Historical Calendar: May 12, 1926 – Piłsudski causes civilian war

Historical calendar: the anniversary of the beginning of the march to Warsaw by the public. As a consequence of the Piłsudski coup, 379 Poles died.

Today in our calendar we will look at the scenes of this event.

Józef Piłsudski has actively participated in the political life of the country since 1918, but was increasingly bitter about organization disputes and the inability of subsequent governments. Additionally, Dmowski's supporters constantly opposed his concepts and proposals for authoritative nominations. After the oath of president Narutovich, on 14 December 1922 he deposited the office of the Chief of State. He dealt exclusively with military affairs, being a associate of the War Council and head of the General Staff.

Seeing the melting of his influence, in the summertime of 1923 he withdrew from public life, returning to the manor home in Sulejówek. For a short period of time he focused on writing activities, but very rapidly began planning a coup. To this end, he travelled around the country and organized rallies during which he attacked further governments, especially nationalists and coalition MPs. Chjeno – Piasta. He was preparing social ground for a future military coup.

According to Louis Hass, the marshal's ally was the large National Lodge of Poland, which worked for the public, disseminating information about the request to establish strong hands. Even if that's true, Piłsudski was very ungrateful due to the fact that after the May bombing... He ordered all his subordinates to step out of the masonry.

On November 15, 1925, in Sulejówek, there was a gathering of close Piłsudski officers who made declarations of allegiance to all his future activities. In early 1926, in the face of the anticipation of another Chjeno-Piast government taking over power and hostile to Wincent Witos, it was decided to act. 1 of the conspirators – Minister of Military Affairs Lucjan Żeligowski, handed the marshal the board over respective subwarszawski military units.

On May 10, the Witos government actually arose. The fresh Prime Minister demanded Piłsudski's submission to the authorities, to which he responded by moving subordinate troops to Warsaw. He must have acted quickly, as he was told about moving towards the capital, faithful to the government of the troops from Wielkopolska. On 12 May, the gathering of president Wojciechowski with Józef Piłsudski at Poniatowski Bridge took place.

The marshal thought that he would convince a erstwhile partymate to quit bloodless, but he was mistaken. The president demanded that he abandon conspiracy plans and proposed negotiations, which were an evident timely game, calculated for the arrival of the rescue. Piłsudski was not deceived and attacked by the capital, which was commanded by General Tadeusz Rozwadowski. After 2 days of fighting in which 379 people were killed, the capital was seized and the government and the president resigned.

On May 15, Kazimierz Bartl's cabinet was established in front of Piłsudski. On May 31, the National Assembly elected the talker for President, but he did not accept the nomination, so his associate, Ignacy Mościcki, took office.

The authoritarian strategy introduced, seemingly not much different from the erstwhile democracy. Parliament operated on the same principles and no civilian liberties were restricted. In practice, however, indivisible regulation was exercised by Józef Piłsudski, who, acting officially only as Minister of Military Affairs, decided on staff matters in government and all areas of state life.

The fresh strategy of power was called sanitization, which in Latin means "healing". The leaders of the Pilsudczyk camp thought they included governments to save the state, including its moral and economical renewal. First, the alleged "New August" was introduced, expanding the President's powers at the expense of parliament.

Despite the spread of lofty slogans, the Pilsudczykowski camp proceeded to persecution of the opposition. First of all, individual enemies of Marshal Pilsudski were oppressed. Although he issued a declaration of non-extraction towards supporters of the losing party, Generals Włodzimierz Zagórski, Tadeusz Rozwadowski, Bolesław Jaźwiński and Juliusz Malczewski were arrested and another well-deserved officers specified as Józef Haller were released from the army.

Inmate commanders were charged with criminal crimes. The public was shocked and demanded their release. Jazwiński broke down during the investigation and lost his mind, and Malczewski was released from prison, but had no more to look for in the army. The worst destiny was met by generals Zagórski and Rozwadowski. The first of them disappeared under mysterious circumstances in August 1927.

He was most likely murdered by a individual order of the marshal who feared the general's cognition of his past (during planet War I, Zagórski was subject to the Austrian troops of Hauptkundschaftelle from Krakow and Lviv who led the Piłsudski agent). The second of the generals was to be gradually poisoned in prison, through deliberately soaked arsenic walls. According to another account, he was given a poison horse hair sandwich.

In any case, during his detention, Rozwadowski developed serious bowel ulceration, resulting in his death in 1928. Many years later, poisoned with arsenic was to be another opponent of the sanitation, Wojciech Korfanty. Apart from the above, social activists and publicists were persecuted. For example, the author of the celebrated anti-sanction satire "Nicodem Dyzma's career", Tadeusz Dołęga – Mostowicz, was severely beaten. Adolf Nowaczyński, on the another hand, was beaten 3 times, with the last of the attacks of “unknown perpetrators” ending in a blow of his eye.

Previous entry from our calendar is available Here..