World War 3

deathmaster SG

speculations tt there will be a true prediction of WWIII

Poh Ah Pak SG

speculations tt there will be a true prediction of WWIII

It's just typical nonsense.

No evidence to back up claims whatsoever.

No logic.

No reasoning.

No arguments.

No analysis.

Any fool can write up stuff such as this and put it online.

That is why a lot of this crap is propagating itself.

Very sad for intellectual development.

Poh Ah Pak SG

Go and compare above crap with below, one heaven one earth, one is nonsense plucked out of thin air, the other solid analysis based on facts, evidence and rational argument:

It is probable that the groundwork for Halifax’s visit to Hitler had been laid by the earlier visits of Lords Lothian and Londonderry to the same host, but our knowledge of these earlier events is too scanty to be certain.

Of Halifax’s visit, the story is now clear, as a result of the publication of the German Foreign Office memorandum on the subject and Keith Feiling’s publication of some of the letters from Neville Chamberlain to his sister.

The visit was arranged by Halifax himself, early in November 1937, at a time when he was Acting Foreign Secretary, Eden being absent in Brussels at a meeting of signers of the Nine-Power Pacific Treaty of 1922.

As a result, Halifax had a long conversation with Hitler on 19 November 1937 in which, whatever may have been Halifax’s intention, Hitler’s government became convinced of three things:

(a) that Britain regarded Germany as the chief bulwark against communism in Europe;

(b) that Britain was prepared to join a Four Power agreement of France, Germany, Italy, and herself; and

(c) that Britain was prepared to allow Germany to liquidate Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland if this could be done without provoking a war into which the British Government, however unwillingly, would be dragged in opposition to Germany.

The German Foreign Ministry memorandum on this conversation makes it perfectly clear that the Germans did not misunderstand Halifax except, possibly, on the last point.

There they failed to see that if Germany made war, the British Government would be forced into the war against Germany by public opinion in England.

The German diplomatic agents in London, especially the Ambassador, Dirksen, saw this clearly, but the Government in Berlin listened only to the blind and conceited ignorance of Ribbentrop.

As dictators themselves, unfamiliar with the British social or constitutional systems, the German rulers assumed that the willingness of the British Government to accept the liquidation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland implied that the British Government would never go to war to prevent this liquidation.

They did not see that the British Government might have to declare war to stay in office if public opinion in Britain were sufficiently aroused.

The British Government saw this difficulty and as a last resort were prepared to declare war but not to wage war on Germany. This distinction was not clear to the Germans and was not accepted by the inner core of the Milner Group.

It was, however, accepted by the other elements in the government, like Chamberlain himself, and by much of the second circle of the Milner Group, including Simon, Hoare, and probably Halifax. It was this which resulted in the “phony war” from September 1939 to April 1940.

The memorandum on Halifax’s interview, quoting the Englishman in the third person, says in part:^[10]

In spite of these difficulties [British public opinion, the English Church, and the Labour Party] he and other members of the British Government were fully aware that the Führer had not only achieved a great deal inside Germany herself, but that, by destroying Communism in his country, he had barred its road to Western Europe, and that Germany therefore could rightly be regarded as a bulwark of the West against Bolshevism. ... After the ground had been prepared by an Anglo-German understanding, the four Great West-European Powers must jointly lay the foundation for lasting peace in Europe. Under no conditions should any of the four Powers remain outside this cooperation, or else there would be no end to the present unstable situation.... Britons were realists and were perhaps more than others convinced that the errors of the Versailles dictate must be rectified. Britain always exercised her influence in this realistic sense in the past. He pointed to Britain’s role with regard to the evacuation of the Rhineland ahead of the fixed time, the settlement of the reparations problem, and the reoccupation of the Rhineland. ... He therefore wanted to know the Führer’s attitude toward the League of Nations, as well as toward disarmament. All other questions could be characterized as relating to changes in the European order, changes that sooner or later would probably take place. To these questions belonged Danzig, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. England was only interested that any alterations should be effected by peaceful evolution, so as to avoid methods which might cause far-reaching disturbances, which were not desired either by the Führer or by other countries.... Only one country, Soviet Russia, stood to gain from a general conflict. All others were at heart in favour of the consolidation of peace.

That this attitude was not Halifax’s personal argument but the point of view of the government (and of the Milner Group) is perfectly clear.

On arrival, Halifax assured the Germans that the purposes of his visit had been discussed and accepted by the Foreign Secretary (Eden) and the Prime Minister.

