Curzon Line: Encyclopedia II - Curzon Line - History of the Curzon Line

Curzon Line - History of the Curzon Line

At the end of World War I the Allies agreed that an independent Polish state should be formed from territories previously part of the Russian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany. The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 said that the eastern border of Poland would be "subsequently determined." The lands lying between Poland and its eastern neighbours were inhabited by a mixed population of Poles, Lithuanians, Jews, Ukrainians and Belarusians, with no single group being a majority. Lord Curzon of Kedleston, on behalf of the Allies, suggested a line running from Grodno through Brest-Litovsk to Lwów, although leaving unclear which side of the proposed border Lwow would be on. A later version of the Line, known as Curzon Line "B", definitely awarded Lwów to Poland (see map).

Because the Russian Empire had collapsed into a state of civil war following the Russian Revolution, there was no recognised Russian government with whom the eastern border of Poland could be negotiated. However, one of the first acts of the new Russian government was to publicly denounce the treaties which had partitioned Poland. That left Poland in legal possession of the territories that Poland had held before the Partitions of Poland in 1772. The Bolshevik regime in Russia, on the other hand, wanted to invade Poland in order to carry the socialist revolution into the heart of Europe, and particularly into Germany. In this circumstances war was inevitable, and broke out in late 1919.

In December 1919, the Allied powers made the following declaration: "The Principal Allied and Associated Powers, recognising that it is important as soon as possible to put a stop to the existing conditions of political uncertainty in which the Polish nation is placed, and without prejudging the provisions, which must in the future define the eastern frontiers of Poland, hereby declare that they recognize the right of the Polish Government to proceed, according to the conditions previously provided by the Treaty with Poland of June 28, 1919, to organise a regular administration of the territories of the former Russian Empire situated to the West of the line described below. The rights that Poland may be able to establish over the territories situated to the East of the said line are expressly reserved."

During the Polish-Soviet war (1919–1921), in May 1920, the Bolsheviks gained the advantage and advanced into Poland, and in July the Poles appealed to the Allies to intervene. On 11 July Lord Curzon of Kedleston proposed to the Soviet government a ceasefire along the line which had been suggested the previous year. The Soviets, believing they had the upper hand, rejected the proposal, and fighting continued. In August, however, the Soviets were defeated just outside Warsaw and forced to retreat. At the Treaty of Riga in March 1921 the Soviets had to concede a frontier well to the east of the Curzon Line, giving Poland both Lwów and Wilno (today Vilnius). The area around Wilno, called Central Lithuania was the subject of a referendum in 1922, followed by incorporation to Poland according to the wish of 65% of the voters. The Polish-Soviet border was recognised by the League of Nations in 1923 and confirmed by various Polish-Soviet agreements.

The terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 provided for the partition of Poland along the line of the San, Vistula and Narew rivers. In September, after the military defeat of Poland, the Soviet Union annexed all territories east of the Curzon Line plus Białystok and Eastern Galicia. The territories east of this line were incorporated into the Byelorussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR after so-called referendums, and hundreds of thousands of Poles and a lesser number of Jews were deported eastwards into the Soviet Union. In July 1941 these territories were seized by Germany in the course of the invasion of the Soviet Union. During the German occupation most of the Jewish population was killed.

In 1944 the Soviet armed forces recaptured eastern Poland from the Germans. The Soviets unilaterally declared the former Soviet-German border (approximately the Curzon Line) to be the new frontier between the Soviet Union and Poland. This time, however, Białystok was retained by Poland. The Polish government-in-exile in London bitterly opposed this action, and at the Teheran and Yalta conferences between Stalin and the western Allies, the allied leaders Roosevelt and Churchill asked Stalin to reconsider, particularly over Lwów, but he refused. The Curzon Line thus became the permanent eastern border of Poland, and was recognised as such by the western Allies in July 1945.

When the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, the Curzon line became Poland's eastern border with Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History of the Curzon Line", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki