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USSR. It also explained that the British guarantee referred only to the First Ally’s sovereign status, not to its frontiers. In other words, even if Nazi Germany were defeated, the First Ally could not expect any help in recovering its full pre-war status and territory. The mean-spirited sophistry of British diplomats on this occasion did not bode well for the future. 12
    At the end of the September Campaign, the most important development was the signing on 28 September of the German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Demarcation, and Cooperation, which superseded the secret protocols of the earlier Nazi–Soviet Pact. It divided the First Ally’s territory into two parts and introduced a slightly modified frontier between theGerman Zone in the west and the Soviet Zone in the east. This ‘Peace Boundary’ was the frontier that the Soviets henceforth, throughout the war, claimed to be rightfully theirs. Nazi and Soviet propaganda was obliged to present Hitler and Stalin as admiring friends and to suppress any hint of incompatibility. The security machines of the Reich and of the Soviet Union were pledged to cooperate against any attempt to resurrect the First Ally’s fortunes. Himmler and Beria were handed a joint enterprise venture.
    In his final report, the last British Ambassador to pre-war Poland, Sir Howard Kennard, expressed the desire that ‘the whole Polish people should at the end of the war have the right to an independent life.’ One might consider the sentiment fairly routine. In the event, it proved so dubious in the eyes of the British Foreign Office that the report was not published. As an official, Frank Roberts, noted in the margin: ‘I see little prospect of those sections of the Polish people included in the areas taken over by Russia ever being given such an opportunity.’ 13 Hence, right from the start, British support for the First Ally was less than complete.
    For the majority of the 1.5 million personnel whom the First Ally had mobilized, the war ended there and then. But a considerable number escaped death or captivity, and lived to fight again. They assumed false identities, or took to the woods, or lived quietly in the countryside, biding their time. Almost all used pseudonyms. Col. Thaddeus K. (1895–1966), for example, who had been trained as an Austrian cavalry officer, had commanded a cavalry brigade in the September campaign. Speaking perfect German, he was able to give the slip both to the German military police and to the Gestapo, and lived under a series of false names in Cracow and Warsaw. In due course, he emerged in the Underground as Gen. ‘Boor’. Col. Thaddeus P. (1892–1985), a recruit to Pilsudski’s Legions during the First World War, had commanded the 19th Infantry Division in September 1939: he was eventually known as Gen. ‘Gregory’, having used numerous other pseudonyms. Lt.Col. Antoni Ch. (1895–1960) distinguished himself both in 1917–18 and in 1939, when he had commanded the 82nd Regiment of the Siberian Rifles and was then imprisoned. After release, and calling himself variously ‘Adam’, ‘Guardian’, ‘Strand’, ‘Rice’, ‘Hawk’, and ‘X’, he would emerge as Gen. ‘Monter’, i.e. the electrician. Lt.Col. Leopold O. (1898–1946) was the officer who, on desk duty with the General Staff on the night of 31 August/1 September 1939, had personally received the flood of telegrams from frontline units announcing the Wehrmacht’s undeclared invasion. He was later involved in the siege ofWarsaw. Having lived openly as ‘John Ant’ and ‘Johann Müller’, he was known to most of his wartime comrades only as ‘Yan’, ‘Cobra 2’, ‘Bullet’, ‘Vulture’, or ‘Termite’. In due course, he became the famous Brig.Gen. ‘Bear Cub’. Maj. Emil F. (1895–1953) commanded the 51st Infantry Regiment in 1939. Circulating as ‘Lutyk’, ‘May’, ‘Sylvester’, and ‘Weller’, he eventually settled for the pseudonym of Gen. ‘Nile’.