Beck.

This is coolbert:

"Peace is a precious and a desirable thing. Our generation, bloodied in wars, certainly deserves peace. But peace, like almost all things of this world, has its price, a high but a measurable one. We in Poland do not know the concept of peace at any price. There is only one thing in the lives of men, nations and countries that is without price. That thing is honor." - - Josef Beck.

As is germane to the previous blog entry, NONE of this I was even remotely aware of! World War Two as begun by the German attack on Poland could have been averted. That this did not occur was the fault of the Polish Foreign Minister Beck?

Thanks to the Telegraph and the story by Nick Holdsworth from 2008 the original tip from World War II magazine.

"Stalin 'planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact'"

"Stalin was 'prepared to move more than a million Soviet troops to the German border to deter Hitler's aggression just before the Second World War'"

"Papers which were kept secret for almost 70 years show that the Soviet Union proposed sending a powerful military force in an effort to entice Britain and France into an anti-Nazi alliance."

AN ANTI-HITLER COALITION THAT WOULD HAVE INVOLVED STATIONING SOVIET TROOPS ON THE BORDER BETWEEN GERMANY AND POLAND!

"Such an agreement could have changed the course of 20th century history, preventing Hitler's pact with Stalin which gave him free rein to go to war with Germany's other neighbours."

AT THAT EXACT MOMENT IN TIME [1939] HITLER NEITHER WILLING OR ABLE TO CONFRONT AND GO TO WAR WITH THE SOVIET UNION! THE POLES ALSO FOR THEIR OWN PARTICULAR REASONS UNWILLING TO ALLOW SOVIET TROOPS TO BE STATIONED ON THEIR TERRITORY.

That figure of one million Soviet troops way too high?  More like three divisions. A force of army size about 50,000 soldiers probably more accurate.

coolbert.