Józef Piłsudski

Kościesza Coat of Arms. Piłsusdki's family coat of arms was a "Kościesza odmieniony" ("Kościesza modified").

Józef Klemens Piłsudski (pronounced: ['juzef piw'sutski], December 5, 1867 – May 12, 1935) was a Polish revolutionary and statesman, Field Marshal, first Chief of State (1918–1922) and dictator (1926–1935), of the Second Polish Republic, as well as the leader of her armed forces. He was one of the most prominent Polish political figures of his era, and is considered to be largely responsible for Poland's regaining independence, 123 years after partitions of Poland. From the middle of the First World War, until his death, Piłsudski was the major influence in the foreign policy and government of Poland. After the May 1926 coup d'état, he became its de facto dictator. To this day, he is held in high regard by most of the Polish public.

As a young man, he belonged to many underground organizations and used various pseudonyms, including Wiktor, Mieczysław and Ziuk. Later he was often affectionately called Dziadek ("Grandpa") or Marszałek ("the Marshal"). His former soldiers also called him Komendant ("the Commandant").

Biography

Early life

Piłsudski, schoolboy.

Piłsudski was born in the Russian Empire in the village of Zułów (today Zalavas, Lithuania) to an impoverished Polish szlachta family. He attended school in Wilno (today Vilnius, Lithuania). As a boy, he was introduced by his mother, Maria Bilewiczówna, to Polish literature and history, which was suppressed by the Russian authorities. His father, also named Józef, fought in the 1863 January Uprising against the Russian occupation of Poland. His families had strong patriotic traditions, and Piłsudski was much irritated by the Russification program of the Russian government, for example, Piłsudski was was compelled to attend Eastern Orthodox Church services, which as a Roman Catholic he found deeply distasteful.

In 1885 he started studies in medicine at Kharkov University (modern Kharkiv, Ukraine), but in 1886 he was suspended as politically suspect for his involvement with Narodnaya Vola revolutionary movement. He was also rejected by the University of Dorpat (now Tartu), Estonia, whose authorities had been informed of his political affiliation. On 22 March 1887 he was arrested by Tsarist authorities on a false charge of plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III with Vilnian socialists and was exiled for five years to eastern Siberia, first to Kirinsk on the river Lena, and later to Tunka. In fact Piłsudski's only connection to that plan was the involvement in it of his elder brother, Bronisław Piłsudski. Bronisław had been friends with friends of Vladimir Lenin's brother and was sentenced to hard labor (katorga) in eastern Siberia, for fifteen years.

1928 reproduction of the 1887 wanted poster for Piłsudski.

Piłsudski, after his release in 1892, joined the Lithuanian branch of the Polish Socialist Party in 1893. Initially he sided with the Socialists' more radical wing, but despite the ostensible internationalism of the Socialist movement he always remained a Polish nationalist. As a chief editor he began publishing an samizdat socialist newspaper, Robotnik (The Worker). In 1899, during his time as an underground organizer, Piłsudski married a fellow Socialist organizer, Maria Juszkiewiczowa z Koplewskich, but his marriage started to come apart when several years later Piłsudski started an affair with a younger female Socialist, Aleksandra Zahorska. Maria died in 1921 and Piłsudski married Aleksandra in October of that year. They had two daughters (Wanda and Jadwiga), but this marriage also had its own troubles.

In February 1900, after the authorities found Robotnik's underground printing press in Łódź, he was imprisoned at the Warsaw Citadel but, after feigning mental illness, in May 1901 he managed to escape from a mental hospital at St. Petersburg with the help of Władysław Mazurkiewicz, going to the Austrian occupied part of Poland (Galicia).

In 1904 Piłsudski founded an armed organization, the "Bojówki" ("Combat Teams"), to wage a campaign of assassinations, bombings, and sabotage against the Russian authorities. On October 13, 1904, Piłsudski and the PPS organized a demonstration in Warsaw that was fired upon by Russian troops.

