page_title: Józef Piłsudski
section_title: World War I
hierarchical_section_title: Józef Piłsudski / World War I
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Józef Piłsudski w otoczeniu oficerów II batalionu 5. Pułku Piechoty w Lasku Polskim na Wołyniu.
context_page_description: Józef Klemens Piłsudski was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State and First Marshal of Poland. He was considered the de facto leader of the Second Polish Republic as the Minister of Military Affairs. After World War I, he held great power in Polish politics and was a distinguished figure on the international scene. He is viewed as a father of the Second Polish Republic re-established in 1918, 123 years after the final Partition of Poland by Austria, Prussia and Russia in 1795.
  Seeing himself as a descendant of the culture and traditions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Piłsudski believed in a multi-ethnic Poland—"a home of nations" including indigenous ethnic and religious minorities he hoped would establish a robust union with the independent states of Lithuania and Ukraine. His principal political opponent, Roman Dmowski, leader of the National Democrat party, by contrast, called for a Poland limited to the pre-Partitions Polish Crown and based mainly on a homogeneous ethnically Polish population and Roman Catholic identity.
  Early in his political career, Piłsudski became a leader of the Polish Socialist Party.
context_section_description: At a meeting in Paris in 1914, Piłsudski presciently declared, in the impending war, for Poland to regain 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. By contrast, Roman Dmowski, Piłsudski's rival, believed the best way to achieve a unified and independent Poland was to support the Triple Entente against the Central Powers.
  At the outbreak of the war on 3 August in Kraków, Piłsudski formed a small cadre military unit, the First Cadre Company, from members of the Riflemen's Association and Polish Rifle Squads. That same day, a cavalry unit under Władysław Belina-Prażmowski were sent to reconnoitre across the Russian border before the official declaration of war between Austria-Hungary and Russia on 6 August.
  Piłsudski's strategy was to send his forces north across the border into Russian Poland into an area the Russian Army evacuated in the hope of breaking through to Warsaw and sparking a nation-wide revolution. Using his limited forces in those early days, he backed his orders with the sanction of a fictitious "National Government in Warsaw", and he bent and stretched Austrian orders to the utmost, taking initiatives, moving forward, and establishing Polish institutions in liberated towns while the Austrians saw his forces as good only for scouting or for supporting main Austrian formations. On 12 August 1914, Piłsudski's forces took the town of Kielce, of Kielce Governorate, but Piłsudski found the residents less supportive than he had expected.
  Soon afterward he officially established the Polish Legions, taking personal command of their First Brigade, which he would lead successfully into several victorious battles. He also secretly informed the British government in the fall of 1914 that his Legions would never fight against France or Britain, only Russia.
  Piłsudski decreed that Legions' personnel were to be addressed by the French Revolution-inspired "Citizen" (Obywatel), and he was referred to as "the Commandant" ("Komendant"). Piłsudski enjoyed extreme respect and loyalty from his men, which would remain for years to come. The Polish Legions fought against Russia, at the side of the Central Powers, until 1917.
  Soon after forming the Legions, also in 1914, Piłsudski set up another organization, the Polish Military Organisation (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa), which served as a precursor Polish intelligence agency and was designed to perform espionage and sabotage missions.
  In mid-1916, after the Battle of Kostiuchnówka (4–6 July 1916), in which the Polish Legions delayed a Russian offensive at a cost of over 2,000 casualties, Piłsudski demanded for the Central Powers to issue a guarantee of independence for Poland. He backed that demand with his own proffered resignation and that of many of the Legions' officers. On 5 November 1916 the Central Powers proclaimed the "independence" of Poland, hoping to increase the number of Polish troops that could be sent to the Eastern Front against Russia, thereby relieving German forces to bolster the Western Front.
  Piłsudski agreed to serve in the Regency Kingdom of Poland, created by the Central Powers, and acted as minister of war in the newly formed Polish Regency government; as such, he was responsible for the Polnische Wehrmacht. After the Russian Revolution in early 1917, and in view of the worsening situation of the Central Powers, Piłsudski took an increasingly uncompromising stance, insisting that his men no longer be treated as "German colonial troops" and but be used to fight only Russia. Anticipating the Central Powers' defeat in the war, he did not wish to be allied with the losing side. In the aftermath of a July 1917 "Oath Crisis" when Piłsudski forbade Polish soldiers to swear a loyalty oath to the Central Powers, he was arrested and imprisoned at Magdeburg; the Polish units were disbanded and the men were incorporated into the Austro-Hungarian Army while the Polish Military Organization began attacking German targets
caption: Piłsudski and his officers, 1915
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