Polish Palestine (it need not be all of Palestine) would be interesting.
Otherwise Polish Congo would presumably actually be Cabinda. (Portuguese Congo).
Otherwise Polish Congo would presumably actually be Cabinda. (Portuguese Congo).
Indeed.So why spend money on a colony when they could instead spend on making Poland better?
Is it full of cannibals or so disease-ridden that Europeans drop dead just from seeing it at the horizon?
Edit: but getting one of the larger former Kaiserreich islands would be interesting. And bring the joys of Japanese occupation to the collection.
Interesring.The easiest would be perhaps to have Stefan Szolc-Rogoziński (1861-1896) establish a colony. He was a naval officer in the Russian Imperial navy who prepared a scientific expedition to Cameroon. He sought funds, in apparently what could have become a joint-stock company when he first proposed the idea in September 1881. He sailed on 13 December 1882 from Le Havre with some other Poles. They arrived on Mondoleh Island on Cameroon in April 1883, with Leopold Janikowski (1855-1942) building a research station on the island, whereas others including Rogoziński traveled inland reaching Lake Barombi Mbo. The territory was proclaimed a German Protectorate in July 1884, while the party was in the region however.
Apparently the Polish party had signed treaties with the local rulers. If perhaps the expedition had left earlier and the men had been able to proclaim the area a Russian Protectorate or something of the sort and sent some colonists from Russian Poland or formed a joint-stock company raising funds among Polish elites a sort of Polish colony could have been formed. There were only around 200 whites in the colony by 1900 and 1,871 Europeans in Kamerun in 1913. By 1958 there were fewer than 12,000 Europeans in French Cameroon so it was not a settlement colony by any means.
To have a place that can't be gobbled up by its neighbors so easily?So why spend money on a colony when they could instead spend on making Poland better?
If neighbors can gobble your core territory up, you've got better things to spend money on than colonies. If Poland can't afford a military that will protect her, she cannot afford a colony.To have a place that can't be gobbled up by its neighbors so easily?
Spending on the military might be better, but can Poland afford a military powerful enough to ensure they won't be partitioned again?
Would there be enough jobs in a hypothetical Polish African colony to get 25,000 Poles to move there, though?In general. There were many more people than there were jobs for them, so the area had a chronic poverty, unemployment, and starvation issue. In the Austrian days, it was referred to as 'Golicja I Glodomerja,' meaning 'naked and hungry.'
The only one that ever turned a profit was Togoland, as a whole colonialism for Germany was massive waste of money for the nation.
Except they couldn't afford it and there weren't new colonies gained after WW1 besides Ethopia, which resulted in LoN sanctions, and the swapping of colonial holdings by the defeated to the victorious in WW1. Poland simply could never afford a colony, nor was the world ever going to let it have one after WW1, while it had it's own internal areas to develop and colonize; Germany-France-Britain-the Netherlands-Belgium-Italy had about developed internally as much as possible barring technological developments, so were seeking resources abroad; they were already rich nations looking for captive markets; Poland was a poor nation still struggling to establish itself and had serious internal political problems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Polish_Republic#Politics_and_government
Plus if anything the Poles were somewhat using the extreme Zionists to export Jews to Palestine and helping train them in terrorism against the British after they shut down Jewish immigration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(group)#Evolution_and_tactics_of_the_organization
It wasn't an idea for a Polish colony. Why would Britain for France just given them a profitable colony after they had conquered it??? The French and British split it between themselves in 1914 when they invaded it and incorporated it into their existing neighboring colonies years before Poland was even seriously conceived as an independent country.
If Poland gets it early enough it is possible
Edit: and as the war is becoming more and more unavoidable, many people might decide that harvesting bananas or coconuts on the other side of the world is much better idea than they had previously thought
Being economically viable decreses its chances of being sold/given/whatvere to Poland, IMO. Some ass end of nowhere would be more probable.
But anyway, such a location could also serve as the place to send Polish refugees to during the war (otl they ended in places like India, Iran, Kenya and others) and various DPs that wouldn't want to go to Commie Poland after the war, not to mention Polish soldiers, so the population could grow tenfold during the war years and immediately afterwards.
Indeed.
It would be very hard to maintain the colony. Poland had to build up its fleet from scratch and the Baltic Sea is easily bottlenecked, so it would be hard to project influence overseas.
Now, as far as Poland actually getting a colony, there is no way that I can see that happening. The obvious candidates are the territories taken from the German Empire, but the British examined the options about giving those territories back in the 1930s as it stood and decided that they couldn’t for various reasons that I can’t remember right now since I don’t have The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire with me. The British did decide that giving up Cameroon might work, but then it was very easy to throw around the idea of giving away Cameroon, since it was the French that controlled it… the French did not agree with the British reasoning for why giving it away to the Germans was a good idea when they heard about the British proposal to play around with their territory. All of the same elements are at play with Poland.
Liberia is the obvious candidate.
Have it's government dissolved by the League of Nations on allegations of enslavement of the black population, and give the mandate to Poland. This would give Poland the only supply of natural latex rubber west of Suez, as well as plentiful timber and iron ore.
It'd make an interesting base for a Polish government in exile after the communists are installed after World War 2.
Out of Africa, Liberia seems to have had the most interest by Poland. But the United States didn't really want it to happen.