On the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) Piłsudski traveled to Japan, where he unsuccessfully attempted to obtain that country's assistance for an uprising in Poland. He offered to supply Japan with intelligence in support of her war with Russia and proposed a plan (never implemented) to create a legion from Poles, conscripted into the Russian army, who had been captured by Japan. He also suggested a "Promethean" project (named for the Greek titan Prometheus, who had been tortured by Zeus while chained to a rock in the Caucasus) directed at liberating ethnic communities occupied by the Russian Empire — a goal that he later continued to pursue and that would be partly achieved only in 1991 with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Interestingly, in the same time another notable Pole, Roman Dmowski, also travelled to Japan, where he argued against Piłsudski trying to discourage Japanese government from supporting the Polish revolution at this time, an insurrection which Dmowski felt would be doomed to failure. Dmowski, although also a Polish patriot, would remain Piłsudski's political arch-enemy until the end of his life (he actually outlived Piłsudski) . In the end, Japanese offered only a limited assistance to Piłsudski; he received Japan's help in purchasing weapons and ammunition for the PPS and the combat organisation associated with the party, but much less then he hoped for.

During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Piłsudski played a leading role in events in Congress Poland In early 1905, he ordered the PPS to launch a general strike there. It involved some 400,000 workers, and lasted two months before it was broken by the Russian authorities. In June 1905, Piłsudski ordered an uprising in Łódź. During the "June Days" as the Łódź uprising came to be known, armed clashes broke out between gunmen loyal to Piłsudski's PPS and those loyal to Roman Dmowski's National Democratic Party (Endeks). On December 22, 1905, Piłsudski called for all Polish workers to rise up; his call was widely ignored. Unlike the Endeks, Piłsudski ordered the PPS to boycott the elections to the First Duma. The decision to boycott the elections and to try to win Polish independence through uprisings caused much tension within the PPS, and in 1906 a fraction of the party split off in protest of Piłsudski's leadership. The Piłsudski's faction was known as Old Faction or the Revolution Faction (Starzy, Frakcja Rewolucyjna), while their opponents were known as the Young Faction or the Left Wing (Młodzi, Lewica). Piłsudski with his supporters from the revolutionary faction of the PPS, continued to plan a revolution against tsarist Russia..

Piłsudski anticipated a coming European war and the need to organize the nucleus of a future Polish army that could help win Poland's independence from the three empires that had partitioned her out of political existence in the late 18th century. In 1906 Piłsudski, with the connivance and support of the Austrian authorities, founded a military school in Kraków for the training of Bojówki (Combat Teams). In 1906 alone, the 750-strong Bojówki, operating in five-man units in Congress Poland, killed or wounded some 1,000 Russian officials. In Arpil/September 1908, the Bojówki robbed a Russian mail train carrying tax revenues from Warsaw to St. Petersburg. Piłsudski, who took part in the raid at Bezdany near Vilna 1908, used those funds to aid his secret military organization. The loot from that raid (200,812 rubles - or approximately $100,000) was a virtual fortune in contemporary Eastern Europe.

In 1908, Piłsudski renamed the "Combat Teams" to "Związek Walki Czynnej" (Association for Active Struggle), headed by three of his associates, Władysław Sikorski, Marian Kukiel, and Kazimierz Sosnkowski. In 1910 two legal paramilitary organisations were created in the Austrian partitional zone (one in Lwów and the second in Cracow), to conduct training and lectures in military science. In 1912 Piłsudski became the Commander-in-Chief of Związek Strzelecki (under the codename 'Mieczysław'). With the permission of Austrian authorities, Piłsudski founded a series of "sporting clubs," followed by a Riflemen's Association that served as cover for training a Polish military force that grew by 1914 to 12,000 men. In 1914, Piłsudski declared that "only the sword now carries any weight in the balance for the destiny of a nation".

First World War

File:Jozef Pilsudski3.jpg

Piłsudski in military uniform.

At a meeting in Paris in 1914, Piłsudski presciently declared that in the imminent war, for Poland to regain her independence, Russia must be beaten by the Central Powers (the Austro-Hungarian and German Empires), and the latter powers must in their turn be beaten by France, Britain and the United States. At the same time Roman Dmowski, leader of another faction of the Polish nationalist movement, believed the best way to achieve a unified and independent Poland, was to support the Triple Entente against the Triple Alliance.

