The Second Republic

Independence regained 7 October, 11 November turning point

All three partitioning powers lose the war within a single year: Russia, sunk in revolution, makes a separate peace in March, and in November Austria-Hungary and Germany sign armistices. On 11 November Piłsudski takes command of the army in Warsaw; the borders of the new state still have to be won in six wars.

The Treaty of Versailles 28 June treaty

The peace treaty with Germany awards Poland most of Greater Poland — already held by the insurgents — and Gdańsk Pomerania, with access to the sea. Gdańsk becomes a free city, Upper Silesia, Warmia, Masuria and Powiśle are left to plebiscites, and the new borders take effect in January 1920.

The Small Constitution 26 January, 20 February constitution

The Legislative Sejm, chosen in January in the reborn state’s first election, passes a provisional constitution: the sejm is the supreme authority, and Piłsudski stays Chief of State, answerable to it. It stands until the March Constitution takes effect.

The Battle of Warsaw 15 August, 16 August battle

The Red Army is at the gates of Warsaw when Piłsudski strikes from the Wieprz into its exposed flank and breaks the front. The Bolshevik push west is stopped for twenty years.

The division of Cieszyn Silesia 28 July loss

With the Red Army marching on Warsaw, the Conference of Ambassadors divides Cieszyn Silesia along the Olza without a plebiscite. Czechoslovakia gets Zaolzie, with the Karviná mines and the Košice–Bohumín railway, though most of its people were Poles.

The East Prussian plebiscite 11 July loss

On 11 July, with the Red Army marching on Warsaw, the people of southern East Prussia and Powiśle vote on which state they belong to. More than 90 per cent vote for Germany — many Polish-speaking Masurian Protestants among them. Poland gets a handful of villages, and East Prussia stays German.

The Peace of Riga 18 March treaty

Peace with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine fixes the eastern border roughly along the line of the Second Partition of 1793, well east of the Curzon Line the Allies had proposed in July 1920. Several million Ukrainians and Belarusians end up on the Polish side of it.

The March Constitution 17 March constitution

The Legislative Sejm passes the constitution of a parliamentary republic: a strong sejm, a weak president, equal rights for citizens whatever their faith or nationality. Amended after the May Coup, it stands until 1935.

Wilno is annexed 20 February turning point

The Wilno Sejm, elected on the land Żeligowski’s troops had seized in 1920, in a vote boycotted by most Lithuanians, Jews and Belarusians, calls for Central Lithuania to join Poland, and the Sejm in Warsaw confirms it. Lithuania refuses to recognise the annexation and has no diplomatic relations with Poland until 1938.

The division of Upper Silesia 20 June treaty

After the plebiscite and the Third Silesian Uprising of 1921, Upper Silesia is divided on the League of Nations’ recommendation, and in June 1922 the Polish army marches into the part awarded to Poland. It is under a third of the area, but it holds Katowice and most of the region’s mines and steelworks.

President Narutowicz is assassinated 16 December turning point

Gabriel Narutowicz, the first president, elected against the right by the votes of the left, the peasant parties and the national minorities, is shot dead in the Zachęta gallery five days after taking office. The killing, after a nationalist press campaign against him, poisons Second Republic politics for years.

The eastern border recognised 15 March treaty

On 15 March the Conference of Ambassadors recognises Poland’s eastern borders, Wilno and Eastern Galicia included. After four years of wars, plebiscites and arbitration every frontier of the Second Republic has international recognition — though Lithuania still refuses to accept the loss of Vilnius.

The May Coup 12 May turning point

Piłsudski marches troops into Warsaw and after three days of fighting brings down the lawful government. The parliamentary republic gives way to authoritarian rule, with the constitution formally intact.

The non-aggression declaration with Germany 26 January treaty

Two years after its non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, Poland signs a ten-year declaration with Hitler’s Germany in Berlin. It is the policy of balance between the two neighbours pursued by Piłsudski and Beck; Hitler renounces the declaration in April 1939.

The April Constitution 23 April constitution

The Sanacja camp pushes through parliament, bending its rules on the way, a constitution that places the president above every other branch of the state. Poland remains a republic in name, but parliament stops counting; the same constitution later gives the government in exile its legal footing.

Poland takes Zaolzie 2 October turning point

Less than a day after the Munich Agreement is signed Poland gives Czechoslovakia an ultimatum and takes Zaolzie, disputed since 1920, with the Czech part of Cieszyn. It comes to about 800 square kilometres, won as the third party, beside Germany and Hungary, to the carving-up of Czechoslovakia.

Germanisation in the Prussian partition repression

The Settlement Commission buys land for German settlers, school teaches only in German, and a law of 1908 allows Polish owners to be expropriated. The children of Września (1901) and the school strike of 1906–07 defend religion taught in Polish, and the banks and cooperatives of organic work compete with the Commission for land, and hold their own.

The First World War war

The three partitioning powers fight each other across the Polish lands, and Poles in their armies fight each other. In 1915 Russia pulls out of the Kingdom; Piłsudski’s Legions and the Act of 5 November reopen the Polish question, and the defeat of all three partitioning powers lets it be settled.

The Polish–Ukrainian War war

A war for Lviv and Eastern Galicia: from the November fighting for the city, in which schoolboys and students were among its defenders, to July 1919, when an offensive joined by Haller’s army drives the forces of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic beyond the Zbruch.

The Greater Poland Uprising uprising

It breaks out in Poznań after Paderewski arrives in December 1918 and within weeks holds almost the whole province. The armistice of Trier in February 1919 stops the fighting, and the Treaty of Versailles gives Greater Poland to Poland.

The Polish–Soviet War war

The first clashes in February 1919, the Kyiv offensive in spring 1920, and in the summer Tukhachevsky’s army at the gates of Warsaw. After the Battle of Warsaw and the Niemen the front falls apart; the armistice of October 1920 and the Peace of Riga in March 1921 fix the eastern border for two decades.

The Silesian Uprisings uprising

Three risings of the Upper Silesian Poles: in August 1919, in August 1920 and in May 1921, after a plebiscite in which the majority voted for Germany. The third and largest forces a division of the region more favourable to Poland than the vote alone would have given.

The Great Depression crisis

In Poland the slump lasts longer than almost anywhere in Europe: industrial output falls by close to forty per cent, farm prices by more than half, and the countryside, where most of the country lives, sinks into poverty. The government holds on to a strong złoty and to austerity, which drags the collapse out.

The Central Industrial Region reform

The Second Republic’s largest investment: the steelworks at Stalowa Wola, aircraft works at Mielec and Rzeszów, a tyre factory at Dębica, in the fork of the Vistula and the San — far from the borders with Germany and the USSR. September 1939 cuts it short, before many of the plants had reached full production.

The NKVD’s Polish Operation atrocity

On Yezhov’s order the NKVD arrests Poles in the Soviet Union and everyone suspected of links with Poland: close to 140,000 are sentenced and more than 111,000 of them shot. It is the largest of the Great Terror’s national operations; its victims are Soviet citizens, many of them living in the old eastern lands of the Commonwealth.