Teschen

Teschen , Czech Tĕšín, Pol. Cieszyn, former principality (c.850 sq mi/2,200 sq km), now divided between the Czech Republic and Poland. Teschen was its chief town. A part of Silesia, the principality was under Bohemia from 1292 to 1625, when it came under Hapsburg rule. It remained part of Austria until 1918. Its important coal mines (the Karviná basin) and iron deposits and its strategic concentration of several major rail lines made it an object of dispute between Poland and Czechoslovakia, each of which claimed Teschen on ethnic grounds. After World War I the Conference of Ambassadors, a body formed to help implement the Versailles Treaty, divided (1920) Teschen, giving the western section, including the Karviná basin, to Czechoslovakia and the eastern agricultural section to Poland. The town of Teschen also was divided into a Polish section, Cieszyn, and a Czech section, Ceský Tĕšín. Poland, however, continued to claim the Czech section and seized it (Oct., 1938) after the Munich Pact. During World War II the entire region was annexed to Germany, but in 1945 the status quo as of 1920 was restored despite Polish claims.

Teschen, up to 1918, the German name for a rich and heavily industrialized east European Duchy within the Austro-Hungarian empire whose population was 55% Polish. Following the First World War both Poland and Czechoslovakia claimed one of its regions, also called Teschen, and after a bitter dispute it was divided in July 1920 along the River Olse. The larger part, including the eastern half of the city of Teschen, became Polish (Cieszyn); the western part remained Czech (Český Těšín). However, the dispute remained and after Czechoslovakia was weakened by the Munich agreement Poland occupied the whole of the region in October 1938. In 1945 Poland attempted to retain it but the USSR reimposed the borders agreed in 1920.