Most importantly, with the participation of politicians from another continent, the form of Europe was created that is still valid in many places. In any case, House described it in an interesting way in one of his memoirs, part of which can be found in our anthology. He narrated the events of January 9, 1919 as follows: “Saturday turned into a special day. After breakfast, I returned to the White House to work with the President. We started work at half past eleven and finished drawing a new map of the world at twelve thirty.” .

New map of the world in 2 hours, that sounds fun. Only the dispute over the Polish border occurred elsewhere, between the British and the French. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George has said that giving Poland Upper Silesia is like giving a watch to a monkey.

It seems to me that the French were not as friends as Poland, and the British were not enemies. It was about the future position of Germany. France sought to weaken her eternal enemy as much as possible, and Great Britain preferred Germany to serve as a counterbalance to strong France in Europe. The French supported Poland during the fight for Upper Silesia, but in the end only part of this region won. Gdansk did not become Polish but a free city. In 1920, it turned out that the Americans were right to accept Gdansk in Poland. During the Bolshevik invasion, the young state with no seaport was cut off from the supply of weapons. It could have ended tragically.

I documented the situation from 1919-1920 in the second volume, but let’s go back to Paris. How do our parents behave in independence in the “pressure groups” diary?

American envoys to Europe were excellent observers. Despite the language barrier, they quickly diagnosed internal divisions and hostile camps. This was noted by Wilson’s translator, Philip Bonsal, who wrote: “Piłsudski has power in Warsaw and many other regions. He appears not to be in the best relations with the National Committee.” And in a moment to clarify: “Indeed, everyone is on bad terms with everyone.” (Laughs) Not only that, he knew the concept and likened it in the appropriate context finally freeWe note the quarrel and the unwillingness of our delegation to agree.

But the most interesting is how the Polish parliament was forced to appoint two representatives to meet in Paris. Unfortunately, the members of the delegation could not agree – the candidacy for Padreevsky seemed natural, but there was a heated dispute over the second name. The “colonel” decided to lock the Poles in the room, and gave an ultimatum that if the names were not revealed, he would exclude them from the conversations. Thus, after several hours of stormy arguing among themselves, the names of Paderewski and Dmowski were chosen.

– Interview with Cesare Coriki

TYGODNIK TVP, UL. Woronicza 17, 00-999 Warsaw. Editors and authors