the leadup to World War II saw many nations hand over lands to Germany in return for not being invaded results varied Germany was quickly able to regain the sa land Annex the entirety of Austria take the cetan land before occupying and dividing up Czechoslovakia as well as bullying Lithuania into handing over meml and the Western allies did absolutely nothing to stop this but when the time came for Germany to demand Danzig and the lands around it the Polish said no so why why was Poland the first to say no to Germany well technically Poland never
actually said no or yes in fact the ultimatum was never actually delivered and the German government simply reported that the Polish had rejected their demands thus giving them an excuse to invade however we do know from polish Communications with Britain that they would have rejected all of the floated proposals anyway and thus the question remains so as you'll know the late 1930s saw Germany's attempts to rewrite or ignore the Treaty of Versa rearmament secret or otherwise and an aggressive foreign policy marked a change in the balance of power in Europe now the Western allies did
a terrible job of dissuading or stopping this German power grab they accepted and allowed the return of the sarand their protests against the annexation of Austria were completely Toothless and in the case of Czechoslovakia Their Fear of another major war meant that they actively helped Germany in taking the sudeten land as for Lithuania Britain and France simply didn't acknowledge anything having happened at all now to begin Poland never actually owned Danzig it was technically a separate entity one that lived in a sort of legal limbo where it was kind of free kind of beholden to
polish economic policy and kind of a League of Nations protectorate it had its own government and police force its people were overwhelmingly German and it very much wanted to join Germany but Germany didn't just want danzik but also these lands in which a referendum would be held the catch being that all the Germans that had left the area after World War I would be allowed to vote which essentially all but guaranteed its return to Germany as such for Poland this was far too much to concede and would importantly see it cut off from Maritime trade
the Germans had promised to allow the Polish access to its ports in the north but Germany made a lot of promises and kept very few of them not having access to to these ports would make Poland economically reliant on Germany and thus little more than a puppet another reason that the Polish said no was that unlike Czechoslovakia Lithuania or Austria Poland wasn't a small nation two decades prior it had defeated the USSR and asserted its right to exist the Polish people would never accept meekly handing over territory to a nation which on paper was disarmed
and the Polish government despite being a dictatorship knew that if it did this it would fall to a popular Uprising because it had based its right to rule on keeping Poland safe and whole reason number three was the belief that so long as France and Britain upheld their promises Poland could hold the Germans off the French and polish militaries knew that their Alliance meant that Germany would have to fight a two-front war they knew that if one fell on its own the other would follow soon afterwards which in the eyes of Poland made it invaluable
to France and as such polish leaders knew that they could rely on Paris and this combined with Britain's promise to defend Poland meant that they were safe from German invasion until they weren't that is and then partition thank you for watching with a special thanks to my patrons James Bizet Sky Chappelle kitka Marcus arner UD Wang Wang Anthony Becket blue cardinal AF Firefly Spencer Lightfoot W and hockey Captain psidog Alex Schwin Gustav Swan the mcer Robert C Perkins Castle Bravo Michael hbert shenin Marvin CAU rodie Martin spinning three plates Andy McGee kimun Yun mza Ahmed
Maggie Paskowski Danny atanasio calling Dr Howard Dr Fine Dr Howard Nova Historia copper tone words about books podcast Winston kwood Remco hoisan Jim strumberg Charles I first Lord beak bet kabot and Muhammad Al kakani
