Railway geography and the demarcation of Poland’s … geography and the ... ways is an important...

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Joamal of 7?ansporr Geoppl~y Vol. 4. No. 4. 287-299. 1996 pp. Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Saence Ltd

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Railway geography and the demarcation of Poland’s borders 1918-1930

Revor J Howkins 4 Glencoe Close, Holmes Chapel, Crewe CW4 7HX, UK

This paper examines the role of railway geography in the process of drawing the borders of the new Polish state after 1918 and discusses in particular the way in which the railway geography of the area was affected and also the influence existing railway routes had on the delimitation of those new borders. Each border area is discussed in turn and the status of resulting rail routes is examined. The border demarcation process was remote, resulted in the creation of a number of corridor and transit routes and gave rise to boundaries which lacked security for the new state. Copyright 0 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

Keywords: railway geography, border demarcation, Poland

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of network in Romania, using network analysis. This new boundaries on the railway geography of Poland paper assesses: from 1918 to 1930. Of all the new states in post-1918 Europe. Poland endured the longest and most protracted period of border delineation. The settlement of the frontiers of Poland involved three plebiscites, two threatened plebiscites which were never held, a two-year war in the east, a diplomatic rupture with neighbouring Lithuania and constant friction with Germany over Gdansk. Poland is an interesting example of the problems of border making and its subsequent effects and the main thrust of this paper is to examine the consequences of such decisions on the dominant means of transport at that time - railways.

The inter-relationship of border making and route- ways is an important topic in both transport geography and political geography and this area of Europe is especially relevant to that study. Political geographers have discussed the fundamentals of boundaries (Boggs, 1940; Moodie, 1947; Pounds, 1963; Prescott, 1965), whilst the interaction of boundaries and transportation issues has been addressed by Wolfe (1963). Other papers have discussed the relationship between railway geography and border questions. Beaver (1941) examines the development of railways in the Balkans whilst Turnock (1979) considers border changes as one of several ingredients in the development of a national

(1) The immediate effects of the newly-agreed boundaries on existing railway routes in Poland.

(2) The repercussions for traffic in the border areas, particularly changes in status of lines and new construction to overcome routing problems created by border realignments.

Poland, together with Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria, is part of the so-called Eastern Marchlands (Wanklyn, 1941) an area of Europe dominated by Germany, Russia and Austro- Hungary up to 1914. The post-war peace treaties gave rise to the new states of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia whilst augmenting the territory of Romania and Bulgaria. The nature of these territories is described more fully elsewhere (Wanklyn, 1941; East and Moodie, 1956) but in essence the Marchlands were a cultural and ethnographic mixture, economically weak and depending markedly on neighbouring power blocs of the time.

Geographically, Poland occupies a lowland area in northern Europe bordered in the south by the Carpathian mountains, in the north by the Baltic Sea, but with no easily-definable physical or ethnic limits in its eastern and western extremities. The rail network

287

288 Railway geography and Poland: T J Howkins

Table 1 Poland’s inherited railway network

Former owner

Germany Austria Russia

Total

Source: Bissaga (1938).

km

4228 4357 7362

15 941

inherited by the new state in 1920 had been built to serve German, Austrian and Russian needs (Table 1) in a period when Poland did not exist as a state and its territory was divided amongst these three countries. An added complication was that, whereas Austria and Germany built their railways to the European standard track gauge of 4 ft 8.5 in (1.44 m), Russia used the broader 5 ft (1.52 m) track gauge which prevented through trains running (Robbins, 1965; Siddall, 1969). Russian Poland was most sparsely served by rail since late 19th century development in western Russia had been either to link economic centres with the Baltic ports or, latterly, to provide links with military garri- sons on their western margins (Westwood, 1964). The adoption of the 5 ft gauge by Russia also hampered interchange. Benes and Pounds (1970) argue that this was deliberately chosen because of Russian suspicions about the western powers, whereas Westwood (1964) points out that this was a technical choice at a point when the adoption of the standard gauge in the rest of Europe was not yet widespread. An interesting excep- tion to this broad gauge development was the construction of the Warsaw-Vienna Railway in 1847 which was laid to standard gauge at the insistence of the Austro- Hungarian Empire (Benes and Pounds, 1970). Leslie (1980) noted that there were more than 50 German and Austrian lines leading to the Russian border in 1914, but only ten continued east of it partly due to the different rail track gauges which necessitated costly unloading and reloading at the Russian border and reduced traffic demand and spatial interaction. Poland contrasted strongly with the territory gained from Germany which formed a densely developed, westerly- oriented network. The Austrians by contrast built lines to link Vienna with Silesia and Galicia by which Warsaw could also be reached. The impact of the new borders superimposed a new set of problems on a state struggling to metamorphose its railway system into one serving the needs of the new state.

