Carley recounts the diplomatic story of 1939, the nadir of a "low, dishonest decade." Its characters are "Guilty Men" and "Gravediggers," whose "clever hopes" consisted mainly of appeasing Hitler. He reveals the failed negotiations to forge an alliance that "never was" with Russia which might have prevented war; the fear and short-sightedness that doomed that alliance; the ideological blindness that feared a victory that could lead to the spread of Communism more than a defeat that would spread Nazi terror. The book is a corrective to those who have blamed Russia and the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact for the outbreak of the war, ignoring the 5 years of efforts by the Soviets to form an effective anti-German alliance.

There are few heroes in this story. France, divided internally, found it easiest to follow the British. France wouldn't move to save Eastern Europe without Britain, and Britain wouldn't move. What the Russians wanted was an ironclad military alliance, with precise and concrete terms, staff talks and passage rights through Poland so that Russia could come to grips with Germany. Poland could not hold the eastern front against Germany alone. Without such an agreement Russia's options were to stay neutral or come to terms with Germany. One Foreign Office official in May 1939 summed it up, "The Russians have for years past been pressing for staff [talks]...and the French at our instigation have always refused them." Gen. Gamelin as early as 1936 told the French Staff that the only real help against Germany had to come from Russia and Russia needed passage rights to come to France's aid.

If the British and French were suspicious of Russian motives, the Russians were equally suspicious. They felt that the Allies would be happy to see Germany and Russia destroy each other. Chamberlain wrote that he was so "skeptical of the value of Russian help that [the Allies' position] was [not] greatly worsened if we had to do without them." (France estimated Britain had two divisions to send to its aid, Russia 100 divisions.) The British wouldn't fight to save the Baltics, but wanted Russia to fight to save Belgium.

Despite their awareness of this fundamental problem, the Allies couldn't see their way to a solution even after five years. Litvinov, the chief proponent of collective security, was finally replaced by Molotov as Russian frustrations grew and war neared. The British considered Molotov "totally ignorant," "an ignorant and suspicious peasant" with a peasant's "foolish cunning." In July 1939 Chamberlain was still arguing that the Allies did not need the offensive might to defeat Germany, only defensive forces to prevent a German victory.

When the Allies made a last ditch effort to string the Russians along it sent a delegation on a slow merchant vessel with instructions so vague as to be "almost useless," lacking written credentials and told to avoid discussions of passage rights. No wonder the Russians were suspicious. In the end the Russians signed a non-aggression pact with Germany; Poland, "an aggressor in 1938 and a victim in 1939," was partitioned. Even then, a month into the war, Chamberlain was still suggesting that Britain might have to unite with Germany "against the common danger."

Carley blames chiefly the British and interwar anti-communism for the failure of the Western Powers to form an alliance with Russia that might have prevented WWII. Using extensive research in French and British archives, Carley focuses narrowly on the diplomatic "dance" going on among the British, French and Soviets, other broader issues are only touched upon as they affect this diplomatic activity. The politics and diplomacy of the smaller Eastern European states is largely ignored as Carley concentrates on the "big picture."

The narrative bogs down in the middle as the British and the French repeatedly try to wiggle out of making any firm commitments to Russia. British and French obstinate un-Realpolitik grows tedious, but demonstrates the growing frustrations of the Russians. A frustration that had already driven the Italians onto the side of Hitler. Exceptionally well-researched, "1939" presents an important interpretation of the events leading to WWII.

This excellent recent work by author Michael Jabara Carley adds more fuel to the continuing fire of controversy regarding relative responsibility for the outbreak of general war in the fall of 1939. Indeed, in this well-written and well-documented work, the author's main argument contends that it was the collective failure of the so-called allies to overcome their own fears about communism and the perceived threats associated with the rise of international socialism that were responsible for the failure to bring the Soviet Union into the Allied orbit in time to stave off Hitler's rush into Poland. Given the well-documented facts and figures marshaled in defense of this argument, it is difficult to fault this view.

For example, Carley illustrates how the Soviet Union made attempt after attempt to solicit the support and agreement of the western allies to form an alliance against Germany, only to be slow-rolled and virtually ignored time after time. In this fashion, the Soviets were finally left with few obvious options other than to turn into the direction fo their greatest fear and accept terms with the Nazis, hoping that by cooperating them and acting as their key supplier in the face of growing intransigence on the part of the Allies, the Germans would leave them alone. The author masterfully shows how this consistent series of rebuffs of the Russians by the western Allies was related to a western phobia of the communism and its associated threats, and illustrates how these fears of all things socialistic blinded the Allies to the obvious dangers presented by the acts of the Nazi regime.

Thus, despite the fact that the Russians regularly tested the waters for a broad alliance against the Nazis during the late thirties, it was the western Allies who spurned such efforts to create a united front that did so much to engender the conditions allowing it to break out in the fall of 1939. In fact, as the author so well illustrates, a particularly virulent form of anti-socialist fervor seemed to affect both the British ruling class as well as many in the higher reaches within the French political community during this period of time, and this attitude did much to limit the discussion of the possibilities for compromise and joint action with the Russians. Of course, there were a few hardy souls with the vision and perspective to understand how important an early alliance with the Soviet Union, including Winston Churchill in Britain and Robert Vansittart in France. But few others listened to their emotional pleas for action and union with the Russians or their reasoning for taking such common cause with the dreaded socialists.

This is a carefully documented and painstakingly well-researched work that serves a much wider readership and appreciation for it as the work of careful scholarship that it is. I was especially impressed by the degree of information revealed from the archives of the former Soviet Union, which acts to shed a lot of light on the efforts made by Stalin and the Soviet cabinet during the time in question. This is an excellent book, and a worthy companion to a number of other excellent works such as "Grand Illusion" and "Dark Valley", each of which explores the nature of international politics in the years leading up to the outbreak of World War Two. Enjoy!

Other people have already written about this book. I simply want to add that this book is worth of reading.