The influence of the III Operational Branch of the General Staff of the Polish Army on the development of the road infrastructure in Poland 1935-1939. A contribution to the issue

Abstract

The issue of road transport in Poland in the interwar period is a topic which has not been excessively exploited in historical research. The impact of the General Staff of the Polish Army in the 1930s remained a completely unknown aspect of the development of Polish road engineering. This article is a contribution which will indicate to interested researchers the potential of materials from the Central Military Archive – Military Historical Bureau, through the analysis of materials including files from the III Operational Branch of the General Staff. These documents prove indisputably that the General Staff had a strong influence on the development of Polish road engineering – it would seem that it was even a decisive influence, but for the permanent conflict of competence between civil and military factors and some indications that the army did not always come out on top in these disputes. Of course, the sources of friction were, first and foremost, completely different priorities for the development of road engineering – governmental and territorial administration focused primarily on the economic development of the country and individual regions; the army subordinated the development of road infrastructure to military conditions affecting the defense of the country in the event of aggression (use of roads by the enemy) and to a lesser extent the use of roads for the purposes of its own concentration or relocation of troops during defensive operations.