Why did the UK declare war on Nazi Germany but not the Soviet Union?

Hello,

I am not a historian but love to read about history a lot. I have always learnt that the United Kingdom declared war on Nazi Germany because the latter invaded Poland. However through a little research I found out that also the Soviet Union invaded Poland. If so, then why the the UK only declare war on Nazi Germany and not also on the Soviet Union?

Regards,
Sim085

 

found this info that seems to explain it quite well..

In short, since the defensive pact between Britain, France and Poland said nothing about the Soviet Union, the British and French refused to declare war against them. Read below for more context.
Prior to the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Poland, Britain and France made a defensive pact against the Germans, stating that if one of them was attacked, the other two would declare war against Germany. It is often stated that Britain and France responded to Germany's annexation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 (a violation of the Munich agreement) by "guaranteeing the integrity of the Polish state". This is an incomplete explanation, as the agreement was for all three states to declare war against Germany (and it only pertained to Germany) if one of those three were attacked by Germany.
Meanwhile, there was a political battle going on between Britain/France and Germany to get Soviet support in an eventual military conflict. Germany won this battle with a secret non-aggression pact that would partition Poland between the two states when they invaded it. This is what led to the German invasion of, and declaration of war on, Poland on September 1st. On September 3rd, the British and French, stunned by the boldness of Hitler (they had not expected him to actually attack), declared war on Germany, as per the agreement they had made with Poland. However, since the agreement did not specify military action, neither Britain nor France engaged Germany in any fighting until Germany invaded France the following year. This has been dubbed the "phony war", because of a lack of fighting by the British and French, but of course the war was ongoing in Poland, even after the capitulation of the Polish state and the exile of the Polish government to the British isles on September 28th, 1939.
On September 17th, 1939 Poland was invaded on its eastern border by the Soviet Union. This attack, and the expectation of the attack itself, helped to split Polish defenses, and sped up the eventual defeat of the Polish military forces 11 days later. Since the defensive pact between Britain, France and Poland said nothing about the Soviet Union, the British and French refused to declare war against them, in keeping with their very technical and legalistic interpretation of the pact. Their hope was that Germany would stop with Poland, and not attack them next.
One of the reasons cited for such a relatively easy defeat of Poland is that the Germans did not have to worry about the French troops on its Western border. German scouts were given the order to inform HQ if they saw so much as a single French soldier near the border, the response to which would have been a split of German forces to defend its western front while attacking Poland in the east. The scouts saw no one (possibly due to a combination of serendipity and an actual scarcity of French scouts near the border), so that virtually the entirety of Germany's forces were put into the attack on Poland, leaving Germany defenseless against a full western invasion from a superior number (at the time) of French forces for weeks. The lack of support from the Western "allies" and second frontal attack by the Soviets was too much for the Polish military, as was the single-front attack too much for France several months later. Only once Germany brought the Soviet Union and the United States (via their ally Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor) into the war against itself did it get defeated by a two-front war.

 

Thanks, that explains it perfectly

 

pleasure,welcome,and enjoy the forum..

 

Great question, I never even thought about that. New members, new perspectives, welcome aboard !!

 

Hitler bought off Stalin by giving him a slice of Poland and agreed to Stalin's demands, Hitler had to bite the bullet for him to get his war going. Don't forget Stalin was going to war with Finland that winter.

 

that Germany was defenseless in the west in september 1939 is exagerated ,it took the French al least two weeks to be ready,and then the German defense was strong enough to resist an attack .

 

We don't know for sure that Stalin would've gone to war with Finland and occupied the Baltic states without the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

 

At the time of the declaration of war no one in the west knew of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and thus the Nazi Germans were the intended target for our attentions. Only after we had declared War with Germany did the Soviets show their hands and occupy the eastern states which they never returned, so for them the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was a positive thing. It would have been suicide for us to declare war with the Soviets as this would have given Hitler an even greater ally in Stalin and perhaps the whole aspect of German foreign policy would have been realigned.Hitler always insisted that the western powers would turn on Russia when they saw their true nature. I'm sure that their was some diplomatic correspondance between us and the soviets where they justified their occupation as one of protection of Poland. Nowhere did they state publicly their pact with Ribbentrop.So in want of further information from the Soviet or Uk archives it can only be guesswork

 

This isn't entirely true, the pact itself was announced early on as a "non-aggression pact" between the Soviets and the Nazis. However the portion which was secret was the division of Poland by the two aggressor nations which occurred later. It was two week (about) before the Soviets invaded Polish territory, and the guarantee to the Poles was only from an invasionby a "European Power". This diplomatic "two step" effectively ruled out any aggression from the Soviet Union as they were not considered a "European Power" at the time.

