Poland, Guarantee of

Poland, Guarantee of. The German occupation of the rump of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939 killed the Munich agreement of the previous autumn, and with it the western policy of appeasement. It also made Poland the obvious next target of Hitler's expansionist policy. Soon after the entry of the German Army into Prague, the Polish government faced renewed demands from Germany for Danzig as well as extraterritorial road and rail links through the Polish corridor. Polish policy resolutely rejected German demands.

Hitler's elimination of the last vestige of Czechoslovakia made a considerable impact on the climate of British public and political opinion, and the British government began rapidly to rethink its policy towards both Germany and the countries of central Europe. British appeasement of Hitler ended when, on 31 March 1939, Chamberlain offered a verbal guarantee to Poland in a statement before the House of Commons. The prime minister also spoke for the French government in issuing the guarantee.

The verbal guarantee to Poland represented a marked change in British foreign policy which, ever since the end of the First World War, had resisted security commitments in east and central Europe. The Polish government warmly welcomed British (and French) support: the foreign minister, Józef Beck, had for some time made an alliance with Britain a central aim of Polish foreign policy.

An extended series of high-level Anglo-Polish discussions followed the British and French guarantees, and culminated in a formal treaty on 25 August 1939. The Anglo-Polish Agreement of Mutual Assistance pledged Britain and Poland to come to each other's aid in the event of hostilities involving a ‘European Power’. A secret protocol supplemented the text of the published treaty and it contained some important caveats including the definition of the ‘European Power’ as being Germany. Although the text of 25 August 1939 pledged British support for Polish independence, it nevertheless carefully avoided any British commitment to the territorial integrity of Poland. In this sense the agreement represented a significant element of continuity with earlier British policy, as the Polish government would find to its cost when war began.

Paul Latawski