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From a nucleus between the Odra and Vistula rivers on the North European Plain, in eras of strength Poland expanded to the Baltic, the Dnieper, the Black Sea and the Carpathians, while in periods of weakness it shrank dramatically.[1] Historian Norman Davies argues that "despite Poles' fervent belief in the macierz or 'motherland', it is impossible to identify any fixed territorial base which has been permanently, exclusively and inalienably Polish".[2] In 1492, the territory of Poland-Lithuania, not counting the fiefs of Mazovia, Moldavia and East Prussia, covered 1,115,000 km2 (431,000 sq mi), making it the largest territory in Europe; by 1793 it had fallen to 215,000 km2 (83,000 sq mi), the same size as Great Britain, and in 1795 it disappeared completely.[1] The first 20th century incarnation of Poland, the Second Polish Republic, occupied 389,720 km2 (150,470 sq mi) while since 1945, a more westerly Poland included 312,677 km2 (120,725 sq mi).[2] The Poles are the most numerous of the West Slavs and occupy what some believe to be the original homeland of the Slavic peoples. While other groups migrated, the Polanie remained in situ along the Vistula, from the river's sources to its estuary at the Baltic Sea.[3] There is no other European nation centered to such an extent on one river.[4] The establishment of a Polish state is often identified with the adoption of Christianity by Mieszko I in 966 C.E. (see Baptism of Poland), when the state covered territory similar to that of present-day Poland. In 1025 C.E., Poland became a kingdom. In 1569, Poland cemented a long association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin, forming the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the largest and most populous countries in 16th- and 17th-century Europe.[5][6][7][8] The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had many particularities that made it unique among contemporary states. The Commonwealth's political system, often called the Noble's Democracy or Golden Freedom, was characterized by the sovereign's power being reduced by laws and the legislature (Sejm) controlled by the nobility (szlachta). This system was a precursor to the modern concepts of broader democracy[9] and constitutional monarchy.[10][11] The two comprising states of the Commonwealth were formally equal, although in reality Poland was a dominant partner in the union.[12] Its population was hallmarked by a high level of ethnic and confessional diversity, and the state was noted for having religious tolerance unusual for its age,[13] although the degree of tolerance varied with time.[14] In the late 1700s, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth began to collapse. Its neighboring states were able to slowly dismember the Commonwealth until 1795, when Poland's territory was completely partitioned among the Kingdom of Prussia, the Russian Empire, and Austria. Poland regained its independence as the Second Polish Republic in 1918 after World War I, but lost it in World War II through occupation by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Poland lost over six million citizens in World War II, emerging several years later as the socialist People's Republic of Poland within the Eastern Bloc, under strong Soviet influence. During the Revolutions of 1989, communist rule was overthrown and Poland became what is constitutionally known as the "Third Polish Republic." Poland is a unitary state made up of sixteen voivodeships (Polish: województwo). Poland is also a member of the European Union, NATO, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). [edit] Territorial timeline[edit] Pre 1635  In the period following the emergence of Poland in the 10th century, the Polish nation was led by a series of rulers of the Piast dynasty, who converted the Poles to Christianity, created a sizeable Central European state, and integrated Poland into European culture. Formidable foreign enemies and internal fragmentation eroded this initial structure in the 13th century, but consolidation in the 1300s laid the base for the dominant Polish Kingdom. Beginning with the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila, the Jagiellon dynasty (1385–1569) formed the Polish-Lithuanian Union. The Lublin Union of 1569 established the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as an influential player in European politics and a vital cultural entity. [edit] Duchy of PrussiaIn 1525, during the Protestant Reformation, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Albert of Hohenzollern, secularized the order's Prussian territory, becoming Albert, Duke of Prussia. His duchy, which had its capital in Königsberg, was established as a fief of the Crown of Poland.[15] [edit] 1635 Sweden, weakened by involvement in the Thirty Years' War, agreed to sign the Armistice of Stuhmsdorf (also known as Treaty of Sztumska Wieś or Treaty of Stuhmsdorf) in 1635, favorable to the Commonwealth in terms of territorial concessions.[16] [edit] 1655 In the history of Poland and Lithuania, the Deluge refers to a series of wars in the mid- to late 17th century that left the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in ruins.