re: Ww2 question: If France(+England) declared on Germany for invading Poland.

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In the long run, it wouldn’t have mattered. The fall of Moscow wouldn’t have ended the war for the Russians. Outside of Stalin, the government was already operating from Kuybyshev, and most of the industrial facilities had been relocated to the Urals. Supplies were already thin for the Germans, and an extra month or two wouldn’t have enabled them to overcome all of those issues and reinforce enough for a winter occupation of a major city. Once winter set in, they would have been sitting ducks for a Red Army counter attack

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I tend to agree with you on this point, however, Moscow was a very important railway hub. And another thing that rarely gets mentioned is that Stalin was in a state of desperation for two weeks after the surprise invasion by Germany. There was a secret overture made behind the scenes where the Soviets offered Hitler a settlement (which he probably should have taken in retrospect, but at the time the USSR looked finished). Would Stalin have been desperate enough to offer another settlement had Moscow fallen to the Nazis? And another question is would Stalin have survived the loss of Moscow, or would he have been overthrown?

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Nazi Germany was clearly the more immediate threat at the time. It was waging aggressive war against its neighbors.

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This is ridiculous. Germany offered peace and return of lands multiple times throughout WWII. Not only that they asked the Allies to join Germany in their war against the communists. The people who had already been genociding people since WWI. That would have gave access to all of the Eastern war front territory.

WWII was the war to annihilate Germany. Capitalist and Communist joined forces to fight the philosophy and morals of National Socialism.

Churchill wasn't named PM until May 20, 1940; thus he had little input until months after Russia invaded Poland.

The fact is Germany wasn't near as strong in late 1939 and there were opportunities to reel Hitler in, but the Chamberlain govt. and the French were way too soft.

They weren't about fighting Hitler even when he invaded Poland so no way were they going against Stalin.

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This is ridiculous. Germany offered peace and return of lands multiple times throughout WWII. Not only that they asked the Allies to join Germany in their war against the communists. The people who had already been genociding people since WWI. That would have gave access to all of the Eastern war front territory.

WWII was the war to annihilate Germany. Capitalist and Communist joined forces to fight the philosophy and morals of National Socialism.

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I really hope that you’re a recently thawed 1942 German soldier to actually believe this.

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I really hope that you’re a recently thawed 1942 German soldier to actually believe this.

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He's pretty close to, if not an outright Nazi, if you read his other posts.

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there were opportunities to reel Hitler in, but the Chamberlain govt. and the French were way too soft.

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I've said that in previous posts. France had a golden opportunity to rebuff Hitler when he ordered troops into the Rhineland in 1936. At that time, France did have a stronger army than Germany. By late 1939, this was no longer the case as Germany was armed to the teeth. France and Great Britain also had an opportunity to rebuff Hitler at Munich over the Sudetenland. The Czechs were ready to fight, had a good army and a very defensible mountainous frontier with Germany. After Hitler reneged on his promise that the Sudetenland was his last territorial claim in Europe, the western Allies finally woke up.

Again, by late 1939 and the Polish crisis over Danzig and the Corridor, the western allies knew that Hitler and Nazi Germany were the immediate threat in Europe. I don't think the question as to why France and Great Britain didn't declare war on the Soviet Union over its land grab in Poland is a particularly difficult one to answer.

France and England really didn’t do anything after declaring war. It was a hollow declaration done more as a formality to honor the alliance they had with Poland.

Some naval activities and blockades took place, but there was no attempt to defend Poland or attack Germany. I think British bombers were sent to Germany, but they only dropped flyers and propaganda material.

The Soviets invaded Poland a couple of weeks after Germany. This action was a minor footnote to the larger problem of German aggression. The Soviets were seen as taking advantage of the situation and picking up scraps the Germans didn’t want.

The Soviets also claimed they weren’t invaders, instead they were occupying land which had historically been under Russian control. Everyone knew Stalin’s claim of protecting Eastern Poland was BS, but it gave everyone an excuse to ignore their aggression.

Simple answer, because the British and French didn't give two flying fricks about Poland. They were playing power politics and Germany was the country they both knew possessed the inherent latent power to be the continental hegemonic presence ever since its coalescence into a single unified state following the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1871.

Chamberlain made a public and irrevocable war guarantee to Poland at the end of March 1939 after Germany occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia in an attempt to prevent any more territorial expansion from Germany which would inevitably lead to a loss of British control and influence over European continental affairs. It was a declaration to defend Poland ONLY in the case of German aggression. Hitler was too much of an international political novice to recognize that such a public declaration tied Britain's hands in the instance of a German invasion. And Stalin was politically savvy enough to wait just over two weeks before sending his forces into Poland and maintaining complete secrecy regarding the fact that he had agreed with Hitler prior to the German invasion on also taking part. Stalin was a chess player on the world stage matched by almost none when it came to manipulating and gaining territories for the USSR.

Yes and the western German border with France was lightly guarded because Hitler had concentrated his forces in the east to attack Poland. He rightly predicted France and Britain would do nothing as they had previously done when he took those other countries. He was surprised they declared war.
France and Britain merely engaged in a phony war until Hitler turned west months later.

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That was the Polish view, but the British said the agreement was limited to Germany by virtue of the first secret protocol.

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So Germany was on double secret probation?

f

It all makes sense now.