3 Sept: "Seventy years ago today, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Germany had invaded Poland, but had prepared a scene 'proving' that Poland had waged an unprovoked invasion of Germany, an invasion that had been repulsed by the German Army. Then, given this provocation, the German Army had counter-attacked Poland. No reputable historian believes the staged 'Polish invasion of Germany,' even though Hitler showed dead men in Polish uniforms on German soil (I'm sure there are some disreputable historians who believe Hitler's version, and, had Germany won the war, this would be the version in all the European history books, though Poland would never have wished or dared to attack Germany.) Britain and France had agreed to protect Poland from any aggression, but Hitler hoped they would use the excuse he gave them that the German 'counter-attack' was a reprisal against Polish aggression, for which neither Britain nor France was obligated to assist Poland.
But Britain and France, who had agreed to let Hitler have Czechoslovakia, declared war. It is not altogether clear why, since it cost them their empires. Had they not declared war, Hitler might have settled for annexing all lands east of Germany, leaving lands west of Germany in peace. Or not.
Churchill had wanted a regime change as soon as Hitler was elected in '33 on a platform that was in violation of the treaty of Versailles and racist. Clearly, regime change would have been facile in the extreme in '33. But perceptions were in Hitler's favour back then: in 1800, most Germanic people lived in what the map calls 'Small States.' As hyperbolised by Terry Pratchett, the Kings of these states had to take out their own trash and mow their own palace lawns when they had some time off from sitting in state. Then a movement to form a single country with all Europe's Germanic people attracted most of Germanic people outside the Austrian Empire and Switzerland, and a large country called (in English) Germany formed in the late 19th century, annexing predominantly German regions, including parts of France. Germany had only a few tiny colonies, since Germany did not exist in the age of empire building, and only knew the mercantile model, where an Imperial Industrial power needed colonies to provide raw materials and markets for finished products, so, in 1914, Germany was anxious for a war that would provide colonies, and France was anxious for a war to restore French territories lost in the creation of Germany.
Germany lost in 1918, and all the eastern German lands were given to Poland, the southern lands were used to form Czechoslovakia, the formerly French bits filled with Germanic people were returned to France, and a tiny state formed of the centre of the former Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles to abandon all militarization and limit its industrialisation, and to pay all the German gold and much of the German GDP in reparations, leaving a tiny, weak, impoverished nation that could never again threaten the Great Powers of Britain and France.
Hitler wanted all the lands expropriated in 1918 returned, and, by 1934, many agreed that the Treaty of Versailles had been unfair, and that much of what was taken from Germany should be returned. Churchill did not agree with those willing to forgive and forget Germany's attempt to become a great power, and to overlook the racist aspects of Hitler's policies that relegated ethnic Jews and Roma to the status of vermin to be exterminated and Slavs to the status of slaves.
In '38, Churchill said that, with Czechoslovakia's 15 divisions, the war would have been difficult but winnable. Waugh wrote that, in '38, the war would have been for 'the wrong reasons, or for no reason at all, with the wrong allies, in painful weakness.' Waugh agreed that the war was a war of necessity in '39, when Germany overran Poland with no British or French opposition, and then, in '40, Germany turned West, and quickly defeated the combined Anglo-French Army, occupied all of France, and convinced most of the world that occupation of Britain would be a matter of weeks. As it happened, this seems to have neglected the British Navy that dissuaded the Germans from trying a naval invasion.
Still, Churchill was right that Britain could not remain indifferent to a regime determined to exterminate all Jews and Roma and to enslave all Slavs.
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