At the outbreak of the First World War he set out from Cracow at the head of a well-trained group of units, with which he entered the Russian partitioned Poland and took control of a border strip evacuated by the Russians near Kielce, but failed to encourage a national uprising. Next he made an alliance with Austria, and officially established the Polish Legion, taking personal command of its First Brigade. However, he secretly informed the British government in the fall of 1914, that his Legions would never fight against France and Britain - only against Russia. Within the Legions, Piłsudski decreed that personnel were to be addressed by the French-Revolution-inspired "Citizen," and he himself was referred to as "the Commandant" ("Komendant")p. Piłsudski commanded extreme respect and loyalty of his men that would remains for years to come. The Polish Legion fought with distinction against Russia at the side of the Central Powers until 1917. Soon after the formation of the Legions, Piłsudski also formed another secter organization, the Polish Military Organisation (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa), which served as a precursor to the Polish intelligence.

File:Pilsudski Kielce.jpg

Piłsudski and his staff in Kielce, 1914.

On November 5, 1916, the Central Powers proclaimed the "independence" of Poland, hoping that as a result Polish troops would be sent to the eastern front against Russia, relieving German forces to bolster the Western front. Piłsudski agreed to serve in the "Kingdom of Poland" created by the Central Powers, but insisted that his men not be treated as "German colonial troops" and only be used to fight Russia. Piłsudski, then serving as minister of war in the newly created Polish Regency government, also opposed the demand that the Polish units swear loyalty to Germany and Austria. In the aftermath of the Russian revolution and worsening situation of the Central Powers, Piłsudski increasingly took an uncompromising stance. In the aftermath of the Oath crisis, in July 1917, where he forbade Polish soldiers to take an oath of loyalty to the Central Powers, he was arrested and imprisoned at Magdeburg; the Polish units where then disbanded and soldiers incorporated into Austro-Hungarian army.

Józef Piłsudski and his officers, 1915.

On November 8, 1918, Piłsudski and his comrade, Colonel Kazimierz Sosnkowski, were released from Magdeburgh and soon — like Vladimir Lenin before them — placed on a private train, bound for their national capital, as increasingly desperate Germans were hoping Piłsudski would gather forces friendly to them.

On November 11, in Warsaw, Piłsudski was appointed Commander in Chief of the Polish forces by the Regency Council and was entrusted with the mission of creating a national government in the newly independent country; on that day he proclaimed an independent Polish state (that day would become the Polish idependence day). He negotiated the retreat of German garrison from Warsaw and other German troops from the Ober-Ost (Eastern front) and on 14 November 1918, he was asked to provisionally supervise the running of the country, and on 22 November he officially received the title of Provisional Chief of State (Naczelnik Państwa), of renascent Poland. from the new government of Jędrzej Moraczewski.

The Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland, formed in Lublin, bowed to Piłsudski, who set about forming a new government. It was predominantly Socialist and immediately introduced many reforms long proclaimed as necessary by the Polish Socialist Party (e.g. the 8 hour day, free school education, vote for women). This was absolutely necessary to avoid major unrest, however Piłsudski believed that as head of state he must be above political parties; and the day after his arrival in Warsaw, he met with old colleagues from underground days, who addressed him socialist-style as "Comrade" ("Towarzysz") and asked for support of their revolutinary policies; Piłsudski rebuked them with his famous remark that "I took the red tram of socialism to the stop named Independence, but that's where I got off". He also set about organizing a Polish army out of Polish veterans of the German, Russian and Austrian armies.

In the days immediately after the Great War, Piłsudski attempted to build a government in a shattered country. Much of former Russian Poland had been destroyed in World War I, and systematic looting by the Germans had reduced the region's wealth by at least 10%. A British diplomat who visited Warsaw in January 1919 reported: "I have nowhere seen anything like the evidences of extreme poverty and wretchedness that meet one's eye at almost every turn". In addition, Piłsudski had to transform the different systems of law, economics, and administration in the former German, Austrian and Russian partitions of Poland into one; there were nine different legal systems, five currencies, 66 types of rail systems (with 165 models of locomotives), and other similar problems, which all had to be urgently consolidated.

