Evening star., 1944-12-24
Polish Border Issue
Is Centuries Old
Endless Wars and Partitions
Underlie Present Controversy

- ~S1sN0UbSS Mn
Endless Wars and Partitions
Underlie Present Controversy
BY John H. Cline.
More than century ago British
statesman described Poland as "a soul
wandering In search Of a body In which
to begin life over again."
That was after the Third Partition,
which solved the ever troublesome
problem of Polands frontiers by the
simple expedient Of wiping Poland of
the map. There is no reason to suppose
that the Poland Of today is in any
danger Of being partitioned out of ex-
tstence, but the question Of Polands
border, especially her eastern border, is
once again to the fore, and 1t may well
provide the crucial test Of Allied unity
and Allied intentions.
In the historical sense, the Polish
boundary issue goes back nearly 1000
years. Available evidence indicates that
the progenitors of today's Poles were
settled on the Danube, but In the 10th
century they were driven north by the
Romans and established themselves In
the desolate marshlands between the
upper Oder and the Vistula. Gradually
they absorbed more and more territory
until, at the beginning of the 18th
century, some 100000 Poles occupied
an area Of about $4,000 square miles,
and their influence extended eastward to
the Dniepr River. Unfortunately for
themselves, however, the Poles, despite
some able and aggressive leaders, were
not strong as nation. The government
was inefficient and corrupt, the masses
were wretchedly poor and the landed
mobiles were interested primarily in lining
their own pockets.
This state of affairs made Poland
tempting and easy prey for her expan-
sionist neighbors In 1772 Frederick the
Great Of Prussia, Catherine Of Russia
and Empress Maria Theresa of Austria
helped themselves to generous slices Of
Polish territory in what is known to
history as the First Partition. Russia
got the most land.
Twenty years later, when Prussia and
Austria were at war, Catherine engi-
neered the Second Partition, Russia get
ting 10000 square miles of land, Prussia
$4,000 and Austria nothing. On that
occasion the Poles, under the leadership
OF Kosciuszko, decided to fight. In May
of l794 they defeated the Russians at
Raclawitz, but Catherine enlisted the
aid of her Prussian collaborators and
the Poles succumbed to the weight of
superior numbers. Kosciuszko was cap
tured and Warsaw fell. The Third Par
tltion followed almost Immediately,
with Russia again getting the lions
share, and Poland ceased to exist.
Until the First World War only the
spirit of Poland-the soul in search of
body-remained alive But as Russia
withdrew from the war and turned to
Communism, and as the doom of the
Central Powers was being sealed, the
Polish inheritors of a nationalistic
spirit that would not die demanded and
received Allied assurances of new and
independent Poland. The thirteenth of
Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points said
that "an Independent Polish state should
be created which should include the
territories inhabited by indisputably
Polish populations" and Polish dele
CATION signed the general peace treaty
with Germany, which bound Poland to
accept an eastern boundary designated
by the Allied and associated powers.
Out of this emerged the recommends
ton for the Curzon Line, drawn in ac-
cordance with ethnographic principles
by experts of the British Foreign Office
and approved by the Supreme Council
in December, 1919, as the tentative
eastern boundary.
The Poles, meanwhile, had been de-
mandlng restoration Of their 1772 FROM
tiers, and in 1920 they went to war with
Russia in pursuit of that objective.
The Polish record during that period,
from the standpoint of good faith. was
not admirable, and at one point Llovd
George sent a note to Warsaw accusing
the Polish government of "trif1ing and
playing with the peace treaty" The
Poles persisted, however, and with
French assistance they defeated the
Russians. Then came the Treaty of
Riga, which fixed the boundary from
$50 to 200 miles east of the Curzon Line
and brought into Poland a vast area
IN which the Poles constituted a small
minority.
The Allies for various reasons permit
ted the Poles to keep the territory which
they had taken Cor retaken in the
Polish view from Russia. But Poland
could not hold it long. In 1889, Hitler
marched In from the west and the Red
Army moved up approximately to the
Curzon Line. A treaty was signed be-
tween the U. s. S. r. and Germany, fix
ing the German-Soviet frontier in Po-
land along the Curzon Line, except for
concessions to Russia in the north and
south. Once again, Poland had van
ished from the map.
That partition endured, in the treaty
sense, until Hitler attacked Russia in
1941. Then the Soviets signed another
treaty extending formal recognition to
the Polish government in exile, and
declaring the partition agreement with
Germany to be null and void.
Now, only three years later, the
Polish picture once again has under
gone drastic revision. The Soviet
armies have driven westward and stand
IN full control of the disputed area east
of the Curzon Line. Diplomatic rela-