The great mistakes of Poland's history?

Everyone feared the german army and that was shown in Munich treaty in 1938.If English did not know what was going on and how many troops Hitler actually had they would not surrender to his terms so easily.The only army noone had a clue about was the red army.

Mr Grunwald

I wish Eastern Europe would have a stronger bond!
Everything is still so dependent on history and every Slav seems to hate the Slav standing next to them...

Ukrainians always have something nasty to say about Poles and vice versa, the Poles hate the Russians, the Russians don't care and that makes the Poles even more angry, the Belorussians hate the Russians, the Russians make fun of the Ukrainians but in the end they love each other. The Poles like the Belorussians and the Czechs, but then they kind of don't...yadda yadda yadda...

As that bimbo from clueless would say, "OMG"....

Its like a big ol' Slavic soap opera..

And for what? Instead of focusing on rebuilding relationships or should I say, starting over, more hatred and pointing to the past seems to be the common denominator...

Thats one reason yes, they believed Germany could be controlled by various concessions, possibly even by Poland.


Kriegsmarine could never be at anything close to Royal Navy, too many resources had to be pumped into the land forces and while german design and industry were top notch their administrative distribution of funds and resources was in total chaos.

if Hitler was successful in his plans I in probability be not here today as many other people
thanks God he was drug addict and it control him.

Sok Poland was rearming before the war as I'm sure you know, and Britain and France asked them to stop because it could antagonized the Germans. I always believed Poland was betrayed, the main reason for giving Stalin his way with Poland, was America wanted Stalin's help to defeat the Jap's. Not needed in the end because they used the Abomb, you may know other reasons I would be interested to hear them.

Yeah, it would been a big hit if it would go on TV I guess


It is too late, nationalistic circles are getting stronger and stronger each day...

that would have been a huge mistake.. do you realize that Poles are slaves like the Lithuanians and the germans are not??

The Past is the past, modern day Poland can't change it. Now that you have your country how do you plan to hold it?????????

The great mistakes of our history ?

Not sure if it's been mentioned already but in my view the inclusion of the Liberum Vetoprovision in the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution made governance almost impossible.

Although a great idea in theory, in reality it doomed Poland as a country and the Russian, the Prussian and Austrian empires used it to their advantage promptly.

i.eb.com/redirect?type=topic&id=339388


Not so sure about that - Russians in Ukraine - yes. Ukrainians in Ukraine - definitely not.

Nathan, I owe you an answer to your comments in this thread - sorry I'm very busy and don't have enough time even to read the forum.


If we want to keep some proportion then when I call the situation in Poland "bad" (as compared to the rich EU-countries) then qualification for Ukraine has to be "disastrous"

In sense of economy, political situation, political influences, future.
No way around it.


Ratherinvolvement into the East-European chaos than any bad influences and it's not my opinion but Pawel Jasienica's statement.
You cannot deny negative consequences of the Polish East-expansion - you may call it occupation and I would rather say "colonization" but we can probably agree on the results:

permanent conflict with Russia, Cossacks' risings, partitions, Wolhynia killings etc.etc.

And according to Jasienica there was a different, better way:
protecting our Western territories, more cooperation with Germans and even accepting some mild kind of Germanization without losing our national identity.
Mental Germaization instead of getting involved in Ukrainian-Russian (Eastern Slavonic) issues.
Quite ahistorical idea - it takes two for tango - but sounds good to me.


Let us put it some different way "Me, Borrka would like to be alittle more like Germanics and get rid of so called "Slavic-soul".

What I like about Slavs are Slavic blond, blue eyed girls with their high cheek bones and not their communism spoiled characters .
Amen.
But don't worry.
I'm all an ignorant Slavic post-commie bastard lol.

Borrka, I am 100% with you on that. Me too: I love blue eyes and high chest bones :)
I hate communism with all my heart, because it is against human nature and so Polish as Ukrainian traditions. Communism was thrown at us through lazy eastern neighbors who hate work and who can exist only out of sucking juices from other nations.


Borrya, so am I. But about ignorance you are wrong. You are far far from it.