Piłsudski drove himself hard, working all day and, on a regimen of tea and chain-smoked cigarettes, all night. He maintained a Spartan lifestyle, eating plain meals alone at an inexpensive restaurant, and became increasingly pale and thin. Though Piłsudski was very popular with much of the Polish public, his reputation as a loner (the result of many years' underground work), of a man who distrusted almost everyone, led to strained relations with other Polish politicians.

The first Polish government and Piłsudski were also distrusted in the West because Piłsudski had cooperated with the Central Powers in 1914-17 and because he had supported the formation of a Socialist government. It was not until January 1919, when the world-famed pianist and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski became Prime Minister (also Foreign Minister) of a new government, that it was recognized in the West. That still left two separate governments claiming to be the legitimate government of Poland: Piłsudski's in Warsaw, and Roman Dmowski's in Paris. To ensure that Poland had a single government and to avert civil war, Paderewski met with Dmowski and Piłsudski and persuaded them to join forces, with Piłsudski acting as provisional president and supreme commander-in-chief while Dmowski and Paderewski represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.

Piłsudski often clashed with Dmowski, at variance with the latter's vision of the Poles as the dominant nationality in reborn Poland, and irked by Dmowski's attempt to send the Blue Army back to Poland through Danzig, Germany (modern Gdańsk, Poland) .

On 20 February 1919 Piłsudski's declared that he returns his powers to the newly elected Polish parliament (Sejm), however the Sejm reinstated his office in the Small Constitution. The word Provisional was removed from the title; and Piłsudski would hold that office until 9 December 1922, when Gabriel Narutowicz was elected the first President of Poland.

Polish-Soviet War

Piłsudski in Poznań.

Speaking of Poland's future frontiers, Piłsudski said: "All that we can gain in the west depends on the Entente — on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany," while in the east "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far".

Piłsudski aspired to create a federation (to be called Międzymorze, "Between-Seas," stretching once again from the Baltic to the Black Sea), of Poland with Lithuania, Belarus and independent Ukraine, in emulation of the pre-partition Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth had given mutual protection to its constituent peoples against the Teutonic Order, the Mongols, the Russians, the Turks, the Swedes and other agressive neighbors until the partitions of the late 18th century. Piłsudski's plan was, however, to be dashed by the outcome of the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921.

Pilsudski wearing his famous field cap.

In 1919 Poland there was unrest on all Polish borders. Piłsudski viewed the Bolsheviks as less dangerous for Poland than their Russian-civil-war contenders, as the White Russians were not willing to accept Poland's independence, while the Bolsheviks did proclaim the Partitions of Poland null and void. As such, by his refusal to join to the attack on the struggling Lenin's government, ignoring the strong pressure from Entente, Pilsudki had likely saved the Bolshevik government in Summer-Fall 1919. In the east, in 1919, Polish forces fought Ukrainians in the Polish-Ukrainian War, but soon it became apparent that the real enemy of both nations were the Bolsheviks.

In April 1920, Marshal Piłsudski (as his rank had been since that March) signed an alliance with Ukraine's leader, Symon Petliura, to conduct joint operation against the Russian SFSR. The Polish-Ukrainian alliance treaty, signed April 22 1920, had the goal of establishing an independent Ukraine in alliance with Poland. In return, Petliura gave up Ukrainian claims to East Galicia, and was denounced for this by the Ukrainian leaders there. The Polish and Ukrainian armies, under Piłsudski's command, launched a successful offensive against the Russian forces in Ukraine. On May 7, with remarkably little fighting, they captured Kiev.

