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Home , Roman Dmowski

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF , 1914-23 The Reconstruction of Poland, 1914-23

Edited by

Paul Latawski Associate Professor in International Studies. New England College Honorary Visiting Fellow. School of Slavonic and East European Studies. University of London

Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978-1-349-22187-5 ISBN 978-1-349-22185-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22185-1 © School of Slavonic and East European Studies 1992 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992 All rights reserved, For infonnation, write: Scholarly and Reference Division, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

First published in the United States of America in 1992

ISBN 978-0-312-06536-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Reconstruction of Poland, 1914-23/ edited by Paul Latawski. p. cm. Papers from a conference sponsored by the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, and held in Dec. 1988. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-312-06536-2 1. Poland-History-1918-1945-Congresses. 2. Poland-History• -German occupation, 1914-1918-Congresses. I. Latawski, Paul C. (paul Chester), 1954- . II. University of London. School of Slavonic and East European Studies. DK4403.5.R43 1992 943.8'04-dc20 91-19886 CIP Contents

Map: The Reconstructed Poland vii

Preface ~ Notes on the Contributors xi

List of Abbreviations XIV Introduction Paul Latawski xvii 1 Roman Dmowski, the Polish Question, and Western Opinion, 1915-18: The Case of Britain Paul Latawski 1 2 Squaring a Minorities Triangle: Lucien Wolf, Jewish Nationalists and Polish Nationalists Eugene C. Black 13 3 Polish-Ukrainian Relations in 1918: Notes for Discussion Roman Szporluk 41 4 The Polish-Ukrainian Agreement, 1920 J6zef Garlinski 55 5 The Battle of Danzig and the at the Conference of 1919 Anna M. Cienciala 71 6 Aspects of American Policy towards Poland at the Paris Peace Conference and the Role of Isaiah Bowman Kay Lundgreen-Nielsen 95 7 Dmowski's Policy at the Paris Peace Conference: Success or Failure? Piotr Wandycz 117 8 The Establishment of a National in Poland, 1918 Andrzej Ajnenkiel 133

V vi Contents

9 The Economic Integration of Poland, 1918-23 Zbigniew Landau 144 10 The Reconstruction of the Government and State Apparatus in the Wojciech Roszkowski 158 11 The Origins of the Polish Foreign Ministry 11 November 1918- Janusz Sibora 178 Appendix: Documents Relating to the Reconstruction of Poland. 195 1. Proclamation Grand Duke Nicholas, 14 August 1914 2. Proclamation 5 November 1916 3. Dmowski's 'Memorandum on the Territory of the Polish State' 26 March 1917 4. Wilson's Fourteenth Point 8 January 1918 5. Pitsudski Decree 18 November 1918 6. Paton Memorandum 'Polish Claims to Danzig and West ' 27 February 1919 7. Minorities Treaty 28 June 1919 8. Polish-Ukrainian Agreement 21 April 1920 Index 208 ·'-. -', ~ (\. LATVIA (

BALTIC SEA .-.-.--.-.'--./.. \...... J , ,/ " . j-.r '-v.., I ') " / j '-'j (. / /' . .1 ~c.:. t., / WilnoNilnius I \:r:o \", / ./ '(/)0: ~~ IJg IT I ~~ /'<.() ~~~.....r'-, I ~~ /'~ "V- f ~ \ " Poznan ~ I gj \ ) G~EAT / z \ POLAND ( ~ .'\. l ~ 53 J ", " :D0(1) m \'-' p o L " :" ) (" ( ~. IS'/,~ y'y rJ \r-' ~SSI'" .( f/ • Cracow ... \ , ( ~ " .-.;;t' , .. • ~w6W/ i /"'\. Teschen/CieszynfTMln '.,.J'-'.r' --', : .J' '-._...... • EASTERN ( '\ CZECHOSLOV AKIA \.. / \ I " / <..... ,..i~<~"-"-' ~'" _F'r''--'r'' \r.'\.. ") \'...... ; '- )./'--~i...J / ROMANIA ...J" HUNGARY / _.J\ / / 0 100 200 I kilometres Plebiscite areas

