POLAND IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR 361poses; but many were spontaneously abandoned by their panic-stricken
inhabitants. Rumours of the grisly massacre committed by the Soviet Army at
Nemmersdorf in East Prussia, the first village of the Reich to be occupied, pre-
cipitated a general exodus. The winter roads were jammed with lines of
'trekkers' in horse-drawn waggons. Hundreds perished in attempts to cross the
frozen sea of the Frisches Haff. Tens of thousands took refuge on the penin-
sula of Hel. The Baltic sealanes were criss-crossed with convoys of overladen
and floundering evacuation ships, which frequently fell victim to Soviet sub-
marines. The loss of the Wilbelm Gustloff, torpedoed off Gdynia on 9 April
1945, and of the Goya on 16 April, accounted for the death by drowning of
some fifteen thousand passengers. These two tragedies, largely unnoticed
amidst the general sauve quipeut, represent the two greatest maritime disasters
in history.
By that time, however, the German defences were smashed beyond repair.
Although local resistance would sometimes be mounted, on the Pomeranian
Wall in January and February, and above all in the German 'fortresses' such as
Bielsko, Glogau, and Breslau, which were ordered to fight to the last man, noth-
ing could stop the flood of Soviet armies as they swept over or around all obsta-
cles. When peace was declared on 9 May 1945, 2,1078 days after the outbreak of
war against Poland, the whole expanse of the Polish lands lay under complete
Soviet control. There was no true liberation.
To anyone who lived through the War in Poland, the diplomatic negotiations
concerning the country's future possess an air of distinct unreality. They did lit-
tle to relieve the agonies of the Occupation, and modified the Soviets' chosen
solution of the Polish Question in only the least essential details. It is odd that
historians should pay them such unwarranted attention.^47
In the era of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the political isolation and the vulnerability
of the Polish Government-in-Exile was amply demonstrated. Created in France
in November 1939 under the Premiership of General Wladystaw Sikorski, and
transferred in June 1940 to London, it enjoyed the full official recognition of the
Western Powers. Yet it could not impress its interests on them. In particular, it
could not persuade them to take cognizance of the fact that the USSR, no less
than Nazi Germany, was responsible for the destruction of Polish independence
and for the outbreak of war. It was welcomed as a partner in the war against
Hitler, but resented for its constant hostility against the USSR, with whom all
the Western governments were at peace. This situation could not improve until
the Wehrmacht invaded Russia on 22 June 1941, and then only temporarily.^48
For two years, from 1941 to 1943, the Polish Government-in-Exile was able
to enter relations with its erstwhile Soviet enemies. The Soviet leaders, in their
hour of need, were willing to treat with their former Polish victims. On 30 July
1941, diplomatic relations were established. The USSR stated its readiness to