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{{Short description|Concept in international relations among European countries}}
{{refimprove|date=November 2011}}
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{{EngvarB|date=October 2018}}
]: ] (UK), ] (USA), and ] (USSR)]]
'''Western betrayal''' is the view that the ], ] and the ] failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military and moral obligations to the ]ns and ] before, during and after ]. It also sometimes refers to the treatment of other ] and ]an states by those three nations.


The concept primarily derives from several events, including British and French ] towards ] during its 1938 ] and the perceived failure of Britain and France to adequately assist the Poles during the German ] in 1939. It also derives from concessions made by American and British political leaders to the ] during the ], ], and ] and their limited response during the 1944 ] along with post-war events, which allocated Poland to the ] as part of the ].
]: ], ], and ]]]
'''Western betrayal''' is a term that refers to a range of critical views concerning the ] of the ], ] and ] between approximately 1938 and 1968 regarding Central and Eastern Europe. Historically it was intertwined with some of the most significant geopolitical events of the 20th century, including the rise and empowerment of the ] (]), the rise of the ] (USSR) as a dominant ] with control of large parts of ], and various treaties, alliances, and positions taken during and after ], and so on into the ].


Historically, such views were intertwined with some of the most significant geopolitical events of the 20th century, including the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, the emergency of the Soviet Union as a dominant ] exerting control over large parts of Europe after ], and various treaties, alliances, and positions during the ]. The view of the "Western betrayal" has been criticized as political scapegoating by Central and Eastern Europeans.
==The perception of betrayal==
The perception of betrayal on the part of the peoples in the territories caught between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union comes about because the ] promoted democracy and ], signing pacts and forming ]s prior and during World War II, but subsequently failed to meet the expectations raised by those pacts. Examples include ] before World War II in which the Allies of the West, such as ] and ], were annexed or conquered by Nazi Germany without regard for earlier treaties that ostensibly provided support or protection, the ceding of countries and territories to the Soviet regime after World War II, and the refusal to take firm action against Soviet acts of repression or in support of uprisings while simultaneously claiming the role of supporting freedom and democracy.


==Perception of betrayal==
In a few cases deliberate duplicity is alleged, whereby secret agreements or intentions are claimed to have existed in conflict with understandings given publicly. For example, there was Churchill's taking the position with the USSR (in secret) that the ] did not apply to the ].


According to professors Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler, Western betrayal is a reference to a sense of historical and moral responsibility for the West's abandonment of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War.<ref name="google"/><ref name="research"/> In Central and Eastern Europe, the interpretation of the outcomes of the ] of 1938 and the ] of 1945 as a betrayal of Central and Eastern Europe by Western powers has been used by Central and Eastern European leaders to put pressure on Western countries to acquiesce to more recent political requests such as membership in ] and ].<ref name="google1"/>
In the case of the ] and its aftermath, some historians{{Who|date=December 2009}} argue that ] Winston Churchill and U.S. President ] had little or no option but to accept the demands of their erstwhile ally, the ] ] in the ], and later in the Yalta Conference and the ] (attended by President ] after the death of Roosevelt).


In a few cases deliberate duplicity is alleged, whereby secret agreements or intentions are claimed to have existed in conflict with understandings given publicly. An example is British Prime Minister ]'s covert concordance with the ], in which he stated that the ] did not apply to the ]. Given the strategic requirements of winning the war, retired American diplomat Charles G. Stefan argued Churchill and U.S. President ] had no option but to accept the demands of their erstwhile ally, ] ], at the Tehran, Yalta, and ] conferences.<ref name="unc"/>
Alternative suggestions include some of the causes to misjudgments by the Soviet Union, such as concerning Nazi Germany a decade earlier (with the ]). Other historians{{Who|date=November 2009}} suggest that Churchill urged President Roosevelt to continue armed conflict in Europe in 1945 - but carried out against the Soviet Union, to prevent the USSR from extending its control west of its own borders. However, Roosevelt apparently trusted Stalin's assurances, and he was unwilling to support Churchill in ensuring the liberation of all of ] west of the USSR. Without American backing, the United Kingdom, with its strength exhausted by six years of war, was unable to take any military actions in that part of Europe.


There was also a lack of military or political support for the ] rebels during the ] in 1953, during the ],<ref name="ALLIANCES: How to Help Hungary"/> and during the ] in 1968 (the so-called "]"). According to Ilya Prizel, the "preoccupation with their historical sense of 'damaged self' fueled resentment" towards the West generally and reinforced the western betrayal concept in particular.<ref name="google7"/> ] argues that damage to central European national psyches left by the Western "betrayal" at Yalta and Munich remained a "psychological event" or "psychiatric issue" during debates over ] expansion.<ref name="google8"/>
Specific instances sometimes considered to exemplify the concept by historical and contemporary writers include the annexation of most of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany under the ] of 1938, the abandonment of ] during the ] of September 1939 and during the ] against Nazi Germany in 1944{{Synthesis-inline|date=April 2011}},<ref>http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/20%20Article.htm</ref> and the acceptance of the Soviet abrogation of the ] of 1944. In the latter, the Major Allies against Nazi Germany agreed to secure democratic processes for the countries that would be liberated from Nazi rule, such as ], ], ], Poland, Czechoslovakia, ], ], ], ], and ].


===Criticism of the concept===
Also, there was the seeming lack of military or political support for the ] rebels during the uprising in ] in 1953, during the ],<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,808812,00.html | work=Time | title=ALLIANCES: How to Help Hungary | date=December 24, 1956}}</ref> and during the democracy-oriented reforms in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (the so-called "]").

] stated that he did not think "betrayal is the appropriate word" regarding the Allies' role in the ].<ref name="Poles mark 1944 Warsaw uprising"/> While complaints of "betrayal" are common in politics generally,<ref name="harpers"/> the idea of a western betrayal can also be seen as a political scapegoat in both Central and Eastern Europe<ref name="contemporary"/>{{verify source|date=June 2012}} and a partisan electioneering phrase among the former ].<ref name="google10"/> Historian ] maintains betrayal myths were used in part by those opposing US membership in the ].<ref name="google10"/>{{verify source|date=June 2012}} The word "Yalta" came to stand for the appeasement of ] and abandonment of freedom.<ref name="google11"/>


==Czechoslovakia== ==Czechoslovakia==
{{See also|German occupation of Czechoslovakia}} {{See also|German occupation of Czechoslovakia}}


===Munich Conference===
The term Western betrayal ({{lang-cz|zrada Západu}}) was coined after the ] (1938) when Czechoslovakia was forced to cede part of its area (the mostly German-populated ]) to Germany, losing the system of ] and means of viable defence against the German invasion <ref>http://www.vscht.cz/homepage/english/main/services/czechrepublic</ref><ref>Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN 1997, vol. VI, 981.</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=World War II: A Political, Social, and Military History|author=Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts|year=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=1-57607-999-6}}</ref> (see ] - the country was eventually ]). This exposed Czechoslovak citizens to the ] and its atrocities. Czech politicians joined the newspapers in regularly using the term and it, along with the associated feelings, became a stereotype among ]. The Czech terms ''Mnichov'' (Munich), ''Mnichovská zrada'' (''Munich betrayal''), ''Mnichovský diktát'' (''Munich Dictate'') and ''zrada spojenců'' (''betrayal of the allies'') were coined at the same time and have the same meaning. Poet ] published a poem with verse about "ringing bell of betrayal".<ref>], ''Torzo naděje'' (1938), poem ''Zpěv úzkosti'', "Zvoní zvoní zrady zvon zrady zvon, Čí ruce ho rozhoupaly, Francie sladká hrdý Albion, a my jsme je milovali"</ref> Winston Churchill himself said: "Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war".<ref>{{cite book|last=Hyde|first=Harlow A.|title=Scraps of paper: the disarmament treaties between the world wars|year=1988|publisher=Media Publishing & Marketing,U.S.|location=pgae 307|isbn=978-0-939644-46-9|pages=456}}</ref>
The term ''Betrayal of the West'' ({{langx|cs|zrada Západu}}, {{langx|sk|zrada Západu}}) was coined after the 1938 ] when Czechoslovakia was forced to cede the mostly German-populated ] to Germany. The region contained the ] and means of viable defence against German invasion.<ref name="vscht"/><ref name="encyklopedia"/><ref name="World War II: A Political, Social, and Military History"/> Poland would take ] from Czechoslovakia, while the ] returned territories to Hungary. The next year, by the proclamation of the ], Czechoslovakia was dissolved, the next day the remainder of ] was occupied and annexed by Hungary, while the next day Germany occupied the remaining ] and proclaimed the ].


Along with Italy and Nazi Germany, the Munich treaty was signed by Britain and France, both allied ot Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was allied by treaty with France so it would be obliged to help Czechoslovakia if it was attacked.<ref>Text in League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 23, pp. 164–169.</ref> Czech politicians joined the newspapers in regularly using the term ''Western betrayal'' and it, along with the associated feelings, became a stereotype among ]. The Czech terms ''Mnichov'' (Munich), ''Mnichovská zrada'' (''Munich betrayal''), ''Mnichovský diktát'' (''Munich Dictate''), and ''zrada spojenců'' (''betrayal of the allies'') were coined at the same time and have the same meaning. Poet ] published a poem with verse about "ringing bell of betrayal".<ref name="rozhoupaly"/>
After the Communist Party assumed all power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, the betrayal was frequently referenced in propaganda. This interpretation of history was official and the only one allowed.


Then ] for ], ] said: "Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war".<ref name="Scraps of paper: the disarmament treaties between the world wars"/>
==Poland==
===First World War aftermath===


===Prague uprising===
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a complicated set of alliances was established amongst the nations of Europe, in the hope of preventing future wars (either with Germany or Soviet Russia). With the rise of Nazism in Germany, this system of alliances was strengthened by the signing of a series of "mutual assistance" alliances between France, Britain, and Poland (] and ]). This agreement stated that in the event of war the other allies were to fully mobilize and carry out a "ground intervention within two weeks" in support of the ally being attacked<ref name="Ajnenkiel">{{pl icon}} {{cite book| author =]| title =Polsko-francuski sojusz wojskowy| year =2000| publisher =]| location =Warsaw}}</ref><ref name="Ciałowicz">{{pl icon}} {{cite book| author =Jan Ciałowicz| title =Polsko-francuski sojusz wojskowy, 1921–1939| year =1971| publisher =]| location =Warsaw}}</ref><ref name="Raczyński">{{en icon}} {{cite book| author =Count ]| title =The British-Polish Alliance; Its Origin and Meaning| year =1948| publisher =The Mellville Press| location =London}}</ref>
{{see also|Prague uprising}}


On 5 May 1945, the citizens of ] learned of the American invasion of Czechoslovakia by the US Third Army and revolted against German occupation. In four days of street fighting, thousands of Czechs were killed. Tactical conditions were favourable for an American advance, and General ], in command of the army, requested permission to continue eastward to the ] river in order to aid the Czech partisans fighting in Prague. This was denied by General ], who was disinclined to accept American casualties or risk antagonising the Soviet Union. As a result, Prague was liberated on 9 May by the Red Army, significantly increasing the standing of the ]. According to a British diplomat, this was the moment that "Czechoslovakia was now definitely lost to the West."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Olson |first1=Lynne |title=Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War |date=2018 |publisher=Random House Publishing Group |isbn=9780812987164 |page=429 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-xVHDwAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref>
===Up to 1939===
====Diplomacy====
In the years following the end of World War I and the Polish-Soviet War, Poland had signed alliances with many European powers. The most important were the military alliance with France signed on February 19, 1921 and the defensive alliance with Romania of March 3, 1921. The alliance with France was a major factor in Polish inter-war foreign relations, and was seen as the main warrant of peace in Central Europe; Poland's military doctrine was heavily influenced by this alliance as well.


==Poland==
The ] was signed on July 25, 1932 by representatives of the ] and the USSR. On January 26, 1934 another important treaty, the ], was signed between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic in which both parties pledged to resolve any differences through bilateral negotiations and to forgo armed conflict for a period of ten years thus effectively normalising relations between Poland and Germany.


===World War I aftermath===
As World War II was nearing, both the French and Polish governments started to look for a renewal of the bilateral promises. This was accomplished in May 1939, when general ] signed a secret protocol (later ratified by both governments) to the ] with general ]. It was agreed that France would grant Poland a military credit "as soon as possible". In case of war with Germany, France promised to start minor land and air military operations at once, and to start a major offensive "(with the majority of its forces)" not later than 15 days after the ].


