The last time I checked, WW II kicked off when Germany invaded Poland, while England and France had a pact to defend Poland. However, a few weeks after Germany, the Soviet Union invaded from the East. Why didn’t England and France declare war on the USSR? I can come up with a couple of scenarios, but don’t have anything to decide between them.
I recognize this will probably turn into a GD, since it has the words “Why” and “WW II” in the title, but what the heck; Churchill might log on to give us the definitive word.
yeah, but Churchill was more then willing to let Germany and USSR absolutely butcher each other and not come in against Germany from the West. Stalin was constantly complaining that the other Allies were just sitting on their asses while Russia was bearing the brunt of the German attack.
Well…Germany and Russia invaded Poland as allies in 1939. They were not fighting each other. They had signed a non aggression treaty. They didn’t fight until Germany invaded Iin June of 41. As for why they didn’t declare war on Russia…good question. They declared war on germany because they had said they would if Germany attacked.
Actually, Churchill was not the PM when Germany invaded. Chamberlain was, I believe, until May of 1940. I think that the allies were hoping to keep tensions high between the Communists and the Nazis (which is generally not a hard thing to do), and declaring war on both of them would have united them. IIRC, my Russian History professor in school explained that Hitler believed that Stalin would betray him, Stalin believed that Hitler would, and they were both right. Hitler, obviuosly, beat Stalin to the punch.
Well, the point is, the USSR wasn’t part of the Allies at the beginning of the war. It was a co-belligerent and de facto ally of the Axis. Heck, the UK even declared war on Finland, after the Finns had thrown in their lot with the Germans after being the subject of Soviet aggression. But the Western powers didn’t ever declare war on the Soviet Union, not even when the USSR was acting in league with Nazi Germany. Hence, the OP’s question.
Not so. In 1939, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand all declared war on Germany. After France was knocked out in 1940, the Commonwealth countries continued as allies with the U.K.
Buckner, etc. are correct. The USSR was acting in concert with the Nazis until the German attack on the USSR on 21 June 1941.
A perusal of the history of the Communist party in the UK from 1939 to 21 June 1941 will show that they actively worked against the British war effort. Supposedly this was in the interests of peace and anti-imperialism, but of course it was the “peace” of the totalitarians and anti-British/pro-Nazi and pro-Soviet imperialsim.
One might as well ask why the UK and Commonwealth didn’t attack Japan, since Japan was an axis partner by treaty, while the USSR only was acting as if it were. The reason is the same in either case: Until 1941, neither the USSR nor Japan had directly and overtly attacked the UK, Australia, India, etc., and the British Empire had hands were more than full with fighting the Germans and Italians.
Note that this more than anything else is why the Soviets called it “The Great Patriotic War” and when writing history/propaganda chose to separate their campagians against the Nazis from their 1939-1941 wars and occupations with their neighbors.
My guess is that in 1939 there wasn’t a great deal the UK or France could do by way of prosecuting a war against the USSR, so the only consequence of a declaration of war might have been to cement the USSR-Germany alliance. In other words, it would have been counterproductive.
The reverse question is also interesting. Why <I>did</I> Hitler declare war on the US in December 1941? There wasn’t a great deal he could do to pursue the war, whereas (as we now know) there was quite a deal which the US could do against him. Had he not declared war, there must have been every possibility that the US would have confined itself to fighting Japan, which must have made Hitler’s life a lot easier. But no doubt this should be the subject of a separate thread (if it hasn’t already been).
This, it seems to me, misses the point of the original question: it’s certainly true that the USSR had not directly engaged in offensive action against the UK or France, but the SAME was true of Germany at the time the UK and France declared war. The casus belli for UK and France was Hitler’s invasion of Poland; why not the same action when the USSR did the same thing?
Several answers: first and most importantly, Hitler was an imminent and direct threat to dominate all of Europe. Stalin, at least in 1939, was not. While the proximate cause of the UK and France entering the war was the invasion of Poland, the threat to British and French interests was Hitler’s march towards the domination of Europe, not their great love for the Poles.
Second, at the time the USSR invaded Poland, Poland was a lost cause. There was hope at the time of the outbreak of war that Allied action might somehow save Poland. No chance of that by the time Stalin gets involved.
Third, the Allies very seriously considered war with the Soviet Union, especially during the Winter War between the USSR and Finland (1939-1940). There was serious discussion of sending troops to help the Finns, bombing the Soviet oil fields at Baku, etc.
To some degree, this was irrational, a response to the Phony War. The British and French can’t figure out how to get to the Germans without refighting the First World War, so they grasp at straws like intervening in Finland to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING that seems productive.
Lastly, there was some reserve of sanity in the British and French. One war at a time, against the enemy that is the immediate threat. Remember what Alexander Pope said: “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Asking the British and French to declare war on anybody who invaded Poland would be asking to act consistently in the face of all reason.
If I remember rightly, it was only through Germany’s heavy-handed “diplomacy” that Britain and France failed to actively fight the Soviets. By late January, 1940, Churchill openly advocated troop and materiel aid to Finland, and within a couple of weeks Britain and France formally decided to do so. Churchill (not yet PM) also made some radio addresses which essentially laid out Allied intentions of drawing Norway and Sweden into the fight, which the Germans overheard. The Daladier government in France actually pinned its existence on keeping Finland in the fight.
Somewhere around February-March, 1940, Britain and France formally requested that Sweden and Norway allow transit of a very large body of troops through that country into northern Finland. Sweden, acting on the virtual promise from von Ribbentrop that any move in favor of the Allies would result in German invasion, denied the request. A few days later Finland asked for an armistice with the USSR, and a few days after that the Daladier government fell.
I don’t know what Norway said to the request, but when Finland succumbed, the Allies accelerated their plans to send troops to Norway whether Norway wanted them or not, and the Germans were fully aware of it. On April 9, 1940, German troops occupied Dennmark and commenced landings throughout Norway. Sweden was left alone with the semblance of neutrality.
DRS, Sofa King thanks, that’s pretty much the scenarios I had come up with. I didn’t realize planning during the Winter War had gone that far though. It also occurred to me that the treaty between Poland and France/Britan could have specified Germany as the agressor. That seems unlikely though, and I can’t check it.
UDS, that is an interesting question. I think it was covered in GD a few months back, but I’m not sure. If you’ll allow me to rephrase, why did Hitler honor his treaty obligations with Japan when Japan had not done the same (declaring war on the USSR in June 1941)?
Presumably the U.S.S.R. would have qualified as a “European Power” for the purposes of this clause, but it may be that by the time of the partition, the Polish government had effectively ceased to exist in Poland, so the U.K. did not feel obligated to intervene.
Others who know more may be able to answer a question: I’ve been under the assumption that the British guarantee to Poland was meant as a warning to Hitler (“Okay, forget about how we caved over the Rhineland, and the Anschulss, and Sudetenland - this time we’re serious!”). Did the British government really expect that they would go to war over Poland?
