During the next four months he tried to provoke Poland by various incidents in Danzig and started a propaganda campaign against an alleged ill-treatment of the German minorities in Poland. But it was not before having concluded, on August 23, a far-reaching "non aggression" treaty with the Soviets that he finally decided to attack Poland. A few days later a close alliance was signed between Poland and Great Britain which made it absolutely clear that Britain, as well as France, would support her ally in case of war ; but in spite of a patient conciliatory effort made by British diplomacy, and proposals of a peaceful settlement put forward by various powers and accepted by Poland, Hitler invaded Poland on September 1.
Poland, which had postponed the general mobilization to the last moment, was unable to stand against the overwhelming German forces, the long open frontier forming a wide bow from East Prussia to Slo vakia occupied by German troops ; nevertheless Poland made a cour ageous resistance in the centre of the country until September 17, when Soviet Russia invaded her territory from the east, under the pretext that the Polish State, with which she had concluded and recently ex tended a non-aggression pact, was no more in existence. Even then in various regions desperate fighting was continued, and Warsaw, al though hideously bombed, like so many other open places, defended itself heroically until September 27. The next day a German-Russian treaty was signed in Moscow involving a new partition of Poland: the eastern provinces, including purely Polish territories, were incorporated in the Soviet Republics of White Russia and the Ukraine; the western part was left within the German sphere of influence, and the provinces which had belonged to Prussia before 1914 were annexed at once, not without a barbaric massacre of their Polish inhabitants. In the centre also, where Hitler tried in vain to form a pseudo-Polish "government" under his control, cruel persecution followed the hostilities.
Even before leaving Polish territory, President Moscicki resigned and designated W. Raczkiewicz as his successor. The new president ap pointed a new Government, the former having been interned in Ru mania. General Sikorski became prime minister, Zaleski minister of foreign affairs ; and both president and Government were established at Angers. The Polish army was also reconstituted in France, to fight side by side with the Allies, while some Polish warships, having es caped, joined the British navy. (R. Dv.; 0. HA.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.—I. Political History. The epoch-making book of Michal Bobrzyfiski, Dzieje Polski w zarysie (2 vols., 1877; 4th edition, Warsaw, 1927) gave expression to the views of the so-called "Cracow School" whose leading idea was that inward political decay was the principal cause of the fall of Poland. These views have since been counterbalanced by those of the "Warsaw" and the "Lwow" (Lem berg) school, which placed emphasis on outside aggression. An up-to date presentment of Polish history is given in a history of Poland which forms part of a Polish Encyclopaedia published by the Polish Academy at Cracow, Historja polityczna Polski (vol. I., 1920; vol. II., 1923).
3. Economic History. Jan Rutkowski, Zarys gospodarczych dziejOw Polski (Posen, 1923).
4. History of manners. Wladyslaw Lozinski, 2ycie polskie w dawn ych wiekach (Lwow, 1907, 6th ed., 1922).
5. History of education. Antoni Karbowiak, Dzieje wychowania i szkdl w Polsce w wiekach Irednich (vols. St. Petersburg, 1898 1904, vol. III., Lwow, 1923), for the middle ages; for the modern period, see the chapters on Poland in the general history of education by Stanislaw Kot, Historja wychowania (Warsaw 1924 bibl.).
6. History of Polish law. Przemyslaw Dombkowski, Prawo prywatne polskie (2 vols., Lwow 1910-i ; Julian Makarewicz, Polskie prawo karne (Lwow 1919).
7. Military history. Tadeusz Korzon, Dzieje wojen i wojskowoki W Polsce (3 vols., Cracow 1912).
8. Sources. Collections of sources published by the Polish Academy at Cracow: Mon'unienta Poloniae historica (1864-93, 6 vols.) ; Scrip tores rerum Polonicarum (1872 ff., 23 vols., in progress) ; Monumenta medii nevi (1874 ff., 19 vols., in progr.) ; Acta historica (1878 ff., vols., in progr.) ; Corpus iuris polonici (1906 ff., 4 vols., in progr.) ; Monumenta Poloniae Vaticana (1913 ff., 6 vols., in progr.) ; Monu menta Poloniae palaeographica (1902-10) ; 2rodia do dziejow Polski porozbiorowej (1907 ff., 17 vols., in progr.). At Lwow there were pub lished Akta grodzkie i ziemskie (1868 etc., 23 vols., in progress) ; in Warsaw: 2rddla dziejowe (1876-97, 24 vols.).