Introduction:
The reemergence of Poland after 123 years of partition posed new challenges for the state to develop an indigenous arms industry (Mackiewicz, 2016; Ostanek, 2022). Partition meant the newly merged army was a mixture of arms from Germany, Russian and the Austro-Hungarian empire. The existing arms industry had albeit been destroyed during the Great War. The commanders and troops alike had been trained in command structures, field craft, strategies and equipment of foreign nations. It meant the Second Republic was in a precarious position over funding, training and equipment that the Bolsheviks attempted to exploit in the eastern provinces that resulted in the invasion of Poland in February 1919. Lenin and Trotsky wanted to export the Russian Revolution across Europe and develop a new order through revolution, particularly in Germany. In August 1920, the Red Army reached the outskirts of Warsaw. The Battle of Warsaw was a turning point. Under the leadership of Józef Piłsudski, the brilliant counter attack humiliated the Red Army and its poor leadership. The ‘Miracle on the Vistula’ was also a turning point for the re-arming of Poland. Peace was regained through the Treaty of Rega in March 1921 that temporarily secured the eastern border.
The relationship between the civil-military institutions has been described as an oligarchical praetorianism (Korbonski, 1988) where the role of the military permeated into political life and dictated state policy following Piłsudski’s coup. The institutionalising of the ‘cult personality’ resulted in a heavy militarised cult of personality that eclipsed constitutional civilian authority that was not Piłsudski alone but followed on by General Edward Śmigły-Rydz (Korbonski, 1988) that stifled political opposition until war broke out.
Józef Piłsudski (Source unknown)
The new Polish army was equipped with German Mauser rifles and carbines through taking over former German depots and the acquisition of equipment of August von Mackensen’s German Army via a French Military Mission based in Hungary (Mackiewicz, 2016). Poland had also acquired Austrian Mannlicher rifles and carbines and various types of hand grenades and sabres. This diversity of weapons created their own logistical support issues for munitions and re-supply (Mackiewicz, 2016).
While the manufacturing and procurement process of the 2nd Republic was centralised around government indigenous manufacturing, a more coherent strategy was needed. Few private sector firms were involved and the Arms and Machines armament company (ARMA) in Lviv was developed out of the siege of the city in 1918 (Ostanek, 2022).
As a result of the Soviet aggression, Poland and France signed a defensive pact on 19th February 1921 as a mutual consultation on foreign policy, economic cooperation and armed assistance against unprovoked attack which pointed towards Germany and Soviet Russia. A secret military convention covered mutual assistance upon attack. French military missions, training and arms supplies were covered by the pact which collapsed at the outbreak of the Second World War despite Poles seeking support from France even prior various past partitions. The agreement required a trading and commercial commitment to France with an agreement to maintain 30 infantry divisions and 9 cavalry brigades equipped with French standard arms. The reequipment was partly funded by French credits.
The pact was ratified again in 1925 amid the Locarno framework while acknowledging the League of Nations protocols that in essence, boxed Germany in and secured Poland’s eastern provinces and borders.
Poland during the interwar years were seen by the Big Three (USA, Britain and France) as an irritation to the settling of the Treaty of Versailles. The Polish Soviet War from 1918 to 1921 was one case, however there were other conflicts on the eastern frontier with the Ukraine between 1918 to 1919 to control the eastern province of Vilnius (Wilno) and the Greater Poland Uprising from 1918 to 1919 followed by the Silesian Uprising. The Silesian Uprising was prompted by a greater Polish population than the German landowners and businessmen who had laid claim to the region like Poznań and was a strange oversight that brought complaint and resistance during the Paris Conference.
Piłsudski’s interwar policy and geopolitics arose from his vision or Intermarium (Międzymorze) as a confederation of central and eastern European countries to counter both German and Russian imperialism (Ištok and Koziak, 2009). After Piłsudski’s coup in 1926, Poland signed non-aggression pacts with the USSR in 1932 and later Germany in 1934 to ‘buy time’ for rearmament, but the concept was deemed to be unrealistic during this period and proved to be more applicable to post World War II’s potential settlement of the central and eastern European states prior to the Yalta Conference.
