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3 - The British guarantee to Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2009

Anita J. Prazmowska
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Summary

On 31 March at 3 p. m. after informing the House of Commons that consultations were in progress between Britain and other countries Chamberlain proceeded to announce:

In order to make perfectly clear the position of His Majesty's Government in the meantime before these consultations are concluded, I now have to inform the House that during the period in the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence, and which the Polish Government accordingly consider it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect.

By giving the above guarantee to Poland Chamberlain's government appeared to have confused two policies. On the one hand, it had singled out from among all the Central East European states one country rather than persist with the previous proposal for a united front of all states opposed to German aggression. On the other hand it was hoped to preempt German actions in Danzig. The effect was that the possibility of an eastern front against Germany was lost and replaced by a commitment to a state which was Germany's most likely next object of aggression.

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Britain, Poland and the Eastern Front, 1939 , pp. 57 - 79
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1987

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