The Second Polish Republic (14 November 1918-6 October 1939) was a country located in Eastern Europe. Formed in the aftermath of World War I, it was the first time since 1796 that Poland was independent, and it would expand against the Soviet Union to incorporate lands as far as Brest (Brzezc, Belarus) and Lwow (Lviv, Ukraine) while Germany owned the present-day Polish regions of Silesia and Pomerania. In 1939, it was occupied by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and in 1945 it was made into the Polish People's Republic, with the Polish government-in-exile from the Second Republic remaining in exile in London.
History[]
Formation[]
Location of Poland in 1930
The Second Polish Republic was proclaimed on 14 November 1918, and the country was led by dictator Jozef Pilsudski in its first few years. The country included the former Congress Poland region of the Russian Empire and the Galicia region of Austria-Hungary, while the German Empire maintained its Polish lands of East Prussia, Silesia, and Pomerania. The Second Republic, like the other newly-independent countries of Eastern Europe, had to fight for their survival against the strong European countries that bordered Poland. Poland fought against the Ukrainian People's Republic and captured Lviv from them, renaming it "Lwow"; in addition, the Polish republic captured Brest from the Soviet Union, renaming it "Brzezc". Unfortunately, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia maintained their independence from Poland, so Pilsudski was unable to restore the might of the late Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by taking over the Baltics. In 1919-1921, Poland expanded as far east as possible by winning the Polish-Soviet War against the Soviets, who conquered Ukraine, securing a contested border with the Polish. Poland was now a large country, and it was finally independent.
Internal issues[]
Despite being a large country that had defeated the Soviets, Poland was weak on the inside. In 1922, President Gabriel Narutowicz was murdered by a far-right assassin while at an art gallery, having been President of Poland for just five days. More violence occurred on 12-14 May 1926, when Jozef Pilsudski seized power in the May Coup, killing 215 soldiers and 164 civilians and wounding 920 people. The Second Polish Republic was ruled as a dictatorship by Pilsudski until his death in 1935, and Edward Smigly-Ritz would succeed him.
In addition to political troubles, Poland had many ethnic troubles. Polish Jews were hated by the Catholic population, and many far-right Polish politicians advocated their extermination. In addition, ethnic Germans, Russians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians were also hated by far-right politicians, and Poland was divided between several groups. Poland made efforts to "Polonize" their subjects, with Pilsudski being of Lithuanian descent but being of a culturally-Polish family.
Downfall[]
A poster advertising the Polish Armed Forces in the West
Like Poland, Germany was also ruled by a dictator, Adolf Hitler. Hitler wanted to press German nationalism and conquer Poland to add more lands to Nazi Germany, his empire that was constantly expanding. When Poland refused to give Germany control of West Prussia, Hitler invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 with his Wehrmacht military, and the Poles were defeated in two weeks due to the efficiency of Germany's Blitzkrieg tactics and the invasion of Poland from the east by the Soviet Union, which sought to divide Poland with the Nazis. The Polish government went into exile in London as a result, and their armed forces were either detained in the USSR in Siberia or went into exile in the West, where they would fight alongside the Western Allies to liberate their homeland. The Second Polish Republic's Polish government-in-exile was housed in London, but after the Soviets joined the Allies and declared war on Germany, the Soviets invaded Poland and set up their own communist Polish People's Republic. The government of the Second Polish Republic either remained in exile in London during the Cold War or was rounded up and imprisoned by the Soviet Union's NKVD, with the leaders of the Home Army and Polish Underground State remaining in Poland being tried for treason and either shot or imprisoned.