Empire & France vs USSR - alternative WWII

[WaylanderToo]

reading another thread on here made me wonder - would England France have declared war on the USSR had Hitler spoofed them WRT Poland. That is to say that on 2/9/39 Hitler responds to the threat of war by the allies and says "...actually chaps, that was a poor move on my part. I apologise unreservedly and have already given orders to pull out..." (or more likely "...a rogue faction within the Wehrmacht has tried to destabilise the Reich. This has proved unsuccessful and the offending general and officers have been executed...") but Stalin being just as big a loon as Hitler says "...buggerit, I want eastern Poland and I'm having it..."

Would the English and French have declared war - or would they have kept their powder dry for Germany? Would/could we have seen a situation where France, the Empire and Germany all joined forces to deal with Russia?

 

[HareBrain]

Interesting question. But Britain and France probably would have done nothing. From this Wikipedia page:

Anglo-Polish military alliance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"On September 17 the Soviet Union invaded Poland through the eastern Polish border. This was a response to Germany's invasion of Poland, in keeping with theMolotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol specifying the division of Poland. According to the Polish-British Common Defence Pact, the United Kingdom should give Poland “all the support and assistance in its power” if Poland was "engaged in hostilities with a European Power in consequence of aggression by the latter". The Polish ambassador in London, Raczyński, contacted the British Foreign Office pointing out that clause 1(b) of the agreement which concerned an "aggression by a European power" on Poland, should apply to the Soviet invasion. The Foreign SecretaryLord Halifax responded that the obligation of British Government towards Poland arising out of the Anglo-Polish Agreement, was restricted to Germany, according to the first clause of the secret protocol."

 

[aThenian]

Don't know enough about the diplomatic history to know how plausible this is, but it's a fascinating premise. I'd have thought France and Britain would both have been too suspicious of Germany to fall for this, but who knows?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

France, the Empire and Germany all joined forces to deal with Russia?

No. Because even Chamberlain's piece of paper was maybe a ruse to buy time. The UK didn't oppose Germany before Poland and only seemed to appease them as they were not ready for war. UK was building up military parallel with Germany's annexations and invasions before Poland.

It's true thought that Hitler thought UK would be on his side against France. Historically apart from WWI, France wasn't an ally. Many in the UK "establishment" supported Germany and Nazi ideals esp. the anti-semitism. However the UK wasn't ever going to agree with Germany's expansionism and while some in UK supported Germany's allies in Spain, many went and fought on the other side, which was maybe more than Socialist & Communists to start with (It was a Civil war with Germany supporting one side). Mussolini was also a German Ally and Italian expansionism in North Africa and Horn of Africa seriously annoyed the UK.

So on balance, it wasn't going to happen. Till the "end" Hitler thought the "Western Allies" and Soviets would fall out and attack each other.

 

[Calum]

I doubt it. Stalin always made a point of never directly confronting Europe or America. In the aftermath of World War 2 he relied on puppet governments to take control of Eastern Europe for him rather than risk American ire by doing it himself. He opted to stay out of the Korean War while Mao leapt in there full force (Which shows a major difference between the two. Stalin never really had much conviction in Communist ideology, on one occasion he even admitted to being the Tsar in all but name. Mao and Hitler on the other hand belived their own Propaganda). Even when he did start grabbing his neighbour’s lands he waited until France and Britain were too busy dealing with Hitler to fight him off.

 

[Lafayette]

I don't really have an answered to this question, but I do have a question/comment that may lead to an answer.

It depends how concern the English French were about communism spreading to all Europe if Russia was allowed to conquer Poland. If they were frighten what pretext would they have used for attacking?