No GNW (or “Peter goes South”)
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
I will not surprise if Poland declare war to both Germany and Russia because new Poland government didn't look very smart.
Actually, its new head was smart. Those who came after him weren’t. So the things will go better before they go worse: a new big army can’t be created overnight.
Dont worry, soon India will be a Republic too
No need to be jealous
Rzeczpospolita Polska. The first steps
424. Rzeczpospolita Polska. The first steps
From 1922.
The coup was spectacularly successful but it also was disappointing: Pilsudski’s control of the army was not as strong as he expected and some units had been fighting against him. Which mean that a support base must be strengthened and not by a greater reliance upon his traditional left wing allies many of whom actually liked the old Sejm-centric system and supported him mostly because they did not like their opponents getting an upper hand within that system. And the system was exactly what Pilsudski was against: in his opinion the only way out of the mess was a strong authoritarian regime with him at the head. His supporters immediately formed a pro-regime party with a surprisingly frank name: Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem , (BBWR), “Non-Party bloc of cooperation with the government", which was interpreting “cooperation” in a very broad meaning including both constitutional and not quite so activities.
The Great Man was modestly keeping himself outside of the ongoing political cabaret holding strictly military positions, leaving the everyday activities to the ministers whom he closely controlled from behind the curtains and feeling himself absolutely free to give the interviews in which he expressed his low opinion about the present Sejm and opposition parties if quite “un-parliamentarian” language: "... does Poland want the Sejms to be similar to the previous ones and have the features of the sovereignty of parties and party latrines that are constantly impudent in abuses, or does it want to break with it so that there are no traces of this past?". [3]
The elections. Obviously, his attitudes, about which he was quite outspoken, produced a broad left-center-right opposition in the Sejm. Its members, using the existing constitutional procedures, provided for by the Constitution of 1921, prevented the adoption of the budget draft by the new government, blocked the development of a new constitution drafted by BBWR, demanded the resignation of “sanation” government, demanded to bring to justice individual ministers.
They had to go and on Pilsudski’s order President of the Republic (on a left in a collective portrait of him and Pilsudski, see above) [4] issued a decree of August 31, 1922 on the early dissolution of parliament and the appointment of new elections to the Sejm and Senate for November 16 and 23, respectively. In September, the "centrolev" was transformed into an election bloc consisting of five parties, after which the authorities illegally arrested a number of former deputies from the “centrolev” opposition and from mid-September to the end of November they “pacified” the Ukrainian villages in Eastern Galicia.
Before the elections Pilsudski declared that he and his supporters can’t lose and, to turn this prophesy into a reality, BBWR was actively engaged in intimidation of voters and fraud during the elections but they failed to reach the overwhelming majority that the marshal expected in the elections. It simply became the biggest party. Conveniently, this was enough to pass the new constitution, which made Sejm almost irrelevant. Formally, there was no complete curtailment of the mechanisms of democracy and civil liberties under Pilsudski, although their restriction was significant. Still, BBWR had a clear majority and Sanation government had a freedom of actions.
To solidify his hold on the situation, six months after the coup, Pilsudski, although a former socialist, made a visit to Prince Albrecht Radziwill in his residence, where about 70 influential aristocrats gathered, and enlisted their loyalty.
Political police.
(above is a portrait of “Iron Felix”, a head of the “State Security Service”)
Only in utopian visions of an ideal world can you imagine a state without an army, police and information services and, well before the coup, there was some kind of a political police, a Department of Correspondence created within the framework of the administrative section of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It consisted of 33 employees collecting information on various manifestations of public and political life (special emphasis was placed on monitoring the activities of left-wing parties). Later it was replaced with the Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This body was to be engaged in: ensuring that the Minister of the Interior receives information about the political and social movement in the country; supervision of political groups and persons who pose a threat to the state (communists); training and education of political police personnel.
Instead of the Intelligence Bureau, an Information Department was created in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was to become an information center throughout Poland. In contrast to the liquidated Intelligence Bureau, the Information Division represented the interests of the Pilsudchik camp. It organized specialized internal units that were engaged in wiretapping telephone conversations and secret viewing of correspondence. Then, instead of the Intelligence Bureau, an Information Department was created in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was to become an information center throughout Poland. It organized specialized internal units that were engaged in wiretapping telephone conversations and secret viewing of correspondence. Later, a highly secret Political Counterintelligence Inspectorate: “Political issues will fall within the competence of the Political Counterintelligence Inspectorate”, which in 1920 was replaced by “Department IVD” which had its offices in all voyevodships. The existence and activities of the offices were strictly concealed, and therefore all their employees, when carrying out official actions, did not disclose that they were counterintelligence officers. According to archival data, in January 1922, 928 police counterintelligence officers, including 718 ordinary police officers, were serving throughout the country. After the coup the political police, renamed into State Security Service”, was the only internal service of the State Police engaged in political counterintelligence. It practically conducted, as has been repeatedly emphasized, a confidential study of almost all spheres of public life. Its numbers were increased and it was solidly supporting the new regime and its leader.
Its work was partly repressive and partly analytical. The character and degree of the interest was influenced by the fact whether specific party posed a threat to the regime and the form of social structure of the Polish state or not. In case of a positive response, this party was consistently persecuted by all means at the disposal of the police. Two main targeted groups were the opposition parties and the parties representing national minorities. For the most inconvenient personages Bereza Kartuska prison was established where the inmates were detained without trial or conviction [5]. In the cases of espionage political police was cooperating with military counterintelligence.
Monetary reform.
The Polish marka (marka polska), MP, which was initially established as an equivalent to the German mark, was in a state of the free fall: 207 billion marks were in circulation. On the first stage of a fall, there were notes of Mp 10,000 and Mp 50,000 followed by Mp 100,000, Mp 250,000, Mp 500,000 and Mp 1,000,000 and in 1922 by Mp 5,000,000 and Mp 10,000,000.
After the coup a financial reform was conducted. The Bank Polski was proclaimed as the new central bank of Poland. The marka was exchanged for a new, gold-based currency, the złoty, at the rate of Mp 1,800,000 to 1 zł. The złoty began to stabilise in 1924 (chiefly due to significant exports of coal). After this it was freely exchanged into gold and foreign currency. Based on these developments, the Polish government made the decision to adopt the gold standard and maintain it for a significant period to attract global investors.
Abroad. The news about the coup, surprisingly or not too much so, had been met with a certain degree of enthusiasm abroad:
So far, the only piece of news somehow related to Poland, which was of some public interest had been a wedding of Prince Charles Poniatowski (second son of the former king), who married Countess Anne de Caraman-Chimay, a daughter of Count Pierre Marie de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay (a son of Joseph, 18th Prince de Chimay) and Marthe Mathilde Barbe Werlé (daughter of Alfred Werlé, whose family controlled Veuve Clicquot). [6]
Being, unlike most of his political allies and opponents, a very intelligent person, Pilsudski clearly understood that to go openly to implementation of the nationalist agenda with an army of approximately 500,000 with mostly obsolete equipment would inevitably result in a failure and experience of the recent Balkan and Greek-Turkish war made it clear that a serious war will require either a well-developed munitions industry or a very reliable source of the military supplies. France was the only major continental power which could provide both needed investments and big quantities of the modern weapons and ammunition: pretty much all other realistic continental sources had reasons to be suspicious about the Polish territorial ambitions. Of course, Britain also could be such a source but it was still in a midst of a prolonged crisis and its active involvement in the continental affairs will most probably produce a very negative reaction from all three continental Great Powers while France, with its very close political (and family, on the imperial level) relations with other two, could easily dissuade any fears by assurance that everything is under control.
Unfortunately, even a very intelligent person can miscalculate some things and he made such a miscalculation based exclusively upon his personal dislike of the Germans. In June 1923, a new customs law was passed in Poland. Its aim was to protect the Polish market from foreign competitors and cover increased financial needs. It was supposed to serve as a basis for future trade agreements. While divergent terms were settled in bilateral treaties between Poland and France, Austria-Bohemia, Hungary and Greece, the taxes on other imports were raised 100%. This was a protectionist measure against the growing German imports into Poland and resulting economic and political dependency but, while doing so, Poland also expected to preserve its own trade privileges, including German obligation to buy certain amount of the Polish coal, with Germany. The tense negotiations followed with neither side being willing to budge. Germany reciprocated: all purchases of Polish coal were stopped and customs duties raised on all Polish-made products. Some Polish exports were subject to a German embargo.
The Polish government, facing a breakdown in international trade, was forced to initiate a program of internal investment, which resulted in the growth of local production. Unemployment was reduced by a mass public works program. Since the zloty had lost some of its value, export of Polish coal to Sweden and Denmark-Norway became profitable (by the existing three party agreement, transportation between Poland and Danzig area through German territory was guaranteed and duty free) helping to stabilize zloty close to its original value (it was still cheaper than German or British) . Poland found new trade partners making its economy less dependent on Germany overall and domestic modernization program was successfully accelerated. On a negative side, due to the absence of the traditional German imports and generally higher costs of the replacements, poverty increased, resulting in labor strikes and demonstrations.
For Germany, the customs war had a negligible effect, as exports to Poland were only 4 to 5% of German international trade.
________
[1] About imprisoned members of the Sejm opposition.
[2] Unofficial central organ of Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem.
[3] Not that I’m a big fan of the dictatorial regimes but there was definitely something in making association between the political parties and the latrines. 😂
[4] I mentioned his name in a previous chapter but, really, who cares?
[5] In OTL only in 1934 but we are on a compressed schedule and, TTL chief of the political police is more “proactive” than OTL Polish equivalents (and much less so than real OTL personage). 😥
[6] In OTL this happened in 1920.
“The dictatorship of good intentions created by Pilsudski was based on his will, which weakened from fatigue and disease, and activity of the "colonels". They may have been good military, but unimportant politicians and even worse administrators.”
