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British Policy Towards Poland, 1944–1956 pp 147–178Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Mikołajczyk’s Escape, January to November 1947

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Abstract

This chapter covers the period of British withdrawal from Poland following the Polish elections in January 1947. The chapter argues that Bevin moved towards complete disengagement partly because the Polish opposition had been seriously diminished over the course of the election campaign, leaving Britain without a viable political force to support. Above all, however, it was at this point that the problem of Germany eclipsed any remaining British resolve to influence the political settlement in Poland. The fuel crisis of early 1947 meant that Bevin urgently needed to finalise the plans for the merger of the Anglo-American occupation zones in Germany and restore the region to self-sufficiency. Soviet objections made this impossible unless the pretence of four-power cooperation was abandoned. At this diplomatically delicate moment, Bevin was particularly anxious to avoid interference in the Soviet sphere in Eastern Europe.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    TNA: FO 371/66091/N1179/6/55, Foreign Office to Washington, 1 February 1947.

  2. 2.

    Germany was discussed at the New York meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, which sat from 4 November to 12 December 1946. Dixon referred to these weeks as a ‘nightmare’. A full session was to be devoted to Germany at the Moscow Council meeting in March 1947. Deighton, Impossible Peace, 116.

  3. 3.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2811/6/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Bevin, 28 February 1947.

  4. 4.

    Prażmowska, ‘Polish Socialist Party’, 350.

  5. 5.

    Kersten, Communist Rule in Poland, 351–354.

  6. 6.

    Ibid., 348.

  7. 7.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2811/6/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Bevin, 28 February 1947.

  8. 8.

    Bevin made this decision in spite of the fact that the US issued a statement condemning the conduct of the Polish elections. The Foreign Office statement was initially prepared to accompany the American initiative. Department of State Bulletin, vol. 16, no. 397 (9 February 1947): 251; TNA: FO 371/66091/N1179/6/55, Washington to Foreign Office, 28 January 1947.

  9. 9.

    No reason is given for the decision in the Foreign Office files. A note attached to the statement by Warner reads: ‘This draft statement, intended to be made in the House by the S/S, was not in fact used but should be entered for [the] record’. TNA: FO 371/66091/N1535/6/55, 4 February 1947.

  10. 10.

    TNA: FO 371/66091/N1535/6/55, Statement for Foreign Affairs Debate [n.d.].

  11. 11.

    After its defeat, the rebel group formed the PSL-Lewica (PSL-Left) faction and began publishing its own newspaper, Chłopi i Państwo. Coutouvidis and Reynolds, Poland, 1939–1947, 301.

  12. 12.

    Coutouvidis and Reynolds, Poland, 1939–1947, 300–301; Kersten, Communist Rule in Poland, 361–362.

  13. 13.

    Kersten, Communist Rule in Poland, 337.

  14. 14.

    Coutouvidis and Reynolds, for example, argue that ‘the West abandoned Mikołajczyk without ceremony’. Coutouvidis and Reynolds, Poland, 1939–1947, 300.

  15. 15.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2923/6/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Hankey, 27 February 1947.

  16. 16.

    According to his biographer, Patrick Howarth, Cavendish-Bentinck was ultimately prevented from taking up his post in Rio as a result of the scandal which surrounded his divorce proceedings. He was dismissed from the diplomatic service, lost his pension, and spent the remainder of his career in the private sector. Howarth, Intelligence Chief Extraordinary, 221–223. John Colville concurs that the ‘lurid publicity’ surrounding Cavendish-Bentinck’s divorce trial was an important reason for his dismissal. Colville adds, however, in addition to the divorce proceedings, Cavendish-Bentinck’s implication in the Warsaw spy trial, which drew criticism from the Labour left, and the press support which he received from Bevin’s enemy, Lord Beaverbrook, taken together, explain why he was dismissed. Colville, Strange Inheritance, 193.

  17. 17.

    Coutouvidis and Reynolds, Poland, 1939–1947, 303–304; Prażmowska, Civil War in Poland, 208; Kersten, Communist Rule in Poland, 364–365.

  18. 18.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2653/6/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 22 February 1947.

  19. 19.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2811/6/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Bevin, 28 February 1947.

  20. 20.

    Prażmowska, Civil War in Poland, 203.

  21. 21.

