r/todayilearned • u/leafpool2014 • 1d ago

TIL that in WW2, Poland declared war on Japan. Japan rejected there declaration of war. Quote: “We do not accept Poland’s challenge. The Poles, fighting for their freedom, only declared war on us under pressure from the United Kingdom.”A curious case: Poland only declared war on one country in WWII;

https://www.outono.net/elentir/2021/03/21/a-curious-case-poland-only-declared-war-on-one-country-in-wwii-peace-did-not-come-until-1957/
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u/AIAWC 1d ago

When Poland was destroyed by Nazis, everyone was delighted.

Very mentally sane thing to say

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u/revuestarlight99 1d ago

Alright, let me rephrase that. When Poland was destroyed by the Nazis, any Chinese person who was determined to fight Japan would have been glad to see the collapse of the Polish government at the time. When the League of Nations discussed the Sino Japanese conflict after the Nanjing Massacre, Poland firmly opposed a proposal to aid China. In the vote, only Poland and Peru failed to vote in favor.

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u/stargazy-pi 1d ago

Polish-Japanese bromance goes deep

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u/crowieforlife 1d ago

This was primarily because Japan supported Poland against Russia.

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u/DheeradjS 1d ago

If you are fighting a war and the country supporting your enemy gets dismantled themselves, you'd probably celebrate a bit.

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u/Exotic-Half8307 1d ago

Important to note that the scale of the holocaust was brought to light only at the end of the war, for a lot of people Poland was an dictatorship allied to Japan at the time

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u/oby100 23h ago

We really need to remind ourselves that much of Europe was authoritarian at that time. Basically all of eastern and Central Europe. Fascism is justifiably vilified, but leadership in Poland, Hungary and Lithuania (and many more) were not friendly democracies but equally nationalistic and Sabre rattling in their hatred for “lost territory” post WWI.

I like to bring up the fun fact that in about a single year, Lithuania was given THREE ultimatums from three different much more powerful states. First from Poland, then Nazi Germany, and then the Soviets whose demands would (and did) obviously lead to Lithuania’s loss of independence.

It’s a bit grimly humorous to imagine the Lithuanian government just receiving these horrifying demand letters one after another, just getting progressively worse as the signatories of agreements guaranteeing your sovereignty leave you in read.

“Heyo! France! Italy! Japan! Germanys threatening to invade me unless I give up extremely valuable territory! Can yall like help out or something? You signed that thing, remember?”

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u/Nattekat 1d ago

This is something that always disappoints me when reading reactions on those interesting subjects. People severely underestimating the power of hindsight. Poland was pretty much like Belarus right now. 

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u/malinoski554 1d ago

In what way?

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u/Nattekat 1d ago

A better question would be in what way they weren't. Then the answer is alignment with Russia. 

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u/Dizzy-Cartoonist3011 1d ago

Poland was absolutely not aligned with the USSR in the interwar period.

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u/oby100 23h ago

He specifically listed that as the main difference. They’re similar to modern day Belarus EXCEPT Belarus’ alignment with Russia.

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u/crowieforlife 1d ago

Polish-Soviet war ended just 10 years before WWII.

Granted, Poland at the time was an authoritarian dictatorship, which had a conflict with every single one of its neighbors, so it wouldn't be a surprise for it to have a bad rep. The only surprise is that that the bad rep is something completely inaccurate rather than the things it actually did wrong.

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u/TimeCake233 14h ago

I wouldn't say that. Polish dictatorship lead by Marshal Piułsudzki was quiet good for economy. The country was hit by NY's crash but not as bad as it's neibhours. Also they were no mass killings of Polish population by the government. What they did was wars and striping some of rights. They arrested Far right and (less of) far left leaders but all left the prison after the elections. Polonisation wasn't that bad rules of it are just slightly more restrictive than now (example 40 students to form a German or Ukrainan class). Piułsudzki was a well educated socialist and democrat at heart that's why the presidential elections were free same with 1922 election (2 years after Piułsudzki took power). The economy was better than for 4 years of previous rule that's why pro dictatorship coalitions won. The government before Piułsudzki famously did nothing and was anti Jewish, Dmowski famously couldn't shut up about Jews. Piułsudzki's ponit of view (later after most wars were over) was "If you are living in Poland you need to be loyal to Poland. He started attacking Ukraine minorities after they tried to kill him wich was straight up war declaration. German's were mad because he took thier land and gave it away (wich reviewed food industry and made market more competitive), Bolshevic's were mad because Lenin wanted Russian Empire lands for Bolshevic.

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u/crowieforlife 13h ago

No one cares how good it was for Poland. Nobody likes a nation, which starts coups and conflicts with all of its neighbors.

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u/oby100 23h ago

It was a dictatorship. It’s not like the people of Poland were in control of their country’s actions.

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u/BlueZybez 1d ago

Makes sense when Poland supported japan

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u/oby100 23h ago

It’s a very funny thing to earnestly say. Poland gets an undue amount of disrespect