MARCH 3 - DAILY CHRONICLES OF HISTORY

MARCH 3

1921

The Polish–Romanian Alliance was signed in Bucharest. It committed both parties to providing armed assistance to one another "in case one of the sides is attacked at its present Eastern frontiers". It was aimed at containing Russia (from, 1922, the Soviet Union), which had just lost the Polish-Soviet War. Among the diplomats engaged in negotiations were Polish General Tadeusz Rozwadowski and Romanian General Ion Antonescu.

1944

Joseph Stalin rejected British proposals to negotiate over the Polish-Soviet border. (No. 249,  SECRET AND PERSONAL FROM PREMIER J. V. STALIN TO THE PRIME MINISTER, Mr W. CHURCHILL  Both messages of February 20 on the Polish question reached me through Mr Kerr on February 27.  Now that I have read the detailed record of your conversations with the leaders of the Polish émigré Government, I am more convinced than ever that men of their type are incapable of establishing normal relations with the U.S.S.R. Suffice it to point out that they, far from being ready to recognize the Curzon Line, claim both Lvov and Vilna. As regards the desire to place certain Soviet territories under foreign control, we cannot agree to discuss such encroachments, for, as we see it, the mere posing of the question is an affront to the Soviet Union.  I have already written to the President that the time is not yet ripe for a solution of the problem of Soviet-Polish relations. I am compelled to reaffirm the soundness of this conclusion. March 3, 1944  (source: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/correspondence/01/44.htm#72

1945

The Germans began Operation Gisela:   The operation was planned as an aerial intruder, to support the German air defence system in its night battles with RAF Bomber Command during the Defence of the Reich campaign. It was the last major operation launched by the Luftwaffe Nachtjagdgeschwader (Night Fighter Wings) during the conflict.   By March 1945 the Luftwaffe had lost air superiority over all fronts. Western Allied Air Forces held air supremacy over the German Reich and the remaining German-occupied territory. German industrial cities were now subjected to intensive bombardment which inflicted enormous damage on the German war effort. The United States Army Air Forces attacked by day, while RAF Bomber Command operated by night. Nearly 5,000 RAF airmen prepared to take part in 817 heavy bombers which were fueled and armed in the evening. The German operation failed in its objective and did not deliver the mass casualties that were expected, nor did they disrupt British bombing operations.


Pawłokoma Massacre took place when a detachment of Polish anti-Nazi guerrillas from the Home Army (AK) subordinated to the Polish emigre government in London shot to death hundreds of Ukrainian inhabitants of Pawlokoma. The Ukrainians were herded in a local Greek Catholic church, interrogated and likely tortured, and then taken to a local cemetery where they were executed. But Polish historian Polish historians, including Zdzislaw Konieczny argues that the massacre was in retaliation for the killings of Poles from Pawlokoma and neighboring villages carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), in Nazi-occupied Ukraine.

1948

A show trial took place against Witold Pilecki at which he was charged by Josef Cyrankiewicz who was also an Auschwitz survivor. (Incidentally, Cyrankiewicz would later become the Prime Minister of Poland - under the Soviet communist regime). Cyrankiewicz charged Pilecki with illegal border crossing, use of forged documents, not enlisting with the military, carrying illegal arms, espionage for General Władysław Anders, espionage for "foreign imperialism" (thought to be British intelligence) and planning to assassinate several officials of the Ministry of Public Security of Poland. Pilecki denied the assassination charges, as well as espionage, although he admitted to passing information to the 2nd Polish Corps, of which he considered himself an officer and thus claimed that he was not breaking any laws. He pleaded guilty to the other charges.