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Massed by the thousands outside Danzig were Poland's troops. But they scrupulously stayed on the Polish side of the border. The Free City of Danzig's government is supervised by a League of Nations High Commissioner. Poland's rights there are limited to the administration of customs, railroads, and foreign relations. Internally Danzig is autonomous. Thus the treaties which gave Poland an outlet to the sea through Danzig prohibit Polish military occupation of that outlet. On the Westerplatte, a low bank at the entrance to Danzig Harbor, however, is generally harbored a small garrison of Polish troops which guards a Polish ammunition warehouse. Behind those troops is an incident of 1920, when German Communist dock workers held up a shipment of arms to Poland, then fighting for its life against Bolshevik Russia. It was then that Poland saw the light and began to plan at Gdynia, 13 miles northwest, a new port. Poland knows that an occupation of Danzig would give Germany a stranglehold on Gdynia. To keep Danzig alive (the city always depended on the Polish hinterland for its business) Poland continues to allot almost half her sea cargo to the Free City. Last year Gdynia handled 8,173,400 cargo tons, incoming and outgoing, almost twice as much as New Orleans handled; Danzig's share was 7,127,200 tons.
On the face of it, the seizure of Danzig by Germany would mean no more than another Hitler conquest, another large Baltic seaport (of which Germany already has three), another 791 sq. mi. and 407,000 more Germans added to the Reich. To Poland the loss of Danzig would probably eventually mean the loss of the Polish Corridor and landlocked economic if not political domination by Germany.
Despite the fact that the Free City's inhabitants are 96% German, Poland has an argument against their incorporation in the Reich. The vital interests of a nation of 35,000,000 persons must come before the sentimental desires of less than half a million persons to return to their homeland.