Slovak invasion of Poland
Units of the Slovak Army at the award ceremony. October 7, 1939.Background. The Polish-Czechoslovak conflict
On the border between the Czech Republic and Poland there was a small Teschen Principality for a long time. In the early Middle Ages, its inhabitants spoke a mixture of Polish and Czech, which were not very different from each other at the time, and defined their nationality as "local".
Since 1327, the Tesin prince voluntarily became a vassal of the Czech crown, in 1653 (after the death of the last prince) the principality as an escheat (to which there were no heirs) went to the Czech king. The Czechs fell under the oppression of the Habsburgs, and until 1918 Tesin Silesia (as this region was called) was part of the Kingdom of Bohemia within Austria-Hungary.
After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Czechoslovakia and Poland signed an agreement on the temporary division of Cieszyn Silesia on November 2, 1918. But the new Polish lords were thirsty for a new Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth "from sea to sea." Warsaw laid claim to the lands of not only Russia, but also other states - Lithuania, Czechoslovakia and Germany.
On January 23, 1919, the Polish-Czechoslovak armed conflict over Tesin broke out. The Poles began to conscript the local population into their army. During the so-called Seven Day War (an armistice was signed on February 1), the Czechoslovak army defeated the Poles and occupied most of the disputed territory, stopping their advance only at the request of the Entente.
Under pressure from the Great Powers, Prague agreed to hold a plebiscite in Tesin, although it believed that historical The Czech Republic's rights to Teschen Silesia are indisputable. The Poles, having organized a campaign of terrorist acts and sabotage, disrupted the referendum, realizing that the majority of residents would prefer a richer democratic Czechoslovakia to authoritarian Poland.
After Poland's first defeats in the Soviet-Polish war of 1920, Warsaw agreed to an agreement with Prague regarding Tesin. However, the heavy defeat of the Red Army on the Vistula once again set the Polish nationalists in an irreconcilable mood.
On July 28, 1920, the Entente Arbitration Commission divided Cieszyn Silesia between Poland and Czechoslovakia along the Olsa River. The Poles received 1012 square kilometers with a population of 139 people, Czechoslovakia received 630 square kilometers with a population of 1270 people (295% of the disputed area and 56% of its population). Prague did not agree with this decision, but accepted it under pressure from the Entente.
On April 29, 1924, the parties signed the Polish-Czechoslovak protocol on the delimitation of the border in Tesin.
Polish cavalry parade through the Czech town of Karvina, occupied during Operation Zaolzie. The Polish population greets the troops with flowers. October 1938. The Czechoslovak town of Karvina was the center of heavy industry in Czechoslovakia, coke production, and one of the most important centers for coal mining in the Ostrava-Karvina coal basin. Thanks to Operation Zaolzie, carried out by the Poles, the former Czechoslovak enterprises already provided Poland with almost 1938% of the pig iron and almost 41% of the steel smelted in Poland by the end of 47.
Alliance with Hitler
Warsaw had not forgotten its imperial ambitions. The dictator of Poland, Pilsudski, considered Cieszyn to be the Polish "Zaolże". In Poland, agitation for the "return of illegally seized lands" continued. But the Poles were able to take active action only after the Nazis seized power in Germany.
If Prague responded to Hitler's rise to power by concluding alliance treaties with France and the Soviet Union, Warsaw signed a non-aggression pact with Germany on January 26, 1934. It became the first international agreement of the Nazi regime. Hitler appointed "Nazi number two" G. Goering as a special emissary for German-Polish relations.
During this period, Warsaw seriously considered Berlin's proposals to start a war with Soviet Germany together. The Germans promised to hand over part of Soviet Ukraine to Poland.
Seeing the preparation of German aggression against Czechoslovakia, Poland also abruptly changed its position regarding Prague. A massive anti-Czechoslovak campaign was launched in the Polish press. The ruling elite of Poland, especially the pro-German Foreign Minister Colonel J. Beck, wanted not only to seize Tesin, but also to break up Czechoslovakia in order to then profit from the part of the territory split off from it by the “independent” weak Slovakia. The Nazis had exactly the same plans, who were going to take the Sudetenland, populated mainly by Germans, from the Czechoslovak Republic.
During the Sudetenland Crisis of September–October 1938, Poland took part in the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938, occupying the disputed Cieszyn Silesia. Czechoslovakia, under pressure from Germany and Poland, was forced to cede the disputed territories.
Polish troops enter Tesin
Slovak invasion of Poland
In March 1939, the Slovak Parliament declared the independence of the Slovak Republic, whose territories were then part of Czechoslovakia on an autonomous basis. This step was agreed upon with Hitler and was carried out under the threat of dividing the Slovak lands between Hungary and Poland, which had already received part of the Slovak territory in 1938.
At this time, relations between Berlin and Warsaw were spoiled. The Warsaw lords overestimated their strength and hoped too much that "the West would help them" (England and France).
The new Slovakia became a satellite of the Third Reich. During secret negotiations with the Germans in July 1939, the Slovak government agreed to participate in Germany's planned attack on Poland.
During the preparation of the Polish Campaign (the capture of Poland by the Wehrmacht) in Slovakia in August 1939, more than 50 thousand people were mobilized. Three divisions and a mobile group were prepared for the war, forming the field army "Bernolak" under the command of the Minister of Defense of the Slovak Republic, General Ferdinand Čatloš.
The Slovak sector was in the zone of operations of the German Army Group South. Slovak units covered the left flank of the German 14th Army. On September 1, 1939, the Wehrmacht began its invasion of Poland. At the same time, Slovak troops began an offensive. Units of the 1st Slovak Division under the command of General Anton Pulanic advanced 7 km into Poland by September 30.
In fact, fighting between Slovak and Polish troops took place only during the first week of the campaign. The Slovak troops did not encounter any serious resistance.
Total Slovak losses during the campaign were 37 killed, 114 wounded and 11 missing. Two Slovak aircraft were lost (one to anti-aircraft fire, the other to an accidental crash). Polish casualties in these battles are unknown.
As a result of the invasion of Poland, Slovakia regained its territories lost during the 1920s and in 1938.
Slovakia's Minister of National Defence General F. Čatloš honours soldiers of the Slovak Army
Value
During the information war that the West and its clients are waging against the Russian civilization and the Russian people, the USSR is usually accused of "occupying" parts of Finland, the Baltics, Bessarabia, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Although at that time Moscow de facto returned to its jurisdiction the lands that were part of the Russian Empire.
Stalin restored the historical territory of Great Russia (Russian world) with all the Ukrainian outskirts. An empire-state that met the strategic and economic interests of the people.
At the same time, the West forgets, turns a blind eye to how the big and small European predators ate each other. That England and France allowed Hitler to seize Austria, the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, and then the whole of the Czech Republic (Bohemia). The British and French allowed the Third Reich to crush and occupy Poland.
At the same time, other European predators were also pursuing an active policy. Thus, first, Poland seized Teschen Silesia from Czechoslovakia in 1938. That is, the Polish predators participated in the division of Czechoslovakia together with the Nazis.
Then the Polish lords began to feel "dizzy with success", they dug in their heels and refused to negotiate with Hitler about the Danzig Corridor. Berlin started the war.
As a result, the Slovaks took revenge for 1938. In September 1939, Slovakia, which had become a satellite of Nazi Germany, occupied the lands that had previously been lost by Czechoslovakia as a result of the conflict with Poland in 1920–1924 and as a result of the 1938 agreement between Nazi Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy.
Slovak soldiers in Poland
Information