France and Poland 1920-1922 - Bilateral relations or part of a European security system?

The years 1920-1922 saw the crystallization of Franco-Polish relations afte r the First World War. The two countries had to take Germany and Russia int o account, but the data which fashioned their views were not the same. The Polish-Soviet war brought out these differences, at the same time that it c ontributed perhaps to the growth in Poland of the idea of an alliance with France. For Paris, the political interest was ambiguous and the military in terest, arguable. The opinion of certain political leaders prevailed over t he reservations held by other politicians and by military leaders, resultin g in the signing on 19 February 1921 of the political and military agreemen ts. Their application, slow at first, was speeded up from 1922, especially on the level of military cooperation, the very level which earlier had evok ed the strongest objections. Hence, if the term alliance is not quite appli cable to the agreements of 1921, the years that followed gave them substanc e. These bilateral relations were supposed to be incorporated into a system of mutual security, but in their application they fell far short of that.