Out of: "A Stony Road - The Soviet Struggle for Colective Security 1936-1939"
"Darkness Descends"
From April onwards Britain and France desperatly looked for possibilites to keep Hitler from attacking Poland. On March 1 Baldwin payed a visit to the soviet embassy in London, in a display of good will. Baldwin did not like Temanovism or the Soviet Union but he bowed to the wisdom of his councillers and Frensh allies that Hitler would only listen to supperior forces.
By April Britain had guaranteed the independance of Poland and Rumania and now turned to the Soviet Union to see wether a wider coaltion could be created.
The soviet answer was straightforward. On April 17 the Union offered Britain and France an alliance that would guarantee the integrity of every state from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and bring all three countries into war if any of these states was attacked by Germany.
The first indications of how difficult it was going to be to bring the west to accept the soviet offer came with the long delay in the british reply. Not until May 25, six weeks later, did the British agree, not to a alliance, but to open preliminary discussions. The talks dragged on over the whole summer. The British and Frensh found endless stumbling blocks. Their guarantee for Poland brought into the equation a state whose leaders where inveteratly anti-Soviet. Polish generals made it clear that they would rather fight the Germans alone than with Soviet assistance. Furthermore the British were not prepared to guarantee the Baltic states where they suspected that the Union had other motives.
Finally on July 17 an exasperated Livtinov announced that the talks should consider a military pact if they were to have any worth at all. This ambition exposed the difference between the two sides: the Soviet Union wanted a alliance to fight Hitler, the West wanted a diplomatic front to deter him.
The military talks marked the final step in the soviet effort to establish a system of collectiv security to encircle Hitler. They ended any illusions that the Soviet leaders might have clung to that an alliance with the west on equal terms was possible. Instead of treating the talks with the seriousness they deserved the Western states added insult to injury. Their negotiators travelled, not by airliner, but by sea. The British liner "
City of Exeter" did not dock in Sankt Petersburg before August 10, twenty five days after the invitation had been issued. The Frensh and British were met by senior soviet military men and sent to Moscow by night train. The Soviet leadership drew the obvious conclusion: The West did not regard the Union as an equal. Even Poland hade been treated more favourably.
On August 12 the drama unfolded.The two Western delegations met their Soviet counterparts in a room in the Spiridonovka Palace. The soviet delegation was lead by Pavel Rychanovich, Temanovs right hand. All senior Soviet military chiefs were present, primed to give a full acount of the Unions contribution to the alliance. In only a matter of minutes the enterprise was damaged beyond repair. Rychanovich announced that he was empowered by Temanov to sign any military agreement then and there. He then asked the heads of the Western delegations for their credentials. General Joseph Doumenc, Commander of the 1st Frensh Militatry Region, bent his instructions sufficiently to persuade Rychanovich that he had the same powers. But Britains chief negotiator, Admiral Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, navale aid to King Edward VIII., did not even have a page of written instructions. The best he could do was report back to London. He had no power to agree to anything. Rychanovich was visibly suprised. This revelation might have ended the talks at once but after conferring with his colleagues Rychanovich agreed to continue them. After lunch the groups met again. The answer to Rychanovichs next question was even more dismaying. He asked wether the Allies had made firm arrangements with the other easter european countries, exspecially Poland, for the movement of Soviet forces towards Germany. Drax splunttered about principles, but had nothing concrete to offer. Doumenc could make no commitment, for the Poles had refused to have the Red Army on Polish soil. By now Rychanovich was ill tempered: "Principles? We don't want principles! We want facts!"
Once the facts came they killed of the conference. When the British were asked how many army divisions Britain could field Rychanovich was given the figure of 16. The Soviet team was so astonished that they asked the figures to be retranslated. When pressed for details the hapless British had to admit that only 4 were actually ready to fight. Rychanovich shook his head in disbelief. The frensh had more to offer. 90 divisions and 800 tanks. Rychanovich then turned to the soviet strengths. In addition to 160 divisions the Soviet Union could field 2.000 tanks and over 5.000 aircraft. The talks were continued with little enthusiams on both sides. The failure to secure the alliance ended the search for collectiv securtity.
