12. The political considerations of the Big Three doomed the Warsaw Uprising
Following the Soviet invasion of Poland and the collapse of the Polish army in 1939, the Polish Government established itself in exile in London, recognized by the British as the legitimate government of Poland. In the Soviet held Polish territory a separate entity was recognized by the Soviets, which backed a post-war pro-Soviet socialist government. The Polish Home Army, aligned with the government in London, was thus viewed by Stalin as being politically and militarily aligned with an illegitimate government hostile to the Soviet Union. To Stalin, the Polish resistance in Warsaw was an act of criminals. Its actions were nonetheless beneficial to the Soviets since it weakened both the Germans and the Polish government in exile.
Churchill wanted to see the Polish government reinstalled in Warsaw before the end of the war and the opportunity offered for the Soviets to install a puppet government in Poland. Churchill’s appeals to Stalin and FDR fell on deaf ears because in Stalin’s case he had everything to gain by refusing to support the uprising, with the additional advantage of the Poles killing Germans and weakening their forces on his behalf. FDR’s overriding concern was obtaining a definitive commitment from the Soviet leader that following surrender of Germany the Red Army would join the Allies in the Pacific, with the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan. The advent of the atomic bomb made that commitment (which was met) unnecessary, but by then the Home Army in Warsaw had long been destroyed.
