Would France Sacrifice Poland for a USSR alliance

[Sunforged General]

In a historical sense, Lets say in 1938 the Franco-Soviet treaty of mutual assistance got a lot more focus put into it from the French side. Then the USSR sent them a secret telegram saying they want to invade Poland so they can create a frontier with Germany, which helps France by creating a potential two front war for Germany when they attack.

From what we know, would France be willing to throw Poland under the bus just to get that much vaunted two front war against Germany?

And if France did accept the USSRs proposal, would Britain ever dare to go to war over Poland without France helping them?

 

[Ffire]

As many alternate scenarios, there's pro and cons.

Pro :
-there's already an huge communist influence in France.
-USSR is a much more valuable ally than Poland
-USSR is much easier to support than Poland, especially with the french defensive doctrine.
-Russia was an historical partner during WW1.

Cons :
-Poland is the children of versailles treaty, that was promoted by France.
-There's old historical links, centuries old, between France and Poland. Did you know that the french king Henry the third became king of Poland during the XVIth century (but he chooses to return in France when his brother king Charles died to claim the french throne) ? A big part of french public opinion would not like that old alliance being ditched. Also there was a big polish community living in France, with many cultural links.
-USSR was seen by anyone but the communist, as a dangerous and unreliable partner.
-France was involved (not as much as UK) in USSR civil war against the soviet
-France international reputation would be badly damaged by betraying the poles.

And the main one : going in an alliance with USSR means probably losing the alliance with the UK, which was more important and trustworthy. Also USSR wasn't seen as a military capable allie : they get their asses kicked by the poles during the 20s, and the purges weakened a lot their military. The winter war enforced that.

That's much more realistic if Poland choose to align with Germany

 

[him_15]

I honestly don't think France would believe USSR as a reliable alliance.

 

[Tsavong]

Maybe not 38 but in 39. For example they hear of the MRP being signed soon and they make an ad-hoc offer like: Poland and the baltics will be soviets sphere of influence after the war if the soviet dont sign MRP but go to war with Germany instead. In this case France would not allow an invasion of poland by the soviets but do something like the allies did after WW2 and accept a puppet soviet regime there.

 

[Sunforged General]

As many alternate scenarios, there's pro and cons.

Pro :
-there's already an huge communist influence in France.
-USSR is a much more valuable ally than Poland
-USSR is much easier to support than Poland, especially with the french defensive doctrine.
-Russia was an historical partner during WW1.

Cons :
-Poland is the children of versailles treaty, that was promoted by France.
-There's old historical links, centuries old, between France and Poland. Did you know that the french king Henry the third became king of Poland during the XVIth century (but he chooses to return in France when his brother king Charles died to claim the french throne) ? A big part of french public opinion would not like that old alliance being ditched. Also there was a big polish community living in France, with many cultural links.
-USSR was seen by anyone but the communist, as a dangerous and unreliable partner.
-France was involved (not as much as UK) in USSR civil war against the soviet
-France international reputation would be badly damaged by betraying the poles.

And the main one : going in an alliance with USSR means probably losing the alliance with the UK, which was more important and trustworthy. Also USSR wasn't seen as a military capable allie : they get their asses kicked by the poles during the 20s, and the purges weakened a lot their military. The winter war enforced that.

That's much more realistic if Poland choose to align with Germany

A Polish Alliance with Germany is impossible because Germany accepts nothing less than huge chunks of Polish Land, and Poland is not willing to give up any of its territory.

 

[Tsavong]

A Polish Alliance with Germany is impossible because Germany accepts nothing less than huge chunks of Polish Land, and Poland is not willing to give up any of its territory.

And there is the problem that the german fascist leadership and a lot of if not most of all germans in this time thought of that land as german land occupied by poland rather then polish land.
So I don't think a long lasting alliance was a possibilty from either point of view. On the other hand there was this NAP between poland and the fascist. I believe it was signed 34.

 

[Crecer13]

I think the most logical thing would be to add to the game the Moscow negotiations of 1939 on the creation of the USSR-France-Britain triple alliance. It was beneficial for France. And I don’t understand why in new French focus tree, I don’t see the beginnings of this cooperation between the USSR and France.

 

[Volodio]

In 1939, before the Molotov pact, there were negotiations between the Allies and the Soviet Union. Both sides didn't trust each other, especially Britain and the USSR. The Poles were also opposed to the idea of Soviet soldiers in Poland. Thus, it never went anywhere and Stalin ended up signing the agreement with Germany hoping to prepare on its own.

But France was the least opposed to this alliance. So it might be an interesting scenario to have that alliance forming in the end, maybe without Britain and Poland. However, it might be very unbalanced to have Germany fighting a two-front war against majors right at the beginning of WW2, which is probably why the focus for this alliance is not here.

