 During World War I the Bialystok @-@ Grodno District was the administrative division of German @-@ controlled territory of Ober @-@ Ost . It comprised the city , as the capital , and the surrounding Podlaskie region , roughly corresponding to the territory of the earlier Belostok Oblast . At the end of World War I the city became part of the newly independent Second Polish Republic , as the capital of the Białystok Voivodeship ( 1919 – 1939 ) . During the 1919 – 1920 Polish @-@ Soviet War , possession of the city by the Red Army and the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee occurred during the lead up to the Battle of Warsaw . During the resultant counteroffensive , the city returned to Polish control after the Battle of Białystok . 
