Liberation of Kraków

On 31 October 1918 Kraków passed into Polish hands. Polish soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army and conspirators disarmed the barracks in Podgórze early in the morning, marched across the Vistula and by midday had taken control of the city centre without firing a single shot. At about half past eleven the Austrian military command concluded that it had nothing to defend itself with and handed over power. The white-and-red flag was hoisted on the town hall tower. The former Polish capital was one of the first cities that, as the Habsburg monarchy disintegrated, threw off foreign rule by their own efforts, before anyone in Vienna, Warsaw or Paris could decide their fate.

The Liquidation Commission

The monarchy was falling apart before everyone’s eyes. Emperor Karl’s manifesto of 16 October, which promised to rebuild Austria as a federation of nations, no longer held anyone back. The nations of the monarchy were forming their own national councils and taking power, and on 28 October the Czechs proclaimed in Prague the independence of their state. Polish politicians in Galicia had been preparing to do the same since the beginning of October. On 24 October representatives of the peasant party PSL “Piast”, the National Democrats and the socialists resolved that a commission must be set up without delay to liquidate Galicia’s dependence on Austria.

On 28 October more than sixty Polish deputies and politicians gathered in the Kraków city hall. The peasant leader Wincenty Witos was elected chairman, and his deputies were Aleksander Skarbek (PL), the mayor of Tarnów Tadeusz Tertil (PL), the socialist Ignacy Daszyński and Father Józef Londzin (PL) from Cieszyn Silesia. The assembly declared that the Polish lands of the former Austrian partition belonged to the Polish state and set up the Polish Liquidation Commission for Galicia and Cieszyn Silesia. It was to exercise provisional authority and hand it over to a future all-Polish government. The debates were stormy. The sharpest disputes concerned the attitude to the Regency Council in Warsaw, to which the left and the peasant party did not want to submit, and whether the Galician authorities should sit in Kraków or in Lviv. For this reason not even the membership of the commission was settled, and its duties were taken over by the presidium of the assembly.

For the time being the declaration of 28 October remained on paper. The Austrian authorities did not react, and according to Polish studies there were close to 12,000 soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army of various nationalities in the city. The leader of the Polish military conspiracy in Kraków, Colonel Bolesław Roja, a former commander of a Legions regiment, held back the order to rise, waiting for political decisions.

The night at Płaszów

On hearing of Czechoslovakia’s independence, a junior officer of the 93rd Infantry Regiment (PL), Lieutenant Antoni Stawarz (PL), decided not to wait. Since the beginning of the year he had been secretly preparing Polish soldiers for a revolt. On 30 October he gathered his men, a few officers, two infantry companies, two machine-gun platoons and several dozen civilians, and announced to them that the rising was beginning. With the help of railwaymen his detachment took the station at Płaszów without a fight. According to some accounts this happened on the evening of 30 October, according to others early the next morning. The Polish sentries pinned white-and-red cockades to their caps, and the Austrian ones were disarmed. The railwaymen sent a telegram to stations across Galicia: “Revolution in Kraków. The Polish government has taken power. Stop all transports that would leave the country; direct them to Kraków.”

The day of the coup

Early on the morning of 31 October Stawarz entered the barracks on Kalwaryjska Street in Podgórze. He was helped by Czech and Silesian soldiers who had joined the coup. He told the astonished Austrians that they were disarmed, that their commanders were no longer their commanders, and that he was taking power “by order of the Polish Government”. The promise of a safe journey home was enough for them to lay down their arms. At the same time Second Lieutenant Franciszek Pustelnik of the 56th Infantry Regiment disarmed the garrison of the barracks on Wielicka Street. The two groups, swelled by soldiers from the captured barracks, met in Podgórze’s market square and set off into the city.

At about ten the troops crossed the bridge over the Vistula and, greeted by crowds of Kraków’s inhabitants, reached the Main Market Square. Polish soldiers relieved the Austrian guard at the Town Hall Tower, the imperial standard was taken down and the Polish flag hoisted. This scene became the symbol of the city’s liberation. Alongside the Polish soldiers, members of the Polish Military Organisation, scouts and railwaymen took part in the coup.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Polish authorities were negotiating with the Austrian military commandant of Kraków, General Siegmund von Benigni. Faced with accomplished facts and the helplessness of his own troops, the general gave way. At about 11.30 a.m. Roja came out of the conference room and, as one of those present recalled, solemnly announced that the Austrian military command had surrendered. Formally, Roja took over the Austrian Military Command in Kraków on the orders of the Liquidation Commission the next day, 1 November. Some studies therefore give 31 October as the date of the transfer of power, others 1 November. By the afternoon of 31 October the Polish Liquidation Commission was already exercising power in the city.

That same day Polish soldiers disarmed the Austrian units in Tarnów, and during the night of 31 October to 1 November the National Council of the Duchy of Cieszyn (PL) took power in Cieszyn. Throughout Western Galicia the Austrians handed over their weapons with almost no resistance, since most of them now wanted only to go home.

The days that followed

Kraków liberated itself, through the efforts of local soldiers and conspirators, and Stawarz had begun the action against Roja’s orders. On 1 November Stawarz was promoted to captain, and the Regency Council in Warsaw made Roja a brigadier-general. The Liquidation Commission, however, did not submit to the regents and acted as an independent Polish authority in Galicia.

The ease with which Austrian rule collapsed in Kraków was not repeated in the eastern part of the country. During the night before 1 November Ukrainian soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army seized Lviv, which began the Polish-Ukrainian fighting for the city and Eastern Galicia. In Kraków, the site of the former Austrian barracks on Kalwaryjska Street is today called Independence Square, and every year the disarming of the Austrians is re-enacted there.