TWENTY YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE 319Stalin, but in his naive belief in the sincerity of Allied guarantees and assur-
ances.^35
The viewpoint, much favoured by western commentators, that the Polish
government was purposefully dallying with the Nazis is very wide of the mark.
As early as March 1936, the General Inspectorate of the Armed Forces had
commissioned a study of the strategic implications of German rearmament; and
General Kutrzeba's critical assessment of the situation, underlining serious
deficiencies in Poland's air defence, naval, and armoured forces, formed the
background to subsequent diplomatic decisions.^36 The Polish Armed Services
were not capable of playing an effective defensive role unless supported by a
powerful ally, and had no offensive capacity in the foreseeable future. For this
reason, if for no other, the Polish leaders could not afford to become involved in
Germany's aggressive ambitions in the east. Despite the suspicions of Allied
statesmen, all attempts by Berlin to draw Poland into closer collaboration with
Germany were resolutely resisted. It is in this con text that two of Beck's more
inglorious enterprises — the occupation of the Zaolzie in October 1938 and the
ultimatum to Lithuania in March 1938 - must be judged. On both occasions, the
Polish government took advantage of its neighbours' misfortunes to settle old
scores and to indulge in a bit of bombastic self-congratulation; but the main pre-
occupation was to parry the threat of Poland's encirclement by Germany on
both the southern and the northern flanks.
In the course of 1939 Poland's condition deteriorated from the chronic to the
terminal. As soon as the Nazi propaganda machine turned its attentions to
German claims on Danzig, and to what Germans called 'the Polish Corridor', it
was clear that the Polish Republic was to be subjected to the same pressure tac-
tics which had destroyed Czechoslovakia. By this time, it was also clear, even to
Neville Chamberlain, that all further negotiations with Hitler on the Munich
model were pointless. Instead, on 31 March, Chamberlain proffered an uncon-
ditional Guarantee, that Great Britain would do 'everything possible' to resist
an attack by Germany on Poland's independence. The British Prime Minister
must surely have known that in terms of practical assistance to Poland nothing
was in fact possible. His purpose in making this gesture, unparalleled in the
whole course of British History, was to deter Hitler, not to assist the Poles. He
knew perfectly well that the British forces did not have the means available,
either in men, ships, or planes, to intervene in Central Europe, and that he could
not count automatically on the French Army to march on his behalf.^37 Hitler
smelt the phoney nature of the Guarantee, and on 28 April responded by
renouncing the Polish-German Pact of Non-aggression. The ensuing war of
nerves was full of surprises. Both Gamelin and Ironside, the French and British
Chiefs-of-Staff, gave precise, and as it proved, fraudulent assurances of their
proposed action in the event of German aggression. Gamelin formally under-
took to throw 'the bulk of the French army' across the Maginot Line; Ironside
said that the RAF would match any German air raids on Poland with similar
raids on Germany. Both "Western governments began extended talks to found a