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Paderewski, Polish Politics, and the Battle of Warsaw, 1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

M. B. Biskupski
M. B. Biskupski*
Affiliation:
St. John Fisher College
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Extract

In 1920 the Polish army defeated the Bolsheviks before the gates of Warsaw. The Polish victory preserved the independence of the reborn state, delayed Russian expansion for a generation, and left to historians a number of controversial issues. Certainly the most passionately debated aspect of the war is the authorship of the Polish victory. Gradually western scholarship has come to credit the laurels to Poland's Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, but there are still those who emphasize the role of other Polish soldiers or of the Frenchman, General Maxime Weygand. From the midst of this historiographical controversy, we may discern the dim outlines of a simultaneous, yet obscured episode: the aborted political comeback of Ignacy Jan Paderewski. It is the purpose of this essay to reconstruct the latter against the background of the former.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 46 , Issue 3-4 , Fall/Winter 1987 , pp. 503 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1987

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References

1. Jędrzej Giertych is partial to General Tadeusz Rozwadowski (whose role in the battle wasindeed considerable); see his Rozwazania o bitwie warszawskiej 1920-go roku (London, 1984); compare von Jena, Kai, Polnische Ostpolitik nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg: Das Problem der Beziehungen zu Sowjetrussland nach dem Rigaer Frieden von 1921, (Stuttgart, 1980), pp. 29–30, n. 90CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The latest “Weygand” version of the battle is to be found in “La guerre polono-sovietique de 1919–1920. Collogue organise par le Laboratoire de Slavislique. Paris—4 mai 1973 (Paris, 1975) notably the comments by P. Le Goyet, pp. 16–31, 40, 48. Weygand himself, however, repeatedly denied credit for the victory; see, for example, K. A. Jeleński, “Wywiad z gen. Weygandem,” Kultura (June 1953), pp. 84–85.

2. S. Wandycz, Piotr, “General Weygand and the Battle of Warsaw of 1920,” Journal of Central European Affairs 19, no. 4 (1960): 357.Google Scholar

3. Giertych, Rozważania o bitwie warszawskiej, p. 251.

4. Piszczkowski, Tadeusz, Obudowanie Polski 1914–1921: Historia i polityka (London, 1969), pp. 278–279 Google Scholar.

5. Zamoyski, Adam, Paderewski (New York, 1982), pp. 209–210 Google Scholar; Zofia Sywak, “Igancy JanPaderewski, Prime Minister of Poland, 6 January to 9 December 1919” (Ph.D. diss., St. John's University, 1975), pp. 368, 382.

6. Sywak, “Paderewski,” p. 383. Paderewski specifically told his supporters among Polonia in the United States that he was “no exile” and intended to resume a political role; see [Franciszek Putaski] to Polish National Department, 8 April 1920, Archives of the Polish National Department[Archiwum Wydzialu Narodowego], Polish Museum of America, Chicago, file 16, document 12, 411.

7. Paczkowski, Andrzej, Prasa polska w latach 1918–1939 (Warsaw, 1980), p. 41 Google Scholar; Sywak, “Paderewski,” p. 383.

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10. Ibid., p. 559.

11. Ignacy Paderewski to Wladyslaw Grabski, [16 July] 1920; Grabksi to Paderewski, [18] July1920, in Janowska, Halina et al., eds., Archiwum polityczne Ignacego Paderewskiego, 4 vols. (Wroclaw, 1973–1974) 2: 427 Google Scholar. [Hereafter cited as APIP.]

12. Sylwin Strakacz to Jan F. Smulski, 17 September 1920, APIP, 2: 493–495. Paderewski wasreferred to as “president” because as premier he had been president of the Council of Ministers.

13. Erazm Piltz to Władysław Grabski, 15 July 1920, Akta Władysława Grabskiego, Archiwum Akt Nowych, [AAN], Warsaw, folder 9.

