Polish Corridor - Incorporation Into The Second Polish Republic

Incorporation Into The Second Polish Republic

During World War I, the Central Powers had forced the Imperial Russian troops out of Congress Poland and Galicia, as manifested in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918. Following the military defeat of Austria-Hungary, an independent Polish republic was declared in Western Galicia on 3 November 1918, the same day Austria signed the armistice. The collapse of Imperial Germany's Western Front, and the subsequent withdrawal of her remaining occupation forces after the Armistice of Compiègne on 11 November allowed the republic led by Roman Dmowski and Josef Pilsudski to seize control over the former Congress Polish areas. Also in November, the revolution in Germany forced the Kaiser's abdication and gave way to the establishment of the Weimar Republic. Starting in December, the Polish-Ukrainian War expanded the Polish republic's territory to include Volhynia and parts of Eastern Galicia, while at the same time the German Province of Posen (where even according to the German made 1910 census 61,5% of the population was Polish) was severed by the Greater Poland uprising, which succeeded in attaching most of the province's territory to Poland by January 1919. This led Weimar's Otto Landsberg and Rudolf Breitscheid to call for an armed force to secure Germany's remaining eastern territories (some of which contained significant Polish minorities, primarily on the former Prussian partition territories). The call was answered by the minister of defense Gustav Noske, who decreed support for raising and deploying volunteer "Grenzschutz" forces to secure East Prussia, Silesia and the Netze District.

On 12 January, the Paris peace conference opened, resulting in the draft of the Treaty of Versailles 28 June 1919. Articles 27 and 28 of the treaty ruled on the territorial shape of the corridor, while articles 89 to 93 ruled on transit, citizenship and property issues. Per the terms of the Versailles treaty, which was put into effect on 20 January 1920, the corridor was established as Poland's access to the Baltic Sea from 70% of the dissolved province of West Prussia.

The primarily German-speaking seaport of Danzig (Gdańsk), controlling the estuary of the main Polish waterway, the Vistula river, became the Free City of Danzig and was placed under the protection of the League of Nations without a plebiscite. After the dock workers of Danzig harbour went on strike at a critical moment during the Polish-Soviet War, refusing to unload ammunition, the Polish Government decided to build a new seaport at Gdynia in the territory of the Corridor, and connected this seaport to the Upper Silesian industrial centers by the newly constructed Polish Coal Trunk Line railways.