Vistula Land - World War I

World War I

In 1915 during World War I the Kingdom of Poland was looted and abandoned by the retreating Russian army, which tried to emulate the scorched earth policy of the 1812 invasion. The Russians also evicted and deported hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants suspected of collaborating with the enemy.

During World War I, in 1915 the area was occupied by the Central Powers who proposed the Kingdom of Poland (1916–1918). In 1917 Russia ceded, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, all Polish territories it had possessed to the German Empire and Austria-Hungary.