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Historical Setting

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Great Britain, The Soviet Union and the Polish Government in Exile (1939–1945)

Part of the book series: Studies in Contemporary History ((SICH,volume 3))

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Abstract

Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the thousand year history of Poland has been the frequent shifting of its borders from west to east and back again. The restoration of an independent Polish state after World War I did not change the basic problem of its unique geographic location, a peculiarity that dictated an interconnection between its external and internal policies. In this setting, preservation of independence was the overriding consideration of the Poles. Indeed, throughout the interwar period, 1919–1939, Poland’s position in the international arena was precarious. The foundation on which Polish independence rested was as fragile as the whole European security system. During this period, Great Britain and, to a lesser extent, France thought they could escape reality by turning away from the troubled continent that had re-emerged after the First World War. From the beginning, neither Germany nor the Soviet Union looked favorably on the restored Polish state with its western boundaries determined by the Treaty of Versailles (partly by plebiscite) and its eastern boundaries settled by the force of arms, confirmed by the Treaty of Riga in 1921, and recognized by Great Britain as well as other Western powers in the Conference of Ambassadors in 1923. In 1922, the arbiter of German foreign policy, Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann, wrote: “Poland’s existence is intolerable, incompatible with the essential conditions of Germany’s life.”1 He considered Polish-German frontiers to be fluid in the long run, and thus he anticipated that German pressure, with Soviet cooperation, might facilitate German recovery of the Polish Corridor, Danzig, and Upper Silesia.2

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  1. George V. Kacewicz
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© 1979 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers bv, The Hague

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Kacewicz, G.V. (1979). Historical Setting. In: Great Britain, The Soviet Union and the Polish Government in Exile (1939–1945). Studies in Contemporary History, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9272-6_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9272-6_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-009-9274-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-9272-6

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