On 26 November 1937, one week after Halifax’s conversation with Hitler, Chamberlain wrote to his sister that lie hoped to satisfy German colonial demands by giving them the Belgian Congo and Angola in place of Tanganyika.

He then added: “I don’t see why we shouldn’t say to Germany, ‘Give us satisfactory assurances that you won’t use force to deal with the Austrians and Czechoslovakians, and we will give you similar assurances that we won’t use force to prevent the changes you want if you can get them by peaceful means.' ”^[11]

It might be noted that when John W. Wheeler-Bennett, of Chatham House and the Milner Group, wrote his book on Munich: Prologue to Tragedy, published in 1948, he relegated the last quotation to a footnote and suppressed the references to the Belgian Congo and Angola.

This, however, was an essential part of the appeasement program of the Chamberlain group.

On 3 March 1938, the British Ambassador in Berlin, Nevile Henderson, one of the Chamberlain group, tried to persuade Hitler to begin negotiations to carry out this plan but did not succeed.

He repeated Lord Halifax’s statement that changes in Europe were acceptable to Britain if accomplished without “the free play of forces,” and stated that he personally “had often expressed himself in favour of the Anschluss.”

In the colonial field, he tried to interest Hitler in an area in Africa between the 5th parallel and the Zambezi River, but the Fuhrer insisted that his interest was restricted to restoration of Germany’s 1914 colonies in Africa.

At the famous interview between Hitler and Schuschnigg in February 1938, Hitler told the Austrian that Lord Halifax agreed “with everything he [Hitler] did with respect to Austria and the Sudeten Germans.” This was reported in a “rush and strictly confidential” message of 16 February 1938 from the American Consul General in Vienna to Secretary of State Hull, a document released to the American press on 18 December 1948.

Chamberlain and others made it perfectly clear, both in public and in private, that Britain would not act to prevent German occupation of Austria or Czechoslovakia.

On 21 February 1938, during the Austrian crisis, John Simon said in the House of Commons, “Great Britain has never given special guarantees regarding Austrian independence.” Six days later, Chamberlain said: “We must not try to delude small nations into thinking that they will be protected by the League against aggression and acting accordingly when we know that nothing of the kind can be expected.”

Five days after the seizure of Austria on 12 March 1938, the Soviet Union sent Britain a proposal for an international conference to stop aggression.

The suggestion was rejected at once, and, on 20 March 1938, Chamberlain wrote to his sister: “I have therefore abandoned any idea of giving guarantees to Czechoslovakia or to the French in connection with her obligation to that country.”

When Daladier, the French Premier, came to London at the end of April 1938 to seek support for Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain refused and apparently, if we can believe Felling, put pressure on the French to compel the Czechoslovaks to make an agreement with Hitler.

On 1 May, Chamberlain wrote to his sister in this connection: “Fortunately the papers have had no hint of how near we came to a break over Czechoslovakia.”

In a long report of 10 July 1938, Ambassador Dirksen wrote to Ribbentrop as follows:

In England the Chamberlain-Halifax Cabinet is at the helm and the first and most essential plank of its platform was and is agreement with the totalitarian States.... This government displays with regard to Germany the maximum understanding that could be displayed by any of the likely combinations of British politicians. It possesses the inner-political strength to carry out this task. It has come nearer to understanding the most essential points of the major demands advanced by Germany, with respect to excluding the Soviet Union from the decision of the destinies of Europe, the League of Nations likewise, and the advisability of bilateral negotiations and treaties. It is displaying increasing understanding of Germany’s demands in the Sudeten German question. It would be prepared to make great sacrifices to meet Germany’s other just demands—on the one condition that it is endeavoured to achieve these ends by peaceful means. If Germany should resort to military means to achieve these ends, England would without the slightest doubt go to war on the side of France.

Poh Ah Pak SG

...While all this was going on, the remorseless wheels of appeasement were grinding out of existence one country after another.

The fatal loss was Czechoslovakia. This disaster was engineered by Chamberlain with the full co-operation of the Milner Group. The details do not concern us here, but it should be mentioned that the dispute arose over the position of the Sudeten Germans within the Czechoslovak state, and as late as 15 September 1938 was still being expressed in those terms.

Up to that day, Hitler had made no demand to annex the Sudeten area, although on 12 September he had for the first time asked for “self-determination” for the Sudetens. Konrad Henlein, Hitler’s agent in Czechoslovakia and leader of the Sudeten Germans, expressed no desire “to go back to the Reich” until after 12 September.

Who, then, first demanded frontier rectification in favor of Germany ?

