Western betrayal
Western betrayal is the view that the United Kingdom, France, and sometimes the United States failed to meet their legal, diplomatic, military, and moral obligations with respect to the Czechoslovak and Polish states during the prelude to and aftermath of World War II. It also sometimes refers to the treatment of other Central and Eastern European states at the time.
The term refers to several events, including the treatment of
Historically, such views were intertwined with some of the most significant geopolitical events of the 20th century, including the rise and empowerment of Nazi Germany, the rise of the Soviet Union as a dominant superpower with control of large parts of Europe, and various treaties, alliances, and positions taken during and after World War II and continuing on into the Cold War.
Perception of betrayal
"Notions of 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," according to professors Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler.[1][2] In Central and Eastern Europe, the interpretation of the outcomes of the
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
There was also a lack of military or political support for the
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.[6] 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.[7]
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.[8] While complaints of "betrayal" are common in politics generally,[9] the idea of a western betrayal can also be seen as a political scapegoat in both Central and Eastern Europe[10][verification needed] and a partisan electioneering phrase among the former Western Allies.[11] Historian Athan Theoharis maintains betrayal myths were used in part by those opposing US membership in the United Nations.[11][verification needed] The word "Yalta" came to stand for the appeasement of world communism and abandonment of freedom.[12]
Czechoslovakia
Munich Conference
The term Betrayal of the West (
Along with Italy and Nazi Germany, the Munich treaty was signed by Britain and France - Czechoslovakia's ally. Czechoslovakia was allied by treaty with France so it would be obliged to help Czechoslovakia if it was attacked.[16]
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".[17]
Then
Prague uprising
On 5 May 1945, the citizens of
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 (
According to Krzysztof Źwikliński, additionally representatives of the Western powers made several military promises to Poland, including such fantastic designs as those made by British General
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
Upon the
The German forces reached Warsaw on 8 September, and on 14 September, Marshal 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.[28] 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".[24].
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.[29] 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.[24] 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".[30]
On 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union
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.[33] 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.[34]
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.[35] The Polish government-in-exile was not a party to this decision made in secret.[36][37] 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".[38] 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.[39] 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."[40]
Churchill told Stalin he could settle the issue with the Poles once a decision was made in Tehran,
Warsaw Uprising, 1944
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
Despite the fact that Polish and later
Various scholars[who?] argue that during the Warsaw Uprising both the governments of the United Kingdom and United States did little to help Polish resistance and that the Allies put little pressure on Stalin to help the Polish struggle for freedom.
Yalta, 1945
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
At the time of Yalta over 200,000 troops of the
Churchill defended his actions in a three-day Parliamentary debate starting 27 February 1945, which ended in a
Before the Second World War ended, the Soviets installed a pro-Soviet regime. Although President Roosevelt "insisted on free and unfettered" elections in Poland,
Yalta was used by ruling communists to underline anti-Western sentiments.[52][53] 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.[54][55][56]
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.[57]
The
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
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.[60]
Aborted Yalta agreement enforcement plans
At some point in the spring of 1944, 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.[61] 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.[62]
Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia
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.[63][64][65] 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
- 1945 Yugoslav pursuit of Nazi collaborators
- Auschwitz bombing debate
- Bitter Legacy
- Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies
- Lack of outside support during the Warsaw Uprising
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
- Non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War
- Operation Keelhaul
- Operation Unthinkable
- Perfidious Albion
- Polish Resettlement Corps
- Polish resistance movement in World War II
- Repatriation of Cossacks after WWII
- Soviet repressions against former prisoners of war
- Swedish extradition of Baltic soldiers
- Vin americanii!, the slogan "The Americans are coming" expressed the Romanian expectation for an American intervention against the Soviet occupation
- Why Die for Danzig?
- World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West
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