The Struggle in the West

Having suffered a crushing defeat in the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire began to disintegrate in October 1918, about 20 months after the Russian Empire had collapsed. Even before the Habsburgs acknowledged that the end had come, their subject peoples, the West Ukrainians included, had already made preparations for creating their own independent nation-states.

As might be expected, the Poles also laid claim to Eastern Galicia. What resulted, therefore, was a conflict of two nations over territory and not, as was the case in the east, a confusing struggle of various governments, parties, and ideologies for the “hearts and minds of men.” Perhaps because Austrian constitutionalism had taught the Poles and West Ukrainians to appreciate and participate in government, the fall of the empire did not result in the socioeconomic upheaval, chaos, anarchy, and brutality that occurred in the east. For the Ukrainians and the Poles in Eastern Galicia, the issues were clear-cut: national goals were of primary importance and the consideration of socioeconomic concerns was postponed until later. The Polish/Ukrainian conflict was fierce but orderly; it was carried on, for the most part, by regular armies, which fought along established fronts and inflicted relatively little damage on the civilian population. In essence, it was a test of strength between the 3.5 million Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia and the 18 million Poles who were simultaneously fighting the Czechs, Germans, and Lithuanians – who also did not want to be included in the Polish state.

As it became evident that Austria was about to fall, on 18 October 1918 the parliamentarians, party leaders, and church hierarchs from Eastern Galicia and Bukovyna formed a Ukrainian National Council to act as a Ukrainian representative body. They also announced their intention to unite all West Ukrainian lands into a single entity that would have an as-yet-unspecified relationship with whatever remained of the Habsburg empire. Meanwhile, the Poles also prepared to take over Lviv and Eastern Galicia. A group of young Ukrainian officers, led by Captain Dmytro Vitovsky of the Sich Riflemen, frustrated by the slow, legalistic approach of the National Council, took matters into their own hands. On the night of 31 October they hastily gathered all the available Ukrainian soldiers serving in the Austrian units in Lviv and vicinity and took control of the city. On 1 November the city’s inhabitants awoke to find Ukrainian flags flying from city hall, all major offices in Ukrainian hands, and placards everywhere informing them that they were now citizens of a Ukrainian state. Similar events occurred throughout the rest of Eastern Galicia.

The Ukrainian population greeted the events of 1 November with enthusiasm. The Jews recognized Ukrainian sovereignty or remained neutral. But as soon as they recovered from the shock, the Poles in Lviv turned to active resistance and bitter house-to-house fighting broke out between the Ukrainian troops and the Polish Military Organization. To the northwest, on the border between Eastern Galicia and Poland proper, the key railroad center of Peremyshl fell to the Poles. In Bukovyna, Romanian troops occupied much of the land, while in Transcarpathia the Hungarians remained in power. Nonetheless, much of Eastern Galicia remained in the hands of the Ukrainians and they pressed on with the organization of their state. On 9 November, after all the Ukrainian parties agreed to cooperate in the formation of a government, they appointed a provisional council of ministers or General Secretariat which was headed by the experienced parliamentarian Kost Levytsky.

A crushing blow to the fledgling state came on 22 November 1918 when the 1400 Ukrainian soldiers, mostly teenage peasants who were completely disoriented in a city of over 200,000, failed to quell the uprising of the recently reinforced Poles and were forced to abandon Lviv. In January, Stanyslaviv became the new seat of government. It was here that the first systematic efforts were made to establish a functioning government and an effective army.

For most of its eight-month existence, the ZUNR governed a population of about 4 million of whom close to 3 million were Ukrainians. It quickly replaced the temporary authorities with a full-fledged governmental apparatus. On 22–26 November, elections were held in the Ukrainian-controlled lands for a 150-member Ukrainian National Council that was to function as a representative and legislative body. In terms of social composition, the delegates were mostly middle peasants with a large minority of clergy and intelligentsia; ideologically, the vast majority, even the socialists, adopted a liberal-national stance. The ethnic makeup of the council was almost completely Ukrainian, as the Poles boycotted the elections and the Jews and Germans preferred not to participate lest they become embroiled in the Ukrainian/Polish conflict. The chairman of the council, Evhen Petrushevych (a lawyer and former parliamentarian in Vienna), automatically became the president of the republic.

Unlike the East Ukrainian governments, the ZUNR soon had a local administration in place. It was based on old Austrian models – the Galicians did not engage in the radical experiments common in the east – and was staffed by Ukrainians and, quite often, by Polish professionals. Although engaged in a bitter war, the West Ukrainian state succeeded in maintaining stability and order on its territories. Indeed, this remarkably rapid and effective establishment of an administrative apparatus was a feat that few of the new East European states, not to speak of the East Ukrainian governments, could duplicate.

Among the important legislative acts of the National Council were the guarantee of full voting rights to all citizens of the state and broad guarantees of minority rights, including 30% of the seats in a future parliament. These measures were well received by the Jewish populace: having experienced a three-day pogrom that the Poles had staged in Lviv when they retook the city, the Jews tended to side with the Ukrainians. In fact, an all-Jewish unit of about 1000 men was formed in the West Ukrainian army. The all-important land question was treated in straightforward fashion: all large private land-holdings, which were mostly held by Poles, were to be expropriated and the land distributed to peasants with little or no land. From the outset, it was understood that the ZUNR would unite with the East Ukrainian state. On 22 January 1919, the act of unification, which guaranteed the ZUNR complete autonomy, was proclaimed in Kiev.

