Another problem was the overpopulation of the countryside, which resulted in chronic unemployment. The Soviet invasion of Poland, and lack of promised aid from the Western Allies, contributed to the Polish forces defeat by 6 October 1939. Atlas of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century. After 1933 the trade war ended. While the Soviets singled out class enemies, the Germans—who split the area they occupied into a central region called the General Government and territories annexed to the Reich—emphasized race. [40], The pre-war government also restricted rights of people who declared Ukrainian nationality, belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church and inhabited the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Polish Republic. Under British pressure the Polish government-in-exile reestablished relations with the Soviet Union through the Sikorski-Maysky accord, accepting the annulment of the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty without an explicit Soviet renunciation of annexed Polish territory. [5] The extent of the eastern half of the interwar territory of Poland was settled diplomatically in 1922 and internationally recognized by the League of Nations. Attempts to pass on Piłsudski’s mantle to the new commander in chief, Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz, were unsuccessful, as was the artificial creation of a governmental party—the Camp of National Unity. After farcical plebiscites in October and November, these territories were incorporated into Soviet Ukraine and Belorussia. Poland maintained its alliance with France, though the treaties of Locarno (1925) and subsequent Franco-German cooperation diminished the value of the alliance. "The Agrarian Problem in Poland between the Two World Wars,". The pro-Piłsudski Non-Party Bloc of Cooperation with the Government (BBWR) became his political instrument, used at first against the opposition rightist National Democrats. According to William W. Hagen by 1939, prior to the war, Polish Jews were threatened with conditions similar to those in Nazi Germany. In 1919, the Polish government introduced compulsory education for all children aged 7 to 14, in an effort to limit illiteracy, which was widespread especially in the former Russian Partition and the Austrian Partition of eastern Poland. Only in 1992 did postcommunist Moscow publicly acknowledge its guilt and furnish to Warsaw supporting documents, which also indicated the locations of other mass executions. Its core was the Lublin Polish Committee of National Liberation (already recognized by Stalin as the government), to which some politicians from Poland and abroad were added. Partitioned Poland & the 2nd Republic (1772-1939).png. On 29 January 1931, the Polish Parliament created the State Road Fund, the purpose of which was to collect money for the construction and conservation of roads. Historically, Poland was almost always a multiethnic country. In the year 1937, foreign trade with all neighbors amounted to only 21% of Poland's total. The AK planned to capture the capital and act on behalf of Mikołajczyk’s government as host to the entering Red Army. The Soviets sought British and U.S. approval for their territorial gains. Between October 1938 and September 1939, the highest elevation was Lodowy Szczyt (known in the Slovak language as Ľadový štít), which rises 2,627 metres (8,619 ft) above sea level. In May Piłsudski died, leaving the country as a dictatorship without a dictator. [14], The training of the Polish Army was thorough. Political and socioeconomic difficulties contrasted with the richness of intellectual, artistic, and scholarly life of the period. The second was construction of the 500-kilometer rail connection between Upper Silesia and Gdynia, called Polish Coal Trunk-Line, which served freight trains with coal. Under his command Polish troops, organized in the west, fought in all theatres of war in Europe and North Africa. Polish science in the interbellum was renowned for its mathematicians gathered around the Lwów School of Mathematics, the Kraków School of Mathematics, as well as Warsaw School of Mathematics. The Second Polish Republic was a parliamentary democracy from 1919 (see Small Constitution of 1919) to 1926, with the President having limited powers. These were then grouped together into powiaty (akin to counties), which, in turn, were grouped as województwa (voivodeships, akin to provinces). Set up in Paris and moved to London after the collapse of France, it was led by the premier and commander in chief, General Władysław Sikorski. Polityka weekly, July 21, 2011, Sprawa reformy rolnej w I Sejmie Âlàskim (1922–1929) by Andrzej Drogon, Godzina zero, interview with Wojciech Roszkowski. The political conditions of the Second Republic were heavily influenced by the aftermath of World War I and conflicts with neighbouring states as well as the emergence of Nazism in Germany. Officially known as the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska), the Polish state … After graduation, Sadowski was promoted to colonel and became commandant of the elite 15. In more than a decade, the population of Warsaw grew by 200,000, Łódź by 150,000, and Poznań – by 100,000. Znalezione w sieci An instructive list of names (The Second Polish Republic, commonly known as interwar Poland, refers to the country of Poland in the period between the First and Second World Wars (1918–1939). Germany invading Poland, September 1, 1939. This was especially true for the Second Republic, when independence was once again regained in the wake of World War I and the subsequent Polish–Soviet War ending at Peace of Riga. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. [27] Farmers rebelled against the government (see: 1937 peasant strike in Poland), and the situation began to change in the late 1930s, due to construction of several factories for the Central Industrial Region, which gave employment to thousands of countryside residents. Subdivisions of the Second Polish Republic became an issue immediately after the creation of the Second Polish Republic in 1918. On that day, Germany and Slovakia attacked Poland, and on 17 September the Soviets attacked eastern Poland. Among the changes were the replacement of the Council of State by the office of president (a position that had been eliminated … Following the 1930 elections, the BBWR had a majority in the Sejm. Construction of extensive Warszawa Główna railway station was never finished due to the war, and Polish railroads were famous for their punctuality (see Luxtorpeda, Strzała Bałtyku, Latający Wilnianin). His candidate, Ignacy Mościcki, became president and remained in office until World War II. The collapse of the three great empires that had partitioned Poland more than a century before led to a new political situation for Poland and Polish Jewry alike. [22], From the 1920s the Polish government excluded Jews from receiving government bank loans, public sector employment, and obtaining business licenses. It was designed by Italian engineer Piero Puricelli. His legend could not be bequeathed. This often repeated account, first reported by Italian journalists as German propaganda, concerned an action by the Polish 18th Lancer Regiment near Chojnice. Such cooperation, however, when attempted in areas that had been part of prewar eastern Poland, was followed by arrests and deportation or conscription into the Soviet-sponsored Polish Kościuszko Division commanded by General Zygmunt Berling. Interwar politics centred to a large extent on the search for a constitutional model that would reconcile traditional Polish strivings for liberty with the need for a strong government. The rise and fall of Poland's Second Republic and the demise of Poland's gentry at the hands of the Poland's post-World War II Soviet occupiers is a sobering tale of that cruel and repressive period. As a result, pro-government party Camp of National Unity won huge majorities in them. After regaining its independence, Poland was faced with major economic difficulties. Ethnic minorities were represented in the Sejm; e.g. Piłsudski, together with Colonel Kazimierz Sosnkowski, was greeted at Warsaw's railway station by Regent Zdzisław Lubomirski and by Colonel Adam Koc. Only 13% of territory, along the southern border, was higher than 300 metres (980 ft). The political movement National Democracy (Endecja from the abbreviation "ND") often organized anti-Jewish business boycotts. The tasks of Polish diplomacy during the interwar period were exceedingly difficult. Priests and politicians were killed; children of prominent citizens were kidnapped; and many Poles were forced into hard labour. Poland did not surrender to the invaders, but continued fighting under the auspices of the Polish government-in-exile and of the Polish Underground State. This was due not only to internal migration, but also to an extremely high birth rate. [23] The poor condition of the roads was the result of both long-lasting foreign dominance and inadequate funding. A Study in the Interdependence of Eastern and Western Europe, From Versailles to Locarno, Keys to Polish Foreign Policy, 1919–1925, Emblem of Good Will: a Polish Declaration of Admiration and Friendship for the United States of America, Eva Plach, "Dogs and dog breeding in interwar Poland,", Bbs.keyhole.com: Google Earth map with borders of the Second Republic of Poland, Polish Tangos: The Unique Inter-War Soundtrack to Poland’s Independence, Polish Cinema's Golden Age: The Glamour & Progress Of Poland's Inter-War Films, ‘Pakty i Fakty’: The Last-Ever Polish Interwar Cabaret Revue, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_Polish_Republic&oldid=1020218971, States and territories established in 1918, States and territories disestablished in 1939, Articles with Polish-language sources (pl), Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles containing explicitly cited English-language text, Pages using infobox country or infobox former country with the flag caption or type parameters, Pages using infobox country or infobox former country with the symbol caption or type parameters, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2016, Articles needing additional references from October 2017, All articles needing additional references, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Antoni