The final act to unbalance the Treaty of Versailles was the occupation of part of the Cieszyn Silesia (including Fryštát) in 1938 after a conference in Munich in September failed to develop a resolution for minorities overlooked at the Paris Convention. Poland demanded all political prisoners of Polish origin to be released and a plebiscite to take place (Pilarski, 2021). With these actions during the interwar years, Poland was seen as a bastion in defending both Western democracy and strengthening the central and eastern Europe from the pending threats from the Nazis and Soviets. The colonisation of eastern provinces angered Ukrainian nationalist and other minorities with some international politicians criticising Poland’s actions. Attempts at integration was a cultural and social struggle as well as discrimination of minorities that would have repercussions during the Soviet-Nazi repartitioning of Poland in 1939. The seizure of Cieszyn Silesia during the 1938 Munich crisis damaged Poland’s image of a nationalist actor on the European stage.
Economic Policies and Procurement:
The Polish economic and defence modernisation framework was a four-year plan (Plan Czteroletni) from 1936 to 1940 masterminded by Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski, Deputy Prime Minister (1935-1939) and was co-developed by Pawel Kosieradzki and Wladyslaw Kosieradzki. The plan covered rearmament, expansion of the infrastructure and developing the Central Industrial Region (COP) (Centralny Okręg Przemysłowy) in preparation for the coming war. The plan assumed that war would not break-out until 1942. Poland’s dilemma was dealing with a two front enemy which resulted in a financial strain with nearly 10% of the GDP being spent on defence until the mid-1930s.
Inspecting the troops (source unknown)
Between 1,650-1,800 million Złotys were invested and transformed Poland’s economy that had suffered in the Great Depression due to its reliance on an agrarian economy that had changed little in centuries where land reform was essential. The COP was strategically located in the south-central area between the Vistula and San Rivers and shielded in the west by the Świętokrzyski Mountains (Grata, 2012). The development was an example of ‘Growth Pole Economics’ where key industrial development would accelerate economic growth in poorly developed regions or areas which had a lasting effect right up until today – the difference between Poland A (Western Poland) and Poland B (Eastern provinces and Kresy). The Keynesian approach to invest and rebuild the republic was delayed and almost bankrupted the country (Koryś, 2015) despite monetary policy being conservative, Poland was part of the ‘gold block’ which resulted in deflation with 30-40% of foreign capital transferred abroad. With a weakened economy and less competitive economy, Piłsudski’s dream of a strong economy was in tatters (Koryś, 2015). The structure of investment changed too where the reliance on French investment rather than pre- Great War German investment should have sent ‘warning bells’ to those in government. Industrialisation should have been boosted by a surplus of rural over population. Two-thirds of the land was held by a small minority of wealthy landlords. Polish settlement in the eastern provinces should have alleviated some of the peasants’ conditions, however this was a geopolitical tool to redistribute Poles. The overly fragmented plots due to inheritance laws and practices meant peasant holdings were uneconomic (Marzec, 2022) despite the passing of the Land Reform Act (Ustawa o reformie rolnej) in July 1920 and an amendment in 1925. Landowners slowed down the parcelling of land process making the reforms modest in outcome (Marzec, 2022) and the ethnic entanglement would come to haunt Poland with both Soviet and Nazi deportations during the Second World War. (See https://polandinexile.com/article/mass-deportations/). Bogdan Górniak’s book “Sunlight and Shadow: Memoirs of Childhood in Poland and exile in Siberia or Nadia Seluga’s book “Far From My Home, Never to Return: A Polish Child’s WWII Memoir” also covers this topic area well. Despite the slow process, 2.8 million hectares of land had undergone redistribution (Błąd, 2020).