The Soviets launched their own succesful counteroffensive from Belarus and counter-attacked in Ukraine, advancing into Poland in a drive toward Germany in order to encourage the communist movements (like Communist Party of Germany) struggling to take power. The Red Army openly announced its plans for invading Western Europe in 1920. The words of the official march of the Red Army proclaimed: “We’re getting Warsaw, give us Berlin!”. Soviet communist theorist Nicholas Bukharin, writer for the newspaper Pravda, wished for the resources to carry the campaign beyond Warsaw "right up to London and Paris"..

The National Democracts argued that the string of Bolshevik victories was Piłsudski's fault and demanded his resignation. On 12 August Piłsudski presented his resignation to the Prime Minister Wincenty Witos, but he refused to accept it. Over the next few weeks Polish risky, unconventional strategy at the Battle of Warsaw (August 1920) that would halt the Soviet advance.

Polish plan was developed by Piłsudski and others, like Tadeusz Rozwadowski. Later, some supporters of Piłsudski tried to portray him as the sole inventor of the Polish strategy, while his opponents would try to minimize his role. The plan called for Polish forces to withdraw across the Vistula River and defend the bridgeheads at Warsaw and the Wieprz River, while some 25% of available divisions concentrated to the south for a strategic counter-offensive.

File:Jozef Pilsudski5.jpg

In March 1920, the army granted Piłsudski the baton of the First Marshal of Poland.

Next Piłsudski's plan required that two armies under General Józef Haller facing Soviet frontal attack on Warsaw from the east, hold their entrenched positions at all costs. At the same time, an army under General Władysław Sikorski was to strike north from behind Warsaw, thus cutting off the Soviet forces attempting to envelope Warsaw from that direction. The most important role, however, was assigned to a relatively small (approximately 20,000-man), newly assembled "Reserve Army" (known also as the "Strike Group" — Grupa Uderzeniowa), commanded personally by Piłsudski, comprising the most determined, battle-hardened Polish units. Their task was to spearhead a lightning northern offensive, from the Vistula-Wieprz River triangle south of Warsaw, through a weak spot identified by Polish intelligence between the Soviet Western and Southwestern Fronts. That offensive would separate the Soviet Western Front from its reserves and disorganize its movements. Eventually, the gap between Sikorski's army and the "Strike Group" would close near the East Prussian border, resulting in the destruction of the encircled Soviet forces.

File:Jozef Pilsudski4.jpg

Piłsudski at work.

At the time, Piłsudski's plan was strongly criticized, and only the desperate situation of the Polish forces persuaded other army commanders to go along with it. Although based on fairly reliable intelligence, including intercepted Soviet radio communications, the plan was termed "amateurish" by many high-ranking army officers and military experts, who were quick to point out Piłsudski's lack of a formal military education. When a copy of the plan accidentally fell into the Soviets' hands, they thought it a ruse and disregarded it. Days later, they paid dearly for their mistake, when during the Battle of Warsaw the overconfident Red Army suffered one of its biggest defeats in history.

An "Endek" Sejm deputy, Stanisław Stroński, coined the phrase, "Miracle at the Wisła" (Polish: "Cud nad Wisłą"), to underline his disapproval of Piłsudski's "Ukrainian adventure." Stroński's phrase was adopted by some patriotically- or piously-minded Poles praising Piłsudski, unaware of Stroński's ironic intent. The Marshal's Polish detractors also sought to ascribe the winning strategy to General Maxime Weygand of the French military mission to Poland. Later, a junior member of that mission, Charles de Gaulle, would adopt some lessons from Piłsudski's career, for his own strikingly similar one.

The Treaty of Riga (1921), closing the Polish-Soviet War, hich Piłsudski called an act of cowardice, partitioned the Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Russia. This treaty, and general Lucjan Żeligowski capture of Wilno from the Lithuanians, marked an end to Piłsudski's federalist dream.

Fall and rise to power

Piłsudski (left) with friend and President-Elect, Gabriel Narutowicz. Within days Narutowicz would be shot by an assassin.

