Piłsudski's alliance with Petliura

On 21 April 1920 in Warsaw representatives of Poland and the Ukrainian People’s Republic signed a political agreement, later called the Treaty of Warsaw (PL) and popularly known as the alliance between Piłsudski and Petliura. Poland recognised the independence of Ukraine and the Directorate headed by Symon Petliura as its lawful government. In return the Ukrainians accepted a border on the Zbruch, which meant giving up Eastern Galicia and western Volhynia. The agreement was signed by the deputy foreign minister Jan Dąbski and by Andrii Livytskyi (PL), who headed the Ukrainian foreign ministry. It was secret, except for the act recognising the Ukrainian state, which was published in Monitor Polski.

From enemy to ally

Only a year earlier Poles and Ukrainians had been fighting each other for Lviv and Eastern Galicia. For the West Ukrainian People’s Republic Poland was the main enemy. The Directorate in Kiev, which had taken power after the fall of Hetman Skoropadskyi, feared Russia more. The Directorate’s first mission came to Warsaw as early as January 1919, and in May a preliminary agreement was signed, but the fighting in Galicia wrecked it. Once the Supreme Council had allowed Poland to occupy Eastern Galicia and the Polish–Ukrainian war had ended, Poland and the Directorate concluded an armistice on 1 September 1919.

In the autumn the Ukrainians’ situation became desperate. Their army was being beaten in turn by the Bolsheviks and by General Anton Denikin’s Whites, and the Ukrainian Galician Army made a separate agreement with Denikin. On 5 December Petliura left Ukraine for Warsaw, hoping for help from Poland and, through Poland, from the Entente. Already on 2 December Livytskyi’s Ukrainian mission had declared its readiness to renounce the lands west of the Zbruch. The talks went on all winter, and the Poles, as the Encyclopedia of Ukraine writes, exploited the weakness of the Ukrainian government and put heavy pressure on it.

The terms

Under the agreement the border was to run along the Zbruch, the old Austro-Russian frontier, then across Volhynia east of Rivne and Kremenets, which remained on the Polish side, as far as the Pripyat. Both governments undertook not to conclude agreements directed against each other. Poles in Ukraine and Ukrainians in Poland were to enjoy the same national and cultural rights. The land question in Ukraine was to be settled by a Ukrainian constituent assembly, and until then the interests of Polish landowners were to be protected by separate agreements.

The agreement announced a military convention, which was signed on 24 April. Ukrainian troops were to fight alongside the Polish army, but under Polish command. Poland was to arm three Ukrainian divisions, while the Ukrainians were to feed the troops fighting on their land and set up their own administration in the territories taken. The Poles were to withdraw at the request of either side. The next day the joint offensive on Kiev began.

An alliance under fire

For Józef Piłsudski an independent Ukraine was to separate Poland from Russia. The National Democrats, opposed to his federal plans, criticised the alliance because they did not believe in a Ukrainian state. The Ukrainians themselves received it even more harshly. Galician politicians called the agreement a betrayal, and it was also opposed by the former chairman of the Central Rada, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, and by Volodymyr Vynnychenko. Isaak Mazepa’s government resigned in protest. Petliura, who had few troops left, saw the alliance as the last chance for Ukrainian statehood, even at the price of giving up Galicia.