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Polish government-in-exile

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Sikorski
Wladyslaw Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile

The Government of the Polish Republic in exile maintained a continuous existence from the time of the German occupation of Poland in September 1939 until the end of the Communist rule in Poland in 1990.

History

Following Poland's military defeat in September 1939, those members of the Polish government who could escape re-assembled in Paris. Under a clause of the Polish Constitution which envisaged just this circumstance, Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz was sworn in as President and chose General Wladyslaw Sikorski as Prime Minister. Most of the Polish Navy escaped to Britain, and thousands of other Poles escaped through Romania or across the Baltic Sea to continue the fight. Many Poles took part in defence of France, in the Battle of Britain, at Cassino, Arnhem and other operations beside British forces. These forces were disbanded in 1945 and most of their members, unable to return to Communist Poland, settled in other countries.

The government in exile, based first in Paris and then in London, was recognised by all the Allied governments. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the Polish government in exile established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, despite Stalin's role in the destruction of Poland. Hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Soviet Union in eastern Poland in 1939, and many other Polish prisoners and deportees, were released and were allowed to leave the country via Iran. They formed the basis for the Polish Army led by General Wladyslaw Anders that fought alongside the Allies.

In April 1943 the Germans announced that they had discovered the graves of 4,300 Polish officers who had been taken prisoner in 1939 and murdered by the Soviets, in a mass gave in Katyn Wood near Smolensk. The Germans invited the International Red Cross to visit the site, and they confirmed both that the graves contained Polish officers and that they had been killed with Soviet weapons. The Soviet government said that the Germans had fabricated the discovery. The Allied governments, for diplomatic reasons, formally accepted this, but the Polish government in exile refused to do so.

Stalin then severed relations with the government in exile. Since it was clear that it would be the Soviet Union, not the western Allies, who would liberate Poland from the Germans, this breach had fateful consequences for Poland. In an unfortunate coincidence, Sikorski, the most talented of the Polish exile leaders, was killed in an aircrash near Gibraltar in July. He was succeeded as head of the government in exile by Stanislaw Mikolajczyk.

During 1943 and 1944 the Allied leaders, particularly Winston Churchill, tried to bring about a resumption talks between Stalin and the government in exile. But these efforts broke down over several issues. One was the massacre at Katyn. Another was Poland's postwar borders. Stalin insisted that the territories annexed in 1939, which were had a majority of Ukrainians and Byelorussians, should remain in Soviet hands, and that Poland should be compensated with lands to be annexed from Germany. Mikolajczyk refused to compromise on this issue. A third issue was Mikolajczyk's insistence that Stalin not set up a Communist government in postwar Poland.

In November 1944, dispite his mistrust of the Soviets, Mikolajczyk resigned to return to Poland and take office in the new government established under the auspices of the Soviet occupation authorities. Many of the Polish exiles opposed this action, believing that this government was a facade for the establishment of Communist rule in Poland. This view was later proved correct, and the government in exile maintained its existence, although it no longer had diplomatic recognition as the legal government of Poland.

After about 1950, however, the government in exile became largely symbolic, and in 1954 political differences led to a split in its ranks. The government in exile served mainly to symbolise the continued resistance to foreign occupation of Poalnd, and retained control of some important archives from pre-war Poland.

In December 1990, when Lech Walesa became the first post-Communist President of Poland, he received the seals of office of the Polish Republic from the last President of the government in exile, Ryszard Kaczorowski, thus re-establishing the continuity of the Republic and in effect retrospectively recognising the legitimacy of the government in exile. In 1992 military medals and other decorations awarded by the government in exile were officially recognised in Poland.

Presidents

Prime ministers

See also

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