In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a complex set of alliances was established among the nations of Europe, in the hope of preventing future wars (either with Germany or the Soviet Union). With the rise of Nazism in Germany, this system of alliances was strengthened by the signing of a series of "mutual assistance" alliances between France, Britain, and Poland (]). This agreement with France stated that in the event of war the other allies were to fully mobilise and carry out a "ground intervention within two weeks" in support of the ally being attacked.<ref name="Ajnenkiel"/><ref name="Ciałowicz"/><ref name="Raczyński"/> The ] stated that in the event of hostilities with a European power, the other contracting party would give "all the support and assistance in its power."<ref>{{cite web |title=ANGLO-POLISH AGREEMENT. |url=http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/bb/bb-078.html |website=www.ibiblio.org}}</ref>
On March 30, 1939, the government of the United Kingdom pledged to defend Poland, in the event of a German attack, and Romania in case of "other threats". The reason for the British-issued "guarantee" of Romania and Poland was a panic-stricken ''ad hoc'' reaction to rumours (later proven to be false) of an imminent German descent on Romania in late March 1939. A German seizure of ] would ensure that in any future Anglo-German war, a British naval ] would not starve Germany of oil. From ]'s point of view, it was imperative to keep the oil wells of Romania out of German hands.


According to Krzysztof Źwikliński, additionally representatives of the Western powers made several military promises to Poland, including designs as those made by British General ] in his July 1939 talks with Marshall Rydz-Śmigły who promised an attack from the direction of ], or placing a British ] in the Baltic.<ref name="krzysztof"/> However, the Anglo-Polish alliance did not make that commitment, and the British commitment to France was for four divisions in Europe within 30 days of the outbreak of war, which was met.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bond |first1=Brian |title=The Battle for France & Flanders Sixty Years On |date=2001 |publisher=Pen and Sword |isbn=978-0-85052-811-4}}</ref>
The British "guarantee" of Poland was only of Polish independence, and pointedly excluded Polish territorial integrity. "The reasons for the guarantee policy are nowhere more clearly stated than in a memorandum by the Foreign Office, composed in the summer of 1939, which submitted that it was essential to prevent Hitler from "expanding easterwards, and obtaining control of the resources of Central and Eastern Europe," which would enable him "to turn upon the Western countries with overwhelming force."<ref name="Borsody">{{en icon}} {{cite book| author =]| title =The New Central Europe| year =1994| publisher =]| location =New York| isbn =1-882785-03-7| url =http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/newce/}}</ref> The basic goal of British foreign policy between 1919-1939 was to prevent another world war by a mixture of "carrot and stick". The "stick" in this case was the "guarantee" of March 1939, which was intended to prevent Germany from attacking either Poland or Romania.


===Beginning of World War II, 1939===
This declaration was further amended in April, when Poland's minister of foreign affairs Colonel ] met with Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. In the aftermath of the talks, a mutual assistance treaty was signed. On August 25 the ] was signed as an annex to Polish-French alliance. Like the "guarantee" of March 30, the Anglo-Polish Agreement committed Britain only to the defence of Polish independence against a "a European power" but it was clearly aimed against German aggression. However the text of the treaty had been supplemented by a secret protocol which defined "a European power" as Germany, so the government of the United Kingdom did not have a treaty obligation to help Poland fight the Soviet Union.<ref>{{citation |first=Anthony |last=Eden |title=Memorandum. Anglo-Polish Agreement of 1939. |url=http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/ExternalRequest.asp?RequestReference=CAB+66%2F53%2F38 |id= WP (44) 438 / CAB 66/53/38 |publisher=]}}</ref> In case of war, United Kingdom was to start hostilities as soon as possible, and joining the struggle on land as soon as the ] arrived in France. In addition, a military credit was granted and armament was to reach Polish or Romanian ports in "early autumn".


On the eve of the Second World War, the Polish government tried to buy as much armaments as it could and was asking for arms loans from Britain and France. As a result of that in the summer of 1939 Poland placed orders for 160 French ] fighters, and for 111 British airplanes (100 light bombers ], 10 ], and 1 ]).<ref name="Wojciech Mazur">{{cite journal |last1=Mazur |first1=Wojciech |title=Pomocnik Historyczny |journal=Polityka |date=March 2009 |volume=3/2009 |pages=103}}</ref> Although some of these planes had been shipped to Poland before 1 September 1939, none took part in combat. Shipments were interrupted due to the outbreak of war. The total amount of the loan from British government was also much smaller than asked for. Britain agreed to lend 8 million pounds, but Poland was asking for 60 million.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wojciech |first1=Mazur |title=Dozbrojenie last minute |journal=Polityka |date=n.d. |volume=3/2009 |issue=3/2009 |page=103}}</ref>
On May 4, 1939, a meeting was held in Paris, at which it was decided that "the fate of Poland depends on the final outcome of the war, which will depend on our ability to defeat Germany rather than to aid Poland at the beginning." Poland's government was not notified of this decision, and the Polish–British talks in London were continued. A full military alliance treaty was ready to be signed on August 22, but ] postponed the signing until August 25, 1939.


Upon the ] by Nazi Germany in September 1939, after giving Germany an ultimatum on 1 September, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September, and a British ] was initiated. ] was appointed commander of the ], and placed under the command of French ] of the North-eastern Theatre of Operations, as agreed before the war. On 4 September, an ] raid against ] was conducted, and the BEF began its shipment to France.
At the same time secret German-Soviet talks were held in ] which resulted in signing of the ] in the early hours of August 24. The full text of the treaty, including the secret protocol assuming a partition of Poland and Soviet military help to Germany in case of war, was known to the British <!-- really? ]'s page says only the Americans were told -->government thanks to ], an American informer in the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yet Poland's government was not informed of this fact either.<ref name="Bohlen">{{en icon}} {{cite book| author =]| title =Witness to history, 1929-1969| year =1973| pages =562| publisher =Norton| isbn =978-0-393-07476-5}}</ref>


The German forces reached Warsaw on 8 September, and on 14 September, Marshal ] ordered Polish forces to withdraw to the ]. On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, and Polish Army in the field was effectively defeated before the divisions of the BEF could arrive in France. The first two BEF divisions, which took their place in the French line and change of command, on 3 October, and two further BEF divisions took their place in the French line on 12 October.
====Phoney War====
{{Main|Phoney War|Invasion of Poland (1939)}}


France had committed to undertaking a ground offensive within two weeks of the outbreak of war. The French initiated full mobilisation and began the limited ] on 7 September, sending 40 divisions into the region. The French assault was slowed down by out-dated doctrines, minefields, and the French lacked mine detectors. When the French reached artillery range of the ], they found that their shells could not penetrate the German defences. The French decided to regroup an attack on 20 September, but when Poland was invaded by the Soviet Union on 17 September, any further assault was called off.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Andrew |first1=Knighton |title=Did You Know? The French Army Invaded Germany in 1939 To Support The Polish |url=https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/did-you-know-the-french-army-invaded-germany-in-1939.html?edg-c=1 |website=War History Online |date=27 February 2016 |access-date=2 March 2022}}</ref> Around 13 September, the Polish military envoy to France, general ], upon receiving the text of the message sent by Gamelin, alerted Marshal Śmigły: "I received the message by General Gamelin. Please don't believe a single word in the dispatch".<ref name="krzysztof" />
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Britain and France declared war on Germany after ultimatums to withdraw expired on September 3. The pledge would not have obliged France and the United Kingdom to declare war on the Soviet Union due to the actual wording of the pact that specifically named Germany as the potential aggressor. This was kept secret for diplomatic reasons.<ref>http://en.wikisource.org/Agreement_of_Mutual_Assistance_between_the_United_Kingdom_and_Poland-London_%281939%29</ref> Additionally, the Polish government ordered its troops not to engage the Soviets in hostilities, to yield territory and to withdraw; it did not declare war on the Soviet Union, nor did it publicly acknowledge the existence of a state of war with the Soviet Union. The United Kingdom and France enforced a naval blockade on Germany and seized German ships starting with the declaration of war.


It had been decided that no major air operations against Germany would take place. This was due to French concerns over reprisals on RAF launches from French airfields, against targets in Germany, so most British bomber activity over Germany was the dropping of propaganda leaflets and reconnaissance.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ellis |first1=L. F. |title=The war in France and Flanders |date=2004 |publisher=Naval & Military Press |location=London |isbn=978-1-84574-056-6}}</ref> This theme would continue in subsequent ]. Afterwards, French military leader ] issued orders prohibiting Polish military envoys Lieutenant Wojciech Fyda and General Stanisław Burhardt-Bukacki from contacting him.<ref name="krzysztof" /> In his post-war diaries, General Edmund Ironside, the chief of the Imperial General Staff, commented on French promises: "The French had lied to the Poles in saying they are going to attack. There is no idea of it".<ref>{{cite book |title=Why air forces fail: the anatomy of defeat|first1=Robin D. S. |last1=Higham|first2=Stephen |last2=John|publisher =Harris University Press of Kentucky|date=2006}}</ref>
], head of the ]]]
According to the ], the French Army was to start preparations for the major offensive three days after the mobilisation started. The French forces were to effectively gain control over the area between the French border and the German ] and to probe the German defences. On the 15th day of the mobilisation (that is on September 16), the French Army was to start a full scale assault on Germany. The pre-emptive mobilisation was started in France on August 26, and on September 1, the full mobilisation was declared. A French offensive in the ] valley area (]) started on September 7. Eleven French divisions (out of 102 being mobilized) advanced along a 32&nbsp;km line near ] with negligible German opposition. However, the half-hearted offensive was halted after France seized the Warndt Forest, three square miles of heavily-] German territory. At the same time the U.K., conducted a number of air raids against the German ] on September 4, 1939, losing two ] and five ] bombers in the action.<ref> World War II timeline for 1939</ref><ref> German ''Chronik des Seekriegs''</ref> On September 11, the leaflet raids were halted.


On 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union ], as agreed in advance with Germany following the signing of the ]. Britain and France did not take any ] in response to the Soviet invasion.<ref>{{cite book |ref=Reference-Prazmowska |author-link=Anita Prazmowska |last=Prazmowska |first=Anita J. |year=1995 |title=Britain and Poland 1939–1943: The Betrayed Ally |location=Cambridge | publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-48385-9|pages=44–45}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|ref=Reference-Hiden-Lane |title=The Baltic and the Outbreak of the Second World War| publisher=] |year=2003 |first1=John |last1=Hiden |first2=Thomas |last2 = Lane |isbn=978-0-521-53120-7}}
Both the pre-war reports of the Polish intelligence and the post-war testimonies of German generals (most notably of ] and ]) reported that there was an equivalent of less than 20 divisions facing France in 1939, as compared to roughly 90 French divisions. On the other hand, German orders of battle show 33 infantry divisions, plus eleven newly raised infantry divisions, plus the equivalent of six border guard divisions, all under command of Army Group C. Similarly, most of the ] and all armoured units were then in Poland while the Siegfried Line was severely under-manned and far from completed, while most of the ] fighter units were still in the West, thus granting German air superiority. Knowing all of the above, the Polish commanders hoped that the French offensive would quickly break the German lines and force the ] to withdraw a large part of its forces fighting on Polish soil back to German western frontier. This would force Germany to fight a costly two-front war.
* {{Citation | last = Hill | first = Alexander | title = The Red Army and the Second World War | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2017 | isbn = 978-1-107-02079-5|page=148}}</ref> However, the terms of the Anglo-Polish alliance specifically applied to invasion from Germany only.


France and Britain were unable to launch a successful land attack on Germany in September 1939, and Poland was overcome by both the Germans and Soviets on 6 October, with the last Polish units capitulating that day following the ].<ref>{{cite book|title=Panzers at War 1939-1942|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zzBForupwBoC&pg=PT67|publisher=Coda Books Ltd|isbn=978-1-908538-24-6|page=67}}</ref> However, even by the end of October, the still-forming British Expeditionary Force totaled only 4 divisions compared to the 25 German divisions in Western Germany, making a British invasion of Germany unlikely to succeed.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ww2-weapons.com/german-orders-of-battle-for-september-1-1939/|title = German Orders of Battle for September 1, 1939|date = 24 August 2020}}</ref>
The French assault was to be carried out by roughly 40 divisions, including one armoured division, three mechanized divisions, 78 artillery regiments and 40 tank battalions. All the necessary forces were mobilised in the first week of September. On September 12, the ] gathered for the first time at ] in France. It was decided that all offensive actions were to be halted immediately. By then, the French divisions had advanced approximately eight kilometres into Germany on a 24 kilometres long strip of the frontier in the Saarland area. ] ordered his troops to stop ''not closer than 1 kilometre'' from the German positions along the Siegfried Line. Poland was not notified of this decision. Instead, Gamelin informed marshal ] that half of his divisions are in contact with the enemy, and that French advances have forced the ] to withdraw at least six divisions from Poland. The following day, the commander of the ], General ], informed the Polish Chief of Staff, General ], that the planned major offensive on the western front had to be postponed from September 17 to September 20. At the same time, French divisions were ordered to retreat to their barracks along the ]. The Phoney War started. The French remained in control of a pocket in the Saarland. As a symbolic gesture, the 1st Polish Grenadier Division later raised in the French Army was stationed to occupy this German territory.


