In the late spring of 1916, the Russian army launched its last offensive to turn the tide of the war, which Russia was losing. On a three hundred kilometre front from Polesie to Bukovina, the Tsar's state amassed a powerful force and struck westwards in a bid to regain the lost lands of the Congress Kingdom.

Poles endured

Three brigades of the Legions took up position in Volhynia between the villages of Kostiuchnowka and Optow, with the First and Third Brigades in the front line and the Second Brigade in reserve. The Polish Legionnaires were part of a larger grouping of the Austro-Hungarian Army and had Hungarian units on both wings. The legions numbered over seven thousand infantry and eight hundred lancers, and had forty guns at their disposal. Opposing them was a corps of thirty thousand Russian troops with one hundred and twenty guns.

On 4 July 1916, the shelling of Polish and Hungarian positions began at dawn. After several hours of artillery preparation, whose effectiveness was assured by observation of the battlefield from Russian balloons, a series of attacks followed. The Poles endured; before nightfall, the Hungarians withdrew from the right wing and the Legions were in danger of being encircled. It was repulsed in night attacks on the Russian infantry.

SIGN UP TO OUR PAGE The next day, after a massive shelling, the Russians launched further attacks. Confident that their fire would break down the Polish defences, they brought cavalry onto the battlefield, something one does not do against an enemy dug in and capable of dense fire. The cavalry paid dearly for this error of Russian command. The attack collapsed in the face of huge losses. The infantry also suffered; the field in front of the Polish lines was densely covered with enemy corpses. However, after the collapse of the Hungarian defence on the Polish left wing, the threat of encirclement once again hung over the Legions.

The position was held, but on the afternoon of 6 July the order came to withdraw to the line of the Stochód River. The legions executed the manoeuvre in perfect order - not a single battalion was broken, not a single cannon was lost.

Tactically the Russians won, but strategically they lost. They failed to break the front at Kostiuchnowka and move out to the rear of the Austro-Hungarian front. Further fighting took on a positional character and the last Russian offensive on the entire eastern front stalled for a long time, or rather final, as the Russians later had to retreat.

Kostiuchnówka was the bloodiest battle of the Polish Legions. 2,000 soldiers were killed or wounded. The 1st Brigade of the Legions under Jozef Pilsudski fought the heaviest battles, with the 5th infantry regiment of the 1st Brigade losing 50% of its manning.

The Grand Duchy must be made

The Battle of Kostiuchnówka was important for the stabilisation of the Central Powers' front, but for Poland it had much more important, far-reaching political consequences. Already the fighting attitude of the Poles in this area in the autumn of 1915, when they had to fight their way into positions later defended, drew the attention of the Germans, the battle itself even more so. General Erich von Ludendorff wrote from the General Staff of the German army to the authorities in Berlin: "Still pigheadedness at the Austrians [...]. My gaze turns again to Poland. The Pole is a good soldier. When Austria fails, we must try to find new forces [...]. We must make a Grand Duchy of Poland with Warsaw and Lublin, and then a Polish army under German command."

After initial successes, the Germans were stuck for a long time on the Western Front, nor could they hope for a quick victory in the East. The German army needed fresh recruits, and Point IV of the Hague Convention forbade the introduction of conscription in occupied foreign territories. The Kingdom of Poland was divided between Germany and Austria-Hungary, into General Governorates with their capitals in Warsaw and Lublin. Conscription in the Governorates was impossible, but volunteers were another matter.

Both commands, German and Austro-Hungarian, realised the value of the Polish soldier and, after the Battle of Kostiuchnowka, his discipline and the good organisation of the Polish units. In and after the battle, the Poles showed courage - something the Germans were already accustomed to - but also a high ability to co-operate with other forces at the front. In German officer circles, the Poles had a better reputation than the multinational Austro-Hungarian army.

At the German initiative, representatives of both states met in Pszczyna, which resulted in the so-called Act of 5 November being issued by Governor-General Hans Hartwig von Beseler and his Austrian counterpart Karl Kuk, announcing the creation of an 'independent' Polish state with an undesignated monarch and unspecified borders, and announcing the formation of a Polish army.

The recruitment capacity of the Kingdom of Poland was estimated by the Central Powers at around one million soldiers. As early as 9 November, Governor von Beseler posted calls in Warsaw for people to join the newly-formed Polish army, which made it abundantly clear to passers-by what the aims of the Act of 5 November were.

