Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [145]
Lithuanian national dreams were as extravagant as all the others in 1919, and included securing Vilna for their capital. In January 1919, as the Germans evacuated the area, a Bolshevik force made up of Lithuanians and Byelorussians seized the city; in April, the Polish army took over. PiƗsudski issued a proclamation to the Lithuanian people with the magic word “self-determination.” He was promptly attacked by Dmowski supporters, who wanted outright annexation. The Lithuanian prime minister exclaimed that his country would die without Vilna. In the city itself, a local Jew commented sardonically, “A new parade was announced—this time for Poles only. There were no more Greens, Whites or Reds. All and everybody became Poles overnight, except for the Jews. The Jews took it in their stride. They had served in their life under many flags.” 41
Both sides appealed to the Peace Conference. The Lithuanians sent delegates to Paris, who quarreled with the Poles and with each other. The peacemakers made sporadic demands for the fighting to stop and tried to draw a fair border. Lloyd George wondered idly whether Lithuania should be independent at all; after all, it had about the same population as Wales. On the other hand, the peacemakers saw the danger in letting Poland spread itself out over territory where Poles were in a minority. By the summer of 1919, Lloyd George had warmed to the idea of an independent Lithuania. Along with Estonia and Latvia, it could be a useful conduit for British trade into Russia when relations were finally established with the Bolsheviks, who appeared to be winning in the civil war. The French still preferred a large Poland. Very little of this actually made much difference as the armies kept marching.
A year later the Bolsheviks drove the Poles out of Vilna and handed it over to the Lithuanians. In October 1920, just after a truce between Poland and Lithuania which left the city in Lithuanian hands, units of the Polish army conveniently mutinied and seized the city. Two years later the area, still under Polish control, voted overwhelmingly for incorporation into Poland. After the Second World War the Soviet Union gave it to Lithuania, which was now a Soviet republic.42
At the time Lithuania eased its loss by seizing the sleepy little Baltic port of Memel and a strip of territory that ran inland. It was a foolish gesture, which alienated both the Allies, who had taken the area from Germany precisely to provide a free port for Lithuania, and Germany because the population was divided almost equally between Lithuanians and Germans. Memel itself was 92 percent German. In 1939 Hitler took it back, but after the war it became Lithuanian again, as Klaip≐da. Memel was not enough to make Lithuania forgive Poland for the loss of Vilna. The two countries did not speak to each other for fifteen years. When they decided to try to mend their relationship in 1938, it was too late. Today Lithuania is still trying to get Poland to apologize for that old wrong.
Far away from Vilna to the south, Poland was also quarreling in 1919 with its other neighbors over what had been the Austrian province of Galicia. Everyone agreed that almost all of the western half, with its clear Polish majority, and the Polish city of Kraków, with its ancient university