G. Williamson argues that Poland with 35 million people had a large population but a thin industrial base. Furthermore, its army of 283,000 men was ill-equipped, short of artillery and poorly trained and relied heavily on cavalry because it lacked enough mechanisation. Finally it faced long borders with two powerful dictatorships, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. Historian Richard Overy wrote that of all the new states in Europe: In his international diplomacy, Beck sought to maintain a fine balance in Poland's relations with its two powerful neighbours. In July 1932, he concluded the Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact and, in January 1934, the German–Polish declaration of non-aggression. Beck complained that while Poland and Czechoslovakia were legally bound by treaty to respect the rights of their respective German minorities, the Polish minorities in Germany and the Soviet Union were not so protected. In addition, Beck resented that countries, such as Germany, used the Minorities Treaty to exert pressure and become involved in the internal affairs of Poland. In September 1934, Beck renounced the Minorities Treaty after the Soviet Union had been admitted to the League of Nations. After Piłsudski's death in May 1935, a power-sharing agreement was entered into by the various Piłsudskiite factions, led by General (later Marshal) Edward Rydz-Śmigły, President Ignacy Mościcki and Beck himself. The three individuals effectively dominated the Sanacja (Sanation) and collectively ruled Poland until the outbreak of the Second World War. Beck had a more-or-less free hand in formulating Poland's foreign policy. The stability of the ruling group was weakened because of personal conflicts, and none of the three men managed to assert his dominance in the late 1930s completely. The oligarchy from 1935 to 1939 is often described by historians as a "dictatorship without a dictator". Strategic ideas Beck was hostile to the League of Nations and did not think it could help Poland. France wanted some arrangement with Poland but distrusted Beck and so he looked in new directions. He explored the possibility of realising Piłsudski's concept of Międzymorze ("Between-seas"), a federation of central and eastern European countries stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, indeed in later variants from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean. Such a coalition between Germany in the west and the Soviet Union in the east might have been strong enough to deter both from military intervention. Beck realised that for the immediate future there was no