Border making in the Marchlands was a difficult and protracted process with ethnographic issues dominating much of the discussion in the Paris Peace Conference. The mechanics and process of the Peace Conference are well documented in Temperley (1924) League of Nations Treaty Series (1923) (hereafter referred to as ‘LNTS’) and Hunter-Miller (1924). For a more general discussion of the border demarcation see Wanklyn (1941) and Wambaugh (1933). The history of Poland in this period is well documented (Reddaway et al (1941)

Halecki (1978) Roos (1966) and its geography is covered by Osborne (1967) and Mellor (1975)). Bissaga (1938) is a source of contemporary material on Polish railway geography.

Each border area is examined and the effect of the new borders on the railway system is shown, highlighting particularly the development of transit routes, corridors and the change in status of lines after the border demarcation process. Place names quoted in the text and in the accompanying maps assume their 1990 version.

Access to the Baltic

Access to the Baltic was a cornerstone of Polish diplo- macy at the Paris Peace Conference (Smogorzewski, 1934) (Figures la and 5). The principal problem here was the rump of east Prussia which physically separated Poland from the Baltic. In particular, Polish claims centred around Olsztyn and Kwidzyn since they straddled vital railway links between Warsaw and the Baltic. It must be remembered that the railway network of east Prussia was based on Berlin and that, in conse- quence, the direction of main lines in east Prussia, Olsztyn and Kwidzyn were north-east to south-west. By contrast, the railway network of Russian Poland was much more sparse. Only three lines linked central Poland with the coast in 1914 and one of these, that from Warsaw to Gdansk via Ilawa, passed through Kwidzyn. From Poland’s viewpoint, it would be essential to own the whole railway because otherwise Poland would be dependent on a foreign and possibly hostile power for the transit of its goods to Gdansk. Gdansk was the natural outlet for Polish trade since it was an old established port at the mouth of the Vistula, connected by rail with Poznania and Warsaw. However, Gdansk was essentially a German town and its inhabitants were opposed to Polish rule.

The strategic value to Poland of the railway through Kwidzyn contrasted markedly with the interests of the local inhabitants who were ethnically German. If given to Poland, Kwidzyn would have constituted a wedge of Polish territory between east Prussia and Germany. Kwidzyn also dominated the river Vistula which had been proposed as an international waterway for 50 km and thus would have provided another transit necessity on Polish goods bound for Gdansk. The plebiscite provided for in the Treaty of Versailles took place on 11 July 1920 when the area voted for incorporation into Germany (Wambaugh, 1933). The area was thus ceded to Germany and the strategic railway from Warsaw to Gdansk passed into German hands north of Ilawa. A more circuitous route for Polish traffic was then necessitated which diverged from the Warsaw- Ilawa route at Dzialdowo and proceeded to Tczew via Jablonowo and Laskowice.

The same result was obtained in Olsztyn which formed the southern part of east Prussia. Across the

Railway geography and Poland: T J Howkins 289

southern tip of Kwidzyn and the northern half of Olsztyn ran the Berlin-St Petersburg railway through Iiawa, Olsztyn and Chernyakhovsk. To the south lay a more circuitous route leaving the former line at Jablo- nowo and serving Szczytno, Elk then Chernyakhovsk. At Elk it joined the most easterly crossing between Poland and East Prussia from Bialystok and Grajewo which carried traffic from Russian Poland to Lithuania and beyond. The plebiscite vote took place on 11 July 1920 and, as a result, Olsztyn became part of Germany.

The result of these plebiscites was that Poland did not possess a single route which did not cross foreign territory on its way to the Baltic. By respecting ethnic

tU Cz&tochowa

‘Tarribwskie

km

- Railways m. - Boundaries to Vhm Q Rivers

0 Towns

Figure la Railways of Western Poland in 1930

desires in this area, a ‘corridor’ was unavoidable. If Poland had been awarded Olsztyn and Kwidzyn, east Prussia would have been even more isolated from the rest of Germany and its essential lines of communication could have been threatened if in Polish hands. As it was, the Poles controlled the access to east Prussia but over a shorter corridor and with the protection of international agreements concerning the use of the routes concerned (Glassner, 1993; Pounds, 1963).