Y. Shimov, ‘Dictatorship of the good intentions’
“I was riding in the red tram of socialism, but got out of it at the "Independence" stop.”
"... you can gather scumbags, as there are a lot of them in the Sejm, some hundred, and say that this is the Sejm. And the state should depend on such scumbags?"
“…These sloppy creatures will sit in prison; maybe they will learn from a little discipline applied to them, maybe these loudmouthes will lose their bad aberration of thinking.” [1]
J. Pilsudski
«... We have a Chief, and we follow him in a disciplined order»
‘Gazeta Polska’ [2]
“The father of all civil rights of modern Poland, the creator of the Sejm, the organizer of work, the defender of guardianship rights, the guardian of the laws, …. who carries in his palms the living heart of the homeland, the glory of weapons and his works, forever irreplaceable.”
Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski
Y. Shimov, ‘Dictatorship of the good intentions’
“I was riding in the red tram of socialism, but got out of it at the "Independence" stop.”
"... you can gather scumbags, as there are a lot of them in the Sejm, some hundred, and say that this is the Sejm. And the state should depend on such scumbags?"
“…These sloppy creatures will sit in prison; maybe they will learn from a little discipline applied to them, maybe these loudmouthes will lose their bad aberration of thinking.” [1]
J. Pilsudski
«... We have a Chief, and we follow him in a disciplined order»
‘Gazeta Polska’ [2]
“The father of all civil rights of modern Poland, the creator of the Sejm, the organizer of work, the defender of guardianship rights, the guardian of the laws, …. who carries in his palms the living heart of the homeland, the glory of weapons and his works, forever irreplaceable.”
Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski
From 1922.
The coup was spectacularly successful but it also was disappointing: Pilsudski’s control of the army was not as strong as he expected and some units had been fighting against him. Which mean that a support base must be strengthened and not by a greater reliance upon his traditional left wing allies many of whom actually liked the old Sejm-centric system and supported him mostly because they did not like their opponents getting an upper hand within that system. And the system was exactly what Pilsudski was against: in his opinion the only way out of the mess was a strong authoritarian regime with him at the head. His supporters immediately formed a pro-regime party with a surprisingly frank name: Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem , (BBWR), “Non-Party bloc of cooperation with the government", which was interpreting “cooperation” in a very broad meaning including both constitutional and not quite so activities.
The Great Man was modestly keeping himself outside of the ongoing political cabaret holding strictly military positions, leaving the everyday activities to the ministers whom he closely controlled from behind the curtains and feeling himself absolutely free to give the interviews in which he expressed his low opinion about the present Sejm and opposition parties if quite “un-parliamentarian” language: "... does Poland want the Sejms to be similar to the previous ones and have the features of the sovereignty of parties and party latrines that are constantly impudent in abuses, or does it want to break with it so that there are no traces of this past?". [3]
The elections. Obviously, his attitudes, about which he was quite outspoken, produced a broad left-center-right opposition in the Sejm. Its members, using the existing constitutional procedures, provided for by the Constitution of 1921, prevented the adoption of the budget draft by the new government, blocked the development of a new constitution drafted by BBWR, demanded the resignation of “sanation” government, demanded to bring to justice individual ministers.
They had to go and on Pilsudski’s order President of the Republic (on a left in a collective portrait of him and Pilsudski, see above) [4] issued a decree of August 31, 1922 on the early dissolution of parliament and the appointment of new elections to the Sejm and Senate for November 16 and 23, respectively. In September, the "centrolev" was transformed into an election bloc consisting of five parties, after which the authorities illegally arrested a number of former deputies from the “centrolev” opposition and from mid-September to the end of November they “pacified” the Ukrainian villages in Eastern Galicia.
Before the elections Pilsudski declared that he and his supporters can’t lose and, to turn this prophesy into a reality, BBWR was actively engaged in intimidation of voters and fraud during the elections but they failed to reach the overwhelming majority that the marshal expected in the elections. It simply became the biggest party. Conveniently, this was enough to pass the new constitution, which made Sejm almost irrelevant. Formally, there was no complete curtailment of the mechanisms of democracy and civil liberties under Pilsudski, although their restriction was significant. Still, BBWR had a clear majority and Sanation government had a freedom of actions.
To solidify his hold on the situation, six months after the coup, Pilsudski, although a former socialist, made a visit to Prince Albrecht Radziwill in his residence, where about 70 influential aristocrats gathered, and enlisted their loyalty.
Political police.
(above is a portrait of “Iron Felix”, a head of the “State Security Service”)
Only in utopian visions of an ideal world can you imagine a state without an army, police and information services and, well before the coup, there was some kind of a political police, a Department of Correspondence created within the framework of the administrative section of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It consisted of 33 employees collecting information on various manifestations of public and political life (special emphasis was placed on monitoring the activities of left-wing parties). Later it was replaced with the Intelligence Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This body was to be engaged in: ensuring that the Minister of the Interior receives information about the political and social movement in the country; supervision of political groups and persons who pose a threat to the state (communists); training and education of political police personnel.
