Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [138]
At their first meeting in Warsaw, Paderewski, the man of the world in his long fur coat, and PiƗsudski, the thin pale revolutionary in his shabby tunic, circled each other with suspicion. PiƗsudski needed both Paderewski’s influence over the Polish National Committee in Paris and his contacts, while Paderewski wanted a Poland that spoke with one voice. The two men agreed that PiƗsudski would remain head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces and Paderewski would become prime minister at the head of a coalition government as well as Poland’s delegate to the Peace Conference alongside Dmowski. Together they attended the celebrations, dinners, plays, even a mass in Warsaw Cathedral, to mark the opening of Poland’s newly elected parliament. Dmowski and PiƗsudski remained as far apart as ever.17
Paderewski was still in Warsaw when the Peace Conference opened, so only Dmowski was on hand when Poland first came up at the Supreme Council in January. PiƗsudski had sent an urgent request for supplies, particularly weapons and ammunition, to help Poland hold off its enemies. The French suggested sending back the Polish army in France under General Haller. The easiest way to do this, said Foch, was to ship the men to Danzig, still under German control, and then down the railway to Warsaw. The British and the Americans were doubtful. Haller’s army was in Dmowski’s camp; its return to Poland might well produce civil war. Wilson saw another danger in using Danzig: “With the object of sending Polish troops into Poland we were going to prejudge the whole Polish question.” This, of course, was exactly what the French had in mind. When the Germans got wind of the proposal, they protested loudly. The army finally went back by land in April. PiƗsudski did not press very hard for its return. He had no wish to irritate the Allies even further by insisting on the Danzig route as Dmowski was doing; he probably did not care passionately about Danzig itself.18
On January 29, Dmowski was invited to explain to the Supreme Council what was happening in Poland. He took the opportunity to outline Poland’s claims, or at least the ones he supported. He was not, he said, going to claim everything Poland had once possessed. Parts of Lithuania and the Ukraine no longer had a Polish character. Poland was, however, quite willing to help them out since they were a long way from being able to manage their own affairs. On the other hand, Poland should take possession of the eastern part of Germany. True, much of this had never been Polish, but there were a great many Poles living there, far more than the German statistics indicated. “These Poles were some of the most educated and highly cultured of the nation, with a strong sense of nationality and men of progressive ideas.” Even the local Germans looked up to them. Poland also needed the coalfields of Silesia and Teschen (Polish: Cieszyn; Czech: Těšín). Lloyd George listened with obvious impatience and Wilson studied the paintings on the walls. 19
The Poles had a knack for irritating even their friends in Paris. People joked that when an Englishman wrote a book on the elephant, he dealt with its habitat and how to hunt it; a German wrote a treatise on its biology; but the Pole started with “The elephant is a Polish question.” Even the French were alarmed by the extent of Polish demands in Russia, which, after all, might be an ally again one day. The British and the Americans complained about the rival delegations. Polish actions on the ground also raised suspicions. “The Poles,” said Balfour, “were using the interval between the cessation of war and the decisions of the Peace Congress to make good their claims to districts outside Russian Poland, to which in many cases they had little right, although in others their claims were amply justified.” Wilson agreed: moreover, the Rumanians, the Serbs and the Hungarians were doing exactly the same thing. Pi