Catching a recruit

At the very beginning of the war, in August 1914, the commander of the tsarist army, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, issued a proclamation that read:

"A century and a half ago Poland's living body was torn to pieces, but her soul did not die. It lived in the hope that the hour of resurrection would come for the Polish Nation and for fraternal reconciliation with Great Russia. The Russian army brings you the blissful news of this reconciliation. May the borders cutting the Polish Nation into pieces be dissolved. May the Polish Nation unite into one body under the sceptre of the Russian Emperor. Under this sceptre Poland will be reborn, free in her faith, language and self-government."

Someone had torn Poland to pieces, which the author of the proclamation seems to have generally deplored, but all would be fine now, of course, under the sceptre of the Russian Tsar. The proclamation was not signed by Nicholas II because, it was explained to him, as emperor he could only address his subjects and not Poles from all the partitions. It was a different matter for the commander of the army that would liberate the former Polish lands.

Everyone wanted to catch recruits not on their own territory, because they could call on their own, and they were counting on uprisings in the enemy's rear. Germany and Austria also issued their proclamations to the Poles early in the war. Both concerned Congress Poland (the Kingdom of Poland), which was to be annexed to a greater or lesser extent to the Prussian partition or to Galicia, i.e. both manifestos maintained the partitions, as the allies would not take back their former acquisitions from each other.

Only Russia promised to consolidate the former Polish lands into a single organism. How far-reaching self-government was thought of in St. Petersburg the Poles - fortunately for them - never found out.

Ignorance did not hinder hope - the good reception of Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich's proclamation was widespread. Enthusiasts from the aristocracy sent the prince money for war purposes, one even a hundred thousand roubles for the care of the wounded.

The crackle of closing shutters in Kielce that greeted the 1st Cadre Company in the Kingdom of Poland on 12 August 1914 spoke volumes about the mood in the Congress Kingdom. The first soldiers from Józef Piłsudski's Polish Legions, which were being formed, were planning to break through to Warsaw in order to trigger an uprising. However, they returned to the Austrian partition in the face of their inability to complete the task.

In Warsaw, Russian troops departing for the front were greeted with flowers and wished them, or 'ours', victory. Strong anti-German sentiment must have been influenced by the Kulturkampf in the Prussian partition, an order symbolised by Drzymała's cart and the children of Września. Warsaw, living in the shadow of the citadel and other forts and the domes of the gigantic Orthodox church on Saski Square, seemed at the beginning of the Great War a model of loyalty. Half a century has passed since the January Uprising.

In the summer of 1915, the Russians left Warsaw and blew up all the bridges behind them. They took away factory equipment and everything that could be taken. Throughout the Kingdom of Poland, what they did not take, they destroyed so that it would not be of use to the enemy. There were also forced resettlements of the population deep into the empire. The Russians parted with the capital itself, making three thousand farewell arrests. Those imprisoned and deported had to wait for freedom until the revolution.

The Promises of Their Imperial Majesties

The Act of 5th November had already encountered a very different mood in the Kingdom. The street was indifferent, but the elites more sympathetic. The word autonomous, referring to the future Polish state, was commonly read as 'independent'. However, distance prevailed. The few enthusiasts had to run well to attract the right number of personalities to the Royal Castle. They had to be at Archbishop Kakowski's twice, but still did not get the Te Deum in the churches. At the castle in Warsaw, a German military orchestra played "God Save Poland" after the Act was proclaimed. The Austrian one, at the castle in Lublin, played the Dabrowski’s Mazurka.

Both governors read out a unanimous act in Warsaw and Lublin before the assembled notables:

"Moved by an unshakeable confidence in the final victory of their arms, and motivated by a wish that the Polish lands, which had been torn away from Russian rule by their brave troops, should be restored to a happy future, His Imperial Majesty the German Emperor, His Imperial and Royal Highness the Emperor of Austria and the Apostolic King of Hungary have decided to establish from these lands an independent state with a hereditary monarchy and a constitutional government. The exact borders of the Kingdom of Poland are reserved. The new kingdom will find in its liaison with the two allied powers the necessary guarantee for the free development of its forces. In its own army, the glorious traditions of the Polish armies of former times and the memory of brave Polish comrades-in-arms in the great war of the present day will continue to live on. Its organisation, training and leadership will be regulated by common agreement.

