48 POLSKA
"Western Pomerania lasted for only a few years in the tenth and twelfth centuries;
whilst the hold over East Prussia between 1525 and 1657 had lost all practical
significance long before it was legally terminated. Control of the shoreline of
Eastern Pomerania/Western Prussia, with its city of Danzig, prior to 1308 and
from 1454 to 1793, gave Poland its one small, but important port-hole on to the
northern sea. Expansion towards the distant Black Sea was consistently more
practicable than to the near-by Baltic. Poland's long-term partner, Lithuania, had
similar experiences. Lithuania's famous boast to stretch 'from sea to shining sea',
though technically correct in the fifteenth century, looks considerably less impres-
sive when her dominion on the Baltic was seen to consist of one small town -
Palanga (Polaga) - and on the Black Sea of an undeveloped strip of virgin coast
between the Dniestr and Dniepr estuaries. At its maximum extent in the late
Jagiellonian period, the Kingdom of Poland included only 120 miles of coastline
in its 3,800 miles of frontier or about 3 per cent; while the Grand Duchy included
some 165 miles out of 2,800, or about 6 per cent. The rest of these immense terri-
tories were entirely surrounded by land. In the following period, the efforts of
Poland and Lithuania to gain joint control over the seaside territory of Livonia
ended largely in failure. In the settlement of 1660, Poland-Lithuania was awarded
only a small part of the Livonian interior; whilst its Baltic coastline possessed only
the one seaport of Liepaja (Libau, Lipawa). Later Polish states were similarly
landbound. Neither the Duchy of Warsaw, nor the Congress Kingdom had any
coastline at all; and the Second Republic, even when the extraordinary configura-
tion of the Hel Peninsula is taken into consideration, possessed a mere 45 miles of
the Baltic shore. In this light the possession by the present People's Republic of
over 300 miles of coastline must be viewed as a radical departure from historical
realities. In this perspective, Poland's maritime connections have had only mar-
ginal significance. As Sebastian Klonowic wrote in 1596:
Fair Poland nestles on a fertile sod,
Content as though within the lap of God.
What cares the Pole about the ocean's stand?
He ploughs the land.
Forsooth, my brother Pole, I know not why
Thou cravest more? Thy fields supply
Thy every need. Why seekest thou more betimes
In far-off climes?^13In the modern era, Polish statesmen saw their country's exclusion from the sea
as an important cause of political and economic weakness. But they were never
able to remedy the situation satisfactorily by their own efforts.
Territorial security was an important consideration, though not a simple
one. It can be seen to be the product of several contributory factors, including
desirability, accessibility, defensibility, and tenability. (In other words, a given
location is only secure when no one potential aggressor either wants it, or
can reach it, capture it, or retain it.) Central Poland was certainly a desirable