Comments by "AFGuidesHD" (@AFGuidesHD) on "Who Started WW2? Germany or Britain?" video.

  1. How can it be argued that British intentions were wholesome and pure when Chamberlain said to his cabinet on 20th March "we should attack Germany" and on the 30th March "he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany" if more evidence is needed for such a British conspiracy for war, Joseph Kennedy reported to Washington after his conversation with the foreign minister; "England is advising France that they should both go to war regardless of Poland." on 22nd March and; "Halifax felt that the inevitability of war sooner or later should be met right now" on 24th March. If their intentions were so wholesome to merely defend Poland from big bad Germany that clearly was planning to invade them, why did Georges Bonnet feel the need to say "We should go to the utmost limit including the use of threats to bring in Poland" ? After actually looking at all the evidence from the British side, Simon Newman concluded: What finally convinced the British Government that this policy had to be adopted was the fear that Poland might give in to pressure from Germany to remain neutral in return for some acceptable solution of the Danzig problem. The British had to prevent this eventuality because they considered that it would be detrimental to their interests; so detrimental, in fact, that they were prepared to risk a war to prevent it. Such an agreement, coming in the wake of a long string of German successes culminating in the occupation of Prague, the annexation of Memel, and treaties with Slovakia and Romania, would represent a further blow to Britain's prestige and influence and seriously undermine her power to organize resistance against Germany in the future. Furthermore, it would mean the loss of the eastern front which strategically was essential in a war with Germany. These were the options which the Foreign Office had all along been trying to keep open. Rather than accept their foreclosure, the British preferred to go to war. Robert Vansittart was somewhat more open and honest about the outbreak of war, rather than any "n-nooo Germany started it" mythology nonsense. He was indeed honest and said "yes we started it to prevent Germany from becoming a hegemon" that means, even if they were to become a hegemon peacefully through treaties with Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Finland, Poland and so on.
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  2. And that's the best bit. "oh but we couldn't fight a war against both Germany and the USSR".... we obviously couldn't fight against Germany on its own. The idealistic moral arguments go out the window in favour of grand strategy.
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  3. Lord Palmerstone also gave a similar worded guarantee to Denmark, and yet somehow Prussia didn't start WW1 when it invaded Denmark in 1864.
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  4. Chamberlain started the war for not starting it earlier, also Chamberlain started it for not having a backbone and saying no to the warmongers in his party. Chamberlain simply cannot win.
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  5. Did we stand up to the USA when they bullied Iraq ? Panama ? Cuba ? Grenada ? Vietnam ? and so on.
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  6.  @janys6502  Documents on German Foreign Policy dated January 5th 1939. A conversation between Hitler and Beck. Excerpt: "There might conceivably be a settlement by which this city would be brought into the German political community, again in accordance with the will of its population; naturally the Polish interests, especially in the economic field, would have to be fully protected. This was after all in the interest of Danzig as well, for Danzig could not live economically without Poland either, and so he, the Fuhrer, was thinking of a formula by which Danzig would come into the German community politically but remain with Poland economically." A shocking document to read by someone brought up on Anglo-American propaganda that paints Hitler as some pathological Pole hater and had planned to invade Poland since 1919. However Beck also said after September 1939 that he didn't think Hitler wanted to invade Poland; that he was pressured by Ribbentrop into it.
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  7.  @Paciat  It did however invade Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. But suddenly moral arguments are out the window and "we couldn't have done anything about it" despite the fact we knew we couldn't and didn't do anything about Poland.
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  8. Exactly, plenty of geopolitical experts and, really anyone with common sense, point out that had Hitler possessed nuclear weapons in 1939, then Chamberlain wouldn't have declared war on Germany. Precisely like how the USA hasn't gone to war with Russia, ostensibly "to defend Ukraine" .
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  9. And when they say "Poland was a British ally", we can ask "but for how long were they an ally before Germany invaded ?". The answer is 6 days.
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  10. NO DON'T YOU GET IT! CHAMBERLAIN WAS FORCED BY GERMANY, HE HAS NO AGENCY, HE HAS NO BACKBONE, THERE WAS NOTHING HE COULD HAVE DONE (apart from say 'woops, sorry Poland, you weren't meant to cut off negotiations and act all aggressive when I gave you the guarantee but at the same time I didn't want to be slandered of creating a second munich either')
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  11. Cos I like to read books as well. And I highly recommend Simon Newman's "march 1939 the british guarantee to poland" for a look at British policy of the time.
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  12. 99.9% of people have never gone through the primary sources, namely "Documents on British Foreign Policy, German Foreign Policy and US foreign policy" So they have utterly no idea of what actually went on. It's astonishing to read telegrams such as: "England is advising France that they should both go to war regardless of Poland." - Joseph Kennedy, 22nd March. "Halifax felt that the inevitability of war sooner or later should be met right now" - Joseph Kennedy, 24th March. "Chamberlain said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March. "The existence of a threat of economic measures from the 19th July onwards, however, clearly made the atmosphere somewhat unfriendly" - Gerald Shepard, 10th August. "The Poles had threatened severe economic reprisals and were privatley making threats of military action. Beck thought that Danzig had climbed down and published his success in the press." - Roger Makins, 14th August. "It still seems to me that the detente might have been achieved had it not been for the actions of the Polish government in sending what amounted to an ultimatum on the night of August 4th." - Gerald Shepard, 4th September. Among many others, to today's narrative that never even mentions Danzig let alone the Polish ultimatum of August 4th. It's just "one day Germany invaded Poland" or perhaps "they used a false flag attack to justify their otherwise unjustified invasion".
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  13.  @cinesonicvibes  "it’s an oversimplification to suggest Britain "started" the war." No, the oversimplification is that Germany started it 'because they invaded Poland' and totally ignore everything the Brits and Poles did from March-September. "how do you disregard for other countries' sovereignty" The same way we do when USA invades Iraq, Russia invades Ukraine, Hungary invades Slovakia and, you know, every other 'aggressive war' in history. "Hitler’s Public Statements, In Mein Kamp" As for your last post, a complete regurgitation of the usual 'justification' for starting war against Germany, even using MK as an excuse which clearly shows you don't know what you're talking about. As Poland is mentioned only in a positive light in MK. And I doubt you would accept that Polish aggressive diplomacy on Lithuania and Czechoslovakia would give justification to Germany declaring war on Poland, would you ? There is no evidence that Germany had plans on Poland, before say, May 39, after Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to at least plan for the contingency (yes that's right, TIK would tell you Germany had planned it since 1937, but the Wehrmacht actually didn't have a plan until Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to formulate one in April 39) and after the British intervened in German-Polish negotiations, fearing a possible German-Polish agreement settling their outstanding issues.
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  14. Its a nice touch but it defeats his own argument when Chamberlain literally says "a state of war would exist between us", meaning a state of war didn't exist between us on 1st and 2nd September, contrary to TIK's argument that Germany triggered an automatic war between Britain and Germany on 1st September.
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  15.  @Paciat  No, USSR invading Czechoslovakia. And the moral argument is that 'Britain was standing up to bullies'.
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  16. It's entirely plausible. Noel Mason-MacFarlane wrote a letter demanding Britain declare war on Germany in March, quote "without war our desired aims will never be achieved", the aim namely being the thwarting of increasing German dominance in European affairs and economy. However Chamberlain and everyone else knew, you can't just randomly declare war without looking silly. Promising to 'defend' the one country that had outstanding tension with Germany was a perfect cover. Ask yourself, why didn't Chamberlain promise to defend France, Switzerland, Denmark or anyone else ? Why the one country that Germany was currently negotiating with on the return of Danzig ?
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  17. Exactly, popular, dare I say 'revisionist' history says WW2 started on 1st September, but Chamberlain literally states in his speech "a state of war would exist between us" meaning war between the UK and Germany did not automatically start on the 1st. The war was still a choice made mostly by Chamberlain under pressure from parliament. The French, were less enthusiastic about going to war.
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  18.  @jonasastrom7422  and why was it Poland that Britain decided to guarantee, and not Denmark, Switzerland, France or anyone else ? Tip: "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March.
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  19. And the best part is had the British stayed out of it, there wouldn't have even been a German-Polish war. Germany was having negotiations with Poland on creating a Treaty of Friendship and here's what Chamberlain said to his cabinet the day before issuing a unilateral military guarantee to Poland, a country vital to creating the "eastern front" in a potential war with Germany: "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March.
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  20.  @cinesonicvibes  "Germany justified it under false pretexts, such as the Gleiwitz incident," How about the British Ambassador to Danzig, who reported to London "The existence of a threat of economic measures from the 19th July onwards, however, clearly made the atmosphere somewhat unfriendly"; "The Polish Commissioner to Danzig telephoned the President of the Senate at 1 o'clock in the morning, and half an hour later sent him an ultimatum. That same morning he had risked a panic by sending away women and children, and at the same time the polish press had talked of bombing Danzig." and brilliantly on September 4th: "It still seems to me that the detente might have been achieved had it not been for the actions of the Polish government in sending what amounted to an ultimatum on the night of August 4th."
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  21.  @botanozsan7843  What kind of 10 year old logic makes you think Germany wanted to invade every single country in europe ?
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  22.  @janys6502  Not quite the same given that NATO has existed for 70 years. The 'alliance' between britain and poland existed or 6 days.
