Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

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Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#1

Post by Futurist » 24 Sep 2016, 23:22

Here is my scenario:

Germany quickly wins World War I in the West in 1914 due to the French unwillingly "playing along to their own demise" 1940-style. Afterwards, Germany goes all out in the East and, after seeing that defeating the Russians is easier than expected, decides to get greedy--thus successfully acquiring Brest-Litovsk-style territorial gains in the East after it defeats Russia.

After its victory in World War I, Germany annexes the Polish Border Strip and expels the 2-3 million ethnic Poles and Jews who live there. Also, Germany creates German puppet states in Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine in this scenario (as well as acquiring both Latvia and Estonia).

However, Germany realizes that, in the long-run, its dominant position in Eastern Europe could be extremely precarious if Poland eventually successfully breaks away from the German orbit (say, due to a Polish nationalist revolution) and allies with a resurgent Russia against Germany (in order to acquire the Polish Border Strip and very likely both Posen Province, the Polish Corridor, and Upper Silesia as well). Thus, to reduce this risk, Germany decides to have Poland (which is currently a German puppet state) annex all of the Polish-majority parts of the Russian Empire (including a Polish-majority strip which stretches all of the way up north to Vilnius and Dynaburg/Daugavpils) as well as to have Poland annex both Latvia and Estonia (which, from a historical perspective, isn't that far-fetched considering that most of these territories were previously a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth).

In this TL, the German mentality is this: If Poland eventually successfully breaks away from the German orbit, Poland is less likely to ally with Russia against Germany. After all, in such a scenario, the Poles might very well be grateful to Germany for previously allowing them to annex both Latvia and Estonia; plus, in such a scenario, the Poles and the Russians might have differing views on the future of both Latvia and Estonia--thus making a Polish-Russian alliance (against Germany, of course) less likely than it would have otherwise been. Plus, in such a scenario, at least some of the ethnic Poles and Jews who were expelled from the Polish Border Strip would be able to settle in Latvia and/or Estonia--thus resulting in less overpopulation problems in other parts of Poland. In addition to this, another plus for Poland in this TL is that Poland would get a corridor to the sea--specifically through Latvia and Estonia and going through Vilnius. :)

Anyway, how exactly would such a proposal have worked out in this TL? Also, what exactly would have been the consequences of such a proposal actually being implemented in the years and decades afterwards?

Any thoughts on this?
Last edited by Futurist on 24 Sep 2016, 23:37, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#2

Post by Futurist » 24 Sep 2016, 23:22

Also, if you want, I can try to draw and paste a map here of what exactly German-puppet Poland will look like in this TL. :)


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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#3

Post by Futurist » 25 Sep 2016, 03:48

Indeed, the interesting thing about this scenario of mine is that is appears to be similar to the events of our TL, but with several crucial differences:

-Poland is a German puppet state rather than a Soviet/Russian puppet state in this TL (complete with expulsions of ethnic Poles from German territory rather than Soviet/Russian territory, unfortunately).
-Poland acquires Lebensraum after the end of World War I rather than after the end of World War II.
-The direction of the Polish Lebensraum is North rather than West.
-Germany's Polish puppets are (very likely) going to be some kind of foreign royalty (as opposed to indigenous Polish Communists).

Indeed, what exactly, if anything, am I missing here?

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#4

Post by wm » 28 Sep 2016, 01:17

After expelling millions of Poles from the Polish Border Strip by the Germans no Polish leader would be keen on cooperating with them. This and the fact that anti-German sentiments and memes were firmly established in the Polish national consciousness (as reaction to Germanisation) would ensure Poland would become firmly pro-Russians for a long time.

For the Germans it would be better to implement the idea of the Jewish ruled League of East European States, and be done with it.

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#5

Post by Futurist » 28 Sep 2016, 08:36

wm wrote:After expelling millions of Poles from the Polish Border Strip by the Germans no Polish leader would be keen on cooperating with them.
What about some imported Polish leader (such as some Habsburg prince), though?
This and the fact that anti-German sentiments and memes were firmly established in the Polish national consciousness (as reaction to Germanisation) would ensure Poland would become firmly pro-Russians for a long time.
Agreed; however, Germany might still very well want its Polish puppet government to have at least a little legitimacy, and transferring both Latvia and Estonia to its Polish puppet state might be a good way for Germany to do this.
For the Germans it would be better to implement the idea of the Jewish ruled League of East European States, and be done with it.
Agreed; however, do you think that most Germans would have actually been willing to support such a plan?

