Edward Rydz-Śmigły

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Marshal of Poland Edward Rydz-Śmigły
Rydz-Śmigły in 1937
General Inspector of the Armed Forces
In office 12 May 1935 – 7 November 1939
President	Ignacy Mościcki
Preceded by	Józef Piłsudski
Succeeded by	Władysław Sikorski
Personal details
Born	(1886-03-11)11 March 1886 Second World War Invasion of Poland

Marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły

of Poland's armed forces, as well as a painter and poet.

During the

When war loomed, political differences fell away and defense became the national priority. Consequently, Rydz's stature eclipsed even that of the president.[1] The shock of the Polish defeat made objective evaluations of his legacy during and after the war difficult; his reputation, very much tied to the critical early months of World War II, remains tendentious and controversial.

Early life

Edward Rydz was born in the city of

".

Rydz finished his military education with distinction, and he was offered a commission in the Imperial Army, which he declined. In 1912, Rydz became a founder of the Polish paramilitary group, the Riflemen's Association (Związek Strzelecki). At the same time, he completed his art studies. He was regarded as a very promising talent in landscape and portrait painting, and was often praised by his professors and critics.

Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army in July 1914, Rydz was transferred in August to the

.

In October 1918, Rydz entered the socialist government of politician and diplomat Ignacy Daszyński in Lublin as Minister of War. Having been promoted to brigadier general, he underlined that upon his acceptance of the office he was to be seen as a deputy of Piłsudski. It was at this time he began using the name Rydz-Śmigły. On 11 November 1918, the government relinquished all power to Piłsudski, who became Provisional Head of State. After some hesitation, Piłsudski (displeased by Rydz-Śmigły's cooperation with the socialists, he himself "having left the streetcar of Socialism at the stop called Independence") nevertheless confirmed him as a brigadier general of the Polish army.

Military triumphs

baton from President Ignacy Mościcki, Warsaw

, 10 November 1936.

During the

to be interned by the Germans.

"Second Man" in the State

At the conclusion of the Polish-Soviet war, Rydz was appointed Inspector General of the Polish Army in the Wilno district and later in Warsaw. In November 1924, he informally headed the so-called

("Camp of National Unity") movement, or "Ozon" movement, but it alienated many of Piłsudski's supporters, who were offended by what they saw as Rydz's acts of self-promotion. The period of Rydz's rule, 1935–39, has often been referred to as "a dictatorship without a dictator". Rydz lacked the , made a point of distancing themselves from this movement.

1939

In March 1939,

. This encircled Poland with an iron ring on all sides except the east. Rydz was the only member of government who saw the impending danger of a conflict with Germany. However, the time remaining was too short for the creation of a new army operational plan in the west. During negotiations in Moscow in August 1939, Rydz refused all attempts by the Western Powers to obtain Polish permission for the Red Army to march westward, stating that "there is no guarantee that the Soviets will really take active part in the war; furthermore, once having entered Polish territory, they will never leave it".

On 1 September 1939, the

). This strategy was further crippled when Soviet forces invaded Poland from the east on 17 September. Realizing that mounting a defence against both Germany and the USSR was impossible, Rydz-Śmigły issued orders to his forces to begin a retreat towards Romania and to not waste men on fighting the Soviet aggressors.

On 18 September 1939, after avoiding capture by Soviet and then German troops, Rydz-Śmigły escaped to Romania and was interned. The crossing of the Polish government into Romania prevented Poland from having to officially surrender and allowed Polish soldiers to

continue the fight

against Nazi Germany, though Rydz's flight sparked some controversy because of his position as supreme commander of the Polish armed forces. Large numbers of Polish soldiers and airmen managed to escape into southern Europe through Hungary and Romania and later regrouped in France. After the French surrender, they re-assembled once more, but this time in the UK.

Last years and death

John Gunther wrote after Rydz-Śmigły and Beck were interned in Romania that "They ought, one might say, to have been interned somewhere else before".^[2] As the Commander-in-Chief of Polish Armed Forces, Rydz-Śmigły took complete responsibility for Poland's military defeat in September 1939. Rydz had proven himself an extremely able commander on smaller fronts in earlier wars, but was not an experienced strategist in a great conflict. Indeed, in 1922, in an evaluation of Polish generals, Piłsudski had written about him: "in operational work he displays healthy common sense and a lot of stubborn energy. I could recommend him to everybody as a commander of an army, I am however not sure if he possesses sufficient abilities to function as commander-in-chief in a war between two states."

During his internment in Romania, Rydz-Śmigły initiated the creation of a

in France (and after 1940 in the United Kingdom).

