page_title: Ignacy Mościcki
section_title: Presidency
hierarchical_section_title: Ignacy Mościcki / Presidency
context_page_description: Ignacy Mościcki was a Polish chemist, politician, and President of Poland from 1926 to 1939. He was the longest serving President in Poland's history. He was serving as the president of Poland when Germany invaded the country on 1 September 1939, starting World War II.
context_section_description: After Józef Piłsudski's May 1926 coup d'état, on 1 June 1926, Mościcki, once an associate of Piłsudski in the Polish Socialist Party, was elected president of Poland by the National Assembly on the Piłsudski's recommendation after Piłsudski had refused the office for himself.
  As president, Mościcki was subservient to Piłsudski and never openly showed dissent from any aspect of the Marshal's leadership. After Piłsudski's death in 1935, his followers divided into three main factions: those supporting Mościcki as Piłsudski's successor, those supporting General Edward Rydz-Śmigły, and those supporting Prime Minister Walery Sławek.
  With a view to eliminating Sławek from the game, Mościcki concluded a power-sharing agreement with Rydz-Śmigły, which saw Sławek marginalized as a serious political player by the end of the year. As a result of the agreement, Rydz-Śmigły would become the de facto leader of Poland until the outbreak of the war, and Mościcki remained influential by continuing in office as president.
  Mościcki was the leading moderate figure in the regime, which was referred to as the "colonels' government" because of the major presence of military officers in the Polish government. Mościcki opposed many of the nationalist excesses of the more right-wing Rydz-Śmigły, but their pact remained more or less intact.
  Mościcki remained president until September 1939, when he was interned in Romania following the German invasion of Poland and was forced by France to resign his office. He transferred the office to General Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski, who held it for only one day before General Władysław Sikorski and the French government ousted him in favour of Władysław Raczkiewicz.
caption: Mościcki bestows the bulawa (the Marshal of Poland's baton) on Edward Rydz-Śmigły
exif: {"Image XResolution": "96", "Image YResolution": "96", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "paint.net 4.0.21"}