WWII - who really was the first to help Poland?

HAHAHAHAH What pledges? How exactly did Britain or any of the allies intervene when the Nazis invaded Poland? They did NOTHING!!! They declared war on Hitler and then sat on their hands. I guess if their pledge was zero military support, then yes Britain kept its word.


So when did exactly British troops land in Poland and help to repel the Nazis? they did NOTHING. Attempted???? rofl attempted how exactly? Like many Brits today even they're all talk, no walk. I don't recall any British pilots bombing Nazi targets in Poland. I don't recall any Allied marines landing on the beaches of the Baltic. I don't recall any challenger or mk tanks knocking out panzers. What I do recall though is POLES helping in the Battle of Britain.


The west including UK and even the USSR were simply sick of war and didn't want to keep fighting. That's the main reason why the Allies never helped Poland.

Operation Unthinkable was supported by Churchill to recover Poland from the USSR. However, everyone was sick of fighting and the operation never left the early planning phases. Everyone was simply sick of the millions of deaths - understandably so.

It absolutely was. They did NOTHING MEANINGFUL for Poland during WW2 and also immediately after.

Churchill and Wilson were too scared of Stalin, but even Churchill had more balls than anyone else out of the Allied leaders. Perhaps if the Brits manned up and listened to Churchills idea to retake Poland, even if it failed, Poles wouldn't believe in the western betrayal. Even our military leaders publicly say that Poland's history proves it cannot rely on allies and can only rely on itself to defend the country.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_betrayal

Dirk is right you know. I know it is at odds with what we learn in school history in the UK but he is right.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Polish_military_alliance#Polish-British_common_defence_pact

On the same day when Britain pledged her support of Poland, Lord Halifax stated: "We do not think this guarantee will be binding". Other British diplomat, Alexander Cadogan wrote in his diary: "Naturally, our guarantee does not give any help to Poland. It can be said that it was cruel to Poland, even cynical".

@doug

... in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence, and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect.

I may add that the French Government have authorised me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter as do His Majesty's Government

That was Britain's 'word' to help us.... obviously they did not... they didn't even make a half hearted 'attempt' as you claim....

Poles on the other hand helped the allies in the Battle of Britain, at Monte Cassino, all over Italy, and numerous other battles. Poland could have received supplies primarily from the US (not UK) as they were more than willing to fly in military aid but Stalin refused to allow US/UK planes to land in the USSR. To my understanding, only 1 airdrop was completed.

Have a look at the map of the world Dirk. Here to help.

What I said was something else, Doug: "When the Germans attacked Poland their opponents saw that as the final push to reestablish the old pre-WW1 power structure, so they had to react."


The question is not whether you pledged to do something or not. We are discussing why Britain pledged to help Poland only in case of a German aggression, and not a Russian one. What was the reasoning behind it; especially considering the fact that your country had appeased Hitler big time in Munich. Many historians say that WW2 was the continuation of WW1 after the Treaty of Versailles, and I tend to agree with that. The Great War was all about global influence and power, and so was WW2.


It's a little bit more complicated than that. Australia still hadn't ratified the 1931 Westminster Statute in 1939, so she lacked independent foreign policy. The Australian Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies acknowledged that by saying in September 1939, that as Britian was at war with Germany so was Australia. Australia only ratified the statute in 1942, but backdated to 1939.

But we did. We could of helped France to finish the Maginot Line, and sat behind it, until we had the technology to blitz Germany from the air and blockade it. Instead servicemen laid down their lives in their hundreds of thousands so that the world could be free.

All Poles do though is *****. No concept of gratitude, which shows a certain bitterness and loser mentality, and there is your national psyche in a nutshell.

Care to expand rozumiemnic? Do you dispute that Britain did not have an attack force worthy of the name in 1939?

How exactly? To my knowledge British soldiers never landed in Poland to help repel the Nazi or Soviet invasions, despite their mutual defense treaty - which Poland honored to Britain by providing pilots but Britain did not.


No they didn't. The Brits and French had a ton of catching up to do to the Nazis and even the British government of the time admitted this.

