Studia Maritima

The Free City of Danzig became an arena of conflicts between the local authorities and the Polish state defending its rights assured by the Treaty of Versailles and subsequent bilateral agreements. Polish diplomacy tried to address its demands concerning their own rights in Danzig directly to Geneva, and the Council of the League of Nations actually had to constantly take a position on Polish-Gdansk relations, involving the staff of the Secretariat in Geneva and experts. One of the most difficult to resolve proved to be the dispute over where to transship war materials. Danzig authorities sought to remove the possibility of transit and storage of such materials through Poland in general. The Polish side, on the other hand, demanded a suitably large space for such purposes on Holm Island. The Swedish delegation became a participant in the negotiations in the disputes, taking part in the meetings of the Council of the League of Nations as a non-permanent member from 1 January 1923. The Swedish authorities, headed by Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting, tried to support the Danzig side in the disputes with Poland, as a result of their conviction of the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles and their cooperation with British diplomacy. On the issue of the transshipment site, the Swedish delegation contributed in trying to find a compromise and break the deadlock. Such a solution was the appointment of a group of several experts, which brought a politically charged dispute down to the level of a technical issue. Among the experts, a key role was played by the Swedish engineer Per Gustaf Hörnell, who pointed to the Westerplatte peninsula as the best place for a Polish transit depot.