Ponikowski (10 March 1922 – 6 June 1922), Kazimierz Bartel (8 June 1926 – 24 September 1926), Kazimierz Bartel (27 September 1926 – 30 September 1926), Kazimierz Bartel (27 June 1928 – 13 April 1929), Kazimierz Bartel (29 December 1929 – 15 March 1930), Cienciala, Anna M. "The Foreign Policy of Józef Pi£sudski and Józef Beck, 1926–1939: Misconceptions and Interpretations,". Nonetheless, the Polish economy made important strides in the mid-1920s through the reforms of Władysław Grabski. In October 1938 Germany granted a credit of Rm 60,000,000 to Poland (120,000,000 zloty, or £4,800,000) which was never realized, due to the outbreak of war. On Sunday, 10 November at 7 a.m., Józef Piłsudski, newly freed from 16 months in a German prison in Magdeburg, returned by train to Warsaw. The German invasion of Poland began on 1 September 1939, one week after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The Second World War in 1939 ended the sovereign Second Polish Republic. Foreign trade with the Soviet Union (0.8%) was virtually nonexistent. Thousands of Jews died fighting, as in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. In 1932 Poland succeeded in signing a nonaggression pact with Soviet Russia, and in 1934 it made a declaration of nonaggression with Nazi Germany. Lithuania annexed the area of Wilno, and Slovakia seized areas along Poland's southern border - including Górna Orawa and Tatranská Javorina - which Poland had annexed from Czechoslovakia in October 1938. 04.11.2008, Białe plamy II RP, interview with professor Andrzej Garlicki, December 5, 2011. The proportional system of universal suffrage (which included women) necessitated coalition cabinets, and, except at times of national crisis, the left and the right hardly cooperated. Even this failed to persuade everyone to reexamine their beliefs—there were some who thought Polish cavalry had been improperly employed in 1939. In July 1944 a Polish Committee of National Liberation was set up in Moscow (“officially” in Chełm), issued its Lublin Manifesto (July 22), and signed a secret territorial accord with the U.S.S.R. Mikołajczyk, caught between British pressure and the resistance of his government, resigned in November 1944. By 1939, there were around 50,000 students enrolled in further education. The Polish search for some 15,000 missing men had previously met with a Soviet profession of complete ignorance as to their fate. Interbellum Poland was unofficially divided into two parts – better developed "Poland A" in the west, and underdeveloped "Poland B" in the east. Rudolf Weigl invented a vaccine against typhus. Czechoslovakia accounted for 3.9%, Latvia for 0.3%, and Romania for 0.8%. [39] The government in response organized the Camp of National Unity (OZON), which in 1938 took control of the Polish Sejm and subsequently drafted anti-Semitic legislation similar to the Anti-Jewish laws in Germany, Hungary, and Romania. German and Austro-Hungarian armies seized the Russian-ruled part of what became Poland. This new trade was to be in addition to the existing German-Polish trade agreements.[28][29]. In 1921, one-third of citizens of Poland remained illiterate (38% in the countryside). Interbellum Poland was also a country with numerous social problems. After he took power by a military coup in May 1926, he emphasized that he wanted to heal the Polish society and politics of excessive partisan politics. Altogether, there were 103 theaters in Poland and a number of other theatrical institutions (including 100 folk theaters). [6][7], In the course of World War I (1914-1918), Germany gradually gained overall dominance on the Eastern Front as the Imperial Russian Army fell back. The Soviets also provided support for Polish communist organizations such as the Union of Polish Patriots in Moscow and the National Committee of the Homeland, headed by Bolesław Bierut and set up in Poland in December 1943. The Polish losses in combat against Germans (killed and missing in action) amounted to ca. By 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, this had grown to an estimated 35.1 million. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had been partitioned in the late 18th century. Germany became Poland's largest trading partner, followed by Britain. Meanwhile, in western Poland, another war of national liberation began under the banner of the Greater Poland uprising (1918–19). In May 1926 Piłsudski (who had held the title of marshal since 1920) came out of his three-year retirement. It had access to the Baltic Sea via a short strip of coastline either side of the city of Gdynia, known as the Polish Corridor. The Warsaw Uprising constitutes one of the most tragic and controversial events of the war. The government drafted a 10-year plan, with road priorities: a highway from Wilno, through Warsaw and Kraków, to Zakopane (called Marshal Piłsudski Highway), asphalt highways from Warsaw to Poznań and Łódź, as well as a Warsaw ring road. [35] The urban population of interbellum Poland was rising steadily; in 1921, only 24% of Poles lived in the cities, in the late 1930s, that proportion grew to 30%. [22], Besides coal mining, Poland