When France collapsed, General Sikorski was the first Polish notable to flee to England. He met Churchill and declared to him (this was later confirmed in writing) that the ‘P[olish] G[overnment]’ did not wish to put a spoke in the wheels of rapprochement between England and the Soviet Union. British government circles understood this to represent a renunciation by the ‘P[olish] G[overnment]’ of Poland’s pre-war eastern borders.

Then there appeared in London ‘president’ Raczkiewicz,

Władysław Raczkiewicz, president of the Polish Republic in exile in London, 1939–47.

foreign minister Zaleski, other ministers, and a large number of Polish landlords who had fled Poland having lost their lands (including in eastern Poland). France’s crushing defeat had shaken their belief in the ‘might of the Allies’ and they had begun to turn towards… Mussolini, as a ‘bridge’ to Hitler. Hearing of Sikorski’s statement to Churchill, the whole gang flew into a rage. They urged Raczkiewicz to dismiss Sikorski. Raczkiewicz agreed and offered the premiership to Zaleski, who now became leader of the ‘landlords’. Then the generals, headed by Sosnkowski,

Kazimierz Sosnkowski, general, commander-in-chief of the Polish armed forces from 1943.

protested, saying that if Sikorski left, they would leave too. Raczkiewicz got cold feet and Sikorski kept his position. However, opposition against him is growing. What’s more, Zaleski decided to take revenge. On 29 July, at a Polish function dedicated to the signing of an Anglo-Polish agreement regarding the Polish armed forces, he delivered a long speech in which he declared that, ‘Poland is at war with Russia, but she is not at war with Italy, although certain circumstances have forced her to break diplomatic relations with this country!’

It is reported that all is not well in the Polish army evacuated from France. There are two Polish divisions (about 20,000 troops), but there is great agitation among the soldiers, who resent the fascist tendencies of the officers, their anti-Semitism and their beatings.