The port of Gdansk (German = Danzig) and its railway accesses posed a major problem. A Hanseatic port, Gdansk’s trade was built up on a German hinterland and the population of the city was largely German. Its connections in 1914 emphasized its relationship with the west rather than the south. The change of frontiers established a new set of requirements which railway routes of the time could not satisfy (Wanklyn, 1941). Gdansk (Danzig) was established as a Free City by the Treaty of Versailles and regulations were to be made between Germany and Poland governing transit traffic. In February 1920, the Poles occupied the part of Pomorze allotted to them by the Treaty along the Vistula (Smogorzewski, 1934) and on 4 February 1920 the Allied and Associated Powers Representative arrived in Gdansk (RIIA, 1923). A provisional Transit Agreement was proposed by Poland on 1 April 1920 which acted as a unilateral arrange- ment for transit traffic until a full convention could be signed. On 9 November 1920, a treaty was signed in Paris between the city of Gdansk and Poland stipu- lating Polish rights in the port (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 6) and on 15 November 1920, the free City of Danzig was officially created. This paved the way for the ultimate Transit Convention between Poland and Germany which was signed in Paris on 21 April 1923 (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 12). A further supplementary agreement concerning the route from Jarocin to Wrzesnia and Ilawa was concluded in Berlin on 15 July 1922 (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 26).

The Paris Convention (Morrow, 1936) thus laid down the routes and conditions of transit whereby Germany and Poland guaranteed each other transit rights for passengers and freight over given sections of track. This agreement recognized certain routes as corridor routes with their own regulations and established the notion of privileged transit routes. Further regulations relating to the Chojnice-Tczew route were made in an agrement signed in Warsaw on 26 March 1927 (LNTS, 1923, Vol 66). It provided for an express train each way daily if Poland-Gdansk traffic was resumed via Ilawa and Malbork.

The hostility of the people of Gdansk towards the Poles and their blocking of war material for the Poles in 1919 caused anxieties in Poland to the extent that the development of a new port was initiated at Gdynia, 21 km north of Gdansk. Initially Gdynia was nothing more than a small fishing port, but the idea of escaping the stranglehold of Gdansk appealed to Poland and


also it gave it the chance of linking Gydnia with Upper Silesia by a completely new railway entirely in Polish territory. This railway was opened for traffic in 1933. By 1938 two-thirds of Poland’s exports were handled by Gdynia.

signed in Berlin on 27 March 1926 (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 64) and, in addition, it contained the authorized crossings between East Prussia and Poland. These proposals are considered at length elsewhere (Morrow, 1936; Martel, 1930) but some provisions merit further discussion.

The western border with Germany

Poland’s western border with Germany included Pomorze, Poznania and parts of central and upper Silesia (Figure la). In 1914 there were only three rail crossings from Germany into Russian Poland: Torun- Alexandrow Kujawski which was the only main line from the west into Russian Poland and two secondary routes from Lubliniec to Czestochowa and Ostrow to Kalisz (Figure lb). These border areas were better connected to the west than to Poland. A general agreement covering frontier crossings along the whole length of this western border between Poland Germany was

The new border cut two former main railways. The first was the Berlin-Malbork-Kaliningrad route at Chojnice. The second was the Berlin-Torun-St Peters- burg/Warsaw line at Zbaszyn. The frontier reached its most westerly point north of Zbaszyn and from there ran south-east including in Poland the Zbaszyn- Leszno-Wroclaw route as far as Rawicz. The immediate post-war problem was to strengthen the links between the western periphery of the new state and Warsaw. In 1914, the only route from Poznan to Warsaw was via Torun and Kutno which was similar to travelling along two sides of a triangle to reach Warsaw. The third side was completed as a matter or

5Okm\ Wars

Key -.-.- International

Borders

, - Railways

l Towns I to Bohumin )\ to Katowice

\ -‘N h n Czestoho

_ublhiec

’ v to Katowicl

to 4W

Iwa

% e

Figure lb Railways in Lower Silesia in 1930


Figure 2 Railways at Zbaszyn in 1930

urgency on 9 May 1920 by linking Poznan with Kutno via Wrzesnia. Henceforward, this became the main route connecting Warsaw with the west, reducing the distance between Poznan and Warsaw by 70 km.

The town of Zbaszyn on the Berlin-Torun main line became a frontier crossing (Figure 2). It was also a junction for secondary lines to Solichow and Miedzyr- zecz which were in Germany and the new border cut both the main line and the secondary routes. Until the station was completed at Zbaszynek which became the German side of the frontier crossing, the crossings between Zbaszyn and Szczaniec and also Zbaszyn and Babimost were to be retained. Thereafter, the section from Babimost to Zbaszyn would be lifted and replaced by a new connection between Babimost and Zbaszynek west of the new border. On completion of the Gesia Gorka-Perzow-Kepno line (Figure Ib), the crossing would be open to traffic between the two countries. Until construction of a direct connection between Pila and Poznan, the requirements of traffic would be met by the construction of a loop line between Dziembowko and Kaczory. A special agreement was made for the narrow gauge railway at Korze- niewo, north-west of Kwidzyn near the river Vistula and a further agreement was signed in Berlin for this route (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 65).

