The most spectacular errors in Polish politics.

I mean the last 100 years and there are not too much of them (mistakes).

1. Polish annexation of Zaolzie 1938, the tiny part of the pre-war Czechoslovakia.
Kinda Polish cooperation with Hitler.

2. Warsaw Uprising 1944 - Poles should have never trusted Russian commies.
Or Russians at all.

3. Polish support for Kosovo irredenta (separatism).
Excuse us, Serbian friends - be forgiving.

1.No recognition of independant ukrainian state in 1922.
2.No alliance with Soviets in 1939
3.Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

Soviets didnt want an alliance.


How would recognizing Ukraine benefit Poland?

Also Southern in 1968 we did not have much choice, to refuse invasion of Czechoslovakia would mean getting invaded ourselves and while this invasion was ceirtanly a bad thing to happen interests of Czechoslovakia were not worth another destructive war for Poland.

Agreed.


Alliance with an enemy worse than Hitler ?


No Poland 1968.
Some commie bantustan only.

The events leading up to and during the Grudzień 1970 protests

Soviets proposed an alliance and a secret treaty of mutual defence which was rejected by Poland.


There would be two states in common danger which would cooperate and not one nation feeling betrayed and oppressed ready to cooperate with Germans or communists for their independance.Poles were short sighted in 1923 unlike the communist leaders of that period pho saw the future more clearly.


You should try to turn Hitler against the West.English and French tried to turn him against the East.Hitler would never open two fronts at the same time.He wanted to attack to the East when the western borders were secured and the opposite.

Let the soviet soldiers in polish ground build bases.Then Hitler would be hesitant to attack.He would try to negotiate.Then try to destabilize Hitler in Germany with help of german generals of polish origin and commie organizations sponsored by the Soviets.

Hitler would be trapped in a sh1tty situation.Hitler had to make war sooner or later and he wanted to do so by taking the minimal risks.

Just imagine your idea in the long run !

You sacrificed Poland for western interests.The commie danger was too strong at that time.Western forces would p1ss their pants if you made a pact with Soviets and Hitler complied.They would try immediately to negotiate with Hitler accepting his terms.(and his terms would be not Danzig but Jews,UK colonies,nazi parties in France and UK and freedom of german exports).

I know what they proposed, the problem was that in reality it meant becoming a Soviet province, it was obvious (and in light of the later Soviet actions proven correct) that once they entered Poland they would not leave.

The goverment simply chose to fight rather than give away our freedom willingly, it would be an agreement to a horrible occupation only marginally better than the Nazi one.


Ukrainian nationalist forces were militarily weak, politically and economically they were virtually non existent, creating a weak buffer state that might shift towards Germany (Ukrainians back then were quite pro German) would be counter productive.


No they were not, the situation was difficult, Poland had no friends in the region and no means of creating them in the short term, it could invest in Ukraine of course but Ukraine was and would be too weak to be of any meaningfull support.

The only thing i agree was a huge mistake was not helping Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovaks had a relatively powerfull army, working with them might have accomplished more than the phony alliance with the West.

The Soviets had no intention to get common borders with Nazis.In reality this is what they tried to avoid.They wanted the states between them and Germany to work as a buffer to keep the german forces away.They would just keep bases without changing the government in Poland.Soviets wanted to have bases in Finland,Hungary,Poland,Romania and even Denmark.


Chose to fight with no perspectives and no help from the West for a lost cause.


Why towards Germany?Most probably they would ally with Poland,Czechoslovakia against Germany.


Czechoslovakia refused to fight.

Well, that the tricky one its really difficult to judge, anyway Czechoslovakia had it coming !!!


Better fight that be timid victim!And who trusted Soviets ? Roosevelt!


I agree


you are an ignorant


idiot and


clueless prick
And your treads about girls suck big time#

Russians never said they were going to help the uprising.It was Churchill's idea to organize the uprising secretly without consulting them.Who did not help?


The bolsheviks offered you all the land you wanted and much more and you fell in the trap.They gave you it to stop annoying them knowing that they would get everything soon back while you would have problems with the minorities.