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  23.  @janys6502  its not simply my opinion thought, its the opinions of diplomats as documented in "documents on british foreign policy" and "documents on german foreign policy" and "documents on united states foreign policy". The recurring point made by diplomats is that polish attitude towards danzig became more aggressive and intransigent upon receiving the british guarantee.
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  24.  @jonasastrom7422  Because Germany was looking like they were going to invade Poland? Except it wasn't, that was a false report from a man called Ian Colvin. As Chamberlain implied here, the opposite is true, it looked like Germany WASN'T going to invade. The British didn't fear Germany invading, they feared Poland would make an agreement with Germany.
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  25.  @jonasastrom7422  Did you even read anything I said ? The context is that Germany and Poland were in fact having discussions to come to an agreement over the issues outstanding between the two, Chamberlain got wind of these and issued the military guarantee. Deduct that from the previous quote.
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  26. Oh no, I'm sure every Briton would be holding Britain responsible for WW2 had Germany been the one to 'guarantee' Ireland from British aggression whilst Ireland and Britain were having amicable negotiations on solving their issues.
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  27. Exactly, I like this analogy also. Instead of "look mate, I know you really want that toy, but it did belong to the other guy 20 years ago and its universally accepted as a German city" Chamberlain said, by implication "don't give it to them, if the other kid tries to get it back, we'll fight them with you (wink wink)". Alexander Cadogan in his diaries however, says the guarantee was only meant to help the negotiations with Germany, not totally cut them off (oops). So either maliciously or simply stupidly, the British intervention in German-Polish relations did lead to catastrophe, as we all know, but few know these finer details.
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  28. "There might conceivably be a settlement by which this city would be brought into the German political community, again in accordance with the will of its population; naturally the Polish interests, especially in the economic field, would have to be fully protected. This was after all in the interest of Danzig as well, for Danzig could not live economically without Poland either, and so he, the Fuhrer, was thinking of a formula by which Danzig would come into the German community politically but remain with Poland economically." Quite the far cry from the claim "Germany wanted Poland to be erased form existence". And even then, so what ? Poland was erased from existence from 1795 to 1918, and did Britain care at all during this period ? Did the Partition of Poland in 1795 start WW1 ? Did Britain raise any objections to Prussian settlement programs ? No.
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  29.  @anton2192  Except the Soviets did all that as well did they not? When your entire argument is moralism, it is not "whataboutism" to point out massive flaws in your moral argument.
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  30. So you're saying Britain would have been right to start a war against the USA when it decided to expand westward ? Or when it attacked Mexico, or when it attacked Spain ?
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  31. And what if France or Britain didn't declare war on Germany ? Then there's no WW2, just like how there's no WW3 since February 2022.
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  32. If, upon receiving Russian guarantees, Cuba threatened to bomb Guantanamo, Cuban press ran stories like "guns trained on Guantanamo", with Cuban ambassadors entering Russian embassies boasting of war, if Cuba embargoed Guantanamo etc. etc. would you blame the US for 'starting WW3' if it resorted to military action against Cuba ? Very few Americans would.
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  33.  @patmacken5130  And Germany didn't need a "false flag attack" that's why it's so hotly disputed. What majorly pushed the Germans to military action was what happened in early august, the Polish ultimatum to Danzig of August 4th. Yet interestingly no where are you ever told about these events. You'd have to go through the primary sources yourself to find out about them in "Documents on british foreign policy"
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  34.  @patmacken5130  "very clearly the aggressor" only to an ignorant. The situation between Danzig and Poland was far from rosy and wholesome. If you need someone else to tell you what to think, perhaps you'll find such information in "Germany, Poland, and the Danzig Question" by Rashid A Holloway.
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  35. And when you read the primary sources you get brilliant telegrams, like the one from the British commissioner to Danzig on September 4th "it still seems in retrospect that the dentente might have been achieved had it not been for the actions of the polish government in sending what amounted to an ultimatum on the night of August 4th"
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  36.  @janys6502  If Finland and Russia were previously having amicable negotiations that the Brits wanted to prevent an agreement between them, then yeah.
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  37. "We should attack Germany, not in order to save a particular victim, but in order to pull down the bully" - Neville Chamberlain, 20th March. "England is advising France that they should both go to war regardless of Poland." - Joseph Kennedy, 22nd March. "Halifax felt that the inevitability of war sooner or later should be met right now" - Joseph Kennedy, 24th March. "War, and war now with a near eastern front. Without war the desired results may never be achieved. We should do our best to produce a situation that will lead to war" - Noel Mason-MacFarlane, 28th March. "The Foreign Secretary said that it was clear that if action was to be undertaken in circumstances at all favourable to us, or if the threat of action was to be an effective deterrent, Germany must be faced with war on two fronts simultaneously. Poland was therefore key to the situation." - Cabinet Meeting, 29th March "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March. "No doubt it would be impossible to prevent Poland from being overrun. The Chiefs of Staff, indeed, thought that Poland would likely be overrun by Germany within two or three months." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March. "I gather Mason-MacFarlane will approve our action today." - Alexander Cadogan, 31st March. Explanation: Chamberlain feared that Poland would make an agreement with Germany, settling issues between Germany and Poland. Chamberlain also knew that Britain could do nothing to help Poland in case of a war. As for the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, it was a response to Chamberlain's encirclement policy known as "the peace front", the British were negotiating with the USSR to have their own version of such a pact, only difference is that Russia would be directed against Germany instead of remaining neutral in Germany's favour.