Aviation and Defence focussed heavily on metallurgy, armaments and aircraft production (in the PLZ factories) that saw aircraft being exported to neighbouring countries, like Romania. Infrastructural development included the electricity grid, chemical plants at Mościce, near Tarnów and the development of an industrial city at Stalowa Wola to the north of Rzeszów. The rail network was upgraded and extended.
Nazi propaganda successfully portrayed Poland as under developed and yet during the interwar period PZL (Państwowe Zakłady Lotnicze) based in Warsaw, produced the PZL P.11 fighter which when it entered service was one of the world’s most advanced fighters in 1934 and was intended to replace the P.7a, a gull winged fighter (Zaloga and Madej, 1985). The PZL. 23 Karaś designed as a light bomber and reconnaissance plane entered service in 1936 and suffered high casualty rates during the September Campaign. Variants were built in Bulgaria. The PZL. 37 Łoś (Elk) Medium Bomber was recognised as an advanced and fastest bomber when it entered service in 1938 with upgraded production starting at the newly built factory at Mielec between Kraków and Rzeszów. One drawback for the bomber was altitude restrictions which occurred through Britain refusing to export special spark plugs and therefore limited operational altitude.
Source: Zaloga and Madej (1985)
Poland also manufactured its arms usually under licence. Fabryka Broni based in Radom, was a modern arms factory which opened in 1925, producing the Polish Mauser carbines (wz.1929 short rifle and ViS wz.35 9mm. semi-automatic pistol).
Państwowa Fabryka Karabinów in Warsaw produced rifles and machine guns such as the wz. 1928 and guns for aircraft. However, the ckm wz.30 was an unlicenced copy of the US Browning water-cooled machine gun (Zaloga and Madej, 1985) which was often mounted on a taczankas (horse drawn carriage). PFK in Warsaw also converted many rifles to a standard 7.92mm and the Model 08 became the standard heavy machine gun of the reserve infantry and reserve cavalry regiments. The standard revolver for Polish officers and non-commissioned officers was produced here (Nagant wz. 1932 may have also been produced in Radom). The factory was destroyed in the September Campaign.
Skarżysko-Kamienna (Państwowa Fabryka Amunicji) started manufacturing small arms and artillery ammunition in Skarżysko-Kamienna in the Świętokrzyskie region (Holy Cross province) in 1924 and transported to weapons factories in Radom and Warsaw. The factory could produce 1 million rounds of ammunition per month and employed 3,750 people (Erenfeicht, 2023).
The Perkun factory was in Warsaw (Towarzystwo Fabryki Motorów “Perkun” S.A.), started life in 1904 and later manufactured the iconic Perkun motor cycle (under licence from Britain’s Villiers motorcycles) and marine engines. They switched to manufacturing bayonets and the granatnik wz. 31 and 36 mortars which were not very accurate. The factory was destroyed by the retreating German Army in September 1944.
Artillery was in part supplied through Sweden who exported Bofors in parts and assembled in SMPzA factory in Pruszków to the west of Warsaw (Zaloga and Madej, 1985) and allocated to mechanised brigades. Horse artillery brigades were equipped with 75mm wz. O2/26 field guns which was a modified Russian Putilov 3-inch divisional gun adapted to fire French 75 mm rounds and were effective against German tanks where 120 – 150 were knocked out in the September Campaign (Zaloga and Madej, 1985). Heavy artillery pieces were the 105mm Schneider Model 13 and 29 gun, 120mm Schneider Model 78/09/31 gun and the 155mm Schneider Model 17 howitzer. The Model 29/34 105mm gun were made in Polish factories under licence. The 155mm Schneider Model 17 were bought from France as part of the armament’s agreement. The heaviest artillery pieces were Skoda Model 32 heavy mortars and pulled by tracked artillery vehicles.
Anti-aircraft units were equipped with Bofors 49mm gun produced under license. The Polish designed and manufactured wz.36 75mm gun came into service at the outbreak of war with too few being produced (Zaloga and Madej, 1985).