Why?Stalin offered you alliance and you refused after british consultation.Stalin was terribly pressed and sent Molotov to sign the pact with Ribbentrop only after you rejected his proposal.


They would laugh at you.You lost the moral superiority.
Yugos and Romanians refused to participate in Czechoslovakia invasion in 1968 and in 1981 Causesku proposed Warsaw pact troops to invade Poland.

But they had every intention of subduing Poland, they'd enter with their armies and duke it out here.


Oh please Southern, a country that repeatedly stated that Poland needs to go would just keep bases? Is that some cheap provocation or dont you know your history, 19 years before they tried to wipe us out and you're expecting people to buy that?

Polish goverment didnt buy it then (quite correctly) and its hardly a mistake.


But we chose to fight instead of just bending over and watching our women raped, economy plundered and elites murdered, that was the Russian intention all along, it would happen anyway, the only thing we could keep at that point was our pride.


Mainly because RUssia caused the great hunger and Germany was another anti-Polish state with power, no one gave a dime about Czechoslovakia back then since it was outside the main game.


Again your lack of historical knowledge, Czechoslovakia was willing to go to great lenghts to achieve a compromise with Poland, with a huge Polish army backing them they were most definitely willing to fight and given their level of motorisation and strategic positioning together we would have a good shot at Germany, maybe not conquering it but definitely breaking its military.

They tried to encourage people of Warsaw to start the uprising - well proven activities of Kosciuszko propaganda radio station.
Churchill ... hmm, first we have to discuss the Norman Davies conceptions.

Yes they did, what you want to say is that Stalin never gave an official promise, he did however ordered radio broadcasts that encouraged Warsaw to rise, such broadcasts could be interpreted in only one way.

Poland was not in shape to fight it out !
Commandant tried it and couldn't push it anymore ......
As for Ukrainian state it hadn't been question of recognition but of fighting and building that state from scratch....


Sure, and asked for Red Army to have an unlimited aces to Polish territories, no way...to fall for it would be idiocy!


What moral superiority ? Its not Poland but Soviet zone !
You don't know that ?
it was Poland under Soviet yoke ?

they can kiss our ass, we own nothing to Czech or Slovakia ?

According to which criteria? This was not cooperation with Third Reich but independent decision. Neither Czechoslovakia could claim to have moral rights to this territory. This move had not any important negative consequences.


I agree about Warsaw Uprising but it was not started because AK trusted to Soviets. Actually, other way around. They wanted to control the city before Soviets arrive.


This is very wrong decision but Poland itself hardly face any negative consequences unlike some other states which approved this action.


Why would Poland recognize such a banana republic? I doubt whether they would remain independent more than a year. Soviet would quickly take such present.


In longer run communism was more dangerous because this ideology had many supporters around the world. German National Socialists could count on support of Germanic people and nobody else. They would be crushed sooner or later anyway. The best tactic possible was to avoid military involvement (or just pretend to be involved) and let National Socialists and communists to kill each other.


Communist state did not have any moral superiority anyway. Polish involvement did not influenced final outcome as well. There were hardly any serious negative consequences originated from this action.


After Stalin passed away they gained some level of independence.

Are you crazy?Did Soviets want an uprising which if successful would give the country to western hands?Far from that.The Soviets were very,very annoyed about what happened and threatened to completely stop their advance towards Germany if UK or US attempted to help the uprising.


No.Soviets would ally with the devil at that time.They were so hard pressed.They fought for their existence.In Germany the communist party was wiped out in just three years of Hitler in office.In UK they had lost all power and in US they would not dare to appear,they kept everything secret.After Moscow trials the whole system was in a mess.


If you still believe it was correct to deny soviet help at a time when Germans threatened to wipe out Poland and impose slavery,what can I say?And in spanish civil war the Soviets were the ones who offered real military help,tanks,planes etc to Democrats.Did they get the power there?


Fight with no hope to win.A decision which had consequences for the next 50 years.


Czechs have not fought a war in the last 300 years.They had no intention to fight.With 4 millions Germans in their land they were finished.