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  38. Exactly, I utterly hate bullies. I witnessed a kid get totally harassed by the types of teachers TIK even mentions in this video. And when I see everyone uniquely blaming Germany for WW2, I look into it, and see as TIK would say "but is that really the case". No. It wasn't. Had Hitler had his evil ways then there wouldn't have even been a German-Polish war. It was the british that needed a war to prevent German influence/ power from coalescing further.
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  39. Difference is Eastern Ukraine and Taiwan don't have a 95% support for the invading force (Russia or China). Danzig did. But modern discussion around the German-Polish war wholly ignores this for some reason. Probably because it gives actual legitimacy to German intervention, unlike in the case of, say, the US invasion of Iraq 2003.
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  40. Exactly. Love how Germany had no right to defend Danzig from Polish economic and military pressure, but the good guys had every right to wage war against China when it refused British opium, when the USA made war on Spain because their ship accidentally blew up, or made war against Mexico when they outlawed slavery, or invaded Iraq because.... but Germany had no moral right to defend Danzig from Polish threats.
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  41.  @SoMuchFacepalm  Indeed, you ask a good question "did we fear that Panama and America would come to an agreement and went out of our way to provide Panama with military guarantees and 'warned America not to invade' " ? No, we didn't. We did however fear that Poland and Germany would come to an agreement.
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  42. Some do actually, I witnessed this myself. And as many point out in the comments, we could say that Poland was the one bullying Danzig. So TIK's whole argument is entirely biased from the British perspective and therefore flawed.
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  43. Read Simon Newman's 'March 1939 the British guarantee to Poland' for a look at how Britain unambiguously started it. Maliciously undermining German-Polish relations to the point of enabling Poland to make threats on Danzig and then obviously declaring war on Germany when Germany invaded. As an analogy, would the United States just sit back and cower from Mexican threats on El Paso or Cuban threats on Guantanamo simply because the Russians gave security guarantees to Mexico or Cuba ? I think not, and you know it wouldn't either, the US would do exactly as Germany did if not much earlier.
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  44. And I highly reccomend you read Simon Newman's 'march 1939 the british guarantee to poland' for a good study on Britain's contribution to the conflict that unravelled (implication: had britain left germany alone then there wouldn't have even been a german-polsih war, much less a ww2)
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  45. Because this one simple question fundamentally destroys the "Britain was only defending Poland" justification. That is even when we are totally ignorant of the scheming that went on during March 1939. I'm seriously thinking about doing a video that exposes the intrigues of the British and Americans from January to March 1939. For just a hint taken from James Forrestal's diary: "Neither the French, nor the British would have made Poland a case for war, had not been for the constant needling from Washington. Bullitt kept telling Roosevelt that the Germans wouldn't fight, Kennedy that they would, and that they would overrun Europe. Chamberlain, he says, stated that America had forced England into the war." this is corroborated by Polish embassy documents in Washington DC as well as Polish diplomatic documents published by the Germans in 1940. And when placed between the diplomatic documents published by the Allies themselves in DBFP and DGFP, along with other sources from government officials, you can start to get a picture bigger than simply "Britain was simply defending Poland from Germany that was clearly going to invade".
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  46.  @bolivar2153  "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Minutes, 30th March.
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  47. There's infinitely more context that people are not aware of when it comes to the German-Polish war, namely all the pressure Poland put on Danzig, particularly after receiving the guarantee from Britain. The primary one which tipped Germany into military action was the Ultimatum of August 4th. 80 years later most 'historians' would have you think nothing happened until one day Germany did a false flag and then invaded Poland and wholesome Britain came to their rescue (which we know they didn't).
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  48.  @junfour  Why don't you ? Poland is mentioned 3 times in MK and 3 times in a positive light.
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  49. Any intelligent person wouldn't blame Churchill for starting the war, they could indeed point out, as literally everyone at the time did, that Churchill was a major lobbyist for starting war against Germany. But it was ultimately Chamberlain who was the one in government, who made the decision to "do something about Germany" leading to the guarantee of March 31st, his "Peace Front policy" and ultimately declaring war on Germany. Historians like TIK however simply ignore everything the British did and only focus on what the Germans did, at least on the worst interpretations.
