Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#16

Post by wm » 25 Jan 2019, 20:24

A true Polish port was needed to receive French convoys with military supplies for Poland promised by the 1921 Franco-Polish alliance.
During the Polish-Soviet War Danzig blocked French supplies (it was actually German communists if I'm not mistaken) and Czechoslovakia did the same.
This is why access to the sea was so important, in case of war with Garmany or the USSR it was the only (however meager) route to the outside world.

---
Poles were able to freely visit Danzig but were foreigners there like everybody else.

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#17

Post by Futurist » 26 Jan 2019, 04:35

Why did Czechoslovakia block supplies to Poland? Due to the Teschen dispute?

Also, completely agreed with you about the importance of Polish access to the sea.


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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#18

Post by Futurist » 26 Jan 2019, 05:21

Also, off-topic, but is your username "wm" short for "Wilhelm"?

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#19

Post by Sid Guttridge » 26 Jan 2019, 12:52

Hi wm,

Yup, German Communist dockers in Danzig blocked the landing of French military equipment for Poland during its war with the USSR in the early 1920s and this gave the Poles, with much French money, the incentive to begin the construction of Gdynia shortly afterwards.

Cheers,

Sid


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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#21

Post by wm » 26 Jan 2019, 14:28

Futurist wrote:Why did Czechoslovakia block supplies to Poland? Due to the Teschen dispute?
The Czech socialists declared their support for the Soviets and that resulted in constant anti-Polish railway strikes.
The government was unwilling to do anything about it because they wanted to force Poland to recognize their conquest.

But after Poland did this, they still were unwilling because anti-Polish sentiments among the Czechs were very high, and they believed Poland was not going to survive anyway.

Futurist wrote:Also, off-topic, but is your username "wm" short for "Wilhelm"?
Just initials reflecting my minimalist tendencies. You should see my email address, it's a letter longer than the shortest possible...

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#22

Post by Futurist » 02 Feb 2019, 19:31

If you don't mind me asking, what is your e-mail address, wm?

As for the Czech socialists, weren't they afraid that the Soviet Union would conquer them next if it would have successfully conquered Poland? Or did they actually want to be conquered by the Soviet Union?

Also, do you think that the western Upper Silesians would have been much more willing to accept Polish rule in 1919 than the Masurians would have been had both of western Upper Silesia and Masuria ended up becoming a part of Poland in 1919?

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#23

Post by wm » 17 Feb 2019, 23:10

The Red Army was incapable of conquering Czechoslovakia as earlier was incapable of conquering Romania and Hungary. Czech generals certainly knew that.
The Soviets weren't especially eager to conquer anyway, their doctrine said proletarian revolutions in sufficiently developed capitalist countries would do the fighting for them, and then they eventually would be asked for help.

Silesia and Masuria were very different places and the people were different too. Most Silesians probably never saw Masuria and didn't care about its existence.

Of course, it's w@wm and the last part isn't pl.

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#24

Post by Steve » 18 Feb 2019, 06:07

There had been a mini war between Poland and Czechoslovakia in early 1919 so relations were not good. Czechoslovakia declared neutrality in the Polish Soviet conflict on August 10 1920 so it then had a valid reason not to allow munitions to cross its territory. Edvard Benes Czechoslovakia’s foreign minister though that Poland should not include areas in the east that were not ethnically Polish. The reasoning being that inclusion of such areas in Poland would lead to future problems with Russia which would help Germany. Benes wanted East Galicia to stay out of Polish hands because a land link with Russia would facilitate Czechoslovakian trade and also because Russia was thought of as a future ally. Later Czechoslovakia did sign a military aid agreement with the USSR but the lack of a land link made the delivery of aid very problematic.

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#25

Post by wm » 18 Feb 2019, 21:51

Did Czechoslovakia have a valid reason to declare neutrality?
They had the right to declare anything they wanted, and pursue any goals they desired, and had the "right" to suffer consequences of their actions.