You were not able to cause any major damage to Germany.Germany feared only red army at that moment as an equal force.

Starting negotiations about the US missile base in Poland.

crucial Polish mistake in last 100 years is that Poland fails to play on Serbian card. Here, we speak about great game and modern day Poland obviously isn`t serious European player. So, we have `Poland vs. Poland on the long run` strategic situation these days

Note- in 1904, Poland played on Serbian card and won an independance brom both- from Russia and from Austro-Hungaria/Germany. False Polish friends from France, Britain and USA were unable to do similar for Poland. Actualy, on the long run, they were and are biggest problem of Poland

Southen you seem intent to rewrite history.

To all of you people who wonder why Poland entered the alliance with Britain and France rather than the Soviets - you you really think Poles would consider Soviet Union a friendly state after they systematically tracked down and murdered Soviet Poles for the previous two years?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_operation_of_the_NKVD

1. the latest mistake was to trust U.S. and help them invade Iraq and the reword for that was no contracts and visas to enter U.S.

2. the stupid missile defense ( like the technology ever worked )
3. 1968 Czech. big one we should help Czech. people
4. trust English and French cowards before before 1939

Some good points mentioned by others.
Here are some of my suggestions, going deeper into the roots of Poland's political and military eventual failures on the European, and possibly global scene.

1. Inheritance laws in for the royalty and nobility which lead to fragmentation and internal disputes. The English got that part right.

2. Allowing Jews expelled from and persecuted in most European countries to settle and take roots in Poland, and on conditions better than those afforded to most Poles. That only brought trouble a few centuries later.

3. Allowing the Teutonic order to survive post 1410. They should have been completely wiped out and erased from the map as a political and geographic entity. That would have eliminated the "corridor" issue a few centuries later.

4. Wrong relationships with Ukrainians who should have been treated on the same level as Poles and Lithuanians. The three united nations, along with other smaller minorities would have been possibly the most formidable and strategically well positioned European force for centuries to come.

5. Elective democracy allowing foreigners to become rulers of Poland.

6. Helping Austria and Europe with the Siege of Vienna. Again, Poles (Sobieski) should have used more of English ways - divide and rule: let Vienna fall, let Turks capture most of France and parts of German lands, allow Europeans to bleed, and only then destroy Turks and change the European political and military chessboard for a long time.

As is traditionally asked at this point (and never ever answered by Poles): exactly what would you have liked the UK to do in September 1939 which the British did not do?

I know Harry you are the apologist for 1939 betrayal by Polish allies and other betrayal so called allies you are probably think Poland was responsible for WWII.

so as Pole I am answer so you can stop saying that no Pole answer this
I would like England and France to upheld their commitment to Poland and attack Germany from the west and cross German west border.
ok now give me your excuse Harry

I agree with the first two points.

But point 1 requires certain development. The annexation of Zaolzie was a result of Polish government`s silly shortsightedness. If they had been really wise, they would have set a military alliance with Czechoslovakia against Germany. Polish army was obsolete but numerous, Czechoslovakian was little but perfectly equipped. Together they would have posed a hard nut for Germans.

But Zaolzie made both nations blind to German threat. Pity.

2. Yes. 200.000 dead, ruined city and nothing gained, only the tragic glory. One of biggest Polish mistakes.

3. I can`t agree. Kosovo has no influence on Poland at all - whether Poland supports it or not, it doesn`t matter.

status of Racowie`s lands doesn`t influente Poland. Interesting

i must notice Pawiane, you are crazy as electricity

You should be silent in matters of the politics. Soviets must be proud to grow in Poland such clueless creatures.


I concur!

[quote=southern]You were not able to cause any major damage to Germany.Germany feared only red army at that moment as an equal force.[/qu

As a stronger force you mean !

:):):)

OK, tell me, what impact has Kosovo on Poland if it is under Serbian rule or independent?
I still claim the impact is zero in both cases.

I thought the thread is about errors which had a major influence on Poland and Poles, usually with tragic consequences.

Kosovo is unimportant. Most Poles even don`t know where it is on the map.

Be serious, all Kosovo guys!!! :):):):