Great Britain, The Soviet Union and the Polish Government in Exile (1939–1945)

Great Britain, The Soviet Union and the Polish Government in Exile (1939–1945) PDF Author: G.V. Kacewicz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400992726
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In this book I have attempted to analyze the dilemmas confronting the Polish government-in-exile in London during the Second World War. My main objective has beeen to investigate the actual operation of the Polish govern ment and the overall policies of the British government vis-a-vis the Soviet Union insofar as they had a direct bearing on Anglo-Polish relations. Since the outstanding conflicts over territorial claims, and, ultimately, sovereignty, were between Poland and the Soviet Union, considerable attention has been devoted to the relationship between the Polish and Soviet governments during a most trying and difficult period of inter-Allied diplomacy. This work covers the period of operation of the Polish government on British soil until the resignation of Prime Minister Stanislaw Mikolajczyk in November 1944. Although Great Britain did not withdraw diplomatic recognition from the Polish government until July 1945, the Arciszewski government, formed after Mikolajczyk's resignation, was generally ignored by Great Britain. As with all subsequent governments, including that which exists today, Arciszewski's government functioned primarily as the voice of Poland in the West - a government of protest.

Great Britain, The Soviet Union and the Polish Government in Exile (1939–1945)

Great Britain, The Soviet Union and the Polish Government in Exile (1939–1945) PDF Author: G.V. Kacewicz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400992726
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In this book I have attempted to analyze the dilemmas confronting the Polish government-in-exile in London during the Second World War. My main objective has beeen to investigate the actual operation of the Polish govern ment and the overall policies of the British government vis-a-vis the Soviet Union insofar as they had a direct bearing on Anglo-Polish relations. Since the outstanding conflicts over territorial claims, and, ultimately, sovereignty, were between Poland and the Soviet Union, considerable attention has been devoted to the relationship between the Polish and Soviet governments during a most trying and difficult period of inter-Allied diplomacy. This work covers the period of operation of the Polish government on British soil until the resignation of Prime Minister Stanislaw Mikolajczyk in November 1944. Although Great Britain did not withdraw diplomatic recognition from the Polish government until July 1945, the Arciszewski government, formed after Mikolajczyk's resignation, was generally ignored by Great Britain. As with all subsequent governments, including that which exists today, Arciszewski's government functioned primarily as the voice of Poland in the West - a government of protest.

A Military Government in Exile

A Military Government in Exile PDF Author: Evan McGilvray
Publisher: Helion Studies in Military His
ISBN: 9781908916976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This work examines the nature of the relationship between the British Government and the Polish Government-in-Exile, 1939-1945. The relationship was extremely difficult owing to the extremity of the time and the situations of the two governments. Before 1939 there had been little contact between Poland and Britain. Between 1939 and 1945, however, the two countries were joined in a common desire for the military defeat of Germany: this was virtually the only common goal that the two governments shared; Polish ambitions to see Poland restored to its pre-war frontiers were not shared with the major allies (Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union) after 1941. The question of differing objectives caused friction between the Western allies, the Soviet Union and the Polish Government-in-Exile. As hosts the British Government was able to control the Polish Government-in-Exile but frequently found that the demands of the Soviet Government on the latter difficult to justify, although the British did so in order to maintain the unity of the alliance against Germany. However, the Polish Government-in-Exile failed to recognize its true position in the alliance: it was very much a junior partner - just another minor European power and irritant. Another problem in the relationship between the British Government and the Polish Government-in-Exile was, what kind of government was it? Between 1926 and 1939, a military clique had ruled Poland and the signs were that in exile very little had changed in the mindset of many Poles, especially those military officers who arrived in exile after 1939. This situation vexed the British Government, which sought to work with democratically minded Poles, but found this pool to be limited owing to the continuing political influence of the Polish military in exile. This attitude worsened as the war progressed until eventually the Polish Government-in-Exile lost any relevance in the war against Germany. Making full use of unpublished material and Polish sources, this is a detailed and lucid contribution to modern Polish and European history, including much information concerning the creation of the Polish Army following the end of the First World War, and the politics of the Army during the 1920s and 1930s, besides detailed coverage of its political role during the Second World War.

Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust

Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust PDF Author: Michael Fleming
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107062799
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
An important contribution to the ongoing debate about what the Allies knew about the concentration camps during the Second World War.