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  50. and then gave the victim to the other bully that was beating up the victim along with your chosen targeted 'bully'
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  51. Exactly but TIK and British apologists just can't fathom the concept. Doesn't matter how much you justify it, Britain still started WW2. You could easily justify starting WW3 against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Thus far we haven't and thus Russia hasn't started WW3. So therefore Germany wouldn't have been able to "start WW2" if Britain didn't declare war.
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  52. If you think Germany started WW1 then you absolutely cannot say that Germany started WW2 lol, that's the fantastic thing about our victors history "Germany started it because they gave a guarantee to Austria and built their navy to compete with Britain" so what does Germany do in 1935 ? It specifically limits its navy to 25% the size of Britain's navy, and then Britain gives Poland a guarantee but somehow Germany still started that war too. But of course, since Germany went out of its way to avoid competing with Britain, that is not a topic of discussion on how Germany started WW2 lol, lmao even.
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  53. "It still seems to me that the detente might have been achieved had it not been for the actions of the Polish government in sending what amounted to an ultimatum on the night of August 4th." - Gerald Shepard, 4th September. The British ambassador to Danzig was an agent of Putin ?
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  54.  @bolivar2153  The problem is you and most historians use selective quotes to paint this as Hitler's entire policy, and not simply an obvious front to his generals AFTER the events. He isn't going to make himself look weak and indecisive, like he actually was, of course after being spurned by poland he would then say "oh actually yeah i never cared about danzig we must prepare for war" etc. etc.
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  55. Indeed, the why is absolutely never mention for obvious reasons, it annihilates any "just defending Poland" myth. Here's just one quote which sums it up fairly well: "The Foreign Secretary agreed that there was probably no way in which France and ourselves could prevent Poland from being overrun. We were faced with the dilemma of doing nothing, or entering into a devastating war. If we did nothing, this would mean a great accession to Germany's strength and a great loss to ourselves of sympathy and support in the United States, and in other parts of the world. If we had to choose between two great evils, he favoured our going to war." - Cabinet Meeting, 27th March.
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  56.  @robertewing3114  What did Chamberlain say ?
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  57. @ he also said it was a delaying tactic and that Hitler missed the bus by not going to war in 1938
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  58. @ Indeed, everyone talks about operation sealion occuring in september or even 1941, what German generals like Kesslering argued, and the British military and establishment feared, was a german invasion in june or july.... the germans never actually planned for victory in france.
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  59. Not to mention the context of said invasion was that; if there were millions of Americans in Mexico being brutalized on a daily basis for several decades, Mexico was threatening to bomb San Diego, then we know that very few Americans would hold their government responsible for invading Mexico, much less so would they say "yep it's totally our fault that Russia declared war on us, we started WW3 by defending San Diego and the American community in Mexico".
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  60. I'm making a video that will expose the can of worms that is actually the pressure from the USA. Roosevelt and pro-war diplomats like Potocki and Bullitt, pressured Chamberlain into war in 1939. My educated guess is that the USA threatened to withdraw aid if Chamberlain didn't start a war in 1939, and a war between Germany and Britain broke out in 1940 or later. Edward Halifax also believed war would happen anyway, so the Poles, like Halifax believed that they should encourage war in 1939 instead of letting Germany get stronger peacefully.
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  61.  @ryanwilliams3070  James Forrestal diary, dated 27th December 1945, is a massive bombshell. Corroborated by Herbert Hoover and Polish documents published by the Germans in 1940. I haven't checked Harold's diary yet.
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  62. The context which they never like to tell you is that, prior to the British guarantee, the Germans and Polish were already having negotiations on settling their differences. The British feared this happening and so gave Poland a military guarantee. Upon receiving the guarantee, the Poles broke off negotiations and then became more aggressive with their diplomacy towards Danzig. To quote the cabinet meeting of April 19th "The Foreign Secretary reported that he had now received a telegram from Berlin in regard to relations between Germany and Poland, the upshot of the report was that Herr Hitler was now dealing with these negotiations himself, but that not much progress was being made. This was attributed to the fact that the Poles were adopting a more intractable attitude since they had obtained our guarantee."
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  63.  @hank964  Indeed, and the day before he gave the guarantee to Poland: "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March.
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  64. They're only absurd if you're ignorant or 'can't think critically', as a certain crowd would say. I highly recommend a read of Simon Newman's "march 1939 the British guarantee to poland" as well as the primary sources of diplomatic communications in "documents on british foreign policy" and "documents on german foreign policy"
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  65. Yes its a rather large flaw in the moralistic "Germany started WW2" narrative. 'Germany started WW2 because it invaded Poland' 'Britain was just trying to defend Poland'. So one asks 'why then didn't they declare war on the USSR', which of course the mask slips right off. 'It wasn't convenient, strategic considerations etc.'. Oh, so the war against Germany was indeed strategic considerations. As the Cabinet and Foreign Policy Committee meetings of March 1939 indeed show. To quote Roger Makins of the British Foreign Office: "A German-Polish deal would in the long run be highly disadvantageous to us. It would defeat the policy of forming a bloc against Germany".