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#6

Post by michael mills » 29 Sep 2016, 08:55

After expelling millions of Poles from the Polish Border Strip by the Germans no Polish leader would be keen on cooperating with them. This and the fact that anti-German sentiments and memes were firmly established in the Polish national consciousness (as reaction to Germanisation) would ensure Poland would become firmly pro-Russians for a long time.
The anti-German sentiment existed only in Prussian Poland. In Austrian Poland (Galicia) there was no hostility toward the Habsburg Empire since that province was de-facto autonomous, ruled by members of the Polish aristocracy.

In Russian Poland, antipathy was directed against Russia because of the suppression of the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland after the 1830 uprising and the subsequent attempts at russification. It was only after the outbreak of war in 1914 that the Russian Imperial Government tried to win Polish sympathy by announcing an intention to restore the Kingdom of Poland in personal union with the Romanov dynasty, with the addition of German and Habsburg territories (Silesia, Posen, part of East Prussia, West Galicia).

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#7

Post by pugsville » 29 Sep 2016, 09:52

It's hard to see any viable puppet state not quickly becoming anti german.

The german influence would only last as long as massively superior German bayonets stayed to protect it.

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#8

Post by michael mills » 29 Sep 2016, 11:11

Futurist,

Any counterfactual scenario such as the one you have proposed must be consistent with the context within which historical reality occurred. That is to say, if you want to base your counterfactual scenario on the change of one historical variable to a counterfactual alternative, you must leave the other variables unchanged, otherwise you will arrive at false conclusions.

You have based your counterfactual scenario on the German invasion of France in 1914 being successful and achieving a French surrender in the same manner as in 1940. In order to analyse the likely flow-on effects of a German victory in the West in 1914, you must base your analysis on the real German war aims at the time of its declarations of war on Russia and France in August of that year.

Germany's war aims in 1914 with regard to Russia were quite different from those of 1941, when Germany did invade the Soviet Union with the intention of overthrowing the existing regime and conquering vast territories in European Russia. In 1914 Germany went to war with Russia essentially for a defensive purpose, to preserve its allies the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires from disintegration and prevent any of their territories, particularly in the Balkans, from falling under the domination of an expansionist Russia in which Pan-Slav elements had become very influential within its government.

The German Government had no intention of dismantling the Russian Empire, which it regarded as a stabilising force in Eastern Europe, a conservative power that kept a lid on the radical nationalisms of the various Eastern European ethnic groups that were often very hostile to each other. Germany's interest was in preserving the Russian Imperial Government under the Romanov dynasty, provided that it could be freed from the influence of the Pan-Slav elements and returned to the position of friendliness toward Germany that had typified Russian foreign policy for most of the 19th Century.

Germany's aim in fighting Russia in 1914 was first to render it incapable of threatening the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires by inflicting a heavy military defeat on it, and secondly to break it away from its alliance with France, which in German eyes was an unnatural situation. In that regard Tsar Nicholas II was considered by the German rulers to be less anti-German than his father Alexander II, who had wanted to break Germany up into its component parts and had consented to the unnatural alliance with a radical France primarily for that purpose. Nicholas was seen as having agreed only reluctantly to committing Russia to war with Germany and the Habsburg Empire, essentially pushed into it by the Pan-Slav elements in his Government who had previously thwarted his efforts to enter into an alliance with Germany.

Thus, Germany's aim in 1914 was not to overthrow the Russian Empire or seize territory from it, but rather to force it to abandon Pan-Slavism and its expansionist ambitions against the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, and also to turn away from its alliances with France and Britain and instead ally itself with the Central Powers to maintain the status quo in Eastern Europe and keep rogue states like Serbia in check.

Germany's essential aim of maintaining the status quo in Eastern Europe is shown by the fact that even after conquering extensive Russian territories in 1915 (Russian Poland, Lithuania, Kurland), its policy was to use them as bargaining chips for negotiating a separate peace with Russia. If that separate peace had been achieved, it is highly likely that Germany would have returned most if not all of the occupied territory to a Russia that had abandoned its expansionist ambitions in the Balkans and Anatolia.

It was only in late 1916, when Germany realised that a separate peace with Russia could not be reached due to the dominance of the anti-Russian Pan-Slav elements in the Imperial Russian Government that it changed its policy and decided to hang on to the occupied Russian territories and promote their separate existence under pro-German governments formed from non-Russian population groups. That changed policy became firmer after the overthrow of the Imperial Government and its replacement by a Provisional Government that was strongly committed to the alliance with Britain and France and resolved to continue the war against Germany.

