Close allies of Józef Piłsudski, most of "the colonels" had served as officers in the Polish Legions and Polish Military Organization ("POW"), and in the Polish Army (particularly during the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920, prior to Piłsudski's 1923 resignation as Chief of the Polish General Staff). They had held key, if not necessarily the highest, military ranks during Piłsudski's May 1926 coup d'état.