 

[Crecer13]

In 1939, before the Molotov pact, there were negotiations between the Allies and the Soviet Union. Both sides didn't trust each other, especially Britain and the USSR. The Poles were also opposed to the idea of Soviet soldiers in Poland. Thus, it never went anywhere and Stalin ended up signing the agreement with Germany hoping to prepare on its own.

But France was the least opposed to this alliance. So it might be an interesting scenario to have that alliance forming in the end, maybe without Britain and Poland. However, it might be very unbalanced to have Germany fighting a two-front war against majors right at the beginning of WW2, which is probably why the focus for this alliance is not here.

I think the system of the USSR-France-Britain triple alliance should be realizable in the game. This would have to be extremely difficult to implement, possibly with multiple events to reach an alliance. But get huge benefits from the alliance.

 

[Sunforged General]

I think the system of the USSR-France-Britain triple alliance should be realizable in the game. This would have to be extremely difficult to implement, possibly with multiple events to reach an alliance. But get huge benefits from the alliance.

It is possible to create a France-Britain-Soviet Alliance now with La Resistance. All you need is for France to go the national focus tree to ally with soviets, have soviets accept, then do not guarantee Poland later. Germany invaded Poland and fights Britain, then eventually Germany invades France, USSR helps France, and France is able to join the allies with Britain. And thus you have the 3 powers working together vs Germany.

 

[CrazyZombie]

In 1939, before the Molotov pact, there were negotiations between the Allies and the Soviet Union. Both sides didn't trust each other, especially Britain and the USSR. The Poles were also opposed to the idea of Soviet soldiers in Poland. Thus, it never went anywhere and Stalin ended up signing the agreement with Germany hoping to prepare on its own.

But France was the least opposed to this alliance. So it might be an interesting scenario to have that alliance forming in the end, maybe without Britain and Poland. However, it might be very unbalanced to have Germany fighting a two-front war against majors right at the beginning of WW2, which is probably why the focus for this alliance is not here.

With enough hate from RNG you can meet whole world going fascist as Soviets. How balanced is this?

 

[Fulmen]

Thus, it never went anywhere and Stalin ended up signing the agreement with Germany hoping to prepare on its own.

England and France both signed a secret clause with Soviet Russia in July 1939 that essentially gave away a number of countries to the Russians, on the condition they felt "threatened" by them, or by Germany through them. This list of countries included Poland. An excuse to feel threatened included as little as a perceived policy change in Germany's favour in a listed country. Of course such a "perceived threat" could easily be fabricated, it didn't even have to be believable, as we later saw in Poland, Finland, the Baltic States and Romania. On paper the talk was about the "guaranteeing of independence" of these nations, but I doubt the Allies were naïve enough even before the war to not know what Russian troops in these countries would mean in practice.

From Collective Security or World Domination: The Soviet Union and Germany, 1917-1939:






I think the reason Stalin went with Germany's offer instead, was that he hoped the Allies and Germany would fight each other to exhaustion, ensuring Russia the most advantageous position from where to strike. That all went down the tubes with France's quick collapse in the summer of 1940. And yes, the Germans were more direct with their offers of territory than the Allies were.

Interestingly, France did approve of Russian troops going through Poland on August 22nd, 1939, probably without any consultation of the Polish government.

 

[pheonicia]

I'm pretty sure the french would sacrifice poland for a nickle and an ice cream cone.

 

[XselenS]

The Soviets were seen as a weak unreliable ally so I doubt it. After their losses to Poland, Japan and others in the interwar period most nations thought Germany would wipe the floor with them, but that didn't happen.

Poland had a substantial military at the time as well. It was believed Poland would hold the line for more than the month that it did. It didn't. That being said, France was believed to be able to hold the line longer than a month or two. It didn't either.

I suppose nobody expect the Russian "inquisition". Bahahaha.

 

[Ffire]

A Polish Alliance with Germany is impossible because Germany accepts nothing less than huge chunks of Polish Land, and Poland is not willing to give up any of its territory.

There was very serious negociations right before the Molotov Ribbentrop pact between germans and poles during years. They ultimately failed because the poles always refused to talk about allowing the wehrmacht to walk through their country, not because of territorials claims. Never forget that Hitler primary goal was to expand in soviet union, not poland (because he didn't wanted to face a 2 front war).
That would have put Poland in the axis de facto. The 500k polish soldiers were seen as valuable allies by german's military high command.

I'm not saying that it's a realistic or even clever strategy. But that was Hitler's strategy pre war until 1939.

 

[Sunforged General]

There was very serious negociations right before the Molotov Ribbentrop pact between germans and poles during years. They ultimately failed because the poles always refused to talk about allowing the wehrmacht to walk through their country, not because of territorials claims. Never forget that Hitler primary goal was to expand in soviet union, not poland (because he didn't wanted to face a 2 front war).
That would have put Poland in the axis de facto. The 500k polish soldiers were seen as valuable allies by german's military high command.