Polish historian Paweł Wieczorkiewicz wrote: "Polish leaders were not aware of the fact that England and France were not ready for war. They needed time to catch up with the Third Reich, and were determined to gain the time at any price". Publicist Stanisław Mackiewicz stated in the late 1940s: "To accept London's guarantees was one of the most tragic dates in the history of Poland. It was a mental aberration and madness"

The Brits APPEASED HITLER - they were flat out scared of him - that's why they gave him the Sudetenland thinking it would satisfy his cravings for territory.... but he took over ALL OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA and still they did nothing.... then Hitler attacked nothing and all they did was declare war... they talked the talk that they'd help Poland, and even signed the paperwork before the war pledging to help Poland will all it's might (which they clearly didn't in September 1939 after PL was invaded)... they didn't do anything until Hitler was basically right at their doorstep.

@Dougpol1
The loser here would love to learn why she should be so grateful.

Seems it's impossible to have a discussion without insults ...

300k-400k Brits (including all British colonies and territories, combatants and non) perished in WW2. They had one of the smallest body counts of all the major WW2 powers.


You claim to abhor xenophobia, racism, etc yet here you are making very racist statements against Polish people. Why are you in Poland if you claim that all we do is complain, are never grateful, are always bitter and have a loser mentality? You make a lot of complaints about Poland, Polish people, the government, ZUS, yet here you are - in Poland - with no plans to leave. Clearly we losers are doing something right if you're still here. Would you call your Polish neighbors losers? Are the Poles around you aware of your anti-Polish sentiments?

We have nothing to be grateful for from the Brits for their ww2 contribution. They didn't help Poles in any significant way in WW2. I can't think of any battles which were in Poland in which Poles and Brits fought together against the Nazis. The only times when Poles and Brits fought together against the Nazis was to help Britain repel invasion and the Luftwaffe - so you should be the ones thankful and gracious for our contribution, not the other way around as Brits didn't contribute in any meaningful way in Polish territory. All they did was declare war against Hitler in September 1939. but they BROKE THEIR WORD - NAMELY THE MUTUAL DEFENSE TREATY - and did not immediately rush in tanks, planes, and soldiers en masse to help the Poles repel the Nazis in their September campaign. If they did do that, even if they failed, then yes we would have much to be grateful for.

Not necessarily targeted at you Dolno....
I think you will find it was Roosevelt who was too weak to stand up to the Soviet proposals, and I also believe you will find that Oppenheimer et al were American, and the bomb had as much Englishness in it as a T bone steak.

Churchill is innocent, just guilty of being an 20th century aristocratic drunk. But wait - Poles don't recognise heroes do they? Instead they demean their achievements, when others were soiling their pants inside and outside the Lenin shipyard - and instead give them cartoon character names and ***** about what they did or didn't do in 1970..............

So maybe we shouldn't be surprised. But Dirk really shouldn't be slandering the greatest Briton in living memory. That's disrespectful.


Are the Poles around you aware that your family aided the communists?

Lol Dirk - you are young, and an idealist. I used to think like you, and wonder why we didn't do that.
Then I listened to the facts as to why not. I commend them to you. Search and you will find them.

Well, that's it, isn't it? Nobody said we should all be the same. Maybe Brits and Poles aren't so alike after all? We fight, and then move on.

Poles - it wasn't so long ago that Katowice was plastered with billboards reminding people on every street corner of the 70th anniversary of Katyn. That is a certain type of melancholy, which I don't think the British could share if such a national tragedy had befallen us.

As to the other point, I hold by my statement that some Poles, who ought to know better, are an ungrateful bunch.

When did I slander Churchill? This is the second time today i'm calling you out on your poor reading comprehension. Or perhaps its just time for thicker glasses... I clearly said that unlike a bunch of the other allies leader, Churchill had balls and WANTED to take back Poland from the USSR in Operation Unthinkable. Due to all the suffering and deaths which already happened due to WW2 and certainly a lot more if Brits invaded, they decided against it.

Churchill was indeed a great leader. He's the one British WW2 figure that Poles respect for his views on helping Poland.


That's all the Brits did - think and talk.... not act.... So please don't say that the British helped Poland and we should be grateful for their assistance when the fact is they didn't provide any meaningful support. There were no British marines landing in Westerplatte, there were no challenger or MK tanks rolling through the Polish countryside, there were no Spitfires over Warsaw when it was bombed, etc. The most they did was give Poland a 9 mil pound LOAN - not even a grant - a military LOAN which was a miniscule fraction out of the nearly 500 mil pound loan the Poles requested to beef up their defenses.