Chamberlain did so privately on 10 May 1938, and the Milner Group did so publicly on 7 September 1938.

The Chamberlain suggestion was made by one of those “calculated indiscretions” of which he was so fond, at an “off-the-record” meeting with certain Canadian and American newspaper reporters at a luncheon arranged by Lady Astor and held at her London house.

On this occasion Chamberlain spoke of his plans for a four-power pact to exclude Russia from Europe and the possibility of frontier revisions in favor of Germany to settle the Sudeten issue.

When the news leaked out, as it was bound to do, Chamberlain was questioned in Commons by Geoffrey Mander on 20 June but refused to answer, calling his questioner a troublemaker.

This answer was criticized by Sir Archibald Sinclair the following day, but he received no better treatment. Lady Astor, however, interjected, “I would like to say that there is not a word of truth in it.” By 27 June, however, she had a change of heart and stated: “I never had any intention of denying that the Prime Minister had attended a luncheon at my house. The Prime Minister did so attend, the object being to enable some American journalists who had not previously met him to do so privately and informally, and thus to make his acquaintance.”

The second suggestion for revision of frontiers also had an Astor flavor, since it appeared as a leading article in The Times on 7 September 1938.

The outraged cries of protest from all sides which greeted this suggestion made it clear that further softening up of the British public was urgently necessary before it would be safe to hand over Czechoslovakia to Hitler. This was done in the war-scare of September 15-28 in London.

That this war-scare was fraudulent and that Lord Halifax was deeply involved in its creation is now clear. All the evidence cannot be given here. There is no evidence whatever that the Chamberlain government intended to fight over Czechoslovakia unless this was the only alternative to falling from office. Even at the height of the crisis, when all ways out without war seemed closed (27 September), Chamberlain showed what he thought of the case by telling the British people over the BBC that the issue was “a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.”

To frighten the British people, the British government circulated stories about the strength of the German Army and Air Force which were greatly exaggerated; they implied that Germany would use poison gas at once and from the air, although this was quite untrue; they distributed gas masks and madly built trenches in London parks, although the former were needless and the latter worthless. On 23 September, the British advised the Czechoslovakian government to mobilize, although they had previously forbidden it.

This was done to increase the crisis in London, and the fact that Göring’s air force allowed it to go through without attack indicates his belief that Germany did not need to fight. In fact, Göring told the French Ambassador on 12 September that he had positive assurance that Britain would not fight.

As early as 1 September 1938, Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlain’s alter ego, told the German charge d’affaires in London, Theodor Kordt, “If we two, Great Britain and Germany, come to agreement regarding the settlement of the Czech problem, we shall simply brush aside the resistance that France or Czechoslovakia herself may offer to the decision.”

The fraudulent nature of the Munich crisis appears throughout its history. We might mention the following:

(1) the suspicious fashion in which the Runciman Mission was sent to Czechoslovakia, immediately after Hitler’s aide, Captain Wiedemann, visited Halifax at the latter’s home (not the Foreign Office) on 18 July 1938, and with the statement, which was untrue, that it was being sent at the desire of the Czechoslovaks; 13

(2) the fact that Runciman in Czechoslovakia spent most of his time with the Sudetens and put pressure on the government to make one concession after another to Henlein, when it was perfectly clear that Henlein did not want a settlement;

(3) the fact that Runciman wrote to Hitler on 2 September that he would have a plan for a settlement by 15 September;

(4) the fact that this Runciman plan was practically the same as the Munich settlement finally adopted;

(5) the fact that Chamberlain made the war-scare over the Godesberg proposals and, after making a settlement at Munich, made no effort to enforce those provisions by which Munich differed from Godesberg, but on the contrary allowed the Germans to take what they wished in Czechoslovakia as they wished;

(6) the fact that the government did all it could to exclude Russia from the settlement, although Russia was allied to both Czechoslovakia and France;

(7) the fact that the government and the French government tried to spread the belief that Russia would not honor these commitments, although all the evidence indicated that she would;

(8) the fact that Chamberlain had a tete-a-tete conference with Hitler at Berchtesgaden on 15 September, which lasted for three hours, and at which only Hitler’s private interpreter was present as a third party, and that this was repeated at Godesberg on 23 September;

(9) the fact that the Czechoslovaks were forced to yield to Chamberlain’s settlement under pressure of ultimatums from both France and Britain, a fact that was concealed from the British people by omitting a crucial document from the White Paper of 28 September 1938 (Cmd. 5847).

