Partitions British Complicity Belloc

Return to the Baltic, by Hilaire Belloc. 2013

Candor on British anti-Polish Attitudes. British Complicity in the Partitions of Poland

Author Hilaire Belloc, a French-born British-French writer, described his travels to the Scandinavian nations and Poland. My review focuses on the latter, and is based on the 1938 edition of this book.

Much of the chapter on Poland is from the viewpoint of the tourist. For instance, he describes the Church of Our Lady [KOSCIOL MARIACKI] of Krakow as, in his words, “of supernatural beauty”, and goes as far as concluding that, “I know of nothing to compare with it in Europe.” (p. 159).

Belloc touches on Polish history. He points out that the Polish crown was elective at the hands of the nobility. There was no permanent kingship in Poland. (p. 155).

The author gives unstinting credit to Polish heroism. He calls Poland a bastion which had saved Europe in the Battle of Warsaw [of the 1920 Polish-Bolshevik War] and, centuries earlier, in the Battle of Vienna. (p. 152).

Belloc touches on the achievements of the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939). The new port of Gdynia had been so successful that, in his words, Gdynia leaves Dantzig dry. (p. 150).

BRITISH NEGATIVISM TOWARDS POLAND

Finally, Hilaire Belloc is unsparingly critical of British attitudes towards Poland. After the Great War [later renamed WWI], the average English professional politician, according to Belloc, thought of Poland as an entity that had artificially been carved out of Russia. (p. 145). Another British politician, known to Belloc, had betted that Poland would not last ten years. Belloc was still waiting to be paid by this anti-Polish loser. (p. 146).

The author believes that British antagonism towards Poland was based on ignorance. (p. 179). However, this had practical consequences. The Bank of England, disbelieving in the viability of Poland, invested instead in Berlin. This contributed to the power of Prussia, its hegemony over the Baltic [and, of course, the soon-to-be WWII.]