Upper Silesia

At the southern end of this western border was the district of Upper Silesia (Figures 3 and 4). There can be little doubt that it was one of the most difficult borders to fix and ultimately had to be placed under an Allied Control Commission, having been partitioned between Poland and Germany. Each country only gained its allotted share outright in 1937 (Kaecken- beck, 1942; Hartshorne, 1933; Osborne and Harley, 1921).

From a communications standpoint, Upper Silesia was a crossroads. Two north-west to south-east routes were intersected by a route which linked the Balkans and Russia. The route of the former from Berlin was

identical as far as Kedzierzyn between Opole and Raciborz. Thence the southern arm entered Czechoslo- vakia at Bohumin and crossed the Jablunkov Pass to Zilina in the Vah valley of Slovakia. This route gave access to Budapest, thus linking the Odra, Vah and Danube river systems. It was Germany’s main link with the Balkans and Czechoslovakia’s main link between Moravia and Slovakia which gave rise to considerable altercations between Poland and Czechoslovakia in the dispute at Teschen (Cieszyn).

An easterly route proceeded from Opole to Gliwice, Katowice and Krakow. Following the northern slope of the Carpathians east of Krakow, the line was the main means of communication in what had been Austrian Galicia, leading ultimately to Odessa and Bucharest. This route was important for two reasons:

(1) It was a distribution artery for the products of the Silesian industrial zone to the Balkans and southern Russia.

(2) Logistically it was the only means of railway communication in Polish Galicia and had assumed great strategic importance in the Austro-Hungarian empire since it connected Vienna with Lvov.

The Vienna-Warsaw route crossed the above two routes at Bohumin and Katowice, respectively, thus forming an important triangle of routes in south-east Europe. It provided the only link between Austria- Hungary and Russian Poland and was the principal route from Vienna to St Petersburg. Its significance for freight traffic outweighed that of passenger traffic since the main coalfields of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were situated around Ostrava and Bohumin on the southern fringes of Upper Silesia.

The diplomatic wrangling over this area commenced with Dmowski’s note of 28 February 1919 containing the complete Polish claims and ended with the incorporation in the Treaty of Versailles of a clause empowering a plebiscite in Upper Silesia (Article 88). The economic integration of the area provided a daunting prospect to the plebiscite Commission which thus assumed the unenviable task of deciding the area’s fate.

It is interesting to examine the frontier line between Germany and Poland in Upper Silesia and the effects it had on the established lines of communication in the region (Hartshorne, 1933; Kaeckenbeek, 1942). The plebiscite took place on 20 March 1921 conducted by the Inter-Allied Commission in accordance with the strictures of the Versailles Treaty. The result showed that approximately 60% of the population voted for inclusion with Germany but this sentiment was not translated into a line of political demarcation. In the main, the cities voted for Germany, whilst the country- side voted for Poland which tended to prohibit a sensible partition. The Inter-Allied Commission was not only charged to determine the issue according to the wishes of the population, but also to consider the


geographical and economic situation. The plebiscite November 1921 and culminated in a signed agreement quickly illustrated the basic dichotomy of Upper on 15 June 1922 (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 9). This agreement Silesia; the result of the vote did not allow a frontier to covered all aspects of social and economic administra- be drawn at once and the economic integration of the tion for the area, including detailed regulations for rail area provided a complex extrication problem. traffic.

The final frontier drawn and accepted by the Confer- ence of Ambassadors on 20 October 1921 (Eisenmann, 1932) assigned Krolewska Huta to Poland, together with most of the area around Bytom (excluding the city of Bytom) and Katowice and its surrounding area. Germany gained Gliwice, Zabrze and Bytom city. Small sections of the western parts of Tarnowskie Gory and Lubliniec became German. The partition was to be made final 15 years from the date of ratification.

