Piłsudski's notification

On 16 November 1918 Józef Piłsudski signed in Warsaw a telegram (PL) in which, as “commander-in-chief of the Polish army”, he notified the world of the existence of an independent Polish state. It was addressed to the President of the United States, the governments of Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, “the government of the German Republic” and the governments of “all belligerent and neutral states”. The telegram was sent by radio, then called “spark” telegraphy, from the station in the Warsaw Citadel, which the Poles had taken over from the Germans a few days earlier together with its Telefunken equipment.

Piłsudski had commanded the army since 11 November, and since 14 November, after the dissolution of the Regency Council, he had held all supreme authority. The country, however, still had neither a government nor borders, and the Entente powers, which had just won the war, did not know who was governing in Warsaw. The telegram was meant to announce the existence of the state before others began to decide Poland’s fate.

The text was short. Piłsudski wished “to notify the belligerent and neutral governments and nations of the existence of an independent Polish state, embracing all the lands of united Poland”. He wrote that the yoke of occupation had until then prevented the Poles from freely expressing themselves about their fate, and that thanks to “the brilliant victories of the Allied armies” the restoration of Poland’s independence and sovereignty was becoming an accomplished fact. The Polish state was arising from the will of the whole nation, rested on democratic foundations and would replace the rule of force, which had weighed on Poland for a hundred and forty years, with a system built on order and justice. In a sentence aimed chiefly at the Germans and the Bolsheviks, Piłsudski expressed the hope that, relying on the army under his command, no foreign army would henceforth enter Poland before the Poles had expressed their formal will on the matter. He ended with the conviction that “the mighty democracies of the West” would give their help and fraternal support to “the reborn and independent Polish Republic”. The telegram was countersigned by Tytus Filipowicz as head of foreign affairs. On 18 November it was printed in the Monitor Polski.

No replies came from the West. The Entente regarded the Polish National Committee of Roman Dmowski in Paris, which already had the recognition of the powers and its own army in France, as Poland’s representative, and it treated Piłsudski, a former ally of the Central Powers, and the socialist ministers in Warsaw with mistrust. The only power that replied quickly was Germany. A few days later Count Harry Kessler, the same man who at the beginning of November had brought Piłsudski from Magdeburg to Berlin, came to Warsaw as its envoy. Relations with Berlin were broken off as early as December, however. Western recognition came only after Piłsudski’s agreement with the Committee and the formation of Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s government: the United States recognised the Polish government on 22 January 1919, and the European powers in the following weeks.

The telegram of 16 November is regarded as the first act of Polish diplomacy in the reborn state. Since 2009 the anniversary of its dispatch has been Foreign Service Day (PL) in Poland.