The development of the Polish Navy after 1918 – selected problems
- Institution: Polish Naval Academy of the Heroes of Westerplatte
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2089-2870
- Institution: Polish Naval Academy of the Heroes of Westerplatte
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8277-4151
- Year of publication: 2019
- Source: Show
- Pages: 80-92
- DOI Address: https://doi.org/10.15804/so2019105
- PDF: so/15/so1505.pdf
The development of the Polish Navy after 1918 – selected problems
After The World War I, which ended on the 11th September 1918, Poland once again became an independent state after more than one hundred and twenty years of partitions and enslavement. The country began a slow and laborious process of rebuilding and reconstructing many branches of economy, industry and other fields. It was the time of strengthening the borders and rebuilding the army.
Polish Navy was born in 1918 and during the process of its development, it had to face numerous difficulties – staff, equipment, technical, and others. The marine forces were developed using, mainly, loans which were granted to Poland through international negotiations. At this time, Poland’s main lender and military ally was France. It was there where our very first battleships and their cannons were ordered. The very first orders were two destroyers and three underwater minelayers as well as their guns, cannons and weaponry, in the sense of artillery, mine, and torpedo weapon. The process of gaining new vessels was also built up by English loans, which were used to buy next two destroyers as well as their equipment. Another torpedoes were thus bought in Great Britain.
Despite many complications, the Polish Navy was in blossom. It had been brought to life by Józef Piłsudski on November 28th 1918.
In the paper there have been presented certain details concerning the main aspects of the destroyers and underwater minelayers in Poland after regaining independence.