===Tehran, 1943===
The Allied attitude towards Poland in 1939 has been a subject of an ongoing dispute among historians ever since. Some historians<ref name="Moczulski-rz">{{pl icon}} {{cite journal | author =] | year =2009 | month =September | title =Zachód okazał się parszywieńki | journal =] | volume = | issue =28-08-2009 | pages = | id = | url =http://www.rp.pl/artykul/355422_Zachod_okazal_sie_parszywienki.html | accessdate =2009-09-17 }}</ref> argue that if only France had pursued the offensive agreed on in the treaties, it would have definitely been able to break through the unfinished Siegfried Line and force Germany to fight a costly two-front war that it was in no position to win. At the same time, others argue that France and Britain had promised more than they would deliver — especially when confronted with the option to declare war on the Soviet Union for violating Poland's territory on September 17, 1939 the way they had on Germany on September 3, 1939 (though in fact the pledge would not have obliged France and the United Kingdom to declare war on the Soviet Union due to the actual wording of the pact that specifically named Germany as the potential aggressor) — and that the French army was superior to the Wehrmacht in numbers only. It lacked the ]s, ]s, and offensive spirit necessary to attack Germany.


In November 1943, the ] (the USSR, US, and UK) met at the ]. President Roosevelt and PM Churchill officially agreed that the eastern borders of Poland would roughly follow the ].<ref name="The origins of the 'Teheran formula' on Polish frontiers"/> The Polish government-in-exile was not a party to this decision made in secret.<ref name="www"/><ref name="wajszczuk"/> The resulting loss of the ], or "eastern territories", approximately 48% of Poland's pre-war territory, to the Soviet Union was seen by the London Poles in exile as another "betrayal" by their Western "Allies".<ref name="google2"/> However, it was no secret to the Allies that before his death in July 1943 General ], Prime Minister of Poland's London-based government in exile had been the originator, and not Stalin, of the concept of a westward shift of Poland's boundaries along an ] as compensation for relinquishing Poland's eastern territories as part of a Polish rapprochement with the USSR.<ref name="Poland's Place in Europe: General Sikorski and the Origin of the Oder-Neisse Line, 1939-1943"/> ], who was Sikorski's special political advisor at the time, was also in agreement with Sikorski's concept of Poland's realigned post-war borders, later in his memoirs Retinger wrote: "At the Tehran Conference, in November 1943, the Big Three agreed that Poland should receive territorial compensation in the West, at Germany's expense, for the land it was to lose to Russia in Central and Eastern Europe. This seemed like a fair bargain."<ref name="Joseph Retinger: Memoirs of an Eminence Grise"/>
Though the Germans asked the Russians to invade Poland on September 3 no such action took place until September 17, 1939.


Churchill told Stalin he could settle the issue with the Poles once a decision was made in Tehran,<ref name="google3"/> however he never consulted the Polish leadership.<ref name="google4"/> When the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile ] attended the ], he was convinced he was coming to discuss borders that were still disputed, while Stalin believed everything had already been settled. This was the principal reason for the failure of the Polish Prime Minister's mission to Moscow.{{Citation needed|reason=Stalin and Molotv wanted the Lublin Poles, and never intended to negotiate anything with Mikołajczyk|date=January 2015}} The Polish premier allegedly begged for inclusion of ] and ] in the new Polish borders, but got the following reply from ]: "There is no use discussing that; it was all settled in Tehran."<ref name="time"/>
After the war, General Alfred Jodl commented that the Germans survived 1939 "only because approximately 110 French and British divisions in the West, which during the campaign on Poland were facing 25 German divisions, remained completely inactive."<ref name="resc">{{cite book | title=Rescued from the Reich: how one of Hitler's soldiers saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe | publisher=Yale University Press | author=Rigg, Bryan Mark | year=2004 | pages=14 | isbn=0-300-10448-0}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| title=The Life and Death of Nazi Germany |publisher=Random House | author=Goldstone, Robert| | year = 1985 | pages=127 | isbn=0-449-30030-7}}</ref>


===Warsaw Uprising, 1944===
In the end, many Poles believe that although Poland held out for five weeks, three weeks longer than was planned, it received no military aid from its allies, the United Kingdom and France. Additionally Poland never surrendered to either the Germans or Russians. The agreed upon "two week ground response" never materialized, and it is contended that Poland fell to the Nazis and the Soviets as a result. It is uncertain whether the British or French had any real capacity to launch a successful offensive on the German-French border before mid-October 1939. Nevertheless, an offensive within a two-week timeframe was what they had promised the Polish government.{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}}
{{main article|Lack of outside support during the Warsaw Uprising}}
].]]
Since the establishment of the Polish government-in-exile in Paris and then in London, the military commanders of the Polish army were focusing most of their efforts on preparation of a future all-national uprising against Germany. Finally the plans for ] were prepared and on 1 August 1944, the ] started. The Uprising was an armed struggle by the Polish ] to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule.


Despite the fact that Polish and later ] (RAF) planes flew missions over Warsaw dropping supplies from 4 August on, the ] (USAAF) planes did not join the operation. The Allies specifically requested the use of Red Army airfields near Warsaw on 20 August but were refused by Stalin on 22 August (he referred to the insurrectionists as "a handful of criminals"). After Stalin's objections to support for the uprising, Churchill telegraphed Roosevelt on 25 August and proposed sending planes in defiance of Stalin and to "see what happens". Roosevelt replied on 26 August that "I do not consider it advantageous to the long-range general war prospect for me to join you in the proposed message to Uncle Joe."<ref name="CNN.com"/> The commander of the British air drop, Air Marshal Sir ], later stated, "How, after the fall of Warsaw, any responsible statesman could trust the Russian Communist further than he could kick him, passes the comprehension of ordinary men."
====Aftermath====


===1940s=== ===Yalta, 1945===
{{See also|Yalta Conference}}
====Atlantic Charter====
The Yalta Conference (4-11 February 1945) acknowledged the era of Soviet domination of Central and Eastern Europe, subsequent to the Soviet occupation of these lands as they advanced against Nazi Germany. This domination lasted until the ] and the ] and left bitter memories of Western betrayal and Soviet dominance in the collective memory of the region.<ref name="dash.harvard.edu"/> To many ], the Yalta conference "constituted a betrayal" of Poland and the ].<ref name="The Republican Party and Yalta: partisan exploitation of the Polish American concern over the conference, 1945–1960"/> "After World War II," remarked ], "many countries in the (center and) east suffered half a century under the shadow of Yalta."<ref name="dash.harvard.edu"/> Territories which the Soviet Union had occupied during World War II in 1939 (with the exception of the ] area) were permanently annexed, and most of their Polish inhabitants expelled: today these territories are part of ], ], and ]. The factual basis of this decision was the result of a forged referendum from November 1939 in which the "huge majority" of voters accepted the incorporation of these lands into western Belarus and western Ukraine. In compensation, Poland was given former German territory (the so-called ]): the southern half of ] and all of ] and ], up to the ]. The German population of these territories ] and these territories were subsequently repopulated with Poles including ] from the ] regions. This, along with other similar migrations in Central and Eastern Europe, combined to form ]. Stalin ordered Polish resistance fighters to be either incarcerated or deported to ]s in Siberia.
Soon after the ] had invaded the Soviet Union in ], the ] signed a pact with Joseph Stalin. Although the Poles wanted a declaration that all pacts the USSR had signed with the Nazis were null and void, Stalin refused to consider any suggestion that he surrender the territory he seized consequent to the ]. Britain pressured the Poles to withdraw this demand, since, in Churchill's words, "We could not force our new and sorely threatened ally to abandon, even on paper, regions on her frontier which she regarded for generations as vital to her security." The Polish government-in-exile, based in London, conceded but only after Britain agreed to state in writing that all agreements which adjusted Poland's pre-war borders were null and void. The Soviet-Polish agreement was signed on July 30, 1941, and ] formally notified the ] of the arrangements that same day. In response to a parliamentary question about Britain's commitment, however, Eden stated that "The exchange of notes which I have just read to the House does not involve any guarantee of frontiers by His Majesty's Government."


At the time of Yalta over 200,000 troops of the ] were serving under the high command of the British Army. Many of these men and women were originally from the ] region of eastern Poland including cities such as ] and ]. They had been deported from Kresy to the Soviet gulags when Hitler and Stalin occupied Poland in 1939 in accordance with the ]. Two years later, when Churchill and Stalin formed an alliance against Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the ], and marched to ] to create the ] under British high command. These Polish troops contributed to the Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy, and hoped to return to Kresy in an independent and democratic Poland at the end of the War. But at Yalta, the borders agreed in Tehran in 1943 were finalized meaning that Stalin would keep the Soviet gains Hitler agreed to in the Nazi–Soviet Pact, including Kresy, and carry out ]. These transfers included the land Poland gained at Tehran in the West, at the expense of Germany. Consequently, at Yalta, it was agreed that tens of thousands of veteran Polish troops under British command should lose their Kresy homes to the Soviet Union.<ref name="pbs"/> In reaction, thirty officers and men from the II Corps committed suicide.<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003"/>
The Poles were more successful in obtaining Soviet agreement to the creation of the ], and obtaining the release of Polish citizens from the ]. Despite the difficulties the Soviet government made, many were freed from confinement and permitted to join the Polish Army formed formally on August 12, 1941. However, after the troops were withdrawn to the ] in March 1942, Stalin revoked the amnesty and in June and July arrested all Polish diplomats in the USSR.


Churchill defended his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a ]. During the debate, many MPs openly criticised Churchill and passionately voiced loyalty to Britain's Polish allies and expressed deep reservations about Yalta.<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003"/> Moreover, 25 of these MPs risked their careers to draft an amendment protesting against Britain's tacit acceptance of Poland's domination by the Soviet Union. These members included ], ], Commander ], the ], and ].<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003"/> After the failure of the amendment, ], the ] for ], resigned his seat in protest at the British treatment of Poland.<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003"/>
Meanwhile, on September 24, 1941, Poland's government-in-exile and the Soviet Union signed the ]. It underlined that no territorial changes should be made that would "not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned". It was viewed by the Polish government as a warrant of Poland's borders, although it became apparent that some concessions would have to be made.


Before the Second World War ended, the Soviets installed a pro-Soviet regime. Although President Roosevelt "insisted on free and unfettered" elections in Poland, ] instead managed to deliver an election fair by "Soviet standards."<ref name="daastol"/> As many as half a million Polish soldiers refused to return to Poland,<ref name="acu"/> because of the ], the ], and other executions of pro-democracy Poles, particularly the so-called ], former members of the ]. The result was the ],<ref name="legislation"/> Britain's first mass immigration law.
In December 1941, a Conference was held in Moscow between the USSR and the United Kingdom. Stalin proposed to base post-war Polish western borders on the ] and demanded that the United Kingdom accept the pre-war western borders of the Soviet Union. However, Stalin apparently meant the 1941 border with Germany. This was soon discovered, but the British government decided not to change the document. On March 11, 1942 ] notified the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, ], that the borders of the ] and Romania were guaranteed, and that no decision was made regarding the borders of Poland.


Yalta was used by ruling communists to underline ] in Poland.<ref name="Sharp"/><ref name="Davies"/> It was easy to argue that Poland was not very important to the West, since Allied leaders sacrificed Polish borders, legal government, and free elections for future peace between the Allies and the Soviet Union.<ref name="Jones"/><ref name="PAC"/><ref name="Sharp_2"/>
====Katyn and the Soviet pressure====
].]]
From the very beginning of Polish-Soviet talks in 1941, the government of Poland was searching for approximately 20,000 Polish officers missing in Russia. In April 1943 German news agencies reported finding mass graves of Polish soldiers as a result of ]. The Polish government requested the Soviet Union examine the case and at the same time asked the ] for help in verifying the German reports.