However, even after the peace settlement with Soviet Russia reached at Brest-Litovsk, the German Government retained the option of invading Russia after defeating Britain and France on the Western Front in early 1918, for the purpose of overthrowing the Bolshevik regime and restoring a pro-German variant of the Russian Imperial Government. If the German offensive in the West in March 1918 had been successful and had forced Britain and France to agree to a negotiated peace, it is likely that Germany would have followed the option of overthrowing the Bolshevik regime and restoring the Romanov dynasty.

Thus, the counterfactual scenario proposed by you is unrealistic. If Germany had defeated France in 1914 and then gone on to defeat Russia, the most likely outcome would have been a negotiated peace between the Russian Empire and the Central Powers in which Russia would have retained its territory, except for some minor adjustments such as the cession of a relatively narrow border strip along its frontier with Germany, subject to its restructuring its government to exclude the influence of Pan-Slavic and expansionist elements, and entering into a closer relationship with the Central Powers.

In the above scenario it is extremely unlikely that Germany would have considered creating an independent Poland; its aim was always to have the turbulent Poles kept under firm control by a Russia friendly to Germany, ie a return to the situation that had obtained through most of the 19th Century. Germany only began to consider the resurrection of a Polish state in late 1916, once it had become obvious that a separate peace with Russia could not be obtained. It is noteworthy that when such a peace was obtained with the new Bolshevik rulers of Russia in March 1918, Germany consistently favoured other peoples such as the Ukrainians and Lithuanians to the disadvantage of the Poles, eg giving the Vilnius region to the Lithuanians and the Chelm region to the Ukrainians, both regions claimed by the Poles and having large ethnic Polish populations .

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#9

Post by michael mills » 29 Sep 2016, 11:21

What about some imported Polish leader (such as some Habsburg prince), though?
Or Pilsudski.

He no doubt would not have objected to the transfer of three million Poles from the region bordering Germany to the Kresy east of the Congress Kingdom. Such a resettlement would have greatly strengthened the ethnic Polish presence in what are now Belarus and Lithuania, and bolstered the Polish claim to those territories.

Pilsudski's aim was always expansion to the East, which was his homeland after all, and was far less interested in the western part of Poland. It is entirely possible that he would have agreed to cede some territory in the West to Germany in order to gain territory in the East.

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#10

Post by wm » 29 Sep 2016, 20:42

It's like the nineteenth-century Americans giving away New York for the promise of expansion into Mexico - it was only possible under extreme duress. The Polish resistance was a grass-root movement, no Polish leaders was strong enough to boss the Poles around like that.
Especially that at that time the German partition was the spiritual center of resistance, and inspired the others.
It was the first and oldest Polish cultural and political center, it was the best developed part of Poland, later called because of that Polish Belgium. The people leaving there were influential and had the means to be influential. They would derail that.
At that time the unofficial Polish anthem flatly stated: "To the last blood drop in our veins, We will defend our Spirit, Till into dust and ash shall fall, The Teutonic Order's windstorm", "The German won't spit in our face, Nor Germanise our children", "So help us God!".
And it was very popular in Galicia, it was first performed there.

Even more, the Germans actually consulted some Polish leaders about that Border Strip project, including the most pro-German ever Władysław Studnicki, and their answer was "no".

I think it should be added the Polish Border Strip wasn't going to be cleansed from the Poles, as Wikipedia claims. It was going to be annexed, some versions of the plan postulated a gradual buy-out scheme of all Polish property. So this was the plan Studnicki objected not some ethnic cleansing.
BTW this shows the Wilhelmine Germans weren't some kind of proto-Nazis, they enjoyed, maybe flawed, democratic rule, there had political parties there - they were not going mindlessly annex and ethnically cleanse left and right.

Of course in the case of a total German victory most likely there would be a Polish puppet state, and Studnicki or someone else would be its leader but it would be a weak and internally divided one, like today's Irak - nominally grateful but not really.
It wasn't the first time it happened, in every case it was terminated by a national uprising.