also had deposits of oil in Borysław, Drohobycz, Jasło and Gorlice (see Polmin), potassium salt (TESP), and basalt (Janowa Dolina). The Second Polish Republic, commonly known as interwar Poland, refers to the country of Poland in the period between the First and Second World Wars (1918–1939). It was the only country in Europe able to do this without foreign loans or aid. A major Polish contribution to the war effort lay in discovering and passing on to the Allies the secret of the German ciphering machine Enigma. Overview of the German invasion of Poland (1939), which marked the beginning of World War II. In the interbellum, the road network of Poland was dense, but the quality of the roads was very poor – only 7% of all roads was paved and ready for automobile use, and none of the major cities were connected with each other by a good-quality highway. 70,000 men. On top of this, there were natural disasters, such as the 1934 flood in Poland. Accepting British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s guarantee of March 1939 and turning it into a full-fledged alliance with Britain, Warsaw rejected German demands. Note: Until 11 November, Daszyński was Prime Minister in the Polish People's Republic, based at Lublin, in the territory occupied by Austrian troops. [1][2][3] The victorious Allies of World War I confirmed the rebirth of Poland in the Treaty of Versailles of June 1919. In Polish literature, the 1920s were marked by the domination of poetry. According to the 1921 census, the number of inhabitants was 27.2 million. World WarII is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom. On 23 October the Regency Council appointed a new government under Józef Świeżyński and began conscription into the Polish Army. In 1938, the Second Republic was the sixth largest country in Europe. Frequent border closures and a customs war with Germany also had negative economic impacts on Poland. The Second Polish Republic was mainly flat with average elevation of 233 metres (764 ft) above sea level, except for the southernmost Carpathian Mountains (after World War II and its border changes, the average elevation of Poland decreased to 173 metres (568 ft)). By 1939, over 90% of children attended school. Warsaw University of Life Sciences was an agricultural institute. The day of the armistice ending World War I—11 November 1918—was also the day Polish independence was restored. Soon afterwards the Polish–Lithuanian War (ca 1919-1920) began, and in August 1919 Polish-speaking residents of Upper Silesia initiated a series of three Silesian Uprisings. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. The following three parliamentary elections (in 1930, 1935 and 1938) were manipulated, with opposition activists sent to Bereza Kartuska prison (see also Brest trials). A popular myth is that Polish cavalry armed with lances charged German tanks during the September 1939 campaign. Helped me in 1920 and take my refugees in 1939 :), but unfortunately he later joined to the Axis There was also a great economic disparity between the eastern (commonly called Poland B) and western (called Poland A) parts of the country, with the western half, especially areas that had belonged to the German Empire being much more developed and prosperous. Partitioned Poland & the 2nd Republic (Chełm Land, Ziemia chełmska).png. Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Komunikacji, Warszawa 1939, Timeline of Polish history § The Second Polish Republic (1918–39), Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland, Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government, Pacification of Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia (1930), Learn how and when to remove this template message, German–Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation, Elections to the People's Assemblies of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Nikolaus Wolf, "Path dependent border effects: the case of Poland's reunification (1918–1939)", Urzędowy Rozkład Jazy i Lotów, Lato 1939. The warmest yearly average temperature was in Kraków among major cities of the Second Polish Republic, at 9.1 °C (48.4 °F) in 1938; and the coldest in Wilno (7.6 °C or 45.7 °F in 1938). In 1921, 16,057,229 Poles (approx. This was the case of Ursus Factory (see Państwowe Zakłady Inżynieryjne), and several steelworks, such as Huta Pokój in Ruda Śląska – Nowy Bytom, Huta Królewska in Chorzów – Królewska Huta, Huta Laura in Siemianowice Śląskie, as well as Scheibler and Grohman Works in Łódź.[22]. The administrative division of the Republic was based on a three-tier system. Interview with professor Wojciech Roszkowski, Tygodnik Powszechny, 04.11.2008, 70 years of television in Poland, TVP INFO, 26.08.2009, Piotr Osęka, Znoje na wybojach. Partitions of Poland-ar.png. The only option was to remain neutral in regard to its two giant neighbours while concluding alliances (in 1921) with France and Romania. Between 1939 and 1990, the Polish government-in-exile operated in Paris and later in London, presenting itself as the only legal and legitimate representative of the Polish nation.
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