The Treaty of Warsaw (also the Polish–Ukrainian or Petliura–Piłsudski Alliance or Agreement) of April 1920 was a military-economical alliance between the Second Polish Republic, represented by Józef Piłsudski, and the Ukrainian People's Republic, represented by Symon Petliura, against Bolshevik Russia. The treaty was signed on 21 April 1920, with a military addendum on 24 April.

The alliance was signed during the Polish-Soviet War, just before the Polish Kiev offensive. Piłsudski was looking for allies against the Bolsheviks and hoped to create a Międzymorze alliance; Petliura saw the alliance as the last chance to create an independent Ukraine.

The treaty had no permanent impact. The Polish-Soviet War continued and the territories in question were distributed between Russia and Poland in accordance with the 1921 Peace of Riga. Territories claimed by the Ukrainian national movement were split between the Ukrainian SSR in the east and Poland in the west (Galicia and part of Volhynia).

Background The Polish leader Józef Piłsudski was trying to create a Poland-led alliance of East European countries, the Międzymorze federation, designed to strengthen Poland and her neighbors at the expense of the Russian Empire, and later of the Russian SFSR and the Soviet Union."Although the Polish premier and many of his associates sincerely wanted peace, other important Polish leaders did not. Josef Pilsudski, chief of state and creator of Polish army, was foremost among the latter. Pilsudski hoped to build not merely a Polish nation state but a greater federation of peoples under the aegis of Poland which would replace Russia as the great power of Eastern Europe. Lithuania, Belorussia and Ukraine were all to be included. His plan called for a truncated and vastly reduced Russia, a plan which excluded negotiations prior to military victory." Richard K Debo, Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918-192, Google Print, p. 59, McGill-Queen's Press, 1992, ."Pilsudski's program for a federation of independent states centered on Poland; in opposing the imperial power of both Russia and Germany it was in many ways a throwback to the romantic Mazzinian nationalism of Young Poland in the early nineteenth century. But his slow consolidation of dictatorial power betrayed the democratic substance of those earlier visions of national revolution as the path to human liberation" James H. Billington, Fire in the Minds of Men, p. 432, Transaction Publishers, His plan was however plagued with setbacks, as some of his planned allies refused to cooperate with Poland, and others, while more sympathetic, preferred to avoid conflict with the Bolsheviks. But in April 1920, from a military standpoint, Polish army needed to strike at the Soviets, to disrupt their plans for an offensive of their own. Piłsudski also wanted an independent Ukraine to be a buffer between Poland and Russia rather than seeing Ukraine again dominated by Russia right at the Polish border. Piłsudski, who argued that "There can be no independent Poland without an independent Ukraine", may have been more interested in Ukraine being split from Russia than he was in Ukrainians' welfare."The newly founded Polish state cared much more about the expansion of its borders to the east and southeast ("between the seas") than about helping the dying [Ukrainian] state of which Petliura was de facto dictator. ("A Belated Idealist." Zerkalo Nedeli (Mirror Weekly), May 22–28, 2004. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian .)Piłsudski is quoted to have said: "After the Polish independence we will see about Poland's size". (ibid) As such, Piłsudski turned to Petliura, whom he originally had not considered high on his planned allies list.

At the end of June 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, in which Germany withdrew from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Ukrainian People's Republic, led by Petliura, suffered mounting attacks on its territory since early 1919, and by April 1920 most of Ukrainian territory was outside its control.

In such conditions, Józef Piłsudski had little difficulty in convincing Petliura to join the alliance with Poland despite recent conflict between the two nations that had been settled in favour of Poland the previous year.Richard K Debo, Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918-1921, pp. 210-211, McGill-Queen's Press, 1992, .

The treaty

The treaty was signed on 21 April in Warsaw (it was signed at night 01:40 LST from 21 onto 22, but it was dated as of 21 April 1920).Kapelyushny, V. Treaty of Warsaw between the UNR Direktoria and Poland. Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine. In exchange for agreeing to a border along the Zbruch River, recognizing Poland's annexation of western Ukraine, which included Galicia as well as the western portions of Volhynian Governorate, Kholm Governorate, and other territories (Article II), Poland recognized the Ukrainian People's Republic as an independent state (Article I) with borders as defined by Articles II and III and under ataman Petliura's leadership.

A separate provision in the treaty prohibited both sides from concluding any international agreements against each other (Article IV).Ukraine: a concise encyclopedia, pp. 766-767, edited by Volodymyr Kubiyovych, Ukrainian National Association, University of Toronto Press, 1963-1971, 2 v., Ethnic Poles within the Ukrainian border, and ethnic Ukrainians within the Polish border, were guaranteed the same rights within their states (Article V). Unlike their Russian counterparts, whose lands were to be distributed among the peasants, Polish landlords in Ukraine were accorded special treatment until a future legislation would be passed by Ukraine that would clarify the issue of Polish landed property in Ukraine (Article VI). Further, an economic treaty was drafted, significantly tying Polish and Ukrainian economies; Ukraine was to grant significant concessions to the Poles and the Polish state.

The treaty was followed by a formal military alliance signed by general Volodymyr Sinkler and Walery Sławek on 24 April. Petliura was promised military help in regaining the control of Bolshevik-occupied territories with Kiev, where he would again assume the authority of the Ukrainian People's Republic.THE REBIRTH OF POLAND. University of Kansas, lecture notes by professor Anna M. Cienciala, 2004. Last accessed on 2 June 2006. The Ukrainian republic was to subordinate its military to Polish command and provide the joint armies with supplies on Ukrainian territories; the Poles in exchange promised to provide equipment for the Ukrainians.

On the same day as the military alliance was signed (24 April), Poland and UPR forces began the Kiev Operation, aimed at securing the Ukrainian territory for Petliura's government thus creating a buffer for Poland that would separate it from Russia. Sixty-five thousand Polish and fifteen thousand Ukrainian soldiers took part in the initial expedition. After winning the battle in the south, the Polish General Staff planned a speedy withdrawal of the 3rd Army and strengthening of the northern front in Belarus where Piłsudski expected the main battle with the Red Army to take place. The Polish southern flank was to be held by Polish-allied Ukrainian forces under a friendly government in Ukraine.

Importance

For Piłsudski, this alliance gave his campaign for the Międzymorze federation the legitimacy of joint international effort,Davies, White Eagle..., Polish edition, p.99-103 secured part of the Polish eastward border, and laid a foundation for a Polish dominated Ukrainian state between Russia and Poland. For Petliura, this was a final chance to preserve the statehood and, at least, the theoretical independence of the Ukrainian heartlands, even while accepting the loss of Western Ukrainian lands to Poland."In September 1919 the armies of the Ukrainian Directory in Podolia found themselves in the "death triangle". (In reality, the Ukrainian forces were located near town of Liubar that is located near Volhynian-Podolian transition area and on the Volhynian part.) They were squeezed between the Red Russians of Lenin and Trotsky in the north-east, White Russians of Denikin in south-east and the Poles in the West. Death were looking into their eyes. And not only to the people but to the nascent Ukrainian state. Therefore, the chief ataman Petliura had no choice but to accept the union offered by Piłsudski, or, as an alternative, to capitulate to the Bolsheviks, as Volodymyr Vinnychenko or Mykhailo Hrushevsky did at the time or in a year or two. The decision was very hurtful. The Polish Szlachta was a historic enemy of the Ukrainian people. A fresh wound was bleeding, the West Ukrainian People's Republic, as the Pilsudchiks were suppressing the East Galicians at that very moment. However, Petliura agreed to peace and the union, accepting the Ukrainian-Polish border, the future Soviet-Polish one. It's also noteworthy that Piłsudski also obtained less territories than offered to him by Lenin, and, in addition, the war with immense Russia. The Dnieper Ukrainians then were abandoning their brothers, the Galicia Ukrainians, to their fate. However, Petliura wanted to use his last chance to preserve the statehood - in the union with the Poles. Attempted, however, without luck."

Oleksa Pidlutskyi, Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century), Kiev, 2004, , . Chapter "Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3–9, 2001, in Russian and in Ukrainian .

Aftermath