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#11

Post by michael mills » 30 Sep 2016, 00:27

The Polish resistance was a grass-root movement, no Polish leaders was strong enough to boss the Poles around like that.
After Pilsudski seized power in 1926 he was able to boss the Poles around without too much difficulty. He crushed his opponents in the western part of Poland, the elements that were most anti-German, and threw many of them into prison. The great anti-German hero, Korfanty, was imprisoned in the Brest-Litovsk fortress and then forced into exile like other anti-German leaders such as Paderewski and Sikorski.

When Pilsudski seized power, some of the political leaders in the former German territories, in particular the National Democrats, for a time began planning to rebel and secede from Poland because they feared that he would give those territories back to Germany. In the event the planned uprising did not go ahead because Pilsudski made no move to return territory to Germany, largely because the German Government was so implacably hostile.

But after Hitler reversed the anti-Polish policy of his predecessors and achieved détente with Poland, the situation changed. Who knows what Pilsudski would have done if his health had not declined and he had not died in 1935 but had lived into his seventies.

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#12

Post by Futurist » 30 Sep 2016, 21:53

michael mills wrote:Futurist,

Any counterfactual scenario such as the one you have proposed must be consistent with the context within which historical reality occurred. That is to say, if you want to base your counterfactual scenario on the change of one historical variable to a counterfactual alternative, you must leave the other variables unchanged, otherwise you will arrive at false conclusions.
Completely agreed.
You have based your counterfactual scenario on the German invasion of France in 1914 being successful and achieving a French surrender in the same manner as in 1940. In order to analyse the likely flow-on effects of a German victory in the West in 1914, you must base your analysis on the real German war aims at the time of its declarations of war on Russia and France in August of that year.
Yes; correct!

Indeed, here is what German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg said (or wrote) about Russia during the July Crisis back in 1914:

https://books.google.com/books?id=AvfBT ... ws&f=false
Germany's war aims in 1914 with regard to Russia were quite different from those of 1941, when Germany did invade the Soviet Union with the intention of overthrowing the existing regime and conquering vast territories in European Russia. In 1914 Germany went to war with Russia essentially for a defensive purpose, to preserve its allies the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires from disintegration and prevent any of their territories, particularly in the Balkans, from falling under the domination of an expansionist Russia in which Pan-Slav elements had become very influential within its government.
Yes, that was certainly a large part of the German war aims back in 1914. However, if what Bethmann Hollweg said (or wrote) above is any indication, Germany also appears to have been concerned by Russia's growing economic and military power. Indeed, based on demographics and population alone, unless Germany stripped Russia of massive amounts of its population, Russia would still eventually dominate Europe even if/after Germany defeated it in World War I.
The German Government had no intention of dismantling the Russian Empire, which it regarded as a stabilising force in Eastern Europe, a conservative power that kept a lid on the radical nationalisms of the various Eastern European ethnic groups that were often very hostile to each other. Germany's interest was in preserving the Russian Imperial Government under the Romanov dynasty, provided that it could be freed from the influence of the Pan-Slav elements and returned to the position of friendliness toward Germany that had typified Russian foreign policy for most of the 19th Century.
What about the fear of an eventual Russian domination of Europe (due to Russia's sheer advantage in population and demographics), though?
Germany's aim in fighting Russia in 1914 was first to render it incapable of threatening the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires by inflicting a heavy military defeat on it, and secondly to break it away from its alliance with France, which in German eyes was an unnatural situation. In that regard Tsar Nicholas II was considered by the German rulers to be less anti-German than his father Alexander II, who had wanted to break Germany up into its component parts and had consented to the unnatural alliance with a radical France primarily for that purpose. Nicholas was seen as having agreed only reluctantly to committing Russia to war with Germany and the Habsburg Empire, essentially pushed into it by the Pan-Slav elements in his Government who had previously thwarted his efforts to enter into an alliance with Germany.
Again, what about the fear of an eventual Russian domination of Europe?
Thus, Germany's aim in 1914 was not to overthrow the Russian Empire or seize territory from it, but rather to force it to abandon Pan-Slavism and its expansionist ambitions against the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, and also to turn away from its alliances with France and Britain and instead ally itself with the Central Powers to maintain the status quo in Eastern Europe and keep rogue states like Serbia in check.
Yes, that was certainly a large part of the German war aims back in 1914. However, couldn't even a friendly Russia eventually try asserting itself and domination Europe due to its sheer advantage in population and demographics (something that will eventually result in Russia becoming the largest economy in Europe)?
Germany's essential aim of maintaining the status quo in Eastern Europe is shown by the fact that even after conquering extensive Russian territories in 1915 (Russian Poland, Lithuania, Kurland), its policy was to use them as bargaining chips for negotiating a separate peace with Russia. If that separate peace had been achieved, it is highly likely that Germany would have returned most if not all of the occupied territory to a Russia that had abandoned its expansionist ambitions in the Balkans and Anatolia.
Context is crucial here, though. Indeed, in 1915-1916, Germany wanted to eliminate one of the fronts in World War I and thus was willing to make compromises to shut down one of these fronts.

