740.0011 European War 1939/20830
The Ambassador to the Polish Government in Exile (Biddle) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 6.]
Dear Sir: Referring to my despatch Polish series No. 89, of December 12, 1941,67 wherein I reported the substance of General Sikorski’s arrangement with M. Stalin for the evacuation of about 25,000 Polish troops for service partly in the Middle East, partly in Britain, I have the honor herein to report the following information and observations imparted to me both by the Acting Chief of Polish Military Intelligence, and by the Polish Foreign Office Specialist on Russian affairs:
They said that the Russian military authorities had issued orders for the evacuation into Iran of about 40,000 Polish troops, now in the area just east of Kuibyshev, to commence on March 25. According to latest information, this movement was already under way. These instructions had been, for the Polish military authorities in Russia, as well as for the Polish authorities here, a source of surprise. The only explanation given by the Russian authorities was the shortage of food and arms; that the Russians were finding it difficult to feed these troops, and impossible to find sufficient arms and equipment for them. My informants said that in absence of further clarification, they were able only to speculate as [to] the real motive behind this move. On the face of it, they were inclined to feel that it did not presage well for Polish-Russian relations. It seemed to them that, on the one hand, the Russians no longer wished to have so many Polish troops concentrated [Page 134] in one area in Russia, and, on the other hand, they wanted to eliminate any pretext for Polish insistence that, in event the Russians forced their way into Polish territory, these and perhaps additional Polish forces accompany the Russian forces.
Since it had become known to the Polish community in the Kuibyshev area that these troops were to be moved into Iran, there had been somewhat of a rush on part of the hitherto unenrolled Poles, to join up [with] the forces. (It was therefore difficult at this moment to estimate the present total beyond the original 40,000). Strangely enough moreover, this rush to enlist, was apparently being permitted by the Russian authorities. Moreover, it was estimated that about 10,000 Polish civilians, mostly women and children, were to be permitted to accompany the troops into Iran. In this connection, however, the British military authorities in Russia had objected to the evacuation of this civilian element into Iran on grounds of lack of food and accommodations. Consequently the Polish Government authorities here were about to make a formal and urgent request of the British Government that it permit these civilians to enter Iran. In presenting their case, the Polish authorities would point out that although living conditions in Iran might be uncertain and poor at best, they would undoubtedly be an improvement over the hardships these civilians had been and were now enduring in Russia.
In connection with the foregoing, and in particular with my informant’s interpretation of the Russian authorities’ instruction to evacuate the presently assembled Polish forces, the following observations may be of interest: it may be recalled that in previous writings I pointed out (a) that in initiating steps to bring about a declaration of postwar principles on part of the Allied Governments established here, General Sikorski was risking Russian suspicion and ire, which in turn might conceivably work to the disadvantage of whatever arrangements he had previously made with M. Stalin; (b) that I had discerned accumulating irritation on part of Russian diplomatic quarters here over the public utterances of certain Polish authorities; for example, Foreign Minister Raczynski’s statement to effect that Poland regarded Lithuania as historically lying within her sphere of interest; statement by the Polish press organs here regarding Poland’s insistence on the status quo ante as regards the Polish-Russian frontier. Only recently the Russian Ambassador to the Polish Government69 told me that Moscow had long been annoyed by the Polish Government’s frequently published contention that there were between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 Polish men, women and children in Russia. Moreover, Moscow was equally annoyed that the British press should [Page 135] continue to publish these figures. They were erroneous. Indeed, there were probably no more than 300,000 racial Poles in Russia. He could not understand why the British press had allowed itself to become the instrument of the policy of Polish propagandists.70
Since my above-described talk with the Russian Ambassador the Polish National Council, on March 17, adopted a formal resolution stating in effect that despite Lithuania’s unjustified pretensions to the essentially Polish city of Vilno, the Polish National Council, in the name of the entire Polish nation, wished for the Lithuanian nation, the swiftest possible return to the road of progress of its Christian western culture, in cooperation with the nations of central Europe, after it had been liberated from the German occupation and had recovered complete independence.
The publication of this resolution, coming as it did at the time of General Sikorski’s visit to Washington, served to augment Russian annoyance which his visit had already aroused. In mentioning the foregoing points, I feel that they call for consideration in searching for whatever motive there might be behind the Russian authorities’ having ordered the evacuation of the Polish forces from the Kuibyshev area into Iran.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed; but see telegram No. 2041, December 11, 1941, from the Chargé in the Soviet Union, and the memorandum of December 27, 1941, received from the Polish Ambassador in Washington, Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, pp. 267 and 269, respectively.↩
- Alexander Efremovich Bogomolov, Soviet Ambassador to the Allied Governments in Exile at London.↩
- Considerable comment and selections of official Polish documents concerning the Polish armed forces in the Soviet Union, and the attempts to obtain the release of, and to furnish relief for, Polish deportees and refugees located within the Soviet Union are printed in several chapters in Republic of Poland, Polish-Soviet Relations, 1918–1943, Official Documents. ↩