Polish Resistance Movement During The Partitions - World War I

World War I

For more details on this topic, see Poland during World War I.

After World War I and the collapse of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, Poland became an independent republic. However, Poland's geographical position between Germany and Russia had meant much fighting and terrific human and material losses for the Poles between 1914 and 1918.

The war split the ranks of the three partitioning empires, pitting Russia as defender of Serbia and ally of Britain and France against the leading members of the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary. This circumstance afforded the Poles political leverage as both sides offered pledges of concessions and future autonomy in exchange for Polish loyalty and army recruits, as partitioners encouraged the raise of Polish resistance movements targeting the "other side". The Austrians wanted to incorporate Congress Poland into their territory of Galicia, so even before the war they allowed nationalist organizations to form there (for example, Związek Strzelecki), which would eventually be the basis of the Polish Legions in World War I. The Russians recognized the Polish right to autonomy and allowed formation of the Polish National Committee, which supported the Russian side; it would eventually read to the rise of the Blue Army in France.

In the meantime, Piłsudski had correctly predicted that the war would ruin all three of the partitioners, a conclusion most people thought highly unlikely before 1918. Piłsudski, in addition to his Legions, would also form the Polish Military Organization, a secret counterpart to the officially pro-Austrian Legions. PMO, clearly tasked with regaining Polish independence, would increasingly work against all three partitioners.

Piłsudski became a popular hero when Berlin jailed him for insubordination. The Allies broke the resistance of the Central Powers by autumn 1918, as the Habsburg monarchy disintegrated and the German imperial government collapsed. The Greater Poland Uprising, one of the few Polish uprisings to actually succeed, that begun around that time, marks - with its success - the end of the Polish resistance to the partitioners. In October 1918, Polish authorities took over Galicia and Cieszyn Silesia. In November 1918, Piłsudski was released from internment in Germany by the revolutionaries and returned to Warsaw. Upon his arrival, on November 11, 1918 the Regency Council of the Regency Kingdom of Poland (intended to be a German puppet state) ceded all responsibilities to him and Piłsudski took control over the newly created state as its provisional Chief of State. Soon all the local governments that had been created in the last months of the war pledged allegiance to the central government in Warsaw. Independent Poland, which had been absent from the map of Europe for 123 years, was reborn.

The newly created state initially consisted of former Congress Poland, western Galicia (with Lwów besieged by the Ukrainians) and part of Cieszyn Silesia.