Suwałki Agreement
Agreement between Poland and Lithuania in 1920 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Suwałki Agreement,[1] or Treaty of Suwałki[2] (Polish: Umowa suwalska, Lithuanian: Suvalkų sutartis) was an agreement signed in the town of Suwałki between Poland and Lithuania on October 7, 1920. It was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series on January 19, 1922.[3]
Both countries had re-established their independence in the aftermath of World War I. At that time they did not have well-defined borders and waged the Polish–Lithuanian War over territorial disputes in the Polish-majority Suwałki and Vilnius Regions to which Lithuania made claims. At the end of August 1919, the Sejny Uprising led to the displacement of Lithuanian troops from the Suwałki Region and a year later at the end of September 1920, Polish army defeated the Soviets in the Battle of the Niemen River, thus securing the Suwałki Region and opening the possibility of an assault on Vilnius (Wilno). Marshal of Poland Józef Piłsudski had planned to take over the city since mid-September in a false flag operation known as Żeligowski's Mutiny.
Under pressure from the League of Nations, Poland agreed to negotiate, hoping to buy time and divert attention from the upcoming Żeligowski's Mutiny. The Lithuanians sought to achieve as much protection for Vilnius as possible. The agreement resulted in a ceasefire and established a demarcation line running through the disputed Suwałki Region up to the Bastuny [lt; pl] railway station. The line was incomplete and did not provide adequate protection to Vilnius.[4] Neither Vilnius or the surrounding region was explicitly addressed in the agreement.
Shortly after the agreement was signed, but before it came into force, the Poles carried out a military operation to secure the Vilnius region on the Polish side of the demarcation line. General Lucjan Żeligowski, acting under secret orders from Piłsudski, pretended to disobey stand-down orders from the Polish military command and his volunteer 1st Lithuanian-Belarusian Division marched on Vilnius. The city was captured on October 9. The Suwałki Agreement was to take effect at noon on October 10. Żeligowski established the Republic of Central Lithuania which, despite intense protests by Lithuania, was incorporated into the Second Polish Republic in 1923. The Vilnius Region remained part of Poland until the Second World War.