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"You are our companion in arms until the fall of Tsarism, but after that you will turn your back on us."
All his life walrus-mustached Josef Pilsudski was faithful to but one ideal, the strength and independence of Poland. With the collapse of Germany, Austria and Russia in 1917-18, he turned promptly to France for assistance against the Bolsheviks. In this he was helped mightily by lion-maned Pianist Paderewski who won the sympathy of Woodrow Wilson and other Allied leaders. In 1920 when Marshal Pilsudski was at war with Russia in an attempt to drive Soviet troops from East Galicia, and found his troops beaten at every turn, it was the French military mission, and in particular Marshal Foch's favorite, dapper little General Maxime Weygand, that turned the Bolsheviks from the gates of Warsaw in one of the decisive battles of modern times. Later in Warsaw he became intimate with two men destined to go far, Relief Administrator Herbert Hoover, and Mgr. Achille Ratti, who became Pope of Rome in 1922.
All his life Josef Pilsudski thought like a soldier. The constant bickering of Poland's Sejm (Parliament), which at one time contained at least 22 different parties, first amazed, then disgusted him. In May 1926 he headed a coup d'etat that raked the streets of Warsaw with gunfire for two days, kicked out the Government, and set up as President of Poland a kindly unworldly scientist who had been a good friend of the old Marshal's since their meeting in London in 1902: Ignatz Moscicki. Josef Pilsudski was content to become Premier, Minister of War and Inspector General of the Army. The last two posts he held until his death last week.
The Colonels. No sooner did news of the end flash to the world last week than headlines blossomed with potent questions. Who would succeed the old Marshal? He had been friendly to Germany, would Poland now swing back to France? Would Adolf Hitler seize on the next few months of indecision for a desperate try to regain the Polish Corridor? Would Pianist Ignace Paderewski come out of political oblivion? Would Foreign Minister Josef Beck be next Dictator of Poland? It was far too soon for any man to know the answer to any of these but one thing was certain. For the next few months at least Poland will be run by the same little group of old campaign cronies who used to meet night after night at the swank Cafe Europejska for champagne and unofficial Cabinet meetings, the "Pilsudski Colonels."
When the Army alone knew that the brave old walrus was dying three weeks ago, Poland's famed Colonels' Clique suddenly brought forward the new Constitution on which they had been working for five years and had it formally signed. Thus last week gentle President Moscicki, a brilliant scientist but an uncertain politician, found himself with enormous paper powers. He has absolute veto over Parliament, he can take command of the Army and Navy, and dismiss Parliament by decree.