could pretend to be one, couldn't I. Carrying on about how good you are and what academic credentials you have (I don't reckon you have any mate) merely makes you look like a dill, especially in light of the fact that you more often than not make no sense, refer to yourself in the third person and embarrass yourself even further by signing off with your child-like and vaguely feline sigil.

I really like the way you were miffed enough to come back and edit your post with that comment about me trying to make real historians look ridiculous. That tells me that you did feel as though you had been ridiculed and needed to add that comment as a final stab against me to preserve your ego, because its all about an ego trip for you isn't it mate. Given though that you are not a real historian you don't have to worry about me trying to ridicule you, do you.

No, but they should recognize what happened.

Britain made no guarantees whatsoever to Poland's borders or sovereignty: neither the word "border" or the word "sovereignty" are even in the treaty. And given that Poland had demonstrated repeated in the interbellum that its idea of where its border should be were rather different to those of its neighbours and that Poland was happy to invade its neighbours, there is no way in hell that Britain would have guaranteed Polish self-determination of its borders!


To quote Richard J Evans "They [Reputable and professional historians] do not willfully invent words, phrases, quotations, incidents and events, for which there is no historical evidence, in order to make their arguments more plausible." Your inventions with regard to the Agreement of Mutual Assistance Between the United Kingdom and Poland show that you are very much a revisionist.

No; the fact that the Poles were not fully mobilized rests on their shoulders not the British.

Why would, or should, the Poles have put their faith in France or the Brits based on recent events (Munich) and events in the not so distant (Polish - Soviet war) past?

Besides, claiming Britain bullied Poland into not fully mobilizing is nonsense for 2 reasons. Firstly, Poland had the right of rejection and could have told Britain where to go. Also, they had to learn from Piłsudski, their general. He knew what was coming!

And potentialy lose an ally, good job.


And so did Poland, the problem was when, you can't keep a milion men mobilised all the time which means you have to know when to mobilise them, thanks to UK and France when war erupted hundreds of thousands of our soldiers were en route to mobilisation grounds or in the process of being concentrated in said spots.

Had the UK and France not pressured Poland the mobilisation would happen two weeks earlier and the army would've been ready, that could buy Poland at least two or three more weeks.


Because there was no other choice, polish HQ was fully aware that lacking enough modern hardware Poland is incapable of defending herself on her own, it was "get allies or get destroyed" situation.

Hey, we lost a strong trading partner in Germany. Trade in the early to mid 1930s was very strong.

That's what contingency plans are for, Sok! Standby, readiness and all that.

WTF? Sean do you even read yourself sometimes? I still can't rally from the "decent Putin" comment and you come up with more.

How the bloody f*ck do you put 1/35th of your entire nation on constant standby??? It was one milion people for feckssake you either mobilise them or not, there's no contingency plans for this.

Brits and French came and said "dont mobilise" Poles were fully aware of how unreliable France and UK were as allies and there was a real fear of them using any polish refusal as a cop-out so Poland did not mobilise and got screwed even more.

He sometimes is decent and that's why many are entering into dialogues with him. Tusk very much included.

You do it by keeping them in regular training and focussed for the task ahead.

So Poland made a mistake by not mobilising? You listened to 'allies'?

No Sean, people enter into dialogues with him because he's the leader of one of the most powerfull countries on this bloody planet, you don't ignore people like that, he's a cold blooded murderer personally responsible for dozens of deaths of East Berlin Germans.


I'll keep it simple and refrain from obscenities since you're one of the few likeable human beings here.

1. Poland had a milion strong army.
2. One milion men have to be notified by mail.
3. One milion men have to leave their jobs, farms etc incurring massive economic loss.
4. One milion men have to be transported to concentration areas.
5. One milion men have to be armed and organised into units in said areas.
6. One milion men have to go to their assigned combat zones all over Poland.

You dont keep one bloody milion on standby, you dont train them 24/7 and "keep them focused" thats why mobilisation is such a big deal, if done too late it might cost you the war, if done too early it can cause ginormous economic losses and Poland was p*ss poor to begin with.