Two additional points, concerned with the degree of German armaments and the position of the anti-Hitler resistance within Germany, require further elucidation. For years before June 1938, the government had insisted that British rearming was progressing in a satisfactory fashion.

Churchill and others had questioned this and had produced figures on German rearmament to prove that Britain’s own progress in this field was inadequate. These figures were denied by the government, and their own accomplishments were defended.

In 1937 and in 1938, Churchill had clashed with Baldwin and Chamberlain on this issue. As late as March 1938, Chamberlain said that British armaments were such as to make her an “almost terrifying power ... on the opinion of the world.”

But as the year went on, the government adopted a quite different attitude. In order to persuade public opinion that it was necessary to yield to Germany, the Government pretended that its armaments were quite inadequate in comparison with Germany.” We now know, thanks to the captured papers of the German Ministry of War, that this was a gross exaggeration.

These papers were studied by Major General C.F. Robinson of the United States Army, and analyzed in a report which he submitted to the Secretary of War in October 1947.

This document, entitled Foreign Logistical Organizations and Methods, shows that all of the accepted estimates of German rearmament in the period 1933-1939 were gross exaggerations.

From 1936 to the outbreak of war, German aircraft production was not raised, but averaged 425 planes a month. Her tank production was low and even in 1939 was less than Britain’s.

In the first 9 months of 1939, Germany produced only 50 tanks a month; in the last 4 months of 1939, in wartime, Germany produced 247 “tanks and self-propelled guns,” compared to a British production of 314 tanks in the same period.

At the time of the Munich crisis, Germany had 35 infantry and 4 motorized divisions, none of them fully manned or equipped. This was no more than Czechoslovakia had alone.

Moreover, the Czech Army was better trained, had far better equipment, and had better morale and better fortifications. As an example of this point, we might mention that the Czech tank was of 38 tons, while the Germans, before 1938, had no tank over 10 tons.

During 1938 they brought into production the Mark III tank of less than 20 tons, and in 1939 brought into production the Mark IV of 23 tons. Up to September 1939, the German Army had obtained only 300 tanks of the Mark III and Mark IV types together. Most of these were delivered during 1939. In comparison, the Germans captured in Czechoslovakia, in March 1939, 469 of the superior Czech tanks.

At the same time they captured 1500 planes (of which 500 were first-line), 43,000 machineguns, and over 1 million rifles. These figures are comparable with what Germany had at Munich, and at that time, if the British government had desired, Germany would have been facing France, Britain, and Russia, as well as Czechoslovakia.

It should perhaps be mentioned that up to September 1939 the German Navy had acquired only 53 submarines during the Hitler regime. No economic mobilization for war had been made and no reserve stocks built up.

When the war began, in September 1939, Germany had ammunition for 6 weeks, and the air force had bombs for 3 months at the rate of expenditure experienced during the Polish campaign.

At that time the Air Force consisted of 1000 bombers and 1050 fighters. In contrast, the British air program of May 1938 planned to provide Britain with a first-line force of 2370 planes; this program was stepped up in 1939.

Under it, Britain produced almost 3000 military planes in 1938 and about 8000 in 1939. The German figures for planes produced in these 2 years are 5235 and 8295, but these are figures for all planes produced in the country, including civil as well as military airplanes. As Hanson Baldwin put it, “Up until 1940, at least, Germany’s production did not markedly outstrip Britain’s.” It might also be mentioned that British combat planes were of better quality...

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Poh Ah Pak SG

...The events of 1939 do not require our extended attention here, although they have never yet been narrated in any adequate fashion.

The German seizure of Bohemia and Moravia was not much of a surprise to either the Milner or Chamberlain groups; both accepted it, but the former tried to use it as a propaganda device to help get conscription, while the latter soon discovered that, whatever their real thoughts, they must publicly condemn it in order to satisfy the outraged moral feelings of the British electorate.

It is this which explains the change in tone between Chamberlain’s speech of 15 March in Commons and his speech of 17 March in Birmingham. The former was what he thought; the latter was what he thought the voters wanted.

The unilateral guarantee to Poland given by Chamberlain on 31 March 1939 was also a reflection of what he believed the voters wanted.

He had no intention of ever fulfilling the guarantee if it could possibly be evaded and, for this reason, refused the Polish requests for a small rearmament loan and to open immediate staff discussions to implement the guarantee.

The Milner Group, less susceptible to public opinion, did not want the guarantee to Poland at all.

As a result, the guarantee was worded to cover Polish “independence” and not her “territorial integrity.”