    Teresa Torańska refers to Minc as ‘third in command in Poland, after Berman and Bierut’. Teresa Torańska, Oni: Stalin’s Polish Puppets (London: Collins Harvill, 1987), 15.

  22. 22.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2811/6/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Bevin, 28 February 1947.

  23. 23.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2537/6/55, ‘Brief [on Poland] for Secretary of State to take to Moscow’, February 1947.

  24. 24.

    TNA: FO 371/N2653/6/55, Hancock Minute, 4 March 1947.

  25. 25.

    FRUS, 1947. Eastern Europe; The Soviet Union vol. 4 (Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1972), 413–414; Arthur Bliss Lane, I Saw Poland Betrayed: An American Ambassador Reports to the American People (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1948), 289–290; TNA: FO 371/66091/N1282/6/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Warner, 24 January 1947.

  26. 26.

    TNA: FO 371/56448/N13701/34/55, Cavendish-Bentinck to Hankey, 24 October 1946.

  27. 27.

    According to Howarth, Cavendish-Bentinck also interpreted the arrest of his friend, Count Ksawery Grocholski as part of a campaign by the Polish government to ‘get rid’ of him. Howarth, Intelligence Chief Extraordinary, 218–221. Colville also recalls that the Polish government wanted both Cavendish-Bentinck and Lane out of the country. Colville, Strange Inheritance, 188.

  28. 28.

    Gainer spent the early part of his career in Scandinavia and then Cuba. Before the war, Gainer served as consul-general in Munich and Vienna; he spent the wartime period in South America as minister/ambassador in Venezuela, 1939–1944, and ambassador in Brazil, 1944–1947. Warsaw was Gainer’s last posting abroad before his retirement in 1951. The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Yearbook, 1952 (London, 1952), 286–287.

  29. 29.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2537/6/55, Foreign Office to Warsaw, 24 February 1947; FO 371/66092/N2654/6/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 27 February 1947; FO 371/66092/N2586/6/55, Hankey minute, 12 March 1947; Foreign Office to Washington, 14 March 1947.

  30. 30.

    TNA: FO 371/66093/N6707/6/55, Memo by John Russell, 28 May 1947.

  31. 31.

    Howarth, Intelligence Chief Extraordinary, 221.

  32. 32.

    TNA: FO 371/66092/N2537/6/55, ‘Brief [on Poland] for Secretary of State to take to Moscow’, February 1947.

  33. 33.

    Knowles, ‘The British Occupation of Germany’, 87.

  34. 34.

    Hathaway, Ambiguous Partnership, 298–299.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 135.

  36. 36.

    TNA: FO 800/447, Bevin to Attlee, 16 April 1947.

  37. 37.

    TNA: FO 800/447, ‘Record of a Conversation at the Kremlin on Monday, 24th March, 1947’.

  38. 38.

    Bevin finally accepted the invitation on 19 April. TNA: FO 371/66125/N4543/26/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 18 April 1947; FO 371/66125/N4581/26/55, Warsaw to Moscow, 19 April 1947.

  39. 39.

    The separation was not genuine. Although Bierut had officially resigned from the PPR and set up his offices in the old presidential palace, he continued to attend meetings of the Politburo. Anita Prażmowska, Władysław Gomułka: A Biography (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016), 138.

  40. 40.

    TNA: FO 800/447, ‘Anglo-Polish Conversations: Note by Mr. Broad, His Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires at Warsaw, on a Conversation with the Polish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Warsaw’, MSZ 6/47/3, 27 April 1947.

  41. 41.

    TNA: FO 800/447, ‘Record of a Conversation between the Secretary of State and the Polish Prime Minister at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Warsaw’, 27 April, 1947.

  42. 42.

    The instruments of ratification were exchanged in London on 19 June 1947. TNA: FO 371/66126/N7329/26/55, Foreign Office communiqué, 19 June 1947.

  43. 43.

    Hope, Abandoned Legion, 219.

  44. 44.

    Coutouvidis and Reynolds incorrectly attribute this comment to Gainer. In fact, Gainer did not arrive at his posting in Warsaw until 4 June 1947. See Coutouvidis and Reynolds, Poland, 1939–1947, 300.

  45. 45.

    TNA: FO 371/66093/N5787/6/55, ‘Memorandum of a Conversation with Monsieur Mikolajczyk on May 7th’; Broad to Bevin, 16 May 1947.

