Kucharzewski government

On 26 November 1917 the Regency Council appointed the 41-year-old historian and lawyer Jan Kucharzewski to the post of president of ministers, that is, head of the government of the Kingdom of Poland. The act of appointment charged him with submitting the composition of the Council of Ministers to the regents for approval and ended with the words: “In placing the direction of the affairs of the Reborn Fatherland in your trusted hands, we ask God’s blessing on your endeavours.” Zdzisław Julian Winnicki, a historian of the Regency Council, regards this date as the taking of office by the first president of ministers appointed by the regents. The cabinet itself was formed only in December.

After the defeat over Tarnowski

Kucharzewski was not the regents’ first choice. Two days after taking power, on 29 October, the Council appointed Count Adam Tarnowski, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat who during the war had been minister in Bulgaria, as president of ministers. His candidacy was supported by circles linked to the former Provisional Council of State and by the government in Vienna. Berlin, however, did not want an experienced Austrian diplomat, a supporter of the Austro-Polish solution, at the head of the Polish government. As early as 30 October the Governor-General of Warsaw, Hans Hartwig von Beseler, informed the regents that the German government “is not in a position to agree” to this appointment.

The regents tried to defend their decision. On 8 November they wrote to Beseler that they were upholding the appointment, stressed its importance for Polish public opinion and assured him that among the Poles of the former Russian partition there was no other such personality. They even proposed that, in return, a Pole who was a German subject should become one of the ministers. On 12 November Beseler replied that Berlin maintained its position, and Vienna, which had taken no clear position itself, considered the matter closed. Winnicki points out that neither the patent of 12 September nor later acts required the occupiers’ consent to the choice of head of government. That requirement arose from the actual balance of power, not from the law.

On 14 November the Regency Council “informed” Beseler that it was appointing Jan Kucharzewski and asked him to notify the German government. The next day an identical letter went to the Austro-Hungarian Governor-General in Lublin. On 21 November Beseler wrote back that the German government “considers agreed” the appointment, and the delegate of the Austro-Hungarian foreign ministry in Warsaw, Baron Ugron, that his government “has no objection”. Five days later the Council handed Kucharzewski his appointment.

Who Kucharzewski was

He was born on 27 May 1876 in Wysokie Mazowieckie. In 1898 he graduated in law from the Imperial University of Warsaw, then did research in Berlin, and from 1906 was a barrister in Warsaw. He taught political economy in the clandestine study circles and lectured at the Society of Scientific Courses. As a historian he dealt above all with the history of Russia and Poland in the 19th century. In 1914 he published Epoka paskiewiczowska (“The Paskevich Era”). In his youth he belonged to “Zet”, and from 1905 to 1911 to the National League. In 1908 he broke with Roman Dmowski, opposing his conciliatory policy towards Russia, and began writing for the Germanophile press of Władysław Studnicki.

He spent the first years of the war in Switzerland, where from 1915 to 1917 he wrote about the Polish question in the Gazette de Lausanne. He turned down a proposal to join the pro-Russian camp and regarded the Act of 5 November as a basis for cooperation with the Central Powers. In June 1917 he returned to Warsaw and drew close to the activist League of Polish Statehood (PL). He sat on the council of the Department of Political Affairs of the Provisional Council of State, headed the higher education section of the Polish education administration, and after the regents took power became legal adviser to the Regency Council. According to some historians his candidacy was recommended by Beseler himself. For Berlin he was acceptable: a declared opponent of Russia, with no links to Vienna. For the regents his appointment meant that in the first matter in which they had wanted to show their independence, the last word had belonged to the occupier.

A government with limited powers

The scope of the future government’s powers was set by the patent of 12 September. Legislation was subject to the occupiers’ control, and foreign affairs and the army remained in their hands. For the time being the Poles administered only two areas, handed over earlier to the Provisional Council of State and its Transitional Commission. From 1 September 1917 the judiciary, whose offices bore the name “Royal Polish”, was in Polish hands, and from 1 October, in the German Government-General of Warsaw, education at all levels. In the Austro-Hungarian zone of occupation education was handed over on 1 November. The other branches of administration, such as the treasury, internal affairs and food supply, still had to be negotiated with both occupation administrations.

Kucharzewski presented his list of ministers to the regents in December. According to Winnicki the Council approved it on 7 December, while the press of the time and some studies give 13 December, when the ministers received their letters of appointment. The government’s first meeting took place on 11 December. The cabinet included, among others, Józef Mikułowski-Pomorski (agriculture and crown estates), Antoni Ponikowski (religious denominations and public enlightenment), Jan Kanty Steczkowski (treasury), Jan Stecki (internal affairs) and Stanisław Bukowiecki (justice). There were no ministers of foreign affairs or of military affairs. The government regarded as its most urgent tasks the building of a Polish army, the takeover of further branches of administration and saving the population from hunger. It lasted less than three months. In February 1918 it resigned in protest against the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, in which the Central Powers promised the Chełm Land to Ukraine.