Primary Documents - U.S. Recognition of Paderewski Government, 29 January 1919
With Germany defeated in
November 1918 the path was cleared for a newly constructed Polish republic
to be established with Allied backing; this was duly declared on 10 February
1919. This was however by no means the end of uncertainty for Poland,
with the ultimate makeup of Europe yet to be agreed at the Paris Peace
Conference, and with military disagreements with Russia, the Ukraine and
Czechoslovakia rumbling on.
Click here to read the statement issued by the Polish Regency Council - established by the country's wartime German occupiers - on 11 November 1918 (the date of the armistice) which announced that General Josef Pilsudski, newly freed from German incarceration, was to be appointed to military command of Poland's Army. Click here to read a subsequent decree, issued three days later, in which the Regency Council formally announced its own dissolution in favour of Pilsudski pending assembly elections. Click here to read a statement issued by Pilsudski on the same day in which he outlined his immediate plans.
Click here to read an interview conducted with Pilsudski by a French newspaper in February 1919. Click here to read the text of the U.S. government's formal recognition of the Polish government, by now politically led by Ignace Paderewski (with Pilsudski's blessing while the latter oversaw military matters). Click here to read an address issued by Paderewski in May 1919 in which he summarised events to date at the Paris Peace Conference. Click here to read a statement issued by Paderewski in September 1919 in which he expressed his support for Polish entry into the League of Nations.
Click here to read a statement issued by Herbert Hoover - head of the U.S. reconstruction organisation in Europe - dated August 1919 in which he documented his reservations with regard to the speed with which Poland's economic infrastructure could be rebuilt.
U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing's Recognition of the Paderewski Government, 29 January 1919
The President of the United States directs me to extend to you, as Foreign Minister and Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Polish Government, its sincere wishes for your success in the high office which you have assumed and his earnest hope that the Government of which you are a part will bring prosperity to the Republic of Poland.
It is my privilege to extend to you at this time my personal greetings and officially to assure you that it will be a source of gratification to enter into official relations with you at the earliest opportunity.
To render to your country such aid as is possible at this time, as it enters upon a new cycle of independent life, will be in due accord with that spirit of friendliness which has in the past animated the American people in their relations with your countrymen.
Source: Source Records of the Great War, Vol. VII, ed. Charles F. Horne, National Alumni 1923
A Greyback was a British Army shirt.
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