Poland-Slovak Civil War, 1939-1940
The White Eagle and the Double Cross: The Polish-Slovak Civil War
Slovakian armoured troops shortly before the Battle of Opawa in April 1939
Since the agreement on population transfers with Germany, the chimerical nation of Poland-Slovakia had entered into a period of (relatively) watchful calm. For some time intra-ethnic tensions were salved with the ideology of the country as a “home of nations” under the leadership of the Polish Chief of State Josef Pilsudski and his Slovakian Prime Minister Milan Hodza. However, this social peace came under severe fire following the 1929-30 crash (when the Polish-Slovakian economy saw unemployment rise to over 20% and output fall by 40%) - which stimulated the rise of a more exclusionary race-based politics - and finally collapsed after Pilsudski’s death in 1935. Instead, the politics of the country came to be quickly and violently polarised between the Polish nationalist Camp of Great Poland lead by Roman Dmowski and the Slovakian nationalist People’s Party lead by Andrej Hlinka.
The immediate push towards civil war seems to have been the death of Dmowski in January 1939. Rumours immediately spread that he had been murdered (reputable historians agree that he died of natural causes) and anti-Slovak riots immediately broke out, which lead to anti-Polish riots breaking out in response. Over the ‘Bloody Winter’ of January-February 1939 an estimated 100 Poles and 80 Slovakians were murdered by mobs. On 17 February, after an internal argument within the People’s Party, the leader Vojtech Tuka (who had taken over following Hlinka’s death in August 1938), announced his intention to withdraw Slovakia from the Commonwealth. There then followed a period where nobody knew what was going on, as the Polish leader Stanislaw Grabski (a relatively moderate member of the Camp of Great Poland) attempted to reach some kind of conciliation. However, any hopes of reconciliation were torpedoed decisively in April 1939, when the Polish General Jozef Haller responded to the build up of Slovakian forces on the border by shelling them with artillery and subsequently putting them to flight at the Battle of Opawa.
From then on, the slide to Civil War was inevitable. The smart money, in April 1939, would have been to back Poland, with their greater numbers of military officers and equipment. Indeed, their early victories seemed to prove this point. However, People’s Party politicians such as Tuka and Josef Tiso proved successful at mobilising the Slovakian population and, in Ferdinand Katlos, they soon found a general capable of organising a capable defence. Nevertheless, Slovakia was indisputably the weaker part of the Commonwealth and Poland was able to settle in for what they imagined would be a difficult but ultimately successful war of attrition.
However, this changed radically in December 1939. That month, a small Slovakian convoy travelling near the contested city of Zilina and heading towards the German border in Bohemia was surrounded by Polish troops. When the individuals inside refused to surrender, several were gunned down in a firefight and the remainder were carted off to a POW camp. This was all a fairly normal, if grim, part of the civil war then raging but what made it unusual was when it emerged in the days afterwards that one of the captured was the German diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop. Germany had been building up its forces along its Polish-Slovakian border for months now, concerned about the possibility of the conflict spilling over, and at this point everything entered into a different gear.
Even at this stage, conflict could have been avoided. Lloyd George and his foreign secretary Herbert Samuel immediately raced to Berlin, reminding Beck of the promise Groener had made and urging him to adopt a diplomatic posture. Sadly, by this point the hotheads in the Polish government had got the upperhand over the relatively more cautious Gabski. Jedrzej Giertych, the Polish Prime Minister, believing that the threat of war with Britain, France and Italy would hold Germany back, not only refused to return Ribbentrop, calling him a spy (indeed, it is unclear what he was doing in Poland-Slovakia if not negotiating with the Slovakian government, which was known to have pro-German sentiments) and sending an insulting note to the German Chancellery.
On receipt of the note, Beck informed Lloyd George, Graziani and the French Prime Minister Leon Blum that the affair was now a matter of honour and that he intended for Germany to “inflict a severe blow upon Poland and to read a lesson to her leaders which shall not soon be forgotten.” In response, Blum and Lloyd George said that, in that case, they would be required to abide by the Vienna Agreement and other agreements made between them and declare war on Germany. Italy notably sent a more ambiguous response and Spain, for what that was worth, sided with Germany.
Thus, on 14 January, Germany declared war on Poland and German troops poured over the border, at the same time recognising Slovakian independence and signing an agreement making it a German protectorate. The next day, following the expiry of an ultimatum, France and Britain declared war on Germany. This act, however, opened up a web of secret German treaties that immediately made the Anglo-French position far weaker than it had looked only a day earlier.
Italy and Russia did not declare war alongside their notional allies. Instead Russia revealed a secret German-Soviet Pact, in which the Soviets acknowledged the German annexation of Poland-Slovakia in return for the German government agreeing to buy large quantities of Soviet oil and natural gas (not, in truth, much of a hardship for them). Italy’s failure to declare war on Germany revealed that it had an agreement with Germany whereby Germany would accept Italy’s future conquests in the eastern Mediterranean in return for Italy recognising the German conquest of Poland. Once more, the world was at war.