On the other hand, some authors have pointed out that Yalta allowed the Polish communists to win over Polish nationalists by allowing them to realize their goal to annex and resettle formerly German land.<ref>{{cite book|title=Recovered Territory: A German-Polish Conflict over Land and Culture, 1919-1989|author=Peter Polak-Springer|publisher=Berghahn Books}}</ref>
On April 24, 1943, Sikorski met with Eden and demanded Allied help in releasing Polish prisoners in the gulags and Soviet prisons. Sikorski also declined the Soviet demand that Poland withdraw their plea to have the Red Cross investigate Katyn. Anthony Eden refused to help and the Soviet Union broke diplomatic relations with Poland on the following day, arguing that the Polish government was collaborating with Nazi Germany. Despite Polish pleas for help, the United States and the United Kingdom decided not to put pressure on the USSR.


The ] (]), formed in 1949, was portrayed by Communist propaganda as the breeder of Hitler's posthumous offspring who desired retaliation and wanted to take back from Poland the "]" <ref name="wielkopolska"/> that had been home of more than 8 million Germans. Giving this picture a grain of credibility was that West Germany until 1970 refused to ], and that some West German officials had a tainted Nazi past. For a segment of Polish public opinion, Communist rule was seen as the lesser of the two evils.
====Tehran====
In November 1943, the ] (USSR, USA, and the UK) met at the ]. President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill officially agreed that the eastern borders of Poland would roughly follow the Curzon Line. The Polish government was not notified of this decision and the only information given was the press release claiming that ''We await the day, when all nations of the world will live peacefully, free of tyranny, according to their national needs and conscience''. The resulting loss of the "eastern territories", approximately 48% of Poland's pre-war territory, to the Soviet Union is seen by some Poles as another "betrayal" by their Western "Allies".


Defenders of the actions taken by the Western allies maintain that '']'' made it impossible to do anything else, and that they were in no shape to start an utterly un-winnable war with the Soviet Union over the subjugation of Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries immediately after the end of World War II. It could be contended that the presence of a double standard with respect to Nazi and Soviet aggression existed in 1939 and 1940, when the Soviets attacked the eastern part of Poland, then the Baltic States, and then Finland, and yet the Western Allies chose not to intervene in those theatres of the war.
However it was no secret to the Allies that before his death in July 1943 General ], Prime Minister of Poland's London-based government in exile had been the originator, and not Stalin, of the concept of a westward shift of Poland's boundaries along an ] as compensation for relinquishing Poland's eastern territories as part of a Polish rapprochement with the USSR.<ref>{{cite book|last=Meiklejohn Terry|first=Sarah|title=Poland's Place in Europe: General Sikorski and the Origin of the Oder-Neisse Line, 1939-1943|year=1992|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-07643-0|pages=416}}</ref> Dr. ] who was Sikorski's special political advisor at the time was also in agreement with Sikorksi's concept of Poland's realigned post-war borders, later in his memoirs Retinger wrote; " At the Tehran Conference, in November 1943, the Big Three agreed that Poland should receive territorial compensation in the West, at Germany's expense, for the land it was to lose to Russia in the East. This seemed like a fair bargain." <ref>{{cite book|last=Retinger|first=Joseph Hieronim|title=Joseph Retinger: Memoirs of an Eminence Grise|year=1972|publisher=Ghatto and Windus|location=page 192|isbn=978-0-85621-002-0|pages=288}}</ref>


The chief American negotiator at Yalta was ], later accused of being a Soviet spy and convicted of ] himself in his testimony to the ]. This accusation was later corroborated by the ] tapes. In 2001, ], a staff reporter for '']'', identified what he called a "growing consensus that Hiss, indeed, had most likely been a Soviet agent."<ref>{{Cite news| last = Barron| first = James| title =Online, the Hiss Defense Doesn't Rest| work =The New York Times| date =August 16, 2001| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/16/technology/online-the-hiss-defense-doesn-t-rest.html?scp=1&sq=The%20Hiss%20defense%20doesn't%20rest&st=cse| access-date =August 29, 2009 }}</ref>
According to many historians, Churchill and Roosevelt promised Stalin to settle the issue with the Poles, however they never sincerely informed the Polish side. When the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile ] attended the ], he was convinced he was coming to discuss borders that were still disputed, while Stalin believed everything had already been settled. This was the principal reason for the failure of the Polish Prime Minister's mission to Moscow. The Polish premier allegedly begged for inclusion of ] and ] in the new Polish borders, but got the following reply from ]: "There is no use discussing that; it was all settled in Teheran."<ref>, '']'', December 25, 1944</ref>


At the war's end many of these feelings of resentment were capitalised on by the occupying Soviets, who used them to reinforce anti-Western sentiments within Poland. Propaganda was produced by Communists to show the Soviet Union as the Great Liberator, and the West as the Great Traitor. For instance, Moscow's '']'' reported in February 1944 that all Poles who valued Poland's honour and independence were marching with the "Union of Polish Patriots" in the USSR.<ref name="angelfire"/>
====Warsaw Uprising====
: ''See: ] for more info on the Allied policy towards Poland during the Uprising.''
].]]
Since the establishment of the Polish government-in-exile in Paris and then in London, the military commanders of the Polish army were focusing most of their efforts on preparation of a future all-national uprising against Germany. Finally, the plans for ] were prepared and on August 1, 1944 the ] started. The Uprising was an armed struggle by the Polish ] to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule.


===Aborted Yalta agreement enforcement plans===
Despite the fact that Polish and later ] (RAF) planes flew missions over Warsaw dropping supplies from 4 August on, the ] (USAF) planes did not join the operation. The Allies specifically requested the use of Red Army airfields near Warsaw on 20 August but were refused by Stalin on 22 August (he referred to the insurgents as 'a handful of criminals'). After Stalin's objections to support for the uprising, Churchill telegrammed Roosevelt on 25 August and proposed sending planes in defiance of Stalin and to "see what happens". Roosevelt replied on 26 August that "I do not consider it advantageous to the long-range general war prospect for me to join you in the proposed message to Uncle Joe."<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/shows/warsaw.rising/interactive/timeline.warsaw/frameset.exclude.html | title=CNN.com}} {{Dead link|date=September 2011|bot=RjwilmsiBot}}</ref> The commander of the British air drop, Air Marshal Sir ], later stated, "How, after the fall of Warsaw, any responsible statesman could trust the Russian Communist further than he could kick him, passes the comprehension of ordinary men."
{{Further|Operation Unthinkable}}
At some point in the spring of 1945, Churchill commissioned a contingency military enforcement operation plan (war on the Soviet Union) to obtain a "square deal for Poland" (]), which resulted in a May 22 report stating unfavorable success odds.<ref name=OpUnthinkable-1/> The report's arguments included geostrategic issues (possible Soviet-Japanese alliance resulting in moving of Japanese troops from continent to Home Islands, threat to Iran and Iraq) and uncertainties concerning land battles in Europe.<ref name=OpUnthinkable-4/>


==Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia==
Various scholars (including ] in his 2004 book ''Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw'') argue that during the Warsaw Uprising both the governments of United Kingdom and the United States did little to help Polish insurgents and that the Allies put little pressure on Stalin to help the Polish struggle.
{{Main article|Percentages agreement}}
During the ] in 1944, Soviet premier ] and British prime minister ] discussed how to divide various European countries into ].<ref>The American Historical Review, Vol. 83, No. 2, Apr., 1978, p. 368, {{JSTOR|1862322}}</ref><ref name="Ryan2004">{{cite book|author=Henry Butterfield Ryan|title=The Vision of Anglo-America: The US-UK Alliance and the Emerging Cold War, 1943-1946|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uRGu4C1FgKsC&q=Percentages+agreement&pg=PA137|year=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-89284-1|page=137}}</ref><ref name="Roberts2006">{{cite book|author=Geoffrey Roberts|title=Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5GCFUqBRZ-QC&q=Percentages+agreement&pg=PA406|year=2006|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-11204-1|pages=217–218}}</ref> Churchill's account of the incident is that Churchill suggested that the ] should have 90 percent influence in ] and 75 percent in ]; the United Kingdom should have 90 percent in Greece; with a 50–50 share in Hungary and ]. The two foreign ministers, ] and ], negotiated about the percentage shares on October 10 and 11. The result of these discussions was that the percentages of Soviet influence in Bulgaria and, more significantly, Hungary were amended to 80 percent.


====Yalta==== ==See also==
*]
: ''See also: ]''.
*]
*'']''
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*'']'', the slogan "The Americans are coming" expressed the Romanian expectation for an American intervention against the Soviet occupation
*]
*'']''


== Citations ==
In 1945, Poland's borders were redrawn following the decision made at the ] of 1943 at the insistence of the Soviet Union. The Polish government was not invited to the talks and was to be notified of their outcome. Polish representatives did present arguments concerning borders at the Potsdam conference, however, and Polish demands for German territory were agreed to. The eastern territories which the Soviet Union had occupied in 1939 (with the exception of the ] area) were permanently annexed, and most of their Polish inhabitants expelled: today these territories are part of ], ] and ]. The factual basis of this decision was the result of a forged referendum from November 1939 in which the "huge majority" of voters accepted the incorporation of these lands into Western Belarus and Western Ukraine. In compensation, Poland was given former German territory (the so-called ]): the southern half of ] and all of ] and ], up to the ]. The German population of these territories ] and these territories were subsequently repopulated with ] from the ] regions. This combined with other similar migrations in Central and Eastern Europe to form ]. Stalin ordered Polish resistance fighters to be either incarcerated or deported to ]s in Siberia.
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<ref name="angelfire">Dr Mark Ostrowski </ref>
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<ref name="dash.harvard.edu">{{cite web |url = http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/5141681/Remembering%20Yalta.pdf?sequence=2 |title = Remembering Yalta: The Politics of International History |publisher = DASH |access-date = 13 March 2013 }}</ref>
<ref name="Davies">{{cite book |author =Norman Davies |author-link =Norman Davies |title =] |volume =2 |year =2005 |orig-year=1982 |publisher =] |isbn = 0-231-12819-3 }}</ref>
<ref name="encyklopedia">Nowa Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN 1997, vol. VI, 981.</ref>
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<ref name="google2">{{cite book |author=Anita Prażmowska|title=Britain and Poland 1939-1943: The Betrayed Ally|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z4J2c4jEhjYC|access-date=27 July 2013|date=23 March 1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-48385-8}}</ref>
<ref name="google3">{{cite book |author1=Lynne Olson|author2=Stanley Cloud|title=A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SXxVXWZOsnUC|access-date=27 July 2013|date=18 December 2007|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-42450-1}}</ref>
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<ref name="google7">{{cite book |author=Ilya Prizel|title=National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fE2quB852jcC&pg=PR11|access-date=27 July 2013|date=13 August 1998|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-57697-0|page=11}}</ref>
Many Poles believe that Western leaders tried to force Polish leaders to accept the conditions of Stalin. Some view it as a 'betrayal' of Poland by Churchill (which can be seen as part of a larger 'betrayal' to 'allow' it to fall entirely into the ]).
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<ref name="Jones">{{cite book |author=Howard Jones|title=Crucible of power: a history of American foreign relations since 1897|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n6Al88smOAUC&pg=PA207|access-date=27 July 2013|date=1 January 2001|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8420-2918-6|page=207}}</ref>
<ref name="Joseph Retinger: Memoirs of an Eminence Grise">{{cite book |last=Retinger|first=Joseph Hieronim|title=Joseph Retinger: Memoirs of an Eminence Grise|year=1972|publisher=Ghatto and Windus|page=192|isbn=978-0-85621-002-0}}</ref>
<ref name="krzysztof">Polityka - nr 37 (2469) z dnia 2004-09-11; s. 66-67 Historia / Wrzesień ’39 Krzysztof Źwikliński Tajemnica zamku Vincennes</ref>
<ref name="legislation"></ref>


