Saturday, August 23, 2008
This Day in the History of Evil Deceiving Evil
On this day in 1939, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany. Within 2 months, Hitler would take over Poland. Stalin, 90 days after Hitler's invasion of Poland, invaded Finland in the Winter War throughout which the Finns managed somehow to hold on. Hitler respected the pact for almost 21 months, until June 22, 1941. Stalin stayed out of Germany (for obvious reasons) for over 5 years, until October 23, 1944, when Soviet forces first entered East Prussia.
Labels: WWII pre history
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 11:45 AM 
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The UK and France both had mutual defense treaties with Poland. These treaties were directly responsible for the French and British declarations of war against Germany on 3 Sept., 1939. These treaties were apparently too onerous to abide by when the Soviet Union invaded Poland on 17 Sept., though.
The conquest by Nazi and Soviet forces was complete before the Brits and French could really get organized. They did what they could and Poland paid a huge price for the near complete disarmament the West had done post Great War. There's a lesson there, I think. What, actually, could we have done to protect Georgia? I say nothing, with the possible exception of air cover for the semi-feckless Georgian forces. And that would have meant war with the Russian Federation. Not ideal right now.
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