Final Procrastination. This explicit warning did not increase the tempo in London. It was not until July 31 that Chamberlain finally announced the naming of a military mission to Moscow, to arrange the concrete terms of the proposed alliance. Molotov had named his top military men to negotiate, but instead of Lord Gort and General Gamelin the British-French delegation was headed by an obscure British Admiral, Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, and by a French General of comparable obscurity. Nor did this mission fly to Moscow as fast as planes could take it, to concert measures with desperate speed against the pitiable crucifixion of Poland which was boiling up on the horizon. While the sands were running out for Poland by the minute, the Allied mission took a slow Baltic boat, on August 5, and did not reach Moscow until August 11. Then it transpired, once again, that these men had no power to conclude an agreement.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Of course they wouldn't, they wanted the Soviets and Nazis to take each other out.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Why then had the Munich men refused all through the Spring and Summer to accept the only terms for an alliance with Russia which could mean anything to Russia? It was, says [F. L.] Schuman, because “all preferred the destruction of Poland to the Soviet defence of Poland. All hoped that the sequence would be a German-Soviet war over the spoils.” Is this a too stern judgment? It fits Ambassador Henderson, who told Hitler, on August 23, that he preferred a German-Soviet agreement to an Anglo-Soviet agreement

Ibid.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Of course, liberals always get furious when this is pointed out.

Great job with Comlib, by the way!

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

As between Germany and Poland the settlement is just enough. The Germans were responsible for the death of some eight million Polish citizens. They killed 700,000 in Warsaw alone. Poland had a higher percentage of human losses than any other participant in World War II. The Germans did their best to murder the Polish nation and to enslave the remnant permanently. They used every device of sadistic cruelty to torture and degrade the Polish people. The Dark Side of the Moon, the Polish book of horrors in Russia, is a record of much heartlessness and inhumanity, of callousness to suffering and ruthless exaction of labor, but it contains little of deliberate, sadistic cruelty. Odd Nansen, the son of Fridtjof Nansen, has left a full record of his eternity spent in German prisons, including Sachsenhausen, in his diary From Day to Day.^55^ It contains many instances of “the purest sadism, of a craving for the sight of pain, the display of power, the exercise of hate.”^56^ I do not find in The Dark Side of the Moon any such record of calculated bestiality and deliberate depravity. It was left to the Germans to exterminate races in wholesale fashion, including multitudes of little children, by starvation, cremation and other methods, after suffering every kind of indignity.^57^
Polish industry was wrecked, her soils, forests and livestock gravely depleted, her transportation system ruined “beyond belief”; her schools, public buildings of every kind, private dwellings and business houses were damaged beyond use in huge numbers. If ever a people deserved restitution at the hands of their destroyers, it was the Poles.

Ibid., chapter IX

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's heartbreaking to read.

[–] Edie@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

How do I get libs to read this fucking tankie.

There was general agreement that a most remarkable national revival began in Poland during the first three years after Germany’s defeat. In the summer of 1948 John Gunther visited Warsaw and was astonished at what he saw. He reported the “massive energy and zip” the Poles had put into the rebuilding of Warsaw. He spoke of “electric animation and effervescence.” Warsaw was the liveliest capital in Europe. Food was cheap, good and plentiful. The people were rebuilding the city almost entirely with hand tools, with very few of the great machines we use so plentifully, but every Pole he met was “almost bursting with hope.”
This was by no means due solely to the character of the Government. Indeed, most Poles hated Russia. He did not see in Warsaw a single Red flag, a photograph of Stalin or a Russian soldier. There were few signs of overt pressure on the people. An American who bitterly hated the regime told him that there was no arbitrary use of the police power, no concentration camps or terrorism. The Poles were building for the future. They did not expect another war to tear down their city again.

Ibid.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

Sadly, I find book recommendations usually work better for leftists than libs. I wonder why...