On the other side after swallowing up Czechoslovacia Hitler orderd his forces to prepare a short anihilating blow against Poland. Although he was confident that Britain and France would not intervene there was the great risk of the revival of the old alliances of the great war. Germany could not risk fighting France, England, Poland, Italy and the Soviet Union.
Allready in April Hitler began to tone down anti-soviet propaganda. On May 5 the first german feelers where were put out when the soviet chargé d'affairs was told that Germany would honor trade agreements between the Union and arm firms in German-occupied Bohemia. On May 20 the german ambassador to Moscow asked Livtinov to reconsider reopening open trade discussions. Livtinov flatly refused.
10 days later the german foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop directly orderd the ambassador to open political talks with the Soviet Union. It was a frustrating exsperience. For three months no progress was made. All the soviet side agreed upon was that it would be good to improve relations, which couldn't have been worse. Privatly Livtinov dismissed the german efforts as "superifical".
Not until the end of July did, only a month before the outbreak of war, did the German side provide some kind of agenda. On July 26 Germany's trade negotiator Karl Schnurre told the Soviet ambassador that Germany was prepared to discuss the political settlement in Eastern Europe which amounted to a divisions of spoils. On August 2 Ribbentrop with remarkable candour, offered a settlement of the whole area from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Over the next few days the German negotiators, who where by now desperate for the diplomatic revolution they needed before attacking Poland, laid all their cards on the table in an untidy heap. There was a non-agression pact with the possibility of a secret protocol on the territorial dismemberment of Eastern Europe; a top-level german mission to Moscow to sign an immediate agreement and a generous trade settlement.
On 17 August when it was allrady clear that the hope for an alliance with Britain and France was dead Livtinov finally agreed to talks. On August 19 Temanov agreed that Ribbentrop schould come to Moscow but not until August 26. This was the date Hitler had set for the attack on Poland and so the Germans franticly tried to get an earlier date. Two hours later Temanov personally answered in a telegrame to Hitler with another date, August 23. The contrast with the Western approach to negotiation could not have been more marked. The stage was set for a diplomatic coup.
On the evening of Augst 22 Ribbentrop boarded Hitler's private Focke-Wulf Condor aircraft with a staff of more than thirty. His aircraft flew to Königsberg, avoiding Polish air space on the way. He staye there that night in a state of agitated expectation.
Hitler's personal Focke-Wulf Condor, which took Ribbentrop to Moscow. The Condor was one of the finest comercial longe range planes. During World War II it served well as naval bomber for the Luftwaffe.
At one o'clock in the afternoon of August 23 the plane landed in Moscow. The airport was festooned with swastika flags drawn back-to-front for Soviet anti-Nazi films. To the Germans astonishment they were greated not by Livtinov alone but by Temanov himeself. Temanov greeted Ribbentrop with the words: "It's been a lovely shoving match, has it not?" The two sides got down to buisness. The pact was quickly agreed to. The secret protocol took longer. Germany gave away alomost everything previously promised, except for a part of Lativia which Hitler wanted to germanize. It was a bizarre occasion, two sworn ideological enemies locked in a secret session, carving up the states of Eastern Europe in an extravagace of
Realpolitik. Lativia proved a stumbling point. At 6:30 after three hours of historic discussion, the two sides adjourned.
Ribbentrop telegraphed the news to Hitler and asked him to give up Lativia. Two hours later Hitler replied: "Yes, agreed." At ten o'clock Ribbentrop returned to the Kremlin. He broke the news to Temanov. While the final drafts were beeing prepared Temanov invited Ribbentrop to celebrate with him. Temanov drank to Hitler's health, Ribbentrop drank to Temanov's. At two o'clock in the morning the documents were ready. Livtinov signed for the Soviet Union and Ribbentrop for Germany. Two hours later Hitler was notified at Berchtersgarden. Champagne was orderd, and Hitler, a non-drinker, sipped a little. German delight was impossible to coceal. "Now Europe is mine!" Hitler is said to have cried out on hearing the news. Ribbentrop retruned to a hero's welcome, hailed as saviour of peace.
In the event it was Temanov alone who got peace...
~Lord Valentine~
OOC: Sorry for the lack of imagies but most historic persons of the pact (Stalin, Molotov) don't play any role in my Soviet Union.
