Hmm.
(1) Why did Germany invade Poland? What was the issue between those two countries that necessitated a war?
It was the question of whether Danzig - a city that was 95 percent German, which had been torn away from Germany by the Versailles Treaty - would be incorporated into Germany, right?
(2) You have your facts wrong.
- First, Germany demanded the incorporation of Danzig into Germany, as Danzig was a German city. The Poles refused to cede Danzig. The British, stung by Munich, gave a war guarantee to Poland.
- Second, the Poles refused to back down over Danzig. Germany declared war.
- Third, Britain and France declared war on Germany, not the other way around, because of the stupid and worthless war guarantee to Poland.
- Fourth, “Czechoslovakia” was a tyranny that was hated by the Germans, Slovaks, Poles, and Hungarians that had been forced to live under Czech rule.
The Poles and Hungarians also invaded “Czechoslovaka.” The Slovaks declared their independence. They didn’t want to live under Czech rule ... and rejected “Czechoslovakia” again in the Velvet Divorce.
- Fifth, it was Britain that dragged the United States into the war, after Britain was dragged into the war by the worthless war guarantee.
(3) Buchanan never argues that England was “evil” for giving the war guarantee. Unwise, yes. It was undoubtedly one of the most foolish decisions ever made by any empire in all of world history.
Britain didn’t have the resources or capability to ensure Poland’s independence. It surely had no real interests either in a poor country in Eastern Europe anyway.
(4) Saying that the “Nazis” were “aggressive” for demanding the annexation of the Sudetenland and Danzig is like saying that America is “aggressive” for refusing to cede Seattle, Portland, and Boston to foreign powers.
All of Germany - liberal, socialist, conservative, Nazi, communist - agreed that Danzig was a German city that had been unjustly torn from Germany. That was not a “Nazi” position. It was mainstream view within Germany for obvious reasons.
(5) Why was there a “Free City of Danzig” in the first place? Because after WW1 a punitive treaty - one that America rejected in disgust, which caused America to turn its back on Europe - was imposed on Germany by Britain and France which was designed to cripple the country and keep Germany in thrall to Britain and France.
(6) There is plenty of logic to Buchanan’s argument: the worthless Polish war guarantee was the cause of Polish brinkmanship which was the cause of the German invasion which was the cause of the Soviet invasion which was the cause of Britain and France declaring war and the cause of the Second World War.
That worthless war guarantee resulted in the worst possible scenario for Poland - enslavement, the death of millions, the ruin of the country, the obliteration of its cities, communist and fascist rule, the loss of independence for fifty years - and by extension it also destroyed Britain as a world power.
There is nothing in the least bit “communist” about Buchanan’s argument. On the contrary, it was Churchill who in his “naughty document” ceded Poland and much of Eastern Europe (with the exception of Greece) to Stalin at the Yalta Conference.
It was Winston Churchill who abandoned Poland.