The only thing I disagree with you is the way you look at history of that particular period. If Polish cooperated with Ukrainians instead of trying to force-feed them with foreign language and religion, both nations would be a major force in Europe. We participated in many battles together against Turks and Russians and most of them ended with great success in our favour. So there was nothing wrong with the side to deal with, but with attitudes and ignorant policies. I am not saying that westward direction was bad, completely opposite, but eastwise there wasn't enough wisdom.

Jasienica ignores a f*ckload of facts to suit his opinion, for over 450 years Poland in various forms (including the voivodship division) was an economic powerhouse.

There was military enough that even separate voivodships could effectively resist large scale invasions, there was never hunger, thats right medieval Poland did not know hunger, there were no plagues, food was cheap and abundant since it was produced by a wealthy peasant class.

Since Poland was fiercely catholic it had access to the works of medieval civilisation from plate armor and warhorses to universities and schools, by contrast Germany was filled with starving people, rife with diseases and social unrest.

Germans came to Poland on the same basis as Poles come today to America, today a prelavent historical lie among Germans is that they elevated Poland through their work ethic (whatever thats supposed to mean) when the truth is they came to Poland because it was so wealthy, safe and filled with opportunities.

In other words dark age/medieval Germany had nothing to offer Poland and Poland had everything a country could politically desire, the only thing it didnt have was land and in the east there were vast unorganized masses of people, politically and socially inferior, technologically backwards, any kingdom would have seized the opportunity.

Jasienica ignores these facts due to bias and forgets that his work is based on one important factor, hindsight.

In 1300s-1600s Germany was a pyss poor craphole from which sometimes came a usefull item or a talented person but otherwise it just wasnt attractive as a partner for Poland, it had nothing to contribute.

Also it was a huge mess, and nobody wasn't planning on making them all join together either ;)

Yep, we all know that Poland has been the most civilized nation in Europe since the beginning of time...

Whats the point of this apart from you being a little pr*ck? Poland was on the same cultural level as the rest of central or western Europe, it was however significantly richer, safer and more tolerant.

My point is that you didn't even bother to take a short look on the map of the Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation) and what areas it incorporated. Some of them were the richest in Europe - both from a cultural and financial perspective. You also failed to mention the Hanseatic League, which was one of the richest and most powerful organzations of its time. And these are only two examples. Your claim that "In 1300s-1600s Germany was a pyss poor craphole" is simply incorrect.

Poland was pretty much on the same level as the rest of Europe, you're right, but I didn't deny that. Let's not forget though that Poland was also lucky, because it didn't get ravaged by the bubonic plague as the rest of Europe. That was a major advantage.

Yep some were, especially in 17th century but most were not and then there was a problem of wealth accumulation that at the time did not exist in Poland to such an extent (a few rich people and loads of starving masses).


The Hanseatic League was a handfull of cities, Germany had over 400 large cities that were not part nor did they benefit from Hanza, in Poland due to river trade virtually all regions of Crown and much of Lithuania made heaps of gold even while being a hundred or two hundred miles from nearest polish hanza member city.


Just google peasants' war, HRE was extremely poor, it suffered from plague, starvation and immense wealth concentration with lower classes being squeezed as hard as possible.


Except wealthier, more tolerant and the most militarily advanced.


Several reasons why, first of all polish people washed which is noted by several western chronicles as weird, second Poland had a network of state operated hospitals and effective governing system that quarantined the few small outbreaks effectively, that wasnt luck just good organisation.

Notice that all epidemies in Poland had the same characteristic of a local outbreak that never spread, another reason was that Poland incorporated natural medicine from its pagan times into its monastic medical practices, the herbs completely forgotten in the West were extremely effective as compared to medieval medicine practices in the west.

It's hard to believe that the Polish nobility behaved differently than their counterparts in Europe. Most of the people outside the cities were not peasants, but living in bondage - destined to be exploited and treated like slaves. AFAIK, that was also the case in Poland. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.


Handful? Not really:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hanse-Orden.png


If that would have been the case, why didn't Poland conquer colonies outside of Europe like the other bigshots did? Just curious.


Seriously? I've never heard that one before. Do you have any English sources for that? I'm really interested, as I've lost several ancestors to the bubonic plague.

Sokrates, why do you constantly refer to wealth? It's borderline obsession and you lust after paper and metal? Where's your spirit?

