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Poland: Revolution and Rebirth
By Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk
Maps: Andrew Andersen
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Napoleonic Poland; The Duchy of Warsaw
The Poles felt that one
way of restoring independence was to fight for Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1791 Dabrowski organised two legions
to fight the Austrians in Lombardy and, later, for the French in the Iberian Peninsula.
Kniaziewicz organised
the Polish Danube Legion to fight against the Germans in 1799.
Napoleon used the Polish Legions in all his
campaigns; against Russia, Austria and Prussia,
in Egypt, in the West Indies
(Santo Domingo), and in Spain (where they fought the
British and inspired the formation of the English lancers equipped with
Polish-style uniforms and weapons). Some of the Poles became very disillusioned
with Bonaparte, realising that they were being
manipulated.
Later, in 1806, the French armies defeated the
Prussians at Jena and entered Posen (Poznan) led by the Poles
under Dabrowski. A year later Napoleon and the Tzar, Alexander, met at Tilsit
and agreed to set up a Polish State made up of the lands the Prussians had
taken in the second partition. This was the Duchy of Warsaw. Napoleon used the
Duchy as a pawn in his political game and in 1812 called upon the Lithuanians
to rebel as an excuse to attack Russia.
The Poles, flocking to his standard in the hope of resurrecting the
Commonwealth, formed the largest non-French contingent, 98,000 men. Polish
Lancers were the first to cross the Niemen into Russia, the first to enter
Moscow, played a crucial part in the battle of Borodino and, under Poniatowski, covered the disastrous French retreat, being
the last out of Russia; 72,000 never returned.
Despite the cynical way that Napoleon treated
the Poles they remained loyal to him and, when he went into exile on Elba the only guards that Napoleon was allowed were
Polish Lancers.
The "Congress Kingdom"
In 1815 at the Congress
of Vienna the Duchy was partitioned and a large part went to Russia. In Austria and Prussia
there was repression of all Polish attempts to maintain the national culture,
but in Russia, fortunately,
the Tzar, Alexander I, was a liberal ruler who agreed
to the setting up of a semi-autonomous "Congress Kingdom"
with its own parliament and constitution. This became a time of peace and
economic recovery. In 1817 the University
of Warsaw was founded.
But the accession of Tzar Nicholas I to the throne in
1825 saw the establishment of a more repressive regime.
In 1830, after the revolution in France and unrest in Holland, Nicholas decided to intervene and
suppress the move towards democracy in the West. He intended to use the Polish
Army as an advanced force but instead propelled the Polish patriots into
action. On the night of November 29th the cadets of the Warsaw Military
College launched an
insurrection. The Poles fought bravely against heavy odds in former Polish
territories around Wilno, Volhynia
and the borders of Austria
and Prussia.
The insurrection spread to Lithuania
where it was led by a woman, Emilia Plater. For a
while victory actually lay in their grasp but indecision on the part of the
Polish leaders led to defeat. Warsaw was taken
in September 1831, followed by terrible persecution; over 25,000 prisoners were
sent to Siberia with their families and the Constitution of the "Congress Kingdom" was suspended.
The 1830 Revolution inspired the work of two
great Poles living in exile; Chopin, the composer, and Mickiewicz, the poet.
The "Great
Emigration"
The failure of the
Insurrection forced thousands of Poles to flee to the West; Paris became the spiritual capital. Many of
these exiles contributed greatly to Polish and European culture. Joachim Lelewel became Poland's greatest historian, Chopin
her greatest composer, and Mickiewicz, Slowacki, Krasinski and Norwid among her
greatest poets. Adam Czartoryski set up court at the
Hotel Lambert, in Paris,
which played an important part in keeping the Polish question alive in European
politics.
"For Your Freedom
and Ours"
The insurrection in the
semi-independent City of Krakow
in 1846 was doomed from the start. The insurrectionists had hoped to gain the
support of the local peasantry (recalling the victory at Raclawice)
but the peasants, having never benefited from the liberal ideals proposed by
the intelligensia, used the insurrection as an excuse
to rid themselves of their landlords; it was the last "jacquerie"
(or peasants' uprising) in European history. The insurrectionist forces were
defeated by a combination of Austrian and peasant forces at the battle of Gdow and the insurrection was put down with great brutality
by the Austrians, resulting in the abolition of the Commonwealth of Krakow.
