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Poland celebrates 100 yrs from the recovery of sovereignity

November 11, the story of a nation, a troubled anniversary

09 November, 16:21
(ANSA) - WARSAW, NOV 09 - Poland was attacked, dismembered, but has been promptly reborn from the ashes. Deleted for 123 years from the map of Europe as a result of three partitions (1772, 1793, 1795) operated by Austria, Prussia and Russia, exactly one hundred years ago, in 1918, Poland was reborn at the heart of Europe as a national state.

November 11 is the date on which "Polonia restituta" is celebrated, in conjunction with the end of WW1. In fact, on that day Józef Piłsudski was given full power in Warsaw and on November 16 he sent to the Entente countries a telegram through which he informed the belligerent states and neutral governments and all nations of the existence of the independent state of Poland and called for the recognition of Poland and the sending of diplomatic representatives to Warsaw.

The November 11 anniversary has a troubled history. It was established in 1937, but could only be celebrated twice before the outbreak of WW2 and the fourth partition of the country between Germany and the Soviet Union, based on the secret protocols of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. After 1945, the communist regime canceled the anniversary, which was restored only after 1989.

At the outbreak of WW1, there were two opposing ways of thinking. The first one was led by the socialist Józef Piłsudski, who saw in Tsarist Russia the obstacle to be demolished to accomplish the reunification of the three parts of the country, and the second one around the national democrat Roman Dmowski, who looked to Russia and France to escape the Austro-German pincer movement. Both imperial powers appeal to the Poles to earn their loyalty and men at arms. The Germans, after conquering Warsaw, set up in the territories of the former Russian Poland on November 5, 1916 an "independent" Polish State, a pseudo-monarchy under the Austro-German protection, governed on a transitional basis by a Council of State presided over by Piłsudski.

On December 25, Tsar Nicholas II exhorted Polish soldiers to fight for a "Poland free to be re-established with its three separated provinces". On January 21, 1917, US President Thomas Woodrow Wilson also called for a united Poland. On 2 June Piłsudski left the Council of State and since 9 the Polish Legions, on his order, refused to be included in the imperial armies, he was imprisoned.

On September 20, France recognised the Polish National Committee (Knp) led by Dmowski as the sole representative of the Poles, while setting up at the same time a Polish army under the orders of General Haller. This army was made possible thanks to the king of Italy, Vittorio Emanuele III, who accepted the requests by Polish exiles in Italy to free their fellow countrymen prisoners who were wearing the Austro-Hungarian uniform.

At the end of 1917, three camps had been set up in Caserta, Santa Maria Capua Vetere and La Mandria di Chivasso, not far from Turin.

After Tsarist Russia's collapse, on January 8, 1918, Wilson had placed on the thirteenth of his "14 points for a general peace", the creation of an "independent Polish state that will extend to the territories inhabited by unquestionably Polish populations".

On August 23, the Bolshevik government unilaterally abrogated the partition treaties of Poland. In October Austria-Hungary and Germany allowed the regency council to proclaim the re-establishment of the Polish state inspired by the 13th Wilsonian point on October 7.

The Hapsburg garrison was expelled from Krakow on October 31 and from other minor centers. On November 1, the reborn Polish state was proclaimed. A state that wanted to restore the borders of 1772, as if history had stopped (including territories where the Poles are now a minority).

The Provisional Government established in Lublin and chaired by the Socialist Ignacy Daszyński, along with the Regency Council, gave Piłsudski full powers on November 11, arrived in Warsaw the day before after 16 months of detention in the Magdeburg fortress.

The three souls of Poland 'found a body', but the tragedy was not yet over. Poland had given to WW1 almost two million soldiers (450,000 fallen troops), and the country would pay a higher price to WW2: the life of one out of six inhabitants.

(ANSA).

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