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  66.  @robertmeunier9915  read again.
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  67.  @robertmeunier9915  John Mersheimer certainly argues that. "why didn't continue to occupy Poland after freeing Danzig?" Same reason why the allies didn't just end their war when they reached German 1933 borders. Real life doesn't work like that.
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  68.  @robertmeunier9915  "They were trying to end a German threat, which meant making Germany surrender." Precisely. I'm not a German so I don't have such a "belief system" but I have no doubt that if Cornwall was in a similar position to Danzig, vast majority of Brits would also support relieving French economic pressure and securing Cornwall from the French. It's just funny to me how Danzig is just never mentioned in popular histories of how WW2 broke out.
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  69. "It still seems to me that the detente might have been achieved had it not been for the actions of the Polish government in sending what amounted to an ultimatum on the night of August 4th." - Gerald Shepard, 4th September. "Frankly, Chamberlain is more worried about getting the Poles to be reasonable than the Germans. He feels there is a great body of public opinion in England headed probably by Eden and Churchill who will suggest to the Poles that they give up nothing and that they have Hitler on the run. This, of course, will mean war" - Joseph Kennedy, 30th August. "After Rydz-Smigly's speech yesterday, thousands of Poles joined in, shouting 'we demand Danzig'" - Daily Mirror, 7th August "The Polish Commissioner to Danzig telephoned the President of the Senate at 1 o'clock in the morning, and half an hour later sent him an ultimatum. That same morning he had risked a panic by sending away women and children, and at the same time the polish press had talked of bombing Danzig." - Gerald Shepard, recounting the events of August 4th. "In view of indications of increasing Polish intransigence since conclusion of the Anglo-Polish guarantee agreement..." - Joseph Kennedy, 22nd April. "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March. "War, and war now with a near eastern front. Without war the desired results may never be achieved." - Noel Mason-MacFarlane, 28th March. "Halifax felt that the inevitability of war sooner or later should be met right now" - Joseph Kennedy, 24th March. "We should attack Germany, not in order to save a particular victim, but in order to pull down the bully" - Neville Chamberlain, 20th March. There's an incredible story to be told when you go through the primary sources in "documents on british foreign policy" yet incredibly these are never mentioned by mainstream popular historians.
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  70. "We should attack Germany, not in order to save a particular victim, but in order to pull down the bully" - Neville Chamberlain, 20th March. [1] "England is advising France that they should both go to war regardless of Poland." - Joseph Kennedy, 22nd March. "Beck stated that Poland had no intention of marching unless Poland were attacked." - Anthony Biddle Jr., 23rd March "Halifax felt that the inevitability of war sooner or later should be met right now" - Joseph Kennedy, 24th March. "War, and war now with a near eastern front. Without war the desired results may never be achieved." - Noel Mason-MacFarlane, 28th March. "The Foreign Secretary said that it was clear that if action was to be undertaken in circumstances at all favourable to us, or if the threat of action was to be an effective deterrent, Germany must be faced with war on two fronts simultaneously. Poland was therefore key to the situation." - Cabinet Meeting, 29th March [1] "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March. [1] "No doubt it would be impossible to prevent Poland from being overrun. The Chiefs of Staff, indeed, thought that Poland would likely be overrun by Germany within two or three months." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March. [1] "I gather Mason-MacFarlane will approve our action today." - Alexander Cadogan, 31st March. The information is there. Its just Anglophile historians tend to totally ignore it. I wonder why ?
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  71. If you're interested then I highly recommend a read of Simon Newman's "March 1939 the british guarantee to poland" and then read the primary evidence in "documents on british foreign policy" and "documents on german foreign policy". "the topic is complicated" Indeed but mainstream victor's history portray it as very simplistic. They never mention the German-Polish negotiations that there were before 31st March 1939, they never mention the Polish ultimatum to Danzig of August 4th or the discussions that Chamberlain and Halifax had in March 1939. It is merely "one day Germany invaded Poland and Britain promised to defend them".
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  72.  @pandaprewmaster325  "One thing I know for sure germany being a superpower most likely threatens British" Yet I don't see how, when you go through "documents on German foreign policy" in every private conversation Hitler has with diplomats and other leaders [1], he only talks about being allies and friends with the british empire, there is literally no reason for Germany to ever fight Britain. Germany is never going to fight Britain over India, unlike how Britain wants to fight over Danzig. Then Alexander Cadogan wrote a white paper essentially saying "yeah, let Germany have eastern Europe, this would even benefit us, if Germany builds up eastern Europe then we can make more money as well through trade", and we still have the rest of the world to trade with. [1] such as Series D - Volume VI Document No. 784.
