A brief excursion into Polish history, with focus on a few milestones, will provide the historical background for the World War II events relating to Poland. In 1410 a combined Polish- Lithuanian army defeated the Order of Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in northern Poland. At issue was an unceasing expansion of the Order in the easterly direction under the guise of so-called "conversion to Christianity" of the Lithuanians who had already been converted. This "conversion" was being administered with fire and sword.
In 1569 the Union of Poland and Lithuania was signed, a pact which was to last for over two hundred years. In 1572 the last king of the Jagiellonian dynasty died without leaving heirs to the throne, and thus the era of elected kings began, introducing a measure of democracy into the succession process. At that time, the Kingdom of Poland combined with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was, except for the vast expanses of the Muscovy in the East, the largest state in Europe. It covered 900,000 square kilometers - nearly the size of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia put together.
In the middle of the seventeenth century Poland was attacked by Turks, Tatars, Cossacks, Russians and Swedes and engaged in a series of wars which combined are referred to as the "Deluge." Eventually, Poland repulsed the aggressors, but the country was devastated and lay in ruins, never again to return to its earlier wealth and power. This, in fact, marked the beginning of the end of the Kingdom of Poland. Still, the vestiges of greatness remained. In 1683, when the Turkish Grand Army besieged Vienna, Polish King John III Sobieski, responding to pleas from European states and from the Pope to save Austria and the rest of Europe from the onslaught of the heathens, mustered a European coalition which came to the rescue of the besieged city. In the ensuing battle, a powerful charge delivered by the heavy Polish cavalry, Husaria, destroyed the Turkish Army and freed Vienna.
The First World War provided a realistic chance for Poland to restore its independence. The powers which had partitioned the country more than one hundred years earlier were fighting on opposite sides: Germany with the Austro-Hungarian Empire (the Central Powers) fought Imperial Russia allied with France and Great Britain. Polish troops, under their own banners, also joined the fight. At first, under the command of the anti-Russian revolutionary Józef Pi³sudski, Polish legions were formed to fight Russia. But in 1917, after a number of successful operations against Russians, the legions were disbanded and Pi³sudski was thrown into prison when the Poles refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Central Powers. Meanwhile, with the fall of its monarchy, Russia's grip on Poland loosened. This enabled the Poles to organize a Polish army in France to fight against the Central Powers. Russia was defeated first and Germany and Austria soon followed. Finally, on November 11, 1918, Poland re-emerged as a free nation after 123 years of captivity.
However, some problems remained. After the Communist Revolution Russia was determined to carry the flame, so successfully kindled at home, to Poland, Germany and beyond. In 1920, not quite two years after regaining independence, Poland was forced to fight again to maintain its sovereignty and to defend Europe. General Mikhail Tukhachevsky commanded the Soviet army. His Order of the Day, issued in Smolensk on July 2, 1920, read as follows:
'Soldiers of the Red Army!
The time of reckoning has come!
The army of the Red Banner and the army of the predatory White Eagle face each other in mortal combat!
Over the dead body of White Poland shines the road to worldwide conflagration!
On our bayonets we shall bring happiness and peace to toiling humanity!
To the West!
The hour of attack has struck!
On to Vilna, Minsk and Warsaw! March!'
Signed: commander in chief of the Western Front, Tukhachevsky.
The brief, nineteen-year period of peace following the war and lasting until 1939 was marked by a consolidation of the three partitioned territories, which for over one hundred years had belonged to different countries. Also, it marked a time of vigorous economic growth for Poland. In the early 1920s German intrigues in the Free City of Gdańsk prevented the free flow of Polish trade through that port. Poland's response was to build a new port in the small fishing village of Gdynia. By 1938, Gdynia became the busiest port in the Baltic Sea and provided serious competition for Gdańsk. Also, in south-central Poland, construction of an industrial complex began in 1936. It consisted of hydroelectric power plants, steel works, aircraft manufacturing, machinery, ammunition and fertilizers. In 1938 Poland was the eighth largest producer of steel in the world. By the following year the population of Poland had reached 34.8 million.
In foreign policy, Poland had to perform a balancing act between Germany and Soviet Russia. In 1932 Poland signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, which was to last until 1945. In 1934 a similar ten-year pact was signed with Germany. One year earlier, shortly after Adolf Hitler's ascension to power, Polish Head of State Marshal Pilsudski made a secret proposal to France to mount together a preemptive strike against Germany to unseat Hitler before the Germans had time to rearm. But France refused, compelling the Poles to do the next best thing: to enter into a non-aggression pact with the Germans. In 1936 the Germans defied the Versailles treaty by reoccupying the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland, thus demonstrating to the world their aggressive intentions. As we now know, both non-aggression pacts were eventually broken by Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
After annexing Austria, Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia in March 1939, the German government repeated their request to Poland, demanding that Gdańsk become part of the Third Reich and that an extraterritorial highway and railroad be constructed across the so-called "Polish Corridor." The request was rejected by Poland - the first "No" Hitler encountered since coming to power in Germany. In April 1939 a mutual assistance treaty was concluded between Poland, France and Great Britain. On August 23, 1939, the Ribbentrop-Molotow pact was signed in Moscow. In a secret protocol of the pact, plans for the fourth partition of Poland were drawn up by Hitler and Stalin, and the scene was set for the outbreak of World War II.