After the Polish constitution adopted in March 1921 (March Constitution) severely limited the powers of the presidency in the new democratic Second Polish Republic, Piłsudski refused to run for the office of president. On 9 December 1922 he turned over his powers to his friend, the newly elected president, Gabriel Narutowicz. Five days later, after his inauguration, Narutowicz was shot dead by a mentally deranged, right-wing, anti-Semitic painter and art critic, Eligiusz Niewiadomski, who had originally wanted to kill Piłsudski. When a right-wing government subsequently came to power, Piłsudski found it impossible to work with Prime Minister Wincenty Witos, whom he regarded as morally responsible for the incident. in May 1923 Piłsudski disgustedly resigned as chief of the general staff and went into retirement outside Warsaw to his country house at Sulejówek, where he settled down to literary work and political writings, especially a series of books of political and military memoirs.

File:Jozef Pilsudski na Kasztance.jpg

Marshal Józef Piłsudski on his favorite horse, Kasztanka (the mare, "Chestnut"). Painting by Wojciech Kossak.

However the economy of Poland was in shambles. Hyperinflation fueled public dissent and Polish government was unable to find a quick solution to civil unrest, mounting unemployment and economic crisis. Allies and supporters of Piłsudski's repeatedly asked him to return to politics. In 1925 when several Polish governments resigned in short order and the political scene was becoming more and more chaotic, Piłsudski eventually issued several statements demanding the resignation of the Witos cabinet. When the government showed now signs of stablization, on May 12-14 1926, Piłaudski returned to power in a military coup d'etat (the May Coup), aided by socialist railwaymen whose strike paralysed communications and prevented government reinforcements from reaching Warsaw.

President Stanisław Wojciechowski and Prime Minister Witos stepped down. Piłsudski, however, did not accept the office of president, aware of its limited powers. His formal offices — apart from two terms as prime minister in 1926-28 and 1930 — were for the most part limited to those of minister of defence and inspector-general of the armed forces. He also held the offices of minister of military affairs and chairman of the council of war.

Policies: the benevolent dictator, the great leader

File:Pilsudski by Kossak portrait.jpg

Portrait of Marshal Józef Piłsudski. Painting by Wojciech Kossak, ca. 1928.

In reality, this meant the end of parliamentary government in Poland for the next 10 years, as Piłsudski's Sanacja government (1926-1939) — conducted at times by authoritarian means — directed at restoring moral "health" to public life. From 1928 Sanacja was represented by the Bezpartyjny Blok Współpracy z Rządem party. Popular support and elegant rhetoric allowed Piłsudski to maintain his authoritarian powers, which could not be overruled by the president, who had been nominated by the marshal anyway, nor by Sejm, whose powers were curtailed in constitutional amendments introduced on 2 August 1926. Both contemporary and modern critiques of Piłsudski point out the his order to imprison certain political opponents (among them supporters of Dmowski) before the Polish legislative election, 1930, and to create the prison for political prisoners in Bereza Kartuska (today Biaroza) in 1934.

The adoption of a new Polish constitution in April 1935, tailored by Piłsudski's supporters to his specifications — providing for a strong presidency — came too late for Piłsudski to seek that office; but the April Constitution would serve Poland up to the outbreak of World War II and would carry its Government in Exile through to the end of the war and beyond.

In internal politics, Piłsudski's reign marked the much needed stabilization and improvements in the situation of ethnic minorities, which formed almost a third of the population of the Second Republic. Piłsudski replaced endecja's 'ethnic assimilation' with the 'state assimilation' policy: citizens were judged by their loyalty to the state, not by their nationality. The years 1926-1935 were favourably viewed by many Polish Jews, whose situation improved especially under the cabinet of Pilsudski’s appointee Kazimierz Bartel. However a combination of various reasons, from the Great Depression to the vicious spiral of terrorist attacks by Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and government pacifications meant that the situations of minorities of Poland was less then satisfactory, despite Piłsudski's efforts.

In foreign policy, Piłsudski's aim was to maintain good relations with the USSR (Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1932) and with Germany (German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934). Both treaties were meant to strengthen Poland's position in the eyes of our allies and neighbours. During his reign, Poland has good relations with some of its neighbours (notably Romania, Hungary and Latvia), however the relations with Czechoslovakia have been bad, and the ones with Lithuania even worse.