At any rate, declaring war upon the SU would have been pointless at anyrate, the French and British had no way to help the Poles other than empty words and saber rattling at Germany, to do the same toward Stalin was without need or effect. A "non-aggression" pact doesn't make the two allies remember, just not supposed to attack each other.

Of course both entities ignored the same pacts they had with Poland, the Nazi version was supposed to be for 10 years. Hitler missed by about 9 years of living up to that one.

For a Time magazin article which covers the Ribbentrop/Molotov pact.

Goto:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762519,00.html

Where it is discussed, but without the secret protocall which would not be known for some time.

 

Don´t forget the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact´s secret part gave the Soviets "free hands" on the Baltic nations and Finland as well. Thus making nazi Germany forced to support the Soviet politics on these countries as well as Stalin supporting nazi Germany´s politics. For instance Göring told the Finns to accept every demand the USSR asked for or "face the consequences". Later on Göring said he had to cry after making these demands for a communistic country, something he had dedicated his life against before.

 

Indeed.

 

The Soviet government announced that it was acting to protect the Ukrainians and Belarusians who lived in the eastern part of Poland, because the Polish state had collapsed in the face of the German attack and could no longer guarantee the security of its own citizens. From WIKI, so from this it's obvious it presented its invasion as a protection Sorry I did mean that no one knew the full extent of the text of the pact and its decisive carving up of Poland.

 

This is true. It has become something of a myth that there were no German forces in the West, and another enduring myth is that the Seigfried Line was devoid of troops. There was simply nothing that could have been accomplished by iether or both the UK or France to effectively help Poland. The Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement sealed Poland's fate before the war began. It's too bad more people do not accept this fact.

The French did engage in the Saar Offensive, which was launched on the 7th of September, with actual operations beginning on the 9th. A hodgepodge force, which was already reduced in size, did cross into Germany occupying a small pocket, taking along several small villages and towns with numerous casualties due mainly to minefields, but also to heavy artillery fire from the supposedly defenseless and unmanned Seigfried Line.

One of my books, "Cette Nuit nous entrons en Allemagne" (Tonight we enter Germany) by L.E. Barillec, an officer in the II/137e R.I., describes quite accurately the reaction of French troops in the Saarland region when they first hear of the Russian attack on Poland. It is met with general disbelief and astonishment among all ranks. There was a genuine fear that they might soon be fighting both the Germans and the Russians.

 

Another note of interest: The Soviets demanded before the Nuremberg trail that their part in the partition of Poland be suppressed and not allowed in the court. They sure did not want to have their impeccable reputation sullied.

I found this information in: Tales from Spandau: Nazi Criminals and the Cold War.


Yours,

Bill

 

Unfortunately as churchill would possibly say.. Sometimes you have to make deals with the devil.

 

"If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons"
-Winston Churchill

I think that sums it up well

 

I'm impressed that someone has questioned this.. but i feel the answers are ignoring the fear and resentment the power shift Germany's rise created, as we know Germany started taking back lost land and Hitler even looked back to pre-1806 time when Czech was part of the Holy Roman Empire, this incorporated Austria, Belgium etc aswell as 1871 2nd Reich territory, so the 3rd Reich had a historical right to this in their thinking, they especially wanted pre-WW1 territory back off the Poles, they offered the Poles a few deals, ie: using the Danzig as a free port etc, but this was declined as Britain had declared they'd guarentee Polish borders, so they basically dropped Britain in the ****, but the point is that Britain wanted to destroy the new Germany and whether other nations were also grabbing territory was beside the point, to the British it was ok to decide the fate of Europe, ie: creating the new czechoslovakia, allowing Poland to take western Prussia, Hitler wasnt going to accept that and he always said so, thats what the war was about, forget hindsight, it was a localised territorial dispute that exploded into world war, the invasion of Russia probably only happened after the swift victory over Britain and France inflated German confidence, Britain had no issue with Russia, they could have been burning babies for fun it wouldnt have made any difference

 

As a elderly Polish woman who was there during the war said to me:

'It is our duty to kill Germans; It is a pleasure to kill Russians.'

She did not see the Russians as liberators, and was especially bitter at them for having invaded their country.

Yours,

Bill

 

Have you not heard the famous speech by neville chambelin declaring war on germany... it kind of explains why