The eastern frontier of Poland had not, in its whole extent, been defined by the Treaty of Versailles. The Poles had remained upon the line evacuated by the German armies and, if they thought of an eastern
frontier, they thought of it in terms of the historic frontier of 1772. Until the spring of 1920 the Soviet Government were too occupied in suppressing the counter-revolutionary movements of Denikin and Koltchak to give much attention to their relations with their Polish neighbour. By May of 1920, however, both Denikin and Koltchak had collapsed and the Poles (in defiance of the advice given them by the Supreme Council on February 24, 1920) [?] entered into an agreement with the Ukraine in the hopes of creating out of that vague unit a buffer State between themselves and the Bolsheviks which would include Odessa and the Donetz basin. In pursuit of this ambition they invaded Russia and occupied Kieff. In June of 1920 came the Russian counter-attack. The Poles were driven out of Kieff and the Soviet armies advanced on Warsaw. It was at this stage that the Polish ministers, M. Grabski and M. Patek, appealed for assistance to the concert of Europe. They found that concert disunited.
Comment : the purpose of the Bolshevists was the progress of their idea of revolution and that was their sole purpose. All the foreign accounts that fail to observe that point prove to be somewhat inaccurate in their evaluations ; occasionally plainly false. (This one does seem valuable ; but not entirely reliable.) — (WPT)
The French, in spite of their pro-Polish sympathies, were unwilling at first to take a leading part in the ensuing controversy. Poland had been in the wrong in attacking Russia [?] and the French socialists, [!?] incensed by the abortive expedition to Odessa, were in a critical mood. The onus of mediation fell upon Mr. Lloyd George, who had never been guilty of pro-Polish sentiments, and whose personal record in regard to intervention against the Soviet had been comparatively clear. It was at Spa that M. Grabski found Lloyd George and Curzon. In the previous May a Russian Trade Delegation headed by M. Kameneff and M. Krassin had arrived in London. They lost little time in establishing contact with the left wing [!] of the
Labor Party and in exerting pressure upon the Government. The slogan� �Hands off Russia� began to appear even in the Conservative press.
Neither Mr. Lloyd George nor Lord Curzon had much sympathy with M. Grabski. On the one hand he had ignored the advice of the Supreme Council and had lent a willing ear to the counsels of those French officials who had encouraged the Ukrainian scheme. On the other hand he had become the cause of a parliamentary difficulty in England. The � Council of Action �of the British Labour Party were openly anti-Polish in their pronouncements. Mr. Bevin went so far as to threaten a general strike were the British Government to assist Poland �directly or indirectly �. On July 10 Mr. Lloyd George interviewed M. Grabski alone. He abused the Poles for having advanced into Russian and Ukrainian territory and he ordered them to withdraw some 125 miles behind the line which they at that moment occupied.[*] This would bring them to their � legitimate frontier '. M. Grabski enquired where that frontier lay. Mr. Lloyd George then indicated what has since been known as ' the Curzon line '—(although Curzon himself had little to do with it)—namely a line running from Grodno, through Bialystock, Brest-Litovsk and Przymysl to the Carpathians. This was something very different from the frontier of 1772. M. Grabski expressed dissent. Mr. Lloyd George then assured him that if the Poles retired to the Curzon line, [?] and if the Russians subsequently crossed it, then � the British Government and their Allies would be bound to help Poland with all the means a their disposal �. This intimation, and the frontier it comprised, were then telegraphed to Moscow with a
request that representatives of the Soviet Government should proceed to London to negotiate terms of peace. The French Government refused to join in this communication since it would have implied official recognition of the Soviet Government. Lenin also refused to respond, stating that he preferred to negotiate with the Poles direct. The Russian armies, therefore, continued to advance.
On July 20 Lord Curzon addressed to Moscow a communication in which he made it clear that the Allies would come to the aid of Poland if the Russian forces crossed the Curzon line. [?] Wittingly or unwittingly the Bolshevik forces crossed that line at Nowy Dvor on July 24. They advanced beyond it and then they paused while they communicated with the Trade Delegation in London. Was Lord Curzon bluffing ? M. Kameneff and M. Krassin replied in the affirmative. The Russian armies advanced into the heart of Poland and converged on Warsaw. An inter-allied commission was sent hurriedly to Poland. Its civilian members were Lord D�Abernon and . Jusserand. Its military members were Generals Radcliffe and Weygand. 1 This mission arrived in Warsaw on July 25 to find the Russian armies within twelve miles of the Polish capital. Four days later the Poles sued for an armistice and preliminary negotiations were opened at Minsk. [?] The Russians offered Poland a frontier far more favourable than that of the Curzon line but added to this offer a condition that the Poles should reduce their army to 50,000 and create a
gendarmerie of 200,00/ to which only [!] trades-union members would be eligible. Their intention was to tender Poland a European Azerbaijan. News of this offer and its attendant condition reached the Allied statesmen assembled in conference at Lympne. Mr. Lloyd George, who had been furnished by Mr. Krassin with an incomplete and misleading [sic] text, pronounced the offer generous [?] in the extreme and urged compliance upon Poland. 1 M. Millerand thought otherwise. He pressed that munitions should at once be dispatched to aid to the Poles. He telegraphed to General Wrangel, who had started a counter-revolutionary movement in the Crimea, recognizing his authority and promising assistance. And he encouraged General Weygand at Warsaw to galvanize Polish resistance. [? much credit given to Gen. Weygand for the achievements by Piłsudski — which Weygand himself had by his writings disowned.] The Russian tide began to ebb. Mr. Lloyd George hurriedly issued a pronouncement to the effect that the Russian offer at Minsk was not generous at all, but was in fact incompatible with Polish independence. His announcement was belated. The Russian armies had by then been routed and Poland was able to dictate an eventual Treaty (signed at Riga on October 12, 1920) which doubled the area given them by the Curzon line [?] and raised her population to twenty-seven millions.2
1 [p205] General Max Weygand, b. 1867 ; chief of the Staff to Marshal Foch ; High Commissioner in Syria 1924 ; now Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies.
1 [p206] An account of how Mr. Lloyd George received M. Krassin�s message while playing golf at Cobham ad how he at once acted thereon without any consultation with the Foreign Office, is given by Lord Riddell in his Intimate Diary, p. 225.
2 An extremely fair and vivid account of these dramatic events is given in Lord D�Abernon�s The eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World (Hodder & Stoughton, 1931).
The imprecisions of British post-war diplomacy are
well illustrated by the above events. . . . Our credit in Central Europe was seriously damaged by these events. The credit of France was justifiably enhanced. . .
It is difficult, even with the documents before us, even with full recollection of Curzon�s dilemma at the time, to be certain how far the Foreign Secretary was responsible for this humiliating episode. On the one hand Lord Curzon was not present at the crucial interview between Mr. Lloyd George and M. Grabski. On the other hand he consented to give his name to the telegrams and Notes which resulted from that interview. . .
The discomfiture of the British Government was extreme. It was in the mood of mortification thus engendered that they thereafter dealt with other symptoms of Anglo-French disagreement. . .
6
There was first the question of Soviet Russia. The French from the outset had regarded the Bolshevik system as a crime against humanity and had obstructed all Mr. Lloyd George�s efforts to draw Lenin into the comity of nations. . . [*]