Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921: The Reconstruction of Poland. By Jochen Böhler,. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 272. Cloth $45.95. ISBN 978-0198794486 .

Civil War in Central Europe, 1918–1921: The Reconstruction of Poland. By Jochen Böhler. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 272. Cloth $45.95. ISBN 978-0198794486.

“We have made Italy, now we must make Italians,” quipped the Piedmontese statesman Massimo d'Azeglio in the 1860s. Much the same could be said of the re-creation of Poland in 1918 after more than a century of partition. Jochen Böhler, whose previous work explored German violence in Poland during World War II, turns to the bloody aftermath of World War I, as the newly resurrected Poland fought several battles for its sovereignty and borders. Böhler frames this period of national-existential struggle from 1918 until 1921 not as a series of isolated border skirmishes and wars, but rather as one great Central European civil war. This struggle to make Poland was also a struggle to make Poles. As Böhler notes, the battles over territory and loyalties can be viewed through the lens of three main questions: Where is Poland? What is Poland? What is a Pole? (2). His answers provide refreshing new context and interpretations in studying the history of Poland and East Europe more generally.

Böhler makes a mostly convincing case that Poland's skirmishes and wars (he counts seven) should be framed as one grand civil war. His most forceful arguments on this point come in the early sections of his third chapter. Böhler claims that the conduct of these many battles, in particular the “unrestrained violence and blurred boundaries between the protagonists,” qualifies as a civil war (62–63). Paramilitary bands, disheveled and...