1918 World War I Ends and Poland Once Again Becomes an Independent Nation
World War I was a tragic event, yet it resulted in the resurrection of a sovereign Poland.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was an advocate for the creation of a postwar Polish state. On January 8, 1918, with the 13th of his Fourteen Points address to Congress, Wilson called for peace in Europe and the establishment of an independent Poland, “which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations.”
It was concert pianist and patriot Ignacy Paderewski who, at the request of President Wilson, influenced the drafting of the historic 13th point, calling for the establishment of an independent Poland.
The Paris Peace Conference followed the November 1918 end of World War I. Paderewski, while serving briefly as prime minister, was a representative of Poland at the conference. There, on June 28, 1919, he signed the Treaty of Versailles, the formal recognition of Polish independence.
Poles recognize November 11, 1918, as their Independence Day, a celebration of the reemergence of a Polish state and a commemoration of those who fought for Poland’s independence.