Instead of the Intelligence Bureau, an Information Department was created in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was to become an information center throughout Poland. In contrast to the liquidated Intelligence Bureau, the Information Division represented the interests of the Pilsudchik camp. It organized specialized internal units that were engaged in wiretapping telephone conversations and secret viewing of correspondence. Then, instead of the Intelligence Bureau, an Information Department was created in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was to become an information center throughout Poland. It organized specialized internal units that were engaged in wiretapping telephone conversations and secret viewing of correspondence. Later, a highly secret Political Counterintelligence Inspectorate: “Political issues will fall within the competence of the Political Counterintelligence Inspectorate”, which in 1920 was replaced by “Department IVD” which had its offices in all voyevodships. The existence and activities of the offices were strictly concealed, and therefore all their employees, when carrying out official actions, did not disclose that they were counterintelligence officers. According to archival data, in January 1922, 928 police counterintelligence officers, including 718 ordinary police officers, were serving throughout the country. After the coup the political police, renamed into State Security Service”, was the only internal service of the State Police engaged in political counterintelligence. It practically conducted, as has been repeatedly emphasized, a confidential study of almost all spheres of public life. Its numbers were increased and it was solidly supporting the new regime and its leader.
Its work was partly repressive and partly analytical. The character and degree of the interest was influenced by the fact whether specific party posed a threat to the regime and the form of social structure of the Polish state or not. In case of a positive response, this party was consistently persecuted by all means at the disposal of the police. Two main targeted groups were the opposition parties and the parties representing national minorities. For the most inconvenient personages Bereza Kartuska prison was established where the inmates were detained without trial or conviction [5]. In the cases of espionage political police was cooperating with military counterintelligence.
Monetary reform.
The Polish marka (marka polska), MP, which was initially established as an equivalent to the German mark, was in a state of the free fall: 207 billion marks were in circulation. On the first stage of a fall, there were notes of Mp 10,000 and Mp 50,000 followed by Mp 100,000, Mp 250,000, Mp 500,000 and Mp 1,000,000 and in 1922 by Mp 5,000,000 and Mp 10,000,000.
After the coup a financial reform was conducted. The Bank Polski was proclaimed as the new central bank of Poland. The marka was exchanged for a new, gold-based currency, the złoty, at the rate of Mp 1,800,000 to 1 zł. The złoty began to stabilise in 1924 (chiefly due to significant exports of coal). After this it was freely exchanged into gold and foreign currency. Based on these developments, the Polish government made the decision to adopt the gold standard and maintain it for a significant period to attract global investors.
Abroad. The news about the coup, surprisingly or not too much so, had been met with a certain degree of enthusiasm abroad:
- It look like the major source of the political instability in Europe had been gone and with it a danger of the military conflicts: the new regime was so far refraining from the pre-coup nationalistic rhetoric regarding unjust borders.
- The new regime was clearly eager to clamp on the left-wing parties, especially the communists.
- Judging by the election results, the new regime had a strong support base and would be there for a long time.
- Shift from the socialist background to the right was encouraging in the terms of the future investments.
- The “offended party”, a former king, was not making any unhappy noises and calls for revenge: he was quite happy, active in the French financial circles and in his interviews quite gracious to a new regime.
So far, the only piece of news somehow related to Poland, which was of some public interest had been a wedding of Prince Charles Poniatowski (second son of the former king), who married Countess Anne de Caraman-Chimay, a daughter of Count Pierre Marie de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay (a son of Joseph, 18th Prince de Chimay) and Marthe Mathilde Barbe Werlé (daughter of Alfred Werlé, whose family controlled Veuve Clicquot). [6]
Being, unlike most of his political allies and opponents, a very intelligent person, Pilsudski clearly understood that to go openly to implementation of the nationalist agenda with an army of approximately 500,000 with mostly obsolete equipment would inevitably result in a failure and experience of the recent Balkan and Greek-Turkish war made it clear that a serious war will require either a well-developed munitions industry or a very reliable source of the military supplies. France was the only major continental power which could provide both needed investments and big quantities of the modern weapons and ammunition: pretty much all other realistic continental sources had reasons to be suspicious about the Polish territorial ambitions. Of course, Britain also could be such a source but it was still in a midst of a prolonged crisis and its active involvement in the continental affairs will most probably produce a very negative reaction from all three continental Great Powers while France, with its very close political (and family, on the imperial level) relations with other two, could easily dissuade any fears by assurance that everything is under control.