In 1848 "the Springtime of Nations" (a
revolutionary movement towards greater democracy in much of Europe) saw
large-scale contributions by the Poles; in Italy, Mickiewicz organised a small legion to fight for Italian independence
from Austria, whilst in Hungary, Generals Dembinski
and Bem led 3,000 Poles in the Hungarian Revolution
against Austria. There were also unsuccessful uprisings in Poznan
(Posen), against the Prussians, and in Eastern Galicia,
against the Austrians.
Starting in 1863, the "January
Uprising" against the Russians lasted for more than a year and a half. A
Provisional government was established and more than 1,200 skirmishes were
fought, mostly in the deep forests under the command of Romuald
Traugutt. Italian help came from the "Garibaldi
Legion" led by Colonel Francesco Nullo. In 1864 Traugutt and four other members of the Provisional
government were captured in Warsaw
and publicly executed.
The Uprising was finally put down in 1865, and
the Kingdom of Poland was abolished and a severe policy
of persecution and "Russification"
established. The University
of Warsaw and all schools
were closed down, use of the Polish language was forbidden in most public
places and the Catholic Church was persecuted. The Kingdom
of Poland became known as the "Vistula Province".
In the Prussian occupied zone the aim was to
totally destroy the Polish language and culture; from 1872 German became
compulsory in all schools and it was a crime to be caught speaking in Polish.
There was a systematic attempt to uproot Polish Peasants from their land. A
special permit was needed to rebuild any farm buildings damaged or destroyed by
fire or flood, but none were ever granted to Poles. One peasant, Wojciech Drzumala, challenged this
law by living in a converted wagon.
In Austrian Poland, Galicia, conditions were different.
After 1868 the Poles had a degree of self-government, the Polish language was
kept as the official language and the Universities of Krakow and Lwow were allowed to function. As a result this area
witnessed a splendid revival of Polish culture, including the works of the
painter Jan Matejko, and the writers Kraszewski, Prus and Sienkiewicz.
All three powers kept Poland economically weak in this
period of technological progress. Despite this the Poles managed to make some
progress; the textile industry began to flourish in Lodz (the "Polish Manchester") and
coal-mining developed rapidly. In Prussian Poland, despite ruthless oppression,
the Poles concentrated on light industry and agriculture (and before long Poznan became the chief source of food for the whole of Germany). In Silesia, under German
rule since 1742, the development of mining and heavy industry made her a chief
industrial centre and thus the Prussian attempt to exterminate all traces of
Polish language and culture was at its most ruthless, yet they survived.
Despite its abolition by Kosciuszko
in 1794 the partitioning powers restored serfdom. It was not abolished in Prussia until 1823, in Austria until 1848 and in Russia until 1861 (but not in her
"Polish" territories).
In 1905 the Russo-Japanese War saw a series of
humiliating defeats for the Russians and civil unrest in Russia. In Poland there
was a wave of strikes and demonstrations demanding civil rights. Polish pupils
went on strike, walking out of Russian schools and a private organisation, the "Polska Macierz Szkolna"
("Polish Education Society"), was set up under the patronage of the
great novelist, Henryk Sienkiewicz.
Then, in 1906, Jozef Pilsudski,
a founder-member of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), began to set up a number
of paramilitary organisations which attacked Tzarist officials and carried out raids on post offices,
tax-offices and mail-trains. In Galicia
the Austrian authorities turned a blind eye to the setting up of a number of
"sporting" clubs, followed by a Riflemen's Union.
In 1912, Pilsudski reorganised these on military
lines and by 1914 had nearly 12,000 men under arms.
PART II See
also: “The Rebirth of Poland” by Anna M. Cienciala
The First World War:
1914-1918
On the outbreak of war
the Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of Germany, Austria
and Russia,
and forced to fight each other in a war that was not theirs. Although many
Poles sympathised with France
and Britain
they found it hard to fight with them on the Russian side. They also had little
sympathy with the Germans. Pilsudski considered Russia
as the greater enemy and formed Polish Legions to fight for Austria but
independently. Other Galician Poles went to fight against the Italians when
they entered the war in 1915, thus preventing any clash of conscience.
Almost all the fighting on the Eastern Front
took place on Polish soil.