Negotiations for a detailed convention between Poland and Germany started in Geneva on 23

The superimposition of the newly defined frontier had the effect of making 16 routes into international routes of which 11 were in the Silesian industrial zone. Before the 1914-18 conflict, some of these lines had carried international traffic, the most notable of which was the Chebzie-Zabrze section which lay on the Berlin-Krakow-Bucharest route. The original north- south routes in the Industrial Triangle from Tarnowskie Gory to Bytom and to Chebzie became corridor lines since Polish traffic on these lines had to pass through Germany territory to re-enter Poland as

GERMANY

\ Huta

! I i

Figure 3 Railways of Upper Silesia in 1930


had happened with certain rail routes to Gdansk. On now ceded to Czechoslovakia. It was not directly 24 June 1922 a separate German-Polish agreement connected with the Silesian industrial zone except by was signed in Wroclaw concerning transit traffic which secondary lines. Raciborz therefore became was allowed on the following routes: sandwiched between Czechoslovakia and Poland in a

a. Chorzow-Bytom, narrow wedge of German territory.

b. Lubliniec-Ciasna (Figure Zb), c. Chebzie-Bytom Karb-Radzionkow.

With the internationalization of Gdansk and the guaranteed German and Polish access across Pomorze, Polish goods for the Baltic from Polish Silesia were routed through Lubliniec, Gniezno and Bydgoszcz. This route entailed two transit sectors: Chorzow- Szarlej and Chebzie-Bytom.

In the southern and western part of Upper Silesia, the new frontier had little effect on the prevailing railway pattern. Bohumin marked the Czech-German frontier. The Bohumin-Dziedice-Oswiecim-Krakow route was unaffected since it passed entirely to Poland crossing from Czechoslovakia to Poland at Petrovice. With the cession of Hlucin area to Czechoslovakia on account of the predominantly Czech speaking population, the lines linking this area to Raciborz and Bohumin passed to Czechoslovakia. Raciborz was adversely affected by the cession of Hlucin since it acted as a regional centre for the towns and villages

The southern border with Czechoslovakia

The Sudety are separated from the western Carpath- ians by a lowland corridor known as the Moravian Gate which links the head waters of the Odra with those of the Morava. It represents the most easily crossed section in the mountainous watershed between the Baltic and Danube drainage. It was an important mediaeval routeway connecting the Danube and Vistula basins and the railway passing through the Gate was opened as early as 1847 as part of the railway from Vienna to Warsaw and the Russian Empire (Pounds, 1969) (Figure 4).

The town of Bohumin constituted an important junction in the Moravian Gate where the Berlin- Budapest main line crossed that from Warsaw and Katowice to Vienna. The Berlin-Budapest line proceeded south-east from Bohumin through Teschen, thence to Zilina over the Jablunkov Pass. This was a railway of considerable importance being created as

10 wmmw I . GERMANY

W _.-.- Internaiional Borders B-B FlegionsJ Boundaries

- Railways - Rivers

Figure 4 Railways in the Polish-Czech borderlands in 1930


the Kaschau-Oderberger Eisenbahn (Bohumin-Kosice twice, thereby necessitating bilateral transit arrange- railway) designed to carry Slovakian iron ore to Silesia. ments.

Poland and Czechoslovakia became embroiled in a bitter dispute over the definition of the boundary line between them at the town formerly known as Teschen. Teschen was situated on the Olsa, a tributary of the Odra. The rail route through Teschen assumed a greater strategic significance with the emergence of Czechoslovakia because it formed the principal link between Moravia and Slovakia. Control of this route was of vital importance and the Czechs fought hard to gain that control.

Ruthenia or Sub-Carpathian Ukraine (Figure 6) constituted a physical and ethnic wedge between the Slovakian Carpathians, the Bukovina and the Molda- vian Carpathians in Romania. The Carpathians in Ruthenia are mostly less than 1600 m high and approximately 100 km wide and mountain passes by the Uzok, Verecze and Jablonica routes afford easy access between Ruthenia and Galicia.

The detailed history of Czech-Polish relations between the wars over their common border is related more fully elsewhere (Reddaway et al, 1941; Gasior- ewski, 1956a,b; Vondracek, 1937) and so only the main diplomatic events are noted here. A Czech-Polish Conference was held in Krakow on 20 July 1919 at which the Czechs re-affirmed their demand for the Jablunkov railway. The Poles desired a plebiscite on the grounds that they were more likely to achieve their aims (Vondracek, 1937). On 27 September 1919 a plebiscite was decided upon and its date was to be lixed by a plebiscite Commission which arrived in Teschen on 30 January 1920. Because of the domestic upheaval in the area, the prospects of an impartial plebiscite were foredoomed.

Two railways crossed the Carpathians in western Ruthenia. These were Cop-Sianki-Lvov over the Uzok Pass and Cop-Lawoczne-Lvov over the Verecze Pass. The main railway proceeding east of Cop served the towns in the upper Tisza valley such as Satu Mare turning north-east to cross the Carpathians by the Jablonica Pass at Jasina to Kolomea on the Lvov- Bucharest trunk route. The Jablonica and Uzok Pass railways had suffered considerable war damage. The Jablonica Pass route from Woronienka traversed the Prut Valley via Kolomea to the Romanian-Polish border at Snyatyn.