Slovakian armoured troops shortly before the Battle of Opawa in April 1939
Since the agreement on population transfers with Germany, the chimerical nation of Poland-Slovakia had entered into a period of (relatively) watchful calm. For some time intra-ethnic tensions were salved with the ideology of the country as a “home of nations” under the leadership of the Polish Chief of State Josef Pilsudski and his Slovakian Prime Minister Milan Hodza. However, this social peace came under severe fire following the 1929-30 crash (when the Polish-Slovakian economy saw unemployment rise to over 20% and output fall by 40%) - which stimulated the rise of a more exclusionary race-based politics - and finally collapsed after Pilsudski’s death in 1935. Instead, the politics of the country came to be quickly and violently polarised between the Polish nationalist Camp of Great Poland lead by Roman Dmowski and the Slovakian nationalist People’s Party lead by Andrej Hlinka.
The immediate push towards civil war seems to have been the death of Dmowski in January 1939. Rumours immediately spread that he had been murdered (reputable historians agree that he died of natural causes) and anti-Slovak riots immediately broke out, which lead to anti-Polish riots breaking out in response. Over the ‘Bloody Winter’ of January-February 1939 an estimated 100 Poles and 80 Slovakians were murdered by mobs. On 17 February, after an internal argument within the People’s Party, the leader Vojtech Tuka (who had taken over following Hlinka’s death in August 1938), announced his intention to withdraw Slovakia from the Commonwealth. There then followed a period where nobody knew what was going on, as the Polish leader Stanislaw Grabski (a relatively moderate member of the Camp of Great Poland) attempted to reach some kind of conciliation. However, any hopes of reconciliation were torpedoed decisively in April 1939, when the Polish General Jozef Haller responded to the build up of Slovakian forces on the border by shelling them with artillery and subsequently putting them to flight at the Battle of Opawa.
From then on, the slide to Civil War was inevitable. The smart money, in April 1939, would have been to back Poland, with their greater numbers of military officers and equipment. Indeed, their early victories seemed to prove this point. However, People’s Party politicians such as Tuka and Josef Tiso proved successful at mobilising the Slovakian population and, in Ferdinand Katlos, they soon found a general capable of organising a capable defence. Nevertheless, Slovakia was indisputably the weaker part of the Commonwealth and Poland was able to settle in for what they imagined would be a difficult but ultimately successful war of attrition.
However, this changed radically in December 1939. That month, a small Slovakian convoy travelling near the contested city of Zilina and heading towards the German border in Bohemia was surrounded by Polish troops. When the individuals inside refused to surrender, several were gunned down in a firefight and the remainder were carted off to a POW camp. This was all a fairly normal, if grim, part of the civil war then raging but what made it unusual was when it emerged in the days afterwards that one of the captured was the German diplomat Joachim von Ribbentrop. Germany had been building up its forces along its Polish-Slovakian border for months now, concerned about the possibility of the conflict spilling over, and at this point everything entered into a different gear.
Even at this stage, conflict could have been avoided. Lloyd George and his foreign secretary Herbert Samuel immediately raced to Berlin, reminding Beck of the promise Groener had made and urging him to adopt a diplomatic posture. Sadly, by this point the hotheads in the Polish government had got the upperhand over the relatively more cautious Gabski. Jedrzej Giertych, the Polish Prime Minister, believing that the threat of war with Britain, France and Italy would hold Germany back, not only refused to return Ribbentrop, calling him a spy (indeed, it is unclear what he was doing in Poland-Slovakia if not negotiating with the Slovakian government, which was known to have pro-German sentiments) and sending an insulting note to the German Chancellery.
On receipt of the note, Beck informed Lloyd George, Graziani and the French Prime Minister Leon Blum that the affair was now a matter of honour and that he intended for Germany to “inflict a severe blow upon Poland and to read a lesson to her leaders which shall not soon be forgotten.” In response, Blum and Lloyd George said that, in that case, they would be required to abide by the Vienna Agreement and other agreements made between them and declare war on Germany. Italy notably sent a more ambiguous response and Spain, for what that was worth, sided with Germany.
Thus, on 14 January, Germany declared war on Poland and German troops poured over the border, at the same time recognising Slovakian independence and signing an agreement making it a German protectorate. The next day, following the expiry of an ultimatum, France and Britain declared war on Germany. This act, however, opened up a web of secret German treaties that immediately made the Anglo-French position far weaker than it had looked only a day earlier.
Italy and Russia did not declare war alongside their notional allies. Instead Russia revealed a secret German-Soviet Pact, in which the Soviets acknowledged the German annexation of Poland-Slovakia in return for the German government agreeing to buy large quantities of Soviet oil and natural gas (not, in truth, much of a hardship for them). Italy’s failure to declare war on Germany revealed that it had an agreement with Germany whereby Germany would accept Italy’s future conquests in the eastern Mediterranean in return for Italy recognising the German conquest of Poland. Once more, the world was at war.
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