On the collapse of the Tzarist
regime in Russia in 1917,
the main purpose for fighting alongside the Central Powers, Germany and Austria, disappeared. They had made many promises of setting up an
independent Poland
but had proved to be very slow in carrying these promises out. When Pilsudski's
Legions were required to swear allegiance to Germany they refused and Pilsudski
was imprisoned. In 1918 when, at Brest Litovsk, the
Central Powers signed a peace treaty with Russia, which was detrimental to
Poland, the Second Brigade under General Haller revolted and marched into the
Ukraine where they joined other Polish forces already formed there and fought
against the Germans, eventually being surrounded and defeated.
At the outbreak of the revolution in Russia
Polish army units had joined together to form the First Polish Corps under
General Jozef Dowbor Munsnicki and tried to reach Poland but were disarmed by the
Germans. Escapees and volunteers reorganised
themselves into a new army at Murmansk in the
Arctic and fought alongside the British on the shores of the Whits Sea
and beside the French at Odessa, as well as in
the Far East at Siberia. Later they managed to
reach Poland.
Roman Dmowski, founder
of the right-wing Nationalist League, had foreseen that Germany was the real enemy and gone to France
where the "Bayonne Legion" was already fighting alongside the French
Army. He and Paderewski formed a Polish Army which consisted of volunteers from
the United States, Canada and Brazil together with Poles who had
been conscripted into the German and Austrian armies and had become POWs. This
Army became known as "Haller's Army" after its commander who had
escaped from Russia to France.
Rebirth: 1918-1922
All sides, from Tzar Nicholas of Russia to President Wilson (in his
Fourteen Points) had promised the restoration of Poland yet in the end the
Poles regained independence through their own actions when, first Russia, and
then the Central Powers collapsed as a result of the War.
In 1918, on the 11th November, Pilsudski, having
been released by the Germans, proclaimed Polish Independence and Became Head of State and
Commander-in-Chief, with Paderewski as Prime Minister. An uprising liberated Poznan and, shortly after, Pomerania
(which gave access to the Baltic).
In the chaos that followed the collapse of the
Powers new states had arisen; Lithuania,
Czechoslovakia and the Ukrainian Republic. All these states laid claims
on territory occupied by Poles.
The Poles liberated Wilno
from the Lithuanians in 1919, reoccupied the area around Cieszyn
(which had been invaded by the Czechs) and annexed the Western Ukraine when the
Ukrainian Republic,
which had been supported by Poland,
collapsed under attack from Soviet forces.
The Red Army, having crushed all
counter-revolutionary forces inside Russia,
now turned its attention on Poland.
By August 1920 they were at the gates of Warsaw.
On August 15th the Polish Army under Pilsudski, Haller and Sikorski
fought the Battle of Warsaw (the "Miracle on the Vistula"), routed
the Red Army and saved a weakened Europe from
Soviet conquest. An Armistice was signed at Riga
in October, followed by a Peace Treaty in March 1921 which determined and
secured Poland's
eastern frontiers.
In 1922 part of Upper Silesia was awarded to Poland by a Geneva Convention following three
uprisings by the Polish population who had been handed over to Germany
at the Peace Treaty of Versailles.
The Second Republic:
1921-1939
On March 17th, 1921, a
modern, democratic constitution was voted in. The task that lay ahead was
difficult; the country was ruined economically and, after a hundred and twenty
years of foreign rule, there was no tradition of civil service.
Marshal Pilsudski resigned from office in 1922,
and the newly-elected President, Gabriel Narutowicz,
took office only to be assassinated a week later.
Seeing that the government lacked power because
of party strife, Pilsudski took control by a coup d'etat
in 1926 and established the Sanacja regime intended
to clean-up ("sanitise") political life. By
1930 this had become a virtual dictatorship.
Despite all her problems Poland was
able to rebuild her economy; by 1939 she was the 8th largest steel producer in
the world and had developed her mining, textiles and chemical industries.
Poland had been awarded limited access to the sea by the Peace of Versailles
(the "Polish Corridor") but her chief port, Gdansk (Danzig) was made
a free city (put under Polish protection) and so, in 1924, a new port, Gdynia,
was built which, by 1938, became the busiest port in the Baltic.
There were continual disputes with the Germans
because access to the sea had split Germany
into two and because they wanted Danzig under their
control. There problems increased when Adolf Hitler took power in Germany.
In 1939, under constant threat from Germany, Poland
entered into a full military alliance with Britain
and France
In August, Germany
and Russia signed a secret
agreement concerning the future of Poland.
Originally published at http://www.kasprzyk.demon.co.uk/www/HistoryPolska.html
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