ABSTRACT
I then put the question: ‘Are our army, navy and air force in a condition for us to keep our engagements to Poland?’ The reply, and for all three arms, was an unconditional ‘Yes’ … The situation, then, was that on the 23rd of August we still had a chance of extricating ourselves, still had a chance to turn our backs on war – on the grounds that we had not managed to get Russian co-operation [italics in original]. In that way we would have turned the tables on Stalin, whose manoeuvring had literally given Hitler a free hand in the West. But Gamelin’s [Chief of the French General Staff] advice, and its acceptance by the Defence Committee, ended that hope.
