Poland: The Restoration of a Nation

In World War I the early efforts of the Polish nationalists were directed against Russia. Polish legions, led by Joseph Piłsudski, fought for two years alongside Germany and Austria. In Nov., 1916, Germany and Austria proclaimed Poland an independent kingdom, but Germany, which occupied the country, retained control over the Polish government. Piłsudski resigned and was imprisoned (July, 1917), and the independence movement from then on was centered at Paris. The defeat of the partitioning powers allowed Poland to regain its independence, which was proclaimed on Nov. 9, 1918. Piłsudski returned on Nov. 10 and was declared chief of state.

The Treaty of Versailles (1919) gave Poland access to the Baltic Sea via the Polish Corridor and forced Germany to return Prussian Poland to Poland. Gdańsk became a free city and parts of Silesia were awarded to Poland as a result of plebiscites. The Polish-Russian border proposed at the Paris Peace Conference (and later named after Lord Curzon of Great Britain) would have awarded to Russia large parts of the former eastern provinces of Poland, inhabited mainly by Belarusians and Ukrainians. However, Poland insisted on its 1772 borders. War broke out between Poland and Russia, and in 1920 the Poles drove the Russians back from Warsaw. In the Treaty of Riga (1921), Poland secured parts of its claims.

Poland also became involved in protracted disputes over Vilnius with Lithuania and over Teschen with Czechoslovakia. About one third of newly created Poland was made up of ethnic Germans, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews, and Lithuanians, and these minorities were generally treated inequitably. A republican constitution was adopted in 1921. Financial and agrarian reforms were undertaken and industrialization progressed, but the condition of the peasantry remained generally poor, and the landowning aristocracy retained most of its wealth.

In 1926 a parliamentary government was suspended by a military coup that made Piłsudski virtual dictator. After his death (1935), Marshall Edward Rydz-Śmigły assumed control, and under a new constitution (1935) parliament became a tool of the governing clique (“the colonels”). Foreign policy in the 1920s was based on alliances with France and Romania; in the 1930s, under the guidance of Col. Josef Beck, Poland attempted to steer a course among the powers of Europe (especially Germany and the USSR) by following a pragmatic policy of balance. In the economic depression of the 1930s unemployment was widespread; also, anti-Semitism became increasingly virulent.

In early 1939, after having secured guarantees against aggression from Great Britain and France, Poland rejected Germany's demand for Gdańsk. In Aug., 1939, the negotiations of Great Britain and France with the USSR for a military agreement fell through, partly because Poland would not agree to allow Soviet troops to march across Poland in case of a conflict with Germany. On Aug. 23, 1939, Germany and the USSR signed a nonaggression treaty, which included secret clauses providing for the partition of Poland between them. On Aug. 25, 1939, a treaty of alliance between Poland and England was concluded.

On Sept. 1, 1939, Germany, having refused further negotiations, invaded Poland and thus precipitated World War II. German columns advanced with spectacular speed. On Sept. 17, Soviet troops invaded Poland from the east. Polish resistance was crushed, and the country was partitioned between Germany and the USSR, except for a central portion that was annexed by neither power but was placed under German rule. After the German attack (1941) on the USSR, all Poland passed under German rule.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Solidarity and a Multiparty State
• Communist and Post-Communist PolandThe Communist Regime
• World War
• The Restoration of a Nation
• Partition and Regeneration
• Class Divisions and Foreign Conflicts
• The Age of Greatness
• Beginnings through the Age of Greatness
• Government
• Economy
• Land and People
• Bibliography

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