14. Strakacz to Smulski, 17 September 1920, APIP, 2.

15. Weygand, Maxime, Memoires: Mirages et realité (Paris, 1957), pp. 91–92 Google Scholar; Roskill, Stephen, Hankey: Man of Secrets, Volume 2, 1919–1931 (London, 1972), p. 181 Google Scholar; Ullman, Richard H., The Anglo-Soviet Accord (Princeton, N.J., 1972), p. 161 Google Scholar.

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17. Roskill, Hankey, 182.

18. Viscount D'Abernon, The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World: Warsaw, 1920 (London, 1931), pp. 18, 20; Davies, “Hankey,” p. 555.

19. Kukulka, Józef, Francja a Polska po traktatcie wersalskim 1919–1922 (Warsaw, 1970), 213.Google Scholar

20. Stefan Dąbrowski to Paderewski, 18 July 1920, APIP 2: 429–431.

21. Piltz to Paderewski, 12 August 1920, APIP 2: 457; Davies, “Hankey,” p. 555.

22. Dąbrowski to Paderewski, 29 August 1920, APIP 2: 460–463; Wandycz, “Weygand,” p. 363.The government even temporarily suspended publication of Rzeczpospolita in July; see Paczkowski, Prasa polska, p. 42.

23. Wandycz, Piotr S.. France and her Eastern Allies, 1919–1925: French-Czechoslovak-Polish Relations from the Paris Peace Conference to Locarno (Minneapolis, 1962), p. 174 Google Scholar.

24. Dąbrowski to Paderewski, 29 August 1920, APIP 2: 461. Regarding the historio graphical controversy surrounding Piłsudski's role in the battle, see Wandycz, “Weygand,” esp. p. 362.

25. Paderewski to Weygand [1920], I. J. Paderewski Papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Calif., box 2, folder 26.

26. The further quotation is from the longer version of this telegram, providing the date of 27August in Jacques Weygand, Weygand: Mon Père (Paris, 1970), p. 183.

27. Paderewski to Marshal Foch, Paderewski Papers, box. 2, folder 25.

28. “House sees Problem in Polish Victories,” Philadelphia Public Ledger, 30 August 1920

29. The Diary of Edward M. House, entry for 28 August 1920, vol. 17, p. 86, Edward M. House Papers, Yale University, Sterling Library, New Haven, Conn.

30. House, diary entries for 25 June, 12 July, 26 July, 30 July; and 28 August (1920) 17: 53, 59, 61, 73–74, 74–75, and 87 in House Papers.

31. M. B. Biskupski, “The United States and the Rebirth of Poland, 1914–1918” 2 vols. (Ph.D.diss., Yale University, 1981).

32. This attitude would have the concomitant of criticizing the Pilsudski government's foreign policy. House would write to Charles Seymour on 12 September 1922: “If Poland had followed Paderewski, his country would have been free from intrigues, and upon good relations with its two great neighbors, Russia and Germany” (House Papers, folder 3, 447).

33. Diary entry for 28 August, House Papers 17: 87.

34. Auchincloss to House, 9 August 1920, House Papers, folder 213; House to Auchincloss, 27August 1920, House Papers.

35. Pienkos, Donald E., PNA: A Centennial History of the Polish National Alliance of the United States of North America, (Boulder, Colo., 1984), 107ffGoogle Scholar.

36. Strakacz to Smulski, 17 September 1920, APIP, 2.

37. For the pro-Pilsudski minority within Polonia see Frančić, Miroslaw, Komilet Obrony Naródowej, W Ameryce 1912–1918 (Wrocław, 1983)Google Scholar. For Paderewski see Biskupski, , “Paderewski asLeader of American Polonia, 1914–1918,” Polish American Studies 43, no. 1 (1986).Google Scholar

38. N. L. Piotrowski to Konstanty Buszczyński, 4 August 1920, Archiwum Paderewskiego, AAN, folder 996.

39. Konstanty Buszczyński to Leon Orlowski, 12 March 1920, Korespondencja Leona Ortowskiego 23, Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw.

40. Dąbrowski to Paderewski, 15 September 1920, Archiwum Paderewskiego, AAN, folder 791.

41. Hugh Gibson to secretary of state, 5 October 1920, Record Group 59, United States National Archives [USNA], Washington, D.C., 860c. 00/72.

