History /
remember, forget, forgive, blame ... Holocaust Memorial Day in Poland [231]
This is important because there's a big difference between Poland being given its independence and taking it, Poles took their independence back by themselves with very limited foreign aid, otherwise no one would give it to them, Versailles only acknowledged the end result.
It wasn't through a war with Germany that Poland got their independence...quite to the contrary many Poles fighted WWI on the sides of the partitioners.
On the outbreak of war the Poles found themselves conscripted into the armies of Germany, Austria and Russia, and forced to fight each other in a war that was not theirs. Although many Poles sympathized with France and Britain, they found it hard to fight for their ally, Russia. They also had little sympathy for the Germans. Total deaths from 1914-18, military and civilian, within the 1919-1939 borders, were estimated at 1,128,000.[147]
Well, the new borders where drawn in Versailles, not in Warsaw.
The french send troops to support them...the german side was forced to subscribe to the treaty
(or else the blockade would not had ended, killing even more than the already starved to death 600.000 people).I think we can say that in the mainstream history it's this treaty which destroyed the german and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and carved out of them new countries....
Ask the Hungarians, they feel the same!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Trianon
....
The territory of Hungary was reduced from 325,111 km2 to 93,073 km2 and its population from 20.9 million to 7.6 million.[9]
Hungary lost five of its ten most populous cities as well.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland#Formation_of_modern_Polish_society_under_foreign_rule
...
Polish independence was eventually proclaimed on November 3, 1918 and later confirmed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
The same treaty also gave Poland some territories annexed by the Germans and Austrians during the partitions (see Polish Corridor). The post-war eastern borders of Poland were determined by Polish victory in the Polish-Soviet War.
And it wasn't only about purely polish territory, it was also about territory purely german in history and population.
After the fall of the empires it was a free for all and every nationality which could tried to grab as much land for itself as possible...
/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles#Territorial_changes
Wilson's friend Edward Mandell House, present at the negotiations, wrote in his diary on 29 June 1919:
"I am leaving Paris, after eight fateful months, with conflicting emotions. Looking at the conference in retrospect, there is much to approve and yet much to regret.
It is easy to say what should have been done, but more difficult to have found a way of doing it. To those who are saying that the treaty is bad and should never have been made and that it will involve Europe in infinite difficulties in its enforcement, I feel like admitting it.
