London: Just two weeks before the Second World War broke out, the erstwhile Soviet Union offered France and Britain a military force in a bid to deter German dictator Adolf Hitler's aggression, it has emerged.

Seventy years on, declassified documents have revealed that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was prepared to send nearly a million troops to the German border to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed to an "anti-Nazi alliance" -- an arrangement that could have changed the course of 20th century history.

In fact, the offer of a military force to help contain Hitler was made by a senior Soviet military delegation at a Kremlin meeting with senior British and French officers, a fortnight before the war broke out in 1939.

According to the new documents, the vast numbers of infantry, artillery and airborne forces which Russian generals said could be dispatched, if Polish objections to the Red Army crossing its territory could first be overcome, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

But the British and French side -- briefed by their governments to talk, but not authorised to commit to binding deals -- did not respond to the Soviet offer, made on August 15,1939

Source : PTI