The next day, after agreeing to cooperate with the Soviet Union, Merkel handed over the rest of the work to her diplomats. In order to keep it secret, he himself got on the return plane the same day.

In 1937, German Foreign Minister Angela Merkel had just returned to Germany when she impatiently summoned the Polish ambassador to Germany. This summons made the Pole, named Lipski, sit on pins and needles. The Germans summoned the ambassador of Czechoslovakia, and the result was that Czechoslovakia was annexed, the Germans summoned the ambassador of Austria, and the same thing happened to the Austrians, and the Germans had just summoned the ambassador of Hungary, which was now a province of the Germans, although England and France had not yet acknowledged this fact.

But the Poles also had confidence that the Germans had nothing to fear. Relations with Germany had never been better, the ten-year non-aggression pact between the two countries in 1929 was just over a year away, and Poland remained the most-favoured-nation country as part of a recent trade agreement. So Lipski still accepted Merkel's summons.

Unbeknownst to the Poles themselves, however, that they had taken advantage of the Czechoslovak problem to steal a region called Teqing, which annoyed England and France so much that they wavered in their determination to support Poland.

However, the Poles still believed that all the trump cards were in their hands, because Britain and France, although they wavered in their determination to protect Poland, still declared their fundamental position of support for Poland. The new government in London issued a statement: "In the event of any act that clearly threatens the independence of Poland, and when the Polish government deems it necessary to resist with national force, Britain will come to the aid of France and France to preserve the unity and independence of Poland." ”

However, the British statement clearly angered the Soviets, and Stalin responded to the British government's statement that afternoon: "How ridiculous it is for distant Western Europe, a once glorious but now incomparably weak country, to interfere with the aspirations of the peoples of the world." ”

At this time, the German Führer Accardo made a very interesting statement, he did not mention any question about Poland, but everyone knew what he wanted to do: "No one can threaten the great German people, the Wehrmacht is ready, and if anyone wants to use his strength to compete with Germany by violent means, the German people will accept this challenge." ”

The next day, in order to make Germany seriously consider the Polish question, the French government also stood up and made its position known, and the French visited Poland and promised the Poles that as soon as war broke out between Germany and Poland, France would immediately launch an air attack on Germany, and three days later a diversionary ground attack, and launch a full-scale war on the German mainland within fifteen days of the outbreak of war.

At the same time, the British also promised their Polish allies that the Royal Air Force would attack Germany, bombing important targets in Germany, and that British ground forces would carry out plans to aid Poland from the Black Sea.

With the assurances of both countries, Poland reviewed its combat units again. The Polish generals were optimistic that they could defeat Germany and the Soviet Union, having defeated the invading Soviet army in 1920. Their brave, well-trained infantry would hold the enemy at bay and use the vast array of fortifications on the border to inflict hardship until the powerful Polish cavalry penetrated behind enemy lines and cut off supply lines and chain of command – a qiē almost replica of the Soviet-Polish War of 1920.

In order to achieve this goal, the whole of Poland mobilized for the war, and the army had exceeded 1.95 million, and the reserve had reached a full 700,000. After a year of expansion and training, Germany had 1.44 million first-line troops, not including 70,000 in four SS divisions and 690,000 second-line troops that could not be used for the offensive.

In this way, Poland does not seem to have an advantage in fighting on two fronts, but in Germany's battle plan, the total number of troops attacking Poland is limited to 900,000, and the remaining troops are deployed at home and on the German-French border.

Thus, the ratio of Polish forces on the Western Front was 1.2 million Polish troops and their 400,000 reserves against 900,000 German troops and their 190,000 reserves. Poland has a military advantage of nearly 500,000 troops.

Behind the huge personnel advantage, there are surprising flaws. The role of staff officers was not valued within the Polish army, and as a result, not a single of the 20 army commanders was trained in modern warfare. In terms of communications, the Polish army relied on a small number of civilian telephone and telegraph networks, which were very old and backward.

In terms of equipment, the Polish armored corps, which has 800 tanks, seems to be powerful, but it is all old French models, and there are Polish copycat tanks made in imitation of British tanks. And these tanks have not yet formed tank clusters, but are scattered in infantry units.

Poland's field artillery was considered to be the most well-equipped, with copies of the French 77 mm cannons, but the other heavy guns were unfortunately obsolete. Modern 105-mm and 155-mm howitzers are transported very slowly, making it difficult to keep up with the pace of the troops. What is even more tragic is that none of these artillery regiments has a complete transport system.

