In the Middle of the Whirlwind: Romania and Poland in the Tripartite Negotiations

Even if the works dedicated to European diplomacy from the period 1939–1940 are extremely numerous, the research we propose allows us to identify a less common approach, but which can provide more clarity on the diplomatic resources that generated the well-known events in 1939. We opted for an analysis focused on a somewhat novel angle, that of the foreign policy scenarios that ultimately guided the policy of Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union in the period we are referring to – the spring and summer of 1939 – and the place that Poland and Romania occupied within these variants of projects. These possible scenarios generated intense diplomatic agitation in most European capitals in 1939, and Warsaw and Bucharest were no exception. The multitude of variants analyzed in the three European chancelleries ultimately generated actions with deep consequences and dictated by cynical reasons of state but were considered necessary at the time. Therefore, we hereby analyze the motivations that led the great Western powers to opt for negotiations with the Soviet Union, in order to give more consistency to the guarantees granted in the spring of 1939 to Poland, Romania and Greece, but our study also follows the actual evolution of the negotiations, with their endless series of proposals and counterproposals. In this way, we believe, the importance that the British, above all, gave to Eastern European states – we have in mind here, first of all, Poland and Romania – because precisely these countries and, obviously, their destiny, were at stake during these negotiations, failed due to the reluctance of the British to “capitulate” to the growing demands of Moscow, the Soviet-German rapprochement and the conclusion of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.