German Nation Building

The Young Poland of Lelewel and Worcell demands the re-creation of the Polish state and rollback of the 1772-95 partitions of Poland. But they go much further, laying claim to Poland in its old Jagiellonian borders, stretching from the shores of the Baltic to the shores of the Black Sea. 

This includes an explicit denial that any Ukrainian nation exists. 

In the orbit of Young Poland is the poet Adam Mickiewicz, a close friend of Mazzini’s who was with him last year during the Roman Republic. Mickiewicz argues that Poland is special because it has suffered more than any other nation; Poland is “the Christ among nations.” Mickiewicz dreams of uniting all the west and south Slavs against the “tyrant of the north,” the “barbarians of the north.” By this he means Russia, the main target. Young Poland’s program also foreshadows the obvious conflict with Young Germany over Silesia.

Young Russia means the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin and the aristocratic ideologue Aleksandr Herzen. Herzen is an agent of Baron James Rothschild of Paris. Right after the Crimean War, Herzen will start publishing “The Polar Star” and “The Bell,” both leak sheets for British secret intelligence that will build up their readership by divulging Russian state secrets. 

Herzen’s obvious target is Czar Alexander II, the ally of Lincoln. Herzen prints the ravings of Bakunin, who preaches pan-Slavism, meaning that Russia will take over all the other Slavic nations. “Out of an ocean of blood and fire there will rise in Moscow high in the sky the star of the revolution to become the guide of liberated mankind.” Vintage Bakunin. If Mazzini relies on the stiletto, for Bakunin it is “the peasant’s axe” that will bring down the “German” regime in St. Petersburg.

Herzen is interested in sabotaging Alexander II and his policy of real, anti-British reform in Russia. To block real industrial capitalist development, he preaches reliance on the aboriginal Slavic village, the mir, with “communal ownership of the land” plus the ancient Slavic workshop, the artel. The mir will never build the Trans-Siberian railway. Herzen sees Russia as the “center of crystallization” for the entire Slavic world. 

Herzen, although he is usually called a “westernizer,” is totally hostile to western civilization. He writes of the need for a “new Attila,” perhaps Russian, perhaps American, perhaps both, who will be able to tear down the old Europe. In the moment when the British will seem so close to winning everything, Herzen will support Palmerston’s Polish insurrection of 1863, and will lose most of his readers. Once the American Civil War is over, the British will have little use for Herzen. 

By then, London will be betting on the nihilist terrorists of the Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will), who will finally kill Alexander II, plus the Russian legal Marxists, all British agents. But already today we can see the conflicts ahead between Young Poland and Young Russia. In the conflicts among Mazzini’s national chauvinist operations, we can see the roots of the slaughter of World War I.

German Imperial troops capture Kiev, March 1918

"It is the most comical war I have ever known. 

We put a handful of infantrymen with machine guns and one gun onto a train and rush them off to the next station; they take it, make prisoners of the Bolsheviks, pick up few more troops, and so on. 

This proceeding has, at any rate, the charm of novelty."

Diary of General Hoffman, March 1918

I quote The Enemy:

""The Bolshevik capitulation on 3 March only ended the advance along a line from Narva to Northern Ukraine, as with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk the Soviet government gave up all rights to Southern Russia. During the next few months, the southern Central Powers forces advanced over 500 miles further, capturing the whole of Ukraine and some territory beyond.

German operations also continued in the Caucasus and Finland, where Germany assisted the White Finnish forces in the Finnish Civil War.

Under the treaty all Russian naval bases in the Baltic except Kronstadt were taken away, and the Russian Black Sea Fleet warships in Odessa were to be disarmed and detained. The Bolsheviks also agreed to the immediate return of 630,000 Austrian prisoners-of-war.

With the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Soviet Russia had given up Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, and the Ukraine, enabling those territories to develop independently from Russian influence. Germany's intention was to turn these territories into political and territorial satellites, but this plan collapsed with Germany's own defeat within a year.

After the German surrender, the Soviets made an attempt to regain lost territories. They were successful in some areas like the Ukraine, Belarus and the Caucasus, but were forced to recognize the independence of the Baltic States, Finland, and Poland.

In the Bolshevik government, Lenin consolidated his power; however, fearing the possibility of a renewed German threat along the Baltic, he moved the capital from Petrograd to Moscow on March 12. 

Debates became far more restrained, and he was never again so strongly challenged as he was regarding the Brest-Litovsk treaty."

Bolshevik propaganda poster of Polish-Soviet war (1920). 

Texts in the picture:

Above:

RSFSR

That is what Polish lords' undertaking will end with

On flag: Long live Soviet Poland!

The Allied Supreme Council tasked the Commission on Polish Affairs with recommending Polish eastern borders. The Allies forwarded it as an armistice line several times during the war, most notably in a note from the British government to the Soviets signed by Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon of Kedleston. 

Both parties disregarded the line when the military situation lay in their favour, and it did not play a role in establishing the Polish-Soviet border in 1921. Instead, the final Peace of Riga (or Treaty of Riga) provided Poland with almost 135,000 square kilometres (52,000 sq mi) of land that was, on average, about 250 kilometres (160 mi) east of the Curzon line.

With minor variations, the northern half of the Curzon line lay approximately along the border which was established between the Prussian Kingdom and the Russian Empire in 1797, after the third partition of Poland, which was the last border recognised by the United Kingdom. Along most of its length, the line followed an ethnic boundary - areas west of the line contained an overall Polish majority while areas to its east were inhabited by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles, Jews, and Lithuanians.

Its 1920 northern extension into Lithuania divided the area disputed between Poland and Lithuania. There were two versions of the southern portion of the line: "A" and "B". 

Version "B" allocated Lviv to Poland.