The History of Poland
Polish history began in the early 9th century when the Polians
(dwellers in the field) obtained hegemony over the others
Slavic tribes that occupied the country. Their principal dynasty
(PIAST) accepted Christianity in 966. Poznan was the earliest
Polish capital and Gniezno the first Episcopal see. The
main line of the Piast dynasty ended in 1370 with Casimir III,
and the crown passed to Casimir's nephew, Louis I of Hungary and
to Louis's daughter Jadwiga. Jadwiga married Ladislaus (Wladyslaw)
Jagiello, duke of Lithuania, who became king of Poland as Ladislaw
II (Wladislaw). The time 1386-1572 under Jagiello's power
was considered the "golden age" of Poland. King
Ladislaw III (Wladislaw) killed by the Turks in the battle
of Warna (1444), gave Poland the prestige of championing the
Christian cause against the Moslem tide. In 1569 Poland absorbed
Lithuania by the Union of Lublin. After 1572 no dynasty
maintained itself for long, and the theory that the entire
nobility could take part in the royal elections, applied in
practice, frequently led to contested elections and civil wars.
There was considerable religious toleration in 16th century
Poland, and the progress of Protestantism was arrested without
coercion by the Jesuits. Much of the reigns of Stephan Batory
(1575-86), and of Sigismund III (Zygmunt) (1587-1632)
were taken up with schemes to conquer Russia. In 1569 Poland absorbed Lithuania by
the Union of Lublin. After 1572 no dynasty maintained itself for long,
and the theory that the entire nobility could take part in the royal
elections, applied in practice, frequently led to contested elections
and civil wars.
Sigismund III (Zygmunt), a prince of the Swedish ruling house of
Vasa also became the king of Sweden. He was succeeded by his sons
Ladislaus IV (Wladislaw) (1632- 48) and John II (1648-68).
In 1655 Charles X of Sweden overran the country, while tsar Alexis
of Russia attacked from his side. Only the miracle of Czestochwa
saved Poland from annihilation.
The Peace of Oliva (1660) cost Poland considerable territory,
and by the Treaty of Andrusov (1667) Ukraine passed to Russia.
With John II the Vasa dynasty ended. John III (Jan Sobieski),
the savior of Vienna temporarily restored Polish greatness, but with
his death Poland virtually ceased to be an independent country.
Division and Regeneration
The three successive partitions (1772, 1793, 1795) resulted in the
disappearance of Poland from European map. Russification and
Germanization processes started. Only in Galicja could the Poles enjoy
a considerable degree of autonomy.
Some two million Poles marched off to the Great War
with the armies of the partitioning powers and 450,000 died, often the
victim of another Pole in the opposite trench. Polish nationalists
were divided. The Right led by Roman Dmowski's National Democrats
urged Poles to fight for the Allies in the hope that a victorious
Russia would grant Poland autonomy and eventual independence. On the
Left, Josef Pilsudski, leader of the Polish Socialists, predicted the
ruin of all the partition powers but argued that Poland's best hope
for autonomy lay in an Austrian victory. Under the partition, the only
portion of old Poland to enjoy any degree of autonomy was the Austrian
province of Galicia. Pilsudski's assessment of German attitudes was
less favorable when his Polish Legions were placed under German
command the Marshal refused an oath of allegiance to the Kaiser and
was imprisoned in Magdenburg Castle for the duration of the war.
Pilsudski was released from Magdenburg on November
10, 1918. He arrived in Warsaw on Armistice Day. The local Regency
Council (a creation of the Germans) sensing an imminent uprising asked
the Marshal to take over. Revolution was averted when the German
garrison, following Pilsudski's suggestion, packed up and took the
next train out of the Polish capital.
The victorious Allied Powers were quick to
recognize the sovereignty of the new state but the Versailles
Conference rejected Polish demands for a return to pre-partition
boundaries. The frontiers of the new state would be determined by
three years of wars and diplomacy. Allied supervised plebiscites
favorable to Germany were ignored in three disputed territories. The
capture of Kiev forced the Ukrainian Directorate to recognize the
incorporation of the Western Ukraine (Eastern Galicia) into the Polish
Republic. The greatest challenge to the new state came from the east.
Poland was a bridge over which the Soviet revolution would be carried
to the industrial proletariat of Germany in Lenin's view . The Red
Army advanced to the to the gates of Warsaw but fell victim to the
Miracle of the Vistula. Marshal Tukhachevsky's Reds were encircled by
the Poles. 100,000 were captured and 40,000 fled into Germany. The
Soviets were forced to sue for an armistice. The Treaty of Riga ended
the Russo-Polish War of 1918-21. The agreement left Poland in
possession of large tracts of previously Russian territory where Poles
were only a small per-centage of the population and ended Lithuanian
aspirations of establishing Wilno (Vilnius) as the capital of their
newly independent state. The Poles only loss in the border wars came
at the hands of the Czechs who seized the mostly Polish industrial
area of Cieszyn.
The conclusion of the border wars allowed the
Polish leadership to turn its attention to the difficult task of
forging a national state. Seven years of conflict had left the
countryside and the economy in a shambles.
