France was in another dilemma. Her British assurances took effect only if she acted defensively. But to protect her eastern allies, she had to go on the attack. Her insurance policies thus canceled each other out. If she attacked Germany to aid Poland or Czechoslovakia, she lost Britain. If she remained inside the Maginot Line to await a German attack, she abandoned and lost her eastern allies, whom one historian dismissed as three small hens penned up with a large fox harboring a grievance. Wrote historian Correlli Barnett brutally but accurately, “The French system of alliances … rested on
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