Unfortunately, even a very intelligent person can miscalculate some things and he made such a miscalculation based exclusively upon his personal dislike of the Germans. In June 1923, a new customs law was passed in Poland. Its aim was to protect the Polish market from foreign competitors and cover increased financial needs. It was supposed to serve as a basis for future trade agreements. While divergent terms were settled in bilateral treaties between Poland and France, Austria-Bohemia, Hungary and Greece, the taxes on other imports were raised 100%. This was a protectionist measure against the growing German imports into Poland and resulting economic and political dependency but, while doing so, Poland also expected to preserve its own trade privileges, including German obligation to buy certain amount of the Polish coal, with Germany. The tense negotiations followed with neither side being willing to budge. Germany reciprocated: all purchases of Polish coal were stopped and customs duties raised on all Polish-made products. Some Polish exports were subject to a German embargo.
The Polish government, facing a breakdown in international trade, was forced to initiate a program of internal investment, which resulted in the growth of local production. Unemployment was reduced by a mass public works program. Since the zloty had lost some of its value, export of Polish coal to Sweden and Denmark-Norway became profitable (by the existing three party agreement, transportation between Poland and Danzig area through German territory was guaranteed and duty free) helping to stabilize zloty close to its original value (it was still cheaper than German or British) . Poland found new trade partners making its economy less dependent on Germany overall and domestic modernization program was successfully accelerated. On a negative side, due to the absence of the traditional German imports and generally higher costs of the replacements, poverty increased, resulting in labor strikes and demonstrations.
For Germany, the customs war had a negligible effect, as exports to Poland were only 4 to 5% of German international trade.
________
[1] About imprisoned members of the Sejm opposition.
[2] Unofficial central organ of Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem.
[3] Not that I’m a big fan of the dictatorial regimes but there was definitely something in making association between the political parties and the latrines. 😂
[4] I mentioned his name in a previous chapter but, really, who cares?
[5] In OTL only in 1934 but we are on a compressed schedule and, TTL chief of the political police is more “proactive” than OTL Polish equivalents (and much less so than real OTL personage). 😥
[6] In OTL this happened in 1920.
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Most of the circus-related professions, including one of a clown, require high professionalism so, taking into an account P’s attitude to this institution, comparison would be a completely undeserved compliment. 😂
Comparing to the skills of a descent clown….. Strange as it may sound, requirements to a political circus are much lower than to just circus. So only very few in the first would be able to perform in the second while any marginally professional clown could do well in the first.
Been catching up, one thing I think Poland's gone seemingly the direction of pre civil war Spain with a dictatorship being seen as a ''iron willed surgeon'' to cleanse it.
Unlike Spain though Poland's seemingly going to look outward than inward and that could lead to some serious consequences down the line than just oppressing your own people.
Unlike Spain though Poland's seemingly going to look outward than inward and that could lead to some serious consequences down the line than just oppressing your own people.
Dictatorship was more than once considered a reasonable way out of the mess. Sometimes it did work, sometimes it resulted in a much greater mess.
Indeed. I’m just trying to figure out what these consequences could be without going all the way to OTL scenario.
Yep. Mixed track record. Not too unlike any other option in that sense.
And when the “great person” is gone and his place is taken by the much lesser figures, situation becomes even less clear depending upon a wide spectrum of the circumstances. OTL Poland was perhaps a worst case scenario being led by the aggressive fools who considered themselves great manipulators.
Military intelligence
425. Military intelligence
General Background.
After the Barmalei War ended and after economic depression of the early 1920s was over, things went back to their normal, which meant that all self-respecting countries had to figure out what their military plans for the future are going to be. As far as the professional military planners had been concerned, situation was rather depressing because the last war proved to be an extremely expensive exercise which did not left any of the participants (with a possible exception of Portugal) with a serious urge for a revenge or a nagging desire to get more. The following Balkan conflicts, while being bloodier, did not really matter (as far as the Great Powers were concerned) both in the terms of the territorial reshuffling (even a token presence of the Great Powers was enough to guarantee security of the Straits and transcontinental railroad) and as some useful military experience due to their rather low-tech nature.
The politicians of the Great Powers at least for a moment had been preaching, co-existence, peace, brotherly love and all other things associated with an advanced civilization including the moral obligation of civilizing the less advanced people (list of which was, after the war set to a mutual satisfaction of all Great Powers) with an obvious right to get an appropriate compensation for their efforts. Even two most bellicose figures in European politics were in a peaceful mood:
There were numerous bilateral non-aggression pacts and even a persistent talk about creating some international body for a peaceful settlement of the future misunderstandings. Which was, of course, just an idealistic blabbing but better this than a talk about the new big war and, what was even better, it provided the ample opportunities to arrange for the frequent meetings in some nice places of Europe where, between the banquets and other entertainments, there could be exchange of the ideas on how all this can be done followed by the group photo sessions and interviews with the excited members of the press. Surely, the peace was a good thing.
Of course, this was making life of the military planners more difficult both because of a prevailing political mood but these planners tended to be true professionals dedicated to do their work regardless the obstacles. Their task was to analyze the available information and made presentation on a level which even their corresponding governments and parliamentarians would be able to comprehend.
The “source data”
The Barmalei War and the later conflicts produced a lot of information that had to be digested by the bright military brains populating the general staffs of the self-respective countries:
Based upon all these undeniable facts, the prevailing wisdom was more or less boiling down to the following.