Armoured vehicles numbered over 800, mainly made up of tankettes for the role of reconnaissance and infantry support. While over 500 were in service in 1939, these were no match of the heavy main battle tanks of the Wehrmacht. Mechanised cavalry brigades had a company of modified Vickers tanks. 38 Vickers E light tanks had been purchased in 1931. The 7TP Polish variant was equipped with an improved diesel engine and improved speed with two turrets each equipped with wz. 30 7.92mm machine guns. A later improved model 7TPjw with a single turret and equipped with a 37mm Bofors. The Polish army were developing an improved tank for the cavalry with a Christie suspension which was a wheeled tank rather than tracks that handled roads and rough terrain better and were adopted in many countries including Britain (Zaloga and Madej, 1985).
Source: Zaloga and Madej (1985)
Other collaborations included the Polski-Fiat 508 Lazik staff car and the Polski-Fiat 621L standard truck built in small numbers and could carry only 1.5 tonnes.
Interwar War International Trade in Arms:
The following data sets on the arms trade is a compilation covering 1920 to 1939 covers the import and export of arms including small arms and light weapons (SALW).
Total Yearly Arms Transfer Volumes
Source: Mehrl and Thurner (2024)
Aggregated Top 10 Arms Exporters
Source: Mehrl and Thurner (2024)
Aggregated Top 10 Importers
Source: Mehrl and Thurner (2024)
The figures contextualise the international arms trade during the interwar period which gives insights into volumes and values which may surprise some readers. These trading relationships influenced both domestic and foreign policies and construct security relations on top of any formal treaties signed during this period.
Selected References:
Błąd, M. (2020) “Land reform in the Second Polish Republic”, Rural History, Vol.31, Issue 1, pp. 97-110.
Erenfeicht, L. (2023) “Mesko: Poland’s Ammunition Maker, Small Arms Defence Journal, Vol. 6. (Accessed 21st June 2026).
Grata, P. (2012) “Central Industrial District as an Attempt to Implement the Principles of Sustainable Development in the Inter-War Period Poland”, European Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 8, No. 5.
(Ištok, R and Koziak, T. (2009). “MIĘDZYMORZE AS A POLISH GEOPOLITICAL CONCEPT”, Folia geographica, No. 14, pp.89-97.
Korbinski, A. (1988) “Civil-Military Relations in Poland Between The Wars: 1918-1939”, Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp.169-189.
Koryś, P. (2015) “The State as an entrepreneur: Reorientation of the Economic Policy of the Republic of Poland in Late 1930s and the Development of State Capitalism”, Ekonomia, No. 42, pp.109-132.
Mackiewicz, M. (2016) “THE ARSENAL OF AN ARMY REBORN: THE ARMAMENT OF THE POLISH ARMY IN 1918-1921”, Cohorta, No. 1-2, pp.60-68.
Marzec, W. (2022) “Landed Nation: Land Reform and Ethnic Diversity in the Interwar Polish Parliament”, Nationalities Papers, Vol. 51, No.4, pp.929-949.
Mehrl, M, and Thurner, P.W. (2024) The Interwar Period International Trade in Arms: A New Dataset”, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol.69, Issue 2-3, doi.org/10.1177/00220027241228189 (Accessed 24.06.2026).
Orłowski, B. (2009) “Polish Inventions: A Forgotten Contribution to the Allied Victory in World War Two”, ORGANON, No.41, pp.121-128.
Ostanek, A.A. (2020) “The Beginnings of the Polish Arms Industry in the Second Polish Republic ‘ARMA’ – the Arms and Machines Factory in Lviv”, Wiedza Obronna, Vol.280, No. 3, pp.363-374.
Pilarski, S. (2021) “The occupation of part of Cieszyn Silesia by Poland in 1938”, IPN, Poland.
Zaloga, S. and Madej, V. (1985) “The Polish Campaign 1939”, Hippocrene Books, USA.