In the autumn of 1939, Polish journalist

Rydz-Śmigły was transferred from the internment camp to the villa of a former Romanian prime minister in Dragoslavele, from where he escaped on 10 December 1940 and crossed illegally into Hungary. His flight to Hungary and rumours about his planned return to Poland were a source of considerable displeasure to his rival Sikorski, now Prime Minister. Sikorski had been in opposition to Rydz-Śmigły and Piłsudski from the time of the 1926 May Coup. Sikorski declared in a telegram to General

bore this assumed name until 1991. A new tombstone inscribed with the Marshal's full name was placed over his grave by the people of Warsaw in 1994.

Rydz was married to Marta Zaleska, née Thomas; they had no children.

Legacy

Edward Rydz-Śmigły's reputation after World War II was generally negative. In the

]

In 2016 a large and detailed oil painting was discovered amongst the archives of The Sikorski Museum in London. It had been folded into four and hidden in a briefcase by an unknown person and smuggled to Britain to avoid being taken by the Nazi occupation forces. After quite a feat of restoration funded by Philip Bujak, a private member of The Polish Heritage Society, the fully restored painting was presented back to the Sikorski Institute where it is currently on display.

Awards and tributes

Polish Decorations

with Swords.

Foreign decorations

Grand Cross of the

Pulaski Medal (USA) and Italian Cross of Military Merit.

Honorary Titles

Rydz was Honorary Doctor of the Universities of Warsaw and (then-Polish) Vilnius and the Warsaw University of Technology, as well as an Honorary Citizen of several Polish cities.

Tributes

Works

On military tactics and theory

• Walka na bagnety (Bayonet Fight), Lwów 1914;
• W sprawie polskiej doktryny (Poland's Military Doctrine), Warsaw 1924;
• Kawaleria w osłonie (Cavalry in protection of troops), Warsaw 1925;
• Byście o sile nie zapomnieli -Rozkazy, Artykuły, Mowy (Do not forget the Might – Orders, Articles and Speeches), Warsaw 1936;
• Wojna polsko-niemiecka (The Polish-German War), Budapest 1941.

Poetry

• Dążąc do końca swoich dróg (Toward My Path's End), Paris, 1947; London, 1989.

Paintings and Graphics

• Illustrations to Piłsudski's book 22 January 1863, Lwów 1920;
• Contributions to Art Exhibitions in Kraków (1916) and Warsaw (1917). Most of his paintings are lost.

See also

• Coat of arms of Ryc

Sources and notes

Further reading

• Cepnik, Kazimierz Wódz Naczelny i Marszałek Polski Edward Śmigły-Rydz, Życie i Czyny, Lwów, 1937.
• Eckert,Marian. Historia polityczna Polski lat 1918–1939. Warsaw, 1989.
• Jabłonowski, Marek,i Stawecki, Piotr. Następca komendanta. Edward Śmigły-Rydz. Materiały do biografii. Pułtusk,1998
• Jędruszczak,Hanna, and Tadeusz Jędruszczak. Ostatnie lata Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej (1935–1939), Warsaw, 1970.
• Kaden-Bandrowski,Juliusz. Piłsudczycy, (The Piłsudskiites), Oświęcim, 1916;
• Mirowicz, Ryszard. Edward Rydz-Śmigły: działalność wojskowa i polityczna, Warsaw, 1988.
• Pepłoński,Andrzej Wywiad a dyplomacja II Rzeczypospolitej, Toruń, 2004.
• Piłsudski,Józef. Pisma zbiorowe, Warsaw: 1937.
• Seidner, Stanley S., "The Camp of National Unity: An Experiment in Domestic Consolidation," The Polish Review vol. xx, nos. 2–3, 1975, pp. 231–236.
• Seidner,Stanley S., "Reflections from Rumania and Beyond: Marshal Śmigły-Rydz Rydz in Exile," The Polish Review vol. xxii, no. 2, 1977, pp. 29–51.
• Seidner, Stanley S. Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz Rydz and the Defense of Poland, New York, 1978.
• Serwatka, Tomasz. "Edward Rydz-Śmigły," Gazeta:Historia mało znana,(January) 2007,[1]
• Stachiewicz, Wacław. Wierności dochować żołnierskiej, Warsaw, 1998.
• Zaremba, Paweł. Historia Dwudziestolecia 1918–1939, (A History of the Twenty Years, 1918–1939), 2 vols., Paris, 1967.

External links

• Newspaper clippings about Edward Rydz-Śmigły in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Military offices
Preceded by Józef Piłsudski	General Inspector of the Armed Forces 1935–1939	Succeeded by Władysław Sikorski

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