There was a Poland, but not between 1795 and 1918, when the nation was partitioned. There was, however, always the “Polish Question,” (Polish: kwestia polska or sprawa polska) which plagued 19th century statesmen, over which of three squabbling empires would overlord the Polish people. At the climax of World War I, the Poles answered the question for themselves. Poland, in fact, was reestablished not by the postwar Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919), but by the force of Polish arms. By the time the conference delegates met the Polish people were well on their way to carving out their nation in a series of battles between between the crumbling German Empire and a Russia distracted by revolution.
In July of 1920, however, Lenin decided to do to Poland what Putin wanted to do to Ukraine. A massive Soviet offensive led by General Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the so called “Red Napoleon,” swept across the fledgling state. For a moment, it looked like Poland would once again disappear from the maps of Europe. What happened next changed history—eerily reminding of our own times.
From A Sketch-map History of the Great War and After, 1914-1939
What happened? In a rapid six week campaign (rapid by World War I standards where armies fought for years over inches of ground) , Tukhachevsky’s had reached the gates of Warsaw. Some European papers had already carried headlines about the fall of the city. Then the Polish delivered a decisive counterattack from the south that split Tukhachesky’s army and cut his lines of supply. Part of the army retreated into East Prussia and surrendered. The rest dissolved and fled back to mother Russia.