  46. 46.

    Prażmowska, Civil War in Poland, 207.

  47. 47.

    TNA: FO 371/66093/N5787/6/55, ‘Memorandum of a Conversation with Monsieur Mikolajczyk on May 7th’; Broad to Bevin, 16 May 1947.

  48. 48.

    TNA: FO 371/66093/N5787/6/55, Hankey minute, 29 May 1947.

  49. 49.

    TNA: FO 371/66093/N5787/6/55, Hankey to Broad, 16 June 1947; Broad to Bevin, 16 May 1947.

  50. 50.

    TNA: FO 371/66093/N6707/6/55, Broad to Bevin, 3 June 1947.

  51. 51.

    TNA: FO 371/66093/N5787/6/55, Hancock minute, 23 May 1947.

  52. 52.

    TNA: FO 371/66093/N7659/6/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 13 June 1947.

  53. 53.

    Prażmowska, ‘Polish Socialist Party’, 353.

  54. 54.

    Prażmowska, Civil War in Poland, 206–207; Kersten, Communist Rule in Poland, 377.

  55. 55.

    TNA: FO 371/66094/N8234/6/55, Healey to Mayhew, 10 July 1947; FO 371/66094/N8539/6/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 21 July 1947; FO 371/66094/N8301/6/55, Gainer to Bevin, 11 July 1947.

  56. 56.

    TNA: FO 371/66094/N8539/6/55, Warner memo, 29 July 1947; N9082/6/55, Hancock memo, 2 August 1947; FO 371/66094/N9082/6/55, Hancock minute, 6 August 1947.

  57. 57.

    TNA: FO 371/66094/N8539/6/55, Hancock minute, 22 July 1947.

  58. 58.

    TNA: FO 371/66094/N8997/6/55, Gainer to Warner, 24 July 1947.

  59. 59.

    Prażmowska, Civil War in Poland, 205; TNA: FO 371/66095/N10793/6/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 16 September 1947.

  60. 60.

    Broad delivered the message to Cyrankiewicz on 19 September 1947. Broad reported that Cyrankiewicz had made no comment on the substance of the message, which he ‘clearly did not like’. TNA: FO 371/66095/N10917/6/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 19 September 1947.

  61. 61.

    TNA: FO 371/66094/N9082/6/55, Hancock memo, 2 August 1947; FO 371/66094/N8997/6/55, Gainer to Warner, 24 July 1947; Hancock minute, 5 August 1947; ‘Message from the Secretary of State to the Polish Prime Minister about Mr. Mikolajczyk. To be delivered orally by His Majesty’s Chargé d’Affaires in Warsaw’.

  62. 62.

    TNA: FO 371/66094/N8997/6/55, Warner to Broad, 11 August 1947.

  63. 63.

    TNA: FO 371/66095/N11254/6/55, Churchill to Bevin, 19 September 1947.

  64. 64.

    Vesselin Dimitrov, Stalin’s Cold War: Soviet Foreign Policy, Democracy and Communism in Bulgaria, 1941–48 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2008), 171; TNA: FO 371/66095/N11254/6/55, Bevin to Churchill, 30 September 1947.

  65. 65.

    TNA: FO 371/66095/N11649/6/55, Aiers memo, 30 September 1947.

  66. 66.

    Throughout the discussions relating to the plans for Mikołajczyk’s escape, the SIS is referred to obliquely as ‘Mr Hayter’s friends’.

  67. 67.

    Rory Cormac, ‘The Pinprick Approach: Whitehall’s Top-Secret Anti-Communist Committee and the Evolution of British Covert Action Strategy’, Journal of Cold War Studies 16, no. 3 (Summer 2014), 7.

  68. 68.

    Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), 567–568, 655–656, 667.

  69. 69.

    Ibid., 667.

  70. 70.

    The position of Foreign Office assistant to the SIS chief was new, created in 1946 following a reorganisation of the chief’s personal staff. It became the main link between SIS and the Foreign Office. Ibid., 621.

  71. 71.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Garvey minute, 23 September 1947.

  72. 72.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Garvey minute, 13 September 1947; Hankey minute, 18 September 1947.

  73. 73.

    Gainer was away on leave during this period. He returned to Warsaw on 4 November 1947. TNA: FO 1093/445, Hankey minute, 31 October 1947.

