Polish Military Organisation founded

On 22 October 1914 in Warsaw, Second Lieutenant Tadeusz Żuliński, the envoy of Józef Piłsudski, took command of the riflemen’s underground that had been active since August and gave it the name Polish Military Organisation (POW). This date is taken as the beginning of the POW, an organisation that for the next four years was Piłsudski’s base in the Russian partition and in November 1918 became one of the main forces taking power from the occupiers.

Riflemen cut off from Kraków

Before the war two secret organisations in Warsaw gave young people military training with a view to fighting Russia. The Polish Rifle Squads had about 400 members and the Union of Active Struggle, linked to Piłsudski, about 300. When war broke out, their people found themselves on the Russian side of the front, cut off from their Galician commands. On 6 August the First Cadre Company set out from Kraków into the Kingdom, but the rising against Russia that Piłsudski had counted on did not happen, and the Polish Legions fought under Austro-Hungarian command.

In early August Karol Rybasiewicz (PL) of the Rifle Squads and Adam Koc of the Union of Active Struggle came from Galicia to Warsaw. According to the Polish Wikipedia, the two organisations merged on 10 August. The new body, at first without a name and also called the Polish Military Union, was headed by Rybasiewicz, with Koc as his deputy. It recognised Piłsudski’s authority and expected orders from him. It trained its members, collected weapons and gathered intelligence. In October, when the Germans approached the city during the Battle of Warsaw and Dęblin, it prepared to act in case they took it.

Żuliński’s command

Piłsudski backed the Warsaw initiative and in mid-October sent his emissary and new commander to Warsaw. This was Żuliński, a physician from Lviv and a second lieutenant of the 1st Infantry Regiment of the Legions, known in the underground as “Roman Barski”. On 22 October he took command and gave the organisation its name. Over time its Command included, among others, Rybasiewicz, Koc, Konrad Libicki, Bogusław Miedziński (PL) and Wacław Jędrzejewicz. The Command was subordinate to Piłsudski.

Following his guidelines, Żuliński wrote the “Declaration of the POW”, the organisation’s most important programme document. It stated that “the aim of the POW is to win the independence of Poland by armed struggle”. It named Russia as the main enemy, but stressed that the anti-Russian front was temporary, which did not rule out fighting the other partitioning powers in future. The POW was to be above party, bringing together people of different convictions, and answerable only to a future National Government.

Intelligence and sabotage

The organisation operated only in the lands held by the Russians. These were divided into districts with commands in Warsaw, Lublin, Radom, Siedlce and Płock, and by the end of 1914 cells had also been set up in Petrograd and Kiev. Members received military training and gathered information on Russian troop movements. For armed actions the Flying Detachment of the Polish Forces (PL) was formed, directly under Żuliński, which behind the Russian lines destroyed railway tracks, bridges and telephone lines and raided Russian offices.

Militarily the POW long remained weak. According to its Command, in June 1915 it had about 1,100 members, most of them in the Lublin and Warsaw districts. In the summer of 1915, when the Russians left the Kingdom, most of its sworn members joined the Legions and the organisation had to be rebuilt from scratch. Yet it grew into an underground that by estimates numbered close to 30,000 people in the autumn of 1918 and recognised Piłsudski’s authority throughout.