Peace and stability in Europe, as Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor and a master of statecraft, once believed, depended on making a good treaty between Germany and Russia. The two great Continental powers had to find a balance of power. France had neither the leadership nor the population to be a third great power, and Britain was busy abroad where it didn’t matter.
The treaty that Hitler and Stalin signed at the end of August 1939 turned the two dictators into accomplices. The absence of any balance of forces within Europe freed them both to pursue their national interests as they perceived it. Together they immediately divided Poland. Within a few months, Hitler went on to invade and occupy another seven countries while Stalin invaded and occupied another four. Dictatorship had triumphed over liberal democracy and would now dominate the near future.
The Poles held out for three or four weeks against the Germans but were then helpless against the Red Army. The French hardly bothered to defend their own country. When Hitler ordered the invasion of Britain, the British felt they might not lose the war but nobody responsible believed they could win it. Evelyn Waugh’s novel trilogy Sword of Honour has a memorable passage expressing how it felt now that the two totalitarian powers were acting as one: “The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms.” Stalin