An agreement signed on 9 November 1929 between Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia (LNTS, 1925, Vol. 75) allowed the Czechs and Poles to use their own locomotives and train crews on this important transit route.

Meanwhile, the Allied Control Commission presented a plan which would have split the ownership of Bohumin station between the two countries and under which the Poles would have taken control of the Jablunkov railway. To mitigate the interrupted connection between Moravia and Slovakia, it was proposed to build a new line between Ostrava and the Jablunkov railway south of the Polish border through Hnojnik (Hunter-Miller, 1924) but to this the Czechs objected strongly. Paderewski even offered to contribute half the cost of building additional lines if Poland were given the Jablunkov railway.

The eastern boundary of Poland

The agreement was signed on 28 July 1920. Its effect was to give Czechoslovakia the station at what became Cesky Tesin and the Jablunkov railway. Poland received the city of Teschen (or Cieszyn as it became) on the east bank of the Olsa. Whilst Poland therefore owned the city of Cieszyn, Czechoslovakia held the railway station. The agreement was ratified by the Czechs on 28 January 1921 but neither party was satisfied.

The Treaty of Versailles settled no territorial questions between Poland and Russia, principally due to the Bolshevik revolution and the consequent non-atten- dance of Russian delegates at the Peace Conference. The eastern problems were left to the Supreme Council to solve. Following widespread Polish dissatis- faction with the terms of the Peace Treaty, the Polish leader Pilsudski saw the opportunity to re-establish Polish domain in the areas now vacated by the Central Powers, particularly in Lithuania, western Russia and the Ukraine. Having been involved before in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Pilsudski’s aims lay in restoring this empire to some portion of its earlier size (Zoltowski, 1950; Wanklyn, 1941) (Figure 5).

The railway significance of these eastern marchlands centred on the few main arteries built by the Russians. There was a predominance of north-east south-west lines:

The traditional boundary between Polish Galicia and Slovakia was clearly demarcated along the crest of the Beskids and Carpathians. This is not to say that the settlement of this frontier was without its problems. The middle 1920s saw a general normalization of this frontier which culminated in an agreement between Czechoslovakia and Poland on 30 May 1927 regulating rail crossings between the two states (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 48). This agreement determined ownership and procedure on certain railways which crossed the border

(1) Vilnius-Chernyakhovsk-Kaliningrad’/Torun (2) Vilnius-Warsaw (3) Moscow-Baranovichi-Brest Litovsk-Warsaw.

A second category of routes linked the Baltic with southern Russia, for instance Kaliningrad to Brest Litovsk-Rovno-Kiev and Vilnius-Baranovichi-Rovno which was called the Polesian line. The Baltic port of

’ Kaliningrad was then the German city of Kiinigsberg in German East Prussia.


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Figure 5 Railways in Eastern Poland in 1930


Klaipeda had been developed with Russian commerce as its main business during the period of Russian development which ended in 1915. Consequently, the pattern of railway communications in the newly independent Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia was mostly east-west to connect the Baltic outlets with the Russian hinterland with which they shared the Russian 5 ft rail track gauge. The Rovno- Baranovichi-Vilnius railway was important as it intersected important transverse lines at four points and this would be a decided advantage to Poland or Russia. There were few strictly east-west routes other than these and there was no direct connection between Warsaw and Galicia except a roundabout route via Czestochowa and Katowice.

The Polish claims for an eastern frontier were presented by Dmowski on 29 January 1919. They were for a boundary including Lithuania within the Polish political unit but nominally autonomous. Lithuania was to comprise the government of Kaunas with some adjoining districts. Poland would include Vilnius city, Grodno and the Minsk area. South of Minsk, the area claimed included Volhynia and the westernmost strip of Podolia with Kamienets Podolsk’iy (Zoltowski, 1950).

The imposition of peace on the eastern frontier of Poland became a pre-occupation of the Supreme Council and during the next six months attempts were made to reconcile Russian and Polish claims. On 8 December 1919, the Allies proposed the Curzon line to Russia and this line largely coincided with the eastern limits of Polish population. This attracted a Russian offer of negotiations on 29 January 1920 on the basis of the Curzon line which Poland disputed as being incompatible with Polish aims. On 23 April 1920, Pilsudski and the Ukrainian leader Petljura concluded an offensive alliance which was marked by Ukrainian renunciation of territorial claims in eastern Galicia and Chelm.

