Polish colonial aspirations in Africa: The Maritime and Colonial League in Angola and Liberia, c.1920-1939

The Polish colonial movement in the inter-war period was a complex social and political phenomenon. The assessment of the movement presented in this thesis sheds light on its place in the history of Poland in the first half of twentieth century. In doing so, it examines the role of the Maritime and Colonial League which has not been sufficiently explored in exisiting interpretations of Polish emigration overseas. This thesis will explore the changing relationship between the Polish government and the Maritime and Colonial League in regards to its colonial programme. By doing so, it demonstrate the implications this had for Poland's international relations with the League of Nations, other European colonial powers, and Germany. By exploring the origins of the colonial movement in Poland and stressing its connection to migration policy, this study will argue that the picture of the instrumental character of the movement painted in the existing literature is too simplistic as it does not fully explain its nature. It will also place the Polish colonial movement in a broader context of international politics in the inter-war period, rather than following existing accounts by focusing solely on colonialism in the context of Poland's foreign policy. This approach will provide greater depth to our understanding by placing the colonial movement in Poland in part of a larger scale political process. The argument advanced here is that an understanding of the relationship between the Polish desire for colonies and its emigration policy is crucial to explain the colonial movement in inter-war Poland, Poland's colonial policy, the role of Maritime and Colonial League and the eventual fate of the settlement projects.