Timeline of Events
World War II – Poland
The Nation Calls! - An appeal for war bonds, 1918
Marshal Jozef Pilsudski foresaw the expansion of Hitler and Stalin.
Poles take Wilno
Polish Delegation to the Treaty of Riga which set Poland's borders.
Stalin with his henchmen in Moscow, 1936.
1772 – 1918
Poland is partitioned between Austria, Russia and Prussia.
1917
March – Russian Revolution. The Tsar’s government falls and is replaced by a Provisional Government.
November – The Bolsheviks overthrow the Provisional Government. Vladimir Lenin re-forms the Cheka (secret police) which will be responsible for the deaths of 250,000 people in the civil war from 1918-1920.
1918
January 8 – President Wilson calls for an independent Poland in his Fourteen Points speech.
September 18 – Bolsheviks execute 15,000 in two months of Red Terror.
November 11 – World War One Armistice. (Some 450,000 Poles died in the Russsian, Prussian and Austrian armies.) The Declaration of the Independence of Poland is announced in Warsaw; the Second Polish Republic is established after 123 years of captivity.
November 1918 – July 1919 – Polish-Ukrainian (Galician) war.
November 14 – Marshal Jozef Pilsudski becomes Head of State of Poland.
November 30 – Poland is admitted as a party to the peace negotations with France and Britain.
1919
January 12 – Soviets launch Operation Target Wisla hoping to capture Warsaw and start an uprising in Germany. Soviets had occupied Wilno and Minsk with large Polish populations, in the wake of German retreat.
February 9 – Pilsudski orders Polish Army against the Red Army.
February 12 – The first clash between Polish forces and the Red Army takes place at Bereza Kartuska.
March-August – Poles capture Wilno, Lwow, Minsk.
June 28 – Treaty of Versailles. Signing for Poland are Roman Dmowski and Ignacy Paderewski.
1920
1920’s – Soviets set up network of state concentration camps known as the Gulag.
January – Czechoslovak troops seize Cieszyn, an area inhabited by Poles.
April 21 – Poland and Ukraine sign an alliance against the Soviet Union.
April 25 – Polish-Ukrainian forces attack Bolsheviks in hope of securing Ukrainian independence.
May – Poles launch offensive on Kiev which angers Western Allies. Soviets assemble a huge strike force against Poland.
July – Soviets drive Poles back toward Warsaw.
July 2 – Red Army General Tukhachevsky issues marching orders: “Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to worldwide conflagration.”
August 10 – Red Army nears Warsaw–the collapse of Poland appears imminent.
August 18 – Poles defeat Soviets in Batte of Warsaw, also known as the Miracle on the Wisla. This is considered the 18th-decisive battle in world history as Soviet plans for a European invasion were thwarted.
August 30 – The Ukrainian Military Organization (UVO) is founded in Prague.
October 27 – Allied Ambassadors confirm a decree creating the Free City of Gdansk (Danzig).
1921
February 24 – The Polish-Soviet Repatration Agreement permits 700,000 Jews to enter Poland from the USSR. About 800,000 Jewish refugees will be granted Polish citizenship.
March 17 – Constitution of the Republic of Poland, based on the French model, is adopted.
March 18 – Treaty of Riga ends Russo-Polish War. Poland gains parts of Byelorussia and western Ukraine–a step recognized by the Allies as part of the Treaty of Versailles.
1922
April – Founding of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Joseph Stalin is elected Secretary of the Communist Party.
1924
January 21 – Death of Lenin.
October 2 – Poland signs the Charter of the League of Nations.
1925
July 18 – Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, is published.
1926
May – Pilsudski stages a coup d’etat to prevent one by Roman Dmowski. A left-wing military regime is established in which Pilsudski allows parliamentary government while he controls the military.
1927
First Five-Year Plan in USSR.
1929
January – The First Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists convenes in Vienna and creates the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists).
December – Stalin announces the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class.” Forced collectivization and industrialization begins in USSR.
1930
July 1 – November 30 – Polish authorities arrest 1,739 Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia for committing over 2,000 acts of sabotage.
September 16 – Polish authorities begin a ten-week “pacification” campaign against some Ukrainian villages in Eastern Galicia in response to terrorism by the UVO-OUN. The League of Nations while not approving of the methods, recognizes that Ukrainian Nationalists were to blame for inviting this response.
1931
Polish census shows 3,113,900 Jews in Poland (9.8% of the population). Almost 80% of Jews declare Yiddish to be their mother tongue. Per capita income for Jews is 830 zloty and 585 for non-Jews. Jews account for 40% of Poland’s university graduates.
1932
1932-1933 – Stalin unleashes a man-made famine in Ukraine aiming to destroy Ukrainian nationalism and “class enemies.” Seven million perish.
July 25 – Nonaggression Pact between Poland and the USSR.
1933
January 30 – Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.
November 16 – President Roosevelt recognizes the USSR
even as 8,000 Ukrainians march in protest in New York.
1934
January 26 – Nonaggression Pact between Poland and Germany.
June 15 – Polish Minister Bronislaw Pieracki is assassinated by a Ukrainian Nationalist in Warsaw.
August 19 – Hitler assumes title of Fuhrer. (Pilsudski proposes a war against Germany by Poland and France before Hitler rearms, but is rebuffed by Paris.)
December 1 – Great Terror unfolds in USSR with murder of Sergei Kirov. The Communist Party and military will be decimated by purges and show trials. Some 720,000 people are executed between 1934-1938, but the toll may be closer to 5 milllion.
1935
January 1 – The newly-unified Gulag system contains 965,000 prisoners.
May 12 – Death of Pilsudski. A ruling clique of Colonels led by Marshal Smigly-Rydz form a Camp of National Unity and continue to rule Poland.
1936
March 7 – German troops occupy the Rhineland.
August – First Show Trial in USSR.
June – Purge of Red Army by Stalin. About 45% of senior officers and colonels are sacked or executed.
August 20 – NKVD embarks on new repressions against national minorities in the USSR, beginning with the Germans and moving on to the Poles with their Polish Operation.
1938
March – Third Show Trial in USSR. Some 150 leading Americans, including Irving Shaw and Lillian Hellman, sign a statement supporting the executions of Bukharin and others.
March 12 – Germany annexes Austria in Anschluss.
July 10 – The NKVD reports it arrested 134,519 Poles in the USSR during Polish Operation of whom between 54,000 and 67,000 were shot and the rest sent to camps or Kazakhstan.
October 13 – Polish troops occupy Cziesyn in Czechoslovakia.
October 15 – German troops occupy Sudetenland; Czech government resigns.
November 15 – Kristallnacht in Germany.
Christopher Jacek Gladun was born in 1951 and grew up in Canada to where his family emigrated from England as displaced persons. Sadly, Chris died in Toronto in March 2003. He held a diploma in Journalism from the Niagara College and a BA in Polish Language & Literature from the University of Toronto. Chris also acted as interviewer and researcher for the documentary film “Rescued From Death in Siberia”.
This content is now maintained by the Kresy-Siberia Group, which Chris was a charter member of and which is taking his website and his research work forward.