Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw by Norman Davies Read Free Book Online Page A

intervene. If they did, then Britain and France, like the First Ally, would be simultaneously at war both with the Third Reich and with the USSR. For some time, the prospect looked imminent. After expelling the USSR in December 1939 for aggression, the League of Nations called on its members to give assistance to Finland. Britain and France made preparations for an expeditionary force to which the First Ally was asked to contribute a brigade of 5,000 men drawn from troops already in the West. They were considering an assault on northern Norway, which would have given them the dual benefit of access to Finland and control of Sweden’s valuable ore exports. British planes painted with Finnish markings were already standing by on airfields near London when the Finns decided to cut their losses on 12 March 1940 and make peace. The expedition was called off. The First Allyremained in the anomalous position of being fully supported in its struggle against the German oppressor whilst being completely ignored in its struggle against the Soviet oppressor.
    Three events of great importance for the First Ally occurred during the period of the Phoney War. Firstly, over 100,000 troops, who had fought in the September Campaign and had taken refuge in Romania and Hungary, undertook the perilous journey via the Balkans and the Mediterranean to southern France or to French possessions like Syria. They arrived in dribs and drabs. But there were enough of them to contemplate the reformation of a new Allied Army under French operational control. Secondly, the First Ally’s Government, which had been interned in Romania at the request of Berlin, resigned, thereby permitting the construction of a fresh Government in France, with a new president, a new national council, a new premier, and a new commander-in-chief. The reconstituted authority was established first in the Regina Hotel in Paris and then in the town of Angers. Thirdly, the original Underground Resistance movement (SZP), which had been set up on the capitulation of the Capital in September 1939, was successfully subordinated to the new exiled Government. It was replaced by a new organization, which at first was called the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), and which took its orders from the new C.-in-C. It was an integral part of the First Ally’s armed forces.
    The political realignment of 1939–40 restored the First Ally’s credentials as a legitimate member of the democratic coalition. The pre-war Sanacja regime had been at best a semi-democracy, being dominated by a military element that had taken on a growing nationalistic flavour and had systematically excluded and harassed its opponents. It had also been thoroughly compromised by the catastrophe of September 1939, which many people blamed on its refusal to form an all-party Government of national unity. So now was the time for inclusivity. The reconstructed, exiled Government was headed, as Premier and C.-in-C., by Gen. W. Sikorski, who had kept apart from his former comrades and had played a prominent role in the democratic opposition. Both the National Council abroad, which acted as a sort of substitute parliament, and the political bodies associated with the ZWZ at home operated on the understanding that all democratic parties would be equally respected. The principal parties, in order of their support, were the Peasants (PSL), the Socialists (PPS), the Nationalists (ND), and the Christian Democrat LabourMovement (SP). Other smaller groupings, such as the Jewish Bund, gave a measure of representation to minority interests.
    Two marginal political movements, which had operated before the war, often without legal recognition, did not feature in the wartime arrangements. The extreme right-wing fascists (ONR), who admired Mussolini’s Italy but hated Hitler’s Germany, did not enjoy the confidence of their democratic compatriots. The extreme left-wing Communists (KPP), who never had many committed supporters, had fallen foul of