Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The legacy of the Munich conference
- 2 March 1939 and the decision to build an eastern front
- 3 The British guarantee to Poland
- 4 The military consequences of British involvement in the east
- 5 The financing of the eastern front
- 6 The Soviet Union: the rejected partner
- 7 August 1939
- 8 September 1939: war in the east
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- Appendix 3
- Appendix 4
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 The legacy of the Munich conference
- 2 March 1939 and the decision to build an eastern front
- 3 The British guarantee to Poland
- 4 The military consequences of British involvement in the east
- 5 The financing of the eastern front
- 6 The Soviet Union: the rejected partner
- 7 August 1939
- 8 September 1939: war in the east
- Appendix 1
- Appendix 2
- Appendix 3
- Appendix 4
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
When I was an undergraduate student at the School of History at the University of Birmingham I took a course, run by Professor J.A.S. Grenville, on British foreign policy in 1938–9. I was then struck by the one-sided interpretation which prevailed in British historical works on the effect of British policy on Europe prior to the outbreak of the war. The heated debate which surrounded the question of appeasement tended to confine the discussion on the British role in the years preceding the war to the analysis of Anglo-German relations. Subsequently during my research on Anglo-Polish relations in 1938–9 that impression was confirmed. I felt that the complexity of Britain's continental policy had not been fully analysed and where an effort had been made it still lacked an understanding of the reciprocal nature of foreign policy.
This book has been the result of the above considerations. In it I have tried to show how, far from setting the pace in Europe's response to German aggression, Britain like other states, was herself a victim of an inability to mount a major change of policy towards Germany. As I have been able to draw upon my knowledge of Polish sources to show the reciprocal nature of Anglo-Polish relations during 1939 I was thus able to exhibit the full extent of Britain's inability to build an eastern front based on Poland.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Britain, Poland and the Eastern Front, 1939 , pp. vii - viiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987