42. Paderewski had used this strategy during World War I; see Biskupski, “America and the Rebirth” 2: 71 Iff.

43. Drozdowski, Marian Marek, Ignacy Jan Paderewski: Zarys biografii politycznej (Warsaw, 1979), 177 Google Scholar.

44. Piotrowski to Buszczyński, 4 August 1920; Smulski to Paderewski, 24 August 1920, Archiwum Paderewskiego, AAN, folder 996; Wactaw Sieroszewski to Józef Piłsudski, 6 July 1920, AAN;Niepodlegloąć 7 (1962): 270–271.

45. Paweł Kleczkowski to Paderewski, 24 November 1920; Paderewski to Józef Teodorowicz, 2 February 1921, APIP 2: 573–574 626–627.

46. Paderewski to Smulski, January 1921, Archiwum Paderewskiego, AAN, folder 996.

47. Józef Orłowski to Paderewski [with enclosure], 16 March 1921, APIP 2: 633–636.

48. Smulski to Paderewski, 19 May 1921, Archiwum Padereskiego, AAN, folder 2, 314.

49. House admitted as much to Polish diplomats, see “Konferencja z pulkownikiem House” [unsigned dispatch to Warsaw from the Polish mission at the Hague], 12 August 1920, AmbasadaR. P. w Waszyngtonie, AAN, folder 2, 305. Smulski's efforts with House, carried out doubtless withPaderewski's knowledge if not at his direction, were also fruitless; see Smulski to House, 22 July1920, and House to Smulski, 23 July 1920, House Papers, folder 8, 535.

50. After November 1919, House “never offered any [advice] to Wilson again,” George, Alexander L. and George, Juliette L., Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study (New York, 1956), p. 1956 Google Scholar.

51. Drozdowski, Paderewski, p. 171; Smith, Daniel M., Aftermath of War: Bainbridge Colby and Wilsonian Diplomacy, 1920–1921 (Philadelphia, 1970), p. 61 Google Scholar.

52. Kazimierz Lubomirski to Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 27 August 1920; Michal Lozinski to Hipolit Gliwic, 13 September 1920, Ambasada R. P. w Waszyngtonie, AAN, folder 226, and Eustachy Sapieha to Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 8 August 1920, Ambasada R. P. wLondynie, AAN, folder 98. For a discussion of this phenomenon see M. B. Biskupski, “'Kosciuszko, We Are Here?': American Volunteers for Poland and the Polish-Russian War, 1918–1920” in Pastor of the Poles: Polish American Essays, ed., Stanislaus A. Blejwas and Mieczysław B. Biskupski (New Britain, Conn., 1982).

53. Gibson to secretary of state, 5 October 1920, RG 59, USNA, 860c. 00/72.

54. Paderewski to Lubomirski, 27 April 1921, Ambasada R. P. w Waszyngtonie, AAN, folder 228.

55. Compare the perceptive remarks in Czesław Ŝwirski, “Wyjaśnienia,” Zeszyty Historyczne 7 (1965): 228.

56. Krzywobłocka, BoŻena, Chadecja, 1918–1937 (Warsaw, 1974), pp. 57–58 Google Scholar.

57. Wandycz, France and her Eastern Allies, p. 174.

58. Roman Wapiński, “Endecka koncepcja polityki wschodniej w latach II Rzeczypospolitej,” Studia z Dziejów ZSRR i Europy Ŝrodkowej 5 (1969): 76–77; Mordacq, General H., Les Légendes de la Grande Guerre (Paris, 1935), pp. 244–245 Google Scholar.

59. See, for example, Hankey's diary entry for 18 September 1920 as quoted in Roskill, Hankey, pp. 186–187 and Viscount D'Abernon, An Ambassador of Peace: Pages from the Diary of Viscount D'Abernon (Berlin, 1920–1926. Volume I: From Spa to Rapallo 1922) (London, 1929), p. 47 Google Scholar. For theultimate Weygand version of the battle, see Weygand, Mon pere, p. 180 and passim.