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  73. And that isn't even accounting for the British conspiracy to start a war against Germany. "We should attack Germany, not in order to save a particular victim, but in order to pull down the bully" - Neville Chamberlain, 20th March. "England is advising France that they should both go to war regardless of Poland." - Joseph Kennedy, 22nd March. "Halifax felt that the inevitability of war sooner or later should be met right now" - Joseph Kennedy, 24th March. "War, and war now with a near eastern front. Without war the desired results may never be achieved." - Noel Mason-MacFarlane, 28th March. "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March.
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  74. have you heard of the Polish Ultimatum to Danzig of August 4th ? 99.999% of people have not. Remember all the cries for war when a Russian drone flew over Polish territory for about 2 minutes ? Now imagine the war cries if Russia sent an official note threatening to flatten Warsaw.
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  75. No. No, sorry. In order to have been 'in the right' Germany should have done whatever the Anglo-Americans wanted them to do, this would have meant disinteresting themselves in the welfare of the German minority in Poland and the democratic wishes of the people of Danzig. Germany had no right to protect Danzigers or its minority left after the Versailles Treaty. Meanwhile the Anglo-Americans in every war since 1945: invades country xyz because they don't like its leader.
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  76. and that's the fantastic thing about WW2, had it not been for Britain's guarantee of Poland, there might not have even been a German-Polish war. But, here we are with "Germany started ww2".
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  77. "The Foreign Secretary said that he had been reflecting on the anxieties which had been voiced by the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence. He agreed that there was probably no way in which France and ourselves could prevent Poland from being overrun. We were faced with the dilemma of doing nothing, or entering into a devastating war. If we did nothing, this would mean a great accession to Germany's strength and a great loss to ourselves of sympathy and support in the United States, and in other parts of the world. If we had to choose between two great evils, he favoured our going to war." - Cabinet Meeting, 27th March. In all these cabinet meetings, Poland was explicitly a pretext to start a war against Germany.
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  78.  @Nathan-jh1ho  0/2 correct points made.
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  79. Hitler blundered into war, Chamberlain blundered into it even more so. And yet I and most people have grown up on propaganda that paints it as a unique war that was solely caused by some German master plan.
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  80.  @AdrianDeer  Have a read of Simon Newman's "march 1939 the british guarantee to poland" for some more 'truth', particularly when we look at the British side of the story. TIK and most other popular historians only ever look at the story from the German conspiracy side.
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  81. Only if you're ignorant of everything else that happened (which Anglo-American historiography naturally wants you to be). Many diplomats at the time did in fact blame Poland for escalating the tensions, they also blamed the British guarantee for hardening Polish policy towards Danzig. Just a few quotes to demonstrate this: "The Polish Commissioner to Danzig telephoned the President of the Senate at 1 o'clock in the morning, and half an hour later sent him an ultimatum. That same morning he had risked a panic by sending away women and children, and at the same time the polish press had talked of bombing Danzig." - Gerald Shepard, recounting the events of August 4th. "Guns, which stand guard over Poland's honor, are trained on Danzig. If the Danzig authorities intend to face Poland with a fait accompli these guns will roar." - Marshall Rydz-Smigly, 6th August "After Rydz-Smigly's speech yesterday, thousands of Poles joined in, shouting 'we demand Danzig'" - Daily Mirror, 7th August "The League of Nations negotiator is greatly disappointed that efforts towards a detente have been definitely shattered by the Polish ultimatum of August 4th. He is distrustful of Beck and pessimistic about Polish intentions which he considers unduly warlike." - Gerald Shepard, 11th August. "It still seems to me that the detente might have been achieved had it not been for the actions of the Polish government in sending what amounted to an ultimatum on the night of August 4th." - Gerald Shepard, 4th September. And then what is the story behind the British guarantee? Why did they guarantee Poland, a country that Germany was negotiating with to amicably remove issues between the two ? "We should attack Germany, not in order to save a particular victim, but in order to pull down the bully" - Neville Chamberlain, 20th March. "England is advising France that they should both go to war regardless of Poland." - Joseph Kennedy, 22nd March. "Halifax felt that the inevitability of war sooner or later should be met right now" - Joseph Kennedy, 24th March. "War, and war now with a near eastern front. Without war the desired results may never be achieved." - Noel Mason-MacFarlane, 28th March. "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany." - Cabinet Meeting, 30th March.