However, a separate peace with Russia in 1915 or 1916 certainly wouldn't have prevented Germany from going to war with Russia in the future in order to try putting Russia down a notch.

Plus, Germany certainly wouldn't have been in such a desperate situation in 1915-1916 in this scenario due to the fact that it would have already achieved military victory on the Western Front; indeed, in this scenario, what exactly would the incentive for Germany be to go soft on Russia?
It was only in late 1916, when Germany realised that a separate peace with Russia could not be reached due to the dominance of the anti-Russian Pan-Slav elements in the Imperial Russian Government that it changed its policy and decided to hang on to the occupied Russian territories and promote their separate existence under pro-German governments formed from non-Russian population groups. That changed policy became firmer after the overthrow of the Imperial Government and its replacement by a Provisional Government that was strongly committed to the alliance with Britain and France and resolved to continue the war against Germany.
Yes, this appears to be correct!

However, again, it is worth noting that, unlike in real life, Germany certainly wouldn't be desperate to achieve a separate peace with Russia in this scenario (as in, in my scenario here) due to the fact that Germany has already defeated France and essentially won the war in the West.
However, even after the peace settlement with Soviet Russia reached at Brest-Litovsk, the German Government retained the option of invading Russia after defeating Britain and France on the Western Front in early 1918, for the purpose of overthrowing the Bolshevik regime and restoring a pro-German variant of the Russian Imperial Government. If the German offensive in the West in March 1918 had been successful and had forced Britain and France to agree to a negotiated peace, it is likely that Germany would have followed the option of overthrowing the Bolshevik regime and restoring the Romanov dynasty.
Yes--either restoring the Romanov dynasty or putting some other pro-German ruler in power in Russia. However, being willing to overthrow the Bolsheviks (who were a potential threat to Germany due to their calls for international workers' revolution(s)) doesn't necessarily mean that Germany was willing to return any--let alone most or all--of its newly conquered Eastern territories back to Russia. Indeed, returning these territories to Russia would significantly increase Russia's population and would certainly result in a much greater Russian threat to Germany in the future (after all, even a friendly Russia can become more assertive once its massive population results in it becoming the largest economy and military power in Europe).
Thus, the counterfactual scenario proposed by you is unrealistic. If Germany had defeated France in 1914 and then gone on to defeat Russia, the most likely outcome would have been a negotiated peace between the Russian Empire and the Central Powers in which Russia would have retained its territory, except for some minor adjustments such as the cession of a relatively narrow border strip along its frontier with Germany, subject to its restructuring its government to exclude the influence of Pan-Slavic and expansionist elements, and entering into a closer relationship with the Central Powers.
That would have probably been very risky for Germany and the other Central Powers in the long(er)-run, though. After all, even with such a peace, Russia's sheer demographic and population advantage would have eventually resulted in Russia becoming the largest economic and military power in Europe and thus very possibly resulted in Russia trying to dominate all of Europe. Indeed, a Russian domination of all of Europe might certainly be a "nightmare" for Germany!

(Also, to put things into perspective, it is worth noting that, even after its extremely massive demographic devastation during the 20th century in real life and even after the loss of its empire, Russia currently still has an almost two-fold population advantage over Germany--something like 146 million people for Russia to 80 million people for Germany. Now, imagine how much worse this situation would have been for Germany had Russia kept its empire and avoided the extremely massive demographic devastation that it endured during the 20th century!)
In the above scenario it is extremely unlikely that Germany would have considered creating an independent Poland; its aim was always to have the turbulent Poles kept under firm control by a Russia friendly to Germany, ie a return to the situation that had obtained through most of the 19th Century.
Wouldn't that have resulted in East Prussia's position continuing to be very vulnerable, though?
Germany only began to consider the resurrection of a Polish state in late 1916, once it had become obvious that a separate peace with Russia could not be obtained.
Yes; correct! However, since the war in the West would already essentially be won in 1914-1915 in this scenario, Germany would almost certainly be much less willing to make a generous peace with Russia in this scenario than it was in real life.
It is noteworthy that when such a peace was obtained with the new Bolshevik rulers of Russia in March 1918, Germany consistently favoured other peoples such as the Ukrainians and Lithuanians to the disadvantage of the Poles, eg giving the Vilnius region to the Lithuanians and the Chelm region to the Ukrainians, both regions claimed by the Poles and having large ethnic Polish populations .
OK; however, please keep in mind that Germany's leadership might have a bit of a different mentality in this scenario (in comparison to the mentality that it had in real life).