<ref name="OpUnthinkable-1">Operation Unthinkable, report May 22, 1945, page 1 (goals) {{cite web |url=http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/pages/002.htm |title=1 |access-date=2015-09-25 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101116160624/http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/pages/002.htm |archive-date=November 16, 2010 }}</ref>
At the time of Yalta over 200,000 troops of the ] were serving under the high command of the British Army. Many of these men and women were originally from the ] region of eastern Poland including cities such as Lwow and Wilno. They had been deported from Kresy to the Soviet gulags when Hitler and Stalin occupied Poland in 1939 in accordance with the ]. When two years later Churchill and Stalin formed an alliance against Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the ] and marched to Persia to create the ] under British high command.
<ref name="OpUnthinkable-4">Operation Unthinkable, report May 22, 1945, page 4 (geostrategic implications) {{cite web |url=http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/pages/002.htm |title=1 |access-date=2015-09-25 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101116160624/http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/pages/002.htm |archive-date=November 16, 2010 }}</ref>
<ref name="PAC">{{cite book |author=Polish American Congress|title=Selected Documents: A Compilation of Selected Resolutions, Declarations, Memorials, Memorandums, Letters, Telegrams, Press Statements, Etc., in Chronological Order, Showing Various Phases of Polish American Congress Activities, 1944-1948|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x5brwE5vmlwC|access-date=27 July 2013|year=1948}}</ref>
<ref name="pbs">{{Cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/about/index.html |title=''WWII Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West''. About {{!}}PBS<!-- Bot generated title --> |website=] |access-date=2017-09-18 |archive-date=2011-10-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002023928/http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/about/index.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<ref name="Poland's Place in Europe: General Sikorski and the Origin of the Oder-Neisse Line, 1939-1943">{{cite book |last=Meiklejohn Terry|first=Sarah|title=Poland's Place in Europe: General Sikorski and the Origin of the Oder-Neisse Line, 1939-1943|year=1992|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-07643-0|page=416}}</ref>
<ref name="Poles mark 1944 Warsaw uprising">{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3943265.stm |work=BBC News |title=Poles mark 1944 Warsaw uprising |date=1 August 2004}}</ref>


<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003">pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003</ref>
These Polish troops were instrumental to the Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy, and hoped to return to Kresy in an independent and democratic Poland at the end of the War. But at Yalta, Churchill agreed that Stalin should keep the Soviet gains Hitler agreed to in the ], including Kresy, and carry out ]. Consequently, Churchill had agreed that tens of thousands of veteran Polish troops under British command should lose their Kresy homes to the Soviet Union.<ref>http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/about/index.html</ref> In reaction, thirty officers and men from the II Corps committed suicide.<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003">pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003</ref>
<ref name="Raczyński">{{cite book |author =Count ] |title =The British-Polish Alliance; Its Origin and Meaning |year =1948 |publisher =The Mellville Press |location =London}}</ref>
<ref name="research">{{cite web |url=http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/projects/cidel/old/sjursen%20why%20expand.pdf |title=6.Sjursen491-513 |access-date=2012-11-09 |archive-date=2012-07-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120715103116/http://www.sv.uio.no/arena/english/research/projects/cidel/old/sjursen%20why%20expand.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<ref name="rozhoupaly">], ''Torzo naděje'' (1938), poem ''Zpěv úzkosti'', "Zvoní zvoní zrady zvon zrady zvon, Čí ruce ho rozhoupaly, Francie sladká hrdý Albion, a my jsme je milovali"</ref>
<ref name="Scraps of paper: the disarmament treaties between the world wars">{{cite book |last=Hyde|first=Harlow A.|title=Scraps of paper: the disarmament treaties between the world wars|year=1988|publisher=Media Publishing & Marketing |page=307|isbn=978-0-939644-46-9}}</ref>
<ref name="Sharp_2">Sharp, op.cit., p.12</ref>
<ref name="Sharp">{{cite book |author=Samuel L. Sharp|title=Poland: White Eagle on a Red Field|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xtceAAAAMAAJ|access-date=27 July 2013|year=1953|publisher=Harvard University Press|page=163|isbn=9780674422636}}</ref>
<ref name="The origins of the 'Teheran formula' on Polish frontiers">{{cite journal |author=Tony Sharp |year=1977 |title=The origins of the 'Teheran formula' on Polish frontiers |journal=] |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=381–393 |jstor=260222 |doi=10.1177/002200947701200209|s2cid=153577101 }}</ref>
<ref name="The Republican Party and Yalta: partisan exploitation of the Polish American concern over the conference, 1945–1960">{{cite journal |author=Athan Theoharis |year=1971 |title=The Republican Party and Yalta: partisan exploitation of the Polish American concern over the conference, 1945–1960 |journal=] |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=5–19 |jstor=20147828}}</ref>
<ref name="time">, '']'', December 25, 1944</ref>
<ref name="unc"></ref>
<ref name="vscht">{{Cite web |url=http://www.vscht.cz/homepage/english/main/services/czechrepublic |title=ICT - Czech Republic<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=2011-03-30 |archive-date=2012-09-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120908092318/http://www.vscht.cz/homepage/english/main/services/czechrepublic |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<ref name="wajszczuk"></ref>
<ref name="wielkopolska">"Poland under Stalinism", _Poznan in June 1956: A Rebellious City_, The Wielkopolska Museum of the Fight for Independence in Poznan, 2006, p. 5</ref>
<ref name="World War II: A Political, Social, and Military History">{{cite book |title=World War II: A Political, Social, and Military History|author=Spencer Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts|year=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=1-57607-999-6}}</ref>
<ref name="www">{{cite web |url=http://www.geo.lt/geo/uploads/media/29-44.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924021740/http://www.geo.lt/geo/uploads/media/29-44.pdf |archive-date=24 September 2015 |title=Annales Geographicae.indd |access-date=2012-11-09 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
}}


== General sources ==
Churchill defended his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a ]. During the debate, many MPs openly criticised Churchill and passionately voiced loyalty to Britain's Polish allies and expressed deep reservations about Yalta.<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003" /> Moreover, 25 of these MPs risked their careers to draft an amendment protesting against Britain's tacit acceptance of Poland's domination by the Soviet Union. These members included: ]; ]; Commander ]; the ] and ].<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003" /> After the failure of the amendment, ], the ] for ], resigned his seat in protest at the British treatment of Poland.<ref name="pp.374-383 Olson and Cloud 2003" />

When the Second World War ended, a Communist government was installed in Poland. Most Poles felt betrayed by their wartime allies. Many Polish soldiers refused to return to Poland, because of the ], the ] and other executions of pro-democracy Poles, particularly the so-called, ], former members of the Armia Krajowa). The result was the ], Britain's first mass immigration law.

Yalta was used by ruling communists to underline ]s.<ref name="Sharp">{{en icon}} {{cite book| author =]| title =Poland, white eagle on a red field| year =1953| pages =163| publisher =]| location =Harvard| url =http://books.google.com/?id=xtceAAAAMAAJ&dq=Yalta+free+elections+Poland&q=betrayal}}</ref><ref name="Davies">{{en icon}} {{cite book| author =]| title =]| volume = 2| year =2005 | publisher =]| isbn =0-231-12819-3}}</ref> It was easy to argue that Poland was not very important to the West, since Allied leaders sacrificed Polish borders, legal government and free elections.<ref name="Jones">{{en icon}} {{cite book| author =Howard Jones| title =Crucible of Power: a history of U.S. foreign relations since 1897| year =2001| pages =205–207| publisher =Rowman & Littlefield| isbn =0-8420-2918-4| url =http://books.google.com/?id=n6Al88smOAUC&pg=PA207&dq=Yalta+free+elections+Poland}}</ref><ref name="PAC">{{en icon}} {{cite journal| author =various authors| year =1948| title =A compilation of selected resolutions, declarations, memorials, memorandums,..| journal =Selected Documents| issue =1244-1248| pages =112| publisher = ]| location = Chicago, IL| url =http://books.google.com/?id=x5brwE5vmlwC&dq=Yalta+free+elections+Poland&q=AS+A+PARTY+TO+THE+YALTA+AGREEMENT+THAT+CRUSHED}}</ref><ref name="Sharp_2">Sharp, op.cit., p.12</ref>

With this background, even Stalin looked like a better friend of Poland, since he did have strong interests in Poland. The Federal Republic of Germany, formed in 1949, was portrayed by Communist propaganda as the breeder of Hitler's posthumous offspring who desired retaliation and wanted to take back from Poland the "]".<ref>"Poland under Stalinism", _Poznan in June 1956: A Rebellious City_, The Wielkopolska Museum of the Fight for Independence in Poznan, 2006, p. 5</ref> Giving this picture a grain of credibility was the fact that Federal Republic of Germany until 1970 refused to recognize the Oder-Neisse Line and the fact that some West German officials had a tainted Nazi past. Thus, for a segment of Polish public opinion, Communist rule was seen as the lesser of the two evils.

Defenders of the actions taken by the Western allies maintain that '']'' made it impossible to do anything else, and that they were in no shape to start an utterly un-winnable war with the Soviet Union over the subjugation of Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries immediately after the end of World War II. It could be contended that the presence of a double standard with respect to Nazi and Soviet aggression existed in 1939 and 1940, when the Soviets attacked eastern part of Poland, and then the Baltic States, and then Finland, and yet the Western Allies failed to become active in the war.

What the allies, France and the United Kingdom, sacrificed is also disputed. Some argue that Poland's borders had been re-drawn many times in history, the country had not had free elections since 1926 and throughout the 1930s it had endured increasing political repression under an authoritarian ] government. On the other hand, the Polish government in exile was composed entirely of the pre-war democratic opposition and all political parties of the ] underlined the need to follow the democratic traditions of March 1921 constitution, rather than the autocratic ] of 1935.

The chief American negotiator at Yalta was ], later accused of being a Soviet spy and convicted of ] himself in his testimony to the ]. His espionage was later confirmed by the ] tapes.

====Aftermath====
], Prime Minister of the ], was killed in an air crash over ] in July 1943. In November 1944, despite his mistrust of the Soviets, Sikorski's successor, Prime Minister ] resigned to return to Poland and take office in the ] established under the auspices of the Soviet occupation authorities. Many of the Polish exiles opposed this action, believing that this government was a facade for the establishment of Communist rule in Poland, a view that was later proved correct; after losing an election which was later shown to have been fraudulent, Mikołajczyk left Poland again in 1947.

Meanwhile the government in exile had maintained its existence, but the United States and the United Kingdom withdrew their recognition on July 6, 1945. The Polish armed forces in exile (officially the "Polish Armed Forces under British Command") were disbanded in 1947.

Out of approximately 265,000 Polish armied forces in the West in 1945, only 105,000 returned to Poland, but close to 160,000 stayed in Western (mostly British) territory.

The London Poles had to leave the embassy on Portland Place and were left only with the president's private residence at 43 Eaton Place. The government in exile then became largely symbolic, serving mainly to symbolise the continued resistance to foreign occupation of Poland, and retaining control of some important archives from pre-war Poland. ] and ] were the last countries to recognize the government-in-exile.

Originally the British Government invited representatives of the newly recognised regime in Warsaw to march in the 1946 victory parade in London but the delegation from Poland never arrived – the reason was never adequately explained, pressure from Moscow being the most likely. Bowing to press and public pressure, the British eventually invited representatives of the Polish Air Force under British Command to attend in their place. They in turn refused to attend in protest at similar invitations not being extended to the Polish Army and Navy. In the resulting humiliation the only representative of the fourth largest allied military{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}} at the parade was Colonel Jozef Kuropieska – the military attaché of the Communist regime in Warsaw.

At the war's end many of these feelings of resentment were capitalized on by the occupying Soviets, who used them to reinforce anti-Western sentiments within Poland. Propaganda was produced by Communists to show Russia as the Great Liberator, and the West as the Great Traitor. Moscow's Pravda reported in February 1944 that all Poles who valued Poland's honour and independence were marching with the "Union of Polish Patriots" in the USSR.<ref>Dr Mark Ostrowski
</ref>

==Cossacks and White Russians==

{{Main|Operation Keelhaul|Betrayal of the Cossacks}}
In the final days of the war, masses of refugees from Nazi-abandoned territories in the east<!-- The proper Russia was almost completely liberated as early as in Autumn 1943. There may not be masses of refugees directly from Russia. --> and ] were fleeing from the Red Army and ]'s ].

In ], British troops gathered these thousands of refugees in Austria including ], ], ] and White Russian troops, and civilians. The Soviet and Russian citizens were turned to ], where in many cases they were summarily shot.

In the Betrayal of the Cossacks at Lienz, Cossacks of the ] of the ] were forcibly delivered to areas of Germany controlled, at the end of World War II, by the Soviet Union. Cossacks had been fighting the Russian government since the ].{{citation needed|date=July 2011}}<!-- Oh really the Cossacks took a significant part in left-wing uprisings? Probably, someone disambiguated inaccurately a bad wikilink. --> No Western country had entered any alliance with the Cossacks.