We aided communists in the same way you're currently aiding PiS

Everyone is aware of your hatred of Polish people which came out in your last post. Quite a Freudian slip. Sorry, once you say that Poles have a loser mentality you can't go back on that... Your fellow Poles should be aware of the way you feel about them. I don't think the students you tutor would appreciate being told that their countrymen have a loser mentality and are a bunch of ingrates.

:)) Sorry Dirk. You are right. It was TheOther who used the "..sold out...cliche".


Those of them that bang on and on and on about something that happened so long ago, then yes. Absolutely. One of those included a doctor on the 500 strong Polish medical council who I used to co-operate with. Sad really.

Told ya. I have mad respect for Churchill. He wasn't scared to speak his mind. He was almost like an aristocratic British Donald Trump in a way. Poles view Churchill far more positively than Roosevelt. If there's one person that escapes the 'western betrayal' ideas that many Poles have it's definitely Churchill.

One of my favorite essays from his are Zionism versus Bolshevism. A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People in which he describes the various subversive ways in which Zionists/Jews have subverted the societies and governments in which they lived and offers further evidence of zydokomuna.


Understandably so - every nationality, race, religion, etc. has that. But then don't say that Poles (in general) have a loser mentality... If you told that to almost any Pole they'd be deeply offended, if you said that to a NOP guy or your local soccer club followers you'd probably get your teeth knocked out. Just be conscious of things like that. I know that you're not racist and you don't despise Polish people (can't say the same about some PF members though) but by saying generalizations like that you can upset Poles around you.

Which other group of people constantly bangs on and on and on about something that happened so long ago???? I'll give you a hint... it begins with a j and ends with an ew

Dirk, there is no point going round in circles and destroying your own argument. We destroyed the Nazis together, you can live in any country you want, your land is free - why not appreciate all that is good? Is that really so hard?


Yep - that has been discredited as absolutely disgraceful drunken rant.

and that too is in a way understandable... but come on its been over 60 years, billions upon billions of dollars, and an entire country stolen from the local inhabitants in a similar way US was stolen from natives - it's time to focus on the 70 million others who also perished in WW2. There's hardly any memoirs, media attention, reparations, etc going to those nations even though their victim counts were about as high (such as Poland or France) or even far higher (like Russia) than the amount of Jewish casualties


Of course the Nazis were defeated due to the Allies' combined effort. We're talking about Poland specifically though. Earlier you claimed 'we had pledged to defend Poland, and we so attempted to do' which is not true and also 'If we hadn't declared war, it might have been better' in which case that was England's obligation under the mutual defense treaty - which they broke anyway because they did not provide material support as the treaty stipulated


A drunken mind speaks a SOBER HEART... just because he was drunk when he wrote it doesn't make it less important... plenty of painters authors artists etc made their works when under the influence and are now priceless treasures

When President Dougpol is in power I shall demand that the Swedes and the Swiss serve penance for wiping their hands of humanity. Pure scum.

Why because they were neutral? I'm not as aware about the situation of the Swedes in WW2 as I am the Swiss. I don't see anything wrong with what they did. In fact, it was extremely wise to be the secret banker for both sides. Neutrality in conflict is written in the Swiss constitution - they'd have to change their constitution if they want to fight or ally with some power

I gtg im bout to be off work... nice chatting with you doug and everyone else... have a good weekend and be safe everyone

The frogs were also the problem. What were they doing with a purely defensive army? If they had struck at the Rhineland and Ruhr it would have been a mortal blow for the Krauts. The first thing was to contain the German fleet so that we could blockade Germany. Unfortunately that didn't come to pass and the genie was out of the bottle. If only we had listened to Churchill in 1933, and armed up, but he was the subject of ridicule because of his stint as Lord of the Admiralty and prolonging the First World War, trying to help Carnogracs' grandfathers after they fucvked up:((


Extremely cowardly you mean? As for the Swedes, some papers recently came to light, and were printed in the Manchester Guardian, that basically said, "We (rightly) stayed out of the First World War, and we'll stay out of this one too, because we don't want our land to be destroyed, and we don't want to be a party to this dispute" (or words to that effect).

You have to feel sorry for such a people.

Same to you!

The Brits for example. Just read the Daily Fail: every day at least one article about WW2.