On the land:
Dissenters.
Two military establishments, each in its own way, deviated from the mainstream:
Rzeczpospolita Polska.
Established in October 1918 as the 2nd Information Office of the Polish General Staff (PGSH), the division changed its names and structure until it became the 2nd Department in 1921. It led intelligence and counterintelligence, military attachés, Polish foreign organizations, studied foreign armies, was engaged in encryption and decryption, compiled reports to the top leadership of the state and army on the state in neighboring countries and their armed forces.
The main tasks of the 2nd Department was to provide timely information to the government and army command about the military ideas and plans in relation to Poland. It was collecting data about the standing military forces, mobilization resources, readiness of the economies for war, trends in military construction, weapons, special equipment, development of their promising models, etc.
In 1922, according to the Polish intelligence, Russian Empire did not have the aggressive plans against Poland, which was was evidenced by the reduction in the number of troops on the Russian-Polish border in January-July from 250 thousand people to 168 thousand people (20 rifle, 4 cavalry divisions and 2 separate caval brigades). However, leadership of the Polish General Staff (PGS) considered that the forces of the Polish army - 292 thousand people, 30 infantry, 4 cavalry divisions and 5 separate cavalry brigades will be inadequate in the case Russia, alone or most probably in an alliance with Germany and/or Sweden, decides to attack Poland.
Discussed at the meeting shortly before the coup the program of 15-year modernization of the national armed forces was proposed, which included creation of mobile units, bringing the combat personnel of the Polish Army to 60 infantry, 9 cavalry divisions, 30 tank battalions, 180-200 air squadrons, expansion of the transport network and military production, preparation of a number of industry enterprises for re-profiling for the military production. But after the May coup due to lack of finances, the program was carried out for a while with a long lag and then practically stopped: Pilsudski, being a practical person, clearly understood both a danger of confronting the big neighbors and inadequacy of the Polish industry for the task. Priority had to be development of the domestic manufacturing and, in a meantime, Poland had to be a non-bellicose neighbor to the Great Powers. Even the idea of unification of the “Polish” territories had to be put on hold until an appropriate moment.
“Military Intelligence is a contradiction.”
“No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection. No inspection ready unit has ever passed combat.”
“To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.”
Cannonical Murphy's Laws of Combat
“On the one hand, there is a political situation, and on the other hand, an operational situation. And they do not always coincide: the two states can maintain good political relations and at the same time indulge in the stubborn struggle of intelligence and counterintelligence.”
Yuri Andropov
“These guys look like a gang of maniacs and, much worse, sometimes I get the impression that they don't always understand what they're doing.”
“Only fools underestimate the role of chance. But only idiots overestimate it.”
“The problems must be resolved in the order of a decreasing priority.”
A. Aleksandrov, ‘Investigator and Daemon’
“No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection. No inspection ready unit has ever passed combat.”
“To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.”
Cannonical Murphy's Laws of Combat
“On the one hand, there is a political situation, and on the other hand, an operational situation. And they do not always coincide: the two states can maintain good political relations and at the same time indulge in the stubborn struggle of intelligence and counterintelligence.”
Yuri Andropov
“These guys look like a gang of maniacs and, much worse, sometimes I get the impression that they don't always understand what they're doing.”
“Only fools underestimate the role of chance. But only idiots overestimate it.”
“The problems must be resolved in the order of a decreasing priority.”
A. Aleksandrov, ‘Investigator and Daemon’
General Background.
After the Barmalei War ended and after economic depression of the early 1920s was over, things went back to their normal, which meant that all self-respecting countries had to figure out what their military plans for the future are going to be. As far as the professional military planners had been concerned, situation was rather depressing because the last war proved to be an extremely expensive exercise which did not left any of the participants (with a possible exception of Portugal) with a serious urge for a revenge or a nagging desire to get more. The following Balkan conflicts, while being bloodier, did not really matter (as far as the Great Powers were concerned) both in the terms of the territorial reshuffling (even a token presence of the Great Powers was enough to guarantee security of the Straits and transcontinental railroad) and as some useful military experience due to their rather low-tech nature.
The politicians of the Great Powers at least for a moment had been preaching, co-existence, peace, brotherly love and all other things associated with an advanced civilization including the moral obligation of civilizing the less advanced people (list of which was, after the war set to a mutual satisfaction of all Great Powers) with an obvious right to get an appropriate compensation for their efforts. Even two most bellicose figures in European politics were in a peaceful mood:
- Kaiser Wilhelm finally got enough glory to face his British relatives on the equal terms and now was ready to relax a little bit.
- Winston Churchill, after staying for a couple years out of politics, now served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure and depressing the UK economy but clearly helping Britain to stay on a peaceful course.