---- Provisional Allied Demarcation line December 1919 () ••••••••••• line A

------Line B The Reconstructed Poland

Vll Preface

The seventieth anniversary of the reconstruction of Poland provided a suitable occasion to examine the political, social and economic problems associated with the rebirth of an independent Polish state. The School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, commemorated this anniversary in December 1988 with a conference, bringing together a distinguished group of scholars from Europe and North America. This volume is the result of that confer• ence. The book has taken on relevance to current developments in Poland that the conference organizers could not have imagined when the project was first conceived in 1987. The formation of a Solidarity-led coalition government under Tadeusz Mazowiecki in August 1989 heralded the beginning of Poland's third political, social and economic reconstruction in this century. It is well to remember that Poland has been reconstructed on two previous occasions in this century: the first (the subject of this volume) spanned the chronological period beginning in the First World War, proceeding to the re-establishment of the Polish state in November 1918, and culminating in its consolidation between 1919 and 1923, while the second began in 1939 with the partition of Poland between and the Soviet Union and ended with the consolida• tion of communist rule in 'People's Poland' in 1947. For the Mazowiecki government, as it attempts to reconstruct Poland on the rubble of half a century of , the second reconstruction offers little guidance. Stalin had supplied virtually everything needed for the second reconstruction: the ideology, the politicians, the secret policemen, as well as the economic and social blueprints. Unlike the second effort to rebuild Poland, in the first and third reconstruction the have had to find their own solutions to a host of political, social and economic problems. Current Polish dilemmas thus offer a remarkable sense of deja vu. Both the conference and this book are the product of the efforts of many people. I would like to thank Professor Michael Branch, Director of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, for his support in realizing the conference and the volume. In particular, I want to thank the trustees of the M. B. Grabowski Fund for their generous financial support of the conference. I also owe thanks to

ix x Preface many other people who have assisted in this project: Professor Nor• man Davies and Dr Keith Sword for their encouragement and help; Ms Kate Moore, the Publications Conference and Officer at the School who offered advice and assistance with my many questions regarding the preparation of the manuscript; and Ed Oliver who has drawn the map.

PAULLATAWSKI Eastbourne Notes on the Contributors

Andrzej Ajnenkiel is Professor at the Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. He is President of the Polish Histori• cal Association, a member of the editorial board of the journal Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne (Review of Legal History). His research interests include the legal and political history of East Central Europe, parliamentarism and modern Polish history. He is author of twelve books and scores of other publications. His latest work is a two-volume study of the history of the Polish Parliament in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Eugene C. Black is Ottilie Springer Professor of Modern European History at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He recently published The Social Politics of Anglo-Jewry, 1880-1920 (1988) and is presently extending his work on the diplomacy of Lucien Wolf and his efforts on behalf of min• orities and refugees through the 1920s. He is, at the same time, completing a biography of the early twentieth-century British states• man, Edwin Montagu.

Anna M. Cienciala is Professor of History at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan., USA. She specializes in East and West European Diplomatic History, 1914-45. Among her publications are: Poland and the Western Powers, 1938-1939. A Study in the Inter• dependence of Eastern and Western Europe, London, Toronto, 1968; co-author with T. Komarnicki of: From Versailles to Locarno. Keys to Polish Foreign Policy, 1919-1925, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan., 1984; with Agnes Headlam-Morley and Russell Bryant, she was co-editor of: Sir James W. He adlam-Morley , A Memoir of the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, London, 1972, and editor of Foreign Minister J6zef Beck's original Polish texts on Polish foreign policy, entitled Polska Polityka Zagraniczna w Latach 1926-1939, Paris, 1990.

J6zef GarUiiski is Professor of Modern History at the Polish Univer• sity in Exile, London, and President of the Union of Polish Writers Abroad. He obtained his first degree from the clandestine university in Warsaw, under German occupation. He was later arrested by the xi xii Notes on the Contributors

Gestapo and spent two years in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. He obtained his PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His books: Poland SOE and the Allies (1969), Fighting Auschwitz (1975), Hitler's Last Weapons (1978), Intercept, Secrets of Enigma War (1979) ,The Swiss Corridor (1981) and Poland in the Second World War (1985).