A single economy would have to be constructed from
the remains of three regional ones that had been developed in
isolation. Each of the previously Russian, German and Austrian
provinces had its own currency and rail gauge and the tracks ran
towards Vienna, Berlin and Saint Petersburg. A high birthrate
outstripped the economy's ability to create jobs and housing. The
Polish was just beginning to recover when the Depression struck.
Victory in the border conflicts created a Poland in
which a third of the citizenry was composed of non-Polish Germans,
Lithuanians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians or Yiddish speaking Jews.
Jewish leaders were the only minority spokesmen to express any
eagerness for reconciliation with the new state of affairs. Ukrainian
nationalists continued attacks on the Polish state into the 1930s.
Given, the chaotic state of affairs, the failure of
parliamentary democracy to flourish seems hardly surprising. Rumors of
a rightist coup inspired Marshal Pilsudski to launch a pre-emptive
power seizure in 1926. The President and Premier were forced to resign.
Pilsudski refused to assume direct power and kept the trappings of a
parliamentary republic but it meant the end of free political
discourse. After Pilsudski's death in 1935 the military began to take
a more prominent role in shaping the policies of the increasingly
authoritarian Sanacja regime.
The internal problems of the Polish Republic, great
as they were, played only a small part in the country's demise. The
signing of the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact of August 23, 1939
doomed Poland to a fourth partition. The Germans invaded without a declaration in the
early morning hours of September 1, 1939. Hitler claimed that he was
responding to Polish attacks. The western allies, true to their word,
declared war and then did little while Germans (joined later by the
Soviets) rolled over the outnumbered and outgunned Poles in a five
week campaign. Poland was divided in accordance with the secret
protocols of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Stalin seized
territories east of the Curzon Line and handed Wilno (Vilnius) to
Lithuania. Those portions of Polish territory that had been German
prior to the Versailles Treaty were annexed directly to the Reich. A
General Government of Poland administered by Nazi Governor Hans Frank
was established in the remainder.
Poles would suffer six years of the harshest
occupation in modern European history. 6,028,000 citizens of the
Polish Republic would perish of these 644,000 died as a direct result
of combat operations. The rest would have their lives ended in
extermination camps, executions or pacification operations. German
occupied lands were designated Arbeitsbereich (work areas) ruled by
martial law with death or deportation to a concentration camp - the
only penalties stipulated for even the slightest offence. Rationing
allotted 4,000 calories a day to Reichdeutsche (Germans born within
the pre-World War I boundaries of the Reich). Poles were expected to
subsist on 900 calories. Hitler concentrated on the elimination of
those whom Nazi ideology deemed racially inferior, Stalin on those he
deemed political or classes enemies. A million and a half Poles were
deported to work camps in Siberia and the Soviet arctic.
Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the
Soviet Union, began on June 22, 1941. The Wehrmacht was soon at the
gates of Leningrad and Moscow. The new state of affairs forced Stalin
to make an about-face in his policies regarding Poland in order to
secure aid from the western allies. The Soviets recognized the Polish
Government in Exile, agreed to parole Poles held in the work camps and
announced that question of post-war boundaries was open to negotiation.
Polish prisoners were sent to the western front via Iran where they
were formed into two corps attached to the British Army. The 1st Corps
fought in Normandy and northwestern Europe, the 2nd served in Italy
where it won distinction as the first allied unit to reach the peak of
Stalin began implementing his plan for the "liberation"
of Poland while the Red Army was still in retreat. The Polish Workers
Party was founded in Moscow in January, 1942 to replace the old Polish
Communist Party that had been liquidated in a 1938 purge. After the
Red Army turned the tide at Stalingrad, the Soviet dictator felt
strong enough to challenge the policies of the western allies. Soviet
recognition was withdrawn from the London based Government in Exile
following its request for an International Red Cross investigation of
the Katyn Forest massacre. Soviet forces pushed the Germans back to
the old Polish - Soviet frontier in January, 1944. Seven months later
they had advanced to within striking distance of Warsaw. The Home Army
launched an uprising at the urging of the Soviets who then halted
their advance for five months while the Germans eliminated the
non-Communist Polish Resistance. A Polish National Committee of
Liberation was installed in Lublin as the Soviet recognized government
of the liberated areas. The Lublin Committee signed a Treaty granting
the Soviets free reign in the administration of areas under their
control. The Committee declared itself the Provisional Government of
the Polish Republic on December 31, 1944 and was quickly granted
recognition by the Soviet Union.
Stalin's demand that the post-war Polish-Soviet
border be demarcated along the Curzon Line was acceded to by Roosevelt
and Churchill at the Yalta Conference in December, 1944. The
settlement shifted the borders of the Polish state 150 miles westward.
Slightly more than half of its pre-war territory lies within the
borders of present day Poland. 178,220 sq. km. were ceded to the
Soviet Union. The Poles were compensated with 101,200 sq. km. of
German territory lying between the old frontier and the new boundary
along the Oder and Niesse Rivers. Five million Germans living in what
is usually termed by the Polish "recovered territories" were quickly
expelled to make room for Poles leaving the now Soviet eastern
territories. Some sources claim that around two million Germans living
in these areas died in the process.
The new Poland was quickly pulled into the Soviet
orbit despite the protest of the Western Allies and the Government in
Exile. The final liberation of Poland would take another 45 years.