There were numerous bilateral non-aggression pacts and even a persistent talk about creating some international body for a peaceful settlement of the future misunderstandings. Which was, of course, just an idealistic blabbing but better this than a talk about the new big war and, what was even better, it provided the ample opportunities to arrange for the frequent meetings in some nice places of Europe where, between the banquets and other entertainments, there could be exchange of the ideas on how all this can be done followed by the group photo sessions and interviews with the excited members of the press. Surely, the peace was a good thing.
Of course, this was making life of the military planners more difficult both because of a prevailing political mood but these planners tended to be true professionals dedicated to do their work regardless the obstacles. Their task was to analyze the available information and made presentation on a level which even their corresponding governments and parliamentarians would be able to comprehend.
The “source data”
The Barmalei War and the later conflicts produced a lot of information that had to be digested by the bright military brains populating the general staffs of the self-respective countries:
- Short of the absolutely unlikely change of the political alignments, a major land war in Europe looked impossible and this included both British forces landing on the continent and the continental forces landing in Britain. In both cases the landing force was going to suffer the crippling casualties.
- The efficient military forces in the colonies proved to be quite important and it looked like in the case of a future conflict it would be most probably fought in Africa or Asia.
- As far as the colonial forces were involved, it became clear that their size is not as important as ability to maintain a reliable supply line with them. As a result of an absence of such a line the big high quality British forces had been suffering defeats from much smaller German and French colonial forces and even from the Ottomans.
- On the seas both short range (dreadnoughts) and long range (battlecruisers) capital ships proved to be very important.
- Submarines could be a major nuisance but not a miracle weapon.
- The new item, air carriers, proved to be of some value but mostly in the terms of a reconnaissance: their aviation failed to sink a single capital ship and, while they provided an ability to extend the range of aviation for attack on the land targets, their planes were too small to carry a big bomb load and could be intercepted by a coastal aviation and anti-aircraft artillery, both land- and ship-based.
- The Barmalei War did not include any armor and neither did the following Balkan wars but the continued French and Italian colonial operations in Africa provided some experience demonstrating that for the anticipated future conflicts the small, light, fast tanks armed with the heavy machine guns or small fast-firing guns are quite helpful in supporting the infantry attacks.
- Experience of the short Russian-Japanese encounter demonstrated that a well-dug infantry armed with the anti-tank guns and anti-tank rifles is going to stop a tank attack.
- Land-based aviation was, unquestionably, useful but intensive deployment of the anti-aircraft weapons surely was going to make it mostly and auxiliary tool rather than an independent branch.
Based upon all these undeniable facts, the prevailing wisdom was more or less boiling down to the following.
On the land:
- There is no need in the huge multi-million armies. An army of 600-700,000 would be quite adequate for a Great Power, providing it has a professional “nucleus” of 200 - 300,000 and few years worth of a trained reserve, which would allow to double its size in the case of a major war.
- Colonial troops (not included in the calculation) must be purely professional with a good weaponry but the technical weapons (aviation and the tanks) must be handled by the whites because the natives are simply not on a needed level, yet.
- Artillery and machine-guns (based upon the “Balkan” and Far Eastern experience) must be increased in the numbers and improved in quality with more heavy artillery added on a divisional and corps levels.
- Both on a continent and in the colonies the infantry and cavalry units should include armor support: the tankettes (with the machine-guns) or the light tanks (with the machine-guns and/or light guns). The heavier tanks, seemingly, were not providing too much in the terms of an “additional value” while being much costlier. The tanks, tankettes and armored cars should be distributed between the army units based upon their availability. The ideas of massing the tanks into big independent units of brigade size hardly could stand up to a serious criticism because their authors could not give a coherent explanation regarding their potential use and cooperation with other troops on a battlefield.
- Aviation must mostly consist of the fast light planes with the machine-guns and ability to carry a small bomb load. Its primary task is going to be to “soften” enemy’s positions before an attack. A limited number of the heavier planes will be needed to bomb objects behind the front line and there could be few long-range heavy bombers capable to fly deeper inside enemy’s territory to do some morale-breaking bombing: chances of these high-flying machines hitting some specific objects were minuscule. A book “Il dominio dell'aria” by Italian general Gulio Douhet was clearly a fantasy of an enthusiast (what can you expect from an Italian?)
- Bigger, faster submarines with a longer range.
- More big fast well-armored ships with a heavy artillery. They also have to posses a strong AA artillery.
- The carriers should be incorporated but mostly for the scouting and harassing purposes and kept reasonably far away from the immediate contact areas: having practically no armor and very little of an artillery, they are easy targets and, if sunk, the planes and highly trained pilots will be lost as well while their adequate defense would require assignment of the reasonably powerful conventional ships at the expense of their participation in a battle.
Dissenters.
Two military establishments, each in its own way, deviated from the mainstream:
- Japan was preparing itself to the major operations in China and perhaps beyond so the European ideas regarding the army size had been pretty much irrelevant even if those related to the armor and aviation looked acceptable, especially in a view of Japan’s limited access to steel and liquid fuel. The European naval ideas looked close to those of IJN except that it envisioned a much greater role for the carriers.
