Decree establishing the Provisional Council of State

On 6 December 1916 the official journals of both occupation governorates, the German one in Warsaw and the Austro-Hungarian one in Lublin, published the ordinance “on the provisional Council of State in the Kingdom of Poland”. It was signed “by Supreme command” of the two emperors by the governors-general Hans Hartwig von Beseler and Karl Kuk. The document is dated 26 November 1916, which is why that date appears in some works. In accordance with its last paragraph, however, it acquired legal force only on the day of publication, that is, 6 December. It was the first concrete step after the Act of 5 November, in which the emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary had announced the creation of a Kingdom of Poland.

Composition

The ordinance established in Warsaw the Provisional Council of State, which was to function “until the establishment of a Council of State in the Kingdom of Poland on the basis of an electoral procedure”. The electoral law was deferred to a “separate agreement” between the two occupiers. The Council was to have 25 members, people “acquainted with the wishes and interests of the nation”, representing all the lands and professional circles of both governorates: 15 from the German area and 10 from the Austro-Hungarian one. No one elected them. They were appointed by a joint rescript of the two governors-general, and each of them sent to the Council a government commissioner with two deputies, who had to be heard at any time. The Council was itself to elect a chairman with the title of Crown Marshal and his deputy, adopt its rules of procedure and choose an executive department. Its official language was Polish, and its sittings were to be secret.

Powers

The Council’s authority was modest. It was to give opinions on legislative matters, but only when the occupation authorities turned to it. It was to prepare draft regulations on a joint representation of the two occupation zones of the Kingdom and a plan for a Polish state administration. It could submit its own motions on domestic matters and vote expenditure on repairing war damage and reviving the economy, from credits granted by the occupiers or from surcharges on taxes and from loans, but its resolutions came into force only by ordinance of the administration whose area they concerned. On the army, the ordinance said only that the Council was “to co-operate in the creation of a Polish army” with the supreme military commander of the allied powers. Command over the Polish army remained in Beseler’s hands.

The Poles and the Council

The ordinance confronted the Poles with a difficult choice. The Council offered the chance of a nucleus of a Polish government and a Polish administration, but taking part in it could easily be regarded as collaboration with the occupier. The passivists (PL), grouped in the Inter-Party Political Circle (PL) and counting on an Entente victory, wanted nothing to do with it. Only representatives of the activists (PL) therefore joined the Council, which deprived it of representativeness. The fundamental dispute concerned the army. Since the appeal of 9 November the occupiers had been waiting for Polish volunteers, and the Poles replied that without a Polish government there would be no Polish army.

The key was the position of Józef Piłsudski, who was no longer in the Legions. On 12 December he came to Warsaw, where he was given a ceremonial welcome at the Vienna Station (PL). After talks, among others with the president of Warsaw, Prince Zdzisław Lubomirski, he agreed to join the Council. He hoped in this way to gain influence over the building of a Polish army and not to leave it entirely in German hands.

The first sitting

The members of the Council were appointed only in January. On 14 January 1917, at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the governors-general handed them their letters of appointment. Wacław Niemojowski (PL), a landowner from the Kalisz region, was elected Crown Marshal. Piłsudski joined the executive department as head of military affairs and took charge of the Military Commission (PL), because the occupiers did not agree to the creation of a military department. The Council lasted only until August 1917. It fell apart during the oath crisis, when the legionaries, at Piłsudski’s call, refused to swear an oath of brotherhood in arms with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Despite its modest powers, it nevertheless allowed the Poles officially to prepare plans for the future state authorities, including a draft constitution, adopted by its commission in July 1917.