The Establishment of a National Government in Poland, 1918

Abstract

Although Imperial Germany was defeated in the West it was still a great power in Eastern Europe as a result of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk of early 1918. In the territories which had belonged to Russia before the First World War (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, White Russia and Ukraine) the political forces that had earlier formed political centres in cooperation with the Central Powers, Germany in particular, were now taking actions that were to lead to the formation of their own independent national states. In the territory of the Baltic provinces of the former Romanov empire, the German population became active and played an important political, economic and cultural role, but was relatively small. In the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in the Ukraine the local Poles, the number of whom was estimated at several million, worked towards unification of these territories into a further independent Poland, desiring a return to the situation before the partitions. All of these contradictory trends and the related conflicts clashed with the steps aimed at assuming Polish authority in these territories. The Bolshevik-controlled Soviets emerged under cover of the Red Army which marched in from the East.1 At the turn of October and November 1918, with the political and military collapse of Austria-Hungary, the Habsburg monarchy started to transform itself according to the aspirations of the nations that inhabited it.