One of history’s odder wars was that between Poland and Japan in World War II. Poland declared war against the Empire of Japan in 1941, but the Japanese refused to accept the Polish declaration of war. Not only did they refuse to accept Poland’s declaration of war, but as seen below, the Japanese actually helped the Poles spy on Japan’s ally, Germany, and cooperated with Polish intelligence throughout WWII.
Japan Refused to Accept Poland’s Declaration of War
Japan kicked off World War II in the Pacific in earnest in December, 1941, when it attacked the US at Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, and British and Dutch possessions in Asia and the Pacific. That triggered declarations of war against Japan not only from the attacked countries, but also from a slew of allied countries that were already at war with Germany. In demonstrations of solidarity with America and Britain, they rushed to add Japan to their list of formal enemies.
Many governments in exile, representing countries conquered by Germany earlier in WWII, expressed their solidarity with their hosts and benefactors Britain and the US by declaring war on Japan. The declaration of one exiled government, however, elicited an odd response: when Poland declared war against Japan, Tokyo refused to accept it. As Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo put it: “We do not accept Poland’s challenge. The Poles, fighting for their freedom, only declared war on us under pressure from the United Kingdom”.
The Poetic Origins of Japanese Affection for Poland
Despite Poland’s declaration of war, Japanese-Polish ties continued. Japan even went so far as to help the Poles against Germany, Japan’s Axis ally. It seems odd at first glance, since the Japanese and Poles are not exactly peas in a pod. However, both the Poles and Japanese had a common enemy: Russia. In the eighteenth century, Russia had participated in repeated partitions of Poland that erased it as an independent country. For generations thereafter, Russia suppressed repeated uprisings by Polish nationalists seeking to revive and free Poland.
In the late nineteenth century, Japan emerged as a rising power in the Far East, and its ambitions in the region clashed with Russia’s. Mutual antipathy towards the Russians thus drew the Poles and Japanese together. In the 1890s, Japanese officer Fukushima Yasumasa traveled through Poland. He liked the Poles, and was moved by the tragedy of the partitions that had extinguished their country. When he returned to Japan, Fukushima’s writings struck a chord and inspired a poet, Ochiai Naobumi, to pen The Memory of Poland, a poem about a country that had lost its freedom. The Japanese loved it.
Japanese Sympathy for Poland, vs Their Obligations to Germany
The Memory of Poland was eventually set to music, and it went viral, became a smash hit that took Japan by storm, and aroused widespread Japanese sympathies for the Poles. When Poland finally regained its independence after World War I, Japan supported the nascent country’s admission to the League of Nations. In the interwar years, the two countries cooperated, especially in espionage against Russia’s successor state, the Soviet Union. Japanese-Polish cooperation continued after WWII began with Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland.
Germany and Japan had close ties even before Japan joined WWII in 1941. Both countries were signatories of the anticommunist Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 and the Tripartite Pact of 1940. Despite that, the Polish embassy continued to function in Tokyo even after the German invasion and occupation of Poland in 1939. That awkward situation lasted until German pressure forced the embassy’s closure in October, 1941. More awkward still, as seen below, was the fact that the Japanese embassy in Berlin operated as the center of a Polish espionage network.
A Sixteen-Year War
Japanese officials supplied Polish agents with Japanese passports – including diplomatic passports – that allowed them to move freely throughout German-occupied Europe. To make things stranger yet, even after Poland declared war against Japan – a declaration the Japanese government refused to accept – Japan continued to cooperate with the Poles. Polish agents were able to move throughout German-occupied Europe with passports provided by the Japanese government. Japanese and Polish intelligence services continued to exchange information about Germany and the Soviet Union throughout the war.
Japan’s surrender in September, 1945, brought WWII to an end. That did not end the Polish-Japanese War, however, which was destined to last for sixteen years. Poland’s postwar communist regime was dependent on the USSR, and the Soviets had issues with the postwar Japanese government. Poland’s communists were not about to cross their patrons, so they did not end the war with Japan until they got the nod from Moscow. The war finally came to a formal end in 1957, twelve years after WWII ended, when the People’s Republic of Poland signed an agreement with Japan to restore normal relations.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
History Halls – World War II Fighters: Japan’s Mitsubishi A6M Zero
Japan Forum, 7:2, 285-316 (1995) – Polish-Japanese Cooperation During World War II
