The Polish Campaign of September 1939 in Perspective

British and French declarations of war caused the Poles, naturally enough to expect immediate land and air operations. Yet, neither the French nor the British did much to help the beleaguered Poles imploring their promised assistance. This was again contrary to the letter and spirit of both the Franco-Polish alliance of 1921 and the military convention of May 1039, as well as the British-Polish Mutual Assistance pact, signed on 25 August. The pact had stated categorically that in case of aggression by a European Power (which was defined as meaning Germany) ” the other contracting party will once give the contracting party engaged in hostilities all the support and assistance in its power.” Article Five emphasized that such mutual support and assistance would be given “immediately on the outbreak of hostilities.” By the Franco-Polish convention of May 1939, the French promised the Poles five squadrons of their bombers and immediate bombardment of key German objectives in case of Hitler’s attack on Poland; the main assistance was to come, however, from the French ground forces which were to start their operations along the Franco-German border “on the third day after the end of the mobilization” with a full-scale offensive with “the bulk” of their Army on the fifteenth day of the mobilization.

British reaction was no better than the French. On September 5, the Polish military attaché’ in London went to the Air Ministry with an urgent request for the Royal Air Force to launch raids against Germany. Nothing came of it.

It was obvious that Paris and London had decided early to postpone any large scale offensive in the West. But the Poles were told none of this. The declarations of war were intended as a mere gesture by the Western Allies; nothing would be done until Britain and France could either negotiate a compromise settlement with Germany, or their economic blockade and “silver bullets” could bring Germany to its knees. In both cabinets their respective Foreign Ministers, Lord Halifax and George’s Bonnet, favored further negotiations with Berlin.

Attacked from four sides, outflanked and overwhelmed, Poland collapsed, fighting to the last moment while abandoned by its Western allies. Could Poland have been rescued from her predicament? Great Britain had no army capable of intervention, but her navy air force could have bombed and shelled German military installations and communication centers. General Gamelin had nearly one hundred divisions ready to fight. His forces could have broken through to the Rhine and threatened the Ruhr, which Hitler considered as “the Achilles heel” of the Reich. But Gamelin refused to give the order. We know from the depositions of General Alfred Jodl at the Nuremberg trail , that the Germans were astonished and relieved that the French did not attack them while the Siegfried Line was still “little better than a building site.” Another leading German general, Heinz Guiderian, was also surprised that the French did not take advantage of their favorable situation in September 1939 to attack the Reich from the West, while the bulk of the German forces, including the entire Panzer force, was fighting in Poland.

According to the later testimony of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the Germans in September 1939 had not more than thirty poorly prepared combat divisions in the West. Most of the German troops were raw recruits, many of whom had never fired live ammunition, and this was sufficient for barely three days of fighting. The better German troops, all tanks, and practically the entire Air Force were thrown into the Polish campaign. During the second week of the war, while the battle of Kutno was still raging and the fate of Poland was not yet definitely sealed, German forces in the unfinished Siegfried Line were in a critical situation.

Yet, the French Army and Air Force stood passively facing these meager German contingents in the West; on the Allied side of the Western front were approximately 2,500 tanks, 10,000 guns, and nearly 3,000 French and British aircraft. After making allowance for protecting the border with Italy and leaving a dozen or so divisions in North Africa, General Gamelin had in metropolitan France at least eighty-five trained and equipped divisions to confront the German Army’s some thirty second-rate German divisions. At that time, Gamelin had six times as many guns as the Germans; he had 1.600 guns apart form his divisional artillery against Germany’s 300- and the French guns were better and of heavier caliber. Moreover, the French had 3,286 tanks while in the West the Germans had very few. The Western Allies had 934 fighter planes immediately available for action while the Germans had virtually none on the Western front; the British had 776 serviceable bombers, while all of the Germans had very few since the majority of them had been sent to the Polish front.

In retrospect it is obvious that in 1939 the Germans were not ready for war on two fronts simultaneously. They had only 98 divisions, of which 52 were active. Of the remaining 46, only 10 were fit for immediate action, be-cause the remainder had only a month or so of training. Even in the air the Germans did not have a numerical superiority over their opponents. As of September, 1939, the Allies had in fact more first-line, though not very modern, aircraft. There is no doubt that Germany’s better planes were of more advanced design than those of the Allies, but the Luftwaffe’s crushing superiority in the air was a myth, largely cultivated by Hitler to intimidate his opponents. In September 1939, the Germans had only 3,600 planes, of which, however, some 2,000 were engaged in Poland, thus leaving about 1,600 for the defense of the entire Reich, including a reserve of only 900 aircraft.18 In 1939 the Germans had no strategic bomber force and the existing craft were suited more to tactical cooperation with land units than to long-range bombing.

German intelligence reports, uncovered by the Allies after the war, indicated deep anxiety about the Wehrmacht in the West. These reports expressed fear that should the Allies attack early in September, they could reach the Rhine with little resistance. Had Gamelin executed his breakthrough toward the Rhur it was the opinion of many senior German officers that he could not only have threatened the industrial heart of the Third Reich, but might have trapped the hard core of the German army in a “sack” on the Saar front. The potential setback would probably have encouraged the sulking and conspiring generals to act against Hitler, while at the same time discouraging Stalin from committing himself more deeply to the German partnership.