Dmowski’s Policy at the Paris Peace Conference: Success or Failure?

Abstract

Seeking to appraise Dmowski’s policies in Paris it might be useful to begin with some general remarks about the man himself, and the criteria for evaluation. There is no doubt that Roman Dmowski was an outstanding Polish patriot guided in his policies exclusively by national interests, as he perceived them, a man of great intelligence, and an experienced politician who knew the world and could effectively communicate his thoughts in fluent French and English. Even David Lloyd George who disliked Dmowski and avoided him during the Peace Conference described him as an ‘exceedingly able and cultured’ Pole. He spoke admiringly of Dmowski’s presentation of the Polish case before the Supreme Council delivered in excellent French and repeated in perfect English.¹ A British diplomat wrote that it was a ‘wonderful performance.’² Kazimierz Dłuski, the deputy delegate representing the Piłsudski camp commenting on another Dmowski presentation called it ‘excellently delivered, impregnated with the knowledge of the most important moments of our history, [and] supported by a series of important political arguments’.³ Erazm Piltz who, although a collaborator of Dmowski, was not his political friend, also held him in high esteem.⁴ The same was true for Paderewski. A British historian of Russia, Bernard Pares, compared Dmowski to Cavour and Parnell.⁵ The prominent Polish historian Henryk Wereszycki, otherwise critical of Dmowski, characterized him as possessing ‘above all a clear mind, logical and consistent, that drew inexorable conclusions from his assumptions’.⁶