Józef Piłsudski

On May 12, 1935, Józef Piłsudski, Father of the Second Polish Republic who served as its Chief of State (1918-22), Marshall of Poland, Inspector General of the Armed Forces (1926-35), died at the age of 67. A short excerpt from the article:

"...Pilsudski organized the opposition against the Central Powers in the Legion, the Polish Supreme National Council and in the communities in Austrian Galicia and the Kingdom. In the summer of 1916, he resigned the command of the Legion and ordered the legionaries not to swear allegiance to the Central Powers in July of 1917 as they requested. Arrested on July 22, 1917, he was imprisoned by the Germans in Magdeburg. On his return to Warsaw on November 10, 1918, Pilsudski took command of the Polish military forces and four days later, the civil government as Temporary Head of State. Within a few weeks he organized a national election and in February 1919, the newly elected Seym met to begin its work of creating a progressive new state after over 100 years of partitions. Pilsudski also began to organize a new national army in extremely difficult circumstances created by Germans, Bolsheviks, Ukrainians and even Czechs who were hostile to the newly independent Poland. Pilsudski pursued his goal of creating a federation of states positioned between Russia and Germany; he sought an alliance with Lithuania (1918-1920), and formed a political and military alliance with the Ukrainian Peoples’ Republic (1920). Pilsudski succeeded in saving the country from a Bolshevik deluge after a victorious battle at the gates of Warsaw (August 16-18, 1920), a battle he planned and executed as commander of the counterattack.

After the war, Pilsudski declined to be a candidate in the presidential election in December 1922, and in 1923 he retired from political life. He returned to the scene three years later in an armed takeover on May 12-18, 1926, directed against excessive political struggles, corruption and general weakening of the state. After the coup d’etat he refused the presidency but continued as Inspector General of the Armed Forces until his death on May 12, 1935. He influenced Poland’s foreign policy by seeking to maintain the alliance with France and a new alliance with England. He concluded a non-aggression treaty with Russia in 1932. After the failure to organize a preventive war against Hitler’s Germany in 1933, Pilsudski signed in 1934 a non-aggression treaty with Germany as well. He secured for the newly reborn Polish Republic its rightful place in the family of European nations."