  74. 74.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Hankey to Broad, 29 September 1947; Broad to Hankey, 8 October 1947.

  75. 75.

    TNA: FO 371/66094/N8997/6/55, Warner to Broad, 18 September 1947.

  76. 76.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Hankey to Broad, 29 September 1947.

  77. 77.

    The other three were Stefan Korboński, a former leader of the wartime underground movement, Wincenty Bryja, PSL treasurer, and Kazimierz Bagiński. Mikołajczyk, Pattern of Soviet Domination, 267.

  78. 78.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Record of Hankey’s debrief with Mikołajczyk, 27 October 1947.

  79. 79.

    In Andrews’s account, the amount was 500,000 zlotys. Griffis recalls giving the driver 100,000 zlotys. FRUS, 1947, vol. 4, 463; Stanton Griffis, Lying in State (New York: Doubleday, 1952), 173.

  80. 80.

    FRUS, 1947, vol. 4, 460–464.

  81. 81.

    The Foreign Office later returned the coat and hat by diplomatic air bag to the American ambassador. The articles had been left in the care of the master of the S.S. Baltavia. TNA: FO 1093/445, Danzig [Gdańsk] to Foreign Office, 26 October 1947.

  82. 82.

    The captain was put forward for an OBE in recognition for his help in facilitating Mikołajczyk’s escape. TNA: FO 1093/445, Foreign Office Minute, 30 December 1948.

  83. 83.

    Broad’s luggage was used in spite of Sargent’s instructions. TNA: FO 1093/445, Hankey to Broad, draft telegram, 21 October 1947; Foreign Office to Warsaw, 20 October 1947.

  84. 84.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Danzig (Gdańsk) to Warsaw, 21 October 1947; Foreign Office to Warsaw, 25 October 1947.

  85. 85.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Foreign Office to Warsaw, 22 October 1947.

  86. 86.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Dixon minute, 28 October 1947.

  87. 87.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Foreign Office to Warsaw, 22 October 1947; Warsaw to Foreign Office, 22 October 1947.

  88. 88.

    Mikołajczyk agreed willingly to remain hidden in England. Bagiński and his wife, Bryja, and Mikołajczyk’s secretary, Maria Hulewiczowa, with the help of the Americans, had made an escape attempt via the Polish frontier into Czechoslovakia at the same time as Mikołajczyk had been taken to Gdynia. Mikołajczyk did not want to stage his reappearance until he was sure that they had managed to get out of Poland safely. The escape attempt of Hulewiczowa, Bryja, and Bagiński was entirely an American affair about which Broad had not been consulted. Bagiński and his wife reached the American zone of Germany on 29 October. Hulewiczowa and Bryja were arrested. Hulewiczowa was imprisoned and tortured; she served three years in jail. TNA: FO 1093/445, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 22 October 1947; Foreign Office to Warsaw, 25 October 1947; Warsaw to Foreign Office, 3 November 1947; Warsaw to Foreign Office, 5 November 1947; Foreign Office to Washington, 6 November 1947: Janusz Gmitruk, Maria Hulewiczowa Sekretarka Stanisława Mikołajczyka (Warsaw: Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego, 2010), 40–42.

  89. 89.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Foreign Office to Berlin, 31 October 1947.

  90. 90.

    TNA: FO 371/66095/N12250/6/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 26 October 1947.

  91. 91.

    TNA: FO 371/66095/N12337/6/55, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 27 October 1947.

  92. 92.

    Mikołajczyk, Pattern of Soviet Domination, 267–278. The Americans published details of the escape in the Foreign Relations of the United States series in 1972. The involvement of the SIS appears to explain the delay in the release of the British files.

  93. 93.

    443 H.C. Deb 5s, column 493.

  94. 94.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 27 October 1947.

  95. 95.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Hankey minute, 28 October 1947.

  96. 96.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Record of Hankey’s debrief with Mikołajczyk, 27 October 1947.

  97. 97.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Warner minute, 31 October 1947.

  98. 98.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 31 October 1947, No. 1559.

  99. 99.

    TNA: FO 1093/445, Warsaw to Foreign Office, 6 November 1947, No. 1556.

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  1. LSE Department of International History, London, UK

    Andrea Mason

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Mason, A. (2018). Mikołajczyk’s Escape, January to November 1947. In: British Policy Towards Poland, 1944–1956. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94241-4_6

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