Poland

Republic of Poland
Republic of Poland; Rzeczpospolita Polska
Flag	Coat of arms
	Anthem: "Mazurek Dąbrowskiego"; "Poland Is Not Yet Lost"
Capital; and largest city	Warsaw; 52°13'N 21°0'E
Ethnic groups (2021)	97% Polish; 3% other
Religion	71% Catholicism; 29% other or unanswered
Demonym	Polish • Pole
Government	Unitary parliamentary republic
Legislature	National Assembly
Formation
Area
Population
GDP (nominal)	2023 estimate estimate
HDI (2021)	0.876; very high · 34th
Currency	Złoty (PLN)
Calling code	+48
Internet TLD	.pl

Poland is a country located in Central Europe.

History[]

Pre-Rome[]

Members of the Homo genus have lived in the glaciation disrupted environment of north Central Europe for a long time. In prehistoric and protohistoric times, over the period of at least 500,000 years, the area of present-day Poland went through the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age stages of development, along with the nearby regions. The Polish ethnicity is one of many slavic types.

The Neolithic period ushered in the first settled agricultural communities, whose founders migrated in from the Danube River area, beginning about 5,500 BC. Later the native post-Mesolithic populations would also adopt and further develop the agricultural way of life (between 4,400 and about 2,000 BC).

Poland's Early Bronze Age cultures began around 2,300–2,400 BC. The Iron Age commenced ca. 700–750 BC. One of the many cultures present, the Lusatian culture, spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages, left prominent settlement sites.

Around 400 BC Poland was being settled by the La Tène culture Celtic arrivals. They were soon followed by emerging cultures with a strong Germanic component, influenced first by the Celts and then by the Roman Empire. The Germanic people migrated out of the area by about 500 AD. Wooded regions to the north and east were settled by the Balts.

Formation[]

At 800, Poland is founded. At 966, Poland has adopted the religion of Christianity.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth[]

By Union in Lublin (1569) Poland and Lithuania became one nation. In the treaty Poland also gained control over Ukraine. In Polish-Muscovite War in 1610 Poland occupied Moscow for 2 years and after end of the war in 1618 it gained lots of land on the east. After this Poland started to slowly decay as nobles were ruining it. In 1795 the PLC ceased to exist.

Partitions of Poland[]

First Partition - 1772 involved Austria, Prussia and Russia.

Second Partition - 1793 involved Prussia and Russia.

Third and last Partition - 1795 involved Austria, Prussia and Russia.

Ottoman Empire never recognized the partitions. The legend says that always on delegations on the Ottoman Sultan's Court was always said: "Lechistan's envoy has not arrived yet." Or "Lechistan's envoy is sick today"

Duchy of Warsaw[]

In 1807 Napoleon created a powerful outpost of his empire in Eastern Europe. Poland had recently been partitioned by its three large neighbors, but Napoleon created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which depended on France from the very beginning. The duchy consisted of lands seized in Russia, Austria, and Prussia; its Grand Duke was Napoleon's ally the king of Saxony, but Napoleon appointed the intendants who ran the country. The population of 4,3 million was released from occupation and by 1814 sent about 200,000 men to Napoleon's armies. That included about 90,000 who marched with him to Moscow; few marched back. The Russians strongly opposed any move toward an independent Poland and one reason Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was to punish them. The Grand Duchy was dissolved in 1815 and Poland would not be a state until 1918. However Napoleon's impact on Poland was dramatic, including the Napoleonic legal code, the abolition of serfdom, and the introduction of modern middle class bureaucracies.

Just few decades later, it was annexed by Russia and Prussia.

World War I[]

When the Germans we're fighting the Russians during World War I, Poland was occupied by the German Empire and Poland we're subjected to forced labor and confiscation of food and private property.

Interwar Period[]

(Often called the golden age of Poland) During 1918, The Second Polish Republic was founded by Marshal Józef Piłsudski and Poland has finally regained its independence in November 11, 1918 but had to fight many border disputes. This forced Poland to fight with Weimar Republic, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Ukraine and the Soviet Union, winning the most, but not into it's pre-partition glory.

