Your opinion about Intermarium?

[Jopa79]

Countries in the concept of Intermarium.

Intermarium - Between Seas was a proposed federation of countries by the Polish military leader and statesman, Jozef Pilsudski during the interwar years. The idea of the federation was to balance the Russian and German power in the Eastern- and Central Europe. Intermarium - if realized - would had been an embodiment of the Border State Policy. It was associated also by the Baltic Entente and the Warsaw Accord, the countries had committed themselves strictly to the Covenant of the League of Nations and the International Law. The countries practicing the Border State Policy also pursued for confidential military cooperation.

Intermarium never realized - for many reasons. The Soviet Union opposed the federation, experiencing it as an embargo against the USSR. Finland announced for the record to support the Nordic alignment and neutrality instead. The conditions were also weakened by the French not accepting the sanctions against Germany, Poland signing a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union and internal border disputes between Poland and Lithuania.

But if realized - would the federation qualified herself as a reliable alliance? If existed, would Intermarium had an effect for the outbreak of the WWII, maybe preventing it, or making the conflict even worse?

*Edit: This thread was highly inspired by the earlier thread about non-aggression pacts, Sunforged General.

 

[Xeorm]

My first impression is that it looks like a terrible idea. Mostly as it doesn't look like there's much for countries to gain. It might help some of them to not lose, for sure. But no gains. Being a set of countries in the middle of two major powers seems like it's just asking for issues.

 

[JodelDiplom]

Not workable

Poland was the only nation threatened by both Germany and the USSR. The others were always only threatened by one of those. So, basically at any point in time when conflict seemed at the doorstep, most of the members except Poland would have as much, if not more, to gain by defecting from the intermarium and striking a deal with one of the outside powers to secure themselves and accept neutrality, than from continued loyalty and getting dragged into conflicts with both outside powers with whom they actually didn't have conflict themselves.

Furthermore, the civic aspect of successful alliances would be very lacking since the economies would not synergize. None of the involved nations had a banking system capable of supplying credit to the others, so they all would need to turn to French, British, maybe Austrian, or American bankers for credit which means outside interests would strongly interfere again. Their combined economies also wouldn't have enough aggregate demand to really take in the exports of the developed economy of Czechoslovakia. They too would need to orient themselves outward, not inward, and again, outside interests would interfere.

Pipe dream, 100%. Disregardful of how alliances work.

 

[Rubidium]

Yeah, I see clearly why Poland would want this alliance. I see no reason why anyone else in the proposed alliance would.

In addition to the issue of defections, alliance coordination in general would be extremely difficult. Finland has no real common interests with Yugoslavia, and no way to reinforce them if threatened (the terrain and infrastructure are not at all conducive to rapid movements of troops). They have coastlines are three different seas (Baltic, Black and Adriatic), each of which can be bottled up fairly easily, and none of them are major naval powers. And most of the members have claims/rivalries with their neighboring alliance members.

A major alliance depends on the belief of the members that they will all honor it. NATO rests on the idea that if someone attacks a member, all the members will come to its defense (especially the US, which is both the strongest member and on a different continent and thus otherwise capable of sitting out a European war). It's a constant tension in any alliance (a big reason that both France and the UK developed their own nuclear weapons, in addition to natural pride, was concern over whether or not the US would really risk New York getting nuked to defend Paris or London). Here, none of the members has any particular reason to trust the others (would Hungary really risk Budapest for Bucharest? or would they be bought off with the return of Transylvania? even if they did intend to honor the alliance, would the rest of the allies trust their word?), and there's no dominant member (like the US in NATO or the USSR in the Warsaw Pact) to keep the others in line.

 

[Herbert West]

Not to mention that most of this "alliance" is composed of countries who have ethnic, nationalistic, and territorial beef with each other (Poland and Lithuania playing nice???), and would be incentivised to seek an outside power to back them so they can get back their own soil from someone else. Nor is this an alliance of near-equals who have an incentive to sort these issues via diplomacy in a compromise. Rather, its an inherently imbalanced place where Poland can (as it did) bully the smaller countries around it for concessions.

It would be like lumping Russia and Finland into an alliance, if Finland also held Ingria, but not Karelia. They have no incentive to cooperate, and Finland has every incentive to seek UK/French/German help against Russia.

 

[JodelDiplom]

Not to mention that most of this "alliance" is composed of countries who have ethnic, nationalistic, and territorial beef with each other (Poland and Lithuania playing nice???), and would be incentivised to seek an outside power to back them so they can get back their own soil from someone else. Nor is this an alliance of near-equals who have an incentive to sort these issues via diplomacy in a compromise. Rather, its an inherently imbalanced place where Poland can (as it did) bully the smaller countries around it for concessions.

It would be like lumping Russia and Finland into an alliance, if Finland also held Ingria, but not Karelia. They have no incentive to cooperate, and Finland has every incentive to seek UK/French/German help against Russia.

Well, the territorial claims are actually the least bothersome aspects. Any fork of history where Poland sets its mind on being nice to its neighbors, and going out of its way to seek permanent accommodation with them, is a setting in which these petty little disputes are easily resolved. Certainly a lot easier than finding the common ground, and building the lasting trust in each other, that go beyond just mending fences.

The petty little disputes over little towns and valleys were a symptom, not a cause, of the rampant nationalism and small mindedness that pervaded the minds of the time. Any of the disputes, from Wilno over Teschen to the Hungarian borderlands, would and could be easily resolved given a spirit of trust and cooperation between the nations. The league of nations could have held plebiscites across these disputed regions, and that would easily have pacified these conflicts. But as long as the little nations distrusted each other, and saw no benefit from mending fences, that just wasn't going to happen.

Plebiscites were incredibly effective, where they took place. Even in the dark history of German polish relations, the aftermath of the troubled upper silesian plebiscite was a lasting ray of light that continued to shine even through times of repression, genocide and ethnic cleansing. It ended up being literally the only place where nazi terror and postwar expulsions were somewhat restrained.

 

[Jopa79]

Mostly as it doesn't look like there's much for countries to gain. It might help some of them to not lose, for sure. But no gains

This was exactly the purpose of this proposed federation - to cherish and preserve the actual, beat through the dominion of the former Russian and German Empires. As well, the reliance on the League of Nations and its Covenant practically meant settlement of interstate issues peacefully and maintaining the prevailing living conditions.

Poland was the only nation threatened by both Germany and the USSR.

Not quite. During the final stages of the WWI, Finland was indirectly one theater of the Great War. The Finnish Civil War of 1918 was intervened by the German Empire and the Soviet-Russia. The Civil War resulted a victory of the Finnish Whites further leading to a German hegemony in Finland with plans to implant a German-led Finnish monarchy.

From 1918 to 1922 the pro-German Finnish volunteers inspired by the ideology of fraternal nationhood waged war against the Soviet-Russia with an aim to create the Greater Finland by a territorial expansion and annexing the Soviet-Karelia. Some Soviet states joined Finland as the result, but ultimately only the Estonian Independence stayed valid. These brotherhood wars were never officially supported by the Finnish government, but the conflict deeply chafed the Finnish-Soviet relations through the 1920's.

Germany was willing to subject Finland as its protectorate - in some occasions there has been even talks about intentions to make Finland a colonial state of the German Empire. Meantime the Soviet-Russia wanted to restore the Grand Duchy of Finland back to the mother-country.

Yeah, I see clearly why Poland would want this alliance. I see no reason why anyone else in the proposed alliance would.

The conditions were almost met while signing the Warsaw Accord - the Border State Agreement. It wasn't exactly Intermarium - more like a preliminary agreement of the ultimate federation. The Warsaw Accord was signed by the ministers of foreign affairs of Poland, Latvia and Finland. However, the agreement ultimately failed by the Finnish Parliament never ratified the Warsaw Accord. This led to vote-of-no-confidence and resulted a resignation of the government.

 

[pithorr]

You know guys, it was only a loose Piłsudski's idea, even more a dream, not even a draft... You are a bit too serious about it
More serious was initial plan to recreate the PLC in the form of confederation of independent nations, but bolshevik invasion ruined it.

 

[OnvreOrrivle]

Your opinion about Intermarium?
Both the EU and Russian leader (Putin or whatever) will immediately kill (in assassination, war or coup) all involved trying to bring the plan into fruition. It could only work as an EU proxy coalition, because they need the Bosphorus, the Danish Straits or Gibraltar strait pass to survive

 

[JodelDiplom]

Your opinion about Intermarium?
Both the EU and Russian leader (Putin or whatever) will immediately kill (in assassination, war or coup) all involved trying to bring the plan into fruition. It could only work as an EU proxy coalition, because they need the Bosphorus, the Danish Straits or Gibraltar strait pass to survive

Do you even read posts or just the headlines?

 

[OnvreOrrivle]

Do you even read posts or just the headlines?

lol no, because its too futile:

- Orthodox, Protestant, Atheist and Catholic Nations getting along
- Yugoslavia uniting ever
- EU allowing any rival, even if subsidiary, coalition. Its not only up to the russkies
- Finland is too far away and can become a liason
- Most of the countries have little to no foreign projection
- Only two countries will push the economy forward (Czech and Poles) and thus will cause instability and resentment

Fight me boys, i want your arguments, because Intermarium its not happening in our lives

 

[Culise]

lol no, because its too futile:

- Orthodox, Protestant, Atheist and Catholic Nations getting along
- Yugoslavia uniting ever
- EU allowing any rival, even if subsidiary, coalition. Its not only up to the russkies
- Finland is too far away and can become a liason
- Most of the countries have little to no foreign projection
- Only two countries will push the economy forward (Czech and Poles) and thus will cause instability and resentment

Fight me boys, i want your arguments, because Intermarium its not happening in our lives

That explains a lot. Five seconds of reading would have told you that it was discussing history. For that matter, it might have told you we're in the History Forum.

That said, it does open an interesting tangent to the discussion: if Donald Tusk and Vladimir Putin travel through time as an "odd-couple" action film duo to stop the Intermarium by ensuring a marginal Soviet victory in 1921 that preserves Polish independence but ends any further attempts at empire in Ukraine or Belarus, which one ends up as the straight man and which one is the wisecracking comic?