By declaring hostility towards Poland they sealed their fate in 1938.
But maybe it was a good thing. The Sudeten Crisis wasn't a good hill to die on.
That the Poles would have had to die by hundreds of thousands just to deny the Sudeten German the right of self-determination is a horrible thought.

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#26

Post by Sid Guttridge » 19 Feb 2019, 17:15

Hi wm,

But we now know it wasn't "just to deny the Sudeten German the right of self-determination".

Some six million Polish citizens died in WWII.

By that measure a preemptive war that only cost "hundreds of thousands" looks rather a good deal.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of Czechoslovak-Polish border disputes, there is little doubt that during the Munich Crisis Poland so much forgot the bigger Nazi threat (which finally caught up with it a year later) that it wasn't simply neutral, but was, in effect if not officially, a fellow-traveller of Germany.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#27

Post by wm » 20 Feb 2019, 01:10

The Sudeten German genuinely wanted to rejoin their Fatherland and were ready to die trying. That many of them were "icky" nationalists or fascists doesn't change the fact that icky people have the same rights as so-called good guys.
They simply demanded to be granted the same right others were enjoying.

Poland and Germany signed a non-aggression pact, so the war in defense of Czechoslovakia would be an act of aggression and treachery. The pact made an exception for existing defense alliances, so Poland could have waged war in defense of France, but not in defense of Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia didn't want to fight, never ask Poland for help, refused all Polish offers of an alliance.
You can't help people who don't want to be helped and don't want to fight - it was as simple as that.

A Visegrád Group like defensive alliance was the main political goal of Poland all the time.
The Czechs were solely responsible for that a pre-war Visegrád Group never materialized.
What happened in 1938 was solely the Czech leaders' fault. And in 1938 it was as you make your bed so you must lie in it for them.

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#28

Post by Steve » 20 Feb 2019, 05:00

From the Czech point of view a Polish victory that meant all of Galicia going to Poland was not a desired result. Declaring itself neutral meant Czechoslovakia had international law behind it when not allowing military supplies to cross its territory. I expect the Ukrainian population of Galicia was grateful for how Czechoslovakia tried to help them. However, the Czechs do seem to have obtained Teschen in 1919 by devious means and you can understand the Poles harbouring a grudge over this and the passage of military supplies.

The Poles came to the conclusion that France would not fight over the Sudetenland so therefore Hitler would get what he wanted. If Czechoslovakia was going to be dismembered then now was the time to get Teschen back. As shown in previous posts the Poles coordinated their actions with Germany. One reason the Czechs were not interested in an alliance with Poland is because they always expected that Germany would look to revise its border with Poland. To enter an alliance with Poland could mean being drawn into a war between Poland and Germany.

The Sudetenland had never been part of Germany and it seems the Czechs never expected Germany to make the demands it did. The Austrian Germans living in the Sudetenland had at the end of WW1 wanted to stay with Austria. The German deputies in the Reichsrat proclaimed on October 21 1918 that the German parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia belonged to the German Austrian state.

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#29

Post by Sid Guttridge » 20 Feb 2019, 15:48

Hi wm,

You post, "The Sudeten German genuinely wanted to rejoin their Fatherland....." . Most, but it wasn't a matter of rejoining, but joining. Their old fatherland had been Imperial Austria, not Imperial Germany.

You post, "..... and were ready to die trying." Well, they didn't demonstrate that in September 1938. The Czechs successfully suppressed their attempted uprising with only a few hundred casualties, yet several tens of thousands of Sudeten Germans fled to Germany rather than "die trying". Certainly most Sudeten Germans wanted to join the Reich, but let's not over romanticize the sacrifices they were willing to make for this, especially when their life expectancy was actually slightly higher under the Czechoslovaks than was the case inside Hitler's Reich! (See the Reich Yearbook for 1940)

You post, "They simply demanded to be granted the same right others were enjoying." Actually, they had more rights as individuals under Czechoslovakia than they did in Germany by 1938. Most were, however, apparently prepared to trade these in for anschluss with Hitler's Reich.

