ABSTRACT
For the western powers the war against Hitler proved to be disastrous. The strategic calculations which encouraged them to stand firm in September 1939 were exposed as fatally flawed. The rapid defeat of Poland was not unexpected, as both the western powers had always recognized the military impossibility of doing anything in the short term to save Poland. For six months they conducted the war – the so-called ‘Phoney War’ – more or less along the lines they had hoped for. Both sides continued to undertake secret negotiations and soundings to see if agreement could be reached. Many Germans expected the Allies to abandon the war once Poland was beyond help, divided between Germany and Russia according to the terms of a second German-Soviet accord, signed on 28 September. Hitler blamed international Jewry for fomenting war and encouraging Allied hostility. In October Hitler announced proposals for possible peace negotiations before the German Reichstag [Doc. 34, p. 130]. But neither side was willing to begin negotiations except on their own terms, a prospect that could not be entertained by either Germany or the Allies. Chamberlain clung to the hope that Germany would still be deterred by the sight of British and French military and economic strength. In October he told Roosevelt that Britain would not win ‘by
a complete and spectacular victory, but by convincing the Germans that they cannot win’ (Offner, 1975: 165).
