How were Britain and France drawn into war with Germany in 1939?

Answer 1

On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland, and two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany because they had a treaty with Poland in which they had undertaken to help Poland if its independence was threatened by force.

They wanted to stop Germany before it became too powerful. Poland was just an excuse, the British showed how little they cared about Poland in 1945. The Soviets also invaded Poland in 1939, and nobody declared war on them. (The previous month, August 1939, the Nazis and Soviets made several secret agreements. One of the was the partition of Poland between Germany and Russia.)

• They had the treaty to protect Poland, but when Germany invaded Poland they didn't do anything about it therefore backing out of their treaty with Poland. but that's when France went to Britain to ask if they could help the polish and Britain said yes. so that is why France and Britain declared war on Germany.

• These comments are very valid. European leadership(including the United States) did not want Germany to become a powerful nation following WWI. Politically and economically many countries were insecure about German unity built on the "Volk".

• While all of the above points are valid, another reason France and Great Britain went to war with Germany is because they had already gotten Germany to agree twice (Munich Agreement 1938) not to invade any more places, but Germany had broken both of these agreements, so this was the "third strike".

• Britain and France had never wanted to declare war on Germany, full stop. They didn't want to cause another world war one where both side would lose yet another generation of young men. So they tried to use diplomacy to retain peace in Europe. Hitler felt when he took power in 1933 that the Slavs and the east was the true enemy to the Germans and tried to get an alliance with Britain against communism as in his book "mein kaumf". But when they declined, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st. Originally it was set for 21st August but was put back because of the weather. But on the 23rd, Britain, France and Poland signed a treaty that created an alliance between these counties. When the Germans invaded Poland, Britain gave Germany 48 hours to pull out or a state of war would exist between the two counties. So at 12.00 on 3rd September after no response to the ultimatum was heard Britain declared war followed by France at 15.45

• Britain was unable to do anything practical to help Poland. Britain had no direct access to Eastern Central Europe. At best Britain could have helped by proxy, for example if they, together with the French, had attacked Germany in the West. It has sometimes been pointed out that the declaration of war in 1939 was a moral gesture or some kind of grandstanding or possibly an attempt of some kind to "put right" the mistake of the previous year at Munich. The actual "casus belli" or grounds for war weren't well chosen. (In May 1939, Churchill and Lloyd George had expressed doubts about the guarantee to Poland when it came before Parliament. Churchill suggested that Britain had chosen the wrong ally, and that it would make better sense to try to negotiate a treaty with the Soviet Union).

Answer 2

Because Germany attacked Poland.