Leseprobe

Die Friedensschlüsse von Brest-Litovsk 1918 93 q issued a proclamation to Poles, promising to establish an independent Polish state: “United with Russia by a free military alliance, the Polish State will become a firm bulwark of Slavdom against the pressures of the Central Powers”. The borders of this satellite Poland were to be established by the future Russian Constituent Assembly. The tone of this document clearly indicated that the political forces in power in Russia meant to make the Polish state, if indeed established, its vassal. 4 In this situation, it was difficult to imagine the Polish border extending beyond the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, additionally diminished by the loss of the Kholm (Chełm) Region in 1912. 5 The territorial programme proposed by Roman Dmowski on behalf of the pro-alliance Polish faction in a memoran- dum submitted on 26 March 1917 in the Foreign Office in London was, however, very different from both Russian and, as it soon turned out, German intentions. The Polish politician called for granting Eastern Galicia to the new state, and from the Russian territory, apart from the Kingdom of Poland, the governorates of Kovno, Vilnius and Grodno, a part of the governorate of Minsk, and Volhyn. 6 The disintegration of the Russian government and army in the aftermath of the February Revo- lution opened up new opportunities for the Central Powers, for which the burden of conducting the war increased, partly due to the enormous number of casualties on the front lines and to the Allied blockade. The turning point in weakening Russia was the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks taking over power in Petrograd, which marked the beginning the Russian Civil War. Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader and the Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, attempted to fulfil the promise of peace for Russia and ending its participation in the war regardless of the cost. The Ger- mans, who had helped him come back from Switzerland to Russia and had supported him financially, halted their great offensive on the Eastern Front, waiting for the disintegration of the Russian army. 7 The Central Powers and Bolshevik Russia signed an armistice on the Eastern Front on 15 Decem- ber 1917, which came into force two days later. The agreement was a violation by the Bolshevik authorities of Russia’s obligations as an ally of France and Great Britain. The armistice did not bring Germany and its allies additional territorial gains. The front stretching from Riga, east of Pinsk, Lutsk, Tarnopol and Chernivtsi, and leaving most of Romania on the side controlled by the Central Powers, was the line which separated the enemy armies at the moment when military activities were ceased. 4 Stachura, Peter D.: Poland, 1918–1945. An Interpretive and Documentary History of the Second Republic. London 2004, 21–22; Powstanie II Rzeczypospolitej. Wybór dokumentów 1866–1923. [The Formation of the Second Polish Re- public. A Selection of Documents, 1866–1923], ed. Janowska, Halina, Jędruszczak, Tadeusz, Warszawa 1981, 332–333. 5 The border was delimited in April 1913. By a decree of April 4, 1915, Nicholas II excluded the Kholm (Chełm) Regi- on from the Kingdom of Poland. It was an area of approx. 16,000 km² with approximately 0.9 million inhabitants. The Catholics and the Uniates constituted almost 53% of the population. The Tsar’s decision was not implemented becau- se of the occupation of the Kingdom of Poland by the armies of the Central Powers; on religious conflicts in this region see Sadkowski, Konrad: From Ethnic Borderland to Catholic Fatherland: The Church, Christian Orthodox, and State Administration in the Chelm Region, 1918–1939 . In: Slavic Review 57/4 (1998), 813–839. 6 Stachura, Poland (see n. 4), 22–25; Dmowski, Roman: Polityka polska i odbudowanie państwa. [Polish Politics and Rebuilding the State], vol. 2. Warszawa 1989, 219–222; Pajewski, Janusz: Dwie zachodnie opinie wobec koncepcji gra- nic państwa polskiego (1917, 1919). [Two western opinions on the concepts of Poland’s state borders (1917, 1919), Poznań 1977, 139–147. 7 Service, Robert: Lenin. A Political Life, vol. II: Worlds in Collision. Basingstoke 1995, 150–160; on the Civil War in Russia see Smele, Jonathan D.: The “Russian” Civil Wars 1916–1926. Ten Years That Shook the World. Oxford 2015.