Piłsudski, as de Gaulle without any coup was later to do in France, sought to maintain his country's independence on the international scene. When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in January 1933, some such as the British historian Sir Lewis Namier argued, Piłsudski sounded out Poland's ally, France, regarding the possibility of joint military action against Germany, which had been openly rearming in violation of the Versailles Treaty. When France declined, Piłsudski was compelled to sign a non-aggression pact with Germany in January 1934.

However, this argument that the German-Polish non-aggression pact had been forced on Piłsudski by French refusal to wage a "preventive war" on Nazi Germany has been disputed by many other historians who point out that there is no evidence in either the French or Polish diplomatic archives that such an offer was made. In late October 1933 rumours of Polish "preventive war" proposal were reported in Paris. The source of these rumours were the Polish Embassy, which informed French reporters that Poland had proposed a "preventive war" to France and Belgium. By this time, Poland and Germany were already secretly negotiating the non-aggression pact. It has been argued that Piłsudski had the Polish Embassy start rumours of a "preventive war" being considered as a way of pressuring the Germans, who were demanding that the Poles abrogate the Franco-Polish alliance of 1921. As it was, the non-aggression pact specifically excluded the Franco-Polish alliance. It has been argued that Piłsudski's reasons for seeking a non-aggression pact with Germany was due to his concerns over the Maginot Line. Up to 1929, French plans in the event of war with Germany called for an French offensive onto the North German plain in conjunction with offensives from Poland and Czechoslovakia. The building of the Maginot Line, which was started in 1929, strongly indicated that henceforward, in the event of war with Germany, the French Army would maintain a strictly defensive position, and that France’s eastern allies were going to be on their own (if true, Piłsudski's succesfully predicted the future: this is what in fact happened in the 1939 with the Phony War). Thus, from Piłsudski's viewpoint, in light of France's military plans, a non-aggression pact with Germany was the best option under the circumstances.

He was acutely aware of the shakiness of the non-aggression pacts, remarking sarcastically: "The question remains, which of the stools will we fall off first." Ably assisted by his protege, Minister of Foreign Affairs Józef Beck, he sought support for Poland in alliances with western powers--France and Britain--and with friendly, if less powerful, neighbours: Romania and Hungary.

Hitler unceasingly suggested a German-Polish alliance against the Soviets, but Piłsudski declined the proposal, instead seeking precious time to prepare for war with Germany or the Soviet Union if it was necessary. Also on numerous occasions, Hitler planned to meet with Piłsudski, and again he was rebuffed.

Piłsudski was interested less in the trappings than in the reality of power, to be exercised for the security and welfare of his imperilled country. He made a point of drawing no financial profit from public office.

Józef Piłsudski's mother's grave, 2004

By 1935, unbeknownst to the public, Piłsudski had for several years been in declining health. He died of liver cancer on May 12, 1935, at the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw. His funeral turned into a national tribute to the the man who had probably done most in the military sense to restore Poland's independence. His body was placed in the Leonard's Crypt of the Royal Crypts at Wawel Cathedral, in Kraków, but his heart was interred in his mother's grave at Rossa Cemetery, Vilnius, where it remains today.

Assessment

Monument to Piłsudski in Katowice, Poland

Piłsudski had given Poland something akin to what Henryk Sienkiewicz's Onufry Zagłoba had mused about: a Polish Oliver Cromwell. As such, the Marshal had inevitably drawn both intense loyalty and intense vilification. The known Polish-born writer Joseph Conrad had said of him, "He was the only great man to emerge on the scene during the [First World] war."

One of the most brilliant Polish military commanders of the 20th century, Piłsudski has been the patron of several military units. These have included the 1st Legions Infantry Division, an armoured train Nr. 51 ("I Marszalek") and a Polish Air Force squadron during World War II, the No. 305 "Greater Poland" Squadron . Józef Piłsudski Institute of America, a New York research center and museum of the modern history of Poland, has also been named after him. He is also the patron of Academy of Physical Education in WarsawHis life has been also shown on the television: Marszałek Piłsudski, a tv series, was directed in 2001 by Andrzej Trzos-Rastawiecki.