==Baltic states==
Although many Poles feel betrayed by a lack of aggressiveness with which the western allies pursued the war against their invaders, the western allies did maintain their commitments to declare war on Germany, but not their commitment to fight it. For the Baltic States, however, who also had their fate sealed by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, the western allies failed to take up the defence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania when the Soviet Union invaded in 1940 as they had for Poland in 1939. On the other hand, France and Britain had no formal, legal commitments with regard to the Baltic States.

===Memel Territory===
The ] was separated from German East Prussia in 1920, and put under French administration. The area had been conquered by the ] in the Middle Ages, and had belonged to Prussia for 500 years. It was inhabited by Germans as the largest part of the population, while a quarter declared itself Lithuanian, and another quarter, as local Memelländer and/or Klaipedians depending on language.

In 1923, Lithuanian forces occupied the area during what is called the ]. The French forces put up a token resistance and left, and later the annexation of the area now called the ] by Lithuania was confirmed by the international community.

==Yugoslavia==
===During the war===

At the ] in November 1943, a decision was made by the Allies to cease their support of the royalist ], and switch allegiances to ]'s communist ].

As the ] under its Prince Regent ] began to approach the German sphere of influence in the late 1930s, relations with the west deteriorated. However, two days after Yugoslavia's signing of the tripartite pact on March 25, 1941, a western-sponsored coup brought the underage King ] to power along with General ] who became the new Prime Minister. Days after the pro-western government was installed, German forces ] on April 6, 1941, and had completely occupied the country by April 17, 1941. The King and his government managed to escape into exile in the United Kingdom, and were granted the full support of the West.

In Yugoslavia, two resistance movements emerged. The ] (NOV i POJ), known simply as the Partisans, was a left-wing, socialist, and republican movement led by the ] (KPJ) and Tito. The movement supported a post-war Yugoslav federal republic, with full rights for its five non-Serbian nations (as opposed to the unitarianist pre-war monarchy). While the predominantly ] Royalist ] led by ] supported the exiled King, and a unitary post-war Yugoslav monarchy with a strong predominance of its Serbian population ("]").

The West (primarily the United Kingdom) had initially supported the Chetniks, providing assistance via RAF and the ] (SOE) prior to 1943. However, from very early on the Chetniks found common ground with the Germans against the Partisans, and as the war drove on they became increasingly dependent on their relationship with the occupation forces. By 1943 the vast majority of the movement served as an Axis auxiliary militia, holding captured ground against the Partisans and aiding the large German offensives against the resistance. With the failure of several of these Axis offensives the Partisans, despite the union of their adversaries, destroyed large Chetnik forces and became vastly more numerous and popular in Yugoslavia, in addition to being the only resistance movement seriously combating the occupation.

The people of Yugoslavia had by and large already abandoned the monarchy, given how the kingdom deteriorated after the death of King ] and especially how it crumbled in March and April 1941 when it was invaded. Therefore it would be difficult to speak of a "Western betrayal of Yugoslavia" in the context of the 1940s and later decades.

Supporters of the Chetniks contend that if the Allies had maintained their assistance support for their cause, the ] family would have been restored to the Yugoslav throne. This argument has been the subject of considerable controversy. Opponents of this viewpoint have argued that the Allies had no other choice than to sever their support for the Chetniks as the Chetniks were collaborating with the Axis while the Partisans were resisting the Axis. They also add that the Partisans were superior both in numbers, popularity, and tactics to the Chetniks, who were losing support because of their collaboration and militia organization (as opposed to the mobile operational groups of the Partisans). Therefore, it is argued that the Chetniks would have been defeated regardless of any weapons shipments they received, and that they were already being generously supplied with arms by the Axis.

===After the war===

{{Main|Operation Keelhaul|Bleiburg massacre|Repatriation of Cossacks after WWII}}

The Western Allies had never entered any obligation whatsoever with the Independent State of Croatia, indeed it was a fascist puppet-state of Nazi Germany that was never part of the Allies, so it is difficult to talk of a betrayal in the generally understood sense (betrayal of an ally).

During the final days of the war, large numbers of refugees were fleeing from the Red Army and ]. These refugees consisted of three main groups:
* supporters of the fascist ], numbering in the tens of thousands, including remnants of the ] and the ]
* remnants of the ] from Serbia, including the ] and the ]
* remnants of Cossacks from Nazi-abandoned ], including the ]

On May 5, in the town of ] (50&nbsp;km northwest of Trieste), between 2,400 and 2,800 members of the ] surrendered to the British. On May 12, about 2,500 additional Serbian Volunteer Corps members surrendered to the British at Unterbergen on the ] River.

On May 11 and 12, British troops in ], Austria, were harassed by arriving forces of the Partisans. In Belgrade, the British ambassador to the Yugoslav coalition government handed Tito a note demanding that the Yugoslav troops withdraw from Austria.

On May 14, Marshal Tito, the Partisan supreme commander and ], dispatches a telegram to the headquarters of the Slovene Partisan Army prohibiting "in the sternest language" the execution of prisoners of war and commanding the transfer of the possible suspects to a military court.<ref name="Democratic transition in Croatia">Sabrina P. Ramet, Davorka Matić; ''Democratic transition in Croatia: value transformation, education & media''; 2007, ]; p. 274 ISBN 1-58544-587-8 </ref>

On May 15, Yugoslav Partisan forces in Austria under Allied control. A few days later he agreed to withdraw them. By May 20, Yugoslav troops in Austria had begun to withdraw.

On May 15, 1945 the refugees from the Independent State of Croatia attempted to surrender to British forces in southern ] (]) near the village of ]. They were rejected by the British authorities as Yugoslav civilians and were passed on to the custody of the Yugoslav army for repatriation.

Around June 1, the Croatian Home Guard, the Ustaše, and the XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps who surrendered to the British were turned over to the Yugoslav forces as part of what is sometimes referred to as ]. The Partisans proceeded to execute the ] (POWs) in what became known as the ]s.

The Ustaša POWs were executed while the survivors were marched back to Yugoslavia.

==See also==
* ]
*]
*]
*]
*]
*'']''. The slogan "The Americans are coming" expressed the Romanian expectation for an American intervention against the Soviet occupation.

==Notes and references==
<!--This article uses the Cite.php citation mechanism. If you would like more information on how to add references to this article, please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/Cite/Cite.php -->

===Footnotes===
{{Reflist|2}}

===Notations===
{{refbegin}} {{refbegin}}
*], ''The War Hitler Won: The Fall of Poland, September 1939'', New York, 1972.
{{colbegin}}
* ], ''The War Hitler Won: The Fall of Poland, September 1939'', New York, 1972. *] ''The History of Poland''. Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press, 2000.
*Russell D. Buhite ''Decisions at Yalta: an appraisal of summit diplomacy'', Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc, 1986.
* Mieczyslaw B. Biskupski ''The history of Poland'' Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press, 2000.
*] "Poland in British and French policy in 1939: determination to fight — or avoid war?" pages 413–433 from ''The Origins of The Second World War'' edited by Patrick Finney, Arnold, London, 1997.
* Russell D. Buhite ''Decisions at Yalta: an appraisal of summit diplomacy'', Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc, 1986.
*Anna M. Cienciala and {{Interlanguage link|Titus Komarnicki|pl}} ''From Versailles to Locarno: keys to Polish foreign policy, 1919–25'', Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1984.
* Anna M. Cienciala "Poland in British and French policy in 1939: determination to fight — or avoid war?" pages 413–433 from ''The Origins of The Second World War'' edited by Patrick Finney, Arnold, London, 1997.
*Richard Crampton ''Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century — and After''. London; New York: Routledge, 1997.
* Anna M. Cienciala and Titus Komarnicki ''From Versailles to Locarno: keys to Polish foreign policy, 1919–25'', Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1984.
*], ''Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw''. Viking Books, 2004. {{ISBN|0-670-03284-0}}.
* Richard Crampton ''Eastern Europe in the twentieth century — and after'' London; New York: Routledge, 1997.
* ], ''Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw''. Viking Books, 2004. ISBN 0-670-03284-0. *Norman Davies, '']'' {{ISBN|0-231-05353-3}} and {{ISBN|0-231-05351-7}} (two volumes).
*David Dutton ''Neville Chamberlain'', London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
* Norman Davies, '']'' ISBN 0-231-05353-3 and ISBN 0-231-05351-7 (two volumes).
*Sean Greenwood "The Phantom Crisis: Danzig, 1939" pages 247–272 from ''The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered: A. J. P. Taylor and the Historians'' edited by Gordon Martel Routledge Inc, London, United Kingdom, 1999.
* David Dutton ''Neville Chamberlain'', London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
*], ''Munich: The Eleventh Hour'', London: Hamilton, 1988.
* Sean Greenwood "The Phantom Crisis: Danzig, 1939" pages 247–272 from ''The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered: A.J.P. Taylor and the Historians'' edited by Gordon Martel Routledge Inc, London, United Kingdom, 1999.
*], '']: An American Ambassador Reports to the American People''. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1948. {{ISBN|1-125-47550-1}}.
* ], ''Munich: the eleventh hour'', London: Hamilton, 1988.
*Igor Lukes & Erik Goldstein (ed.) ''The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II'', London; Portland, OR: Frank Cass Inc, 1999.
* ], '']: An American Ambassador Reports to the American People''. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, ], 1948. ISBN 1-125-47550-1.
*Margaret Olwen Macmillan ''Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World''. New York: Random House, 2003, 2002, 2001.
* Igor Lukes & Erik Goldstein (editors) ''The Munich crisis, 1938: prelude to World War II'', London; Portland, OR: Frank Cass Inc, 1999.
*David Martin, ''Ally Betrayed''. Prentice-Hall, New York, 1946.
* Margaret Olwen Macmillan ''Paris 1919: six months that changed the world'' New York: Random House, 2003, 2002, 2001.
*David Martin, ''Patriot or Traitor: The Case of General Mihailovich''. ], Stanford, California, 1978. {{ISBN|0-8179-6911-X}}.
* ],{{Disambiguation needed|date=June 2011}} ''Ally Betrayed''. Prentice-Hall, New York, 1946.
* David Martin, ''Patriot or Traitor: The Case of General Mihailovich''. ], ], 1978. ISBN 0-8179-6911-X. *David Martin, ''The Web of Disinformation: Churchill's Yugoslav Blunder''. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, ] & New York, 1990. {{ISBN|0-15-180704-3}}
*], ], ''''. Knopf, 2003. {{ISBN|0-375-41197-6}}.
* David Martin, ''The Web of Disinformation: Churchill's Yugoslav Blunder''. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, ] & New York, 1990. ISBN 0-15-180704-3
*], ''Poland: The Betrayed Ally''. ], ], 1995. {{ISBN|0-521-48385-9}}.
* ], ], ''''. Knopf, 2003. ISBN 0-375-41197-6.
*], ''Allied Wartime Diplomacy: A Pattern in Poland'', New York, 1958, reprint Boulder, CO, 1989.
* ], ''Poland: the Betrayed Ally''. ], ], 1995. ISBN 0-521-48385-9.
*Henry L. Roberts "The Diplomacy of Colonel Beck" pages 579–614 from ''The Diplomats 1919–1939'' edited by ] & ], Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1953.
* ], ''Allied Wartime Diplomacy: A Pattern in Poland'', New York, 1958, reprint Boulder, CO, 1989.
*{{cite book |author =Wacław Stachiewicz |author-link =Wacław Stachiewicz |title =Wierności dochować żołnierskiej |publisher=Rytm, Warsaw |year =1998 |isbn=83-86678-71-2}}
* Henry L. Roberts "The Diplomacy of Colonel Beck" pages 579–614 from ''The Diplomats 1919–1939'' edited by ] & ], Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1953.
*Robert Young ''France and the origins of the Second World War'', New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.
* {{cite book| author= ]| title = Wierności dochować żołnierskiej| publisher=Rytm, Warsaw| year= 1998| isbn=83-86678-71-2}}
*] ''The twilight of French eastern alliances, 1926–1936: French-Czechoslovak-Polish relations from Locarno to the remilitarisation of the Rhineland'', Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
* Robert Young ''France and the origins of the Second World War'', New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.
* Piotr Stefan Wandycz ''The twilight of French eastern alliances, 1926–1936: French-Czechoslovak-Polish relations from Locarno to the remilitarization of the Rhineland'', Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. *Piotr Wandycz ''France and her eastern allies, 1919–1925: French-Czechoslovak-Polish relations from the Paris Peace Conference to Locarno'', Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.
*Gerhard Weinberg ''A world at arms: a global history of World War II'', Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
* Piotr Wandycz ''France and her eastern allies, 1919–1925: French-Czechoslovak-Polish relations from the Paris Peace Conference to Locarno'', Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.
*] ''Munich: Prologue to Tragedy'', New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948.
* Gerhard Weinberg ''A world at arms: a global history of World War II'', Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
*Paul E. Zinner "Czechoslovakia: The Diplomacy of Eduard Benes". In ] & Felix Gilbert (ed.). ''The Diplomats 1919–1939''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953. pp.&nbsp;100–122.
* ] ''Munich: Prologue to Tragedy'', New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948.
*Republic of Poland, ''The Polish White Book: Official Documents concerning Polish-German and Polish-Soviet Relations 1933–1939''; Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, New York, 1940.
* Paul E. Zinner "Czechoslovakia: The Diplomacy of Eduard Benes" pages 100–122 from ''The Diplomats 1919–1939'' edited by ] & Felix Gilbert, Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1953.
*], "Betrayed by the Big Three". '']'', London, November 8, 2003
* Republic of Poland, ''The Polish White Book: Official Documents concerning Polish-German and Polish-Soviet Relations 1933–1939''; Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, ], 1940.
*], "How the Allies Betrayed Warsaw". '']'', Toronto, February 7, 2004
*], ''Betrayed by the Big Three''. ], London, November 8, 2003
*], ''How the Allies Betrayed Warsaw''. ], ], February 7, 2004 *], "The Great Betrayal". '']'', Tel Aviv, February 23, 2004
*Piotr Zychowicz, ''Pakt Ribbentrop - Beck''. Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, Poznań 2012. {{ISBN|978-83-7510-921-4}}
*], ''The Great Betrayal''. ], ], February 23, 2004
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Concept in international relations among European countries