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  82. The Poles cut off negotiations with Germany after receiving the guarantee, since that date they took more aggressive actions against Danzig with the major escalation being the ultimatum of August 4th. Literally not a single western "documentary" would ever tell you about these things, Its only ever "one day Hitler invaded Poland cus he wanted to take over the world and stuff"
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  83. As Joseph Kennedy reported in Late August "quite frankly Chamberlain is more worried about getting the Poles to be reasonable than the Germans" I think Chamberlain kinda regretted the guarantee after the false reports he got about 'an imminent german invasion of poland, switzerland, holland or france' turned out to be false.
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  84. Poland is mentioned about 3 times in MK. And those 3 times it is in a positive light. No one is arguing he didn't want war with Russia, but then again he was far, far from the only man in Europe that wanted war with Russia. Unsurprisingly as you can see even today.
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  85. People don't even know where Poland is today, and despite ubiquitous propaganda, they don't even know what year the Battle of Britain occurred in. Boomers who love the war, go to WW2 events and the likes, gave me the answer of "uhh 1944 ?". I wasn't particularly shocked but its still sensational that even commoners who involve themselves in WW2 events so much don't even know the most basic facts about the war. Never mind things like the discussions Bullitt and Kennedy had with their respective leaders in January and March 1939.
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  86.  @doctorpepsi8486  and thus indeed it is much easier and simplistic to just go with "Germany invaded poland so they started it"
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  87.  @bolivar2153  Documents on British Foreign Policy and Documents on German Foreign Policy
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  88.  @janys6502  completely different situations my dude
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  89.  @janys6502  I literally gave you a good quote on that. And there's many telegrams in "documents on british foreign policy", have a read through them, very interesting stuff.
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  90. It does seem that way. Had Hitler really wanted war, and genuinely wanted to make Poland 'the aggressor' under such conditions. He would have ordered Forster to go ahead with the disarmament of Polish 'customs officers' in early August. What on earth am I talking about you ask ? Obviously something Anglo-American historians have kept out of their stories, namely the Polish Ultimatum to Danzig of August 4th. The most alarming part of the Ultimatum: "I do not doubt that you, Mr. President of the Senate, have no doubts that such an infringement of the fundamental rights of Poland would under no pretext be tolerated by the Polish Government. Should the above-mentioned abuses take place the Polish Government will retaliate without delay against the Free City." This of course preceding Marshall Rydz-Smigly's speech of 6th August stating "Guns, which stand guard over Poland's honor, are trained on Danzig. If the Danzig authorities intend to face Poland with a fait accompli these guns will roar." and as reported by the Daily Mirror on 7th August "After Rydz-Smigly's speech yesterday, thousands of Poles joined in, shouting 'we demand Danzig'". There is a copy of the Ultimatum from Danzig, sent to the German foreign office, that also states that Forster/ Danzig would seek advice from the Fuhrer on what to do. Given that Roger Makins reported on 14th August "The Poles had threatened severe economic reprisals and were privately making threats of military action. Beck thought that Danzig had climbed down and published his success in the press." it would seem that the Fuhrer's orders were to 'back down' rather than facilitate a possible Polish attack on Danzig.
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  91.  @augnkn93043  The point is that you can't on the one hand say Britain was morally right to "defend" Poland from "German aggression" and then on the other turn a blind eye to the Russian invasion for "practical geopolitical reasons", especially so as Britain gave Poland to the Soviets in 1945 anyway, which utterly defeats the whole "we defended Polish independence" schtick. WW2 was such a disaster for Britain, which is why it's so hard for us to come to terms with what we did. So it is much easier to do, as TIK does in this video, to go in knots and circles to rationalize how actually it was Germany that declared war on Britain. As I mention, even when we pretend that Germany was this uniquely rogue power that hated Poles and had long planned for war with them, it is still the Chamberlain government making a sovereign decision to make war on Germany. hint: its not true, because ironically one of Hitler's biggest criticisms from Germans in 1939 was that he was too weak on the Poles, he admired Pilsudski too much, and saw in Poland a state that had a common enemy - Russia. Britain knew of this, and knew that Germany and Poland were having negotiations on solving their outstanding issues. Leading Chamberlain to make the guarantee on 31st March. As is recorded on 30th March in a Cabinet meeting "The Prime Minister said that he was somewhat uneasy at the fact that our Ambassador in Warsaw could obtain no information as to the progress of the negotiations between Germany and Poland. One possible, but very distasteful, explanation of this was that Polish negotiators were, in fact, giving way to Germany."
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  92. The Brits were indeed angry at Russia 'betraying' the British peace front policy, however the Brits were the ones who started the policy to begin with, so really they were angry at themselves.
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  93. what do you mean? Did Home have any diaries or something ?
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  94. Indeed, declaring war on Germany after the Peace Front collapsed on August 24th was a total disaster. But I can assume Chamberlain thought that not declaring war and thus totally embarrassing Britain's 'guarantees' would be equally disastrous. So Chamberlain took the easy way out and declared war anyway, hoping things would somehow not go as they did in 1940.
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