Chapter 93:
March 6, 1940
Western Poland, East of Posen – German Military Polish Front Headquarters On the afternoon of the final day of the grace period promised to Poland, I sat in the headquarters with a weary body, anxiously awaiting the results.
"Here, Vice Minister. Have a cup of coffee."
"Ah, thank you, Chief of the General Staff."
Manstein handed me the coffee, and when I accepted it and called him Chief of the General Staff, he beamed foolishly as if he was simply delighted.
What's with him looking so proud, as if he brewed it himself when he just had a subordinate do it…
The situation was so urgent that the grace period we granted to Lieutenant General Sikorski was extremely tight even by our standards, and I myself had to spend a very busy three days after the breakdown of the peace negotiations.
It would have been a different story if I planned to use Poland as a mere discard card to buy time, but since I intended to establish it as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, there was much to do.
I had to busily go back and forth between factories to prepare munitions equipment, wrestle with the Cabinet in arguments, and then immediately return to the Polish front.