Thats why those western fockwards insistence on Poland delaying its mobilisation was such a big deal, by september 1 more then 400.000 polish soldiers were between stage 1-5 while only 600.000 thousand were in their assigned combat areas, given that Germans attacked with 1.8 milion men every soldier was worth his weight in gold.


Obviously, and the mistake meant much, mobilising fully might have prologned the war for a couple of weeks, this in turn might've force France and UK to actually act instead of playing pretend-war.

Hmm...I find it odd that Sokrates was suspended as it couldn't have been for his comments here.

Anyway Sok, what you said made sense to me. Putin is a crafty little bugger and I was not making character references before. I'm in the Kasparov camp.

Britain seemed to know, more or less, when the first strikes were going to happen and there was information sharing. You said so yourself. Yes, the mobilisation process takes some time but much comes through anticipation and preparedness. Many historians would agree with me that those initial raids were reasonably foreseeable.

Force France to act? You've got to be joking! They were the most insipid bunch of cowards out there. Britain benefited from an effective and informed Foreign Secretary and raised our level of preparedness.

I was complementing a moronic example of a female in the polish section, apparently she ran crying :)


Of course it did Poland fed both UK and France information, except that UK and France had a plan that called for sacrificing Poland now and liberating it later, Poland of course was not privy to such details which is why we call it what it was, treason.


What exactly? Poland was straining its meager industry to its limits to equip its forces, partial mobilisation was executed despite allied insistence, what more could be done? I know anticipation and preparedness sound like such nice terms but it was a specific situation that you can prepare for only in specific ways.


The problem was that France and UK saw polish army was outdated but quite strong, they gave Poland at least 3-4 months of combat so the initial german success convinced them not to help Poland, such success would be harder to achieve with polish army fully prepared.

Where have I said Britain did? I didn't, which kind of makes a mockery of the balance of your post, doesn't it. You know perfectly well what my argument is and because you refuse to acknowledge that it was a prima facie breach of Art. 5 you again resort to smoke and mirror rubbish. I can tell you mate - you've certainly got 10 points in my books for effort, but I'm not stupid and I see your deflections and obfuscations for what they are.


I've rubbished this tripe elsewhere so no need to repeat my position. You seem devoid of any ability to argue something other than tangential theories, so I'll give you some ammunition to use against my arguments (don't tell anyone I told you) and you can expand on them:

1. Which Polish Goverment signed the original treaty and which Polish government was around when I allege Art. 5 was broken? Is there anything in the treaty regarding subrogation type arrangements of party's obligations and rights to remedies?

2. Was there anything in the treaty which could, in executing it, frustrate another treaty/agreement of greater significance.

3. Were there any express, implied or collateral terms to the treaty regarding what is to be done in the event of an alleged breach?

4. Which of the above are red herrings (if any) and which are plausible foundations (if any) for an argument contrary to mine?

Give me a real run for my money Harry.

I'm honoured that you hold me in league with reputable and professional historians! I am however just a humble lawyer and a mere student of history.

In any event, would you do this Honorary Historian a service and point me to exactly where my inventions re the treaty lie?


Seanus my man, I see you've made some useful comments on mobilisation but you're a bachelor of international law so this should be right up your ally. What do you think? I see you've refrained from giving us your input in that regard when clearly it's needed. I really know two fifths of bugger all about International and K. law so your input could tip the balance here. ;)

With pleasure, once I get back to the office on Monday: writing long posts on my iPhone is a pain in the butt.

Maybe you're looking for another word, or are you calling Brits and the French traitors? Look at the true definition of this word.

C'mon Shelley, promising direct support, urging to fight on with flase claims of strategic manouvers, what do you call that?

Deliberate misleading of Poland to lay down for the West and buy them time is treason, i can see the strategic logic both France and UK had, its a bloody stupid logic born of cowardice and complacency but logic, from the polish point of view its still abandoning Poland when help, especially by France was perfectly plausible.

Well said indeed! Let's not be afraid to call a spade a spade. We were betrayed by our,
so-called, "allies", so their action is rightly considered a treason. Perfectly suitable word.

In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of betrayal of one's sovereign or nation.


Shelly is correct.