Regency Council takes office

On 27 October 1917 the Regency Council was solemnly installed in office in Warsaw. Twelve days earlier Berlin and Vienna had approved its membership: the Archbishop of Warsaw, Aleksander Kakowski, Prince Zdzisław Lubomirski and Józef Ostrowski. The ceremony was prepared by a committee appointed by the Transitional Commission (PL) and made up exclusively of Poles. Eight hundred invitation cards and 750 admission tickets were issued. First a service was held in St John’s Archcathedral, during which the regents took their oath. Then they went to the Royal Castle. That day the patent of 12 September came into force, which gave the Council supreme authority in the Kingdom of Poland “without prejudice to the international position of the occupying powers”.

In the cathedral the regents sat in the chancel. Opposite them sat Bishop Stanisław Zdzitowiecki, and in armchairs by the stalls the governors-general: the German one from Warsaw, Hans Hartwig von Beseler, and the Austro-Hungarian one from Lublin, Stanisław Szeptycki. Beside them sat representatives of the occupation authorities, and on the other side members of Polish authorities and institutions, consuls of neutral states, judges, professors, writers and delegates of more than a dozen parties. Guests also came from Galicia and Greater Poland, as did delegates of the regiments of the Polish army and twelve veterans of the January Uprising. According to the diarist Stanisław Dzierzbicki, “even the most rabid inter-party men” turned up, that is, the passivists, who had until then kept away from the institutions created by the occupiers. The regents signed the text of the oath. They swore “by Almighty God, One in the Holy Trinity, and by Poland” that they would govern “for the general good, for the creation of the power, independence, glory, freedom and happiness of the Fatherland”. Historians point out that the oath was not sworn into anyone’s hands and that its text made no mention whatsoever of the occupying powers.

At the Castle the Council received addresses of homage from institutions and organisations from all over the country and issued its first proclamation to the nation. It was read out by the Council’s secretary-general, Monsignor Zygmunt Chełmicki (PL), who together with Ostrowski was also the author of most of its proclamations. The regents announced that “with the consent of both great monarchs” they had assumed supreme authority in the Kingdom of Poland and wished “to lead the nation to state independence”. They took the Act of 5th November and the patent as their starting point. They promised to build a state “with a strong government and its own armed force”. The proclamation invoked the tradition of 3 May 1791, Catholicism, tolerance and “the democratic idea, which is penetrating society ever more deeply”. It ended with an appeal to all Poles “without distinction of age, estate or creed” to give active support to the Council, the future government and the Council of State.

The Council occupied one wing of the Castle. Beseler continued to have his offices in the other. According to the Polish lawyer Cezary Berezowski, a Polish flag was hoisted over the Castle. That same day the regents instructed the Transitional Commission to continue conducting current business, reserving for themselves the appointment of senior officials and the initiative in new matters. The next day they sent letters to both emperors in the spirit of the proclamation. This time they added that the Polish nation, relying on its own armed force and its own national interest, would strive together with the Central Powers “towards common political and economic goals”.

It soon became clear where the regents’ authority ended. On 29 October the Council appointed as President of Ministers Count Adam Tarnowski, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat backed by Vienna and, as the regents assured, by most Polish parties. The very next day Beseler announced that the German government did not agree. After two weeks of dispute the regents gave way. On 26 November the historian and lawyer Jan Kucharzewski, until then the Council’s referendary, became President of Ministers, and his government (PL) was formed in December.