Provisional Council of State

The Council was created by a decree of the Governors-General in Warsaw and Lublin published on 6 December 1916. It had 25 members appointed by the occupiers, 15 from the German zone and 10 from the Austro-Hungarian one. It opened on 14 January 1917 in the Royal Castle in Warsaw, with Wacław Niemojowski as its Marshal. It could only give opinions on matters put to it by the occupiers and draft plans for future Polish institutions. Only activists sat on it; the passivists, who were counting on the Entente, boycotted it.

Its most important member was Józef Piłsudski, head of its Military Commission. The dispute over who should control a Polish army led to his resignation on 2 July 1917 and to the oath crisis. At the end of August the members resigned their seats, and the Council's business passed to a Transitional Commission and then to the Regency Council. For all its limited powers, it was the first official Polish body in the Kingdom for decades.