Quotes

By Piłsudski:

• "Only the sword now carries any weight in the balance for the destiny of a nation" (1914)
• "All that we can gain in the west depends on the Entente — on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany," [while in the east] "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far" (probably 1918)
• "Comrades, I took the red tram of socialism to the stop named Independence, but that's where I got off. You may keep going to the final stop, if you can, but from now on let's address each other 'Sir'!"(1918)
• "Poland can have nothing to do with the restoration of old Russia. Anything rather than that – even Bolshevism".
• "To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat."(late 1920s or 1930s)

About Piłsuski:

• "He was the only great man to emerge on the scene during the [First World] war." Joseph Conrad,
• "Jozef Pilsudski will remain in the memory of our nation as the founder of independence and as the victorious leader who fended off a foreign assault that threatened the whole of Europe and its civilisation. Jozef Pilsudski served his motherland well, and has entered our history forever." - Declaration of the Sejm (Lower House) of the Parliament of the Republic of Poland on 12th May 1995 – the 60th anniversary of his death.[2]
• "...he was king of our hearts and ruler of our will. Through half a century of his life’s toil, he took into his possession heart after heart, soul after soul, until he drew the whole of Poland under the purple of his royal spirit [...] He gave Poland freedom, boundaries, power and respect." President of Poland, Ignacy Mościcki, in a speech during Piłsudski's funeral 1935[3]

See also

• Edmund Charaszkiewicz

Further reading

• Jeremy Keenan, The Pole: the Heroic Life of Jozef Pilsudski, Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd, 2004, ISBN 0715632108
• Wacław Jędrzejewicz, Pilsudski: a Life for Poland, Hippocrene Books, 1982, ISBN 0882546333
• Joseph Rothschild, Pilsudski's Coup D'Etat, Columbia University Press, 1967, ISBN 0231029845
• Andrzej Garlicki, Jozef Pilsudski, 1867-1935, Scolar Press, 1995, ISBN 1859280188
• Jozef Pilsudski, Year 1920 and its Climax: Battle of Warsaw during the Polish-Soviet War, 1919-1920, with the Addition of Soviet Marshal Tukhachevski's March beyond the Vistula, New York (Jozef Pilsudski Institute of America), 1972
• Piotr S. Wandycz, "Polish Federalism 1919-1920 and its Historical Antecedents," East European Quarterly, Boulder, CO., 1970, vol. IV, no. 1, pp. 25-39.
• Przemysław Hauser, "Jozef Pilsudski's Views on the Territorial Shape of the Polish State and His Endeavours to Put them into Effect, 1918-1921," Polish Western Affairs, Poznan, 1992, no. 2, pp. (235)-249, trans. Janina Dorosz
• M. K. Dziewanowski, Joseph Pilsudski: A European Federalist, 1918-1922, Stanford, CA, 1969
• Aleksandra Piłsudska, Pilsudski: A Biography by His Wife, Dodd, Mead and Co. NY., 1941
• Józef Piłsudski, Darsie Rutherford Gillie, Joseph Pilsudski, the Memories of a Polish Revolutionary and Soldier, Faber & Faber, 1931
• W.F. Reddaway, Marshal Pilsudski, Routledge, 1939

External links

English:

• Jozef Pilsudski Institute of America
• Józef Piłsudski his life and times. Website by Mike Oborski, Honorary Consul of Poland in Kidderminster (West Midlands of the United Kingdom)
• Abbreviated version of biography from the above page. Site by Roman Solecki.
• Josef Piłsudski's biographical sketch
• Photo: Jewish Community Greets General Jozef Pilsudski. 1927

Non-English:

• Template:Pl icon Bibuła, book by Józef Piłsudski, retrieved on 26 May 2006
• Template:Ru icon/Template:Uk icon "Figures of the 20th century. Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State", Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3 - 9, 2001, in Russian and in Ukrainian.