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persuade Poland to enter into immediate negotiations with Germany.
Accordingly, Halifax wired the British ambassador in Warsaw to prevail upon
the Poles for authorization to inform Hitler that Poland was agreeable. This
they did, and Henderson was welcomed back to Berlin on the evening of August
28 by an honor guard of SS to deliver the official British note.
Some of the more credulous of those involved were jubilant that peace had been
secured, but others more experienced in Hitler's ways retained a coolei
wait-and-see attitude. Their wisdom was borne out by the official German
reply, which reached London early on August 29 and stated that friendship with
Britain could not be bought at the price of renouncing Germany's vital
interests. It then launched into a familiar tirade of alleged Polish misdeeds
and provocations and insisted on the return of Danzig and the Baltic Corridor.
Finally, it demanded as an indication of good faith the dispatch to Berlin of
a Polish emissary with full negotiating powers not later than
August 30.
The last part contained the trap. By its arrogant insinuation that Poland was
expected to send its emissary scurrying at the snap of Hitler's
fingers-clearly an intended prelude to more of the kind of treatment that had
been handed out to the ministers of previous victim nations-the demand made
Polish rejection all but certain. If the Poles declined to send a negotiator,
or even if they did and Hitler's terms were rejected, then Poland would be to
blame for turning down a
"peaceful settlement," and Britain and France would have a justification for
washing their hands of the business.
"It's a strange feeling now that this is really happening," Anna Kharkiovitch
whispered in an awed voice when the team assembled in Winslade's hotel room at
midday to hear the latest.
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"History is actually changing moment by moment from what we remember, and it's
because of what we did. It's uncanny."
Duff Cooper looked thoughtful. "Right now, Hitler could well be more confused
than we are," he mused. "He's been confident that we'd seize the first chance
we got to wriggle out, just as in your world."
"That explains what's happening," Bannering said, nodding. "He's trying to
give us an out.
He doesn't know that anything's been changed, and neither does Overlord. They
can't know. They don't possess a connection to our world of 1975 and its
history. They've only got a link to
Overlord's world of 2025, and in that world this situation never happened.
There, the Nazis faded away years ago."
By this time, none of the British diplomats or ministers had any stomach for
another
Munich. The Poles had never for a moment considered one. The British
ambassador in Warsaw wired
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Halifax that they would sooner fight and perish than send a representative of
their nation to be bullied and humiliated. If Hitler really wanted to
negotiate, the Poles said, they would negotiate as equals in some neutral
country.
Accordingly, Henderson arrived at the German Foreign Office at midnight on
August 30 to deliver a note stating that Britain could not advise Poland to
comply with the German demands.
Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister, began aping Hitler at his worst by
launching into a hysterical denunciation, but for once the shock-tactic of
insult and intimidation failed to work.
In a heated exchange that the German interpreter would later describe as "the
stormiest I have experienced in twentythree years," the Englishman outshouted
the German, and at one point both men leaped from their chairs and glared
across the desk so angrily that they seemed about to come to blows. When
Henderson asked for the promised German proposals, Ribbentrop read them aloud
in
German, speaking so quickly that Henderson could do no more than gather the
gist of a few of them, after which Ribbentrop refused to supply a written copy [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]