Zbigniew Landau is Professor of Economic History and Director of the Department of Economic and Social History at the Central School of Planning and Statistics in Warsaw. He is a specialist in modern economic history and co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Pol• ish Economic History and editor-in-chief of The Encyclopedia of Interwar Polish History. He is the author of numerous articles and books including The Polish Economy in the Twentieth Century (1985,with Jerzy Tomaszewski), Lata interwencjonizmu panstwowego 1936-1939 (1989, with Jerzy Tomaszewski).

Paul Latawski is an Associate Professor of International Studies at New England College and an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. He is a contributor to the official history series of the United States Army and has published numerous articles on Polish and Czechoslovak history.

Kay Lundgreen-Nielsen is Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Odense, Denmark. He is the author of articles on Danish, German, Polish, Spanish and American history published in Danish and international reviews. His publications include The Pol• ish Problem at the Paris Peace Conference. A study of the policies of the Great Powers and the Poles, 1918-1919 (1979).

Wojciecb Roszkowski is a reader in the Department of Economic History at the School of Central Planning and Statistics in Warsaw. He is a member of the Polish Historical Association and in 1988-9 was a Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington DC. While in Washington he lectured at Georgetown University and the Univer• sity of Maryland. He has published more than three dozen articles and two major books on the Polish economy. Notes on the Contributors xiii

Janusz Sibora is a lecturer at the Institute of History, University of Gdansk, where he completed his doctorate in 1988 on the 'Origins and Development of the Polish Diplomatic Service, August 1914-January 1919'. He is the author of articles on diplomatic history and historical methodology.

Roman Szporluk is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Michi• gan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. His publications include Communism and : versus Friedrich List (1988) and The Political Thought of T. G. Masaryk (1981).

Piotr Wandycz is Professor of History at Yale University. He counts among his academic honours the George L. Beer Prize of the Ameri• can Historical Association, the Jurzykowski Foundation Award, and the J6zef Pitsudski Institute Prize. He was a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in 1977-8 and a Fellow of the Russian Research Center at Harvard in 1963-5. He has published ten books including: France and Her Eastern Allies (1962), Soviet-Polish Relations (1969), Lands of Partitioned Poland (1974 and 1984), The United States and Poland (1980), (1980), Polska a zagranica (1986), and Twi• light of French Eastern Alliances (1988). List of Abbreviations

AAA Archiv des Auswartiges Amtes AIU Alliance Israelite Universelle AJA Anglo-Jewish Association ACNP American Commission to Negotiate Peace AGND Akta Adiutantury Generalnej Naczelnego Dow6dztwa, J6zef Pitsudski Institute of America, New York BDBJ Board of Deputies of British CAB Cabinet, Great Britain CFC Conjoint Foreign Committee DPPP Dziennik Praw Panstwa Polskiego, Legal Gazette of the Polish State DURP Dziennik Urz~dowy Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, Law Gazette of the Polish Republic FO Foreign Office, Great Britain GUZA Gt6wny Urza.:d Zaopatrzenia Armii, Chief Office of Military Supplies KNP Komitet Narodowy Polski, Polish National Committee MAE Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, France MSZ Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Poland NA National Archives, Washington DC NKN Naczelny Komitet Narodowy, Supreme National Committee PCD Peace Conference Diary, Lucien Wolf PPC Papers Relating to the United States, 1919. The Peace Conference PIA Stephan Horak, Poland's International Affairs, (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1964) PKP Polskie Koleje Panstwowe, Polish State Railways PRO Public Record Office, London PKKP Polska Krajowa Kasa Pozyczkowa, Polish National Credit Bank PUZAPP Panstwowy Urza.:d Zaopatrzenia w Artykuty Pierwszej Potrzeby, Government Office for the Purchase of Necessities

xiv List of Abbreviations xv

SPD-USPD Socialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands-Unabhangigen Sozialdemokraten Partei Deutschlands, Social Democratic Party and Independent Social Democratic Party TRS Tymczasowa Rada Stanu, Provisional Council of State UNR Ukrainian National Republic Introduction Paul Latawski