- Russia was viewing the Far East as the main potential theater with a potential need to keep considerable forces in Europe to be able to deal with the potentially volatile situation on the Balkans and, in a view of the recent developments, not only there. So a notion of the small army was simply inapplicable. OTOH, with permanently keeping huge force on Far East not being a very practical option, the quality would have to compensate for the quantity and the troops of Siberia and Far East needed to be not only well-trained but very heavily armed. They’d have the numerous tanks with a much better armor and heavier artillery than those used in Laka Khasan conflict, a very strong aviation of all types, from fighters to heavy bombers, and the greater numbers of artillery pieces and mace-guns than defined by the earlier standard. Incorporation of the tanks into existing structures was still under discussion but an idea of having at least brigade-sized units was gaining momentum. However, mass production of the new tanks only started and so far most of the available armor were the old T-29. Later, with the production increasing and Far Eastern troops rearmed, the same will be done to the Western military districts. The Pacific Fleet was a touchy issue but, with its main anticipated task being, so far, defense of the perimeter from Vladivostok to Alaska, the big fast carriers were one of its main components together with three battleships of the “Vladivostok” class.
Rzeczpospolita Polska.
Established in October 1918 as the 2nd Information Office of the Polish General Staff (PGSH), the division changed its names and structure until it became the 2nd Department in 1921. It led intelligence and counterintelligence, military attachés, Polish foreign organizations, studied foreign armies, was engaged in encryption and decryption, compiled reports to the top leadership of the state and army on the state in neighboring countries and their armed forces.
The main tasks of the 2nd Department was to provide timely information to the government and army command about the military ideas and plans in relation to Poland. It was collecting data about the standing military forces, mobilization resources, readiness of the economies for war, trends in military construction, weapons, special equipment, development of their promising models, etc.
In 1922, according to the Polish intelligence, Russian Empire did not have the aggressive plans against Poland, which was was evidenced by the reduction in the number of troops on the Russian-Polish border in January-July from 250 thousand people to 168 thousand people (20 rifle, 4 cavalry divisions and 2 separate caval brigades). However, leadership of the Polish General Staff (PGS) considered that the forces of the Polish army - 292 thousand people, 30 infantry, 4 cavalry divisions and 5 separate cavalry brigades will be inadequate in the case Russia, alone or most probably in an alliance with Germany and/or Sweden, decides to attack Poland.
Discussed at the meeting shortly before the coup the program of 15-year modernization of the national armed forces was proposed, which included creation of mobile units, bringing the combat personnel of the Polish Army to 60 infantry, 9 cavalry divisions, 30 tank battalions, 180-200 air squadrons, expansion of the transport network and military production, preparation of a number of industry enterprises for re-profiling for the military production. But after the May coup due to lack of finances, the program was carried out for a while with a long lag and then practically stopped: Pilsudski, being a practical person, clearly understood both a danger of confronting the big neighbors and inadequacy of the Polish industry for the task. Priority had to be development of the domestic manufacturing and, in a meantime, Poland had to be a non-bellicose neighbor to the Great Powers. Even the idea of unification of the “Polish” territories had to be put on hold until an appropriate moment.
After current polish leaders is retire or die there is a high chance of new polish leaders declare war on neighbor because
1. the rural population of Poland is continue to rise they need to acquire more land in order to kept their cheap grain products economy continue.
2. Strong and modernized army created by previous leaders will make them believe they can fight great power.
3. Smaller russia army will convince the top leader to fight a quick war and hold until Russia make a peace ( cause they believe russia is uncivilized nation ).
4. For nationalist Russia is occupied the largest land of rightful polish territory.
1. the rural population of Poland is continue to rise they need to acquire more land in order to kept their cheap grain products economy continue.
2. Strong and modernized army created by previous leaders will make them believe they can fight great power.
3. Smaller russia army will convince the top leader to fight a quick war and hold until Russia make a peace ( cause they believe russia is uncivilized nation ).
4. For nationalist Russia is occupied the largest land of rightful polish territory.
Your scenario has nothing to with OTL Poland at that point, Piłsudski was not a nationalist and Dzierżyński did complete 180 in his views. The limited partitions will certainly shape Polish experiences in different way than OTL.
Quite hard to do, before the partitions, Poles considered their state republic despite having a King, and without the partitions, the general view would stay that way.
Of course, it is not OTL, it is alternative history so what sense does it make to repeat what already happened? And the same applies to all other participants of TTL. Both the countries and individuals some of whom did not even exist in OTL. But an idea of getting back the Polish-populated lands was a reality and so are most of the numeric data and factoids so it is not like there is “nothing” in common with OTL.
One thing I want to make absolutely clear: I’m not going to engage in any political or national disputes. Solid facts about the national specifics, like those provided by @von Adler and @Jürgen on the Swedish and Danish history, are a completely different issue: they are welcomed and helped to shape TTL. Similar contribution from you will be welcomed as well.
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