World War II[]

The Nazi German invasion was anticipated already since the late thirties in the Polish army order of battle in 1939, but the strategic position of the Polish armed forces to resist was nevertheless hopeless, because Poland was surrounded on three sides by the German territories: Pomerania, Silesia, East Prussia (all parts of Germany), and German-controlled Czechoslovakia. The newly formed Slovak State assisted their German allies by attacking Poland from the south. The Soviet Union encroached from the east, and finally Polish forces were blockaded on the Baltic Coast by the German and Soviet navies. The German "concept of annihilation" (Vernichtungsgedanke) that later evolved into the Blitzkrieg ("lightning war") provided for rapid advance of Panzer (armoured) divisions, dive bombing (to break up troop concentrations), and aerial bombing of undefended cities to sap civilian morale. The Polish Army and Air Force had insufficient new equipment to match the onslaught.

German forces were numerically and technologically superior to Polish armed forces. The Germans threw 85% of their armed forces at Poland. They commanded 1.6 million men, 250,000 trucks and other motor vehicles, 11,000 artillery pieces, 2,500 tanks and a cavalry division. Some of the Luftwaffe pilots were the veterans of the elite Condor Legion, which had seen action during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). The Luftwaffe comprised 1,180 fighter aircraft (mainly Messerschmitt Bf 109s), 290 Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers, 290 conventional bombers (mainly He 111 type), and 240 assorted naval aircraft. The German navy positioned its old battleship Schleswig-Holstein to shell Westerplatte, a section of Free City of Danzig, an exclave separate from the main city and awarded to Poland by Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

The Polish forces found themselves severely outnumbered and outclassed. They consisted of 800,000 troops, including 11 cavalry brigades, two motorized brigades, 4,000 artillery pieces, and 880 tanks: 120 of them of the advanced 7-TP-type. The Polish air force included 400 fighter aircraft: 160 PZL P.11c fighter aircraft, 31 PZL P.7a and 20 P.11a fighters, 120 PZL.23 Karaś reconnaissance-bombers, and 45 PZL.37 Łoś medium bombers. The navy that did not participate in the withdrawal to United Kingdom and the linking up with the Royal Navy (known as Peking Plan), consisted of four destroyers, one torpedo boat, one minelayer, two gunboats, six minesweepers, and five submarines. Although the UK and France declared war on Germany, little to no movement took place on the western front.

In the meanwhile, to the east of Poland, the Soviet Union was preparing its own military advance to occupy the eastern part of Poland in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

The Soviet Union, having its own reasons to fear the German expansionism further East, made various offers to Poland of an anti-German alliance, similar to the earlier one made to Czechoslovakia. Regardless of Stalin's true intentions, such alliances backed by the Soviet military force would have been a likely deterrent to Hitler's plans. However, the Poles feared Joseph Stalin's Communism nearly as much as they feared Hitler's Nazism, and throughout 1939 they refused to agree to any arrangement which would allow Soviet troops to freely enter Poland. The Polish refusal to accept the Soviet offer is best illustrated by the famous quote of Marshall Edward Rydz-Śmigły, the Commander-in-Chief of the Polish armed forces, who is quoted to have said: "With the Germans we run the risk of losing our liberty. With the Russians we will lose our soul".[1] The Soviets then turned to concluding the treaty with Germany (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) which was signed in August 1939.

The Polish government feared that Germany would launch only a limited war, to seize the territories which it claimed, and then ask France and Britain for a ceasefire. To defend these territories, the Polish military command compounded their strategic weakness by massing their forces along their western border, in defence of Poland's main industrial areas around Poznań and Łódź, where they could be easily surrounded and cut off. By the time the Polish command decided to withdraw to the line of the Vistula, it was too late. By 28 September, Warsaw was surrounded.

In accordance with a secret protocol annex to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Germany asked the Soviet Union on 3 September to engage its troops against the Polish state. The Soviet Union assured Germany that the Red Army advance into Poland would soon follow under the pretext of aiding the Ukrainians and the Belarusians threatened by Germany.

On 17 September, the Red Army marched its troops into Poland, which the Soviet Union now claimed to be non-existent. Also, concerns about the Soviets' own security were used to justify the invasion. The Red Army advance was coordinated with the movement of the German forces and met little resistance from the Polish forces (such as Battle of Szack fought by the Border Defence Corps or Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza), who were ordered to avoid engagement into the armed fights with the Soviets although some fighting between Soviet and Polish units took place.

