"The army must be the pupil of the nation, the army must be linked to the nation, and there must be no separatistism between it and society," said Vincent Witos in the Sejm before the Prime Minister of the National Defence in 1920. Although he was called “the Prime Minister without a tie”, his unbreakable attitude and patriotism became the foundation of the sovereign Republic.
Vincenty Witos during the speech, 1925.
Vincents Witos It was born on 21 January 1874 in the Dwójdaki shrine belonging to the Podtarnów commune of Wierzchosławice. Who could then anticipate that this peasant boy of illiterate parents, experienced proverbial Galician poverty, would someday be counted among the The Fathers of Independence.
Already as a student in a agrarian school, he showed incredible determination and industriousness – these were his only assets he could bet on in his life and proved right. In the ck army he served only the degree of canonier in the 2nd Wales Artillery Regiment in Kraków, but after his release to the reserve young Witos began a political career, which apart from individual success confirmed the awakening of the “third state” on Polish lands.
Prime Minister “without a tie”
Witos followed political levels, from his position as the mayor of Wierzchosławic, through a folk movement activist in Galicia, an MP to the Galician National Sejm, and to the Austrian State Council, leader of the Polish People's organization “Piast”, in 1918 president Polish Elimination Commission, from 1919 to 1930 MP for the Sejm of the Republic and yet from 1920 to 1921 Prime Minister of the Government of National Defence.
This was again a groundbreaking position, both for Witos himself and for the people of the Polish village. any historians even emphasize that the appointment of Vincent Witos as Prime Minister on July 24, 1920, erstwhile Red Army approaching Warsaw, was equivalent to saving Poland with the winning maneuver Józef Piłsudski.
The host from Wierzchosławic learned about his appointment working in the field at the harvest. In his memoirs he wrote, not without irony, that the adjutant who brought him a nomination from Warsaw, was very careful in his glared officers in stubble...
When the news reached the Polish village that their boy had become Prime Minister and guaranteed agricultural improvement after the victory, the attitude of the peasants to the army changed dramatically. And it was not good before 1920 – the village was reluctant to be recruited, and it was frequently welcomed as heroes and hidden from the gendarmies.
Polish-bolshevik War was the first conflict in the past of Poland in which the peasants took part in mass, knowingly fighting for their homeland. Not only did Prime Minister Witos send calls, but he drove around the country and met people – remembering how many of them are inactive illiterate.
Among another things, he said: “We do not want to take distant the wonderful lands and peoples, and we will not bring our own to destruction. We will not let Lviv and east Galicia or Silesia with Cieszyn, or Orava and Spiska Land, or the lands of Polish erstwhile Prussian business with Poznań and Gdańsk, or our east lands with Vilnius as unseparated parts of our state body.”
However, the announcement of Witos as Prime Minister was not accepted by all. The Prime Minister's office and the Sejm began to receive protests from all over the country. Their authors emphasized that the end of the planet is coming, due to the fact that “a boy without a tie” is ruled by Poland, and in the Polish Sejm there are peasant MPs.
Hard to finish
Witos did small of these disgusts and calumnies. It became hard – as was said at the time – at the office and erstwhile the experiencing moments of weakness Joseph Piłsudski resigned on August 12, 1920 from the function of the Chief of State and the Chief Leader, Witos did not uncover this fact.
The Head of the Council of Ministers took the Teka twice more – in 1923 and 1926, and then came dense years in opposition, marked by harassment, arrest, imprisonment and yet emigration to Czechoslovakia. He returned to Poland a fewer months before The outbreak of planet War II and even though he was getting sicker – he was not broken or bought both to Germany and the Soviets. He remained Polish patriot and peasant leader for the remainder of his life.
Vincenty Witos died on October 31, 1945, and the president of the Polish People's organization took over his erstwhile deputy Stanisław Mikołajczyk. The ceremony of the three-time Prime Minister of the Republic turned into a large patriotic manifestation, which was peculiarly uncomfortable for communists ruling under the name of People's Poland.
Based on: Piotr Korczyński, “Forgotten. Peasants in the Polish Army”, Kraków 2022
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