Supreme Council allows Poland to occupy Eastern Galicia

At three in the afternoon on 25 June 1919 the foreign ministers of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan met in the room of the French foreign minister, Stéphen Pichon, at the Quai d’Orsay. This Council of Foreign Ministers, one of the bodies of the Supreme Council of the peace conference, dealt above all with the future of Eastern Galicia. It resolved that the Polish government might occupy it with its troops as far as the Zbruch and use General Haller’s army for the purpose as well. It was a great success for Polish diplomacy, although the powers stated plainly that they were not deciding to whom the country would ultimately belong.

The dispute over Galicia

Since November 1918 the Polish–Ukrainian war had been fought over Eastern Galicia, and in Paris the powers were trying to end it with an armistice. By June none of their plans had succeeded. Poland wanted the whole of Eastern Galicia up to the Zbruch, including Lviv and the oilfield. The government of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic demanded a border on the San and rejected every compromise. The Poles worked on many fronts in Paris. The Armenian archbishop of Lviv, Józef Teodorowicz (PL), had written as early as January to Ignacy Paderewski: “It is for Lviv that I ask you and implore you.” In June several dozen professors of the University of Lviv signed a memorandum on the need to restore the whole of Eastern Galicia to Poland.

In May the Polish offensive had taken most of the country, against the will of the powers, which opposed the use of Haller’s army in Galicia. At the beginning of June the Ukrainians replied with the Chortkiv offensive, and on the day of the meeting in Paris their army stood about 40 kilometres from Lviv. On 18 June the matter had been referred to the Commission on Polish Affairs, chaired by the French diplomat Jules Cambon. Arthur Balfour proposed at the time that the country be governed by a High Commissioner of the League of Nations, since the mutual hostility of Poles and Ruthenians made any plebiscite impossible.

The resolution

According to the minutes later published by the State Department, Cambon reported to the ministers that his commission unanimously recommended a temporary Polish occupation at least as far as the Zbruch. Secretary of State Robert Lansing put forward a ready draft resolution in seven points. The Italian delegate, the Marquis Imperiali, would have preferred to strike out the promise of a future vote by the inhabitants, because it made the Polish administration provisional and opened the field to intrigue. The French general Henri Le Rond explained that until then the Council of Four had refused to allow Haller’s soldiers to be used in Galicia, and that this veto would now be withdrawn. Lansing added that his military advisers, and also the American minister in Warsaw, who had just arrived in Paris, supported the step, because Haller’s army was the only really trained force Poland had. The longest dispute was over the civil administration. The Briton Sir Eyre Crowe recalled Balfour’s proposal, and Balfour himself, who came for part of the meeting, said that personally he would like to see Eastern Galicia in Poland but feared that its inhabitants did not want it. Pichon and Imperiali assured him that according to their information the Ruthenians were not hostile to the Poles, and Balfour withdrew his objections. On Lansing’s proposal the word “mandate”, which had a particular meaning in the League of Nations, was replaced in the resolution by “agreement”.

The resolution adopted authorised the Polish government to occupy Eastern Galicia up to the Zbruch and to use for the purpose all its forces, including Haller’s army. Poland could set up a civil administration there under an agreement with the powers, which was to preserve as far as possible the autonomy of the territory and the political, religious and personal liberties of the inhabitants. The ultimate allegiance of Eastern Galicia was to be decided in future by the inhabitants themselves, at a time fixed by the powers. The Polish government was to be advised at once of the decision and of the propriety of acting immediately. Pichon was to send the resolution to all parties concerned, including the Ukrainian government.

After the resolution

Michał Klimecki judged that the occupation of the whole of the former Austrian partition with the official consent of the West was “an indisputable victory for Poland”. The Ukrainian delegation in Paris responded with notes of protest. According to the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, the powers justified the decision by the need to stop the Bolsheviks, who might come from the east. Three days later the Poles began the counter-offensive that by mid-July drove the Ukrainians beyond the Zbruch. The dispute over the country’s status went on, however. In November 1919 the Supreme Council gave Eastern Galicia to Poland for 25 years as a League of Nations mandate, but a month later suspended the decision. The powers recognised Polish sovereignty over the territory only in March 1923.