For a long time they did, in the mid XVI century however they went feudal like everyone else and stayed that way far longer than the rest of Europe.


What bondage? Untill XV century all peasants in Poland were free, even those in noble estates were employed via legal contract and had full citizen rights.

Sorry to break your bubble but untill mid XV Poland was the most modern country as far as legal approach to citizen liberties, a peasant could sue a local baron and win and the will of the court would be enfored too.


36 cities, yes really, read up on a subject instead of dropping a bomb hoping to make an impression, Saxony in 1426 had 124 major cities and towns alone, the entire central-eastern region had hundreds and your argument is that 36 cities of Hanza which by the way were monopolistic contributed to Germanys' wealth significantly?


The entire colonisation effort was directed east, Ukraine, Belarus and parts of today Russia, think renessaince meets wild west.

France, UK and Portugal had only one way to expand and that was via the sea, Poland had only one pond aka the Baltic and eastwards it had resource rich underpopulated regions without state or national structures.


No idea about english but i could find you a german source, another big difference, inquisition was practically not present in Poland (the position of an inquisitor existed and sometimes he even got to burn some witch but any attempts at independent rampages ended in quiet beheadings).


Wealth is one of the pillars of a succesfull state, money without guts is worthless but so is guts without money.

In 1939 our soldiers fought with more skill and courage than anyone bar Germans and it still meant sh*t because we didnt have money to give them sharp enough sticks, money is one of the cogs that turns the wheels of success Sean.

You're shooting yourself in the foot, my friend... :):):)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League


How were they able to ignore the Vatican?


That would be nice, thanks.

Typically by having church officials handle the matters, Vatican was fairly limited in what it could do and excomunicating a polish king could be a bad idea for a number of reasons including Poland turning to the orthodox church.


My bad, 60~ cities, the point still stands you've got several thousands towns and cities in Europe and only a part of them in Germany, how would they generate wealth that could carry an entire country?

I can agree that Germany starts building its wealth in XV century but it will take it over a hundred years to become even moderately wealthy, especially with the 30 years war up ahead.

The problem here is that the subject matter is to vague to discuss it properly. You cant talk about living conditions amongst inhabitants of Rzeczpospolita mentioning facts from 14th and 17th century with one breath and establishing some common ground with each other. If you really are interested in generalizations, though, than I would say that first Rzeczpospolita had a great potential and gave great opportunities for it's citizens and at the same time the wealth it generated was the reason of its downfall, because while magnates where multiplying their fortunes, the state, or should I say the King, was basically in a state of constant bankruptcy since the time Vladislaus III of Varna got into an enormous debt trying to fund his crusades against the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.

Scottish warriors didn't have much money and look what they accomplished in battle. Look at America in the wars it has fought and how money has gotten them nowhere.

Ummm...out of interest here, what are you hinting at Seanie?
What have scottish warriors accomplished?

Read some Scottish history books, BB, they'll reveal all.

Very simple: the cities of the Hanseatic League were trading centers. They serviced huge areas around them (including other cities and towns) and they were not only connected via shipping lines. Extensive land routes also existed.

The Hanseatic League is just one example of many why the Holy Roman Empire was not really a 'craphole' as you indicated, BTW.


Who was leading the catholic church in Poland (other than the pope, I mean)? The king? Would he be able to convert the whole clergy to the orthodox church?

Help me out here! :)
(I have no scottish book at hand)

I can't remember a scottish Empire and the last time I looked you melted into England...but maybe I'm missing alot here?

There was no melt, there was a merchant sellout where business took precedence. We are not imperialists and don't pretend to be. We are strong fighters, though.

Well you also failed to mention that the Slavic House of Mecklenburg ran the show in western germany.

Same goes for the Slavic Piast dynasty that controlled Silesia and the eastern borders og Germany aka Holy roman empire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silesian_Piasts


Poland didn't have peace for more then 5 years in a row, do you also call that an advantage?


Wrong again!!

In the crown lands the nobility used leaseholds.

One of the main reasons why Catherine II of Russia invaded Poland in 1772 was because of all the serfs who fled to Poland to be escape from the serfdom in Russia.


They did threw their fiefdom Courland.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonies_of_Poland