Treaty of Warsaw (1920)

] took part in the initial expedition. After winning the battle in the south, the Polish General Staff planned a speedy withdrawal of the 3rd Army and strengthening of the northern front in Belarus where Piłsudski expected the main battle with the Red Army to take place. The Polish southern flank was to be held by Polish-allied Ukrainian forces under a friendly government in Ukraine.

Importance

For Piłsudski, this alliance gave his campaign for the Międzymorze federation the legitimacy of joint international effort,Davies, "White Eagle...", Polish edition, p.99-103] secured part of the Polish eastward border, and laid a foundation for a Polish dominated Ukrainian state between Russia and Poland. For Petlura, this was a final chance to preserve the statehood and, at least, the theoretical independence of the Ukrainian heartlands, even while accepting the loss of Western Ukrainian lands to Poland."In September 1919 the armies of the Ukrainian Directory in Podolia found themselves in the "death triangle". They were squeezed between the Red Russians of Lenin and Trotsky in the north-east, White Russians of Denikin in south-east and the Poles in the West. Death were looking into their eyes. And not only to the people but to the nascent Ukrainian state. Therefore, the chief ataman Petlura had no choice but to accept the union offered by Piłsudski, or, as an alternative, to capitulate to the Bolsheviks, as Volodymyr Vinnychenko or Mykhailo Hrushevsky did at the time or in a year or two. The decision was very hurtful. The Polish Szlachta was a historic enemy of the Ukrainian people. A fresh wound was bleeding, the West Ukrainian People's Republic, as the Pilsudchiks were suppressing the East Galicians at that very moment. However, Petlura agreed to peace and the union, accepting the Ukrainian-Polish border, the future Soviet-Polish one. It's also noteworthy that Piłsudski also obtained less territories than offered to him by Lenin, and, in addition, the war with immense Russia. The Dnieper Ukrainians then were abandoning their brothers, the Galicia Ukrainians, to their fate. However, Petlura wanted to use his last chance to preserve the statehood - in the union with the Poles. Attempted, however, without luck."
, Włodzimierz Bączkowski, [http://www.omp.org.pl/index.php?module=subjects&func=viewpage&pageid=8 Włodzimierz Bączkowski - Czy prometeizm jest fikcją i fantazją?] , Ośrodek Myśli Politycznej (quoting full text of "odezwa Józefa Piłsudskiego do mieszkańców Ukrainy"). Last accessed on 25 October 2006.] Despite this, many Ukrainians were just as anti-Polish as anti-Bolshevik, and resented the Polish advance, which many viewed as just a new variety of occupationTadeusz Machalski, then a captain, (the future military attache to Ankara) wrote in his diary: "Ukrainian people, who saw in their capital an alien general with the Polish army, instead of Petlura leading his own army, didn't view it as the act of liberation but as a variety of a new occupation. Therefore, the Ukrainians, instead of enthusiasm and joy, watched in gloomy silence and instead of rallying to arms to defend the freedom remained the passive spectators".
Oleksa Pidlutskyi, "ibid"] considering previous defeat in the Polish-Ukrainian War. "In practice, [Pilsudski] was engaged in a process of conquest that was bitterly resisted by Lithuanians and Ukrainians (except the latter's defeat by the Bolsheviks left them with no one else to turn but Pilsudski)."
. Chapter "Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli "(the Mirror Weekly)", Kiev, February 3 - 9, 2001, [http://www.zerkalo-nedeli.com/nn/show/329/29435/ in Russian] and [http://www.zn.kiev.ua/ie/show/329/29435/ in Ukrainian] .]

Notes

ee also

*Kiev Offensive (1920)
*Prometheism

External links

*pl icon [http://www.interklasa.pl/portal/dokumenty/r_mowa/strony_pol/dokumenty_odezwa.htm Odezwa Piłsudskiego do Mieszkańców Ukrainy]

Further reading

*Korzeniewski, Bogusław; "THE RAID ON KIEV IN POLISH PRESS PROPAGANDA". Humanistic Review (01/2006), [http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=40e53184-cef1-4727-8399-631b8bb2cfbd&articleId=218d7e4a-9c96-417f-a7ce-fb3ea7a27928]
*Review of The Ukrainian-Polish Defensive Alliance, 1919-1921: An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution by Michael Palij; Author(s) of Review: Anna M. Cienciala; The American Historical Review, Vol. 102, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), p. 484 ( [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762(199704)102%3A2%3C484%3ATUDA1A%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4] )
*Szajdak, Sebastian, "Polsko-ukraiński sojusz polityczno-wojskowy w 1920 roku" (The Polish-Ukrainian Political-Military Alliance of 1920), Warsaw, Rytm, 2006, ISBN 83-7399-132-8.