THE RECONSTRUCTION of POLAND, 1914-23 the Reconstruction of Poland, 1914-23
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THE RECONSTRUCTION OF POLAND, 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 Polish Corridor at the Paris Peace 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 Government 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 Second Polish Republic Wojciech Roszkowski 158 11 The Origins of the Polish Foreign Ministry 11 November 1918-January 1919 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 Prussia' 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.., LITHUANIA I ') " / j '-'j (. / /' . .1 ~c.:. t., / WilnoNilnius I \:r:o \", / ./ '(/)0: ~~ IJg IT I ~~ /'<.() ~~~.....r'-, I ~~ /'~ "V- f ~ \ " Poznan ~ I gj \ ) G~EAT Warsaw / z \ POLAND ( ~ .'\. l ~ 53 J ", " :D0(1) m \'-' p o L " :" ) (" ( ~. IS'/,~ y'y rJ \r-' ~SSI'" .( f/ • Cracow ... \ , ( ~ " .-.;;t' , .. • ~w6W/Lviv i /"'\. Teschen/CieszynfTMln '.,.J'-'.r' --', : .J' '-._. ....... • EASTERN ( '\ CZECHOSLOV AKIA \.. / GALICIA \ 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 (Curzon line) ••••••••••• 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 Nazi Germany 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 communism, 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 Poles 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.