The Riga Conference began on 21 September 1920 with the Russians offering a frontier leaving eastern Galicia to Poland. Their actual proposal of 28 September was much less than this, consisting of a line running 16 km east of the Supreme Council’s line and leaving part of the important railway junction of Brest Litovsk to the Ukraine. This proposal was refused by the

(1)

(2)

Poles, The Poles claimed:

The Polesian railway line from Rovno to Vilnius plus a block of territory 30-40 km to the east to protect it. The Polish-Russian frontier should run west of Minsk, to the east of Vilejka to give Poland a common frontier with Latvia.

On 4 October 1920, Russia conceded the railway but refused the common frontier with Latvia.

The formal Treaty of Riga was approved on 18 March 1921. This treaty gave Poland considerably

more territory and Russia renounced all claims to eastern Galicia and professed her disinterest in the Polish-Lithuanian dispute. Whilst this treaty did not decide the fate of eastern Galicia, the Allies, despairing of obtaining an equitable solution, recognized Polish sovereignty over the area on 15 March 1923 (Reddaway et al, 1941).

The possession of Vilnius became hotly contested between Poland and Lithuania. Its geographical position was strategically important. Vilnius stood at the confluence of the rivers Vilja and Vilejka which flow into the Nieman 60 miles downstream at Kaunas. As a railway centre, Vilnius had considerable strategic value.

An agreement was signed at Suwalki (Wambaugh, 1933) on 7 October 1920. The frontier between Poland and Lithuania was fixed by a line from the German frontier to the Grodno district. From Grodno, the frontier turned east to the Vilnius-Sarny railway leaving Vilnius to Lithuania and Grodno and Lida to Poland. The eastern projections of this border were delayed until Soviet trops evacuated the area.

One day before the Suwalki agreement was to be enforced, the Vilnius area was occupied by a band of Polish irregulars under Zeligowski which forced the Lithuanian Government to retire to Kaunas. The Treaty of Riga established that the territory disputed between Lithuania and Poland was to be the subject of a further agreement. In view of the continuing hostil- ities, the League of Nations suggested a plebiscite in Vilnius. This was accepted by the Polish and Lithuanian governments but it became a difficult problem to decide the border of the plebiscite area and to establish fair procedures to reflect the wishes of the inhabitants. The plebiscite Commission met in Warsaw in January 1921 but it became increasingly obvious that neither side was prepared to obtain conditions which would favour the proper execution of the plebiscite nor abide by its result. Accordingly, the plebiscite was abandoned. On 22 March 1922, Poland proclaimed the inclusion of Vilnius in Poland and invited the Allies to recognize the fair accompli. This was done on 15 March 1923 when Poland’s eastern frontier was settled (Macartney and Palmer, 1966).

The tussle for Vilnius embittered relationships between Poland and Lithuania to such an extent that no diplomatic relations were resumed until March 1938 (Gustainas, 1938). During this period, the Vilnius district remained in Polish hands. The main railway from Warsaw to St Petersburg was uninterrupted by the new state of Lithuania which it followed closely to the east until it passed into Latvia north of Turmantas. The Kaliningrad-Minsk railway now passed through Lithuania and the disputed Vilnius area and the Baltic ports declined as their hinterland was reduced. A rail link between Poland and Lithuania was resumed only in June 1938 (Keesing, 1937-40). Poland and Latvia concluded a Transit Agreement on 12 February 1929


which regulated the frontier stations at Zemgale (Latvia) and Turmantas (Poland) on the main Vilnius to Rigs/St Petersburg railway (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 48). This superseded an earlier agreement which came into force on 3 September 1922 which positioned a passport inspection point at Griva, formerly known as Kalkuny, just south of Daugavpils (Railway Gazette, 1922).

These new frontiers had some important effects on the railway network. The Polesian line passed to Poland and thus linked Lithuania with the Ukraine and indirectly with Lvov, thereby providing vital north- south connections. Poland needed to open up sparsely- served territory along this new border and built a number of lines, some of which were narrow gauge, to achieve this. One example in the Novogrodek region was Pabrady to Krulevshchizna, Voropajewo to Druya with a narrow gauge connection to Duktas on the Vilnius-Turmantas main line. A narrow-gauge line was constructed to link three trunk lines, starting at Grviatki on the Kovel-Sarny line to Ivatsevitchi on the Brest Litovsk-Minsk trunk line (Zoltowski, 1950).