Poland's first reconstruction began over seventy years ago. The collapse of Imperial Germany, Tsarist Russia, and Austria-Hungary by the end of the First World War created a political vacuum from which emerged an independent Polish state. Polonia Restituta, how• ever, faced a daunting set of political, social and economic prob• lems. One of the central political problems facing the reborn Poland was the definition of its frontiers. The 'battle of the frontiers' was a frequently violent and invariably controversial process. In the East, Polish boundaries were largely settled through military action; in the West, great power decisions figured more prominently. The terri• torial disputes resulting in intense fighting included: (1) the Polish-Ukrainian war over control of Eastern Galicia to the River Zbrucz, November 1918-July 1919; (2) the Polish-German struggle for control of Great Poland, December 1918-February 1919, and Upper , August 1919, August 1920 and May-July 1921; (3) the Polish-Soviet war over the eastern borderlands, February 1919-March 1921. More desultory fighting took place in the Polish-Czechoslovak conflict over Cieszyn (Tesin), January 1919-July 1920, and the Polish -Lithuanian conflict over the city of Wilno (Vilnius), July 1919- October 1920. On the remaining points of disputed territory, the allied powers of Britain, France and the United States played a much larger role. For the disposition of the German provinces of Marienwerder (Kwidzyn) and Allenstein (Olsztyn) in and , the great powers based their decisions on plebiscites conducted in these areas. The allied powers also determined the fate of Poland's access to the sea - the Baltic port of Danzig and the strip of land connecting it with its hinterland. Anna Cienciala highlights in her essay the difficulties surrounding the problem of giving Poland access to the sea, discussed at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. In her comprehensive treatment of the subject, she demonstrates that access to the sea was an issue of vital importance for the security and the economic viability of the Polish state. Nevertheless, the desiderata of great-power politics resulted in a compromise solution that suited none of the parties directly xvii xviii Introduction involved - Germany and Poland - and laid the seeds for a future European conflict. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 was the diplomatic forum in which the great powers treated the vexing Polish territorial questions. Kay Lundgreen-Nielsen examines the formulation of American pol• icy toward Poland during the Peace Conference with special empha• sis on the role of the American expert Isaiah Bowman. The story of the American delegation's activities illustrates how limited the influ• ence of 'expert opinion' could be in the face of the strong predilec• tions of their political masters. The settlement of Polish frontiers invariably meant the inclusion of national minorities. Most of these minorities, such as the Ukrainian and White Russian minorities in eastern Poland, occupied more or less defined geographical areas. The Jewish community, however, was a non-contiguous minority. The varying circumstances of Po• land's large national minorities conditioned the solutions sought for their accommodation in the reconstructed Polish state. Whether the national minority was geographically compact or scattered around the country, the rise of modern nationalism supplied the ready-made basis of friction between the majority and minority peoples. The relations between Poles and the national minorities are given wide coverage in this volume. Eugene Black examines the efforts of Lucien Wolf, a leading figure from the assimilati~nist wing of Bri• tain's Jewish community, to win approval for international safe• guards for Poland's Jews. In the face of rival nationalist camps, both Polish and Jewish, Wolf sought a third way aiming to create the conditions that would bring Polish Gentiles and Jews together. Two contributors offer very different but complementary views of aspects of Polish-Ukrainian relations in this volume. Roman Szpor• luk discusses the obstacles that lay in the way of a Polish-Ukrainian modus vivendi in 1918. His essay provides a general overview of the determinants in both the Polish and Ukrainian camps that mitigated against agreement and more often than not led to conflict between the two groups. In contrast, J6zef Garlinski considers the Polish• Ukrainian political and military agreement of 1920. He views this alliance within the context of Pitsudski's military operations against the Bolsheviks as well as his wider federalist scheme involving . The transmogrification of the Polish state was not simply the product of armed conflict and great power negotiation. Leading Polish political figures of the day lent very distinctive ideas and efforts Introduction XIX to the process of the reconstruction of Poland. J6zef Pitsudski, the Chief-of-State and Commander-in-Chief of the Polish army, es• poused vague federalist schemes with the aim of weakening Russia. Pil'sudski's efforts to win Polish independence kept him in Poland where he cooperated with the until it became obvious that their policies would not lead to the restoration of Polish indepen• dence. In contrast to Pitsudski, Roman Dmowski, the National Democratic Party leader, was an integral nationalist who believed that Germany was the most important danger and conducted his policies accordingly. Dmowski staked Polish fortunes to the Entente camp and, unlike Pitsudski, Dmowski directed his campaign to re• store Poland from abroad. Both men contributed to the restoration of Poland with varying degrees of success. The role of Dmowski in the reconstruction of Poland is explored both during the First World War and immediately after, at the Paris Peace Conference, in this volume. Paul Latawski examines Dmow• ski's efforts to win British support for Polish aspirations during the war. Despite considerable talent, Dmowski raised more suspicion than won adherents to the Polish cause in British official circles. Piotr Wandycz carries the story of Dmowski's efforts forward to examine his policies at the Paris Peace Conference. Wandycz concludes that Dmowski's methods and approach may have cost Poland more than it gained. The reborn Polish state inherited territories that had followed a markedly divergent pattern of development under the rule of the former partitioning powers. Each of the partition zones brought into the Polish state a different legal code, system of taxation, transport network, and schools. Moreover, the level of economic activity ranged from highly industrialized Upper Silesia to the agrarian backwardness of Galicia. The economic development of the territories making up the new Poland was generally uneven. The serious human and material losses incurred in the Polish lands during and immediately after the First World War only compounded the inherited problems. The difficulties of reconstruction were most vividly illustrated by the necessity of establishing a national currency. When Poland re• gained its independence at least five main currencies were in circula• tion ranging from the German mark to the Austrian crown. The lack of suitable production facilities prevented the government from printing money. This dilemma was only overcome by the timely order of eight tons of Polish banknotes from Messrs Waterlow and Sons of London in 1919. 1 xx Introduction