The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference: Winston Churchill (UK), Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA), and Joseph Stalin (USSR)

Western betrayal is the view that the United Kingdom, France and the United States failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military and moral obligations to the Czechoslovakians and Poles before, during and after World War II. It also sometimes refers to the treatment of other Central and Eastern European states by those three nations.

The concept primarily derives from several events, including British and French appeasement towards Nazi Germany during its 1938 occupation of Czechoslovakia and the perceived failure of Britain and France to adequately assist the Poles during the German invasion of Poland in 1939. It also derives from concessions made by American and British political leaders to the Soviet Union during the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences and their limited response during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising along with post-war events, which allocated Poland to the Soviet sphere of influence as part of the Eastern Bloc.

Historically, such views were intertwined with some of the most significant geopolitical events of the 20th century, including the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, the emergency of the Soviet Union as a dominant superpower exerting control over large parts of Europe after World War II, and various treaties, alliances, and positions during the Cold War. The view of the "Western betrayal" has been criticized as political scapegoating by Central and Eastern Europeans.

Perception of betrayal

According to professors Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler, Western betrayal is a reference to a sense of historical and moral responsibility for the West's abandonment of Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War. In Central and Eastern Europe, the interpretation of the outcomes of the Munich Crisis of 1938 and the Yalta Conference of 1945 as a betrayal of Central and Eastern Europe by Western powers has been used by Central and Eastern European leaders to put pressure on Western countries to acquiesce to more recent political requests such as membership in NATO and EU.

In a few cases deliberate duplicity is alleged, whereby secret agreements or intentions are claimed to have existed in conflict with understandings given publicly. An example is British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's covert concordance with the Soviet Union, in which he stated that the Atlantic Charter did not apply to the Baltic states. Given the strategic requirements of winning the war, retired American diplomat Charles G. Stefan argued Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had no option but to accept the demands of their erstwhile ally, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, at the Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam conferences.

There was also a lack of military or political support for the anticommunist rebels during the uprising in German Democratic Republic in 1953, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and during the democracy-oriented reforms in Czechoslovakia in 1968 (the so-called "Prague Spring"). According to Ilya Prizel, the "preoccupation with their historical sense of 'damaged self' fueled resentment" towards the West generally and reinforced the western betrayal concept in particular. Grigory Yavlinsky argues that damage to central European national psyches left by the Western "betrayal" at Yalta and Munich remained a "psychological event" or "psychiatric issue" during debates over NATO expansion.

Criticism of the concept

Colin Powell stated that he did not think "betrayal is the appropriate word" regarding the Allies' role in the Warsaw Uprising. While complaints of "betrayal" are common in politics generally, the idea of a western betrayal can also be seen as a political scapegoat in both Central and Eastern Europe and a partisan electioneering phrase among the former Western Allies. Historian Athan Theoharis maintains betrayal myths were used in part by those opposing US membership in the United Nations. The word "Yalta" came to stand for the appeasement of world communism and abandonment of freedom.

Czechoslovakia

See also: German occupation of Czechoslovakia

Munich Conference

The term Betrayal of the West (Czech: zrada Západu, Slovak: zrada Západu) was coined after the 1938 Munich Conference when Czechoslovakia was forced to cede the mostly German-populated Sudetenland to Germany. The region contained the Czechoslovak border fortifications and means of viable defence against German invasion. Poland would take Trans-Olza from Czechoslovakia, while the First Vienna Award returned territories to Hungary. The next year, by the proclamation of the Slovak State, Czechoslovakia was dissolved, the next day the remainder of Carpathian Ruthenia was occupied and annexed by Hungary, while the next day Germany occupied the remaining Czech lands and proclaimed the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Along with Italy and Nazi Germany, the Munich treaty was signed by Britain and France, both allied ot Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was allied by treaty with France so it would be obliged to help Czechoslovakia if it was attacked. Czech politicians joined the newspapers in regularly using the term Western betrayal and it, along with the associated feelings, became a stereotype among Czechs. The Czech terms Mnichov (Munich), Mnichovská zrada (Munich betrayal), Mnichovský diktát (Munich Dictate), and zrada spojenců (betrayal of the allies) were coined at the same time and have the same meaning. Poet František Halas published a poem with verse about "ringing bell of betrayal".

Then Member of Parliament for Epping, Winston Churchill said: "Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war".

Prague uprising

See also: Prague uprising

On 5 May 1945, the citizens of Prague learned of the American invasion of Czechoslovakia by the US Third Army and revolted against German occupation. In four days of street fighting, thousands of Czechs were killed. Tactical conditions were favourable for an American advance, and General Patton, in command of the army, requested permission to continue eastward to the Vltava river in order to aid the Czech partisans fighting in Prague. This was denied by General Eisenhower, who was disinclined to accept American casualties or risk antagonising the Soviet Union. As a result, Prague was liberated on 9 May by the Red Army, significantly increasing the standing of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. According to a British diplomat, this was the moment that "Czechoslovakia was now definitely lost to the West."

Poland

World War I aftermath

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, a complex set of alliances was established among the nations of Europe, in the hope of preventing future wars (either with Germany or the Soviet Union). With the rise of Nazism in Germany, this system of alliances was strengthened by the signing of a series of "mutual assistance" alliances between France, Britain, and Poland (Franco-Polish alliance). This agreement with France stated that in the event of war the other allies were to fully mobilise and carry out a "ground intervention within two weeks" in support of the ally being attacked. The Anglo-Polish alliance stated that in the event of hostilities with a European power, the other contracting party would give "all the support and assistance in its power."

According to Krzysztof Źwikliński, additionally representatives of the Western powers made several military promises to Poland, including designs as those made by British General William Edmund Ironside in his July 1939 talks with Marshall Rydz-Śmigły who promised an attack from the direction of Black Sea, or placing a British aircraft carrier in the Baltic. However, the Anglo-Polish alliance did not make that commitment, and the British commitment to France was for four divisions in Europe within 30 days of the outbreak of war, which was met.

Beginning of World War II, 1939

On the eve of the Second World War, the Polish government tried to buy as much armaments as it could and was asking for arms loans from Britain and France. As a result of that in the summer of 1939 Poland placed orders for 160 French Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 fighters, and for 111 British airplanes (100 light bombers Fairey Battle, 10 Hurricanes, and 1 Spitfire). Although some of these planes had been shipped to Poland before 1 September 1939, none took part in combat. Shipments were interrupted due to the outbreak of war. The total amount of the loan from British government was also much smaller than asked for. Britain agreed to lend 8 million pounds, but Poland was asking for 60 million.

Upon the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in September 1939, after giving Germany an ultimatum on 1 September, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September, and a British naval blockade of Germany was initiated. General Gort was appointed commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), and placed under the command of French General Gamelin of the North-eastern Theatre of Operations, as agreed before the war. On 4 September, an RAF raid against German warships in harbour was conducted, and the BEF began its shipment to France.

The German forces reached Warsaw on 8 September, and on 14 September, Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły ordered Polish forces to withdraw to the Romanian Bridgehead. On 17 September, the Soviet Union invaded Poland, and Polish Army in the field was effectively defeated before the divisions of the BEF could arrive in France. The first two BEF divisions, which took their place in the French line and change of command, on 3 October, and two further BEF divisions took their place in the French line on 12 October.

France had committed to undertaking a ground offensive within two weeks of the outbreak of war. The French initiated full mobilisation and began the limited Saar Offensive on 7 September, sending 40 divisions into the region. The French assault was slowed down by out-dated doctrines, minefields, and the French lacked mine detectors. When the French reached artillery range of the Siegfried Line, they found that their shells could not penetrate the German defences. The French decided to regroup an attack on 20 September, but when Poland was invaded by the Soviet Union on 17 September, any further assault was called off. Around 13 September, the Polish military envoy to France, general Stanisław Burhardt-Bukacki, upon receiving the text of the message sent by Gamelin, alerted Marshal Śmigły: "I received the message by General Gamelin. Please don't believe a single word in the dispatch".

It had been decided that no major air operations against Germany would take place. This was due to French concerns over reprisals on RAF launches from French airfields, against targets in Germany, so most British bomber activity over Germany was the dropping of propaganda leaflets and reconnaissance. This theme would continue in subsequent Anglo-French Supreme War Council meetings. Afterwards, French military leader Maurice Gamelin issued orders prohibiting Polish military envoys Lieutenant Wojciech Fyda and General Stanisław Burhardt-Bukacki from contacting him. In his post-war diaries, General Edmund Ironside, the chief of the Imperial General Staff, commented on French promises: "The French had lied to the Poles in saying they are going to attack. There is no idea of it".

On 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Poland, as agreed in advance with Germany following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Britain and France did not take any significant action in response to the Soviet invasion. However, the terms of the Anglo-Polish alliance specifically applied to invasion from Germany only.

France and Britain were unable to launch a successful land attack on Germany in September 1939, and Poland was overcome by both the Germans and Soviets on 6 October, with the last Polish units capitulating that day following the battle of Kock. However, even by the end of October, the still-forming British Expeditionary Force totaled only 4 divisions compared to the 25 German divisions in Western Germany, making a British invasion of Germany unlikely to succeed.

Tehran, 1943

In November 1943, the Big Three (the USSR, US, and UK) met at the Tehran Conference. President Roosevelt and PM Churchill officially agreed that the eastern borders of Poland would roughly follow the Curzon Line. The Polish government-in-exile was not a party to this decision made in secret. The resulting loss of the Kresy, or "eastern territories", approximately 48% of Poland's pre-war territory, to the Soviet Union was seen by the London Poles in exile as another "betrayal" by their Western "Allies". However, it was no secret to the Allies that before his death in July 1943 General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of Poland's London-based government in exile had been the originator, and not Stalin, of the concept of a westward shift of Poland's boundaries along an Oder–Neisse line as compensation for relinquishing Poland's eastern territories as part of a Polish rapprochement with the USSR. Józef Retinger, who was Sikorski's special political advisor at the time, was also in agreement with Sikorski's concept of Poland's realigned post-war borders, later in his memoirs Retinger wrote: "At the Tehran Conference, in November 1943, the Big Three agreed that Poland should receive territorial compensation in the West, at Germany's expense, for the land it was to lose to Russia in Central and Eastern Europe. This seemed like a fair bargain."

Churchill told Stalin he could settle the issue with the Poles once a decision was made in Tehran, however he never consulted the Polish leadership. When the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile Stanisław Mikołajczyk attended the Moscow Conference (1944), he was convinced he was coming to discuss borders that were still disputed, while Stalin believed everything had already been settled. This was the principal reason for the failure of the Polish Prime Minister's mission to Moscow. The Polish premier allegedly begged for inclusion of Lwów and Wilno in the new Polish borders, but got the following reply from Vyacheslav Molotov: "There is no use discussing that; it was all settled in Tehran."