Britain and Poland 1939-1943

Britain and Poland 1939-1943 PDF Author: Anita Prazmowska
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521483858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Poland was a problematic issue for the Big Powers throughout the Second World War. For Britain, Poland was a major stumbling block in British-Soviet relations as Polish-Soviet territorial disputes clashed with the needs of the British-Soviet-United States alliance. As the Polish government-in-exile attempted to obtain a guarantee of British support, and many thousands of Polish troops fought for the British cause, the perception grew that the Churchill government had a debt to pay. Ultimately, however, it was a debt which Britain could not discharge because of its dependence on Soviet participation in the war. In this book Anita Prazmowska looks at British policies from the point of view of wartime strategy, relating this to Polish government expectations and policies. She describes a tragic situation where Polish soldiers were trapped between the grandiose and unrealistic plans of their government and the harsh realities of a war which they fought with no prospect of a satisfactory outcome for them or their country.

The Polish Government in Exile, 1939-45

The Polish Government in Exile, 1939-45 PDF Author: Bernadeta Tendyra
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780415454698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The "Polish Question" was both the immediate cause of the Second World War, and because of Stalin’s imposition of Soviet rule on Poland at the end of the war a cause of the Cold War which followed. How to resolve the "Polish Question" was a theme which affected international relations and planning for the post-war world throughout the war, and complicating the picture hugely was the Polish government-in-exile, which was led until 1943 by General Sikorski based in London, which had its own very strong views on the future for Poland, but which was divided by intense factional in-fighting. This book examines the Polish government-in-exile, discusses its internal factions and why they existed, and assesses the government-in-exile’s wider impact. It shows how Polish exile diplomacy was more important than hitherto recognised in shaping Allied wartime policy, how the Polish exiles’ tenacious clinging to ideals of Polish nationhood shaped their policies, though not in a united way, and how Sikorski struggled, controversially in the teeth of opposition from some of his colleagues, and ultimately unsuccessfully, to establish a Polish military presence in the east alongside the Red Army, with the aim of establishing a future Poland which would be independent, but an ally, though not a subordinate, of the Soviet Union. Overall, the book demonstrates the importance of the Polish exiles in maintaining the Polish sense of nationhood, with its attendant obsession with history, martyrdom and defining insecure borders.

The Great Powers and Poland

The Great Powers and Poland PDF Author: Jan Karski
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 144222665X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
This definitive study provides a comprehensive diplomatic history of Poland during the most seminal period in its existence, when its destiny lay in the hands of France, Great Britain, and the United States. Although sovereign in principle, Poland was little more than an object of the Great Powers’ politics and rapidly changing relationships from the end of WWI to the end of WWII. Focusing on the shifting policies of the Great Powers toward Poland from the Treaty of Versailles to Yalta, the book ends with Poland’s tragic abandonment by the West into the hands of the Soviet Union. Enriched by unique anecdotal and archival material, this book will be essential reading for all those seeking to understand Poland’s role in twentieth-century history.

Documents on Polish-Soviet Relations, 1939-1945: 1943-1945

Documents on Polish-Soviet Relations, 1939-1945: 1943-1945 PDF Author: Instytut Historyczny imienia Generała Sikorskiego
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Poland
Languages : en
Pages : 932

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Book Description


The Eagle Unbowed

The Eagle Unbowed PDF Author: Halik Kochanski
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674071050
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 911

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Book Description
The Second World War gripped Poland as it did no other country in Europe. Invaded by both Germany and the Soviet Union, it remained under occupation by foreign armies from the first day of the war to the last. The conflict was brutal, as Polish armies battled the enemy on four different fronts. It was on Polish soil that the architects of the Final Solution assembled their most elaborate network of extermination camps, culminating in the deliberate destruction of millions of lives, including three million Polish Jews. In The Eagle Unbowed, Halik Kochanski tells, for the first time, the story of Poland's war in its entirety, a story that captures both the diversity and the depth of the lives of those who endured its horrors. Most histories of the European war focus on the Allies' determination to liberate the continent from the fascist onslaught. Yet the "good war" looks quite different when viewed from Lodz or Krakow than from London or Washington, D.C. Poland emerged from the war trapped behind the Iron Curtain, and it would be nearly a half-century until Poland gained the freedom that its partners had secured with the defeat of Hitler. Rescuing the stories of those who died and those who vanished, those who fought and those who escaped, Kochanski deftly reconstructs the world of wartime Poland in all its complexity-from collaboration to resistance, from expulsion to exile, from Warsaw to Treblinka. The Eagle Unbowed provides in a single volume the first truly comprehensive account of one of the most harrowing periods in modern history.

Poland in the British Parliament, 1939-1945: Su. 1944-Su. 1945

Poland in the British Parliament, 1939-1945: Su. 1944-Su. 1945 PDF Author: Wacław Jędrzejewicz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 772

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Book Description


Poland in the British Parliament, 1939-1945

Poland in the British Parliament, 1939-1945 PDF Author: Wacław Jędrzejewicz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description