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#13

Post by Futurist » 30 Sep 2016, 21:54

michael mills wrote:
What about some imported Polish leader (such as some Habsburg prince), though?
Or Pilsudski.

He no doubt would not have objected to the transfer of three million Poles from the region bordering Germany to the Kresy east of the Congress Kingdom. Such a resettlement would have greatly strengthened the ethnic Polish presence in what are now Belarus and Lithuania, and bolstered the Polish claim to those territories.

Pilsudski's aim was always expansion to the East, which was his homeland after all, and was far less interested in the western part of Poland. It is entirely possible that he would have agreed to cede some territory in the West to Germany in order to gain territory in the East.
Where would Pilsudski have preferred to acquire Eastern Lebensraum for Poles, though? In what is now Belarus? In what is now Lithuania? In what is now Latvia and/or Estonia?

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#14

Post by wm » 01 Oct 2016, 01:49

michael mills wrote:After Pilsudski seized power in 1926 he was able to boss the Poles around without too much difficulty.
Not quite. He seized power because his opponents laid down their arms prematurely, as they didn't want to shed Polish blood in fratricidal war - and they had the means to shed lots of it. But they were responsible people. So they didn't.

Korfanty and others was imprisoned for plotting to overthrow government using violent means. And actually there were plotting. They were forced into exile, but their followers stayed, there were lots of them and they were angry sobs. They carried out a mass strike in 1937 (mass like in a few million people taking part), 44 people was killed. They were going to repeat that in 1938 - only better. But international politics intervened, Czechoslovakia and all that, so their leaders disengage from conflict. Again because they were responsible people.

Yes, Piłsudski and his successors were able to arrest many National Democrats, but as a rule they had to release them quickly. And the arrests made the NDs stronger, not weaker.

So it wasn't like Piłsudski and his successors could do as they pleased. They were able to stay in power so long because they didn't do as they pleased.

Poland wasn't going to annex anything because most people didn't want that, and because Polish politicians were more or less responsible persons, focused on internal conflicts and problems. Actually Poland wasn't even able to make good use of the territory she had.
michael mills wrote:But after Hitler reversed the anti-Polish policy of his predecessors and achieved détente with Poland, the situation changed. Who knows what Pilsudski would have done if his health had not declined and he had not died in 1935 but had lived into his seventies.
It's known perfectly as his associates left lots of memoirs. His only thought was security of Poland, as he assumed the nonaggression pacts with Germany and the USSR would eventually fail. He didn't expect them to last long.

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Re: Germany Wins WWI; German-Puppet Poland Annexes Latvia & Estonia

#15

Post by michael mills » 01 Oct 2016, 03:14

It's known perfectly as his associates left lots of memoirs.
So they did. But how truthful were those memoirs?

For example, the biography of Pilsudski by his widow was composed in the middle of the Second World War, in a situation where it was politically necessary to present him as resolutely opposed to Germany. However, that is not how Pilsudski's opponents saw him before he seized power; rather, they saw him as a person who was prepared to do a deal with Germany in order to leave his hands free to pursue his aim of eastward expansion, and would be prepared to return territory to that country.

Those views of Pilsudski by his Polish opponents mirrored those of Harry Graf Kessler, the man who negotiated Pilsudski's release from detention in Magdeburg and return to Poland in November 1918. Kessler considered, on the basis of his negotiations with Pilsudski in Magdeburg, that the latter would be prepared to leave at least West Prussia under German sovereignty and would be satisfied with Polish access to a free port in Danzig as its access to the sea.

Pilsudski's return to Poland was based on a German calculation that a Poland under his rule would be friendlier to Germany than one under the rule of Dmowski's Polish National Committee based in Paris and bound to the Entente. It is significant that Germany was the first country to recognise Pilsudski as the Polish Head of State and his government based in Warsaw as the legitimate government of an independent Polish State.

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