"Stuart Wilkes" wrote in message
om...
E. Barry Bruyea wrote in message
. ..
On 22 Oct 2003 02:44:52 -0700, (Stuart Wilkes)
wrote:


Indeed, the Western powers were concerned to keep the Baltic States
out of Soviet hands. However, in the Anglo-German negotiations of the
summer of 1939, the British offered to recognize Eastern Europe as a
German sphere of influence. Last time I checked, the Baltic States
are in Eastern Europe. So the Western powers were indeed resolved to
keep the Baltic States out of Soviet hands, in order to preserve them
for the Nazi variety.


What Anglo German negotiations ?

From March onwards (when Germany seized the remains of
Czechoslovakia) there was a deterioration of relations which made everbody
understand the inevitability of war

In April Germany denounced the Anglo German Naval Agreement

The Germans alsocomplained about the negotiations
Britain was pursuing with the USSR complaining that
Britain and the Soviet Union were trying to encircle
Germany.

They need not have feared since it was the Soviets who scuppered
any chance of an alliance to oppose Germany when Molotov
first sharply criticized the British suggestions of a defensive alliance
against Germany and Italy and then rejected a series of drafts in
negotiations
with the British and French governments and demanded guarantees for the
Baltic states, insurance against internal revolution, and the right to send
Red Army troops into Poland in the event of a German invasion.

These demands were clearly impossible to accept and were almost
certainly intended to end all such talks as the USSR was already
secretly negotiating with Germany.

It was of course Stalin who offered Germany a free hand in Western
Europe while the USSR would have a free hand in the east and
split Poland between them.


Keith