Embassy Events 2005

President George W. Bush and President Aleksander Kwasniewski

President George W. Bush has sent the following letter to President Aleksander Kwasniewski on the occasion of Polish Independence Day:

Dear Mr. President:

Please accept my warm congratulations to the people of Poland as you celebrate Poland’s Independence Day on November 11.

The blessings of Polish independence are particularly evident now as Poles have exercised their sovereignty in Parliamentary and Presidential elections. We have discussed many times our nations’ commitment to the advance of freedom and we agree that democracy is the surest guarantor of peace. Much of the strength of our bilateral relationship comes from our common will to support democracy and popular sovereignty in Europe and around the world. The United States is proud to call Poland a partner in this, our common vocation.


Sincerely,

George W. Bush


US Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe also congratulates the people of Poland on the 87th anniversary of Polish independence. “The 11th of November is a special day for Poles, commemorating Poland’s return to the map of sovereign European states in 1918 after 123 years of foreign rule,” Ambassador Ashe noted.

The Polish State disappeared from Europe's map after the Third Partition in 1795. The Partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795 divided the Polish Kingdom among its three powerful neighbors, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The opportunity for regaining independence emerged only at the end of World War I. A major supporter of a reborn Polish State was President Woodrow Wilson, whose Fourteen Points proposed the establishment of an independent Polish state that incorporated the land inhabited by an indisputably Polish population, enjoyed free and secure access to the sea, and guaranteed its political and territorial integrity by an international treaty.