This was interpreted by the leading article of The Times for 1 April to leave the way open to territorial revision without revoking the guarantee.

This interpretation was accepted by Chamberlain in Commons on 3 April. Apparently the government believed that it was making no real commitment because, if war broke out in eastern Europe, British public opinion would force the government to declare war on Germany, no matter what the government itself wanted, and regardless whether the guarantee existed or not.

On the other hand, a guarantee to Poland might deter Hitler from precipitating a war and give the government time to persuade the Polish government to yield the Corridor to Germany. If the Poles could not be persuaded, or if Germany marched, the fat was in the fire anyway; if the Poles could be persuaded to yield, the guarantee was so worded that Britain could not act under it to prevent such yielding.

This was to block any possibility that British public opinion might refuse to accept a Polish Munich.

That this line of thought was not far distant from British government circles is indicated by a Reuters news dispatch released on the same day that Chamberlain gave the guarantee to Poland.

This dispatch indicated that, under cover of the guarantee, Britian would put pressure on Poland to make substantial concessions to Hitler through negotiations. According to Hugh Dalton, Labour M.P., speaking in Commons on 3 April, this dispatch was inspired by the government and was issued through either the Foreign Office, Sir Horace Wilson, John Simon, or Samuel Hoare.

Three of these four were of the Milner Group, the fourth being the personal agent of Chamberlain. Dalton’s charge was not denied by any government spokesman, Hoare contenting himself with a request to Dalton “to justify that statement.” Another M.P. of Churchill’s group suggested that Geoffrey Dawson was the source, but Dalton rejected this.

The efforts of the Chamberlain group to continue the policy of appeasement by making economic and other concessions to Germany and their efforts to get Hitler to agree to a four-power pact form one of the most shameful episodes in the history of recent British diplomacy.

These negotiations were chiefly conducted through Sir Horace Wilson and consisted chiefly of offers of colonial bribes and other concessions to Germany. These offers were either rejected or ignored by the Nazis.

One of these offers revolved around a semi-official economic agreement under which British and German industrialists would form cartel agreements in all fields to fix prices of their products and divide up the world’s market.

The Milner Group apparently objected to this on the grounds that it was aimed, or could be aimed, at the United States.

Nevertheless, the agreements continued; a master agreement, negotiated at Dusseldorf between representatives of British and German industry, was signed in London on 16 March 1939.

A British government mission to Berlin to help Germany exploit the newly acquired areas of eastern Europe was postponed the same day because of the strength of public feeling against Germany.

As soon as this had died down, secret efforts were made through R.S. Hudson, secretary to the Department of Overseas Trade, to negotiate with Helmuth Wohlthat, Reich Commissioner for the Four Year Plan, who was in London to negotiate an international whaling agreement.

Although Wholthat had no powers, he listened to Hudson and later to Sir Horace Wilson, but refused to discuss the matter with Chamberlain. Wilson offered:

(1) a non-aggression pact with Germany;

(2) a delimitation of spheres among the Great Powers;

(3) colonial concessions in Africa along the lines previously mentioned;

(4) an economic agreement.

These conversations, reported to Berlin by Ambassador Dirksen in a dispatch of 21 July 1939, would have involved giving Germany a free hand in eastern Europe and bringing her into collision with Russia. One sentence of Dirksen’s says: “Sir Horace Wilson definitely told Herr Wohlthat that the conclusion of a non-aggression pact would enable Britian to rid herself of her commitments vis-a-vis Poland.”

In another report, three days later, Dirksen said: “Public opinion is so inflamed, and the warmongers and intriguers are so much in the ascendancy, that if these plans of negotiations with Germany were to become public they would immediately be torpedoed by Churchill and other incendiaries with the cry 'No second Munich !' ”

The truth of this statement was seen when news of the Hudson-Wohlthat conversations did leak out and resulted in a violent controversy in the House of Commons, in which the Speaker of the House repeatedly broke off the debate to protect the government. According to Press Adviser Hesse in the German Embassy in London, the leak was made by the French Embassy to force a break in the negotiations.

The negotiations, however, were already bogging down because of the refusal of the Germans to become very interested in them. Hitler and Ribbentrop by this time despised the British so thoroughly that they paid no attention to them at all, and the German Ambassador in London found it impossible to reach Ribbentrop, his official superior, either by dispatch or personally.

Chamberlain, however, in his eagerness to make economic concessions to Germany, gave to Hitler £6 million in Czechoslovak gold in the Bank of England, and kept Lord Runciman busy training to be chief economic negotiator in the great agreement which he envisaged.

