Polskie Dokumenty Dyplomatyczne 1918 (listopad-grudzień)

The ninth volume of the Polish Diplomatic Documents series comprises 205 documents illustrating the activity of Polish politicians and diplomats after the First World War.

As a result of the collapse of its all three partitioning states Poland had an opportunity to regain the independence in November 1918. Consolidation of power and establishing relations with the allied powers were the most important issues to undertake for the reborn country.
During November and December the leftist independence circles took control over the large part of the Polish territory. At the same time, it was the Polish National Committee in Paris which maintained the privileged international position and was treated by the powers as representative of the Polish state.

The activity aimed at the regaining of Polish independence required cooperation of all the interested parties. The scope of significant issues to be dealt with (German troops stationing in the East , Polish-Ukrainian clashes, Polish-Czechoslovakian territorial disputes, threat of escalation of the hostilities between Germans and Poles in the Great Poland region, waves of ant-Jewish pogroms) brought about the necessity of collaborative effort of both the leftist independence circles and the Polish National Committee. The necessity of cooperation was all the more important as the Paris Peace Conference which had been supposed to deal among others with the issues of the reborn state’s frontiers was about to be held in the nearest future.

The documents in the volume illustrate both the international Polish activity and the successful efforts undertaken in order to reach an arrangement between the authorities in Warsaw and the Polish National Committee in Paris.
The source of the volume largely consists of materials stored in the Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw, Jozef Pilsudski Institute of America, Central Military Archive in Warsaw (Rembertów), Academic Library of the Polish Academy of Learning and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków, and the National Archives in London. The volume also includes the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ statements published in the “Polish Monitor”. The vast majority of documents had not been previously published.

The volume is provided with an index of names and an extensive subject index, the preface contains detailed information on the structure and functioning of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Polish National Committee.