The Real Reason the Allies Never Declared War on the Soviet Union

In 1939 Stalin invaded Poland alongside Hitler. Britain and France went to war for Poland, so why never against the Soviet Union? On September 17, 1939, the Red Army crossed into eastern Poland, two weeks after Britain and France had declared war on Germany for invading the same country. The usual explanation is a secret protocol that limited Britain's treaty with Poland to Germany alone. That protocol is real, but it only gave London a choice. This video follows how Britain and France made that choice again and again, from the autumn of 1939 to the end of the war, and how close they came to the opposite answer. The story begins with the Curzon Line of 1920 and the Peace of Riga, then Neville Chamberlain's guarantee to Poland in March 1939, the failed Anglo-French military talks in Moscow, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol, and the Anglo-Polish Agreement of Mutual Assistance signed by Lord Halifax and Edward Raczyński on August 25, 1939. It traces the Soviet invasion of Poland, the British protest of September 18, the joint German and Soviet parade at Brest-Litovsk, Winston Churchill's broadcast of October 1, 1939, and Halifax's remarks in the House of Lords. It then follows the Winter War and the expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League of Nations, the Allied Supreme War Council's plan for an expedition to Finland through Narvik, the German-Soviet trade agreement of February 1940 with its grain and oil, and the Anglo-French plans to bomb the oil fields of Baku, including the reconnaissance flights from Iraq. It closes with the fall of France, Churchill's broadcast on June 22, 1941, the Anglo-Soviet Agreement, the Polish-Soviet agreement of July 30, 1941, Britain's declaration of war on Finland, and the conferences at Tehran and Yalta. The video also covers the Soviet-run elections and annexation in eastern Poland in 1939, the German expulsions in the annexed Polish lands, the deportation of around 140,000 Polish citizens in February 1940, the forcible annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in 1940, the killing of some 22,000 Polish prisoners by the NKVD at Katyn and other sites in the spring of 1940, and the loss of some six million Polish citizens in the war. Subscribe for more history that follows the decisions behind the turning points of the Second World War. Which reason do you think weighed most in London and Paris, the treaty's fine print, the Curzon line, military weakness, or the hope that Stalin would turn on Hitler? Sources: UK Parliament, Hansard, House of Commons debates of March 31 and September 20, 1939 UK Parliament, Hansard, House of Lords debate of October 26, 1939 Agreement of Mutual Assistance between the United Kingdom and Poland, with secret protocol, August 25, 1939 Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941 U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1939, Volume I Institute of National Remembrance, Poland, materials on September 17, 1939, the 1940 deportations, and Katyn International Churchill Society, Churchill's broadcasts of October 1, 1939 and June 22, 1941 The National Archives UK, PREM 3/170, Churchill and Mannerheim correspondence, 1941 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Curzon Line and German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact Imperial War Museums, the Arctic convoy Dervish, 1941 War on the Rocks, That Time Britain and France Almost Bombed the Soviet Union, 2015 #WW2 #Churchill #Poland #SovietUnion #Stalin #WinterWar #Baku #Chamberlain #History #WorldWarII