On 29 July 1939, Kordt, the German charge d’affaires in London, had a long talk with Charles Roden Buxton, brother of the Labour Peer Lord Noel-Buxton, about the terms of this agreement, which was to be patterned on the agreement of 1907 between Britain and Russia.

Buxton insisted that his visit was quite unofficial, but Kordt was inclined to believe that his visit was a feeler from the Chamberlain group. In view of the close parallel between Buxton’s views and Chamberlain’s, this seems very likely.

This was corroborated when Sir Horace Wilson repeated these views in a highly secret conversation with Dirksen at Wilson’s home from 4 to 6 p.m. on 3 August 1939. Dirksen’s minute of the same day shows that Wilson’s aims had not changed. He wanted a four-power pact, a free hand for Germany in eastern Europe, a colonial agreement, an economic agreement, etc.

The memorandum reads, in part: “After recapitulating his conversation with Wohlthat, Sir Horace Wilson expatiated at length on the great risk Chamberlain would incur by starting confidential negotiations with the German Government. If anything about them were to leak out there would be a grand scandal, and Chamberlain would probably be forced to resign.” Dirksen did not see how any binding agreement could be reached under conditions such as this; “for example, owing to Hudson’s indiscretion, another visit of Herr Wohlthat to London was out of the question.” To this, Wilson suggested that “the two emissaries could meet in Switzerland or elsewhere.” The political portions of this conversation were largely repeated in an interview that Dirksen had with Lord Halifax on 9 August 1939.^[18]

It was not possible to conceal these activities completely from the public, and, indeed, government spokesmen referred to them occasionally in trial balloons.

On 3 May, Chamberlain suggested an Anglo-German non-aggression pact, although only five days earlier Hitler had denounced the Anglo-German naval agreement of 1935 and the Polish-German non-aggression pact of 1934.

As late as 28 August, Sir Nevile Henderson offered Germany a British alliance if she were successful in direct negotiations with the Poles.^[19]

This, however, was a personal statement and probably went further than Halifax would have been willing to go by 1939. Halifax apparently had little faith in Chamberlain’s ability to obtain any settlement with the Germans.

If, by means of another Munich, he could have obtained a German-Polish settlement that would satisfy Germany and avoid war, he would have taken it. It was the hope of such an agreement that prevented him from making any real agreement with Russia, for it was, apparently, the expectation of the British government that if the Germans could get the Polish Corridor by negotiation, they could then drive into Russia across the Baltic States.

For this reason, in the negotiations with Russia, Halifax refused any multilateral pact against aggression, any guarantee of the Baltic States, or any tripartite guarantee of Poland. Instead, he sought to get nothing more than a unilateral Russian guarantee to Poland to match the British guarantee to the same country.

This was much too dangerous for Russia to swallow, since it would leave her with a commitment which could lead to war and with no promise of British aid to her if she were attacked directly, after a Polish settlement, or indirectly across the Baltic States.

Only after the German Soviet Non-aggression Pact of 21 August 1939 did Halifax implement the unilateral guarantee to Poland with a more formal mutual assistance pact between Britain and Poland.

This was done to warn Hitler that an attack on Poland would bring Britain into the war under pressure of British public opinion.

Hitler, as usual, paid no attention to Britain.

Even after the German attack on Poland, the British government was reluctant to fulfill this pact and spent almost three days asking the Germans to return to negotiation. Even after the British were forced to declare war on Germany, they made no effort to fight, contenting themselves with dropping leaflets on Germany.

We now know that the German generals had moved so much of their forces to the east that they were gravely worried at the effects which might follow an Allied attack on western Germany or even an aerial bombing of the Ruhr.

In these events of 1939, the Milner Group took little part. They must have known of the negotiations with Germany and probably did not disapprove of them, but they had little faith in them and by the early summer of 1939 were probably convinced that war with Germany was inevitable in the long run.

In this view Halifax probably shared, but other former members of the Group, such as Hoare and Simon, by now were completely in the Chamberlain group and can no longer be regarded as members of the Milner Group. From June 1939 to May 1940, the fissure between the Milner Group and the Chamberlain government became wider...

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mancha SG

... and so Barack Obama is allowed to become president so that ...

angel7030 SG

... and so Barack Obama is allowed to become president so that ...

...i can volunteer to be Obama's gal when he visit Singapore.

mancha SG

...i can volunteer to be Obama's gal when he visit Singapore.

Oh you, got Class 3 license, which means you can do a lot of things, while driving Obama around Singapore.

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