Mława

History

The first mention of Mława comes from July 2, 1426, when three princes of Mazovia - Siemowit V, Trojden II and Władysław I came here to a session of a local court. It is not known if Mława had already been an urban center, as there are no sources which would prove it. Three years later, Mława was incorporated as a town It was a royal town and county seat, located in the Płock Voivodeship in the Greater Poland Province. In 1521 during the Polish-Teutonic War, the town was captured and looted by the Teutonic Knights. In 1659 the town was burned by the Swedish troops, and in 1795, following the Third Partition of Poland, Mława became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1807 it was included in the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw. After Napoleonic Wars, in the 1815 Congress of Vienna Mława (along with the entire province) was incorporated into the Russian Partition of Poland, as part of the initially autonomous Congress Poland. During the January Uprising, on February 20, 1864, it was the site of a clash between Polish insurgents and Russian troops. Since the town was located along the pre-1914 imperial Russian-German border, Mława was a place of heavy fighting between the two opposing armies during World War I, and was occupied by Germany. After the war, in 1918, Poland regained independence and the town was reintegrated with Poland. During the Polish-Soviet War, it was fiercely defended by Poles on August 9–10, 1920, captured by Russians on August 10, and afterwards recaptured by Poles. Within interwar Poland, the town was assigned to the Warsaw Voivodeship (1919–39). The government of the Second Polish Republic constructed several fortifications there due to proximity of the German border. In the opening stages of World War II, the advancing German army faced strong…