Preface

Summary

When I was an undergraduate student at the School of History at the University of Birmingham I took a course, run by Professor J.A.S. Grenville, on British foreign policy in 1938–9. I was then struck by the one-sided interpretation which prevailed in British historical works on the effect of British policy on Europe prior to the outbreak of the war. The heated debate which surrounded the question of appeasement tended to confine the discussion on the British role in the years preceding the war to the analysis of Anglo-German relations. Subsequently during my research on Anglo-Polish relations in 1938–9 that impression was confirmed. I felt that the complexity of Britain's continental policy had not been fully analysed and where an effort had been made it still lacked an understanding of the reciprocal nature of foreign policy.

This book has been the result of the above considerations. In it I have tried to show how, far from setting the pace in Europe's response to German aggression, Britain like other states, was herself a victim of an inability to mount a major change of policy towards Germany. As I have been able to draw upon my knowledge of Polish sources to show the reciprocal nature of Anglo-Polish relations during 1939 I was thus able to exhibit the full extent of Britain's inability to build an eastern front based on Poland.