In 30 years, the Polish Air Force had the most powerful fighter jets in the world, which once kept the Germans at bay. But they are now completely obsolete, and these PZL-P11 fighters have a top speed of only a pitiful 400 kilometers per hour, which is just over half the speed of the German FW-190D fighters. So the 1000 fighters of the Polish Air Force were really no match for the Luftwaffe.

The Polish Air Force also seems to have lagged behind in numbers: the Luftwaffe had 813 FW-190Ds and 411 ME-109A fighters, Stuka dive bombers 702, and more than 500 D-217 bombers—two-thirds of the Luftwaffe's 2,400 planes were to be transferred to the Eastern Front to participate in the Polish campaign.

And the defense plan of the Polish army was not so perfect. The generals wanted to block every direction of attack of the German and Soviet troops, blocking every possible line of attack with their troops. They prepared a large number of cavalry, ready to counterattack the Germans when they retreated under pressure from the British and French.

The Poles scattered seven armies on the German-Polish border, and the other five on the Soviet-Polish border, a plan that did not make any impression on the French chief of staff, General Maurice Gammerin, who tried to persuade Poland to abandon part of the area in order to strengthen its own important areas, but this effort ultimately failed because of the stubbornness of the Poles.

The Poles did not want to cede the densely populated agricultural areas and industrial cities of the west within hours of the start of the war, fearing that by doing so, their country's will to resist would be exhausted. Britain also preferred Poland's determination to fight without giving up an inch of territory.

On the night of July 18, 1937, the formal agreement was signed, and the Soviet Union finally made concessions, according to the Germans' opinion: Germany would not attack Poland for one month after the Soviet attack on Poland. With this assurance, the Soviet Union decided to take the lead in starting the war and redeem its defeat in 1920. The contents of the treaty were kept strictly secret, and they agreed never to recognize the existence of the treaty until 1938.

On July 20, 1937, with the assurance, the Soviet Red Army began an all-out attack on Poland's eastern frontier after 10 months of preparation, a move that caught Britain and France by surprise, and the fear of Germany's desperate move was instantly replaced by the fear of the Soviet Red Army entering the heart of Europe.

However, what is surprising is that the first full-scale attack was repelled by the Poles lightly, the Soviet Red Army encountered stubborn resistance from the defenders when it advanced 7 kilometers into Polish territory, and the heroic Polish army even carried out a local counterattack, and the Soviet Red Army of 400,000 first echelons lost their armor and suffered heavy losses.

The Soviet army had never suffered such huge losses, with about 40,000 killed, more than 70,000 wounded, most of the weapons lost, half of the 200 tanks involved in the attack destroyed, and most of the seemingly formidable new tanks, the KV-1, had to be abandoned due to mechanical problems.

The Soviet Air Force, lacking combat experience, waged a bloody struggle for air supremacy with the Polish Air Force at low altitudes, and within three days the two sides had seven large-scale air battles involving dozens of aircraft. The Polish Air Force suffered heavy losses due to the old aircraft, and the Soviet Air Force did not take much advantage, and the battle loss ratio of the two sides remained at the level of one to one.

Then an angry Stalin mobilized the reserves of the Soviet Red Army, and 700,000 troops marched into Poland, and the war escalated, and with the support of Britain and France, the Polish defenders played the rhythm of the Soviet-Polish War in 1920, interspersed with roundabouts, and crushed the second offensive of the Soviet Red Army in one go.

Just when Poland was full of self-confidence and the Soviet Red Army was in a hurry, something happened that angered Britain and France. In a public speech on the radio, the German Führer Accardo Rudolf hoped that Poland would abandon the Danzig Corridor and allow Germany to complete the formal and complete unification.

"Germany should not allow others to do whatever they want on its own territory! Although we have experienced humiliation, we will not let it stay with us forever! Every and every one of the German people has the sacred duty of safeguarding the territorial integrity of the motherland! The Danzig Corridor is a sacred and inalienable part of German territory. Accardo said impassionedly in a radio speech.

In response to him, 300,000 citizens of Berlin took to the streets to march and shouted: "Long live Greater Germany! Long live the great Führer Accardo? Rudolf!"

The next day, perhaps because the war on the Eastern Front was going very well, perhaps because of the imminent large-scale aid from Britain and France, or because of blind confidence in the British and French promises to protect Poland, the Polish government rejected the unreasonable demands of the German Führer, claiming that the Danzig Corridor was not negotiable.