Depends:

bbc.com/news/magazine-29701767
independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-the-dark-side-of-winston-churchill-2118317.htm

Yes yes TheOther. Everybody knows about those "blips" on Churchills' character and the gross misjudgements, rabid colonialism and so on. Are you trying to say that an aristocratic statesman of those interesting times could have been a solely populist humanitarian, beaming with platitudes as he handed out little parcels of goodies to kids in the streets, and not by necessity of war have to go on to press buttons on the phone in his war room that killed the corresponding kids in the streets in other countries?

Can you name such a person in history - such a statesman who actually went on to save our way of life and civilisation as we know it, so that we can be free to talk about this today? Of course the ruling classes loved the Churchill myth - and were heavily biased in the mans' favour, (so the writer is able to set the facts as he sees them) those who dislike the supposed Anglo-Saxon superior air (in your case through an accident of birth) will grasp at anything to attempt to dilute the legacy - and ignore the fact that Churchill invariably clears the table with all comers every single time in the gloriously cliched "surveys" to see who is the greatest Briton of recorded time.

In exactly the same way Poles engage in character assassination of one of their own, who will go down in history as a great Pole long after the twins have been forgotten:)

None was helping Poland. So none was the first.
Poland made a mistake to put itself willingly between an anvil and a hard place. In the hair brain idea it has iron balls.
The Brits and Frogs sinned only as a cheering bystanders - saying you will be OK man, if anything you can count on us. After all it was not their balls on stake.


Yes yes Dougie. Save us out of the mill, working calls patriotism is endearing but it makes you look like a fool.

Anybody who is interested in Churchill could do worse than spend a couple of hours watching Darkest Hour (czas mokru), a tour de force by Gary Oldman (when isn't he good?)

A very realistic portrayal of Churchills' early struggles in the War Cabinet to avoid any peace talks with the Axis - a negotiated "peace" which would have probably doomed Poland to be carved up for at least another 146 years between totalitarian despots on either side of the continent.

Instead of course, Britain took on 140 billion pounds in war debt.
It's now time for revisionists to teach Polish schoolchildren that their parents were brainwashed by the state against the world owing it's freedom today to the greatest war time leader of recorded times.

That sounds like some one scary movie but there is no way Gary Oldman played in there.

Doug, you are stupid even by English standards. The Adolf dude, Stalin dude and the Japanese folks would have triggered off the global conflict no matter what. You nutjobs will soon start blaming Poles for WW2.


Funny how you dudes are so lefty and "internationalistic" when it comes to Poland and Poles, but when it's your country, it's always "greatest". Dude, reality check. The whole British input into WW2 was 2nd rate (the main thing was that it served as a starting point for Yanks to open the 2nd front in Europe) and a lot of "British forces" were actually Canadians, Poles, Australians etc.

If not for the English channel, Krauts would have taken London within several days. The English did as little as it was possible during WW2. Amazing that some pinks now point fingers at others.

Didnt churchill say the secret to long life is to drink smoke and never exercise?

The allies were all about appeasing hitlers thirst for territory. It wasnt till a 3rd invasion by hitler that they actually declared war and it wouldnt be till hitler attacked france that england actually fought against the nazis, thus breaking their mutual defense treaty with poland to help immediately with military force. Not only did britain not do that in sep 1939, they wouldnt even loan poland money to buy more hardware. Hitler wanted the sudetenland and the allies gave it to him. Then when he took over all of czechoslovakia they did nothing. Same when hitler annexed Austria albeit he was welcome although that was certainly one of maby violations of the treaty of Versailles that hitler broke again and again amd again with the allies just watching. Even after rapid territorial expansion they sat on their hands just as they did when hitler invaded poland. The brits never helped poland in any meaningful way. Id argue the poles helped the brits more than the brits helped the poles. Reason why is because poles defended british soil and participated in the air campaigns. Britain didnt have its soldiers, pilots, marines etc on polish land fighting against the nazis. They helped france and belgium and were on the ground there fighting against hitlers forces, but not in poland.

Besides its history we can talk about wouldve shouldve couldve but facts are facts. Germany was defeated yet ended up becoming thr most powerful country atleast economically and probably politically in the eu anyway. Now their political and social stability is under grave threat due to terrorism and the migrant crisis