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

[wm]

So they did. But how truthful were those memoirs?

People generally improve their own biographies, usually at the expense of their associates.
A group of people capable of maintaining a secret for long happens mainly in Hollywood movies.
It's rather well known what he was doing in his last years, mainly playing cards and ogling attractive women. So we can extrapolate that a longer life span means more cards and more ogling.
Really, people had lives then, there had better things to do than thinking about Lebensraum all the time.


It would be nice if people listen to what the German ambassador wrote about the Poles in 1939:

The greatest part of the Polish intelligentsia comes from classes which before and during the Great War fought the revolutionary struggle against the so called Partition Powers.

They consider themselves the mainstay of Polish nationalism and for the Polish State, and their national revolutionary tradition has filled them with a national fanaticism which is not easily shaken by hostile propaganda.
The great landowners and the upper middle class, though too unimportant in numbers to be reckoned as a special factor, are intimately connected with French culture and therefore do not far short of the rest of the intelligentsia in their dislike of Germany.

The Polish workmen, who live in very poor social conditions, are mostly Marxians.

You can't do Lebensraum if your country is built on socialist revolutionary ideas and French culture.

Even more, the very idea that a small country could expand at the expense of an opponent ten times stronger was/is laughable. Especially if the opponent was as internally cohesive as Russia or Germany. Some part of Russia, with non-Russian population could have brexited itself, but nothing more. The Russian core wasn't going to shatter. And the core itself was huge and powerful. They knew that.

The Poles could have easily enlarged their country in Brest-Litovsk, the Soviets were willing. But they didn't.

Similarly, In a puppetized Poland all the energy would be directed at freeing the country - not spent on annexations. It was like that in the ninetieth century, and during the communist rule.

[Futurist]

The Poles could have easily enlarged their country in Brest-Litovsk, the Soviets were willing. But they didn't.

Didn't the Soviets offer Minsk to the Poles in 1921, with the Poles rejecting this Soviet offer?

[wm]

Piłsudski generally wanted more territory, although not for Lebensraum but for the "Chinese Wall" of semi-independent states he wanted to create there.
His opponents didn't like his idea at all and simply out-voted him - gave away Minsk making a Belorussian country impossible. And gave away Ukrainian territories making an Ukrainian country pointless.

[Futurist]

Piłsudski generally wanted more territory, although not for Lebensraum but for the "Chinese Wall" of semi-independent states he wanted to create there.
His opponents didn't like his idea at all and simply out-voted him - gave away Minsk making a Belorussian country impossible. And gave away Ukrainian territories making an Ukrainian country pointless.

Out-voted him in the Polish Cabinet?

[michael mills]

The Poles could have easily enlarged their country in Brest-Litovsk, the Soviets were willing. But they didn't.

Do you mean Riga in 1921?

One of the leaders of the Polish delegation to the Riga peace conference was a National Democrat, I forget his name. He was instrumental in limiting the amount of territory Poland took in the East, since the National Democrat policy was to expand in the West, into what they regarded as ancient Polish territory, eg Pomerania, Silesia, rather than to the East, which they regarded as being historically Lithuanian rather than Polish territory.

The National Democrats were the main proponents of the Piast Tendency, and considered the Jagiellonian union of Poland and Lithuania to have been a historical error that had led to an emphasis on eastward expansion (the Jagiellonian Tendency) at the expense of retaining territory in the west, which was lost to Bohemian and German rulers.

In 1921 Pilsudski was not as powerful as he later became, he was only the commander of the armed forces, and the Polish Government was dominated by the National Democrats and other political groups opposed to him. Thus, the opponents of eastward expansion were able to overrule him.

[michael mills]

It's rather well known what he was doing in his last years, mainly playing cards and ogling attractive women.

Sounds a bit like me, except that I spend my time posting on this forum rather than playing cards.

[wm]

It was Pyramid Solitaire - a clean, inexpensive, and yet addictive fun.

The opponents of Piłsudski had a majority in the parliament, so they stuffed the delegation to Riga (not Brest-Litovsk of course ) with their own people - as it's usually done.
The man who personally took care of Minsk was Grabski.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

Why would they expel Poles/Slavs from the Border Strip of Congress Poland if IRL they had not expelled those from Prussia's eastern provinces? And what's the point of expelling only Poles/Slavs from the newly annexed border strip, but not those who lived within pre-1914 borders of Germany? Either all or nothing - I don't understand why would they want such a "partial solution".

[wm]

They didn't plan an expulsion but (at worst) a "buyout".
The idea was to create a wall, which would prevent the Poles on its both sides from scheming together. The main goal was to create a more defensible border on the East.

[Piotr Kapuscinski]

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).

Interestingly, it seems that ethnic Poles from Kresy were descended mostly from indigenous Baltic and East Slavic population which became Polonized, rather than being overwhelmingly of immigrant descent. Modern genetics seems to confirm this. For example here I have genetic ancestry results of an ethnically Polish person from Szczecin, whose family came from North-Eastern Poland after WW2:

Single Population Sharing (= which of modern populations are genetically closest to him):

# Population (source) Distance
1 Belarusian 3.01
2 Lithuanian 5.68
3 Polish 6.15
4 Mordovian 6.51
5 Russian 6.6
6 Karelian 7.45
7 Finnish 7.75
8 Swedish 9.66
9 Norwegian 12.03
10 North_German 12.93
(...)