Probably the most impressive organizational achievement of the West Ukrainian government was the Ukrainian Galician Army. In yet another contrast to the East Ukrainians, the Galicians quickly agreed on the need for a strong, effective regular army. Most Ukrainians in the Austrian army were on the Italian front and had not yet returned home, so there was a lack of trained soldiers. Nonetheless, a general mobilization yielded optimum results and by spring the army had over 100,000 men, of whom 40,000 were battle ready. There were, however, major problems with officers and military materials. Because of their socioeconomic underdevelopment, there were disproportionately few Ukrainian officers in the Austrian army. Thus, only 2 out of 1000 officers were Ukrainians. By comparison, Poles accounted for 27 per 1000. Moreover, the Ukrainian officers were almost all of junior rank. Therefore, the ZUNR turned to East Ukrainians such as General Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko and several other high officers of the former Russian army to take on the posts of commander and general staff.

The conflict can be divided into three stages. During the initial period which ended by February 1919, it was basically a battle between the Ukrainian majority and Polish minority in Eastern Galicia. Because of rapid and effective mobilization, the Ukrainians enjoyed a great numerical advantage and forced the Poles onto the defensive. However, thanks to skillful leadership, effective tactics, and spirited fighting, the Poles held off the slow, unimaginative attacks prepared by the Ukrainian command. In its second stage, during March, April, and May, the war expanded into a conflict between the Galician Ukrainians and the forces of Poland proper. As reinforcements from central Poland moved into Eastern Galicia, the Poles gained a decided numerical advantage. The crucial development at this juncture was the deployment of General Jozef Haller’s army against the Ukrainians. Formed in France from Polish prisoners of war, this 60,000-man force was superbly equipped and largely led by French officers. Although the Entente dispatched it to Poland to fight against the Bolsheviks, the Poles redirected the army against the Ukrainians, arguing that all Ukrainians were Bolsheviks or something close to it. In April and May, the Poles broke the Ukrainian encirclement of Lviv and pushed back the demoralized Galician army to the Zbruch River.

A surprising Ukrainian counteroffensive, launched on 8 June by the new commander, General Oleksander Grekov, initiated the final stage of the war.

In this catastrophic situation, the civilian leadership – on 9 June President Petrushevych was appointed dictator by general consent in order to make the government more efficient – argued for accepting internment in Romania. However, the army insisted on continuing the struggle for Ukrainian statehood by crossing over into Eastern Ukraine and joining Petliura in the battle against the Bolsheviks. On 16 July 1919, with Polish artillery hammering at their backs, the Galician army and thousands of West Ukrainian civilians crossed the Zbruch into Eastern Ukraine. The military struggle for Eastern Galicia, which cost the Ukrainians about 15,000 and the Poles over 10,000 lives, was over. The diplomatic activity of the ZUNR

During the course of the military conflict and even after it was over, the West Ukrainian government placed great hopes on international recognition of its cause. Its optimism rested on the acceptance by the victorious Entente of President Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points, one of which guaranteed the right of self-determination to all nations. However, if the Entente’s political principles favored the Ukrainian position, the political interests of its leading member, France, favored the Poles. Obsessed with preventing the reemergence of a powerful Germany, the French sought to prevent this possibility by creating a powerful Polish state on Germany’s eastern border. And if a powerful Poland demanded the absorption of Eastern Galicia, then so be it.

Although the East and West Ukrainians sent a combined delegation to the Paris Peace Conference – which met in January 1919 to redraw the political map of Europe – in practice the West Ukrainians acted separately in the pursuit of their goals. The West Ukrainians sought the recognition of their statehood and the Entente’s help in negotiating a settlement with the Poles. However, both Ukrainian delegations found little sympathy at the Paris conference. Only England, which was not enthusiastic about France’s Polish plans and which was interested in Galician oil, briefly supported the Ukrainians – but when the government of Lloyd George was defeated in elections, this help evaporated. Meanwhile, the Poles, who developed excellent contacts with the Western powers through the efforts of their fiercely nationalistic (and anti-Ukrainian) leader Roman Dmowski, did their best to discredit the West Ukrainians.

The Poles argued that the Ukrainians were too backward to govern themselves, that their nationality was a German “invention,” and that they had Bolshevik tendencies. Because Europeans knew next to nothing about Ukraine and Ukrainians, this Polish propaganda proved to be effective. It was, therefore, not unexpected that on 25 June 1919 the Entente’s Council of Ambassadors acknowledged Poland’s right to occupy all of Eastern Galicia “in order to protect the civilian population from the dangerous threat of Bolshevik bands.”⁷ However, the council did not, as yet, agree to Poland’s incorporation of Eastern Galicia. It allowed the Poles to govern the land temporarily on the proviso that they respect the rights of the inhabitants and grant them a measure of autonomy. The ultimate fate of Eastern Galicia was to be decided at some point in the future.

Viewed from the historical perspective, the failure of the West Ukrainians to achieve their goals was not surprising. In Eastern Galicia, where the Ukrainians were best organized and most nationally conscious, the problems were basically of a quantitative nature: 3.5 million Galician Ukrainians simply could not stand up to the Poles, who were six times as numerous and far more advanced politically and socioeconomically. When the Galicians began their struggle they counted on aid from two sources: Eastern Ukraine was to provide the military and material aid that would balance the Polish advantage, and the Entente, which loudly proclaimed its commitment to the principle of self-determination, was expected, at least, to recognize Ukrainian aspirations.

As it happened, the West preferred Poland to principles and the East Ukrainians could not maintain their own state, let alone aid the Galicians. Therefore, the Galician Ukrainians, who had clearly demonstrated their ability to govern themselves, failed to achieve statehood for reasons beyond their control. This is not to say that they were without failings: uninspiring leadership, poor strategic planning, and belated contacts with the West certainly undermined their efforts. Nonetheless, were it not for the overwhelming predominance of the Poles, there is little doubt that the West Ukrainian National Republic would have taken its place among the other new nation-states of Eastern Europe.