Warsaw Uprising, 1944

Main article: Lack of outside support during the Warsaw Uprising
During World War II 85% of buildings in Warsaw were destroyed by German troops.

Since the establishment of the Polish government-in-exile in Paris and then in London, the military commanders of the Polish army were focusing most of their efforts on preparation of a future all-national uprising against Germany. Finally the plans for Operation Tempest were prepared and on 1 August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising started. The Uprising was an armed struggle by the Polish Home Army to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule.

Despite the fact that Polish and later Royal Air Force (RAF) planes flew missions over Warsaw dropping supplies from 4 August on, the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) planes did not join the operation. The Allies specifically requested the use of Red Army airfields near Warsaw on 20 August but were refused by Stalin on 22 August (he referred to the insurrectionists as "a handful of criminals"). After Stalin's objections to support for the uprising, Churchill telegraphed Roosevelt on 25 August and proposed sending planes in defiance of Stalin and to "see what happens". Roosevelt replied on 26 August that "I do not consider it advantageous to the long-range general war prospect for me to join you in the proposed message to Uncle Joe." The commander of the British air drop, Air Marshal Sir John Slessor, later stated, "How, after the fall of Warsaw, any responsible statesman could trust the Russian Communist further than he could kick him, passes the comprehension of ordinary men."

Yalta, 1945

See also: Yalta Conference

The Yalta Conference (4-11 February 1945) acknowledged the era of Soviet domination of Central and Eastern Europe, subsequent to the Soviet occupation of these lands as they advanced against Nazi Germany. This domination lasted until the end of Communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe in late 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and left bitter memories of Western betrayal and Soviet dominance in the collective memory of the region. To many Polish Americans, the Yalta conference "constituted a betrayal" of Poland and the Atlantic Charter. "After World War II," remarked Strobe Talbott, "many countries in the (center and) east suffered half a century under the shadow of Yalta." Territories which the Soviet Union had occupied during World War II in 1939 (with the exception of the Białystok area) were permanently annexed, and most of their Polish inhabitants expelled: today these territories are part of Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania. The factual basis of this decision was the result of a forged referendum from November 1939 in which the "huge majority" of voters accepted the incorporation of these lands into western Belarus and western Ukraine. In compensation, Poland was given former German territory (the so-called Recovered Territories): the southern half of East Prussia and all of Pomerania and Silesia, up to the Oder–Neisse line. The German population of these territories was expelled in masses and these territories were subsequently repopulated with Poles including Poles expelled from the Kresy regions. This, along with other similar migrations in Central and Eastern Europe, combined to form one of the largest human migrations in modern times. Stalin ordered Polish resistance fighters to be either incarcerated or deported to gulags in Siberia.

At the time of Yalta over 200,000 troops of the Polish Armed Forces in the West were serving under the high command of the British Army. Many of these men and women were originally from the Kresy region of eastern Poland including cities such as Lwów and Wilno. They had been deported from Kresy to the Soviet gulags when Hitler and Stalin occupied Poland in 1939 in accordance with the Nazi–Soviet Pact. Two years later, when Churchill and Stalin formed an alliance against Hitler, the Kresy Poles were released from the Gulags in Siberia, formed the Anders Army, and marched to Iran to create the II Corps (Poland) under British high command. These Polish troops contributed to the Allied defeat of the Germans in North Africa and Italy, and hoped to return to Kresy in an independent and democratic Poland at the end of the War. But at Yalta, the borders agreed in Tehran in 1943 were finalized meaning that Stalin would keep the Soviet gains Hitler agreed to in the Nazi–Soviet Pact, including Kresy, and carry out Polish population transfers. These transfers included the land Poland gained at Tehran in the West, at the expense of Germany. Consequently, at Yalta, it was agreed that tens of thousands of veteran Polish troops under British command should lose their Kresy homes to the Soviet Union. In reaction, thirty officers and men from the II Corps committed suicide.

Churchill defended his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a vote of confidence. During the debate, many MPs openly criticised Churchill and passionately voiced loyalty to Britain's Polish allies and expressed deep reservations about Yalta. Moreover, 25 of these MPs risked their careers to draft an amendment protesting against Britain's tacit acceptance of Poland's domination by the Soviet Union. These members included Arthur Greenwood, Viscount Dunglass, Commander Archibald Southby, the Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and Victor Raikes. After the failure of the amendment, Henry Strauss, the Member of Parliament for Norwich, resigned his seat in protest at the British treatment of Poland.

Before the Second World War ended, the Soviets installed a pro-Soviet regime. Although President Roosevelt "insisted on free and unfettered" elections in Poland, Vyacheslav Molotov instead managed to deliver an election fair by "Soviet standards." As many as half a million Polish soldiers refused to return to Poland, because of the Soviet repressions of Polish citizens, the Trial of the Sixteen, and other executions of pro-democracy Poles, particularly the so-called cursed soldiers, former members of the Armia Krajowa. The result was the Polish Resettlement Act 1947, Britain's first mass immigration law.

Yalta was used by ruling communists to underline anti-Western sentiment in Poland. It was easy to argue that Poland was not very important to the West, since Allied leaders sacrificed Polish borders, legal government, and free elections for future peace between the Allies and the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, some authors have pointed out that Yalta allowed the Polish communists to win over Polish nationalists by allowing them to realize their goal to annex and resettle formerly German land.

The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), formed in 1949, was portrayed by Communist propaganda as the breeder of Hitler's posthumous offspring who desired retaliation and wanted to take back from Poland the "Recovered Territories" that had been home of more than 8 million Germans. Giving this picture a grain of credibility was that West Germany until 1970 refused to recognize the Oder-Neisse Line as the German-Polish border, and that some West German officials had a tainted Nazi past. For a segment of Polish public opinion, Communist rule was seen as the lesser of the two evils.

Defenders of the actions taken by the Western allies maintain that Realpolitik made it impossible to do anything else, and that they were in no shape to start an utterly un-winnable war with the Soviet Union over the subjugation of Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries immediately after the end of World War II. It could be contended that the presence of a double standard with respect to Nazi and Soviet aggression existed in 1939 and 1940, when the Soviets attacked the eastern part of Poland, then the Baltic States, and then Finland, and yet the Western Allies chose not to intervene in those theatres of the war.

The chief American negotiator at Yalta was Alger Hiss, later accused of being a Soviet spy and convicted of perjuring himself in his testimony to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities. This accusation was later corroborated by the Venona tapes. In 2001, James Barron, a staff reporter for The New York Times, identified what he called a "growing consensus that Hiss, indeed, had most likely been a Soviet agent."

At the war's end many of these feelings of resentment were capitalised on by the occupying Soviets, who used them to reinforce anti-Western sentiments within Poland. Propaganda was produced by Communists to show the Soviet Union as the Great Liberator, and the West as the Great Traitor. For instance, Moscow's Pravda reported in February 1944 that all Poles who valued Poland's honour and independence were marching with the "Union of Polish Patriots" in the USSR.

Aborted Yalta agreement enforcement plans

Further information: Operation Unthinkable

At some point in the spring of 1945, Churchill commissioned a contingency military enforcement operation plan (war on the Soviet Union) to obtain a "square deal for Poland" (Operation Unthinkable), which resulted in a May 22 report stating unfavorable success odds. The report's arguments included geostrategic issues (possible Soviet-Japanese alliance resulting in moving of Japanese troops from continent to Home Islands, threat to Iran and Iraq) and uncertainties concerning land battles in Europe.

Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia

Main article: Percentages agreement

During the Fourth Moscow Conference in 1944, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin and British prime minister Winston Churchill discussed how to divide various European countries into spheres of influence. Churchill's account of the incident is that Churchill suggested that the Soviet Union should have 90 percent influence in Romania and 75 percent in Bulgaria; the United Kingdom should have 90 percent in Greece; with a 50–50 share in Hungary and Yugoslavia. The two foreign ministers, Anthony Eden and Vyacheslav Molotov, negotiated about the percentage shares on October 10 and 11. The result of these discussions was that the percentages of Soviet influence in Bulgaria and, more significantly, Hungary were amended to 80 percent.

See also

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General sources

  • Nicholas Bethell, The War Hitler Won: The Fall of Poland, September 1939, New York, 1972.
  • Mieczyslaw B. Biskupski The History of Poland. Westport, CT; London: Greenwood Press, 2000.
  • Russell D. Buhite Decisions at Yalta: an appraisal of summit diplomacy, Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc, 1986.
  • Anna M. Cienciala "Poland in British and French policy in 1939: determination to fight — or avoid war?" pages 413–433 from The Origins of The Second World War edited by Patrick Finney, Arnold, London, 1997.
  • Anna M. Cienciala and Titus Komarnicki [pl] From Versailles to Locarno: keys to Polish foreign policy, 1919–25, Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1984.
  • Richard Crampton Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century — and After. London; New York: Routledge, 1997.
  • Norman Davies, Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw. Viking Books, 2004. ISBN 0-670-03284-0.
  • Norman Davies, God's Playground ISBN 0-231-05353-3 and ISBN 0-231-05351-7 (two volumes).
  • David Dutton Neville Chamberlain, London: Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
  • Sean Greenwood "The Phantom Crisis: Danzig, 1939" pages 247–272 from The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered: A. J. P. Taylor and the Historians edited by Gordon Martel Routledge Inc, London, United Kingdom, 1999.
  • Robert Kee, Munich: The Eleventh Hour, London: Hamilton, 1988.
  • Arthur Bliss Lane, I Saw Poland Betrayed: An American Ambassador Reports to the American People. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, 1948. ISBN 1-125-47550-1.
  • Igor Lukes & Erik Goldstein (ed.) The Munich Crisis, 1938: Prelude to World War II, London; Portland, OR: Frank Cass Inc, 1999.
  • Margaret Olwen Macmillan Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World. New York: Random House, 2003, 2002, 2001.
  • David Martin, Ally Betrayed. Prentice-Hall, New York, 1946.
  • David Martin, Patriot or Traitor: The Case of General Mihailovich. Hoover Institution, Stanford, California, 1978. ISBN 0-8179-6911-X.
  • David Martin, The Web of Disinformation: Churchill's Yugoslav Blunder. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, San Diego & New York, 1990. ISBN 0-15-180704-3
  • Lynne Olson, Stanley Cloud, A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II. Knopf, 2003. ISBN 0-375-41197-6.
  • Anita Prażmowska, Poland: The Betrayed Ally. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995. ISBN 0-521-48385-9.
  • Edward Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy: A Pattern in Poland, New York, 1958, reprint Boulder, CO, 1989.
  • Henry L. Roberts "The Diplomacy of Colonel Beck" pages 579–614 from The Diplomats 1919–1939 edited by Gordon A. Craig & Felix Gilbert, Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 1953.
  • Wacław Stachiewicz (1998). Wierności dochować żołnierskiej. Rytm, Warsaw. ISBN 83-86678-71-2.
  • Robert Young France and the origins of the Second World War, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.
  • Piotr Stefan Wandycz The twilight of French eastern alliances, 1926–1936: French-Czechoslovak-Polish relations from Locarno to the remilitarisation of the Rhineland, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
  • Piotr Wandycz France and her eastern allies, 1919–1925: French-Czechoslovak-Polish relations from the Paris Peace Conference to Locarno, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962.
  • Gerhard Weinberg A world at arms: a global history of World War II, Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
  • John Wheeler-Bennett Munich: Prologue to Tragedy, New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948.
  • Paul E. Zinner "Czechoslovakia: The Diplomacy of Eduard Benes". In Gordon A. Craig & Felix Gilbert (ed.). The Diplomats 1919–1939. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953. pp. 100–122.
  • Republic of Poland, The Polish White Book: Official Documents concerning Polish-German and Polish-Soviet Relations 1933–1939; Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, New York, 1940.
  • Daniel Johnson, "Betrayed by the Big Three". Daily Telegraph, London, November 8, 2003
  • Diana Kuprel, "How the Allies Betrayed Warsaw". The Globe and Mail, Toronto, February 7, 2004
  • Ari Shaltiel, "The Great Betrayal". Haaretz, Tel Aviv, February 23, 2004
  • Piotr Zychowicz, Pakt Ribbentrop - Beck. Dom Wydawniczy Rebis, Poznań 2012. ISBN 978-83-7510-921-4

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