The Polish government and high command retreated to the southeast Romanian bridgehead and eventually crossed into neutral Romania. There was no formal surrender, and resistance continued in many places. Warsaw was bombed into submission, (the event that served as a trigger for the surrender was an accidental damage caused by one of the German bombs to the water supply system and subsequent lack of water) on 27 September, and some Army units fought until well into October (Battle of Kock). In the more mountainous parts of the country, Army units began underground resistance almost at once. The Polish army lost 65,000 troops, 400 air crew, and 110 navy crew. The German losses were 16,000 troops, 365 air crew, and 126 navy crew. 285 German aircraft were destroyed, with 126 claimed by Polish fighter pilots. Ninety were shot down by anti-aircraft fire, and, due to the modesty of Polish pilots, there is a deficit of 70 unclaimed kills. Three hundred more German aircraft were so badly damaged they were written off. The Polish Air Force lost 327 aircraft, 260 of which were lost due to direct or indirect enemy action, with around 70 in air-to-air fighting. Anti-aircraft fire claimed the other 67.

During the Nazi Occupied time, the Polish starves while the Jews suffer their painful deaths in the holocaust. Many Germans rounded the Jews up to the ghettos to keep them into their deaths by execution or starvation. Most Nazi occupied Jews worn the golden star badge.

People's Republic of Poland (PRL)[]

Communist rule was harsh and costly for Poland. Despite widespread opposition and outcry, eastern portions of the country were permanently ceded to the Soviet Union. Repressive policies limited every aspect of Polish life, from cultural expression to religion to travel to educational and economic opportunity for individuals. The nation's wealth, both natural and industrial, was plundered for the good of Soviet Russia, leaving Poland a virtual pauper on the world stage. Despite all this, Poland was at the time considered one of the least repressive states of the Iron Curtain. Due to unrest in 1981 martial law was set and it lasted until 1983. Communist Poland has fallen in 1989.

Mappers who live in Poland[]

Mapper	Voivodeship	Subs	Icon
Mazovian Mapping	Masovian Voivodeship	7 390

Future[]

99batran[]

Today Poland is a thriving member of the European Union, forging ahead with increasing confidence. It still has much poverty, especially in more remote and rural areas, but it has largely escaped the credit crunch that has crippled most other leading economies. It can look back with pride to the moment when it took the lead in breaking Soviet postwar dominance in Central Europe, with the Gdansk shipyard workers, led by the charismatic Lech Walesa, rising in open defiance of communist dictatorship.

And it can look forward to a robust democratic future with a more balanced relationship, on far more equal terms, with its two big neighbors, Germany and Russia, who have inflicted on Poland so much damage in the past.

Quite a few of the numerous Polish immigrants working in Britain are returning to their recovering native land, going back to jobs that allow them to develop their full skills. In short, Poland, the land of tragedy, is beginning to live again.

This is good for Europe and good for democracy. The great fear of the post-Soviet age, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was that Russia would somehow continue to seek to exert sinister influence, and even, control, over its ex-satellite states in East and Central Europe. It would do this not in the old way — by tanks (although Georgia has had a bitter taste of those recently) — but by using its role as chief energy power supplier to browbeat the Europeans .

Yet unlike other Central European states, Poland, which is far the biggest of the recent newcomers to the European Union, has managed to avoid the dependence on energy from next-door Russia — especially on Russian pipeline gas, on which its smaller neighbors still depend so heavily. It can draw on its own energy in the form of plentiful domestic gas and its own enormous coal reserves.

The coal burning, which currently still provides two-thirds of Poland’s electricity, will of course have to be cut down to meet carbon targets. Gas and in due time nuclear power will have to replace coal, at least until methods of capturing carbon in coal burning can be made commercial, which at present is far from being the case.

But Poland’s gas prospects are now becoming so good that there is even talk of Poland becoming a gas exporter to its Central European and Baltic northern neighbors, thus providing one more means by which the Europeans can reduce their uneasy reliance on Russian gas supplies.

This in turn reinforces the opportunities for the whole of Europe to become increasingly self-sufficient in low-cost energy, and therefore far less reliant not only on Russia’s arrogant gas monopoly, Gazprom, but also on the smoldering Middle East and other shaky and worrying sources of oil and gas round the world. Moscow’s gas czars would then have to sell their gas eastward to China, Japan and other Asian customers for the best price they could secure.

This re-orientation has been the long-standing dream of the energy planners at European Union level — a common energy policy for and within Europe — although so far with little progress being made .

But one further element missing from this dream has been the lack of physical infrastructure of gas and electricity interconnections, so that all European countries can rush power assistance to each other in times of need or emergency, and so that fuel and electric power can flow freely, and competitively, from east to west in Europe, and from north to south, and in reverse if needed.

This would require EU leaders and officials to work for much simpler regulations and licensing procedures and much lighter taxation, to give incentive to private enterprise to get on and build the market network of energy connections Europe longs for.

Each member state could then tailor its own detailed energy policies to meet its own needs within the overall network of bilateral links, as Poland is now doing.

Unfortunately, many high EU officials in Brussels still long to direct Europe’s energy policy centrally with more regulation, heavier taxes and elaborate central blueprints and funding .

This outdated approach will never work. The separate nations of Europe should be left to cooperate but not be corralled into a single official strategy. Poland is now showing what can be done when ancient nations and societies are left in peace to develop their own talents and resources, both in energy fields and elsewhere.

In the past, Europe was brought to its knees and cruelly partitioned by events in and around Poland. In the future, Poland could be the pace-setter in Europe’s efforts to find the best way forward to better and safer times.

TheFutureContinentsandOceanz[]

Either between these two:

Gets annexed by Germany

or

RESTORE GREAT COMMONWEALTH!

Goldenrebel25[]

Poland Goes into Space (Possible)

Poland becomes an empire again (so-so)

Poland is absorbed by other countries (Unlikley)

Multi Mappers[]

Poland can into space!!

Zephyrus[]

1. Poland split between Germany and Russia (not likely)

2. Poland with the help of NATO gets more land in the east and becomes a strong country (not likely)

3. Poland quits existing because of sadness after seeing a lot of Polandball comics (hahahahaha no)

4. Poland stays like this (maybe...)

GMapping[]

I like Poland (Because of historical events) and Vilnius is not Lithuanian!

Poland will ask for Kaliningrad and Russia accepts later a war breaks out between Poland and Lithuania. Poland wins the war, After Czechoslovakia is reformed Poland invades it. Belarus and Poland Unite forming Polish Commonwealth. Poland with the help of France and the UK invade Germany. Later Poland invades the Baltic Countries. Hungary Joins Poland and Kill Austria! Then Ukraine Devides into Russia and Poland.

Hussar Maps HD[]

Poland and few countries together leave/are kicked from the EU. (maybe) and form new Union (maybe)
Poland invades weakened Ukraine to regain city of Lviv but loses Silesia and West Pomerania (possible)
Poland becomes from Regional Power a Major Power (possible)
Poland ceases to exist (only for short time)
Coup d'etat in Poland (possible)
Poland conquers the world (lol)

JMathias[]

Poland still cannot into space

PlatinumDiamondX[]

The New Polish Union is formed between Lithuania and Poland and annex Southern Latvia (by the Lithuanian side)and Belarus and Western Ukraine (by Poland under the Treaties of Katyn and Lviv respectably)in March 2017.

In May 2017 Scotland's economy stagnates after independence from the UK (after UK leaves the EU in June 2016) and turns to the NPU for help and a puppet government is formed and in October 2017 Scotland is annexed by the NPU and is renamed to the Polish Republic of Scotland.

The NPU gained allies like Slovakia and Hungary

Pilsudski[]

Poland is rulled ruthlessly by Jaroslaw the short, and grows a large nationalistic government, ready to seize more land on every occasion it has.

Zikon[]

fuck you poland dies and all neighbours throw a party

Mazovian Mapping[]

Hopefully Poland develops enough to become a first world's country and integrate more with Western Europe.

Eridan[]

Poland is probaly taken over by Germany again and it dies.

Stelionas747[]

Poland invades Czech R. and Slovakia, and forms Polnocslavia

SconesAndTea Mapping[]

Poland intervenes when Russia tries to expand the Kaliningrad Oblast into Lithuania and Belarus and gain that part of Russia.

Zarexian Mapper (December 2023)[]

Poland has the potential to play a leading role within the European Union, similar to the one of France and Germany right now. However, this can only happen if the Polish government stands behind the European project and its values. So far, Warsaw has shown how not to do it (alliance with Orban, dismantling the rule of law, obsession with German war reparations, etc). I do consider Poland to be a vital question of the entirety of Europe, since they are the most important country in the former Eastern Bloc and it will be up to them to motivate the rest of the EU to continue helping Ukraine. At the same time, future aggression by Russia, for example against the Baltic states or Moldova, must be contained right now by a victory in Ukraine. As a German, I am saying all of this because it should be Germany's duty and responsibility as the largest economy in the Union to defend the other member states. But if Russia ever decided to look beyond Kyiv, I am sure that neither the Baltics nor Poland can rely on us. Similar trends can be seen in Italy and France. Poland will have to take the defense of their neighbours and themselves into their own hands since no one else is going to do it, and hopefully be a role model for our weak government.

RProductions[]

I don't really like Poland but I think they could:

Restore Commenwealth (possible)

Poland into space (WILL HAPPEN)

Annex East Germany (possible)