I'm not saying that it's a realistic or even clever strategy. But that was Hitler's strategy pre war until 1939.

Its still impossible because Hitler also wanted polish land. He wanted all land east of Germany.

 

[CrazyZombie]

The Soviets were seen as a weak unreliable ally so I doubt it. After their losses to Poland, Japan and others in the interwar period most nations thought Germany would wipe the floor with them, but that didn't happen.

About Japan... Actually, Interwar border conflicts for the Japan have ended with exactly wiping the floor with them, just due to it happening in the Far East it never did go for Europe as something "worth noticing" though it has efficiently turned Japan to the expansion into European colonies in the South.

 

[Xerberous]

My conclusion from this thread:

The whole system of faction as present right now is by far not flexible enough. Another layer of diplomacy with conferences and treaties is necessary – which would by the way be good stuff for a DLC.

 

[permanently_afk]

Edit: tl;dr: Given a few changes, yes they would.

In a historical sense, Lets say in 1938 the Franco-Soviet treaty of mutual assistance got a lot more focus put into it from the French side. Then the USSR sent them a secret telegram saying they want to invade Poland so they can create a frontier with Germany, which helps France by creating a potential two front war for Germany when they attack.

From what we know, would France be willing to throw Poland under the bus just to get that much vaunted two front war against Germany?

And if France did accept the USSRs proposal, would Britain ever dare to go to war over Poland without France helping them?

Well, depending when we start fooling around in history the poles should worry more about being thrown to the germans by the french for an alliance. Or at least to be coerced into concessions. Several of the concessions to Hitler were driven by the want to have a strong buffer against the Soviets and communist influence. And Hitler as a rabid anti-communist was seen as the perfect man for that. And the sentiment persisted (but lost popularity) until '39 and the war declarations.

That said, if the french take a hard-left turn or grow considerably more hawkish in their outlook (say enough people are in favor for immediate aggression upon Rhineland), the answer could very well be "yes". The french logic would be that the russians can stall the germans long enough for the french army to strike the killing blow.

Of course, hindsight applies to both. And in HOI4, communist France can ally the UdSSR.

Its still impossible because Hitler also wanted polish land. He wanted all land east of Germany.

Sigh. As already pointed out, quite a bit of that "polish land" was seen at the time as "german land held by Poland" not only by germans. And if you want to peddle polish maximalist rethoric, I'll remind you that thats only funny as long as you stand on the winning side.
Do remember that the nazis did not start out as their 1945 incarnation. There were people like Hermann "I decide who is a jew" Göring or the Strasser brothers. So, if needs must, you can rewrite the ideology to accomodate the poles. I can think of at least two ways ad hoc. Of course, both include blaming someone else for the previous polish-german conflicts. No prizes for guessing whom. And of course its hypcritical. But hey, ideologues have proven to be quite good at that sort of thing.
In addition, a nazi-polish alliance would require some shifts in the internal power structure of both nations. And yes, the poles would probably loose Danzig and Posen. But in turn there will be consoldiation with lithuanian (port), russian (territory) and other stuff (some extraterritoriality). Funnyly enough, it could actually work out. Would suck for any non-pole or -german.

About Japan... Actually, Interwar border conflicts for the Japan have ended with exactly wiping the floor with them, just due to it happening in the Far East it never did go for Europe as something "worth noticing" though it has efficiently turned Japan to the expansion into European colonies in the South.

And add that. The japanese were still seen as primitives. And the whole anti-communist thingy.

 

[Fulmen]

Sigh. As already pointed out, quite a bit of that "polish land" was seen at the time as "german land held by Poland" not only by germans. And if you want to peddle polish maximalist rethoric, I'll remind you that thats only funny as long as you stand on the winning side.
Do remember that the nazis did not start out as their 1945 incarnation. There were people like Hermann "I decide who is a jew" Göring or the Strasser brothers. So, if needs must, you can rewrite the ideology to accomodate the poles. I can think of at least two ways ad hoc. Of course, both include blaming someone else for the previous polish-german conflicts. No prizes for guessing whom. And of course its hypcritical. But hey, ideologues have proven to be quite good at that sort of thing.
In addition, a nazi-polish alliance would require some shifts in the internal power structure of both nations. And yes, the poles would probably loose Danzig and Posen. But in turn there will be consoldiation with lithuanian (port), russian (territory) and other stuff (some extraterritoriality). Funnyly enough, it could actually work out. Would suck for any non-pole or -german.

This. In the early 1930s Hitler tried to ally with the Poles against Russia. The man even attended Pilsudski's memorial service.

Ironically, and I've pointed this out before, it was specifically the Russians who wanted to erase Poland off the map in the Molotov-Ribbentrop partioning, not the Germans. Leaving a rump Poland intact, roughly corresponding to what became the Generalgouvernement, was originally considered.

From The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: