The Failure of Poland’s Intermarium Policy in the Interwar Period

After the collapse of Europe’s continental empires following World War I, a number of national movements established states in Central/Eastern Europe amid the ensuing power vacuum. Amongst these new states was the 2nd Polish Republic, sitting between a defeated Germany and a Russia embroiled in civil war. Recognizing that this situation would not last, Polish federalist thinkers, including Józef Klemens Piłsudski and Józef Beck, opted to create a political alignment of Central/Eastern European states to more effectively resist the traditional German and Russian dominance of the region following the collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late 18th century. In modern academic circles, this policy became known as Intermarium, literally meaning ‘between the seas’. This study will use a historical institutionalist framework and causal process tracing to understand how the rise of nationalism, internal and regional political divisions, and the lack of outside support doomed the policy’s outcome. These institutional forces meant that Central/Eastern European states were unsuccessful in adopting a unified political position during a critical period of weakness in Germany and Russia. Following the recovery of Germany and the consolidation of the Soviet Union, the policy became less and less viable, particularly since Western support to the region declined in favor of adopting an appeasement approach toward Germany. The increasing power disparity between Central/Eastern States and the two surrounding powers led many of its components to adopt a policy of non-provocation eventually contributing to the region’s collapse during World War II.