[17]  The Deluge refers to the Swedish invasion and occupation of western half of the Poland-Lithuania from 1655 to 1660 and the Khmelnytskyi Uprising in 1648, which led to Russia's invasion in the Russo-Polish War.[17] [edit] 1657 The Treaty of Wehlau was a treaty signed on September 19, 1657, in the eastern Prussian town of Wehlau (Welawa, now Znamensk) between Poland and Brandenburg-Prussia during the Swedish Deluge. The treaty granted independence to Prussia in recognition of its help against the Swedish forces during the Deluge.[18] [edit] 1660 In the Treaty of Oliva, the Polish King, John II Casimir, renounced his claims to the Swedish crown, which his father Sigismund III Vasa had lost in 1599. Poland also formally ceded Swedish Livonia and the city of Riga, which had been under de facto Swedish control since the 1620s.[19] The signing of the treaty ended Swedish involvement in the Deluge.  [edit] 1667 The War for Ukraine ended with the Treaty of Andrusovo of January 13, 1667.[20] The peace settlement gave Moscow control over the so called Left-bank Ukraine with the Polish Commonwealth retaining Right-bank Ukraine.[20] The signing of the Treaty ended Russian occupation of the Polish confederation and the Deluge war. Since the war started the population of the commonwealth had been nearly halved by war and disease. War had destroyed the economic base of the cities and raised a religious fervor that ended Poland's policy of religious tolerance.[17] [edit] 1672 As a result of the Polish–Ottoman War the Polish commonwealth ceded Podolia in the 1672 Treaty of Buczacz.[21][22]  [edit] 1686 The Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686 was a treaty between Tsardom of Russia and Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on May 6, 1686 in Moscow. It confirmed the earlier Treaty of Andrusovo of 1667. It consisted of a preamble and 33 articles. The treaty secured Russia's possession of the Left-bank Ukraine, Zaporozh'ye, Seversk lands, cities of Chernihiv, Starodub, Smolensk and its outskirts, while Poland retained Right-bank Ukraine.[23] [edit] 1699 The Treaty of Karlowitz, or Treaty of Karlovci, was signed on January 26, 1699, in Sremski Karlovci, a town in modern-day Serbia. The Treaty of Karlowitz was signed following a two-month congress between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League of 1684, a coalition of various European powers including the Habsburg Monarchy, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Republic of Venice, and Peter I's Alekseyevich Muscovite Russia.[24] The treaty concluded the Austro-Ottoman War of 1683–1697, in which the Ottoman side had finally been defeated at the Battle of Senta. The Ottomans ceded most of Hungary, Transylvania, and Slavonia to Austria while Podolia returned to Poland. Most of Dalmatia passed to Venice, along with the Morea (the Peloponnesus peninsula) and Crete.[23] [edit] 1772 In February, 1772, the agreement of partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was signed in Vienna.[25] Early in August the Russian, Prussian and Austrian troops simultaneously entered the Commonwealth and occupied the provinces agreed upon among themselves. By the first partition in 1772, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth lost about 211,000 square kilometres (81,000 sq mi) (30% of its territory, amounting at that time to about 733,000 square kilometres (283,000 sq mi)), with a population of over four to five million people (about a third of its population of 14 million before the partitions).[26][27] [edit] 1793 By the 1790s the First Polish Republic had deteriorated into such a helpless condition that it was successfully forced into an unnatural and ultimately deadly alliance with its enemy, Prussia. The alliance was cemented with the Polish-Prussian Pact of 1790.[28] The conditions of the Pact were such that the succeeding and final two partitions of Poland were inevitable. The May Constitution of 1791 enfranchised the bourgeoisie, established the separation of the three branches of government, and eliminated the abuses of Repnin Sejm. Those reforms prompted aggressive actions on the part of its neighbours, wary of the potential renaissance of the Commonwealth. In the 2nd partition, Russia and Prussia helped themselves to enough land so that only one-third of the 1772 population remained in Poland.[29] [edit] 1795 Kosciuszko's ragtag insurgent armies who fought to regain Polish territory won some initial successes, but they eventually fell before the superior forces of Russian Empire.[30] The partitioning powers, seeing the increasing unrest in the remaining Commonwealth, decided to solve the problem by erasing any independent Polish state from the map. On 24 October 1795 their representatives signed a treaty, dividing the remaining territories of the Commonwealth between their three countries.[31] [edit] 1807 Napoleon's attempts to build and expand his empire kept Europe at war for almost a decade and brought him into conflict with the same east European powers that had beleaguered Poland in the last decades of the previous century. An alliance of convenience was the natural result of this situation. Volunteer Polish legions attached themselves to Bonaparte's armies, hoping that in return the emperor would allow an independent Poland to reappear out of his conquests.[32] The Duchy of Warsaw was a Polish state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807 from the Polish lands ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia under the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. The duchy was held in personal union by one of Napoleon's allies, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony.[32] [edit] 1815 Following Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia, the duchy was occupied by Prussian and Russian troops until 1815, when it was formally partitioned between the two countries at the Congress of Vienna.[33] [edit] Congress PolandCongress Poland was created out of the Duchy of Warsaw at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when European states reorganized Europe following the Napoleonic wars.[34] [edit] Grand Duchy of PosenThe Grand Duchy of Posen was a region in the Kingdom of Prussia in the Polish lands commonly known as "Greater Poland" between the years 1815–1848. Per agreements from Congress of Vienna it was to have an autonomy. However in practice it was subordinated to Prussia and the proclaimed rights for Poles were not respected. The name was unofficially used afterward for denoting the territory, especially by Poles, and today is used by modern historians to describe different political entities until 1918. Its capital was Posen (Polish: Poznań).[34] [edit] Free City of KrakówThe Free, Independent, and Strictly Neutral City of Kraków with its Territory more commonly known as either the Free City of Kraków or Republic of Kraków was a city-state created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815.[35] [edit] 1831 After the November Uprising Congress Poland lost its status as a sovereign state in 1831 and the administrative division of Congress Poland was reorganized. Russia issued an, "organic decree" which preserved the rights of individuals in Congress Poland but abolished the Sejm and meant Poland was subject to rule by Russian military decree.[36] [edit] 1846 In the aftermath of the unsuccessful Kraków Uprising the Free City of Kraków was annexed by the Austrian Empire.[35] [edit] 1848 After the defeat of Congress Poland many Prussian liberals sympathised with the demand for the restoration of the Polish state. In the spring of 1848 the new liberal Prussian government allowed some autonomy to Grand Duchy of Posen in the hope of contributing to the cause of a new Polish homeland.[37] Due to a number of factors including the outrage of the German speaking minority in Pozen the Prussian government reversed course. By April 1848 the Prussian army had already suppressed the Polish militias and National Committees that emerged in March. By the end of the year the Duchy had lost the last vestiges of its formal autonomy, and was downgraded to a mere Province of the Prussian kingdom.[38] [edit] 1918 The West Ukrainian People's Republic was proclaimed on November 1, 1918 with Lviv as its capital. The proclamation of the Republic, which claimed sovereignty over Eastern Galicia, including the Carpathians up to the city of Nowy Sącz in the West, as well as Volhynia, Carpathian Ruthenia and Bukovina was a complete surprise for the Poles. Although the majority of the population of the Western-Ukrainian People's Republic were Ukrainians, large parts of the claimed territory were considered Polish by the Poles. In Lviv the Ukrainian residents enthusiastically supported the proclamation, the city's significant Jewish minority accepted or remained neutral towards the Ukrainian proclamation, while the Polish minority was shocked to find themselves in a proclaimed Ukrainian state.[39] [edit] 1919[edit] Creation of Poland In the aftermath of World War I the Polish people broke out in a great uprising on December 27, 1918 in Poznań after a patriotic speech by Ignacy Paderewski, a famous Polish pianist. The fighting continued until June 28, 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles was signed, which recreated the nation of Poland. From the defeated German Empire Poland received the following:
[edit] Poland seizes West Ukrainian People's Republic On July 17, 1919 a ceasefire was signed in the Polish–Ukrainian War with the West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR). As part of the agreement Poland kept ZUNR territory. The West Ukrainian People's Republic then moved to and merged with the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR).[43] On June 25, 1919 Supreme Allies Council transferred East Galicia (ZUNR territory) to Poland.[42]  [edit] Polish-Soviet War The Polish-Soviet War (February 1919–March 1921) was an armed conflict of Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic. The war was the result of conflicting expansionist attempts. Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established by the Treaty of Versailles following the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, sought to secure territories it had lost at the time of partitions. The aim of the Soviet states was to control those same territories, which the Russian Empire gained in the Partitions of Poland.[44]