You post, "Poland and Germany signed a non-aggression pact, so the war in defense of Czechoslovakia would be an act of aggression and treachery. The pact made an exception for existing defense alliances, so Poland could have waged war in defense of France, but not in defense of Czechoslovakia." This just shows how successfully Germany had restricted Poland's options in 1934.

You post, "Czechoslovakia didn't want to fight.....". True, but that doesn't mean they weren't prepared to, as they demonstrated not only against the Germans in September 1938, but against the Hungarians and Poles over the following winter in Ruthenia and northern Slovakia.

You post, "You can't help people who don't want to be helped". True, but this just shows that the Poles and Czechoslovaks were both stubborn and short sighted.

If "What happened in 1938 was solely the Czech leaders' fault" then by the same logic September 1939 was solely the Polish leaders' fault. Don't you think that Hitler's aggression might merit just the tiniest bit of responsibility for both?

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Had Poland received East Prussia, Danzig, and eastern Pomeria in 1919, how many Poles would've moved there?

#30

Post by wm » 21 Feb 2019, 00:02

Sid Guttridge wrote: Their old fatherland had been Imperial Austria, not Imperial Germany.
Of course, you are right their old fatherland had been Imperial Austria. But in fact, they joined their Austria which was part of Germany in 1938.

Sid Guttridge wrote:Well, they didn't demonstrate that in September 1938. The Czechs successfully suppressed their attempted uprising with only a few hundred casualties,
Don't you think that a few hundred casualties in such a short time are actually a lot?
Against the regular army with their machine guns, artillery, motorized transport, and an endless supply of ammo folks with rifles are basically defenseless. They only could have tried partisan warfare and the Sudetenland was too small for that. Fleeing was their best option.
Polish reporters toured the Sudetenland a few days before Munich and were actually amazed and frightened by those people determination.

Sid Guttridge wrote:You post, "They simply demanded to be granted the same right others were enjoying." Actually, they had more rights as individuals under Czechoslovakia than they did in Germany by 1938. Most were, however, apparently prepared to trade these in for anschluss with Hitler's Reich.
The very essence of the fascists/nazis/communists/socialists ideologies was the belief the individual should surrender some of his/her rights to the community for the greater good, so actually, they were the norm, not the exception at that time.

Sid Guttridge wrote:You post, "Poland and Germany signed a non-aggression pact, so the war in defense of Czechoslovakia would be an act of aggression and treachery. The pact made an exception for existing defense alliances, so Poland could have waged war in defense of France, but not in defense of Czechoslovakia." This just shows how successfully Germany had restricted Poland's options in 1934.
Not quite, there were no other options, even France was an unreliable ally, the Czechs were basically hostile.
A defensive alliance could have been signed even post 1934 but it would require some contortions. After all, Poland signed a defensive treaty with Britain in 1939.


Sid Guttridge wrote:You post, "Czechoslovakia didn't want to fight.....". True, but that doesn't mean they weren't prepared to, as they demonstrated not only against the Germans in September 1938, but against the Hungarians and Poles over the following winter in Ruthenia and northern Slovakia.
That's true but those were minor scuffles, not the war of annihilation Hitler had promised them.

Sid Guttridge wrote:You post, "You can't help people who don't want to be helped". True, but this just shows that the Poles and Czechoslovaks were both stubborn and short sighted.
The Poles weren't short-sighted they offered an alliance and were refused.

Sid Guttridge wrote:If "What happened in 1938 was solely the Czech leaders' fault" then by the same logic September 1939 was solely the Polish leaders' fault. Don't you think that Hitler's aggression might merit just the tiniest bit of responsibility for both?
The Polish leaders were powerless, they were like a leaf floating downstream towards destruction. The couldn't prevent it. Responsibility requires intention.

The Czechs could although with a meager chance of success, most likely the Polish-Czech alliance would be quickly defeated too.

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