In Galicia all lines focused on Lvov on the main railway from Krakow to Bucharest. It was Poland’s link with the Black Sea and it linked the industrial districts of Moravia and Silesia with Romania’s oilfields and wheat producing areas. The Lvov-Rawa Russka- Lublin-Warsaw line was planned by the Austrians for strategic reasons but its construction was prevented by the Russians. However, the missing link between Belzec and Rejowiec on the Rawa Russka-Chelm line was completed by the Austrians by 1918. The line was poorly constructed and the new Polish state had to improve it. Volhynia was connected to Galicia by connecting Sokal to Vladimir Volynskiy and Stoyanov with Lutsk (Zoltowski, 1950). A transit agreement was signed between Russia and Poland in Warsaw on 24 April 1924 (LNTS, 1923, Vol. 38) which regulated five border crossings.

Poland’s border with Romania

The settlement of the boundaries in eastern Galicia also determined the Polish-Romanian boundary which was formed by the previous border between eastern Galicia and Bukovina. Bukovina was an area around the head waters of the Prut river in the eastern Carpathians where it bordered Ruthenia in the west, eastern Galicia in the north and Bessarabia in the east. Its regional capital was Chernovtsi and its population was a mixture of Ruthenians, Ukrainians, Germans and Romanians. The area was contested by Poland, Ukraine and Romania. Romania had occupied the area in the autumn of 1919 in response to the local Diet’s vote to be included in Romania. With the cession of eastern Galicia to Poland in 1923, the Romanian ownership of the Bukovina was confirmed by the League, virtually as a fait accompli, except for a small part around Zaleschiki which was necessary for

communications in south-eastern Poland (Pounds, 1969) (Figure 6). The Bukovina was traversed by the Berlin-Krakow-Bucharest route which also gave access to Odessa from Chernovtsi. By the new frontier, the Romanians gained a further 128 km of this line, together with a northern access route to Bessarabia and southern Russia. The new border cut the Krakow- Bucharest railway at Snyatyn between Kolomea and Chernovtsi. The Krakow-Snyatyn section came under Polish sovereignty. The Jablonica Pass route linking Galicia and eastern Ruthenia was subject to a treaty between Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania signed in Bucharest on 9 November 1929 (LNTS, Vol. 125) which guaranteed access over this route to all signa- tories. A further agreement was reached between Poland and Romania concerning common frontier stations on 30 October 1929 (LNTS, Vol. 122).

Polish transit rights over the sections of line between Kuty and Snyatyn and Kuty and Zaleschiki were guaranteed by an agreement on the same date (LNTS, Vol. 121).

The position in 1930

New construction to overcome specifically the disruptive effect of the new borders on the railway network amounted to 700 km by 1937 of which 83% had been completed by 1930. This new construction was almost exclusively related to the German boundary. Poland possessed 48 border points, including the corridor and transit routes, of which 29 were with Germany (Table 2). In addition the track gauge had to be narrowed throughout former Russian Poland at considerable cost with the new break of gauge at the borders between Poland and its neighbours, Russia and the formerly Russian Baltic states.

Conclusion

The new states in the Marchlands were created on imperfect foundations with the aim of providing the buffer between western Europe and the new Soviet Union (East and Moodie, 1956). The boundaries attempted to apply homogeneity to a heterogeneous mix of peoples which was unlikely to endure. The poor economic conditions of these new states ensured continued dependence on their more powerful neighbours and the imposition of the new borders gave rise to continuing diplomatic pressure for change and recti- fication in the inter-war period. Poland was no excep- tion to this trend.

Poland did not enjoy any lasting security on its frontiers except with Latvia and Romania. Railway geography had been a prime consideration in the demarcation of Poland’s new boundaries but the emergence of corridor and transit routes proved to be unsatisfactory to Poland. Poland had no wholly Polish- owned route to the Baltic, its routes in the Silesia area


0 L A N D

Galicia

op CZECHOSLO”AKIAJ

Bukovina

- Railways - Rivers

.-.-.m-.-.L.@* ROMANI

Figure 6 Railways in the Polish-Romanian borderlands in 1930

were subject to transit agreements and the new state was poorly connected to the south-east. The inherited network in the west and north remained oriented towards Germany. The new state had to build new lines to connect the network, e.g. Kutno-Wrzesnia, Herby-Bydgoszcz-Gdynia, Herby-Wieruszow, which was an economic burden. Other lines declined in importance and some junctions (e.g. Zbaszyn) had to be modified to accommodate the new frontier.

Acknowledgements

The author is indebted to Dr B J Turton of the Univer- sity of Keele for his continued support and encourage- ment in writing this paper and to J A Lawrence, Cartographic Technician at the University of Keele for

Table 2 Polish border railway crossings in 1930

Border

Germany Czechoslovakia Russia Romania Lithuania Latvia

Total

Points km

29 2033 9 984 6 1412 4 347 0 507 1 106

48 5389

his advice and assistance. Further research will extend this analysis to 1990.

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