[edit] 1920[edit] Polish–Lithuanian War The Polish-Lithuanian War was an armed conflict between Lithuania and Poland, lasting from August 1920 to October 7, 1920, in the aftermath of World War I, not long after both countries had regained their independence. It was part of a wider conflict over disputed territorial control of the cities of Vilnius (Polish: Wilno), Suwałki and Augustów.  In the aftermath of the war the Republic of Central Lithuania was created in 1920 following the staged rebellion of soldiers of the 1st Lithuanian-Belarusian Infantry Division of the Polish Army, supported by the Polish air force, cavalry and artillery.[45] Centered on the historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilna (Lithuanian: Vilnius, Polish: Wilno), for eighteen months the entity served as a buffer state between Poland, upon which it depended, and Lithuania, which claimed the area.[46] [edit] Negotiations with Russia Soon after the Battle of Warsaw (Miracle at the Vistula) the Bolsheviks sued for peace. The Poles, exhausted, constantly pressured by the Western governments and the League of Nations, and with its army controlling the majority of the disputed territories, were willing to negotiate. The Soviets made two offers: one on 21 September and the other on 28 September. The Polish delegation made a counteroffer on 2 October. On the 5th, the Soviets offered amendments to the Polish offer which Poland accepted. The armistice between Poland on one side and Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia on the other was signed on 12 October and went into effect on 18 October.[47] Long negotiations of the peace treaty ensued with Treaty of Riga being signed on March 1921. The question of a Polish victory is not universally agreed on. Russian and Polish historians tend to assign victory to their respective countries. Outside assessments vary, mostly between calling the result a Polish victory and inconclusive. Lenin in his secret report to the 9th Conference of the Bolshevik Party on September 20, 1920, called the outcome of the war "In a word, a gigantic, unheard-of defeat"[48] [edit] Negotiations with Czechoslovakia During the closing years of World War I Polish and Czechoslovakian diplomats met to hammer out a common border between the two new countries. By the time armistice was declared most of the border was worked out except for three small politically sensitive areas with both Polish and Czechoslovakian residents.
The Cieszyn Silesia or the Duchy of Cieszyn (German: Teschen and Czech: Tesin) was a small area that census showed on the eve of the First World War was predominantly Polish in three districts (Teschen, Bielsko, and Frysztat) and mainly Czech in the fourth district of Frydek. The Chief importance of Cieszyn Silesia lay in the rich coal basin around Karvina and in the valuable Košice-Bohumín Railway railroad which linked Bohemia with Slovakia. Furthermore in northern Cieszyn Silesia the railroad junction of Bohumín (German: Oderberg and Czech: Bohumin) served as a crossroad for international transport and communications.[49] Claims over these regions would turn violent with a brief military conflict, the Seven-day war, in 1919 between Polish and Czechoslovakian units. The Allied governments pressed for a cease fire and on February 3, 1919 a Polish-Czech border agreement was signed on the basis of the November 5, 1918, ethnic division agreement.[42] This was later changed at the Conference of Ambassadors in Spa, Belgium on 28 July 1920. Cieszyn (German: Teschen) was divided along the Olza river between the two newly created states of Poland and Czechoslovakia. The smaller western suburbs of Cieszyn were joined to Czechoslovakia as a new town of Český Těšín along with the railroad and the Karvina coal basin.[50][49] Poland received the portion of Cieszyn east of the Olza river.[49] The conference divided the region just as the Red Army was nearing Warsaw. It was later learned that this award resulted from a secret deal between Edvard Benes and French and British officials[51]
The county of Orawa (Slovak: Orava) arose before the 15th century. The county's territory is situated along the Orava River between Zazriva and the Tatra Mountains. Spisz (Slovak: Spiš) is situated between the High Tatras and the Dunajec River in the north, the springs of the Vah River in the west, the Slovenske rudohorie Mountains (Slovak Ore Mountains) and Hnilec River in the south, and a line running from the town of Stara Ľubovňa, via the Branisko mountain, to the town of Margecany in the east. While the Orawa and Spisz border was in arbitration many groups fought to be a part of Poland including a number of Polish authors. They began to write about an alleged three hundred thousand Poles living in the Orawa territory.[52] [edit] 1921 In late 1921 a border adjustment between the Weimar Republic and Poland took place as a result of the Silesian Uprisings. The uprising were a series of three armed rebellions that took place between 1919 and 1921 of the Polish people in the Upper Silesia region against Weimar Republic. The Polish people of the region wanted to join the new Polish state, which had been established following World War I. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles had called for a plebiscite in Upper Silesia in 1921 to determine whether the territory should be a part of Germany or Poland.[54] The plebiscite took place as arranged on March 20, 1921 two days after the signing of the Treaty of Riga, which ended the Polish-Soviet war. In the plebiscite, around 707,605 votes were cast for Germany, while 479,359 for Poland.[54] The Germans thus had 228,246 votes of majority. The big powers interpreted the results differently and could not decide on what to do with the region. In late April 1921, rumors flew that Upper Silesia would stay in Germany. This led to the Third Polish Uprising in May-July 1921.[54] Stalemated the question of the Upper Silesia problem was turned over to the Council of the League of Nations. The commission, consisting of four representatives—one each from Belgium, Brazil, Spain, and China. The commission gathered its own data, interviewed Poles and Germans from the region, and made its decision on the basis of self-determination. On the basis of the reports of this commission and those of its experts, on October 1921 the Council awarded the greater part of the Upper Silesian industrial district to Poland.[54] [edit] 1922 After a variety of delays, a disputed election to join Poland took place on January 8 1922, and the Republic of Central Lithuania was annexed to Poland.[55] [edit] 1924 The Polish government was not satisfied with the Czechoslovakia-Polish border decided from the Paris Peace Conference or from the Conference of Ambassadors in Spa, Belgium. The conflict was only resolved by the Council of the League of Nations' Permanent Court of International Justice on March 12, 1924, which decided that Czechoslovakia should retain the territory of Javorzyna.[56] and which entailed (in June of the same year) an additional exchange of territories in Orava - the territory around Lipnica Wielka (Nižná Lipnica) went to Poland, the territory around Suchá Hora (Sucha Gora) and Hladovka (Glodowka) went to Czechoslovakia.[57] [edit] 1938 As Czechoslovakia was being dissolved Zaolzie, the Czech half of Cieszyn, was annexed by Poland in 1938 following the Munich Agreement and the First Vienna Award. At noon on 30 September, Poland gave an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak government. It demanded the immediate evacuation of Czech troops and police from Zaolzie and gave Prague time until noon the following day. At 11:45 a.m. on 1 October the Czech foreign ministry called the Polish ambassador in Prague and told him that Poland could have what it wanted. The Germans were delighted with this outcome. They were happy to give up the Zaolzie provincial rail centre to Poland; it was a small sacrifice indeed. It spread the blame of the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, made Poland a seeming accomplice in the process and confused the issue as well as political expectations. Poland was accused of being an accomplice of Nazi Germany – a charge that Warsaw was hard put to deny.[58]  Poland also seized more land from northern Spisz and northern Orawa such as the territories around Suchá Hora and Hladovka, around Javorina, and in addition the territory around Lesnica in the Pieniny Mountains, a small territory around Skalité and some other very small border regions (they officially received the territories on 1 November 1938. After seizing the land special Polish military groups began to carry out assimilation of the population. Polish was introduced as the only official language and the Slovak Intelligence were displaced from the territories.[59] [edit] 1939 [edit] World War IIIn 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland and partitioned it pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact[60]. After invading Poland in 1939, Germany annexed the lands it was forced to give to a reformed Poland in 1919–1922 by the Treaty of Versailles, including the "Polish Corridor", West Prussia, the Province of Posen, and parts of eastern Upper Silesia. The council of the Free City of Danzig voted to become a part of Germany again, although Poles and Jews were deprived of their voting rights and all non-Nazi political parties were banned. Parts of Poland that had not been part of Wilhelmine Germany were also incorporated into the Reich. Two decrees by Adolf Hitler (October 8 and October 12, 1939) provided for the division of the annexed areas of Poland into the following administrative units:
 These territories had an area of 94,000 square kilometres (36,000 sq mi) and a population of 10,000,000 people. The remainder of the Polish territory was annexed by the Soviet Union (see Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) or made into the German-controlled General Government occupation zone. Eastern areas of Poland became part of either Soviet Belarus (with such cities as Białystok, Łomża, Baranowicze and Brest) or Soviet Ukraine (with the cities of Lwów, Tarnopol, Lutsk, Rowne and Stanisławów). The city of Vilnius (pol. Wilno) with adjacent area was annexed and returned to Lithuania. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the district of Białystok, which included the Białystok, Bielsk Podlaski, Grajewo, Łomża, Sokółka, Volkovysk, and Grodno Counties, was "attached to" (not incorporated into) East Prussia. [edit] 1945 On Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day or VE Day) May 7 and May 8, 1945 the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. After World War II, there were extensive changes to the territorial extent of Poland, following the decision taken at the Teheran Conference of 1943 at the insistence of the Soviet Union. The Polish territories east of the Curzon Line, which the Soviet Union had occupied in 1939 along with the Bialystok region, were permanently annexed.[61] While a large portion of this area was predominately populated by Ukrainians and Belarussians, most of their Polish inhabitants were expelled.[62] Today these territories are part of Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania. Poland received former German territory east of the Oder-Neisse line in turn, consisting of the southern two thirds of East Prussia and most of Pomerania, Neumark (East Brandenburg), and Silesia. The German population was expelled before these "occupied territories" were repopulated mainly with Poles from central Poland and those expelled from the eastern regions.[63] Early expulsions in Poland were undertaken by the occupying Soviet and Polish Communist military authorities [63] even before the Potsdam Conference ("wild expulsions"). To ensure territorial incorporation into Poland, Polish Communists ordered that Germans were to be expelled: "We must expel all the Germans because countries are built on national lines and not on multinational ones," a citation from the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers Party, May 20-21, 1945.[64] Germans were defined as either Reichsdeutsche, people enlisted in 1st or 2nd Volksliste groups, and those of the 3rd group, who held German citizenship. People of Slavic descent ("autochthones", almost exclusively in Upper Silesia and Masuria) could apply for "verification" as Poles and were allowed to stay.[65] Winston Churchill was not present at the end of the Yalta Conference as the results of the British election had made it clear he had been defeated. Churchill later claimed that he would never have agreed to the Oder-Western Neisse line, and in his famous Iron Curtain speech declared that:
[edit] Poland USSR On August 16, 1945 a border agreement between Poland and the USSR was signed. The western portion of the Byelorussian SSR was granted to Poland. The agreement concerned border adjustment between Poland and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic of the USSR, as the Belastok Voblast was divided into Soviet Brest Voblast, Hrodna Voblast and Polish Białystok Voivodeship.[67]
[edit] CzechoslovakiaAfter World War II the Czechoslovakian government wanted to return to the 1920 border between the two nations, while Polish inhabitants of Zaolzie were in favor of the boundary of August 31, 1939. On May 20, 1945 in Trstena an agreement for a return to the 1938 borders of Poland was signed and the following day the Czechoslovak border guards moved to the old Czechoslovakian border. At several places there were fights between Polish and Czechoslovakian militias, but the situation calmed with the arrival of Polish troops on July 17, 1945.[68] The Polish government still did not want to give up Zaolzie, and on June 16, 1945, Marshall Michał Rola-Żymierski issued directive number 00336, which ordered the 1st Armored Corps of the Polish Army to concentrate in the area of Rybnik, and to seize Zaolzie[69] However, the Soviets decided to hand the region to Czechoslovakia, and the Poles followed the Moscow directive. Furthermore, the Czech side demanded former German areas of Klodzko, Glubczyce, and Raciborz, but after Soviet mediation, all sides signed a treaty on September 21, 1945, which accepted the December 31, 1937 Polish - Czechoslovak and Czechoslovak - German borderline as the boundary between the two countries.[70] [edit] 1948 Polish border has a minor corrections in 1948, when the village of Medyka near Przemyśl was transferred to Poland.[71] [edit] 1951 On February 15, 1951 Aleksander Zawadzki the president of the Polish Republic and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Andrey Vyshinsky signed Treaty No. 6222. Agreement between the Polish republic and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics concerning the exchange of sectors of their state territories. The treaty was a border adjustment that took place in 1951, when Poland and the Soviet Union exchanged 480 square kilometres (190 sq mi). [72] [edit] 1958On June 13, 1958 the Agreement concerning the final demarcation of the state frontier between Czechoslovakia and Poland was sign in Warsaw. Adam Rapacki signed for Poland and Václav David signed for Czechoslovakia. The treaty confirmed the border at the line of January 1, 1938 or the situation before the Nazi-imposed Munich Agreement transferred territory from Czechoslovakia to Poland.[73] [edit] 1975 In March 1975 Czechoslovakia and Poland modified their border along the Dunajec to permit Poland to construct a dam in the Czorsztyn region, southeast of Kraków.[74] [edit] 2002 In 2002, Poland and Slovakia made some further minor border adjustments:
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