Mixed Mode Population Sharing (= hypothetical modelling as a mix of two populations):

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 90.3% Lithuanian + 9.7% Ashkenazy_Jew @ 2.11
2 90.6% Lithuanian + 9.4% Sicilian @ 2.13
3 88.4% Lithuanian + 11.6% Albanian @ 2.14
4 86% Lithuanian + 14% Montenegrin @ 2.16
5 91.1% Lithuanian + 8.9% Sephardic_Jew @ 2.18
6 72.5% Lithuanian + 27.5% Austrian @ 2.19
(...)

===============================

By contrast, my results look like this (I am native to Greater Poland, or West-Central Poland):

Single Population Sharing:

# Population(source) Distance

1 Polish 2.06
2 Swedish 4.03
3 Norwegian 6.35
4 North_German 6.79
5 Belarusian 7.58
6 Slovenian 7.94
7 Scottish 8.18
8 Austrian 8.36
9 Orcadian 8.57
10 Irish 8.96
11 Russian 9.03
12 Hungarian 9.25
13 Mordovian 9.39
14 English 9.55
15 Karelian 10
16 Finnish 11.06
17 Lithuanian 11.07
18 Croatian 11.26
19 Utahn_White 12.85
20 South_German 13.53

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

# Primary Population (source) Secondary Population (source) Distance
1 55.3% Irish + 44.7% Lithuanian @ 1.31
2 97.2% Polish + 2.8% Lezgin @ 1.32
3 97.1% Polish + 2.9% Chechen @ 1.37
4 97.3% Polish + 2.7% Balkar @ 1.37
5 97.5% Polish + 2.5% North_Ossetian @ 1.38
6 97.8% Polish + 2.2% Abkhasian @ 1.39
7 97.4% Polish + 2.6% Kumyk @ 1.4
8 98% Polish + 2% Georgian @ 1.41
9 97.8% Polish + 2.2% Armenian @ 1.5
10 97.7% Polish + 2.3% Turk_Istanbul @ 1.5
11 97.8% Polish + 2.2% Iranian @ 1.52
12 97.8% Polish + 2.2% Azerbaijani @ 1.52
13 98% Polish + 2% Turk_Trabzon @ 1.53
14 97.9% Polish + 2.1% Assyrian @ 1.54
15 97.8% Polish + 2.2% Kurdish @ 1.55
16 97.7% Polish + 2.3% Turk_Kayseri @ 1.56
17 97.4% Polish + 2.6% Nogai @ 1.57
18 98.3% Polish + 1.7% Makrani @ 1.61
19 98.1% Polish + 1.9% Druze @ 1.63
20 90% Polish + 10% Croatian @ 1.64

=====================

On the other hand, when I compare my results with results of a native Upper Silesian guy, we are very similar. Except that he seems to be more Southern European genetically and I am more Northern European genetically (but less than Kashubians or Lithuanians).

In "Single Population Sharing" that Upper Silesian usually guy gets "South Polish" first.

Which shows that native Upper Silesians are genetically most closely related to Lesser Poles - not to Czechs or Sorbs.

I saw some Lesser Polish results and they usually get a lot of Southern European too.

=====================

In DNA Land, I get the following: 55% North-Eastern Europe + 36% North-Western Europe + 9,5% Southern Europe.
That Silesian gets the following: 54% North-Eastern Europe + 27% North-Western Europe + 19% Southern Europe.

A native Kashubian guy gets: 66% North-Eastern Europe + 32% North-Western Europe + 2% Ambiguous admixture.

DNA Land: https://dna.land

[Futurist]

Why would they expel Poles/Slavs from the Border Strip of Congress Poland if IRL they had not expelled those from Prussia's eastern provinces? And what's the point of expelling only Poles/Slavs from the newly annexed border strip, but not those who lived within pre-1914 borders of Germany? Either all or nothing - I don't understand why would they want such a "partial solution".

Do you actually think that Imperial Germany would be willing to expel (and presumably de-naturalize) its own citizens simply due to their ethnicity?

Indeed, at least with the Polish Border Strip Imperial Germany would be able to first expel the Poles and Jews who live there and then give German citizenship to the very few people (probably ethnic Germans) who will remain in the Polish Border Strip. In contrast, expelling and de-naturalizing German citizens solely due to their ethnicity would probably (and thankfully) be unacceptable for Imperial Germany to do.

[Futurist]

They didn't plan an expulsion but (at worst) a "buyout".

Can you please elaborate on this part, wm?

The idea was to create a wall, which would prevent the Poles on its both sides from scheming together. The main goal was to create a more defensible border on the East.

You mean a "demographic wall," correct?

[wm]

It wasn't a single, well defined plan, there were lots of non-conclusive discussions. So it's rather impossible to say it was a demographic, security or some other wall.
The main goal was a better defense. Then they assumed it had to be done legally, in accordance with international law and German law. So there would be a peace treaty with Russia which would give them that strip, the land would be bought legally.
It was a Ludendorff's demand that some Poles (mainly landowners) were to be removed. The workers, especially farmhands were going to stay. Without them East Germany simply wouldn't survive.
The money was a problem, it was unrealistic to assume that the parliament would allocate any, and they needed some for German settlers too - mainly from Russia. One available source was Russia government properties (mainly land) in the strip. I suppose they the idea was to sell them.
As it was obvious the Poles wouldn't sell their land unless offered exorbitant prices the plan was to use government's power of eminent domain (for military use - mainly training grounds, yes really) which would allow to buy them at market price.