In terms of Western historiography, the post- process of state-building in east-central Europe is largely terra incognita. This volume redresses this omission with four papers devoted to the political, economic and administrative problems of state integration in the Polish context. Andrzej Ajnenkiel examines the important question of the establishment of a national government in Poland. He outlines the events that led to the coalescing of numerous centres of political authority, both at home and abroad, into a cohesive national government under the leadership of J6zef Pil'sudski. This govern• ment laid the foundations of the Polish political system by holding elections for the (Parliament) and obtaining formal recognition by the international community. Zbigniew Landau discusses the laborious and time-consuming task of the economic unification of the Polish lands. He describes how important structural changes were enacted, such as the creation of a uniform financial and monetary system, while at the same time coping with inflation and multiple currencies. In a highly complemen• tary paper, Wojciech Roszkowski bridges the gap between politics and economics by describing the creation of the state apparatus. He illustrates the problems of setting up a uniform state administrative system with a plethora of examples ranging from agriculture to the army. As in the case of the economic sphere, the fledgling state apparatus, such as it existed, had to contend simultaneously with the short-term demands of a crisis situation and the installation of perma• nent bureaucratic machinery. The last paper shifts away from the broader viewpoint of the other papers to examine the problems of Polish state integration at a more specific level. Janusz Sibora's paper views the process from the perspective of an individual organ of state - the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych - MSZ). Covering the period from 11 November 1918 to January 1919, he considers the launching of MSZ from the standpoint of the recruitment of person• nel and the creation of a working organization. The formation of MSZ was a microcosm of the complex efforts of administrative reconstruction undertaken by the Polish state. Despite the enormous problems of reconstruction, the process which began with the outbreak of the First World War had largely run its course by 1923. When a Polish state reappeared in November 1918, it was a development that few politicians in Europe envisaged as a realistic possibility. The failed Polish uprising of January 1863 gave rise to a conventional wisdom that Poland was extinct. Never- Introduction XXI theless, the persistence of nationalism and the occurence of momen• tous political events conspired to produce rapid and far-reaching change. In this sense the events of over seventy years ago have found their successor in the East European of 1989.

Notes

1. See correspondence dated 20 and 23 August 1919 in: Ambasada R. P. w Londynie, teka 557, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Warsaw.