page_title: Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918)
section_title: "Regency" constitution
hierarchical_section_title: Kingdom of Poland (1917–1918) / German aims / "Regency" constitution
caption_attribution_description: Regency Council of the Kingdom of Poland, from left: Józef Ostrowski, kard. Aleksander Kakowski, Zdzisław ks. Lubomirski
context_page_description: The Kingdom of Poland, also known informally as the Regency Kingdom of Poland, was a proposed puppet state of the German Empire during World War I. German policymakers decided to establish a Kingdom of Poland in order to reconcile the ambitions of Polish nationalists for self-governance with the German Empire's interest in controlling the territory of Congress Poland. This arrangement was presented to Poles as liberating the Polish nation from subjugation by Russia and securing the Polish state from the threat of future Russian expansionism.
  A draft constitution was proposed in 1917. The German government used punitive threats to force Polish landowners living in the German-occupied Baltic states to relocate and sell their Baltic property to the Germans in exchange for the entry to Poland. Parallel efforts were made to remove Poles from Polish territories of the Prussian Partition.
  Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918 signed by the Allies with imperial Germany, which ended World War I, the area became part of the nascent Second Polish Republic.
context_section_description: After the intermission of the Temporary Committee of the Provisional Council of State (Polish: Komisja Przejściowa Tymczasowej Rady Stanu), the Central Powers introduced a provisional constitution, the patent, on 12 September 1917. The patent devised a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral parliament but without ministerial responsibility. Only schools and courts were transferred to Polish authorities, but — under Polish protests — the German minority was given a separate school system. Pending the election of a King of Poland, a Regency Council (Polish: Rada Regencyjna) was installed as a provisional government. On 18 September, the following members of the Council were named: Aleksander Kakowski, Archbishop of Warsaw; aristocrat Prince Zdzisław Lubomirski who had served as mayor of Warsaw in 1916/17; and Józef Ostrowski, a great landowner and formerly the leading Polish politician in the Russian Duma.
  The Regency Council was ceremonially installed on 15 October, the anniversary of Tadeusz Kościuszko's death, and on 26 November, appointed Jan Kucharzewski, a lawyer who had been working in the government since June, as Prime Minister.
  Administration, however, strictly remained in the hands of German authorities, now headed by Otto von Steinmeister. In March 1918, a resolution of the German Reichstag called for the establishment of a native civil administration in Poland, Kurland and Lithuania. However, the German authorities refused to transfer administration to Polish authorities and merely considered Poles as candidates to be trained under German supervision.
  After the oath crisis of 1917, recruitment to the Polish army had received scant support and achieved negligible results, reaching merely 5,000 men. In May 1918, the force was strengthened by General Józef Dowbór-Muśnicki moving his Polish corps — assembled from the former Tsarist army — to Poland. In August, the legionaries arrested for refusing the oath were released and some again volunteered for the Polish army.
  In August 1918, Achille Ratti arrived in Warsaw as apostolic visitor to adjust the Catholic Church to the altered political circumstances. This appointment was mainly due to the influence of German Chancellor Georg von Hertling and Eugenio Pacelli, since 1917 Nuncio to Bavaria in Munich.  Ratti gained fame in 1920 for being the only diplomat to stay in Warsaw during the Polish–Soviet War and was elected as Pope Pius XI in 1922.
caption: The Regency Council. Left to right: Ostrowski, Kakowski, and Lubomirski
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