Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki

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Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki
Greater Poland Uprising (1918–1919)

Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki (Iosif Romanovich while in the

.

Early life

Dowbor-Muśnicki was born in the Garbów (near Sandomierz) in an estate in the Radom Governorate of Congress Poland, the part of Poland that was then a part of the Russian Empire. His father was Roman Muśnicki, the owner of Garbów, descended from the Lithuanian Dowborów (Daubor) family (Przyjaciel coat of arms), who settled in Sandomierz during the 17th century. Józef was the younger brother of Konstanty, also a lieutenant general. Their mother was Antonina née Wierzbicki.

His family traced its roots to medieval Polish nobility of evangelical reformed denomination. Dowbor received his basic education in the Nikolayevskiy Cadet Corps (Saint Petersburg).

Service in the Russian Military (1884–1914)

In 1884 he joined the Russian military and graduated from the 2nd Konstantinovskoye Military School (

.

World War I (1914–1917)

At the beginning of

Nicholas II

.

1917 Revolution

In the immediate aftermath of the February Revolution, Dowbor-Muśnicki continued his military career and was appointed commander of the XXXVIIIth Corps on 28 April 1917 and made Lieutenant General on 5 May 1917. In the meantime, however, the

by January 1918.

Against the Bolsheviks (1918)

On 25 January [

. In May 1918, Dowbor-Muśnicki was forced to sign an agreement with Germany that led to the disarmament and effective dissolution of the Corps by July 1918, at which point he moved to Poland. The agreement was criticized by some pro-independence Polish politicians, but it preserved the core of the Polish military, which proved decisive later that year.

Against the Germans

After the

against Germany in the disputed region.

During his service as the commander in chief of the Uprising, Dowbor-Muśnicki was responsible for almost complete reorganization of what was started as a para-military partisan force. He introduced conscription and mobilized eleven classes of recruits and reformed the partisans into divisions. During his command, the Greater Polish Army grew from merely 20,000 to over 100,000 soldiers, well-armed and well-equipped. After the Battle of Ławica in which the Poles managed to capture the airfield, the Greater Polish Army was the fourth force in the world in number of aeroplanes available. Dowbor-Muśnicki focused also on political matters and strived for political neutrality of the forces under his command, which made him demobilize some of the leftist and rightist officers. He also disbanded the leftist soldiers' councils.

To some extent Dowbor-Muśnicki was conflicted with the Polish General Staff. Due to difficult diplomatic situation of Poland during the early stages of the

.

Retirement

Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki remained the commander of the so-called Greater Poland Front until the outbreak of the

heart attack

on 26 October 1937 and was buried at the family tomb at the local cemetery.

Family

Soviet NKVD during the Katyn massacre.^[2]

Honors

• Order of St. Stanislaus
  3rd degree with swords and bow, 1905
• Order of St. Anne
  4th degree, 1905
• Order of St. Stanislaus
  2nd degree with swords, 1905
• Order of St. Anne
  3rd degree with swords and bow, 1905
• Order of St Vladimir
  4th degree with swords and bow, 1906
• Order of St. Anne
  2nd degree with swords, 1906
• Order of St Vladimir
  3rd degree with swords and bow, 1913
• Order of St. George IV class (1915, Russian Empire)
• Order of St. George, 3rd class, 1915
• Golden Sword of St. George
  , 1915
• Order of St. Anne
  , First Class with Swords (1916, Russian Empire)
• Order of St. Stanislaus
  First Class with Swords (1916, Russian Empire)
• Order of the Crown of Italy, 3rd class (Italy)
• Order of the Bath, (Great Britain)
• Freedom Cross, 2nd Class (Estonia)
• War Cross, 2nd Class (Latvia)
• Order of the Double Dragon, 3rd class (China)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki.

References

1. ^ Dirmantas, St. (January 1959). "MUMS PRIKIŠA, O PATYS..." Karys (in Lithuanian). 1: 4.
2. ^ "Agnieszka Dowbor-Muśnicka | #M2WSwirtualnie | Muzeum II Wojny Światowej". muzeum1939.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2021-02-12.

• Piotr Bauer. General Dowbor-Muśnicki, Poznan, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 1988. [Polish language biography]
• The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia, edited by Spencer C, Tucker, Laura M. Wood, Justin D. Murphy, Garland Science, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 1996,
  ISBN 0-8153-0399-8
  , page 223.
• Konstantin Aleksandrovich Zalesskii. Kto byl kto v Pervoi mirovoi voine : biograficheskii entsiklopedicheskii slovar´., Moscow, Astrel´ and AST, 2003,
  ISBN 5170196709
  [Who Was Who in World War I in Russian].
• Online Biography (in Polish)