The Allied Monarchs, with due regard for the general political conditions in Europe, as well as for the welfare and security of their own countries and peoples, have an unshakeable hope that the wishes for the state and national development of the Polish Kingdom will now be fulfilled. In turn, the great powers neighbouring the Kingdom of Poland to the west will be delighted to see, on their eastern borders, the resurrection and flourishing of a free, happy state enjoying a national life of its own.".

The content was clear - they would give a state, but one created from the Russian partition. Maybe not only Congress Poland, but also the Taken Lands, if the armies of the two emperors got there. The diaries say that some people were touched - this was more than the proclamation of Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich and the German and Austrian generalities at the beginning of the war. The same diaries tell of inscriptions on the walls of Warsaw: "There is no Poland without Poznan, Gdansk and Krakow", which the German occupiers ordered the caretakers to remove immediately.

The wisdom of the stage, though the concept was not yet known, dictated that one should take what one was given, and then we shall see. A Provisional Council of State was set up, as an advisory collegiate body to the German authorities, and joined by the founder of the Legions, Józef Piłsudski, who had come from Kraków. When the Commandant arrived in Warsaw on 12th December 1916, an enthusiastic crowd unhitched the horses from the carriage carrying him from the railway station to the hotel, which certainly did not please Hans von Beseler.

From the Provisional Council of State emerged the Regency Council, as the executive body, and it in turn formed three successive governments and on 7 October 1918 proclaimed Poland's independence in quite different political circumstances, without asking the opinion of the governors: the German, Hans Hartwig von Beseler, and the Austrian, Karl Kuk - Germany had lost the war in the West, and Austria, for various reasons, had already meant little on its own for some time.

Further events unfolded rapidly and are generally known. The day before the Central Powers' capitulation on the Western Front, Józef Piłsudski arrived in Warsaw again, with the Regency Council handing over military (and later civilian) power to him the following day, i.e. 11th November 1918. Piłsudski was released from more than a year's internment in Magdeburg as a result of the Oath Crisis - the refusal of the First and Third Brigades of the Legions to take the military oath to Emperor Wilhelm II.

Spirit of the 5th November Act

The Oath Crisis showed that the intentions of the authors of the 5th November Act were not entirely consistent with its letter. They could not have been, given that already on 9 November 1916, a speech by the Imperial Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, to a committee of the Reichstag, reflecting the state of consciousness of those ruling Germany, was recorded in Berlin:

"For the sake of the eastern campaign, we had to decide on a political game. The proclamation of Poland will assure us of the submission of the Poles, will fill the chinks in our regiments, will allow us to introduce new taxes, and will finally empower us to rule this country. For we alone will rule the Poland created, no other form can even be thought of. The territories to the east are natural sites for future colonisation, which, with God's help, we must succeed in doing."

In international politics, no one ever gives anything for free to anyone - not on 5 November 1916, not ever. If it even looks like it is giving, there must be a catch somewhere. Here, the real reason for Germany's generosity was the concept of Mitteleuropa, present in political thinking in Berlin and Vienna since the mid-19th century. Between French recklessness, British (later joined by the USA) perfidy and eastern, Russian barbarism there is a middle ground (Mitte), and here Germany must reign.

The more flexible German imperialists wanted to break with Bismarck-style brutal Germanisation as ineffective. Germany's organisational attractiveness was itself to lure Central European countries, which in their own interests should be subject to German influence and control. On countries such as Poland - independent, of course - Germany would by various methods impose barriers to development in order to be its market and hinterland.

These ideas, which Kaiser Wilhelm II probably did not grow up to and his Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg was still expressing in Bismarckian terms, were laid out in Friedrich Naumann's book "Mitteleuropa", published in 1915 and sold a hundred thousand copies. The administrative and military elite of the German empire read it and discussed it, but did not manage to make use of it.

After the days of Nazism and communism, the ideas of Naumann, pastor and politician, seem to be gaining currency and coming to fruition effectively in practice. A network of German foundations, some even affiliated with political parties in Germany - such as the Naumann Foundation of the FDP - governs the thinking of the elites in Mitteleuropa, while the influence and control in the economies and at the same time the barriers to development are taken care of by the EU bureaucratic apparatus.

The spirit, because it is not the letter, of the Act of 5th November has the opportunity to be realised in an unexpectedly wide range. This could only have occurred to Hans von Beseler, who is said to have been a reader of Naumann.

– Krzysztof Zwoliński
-Translated by Tomasz Krzyżanowski

TVP WEEKLY. Editorial team and jornalists