Kingdom of Poland (1916-1918)

The declaration of both emperors on the creation of the Regency Council ( Polish: Rada Regencyjna ) limited the power of Germany in the occupied territories and allowed the election of a new monarch. The person who had the greatest opportunity to become the Polish king was the Austrian - Karl Stephan, Archduke of Austria (Karol Stephan), whose two daughters were married to Polish aristocrats: Prince Olgerd Czartoryski and Dominic Jerome Radziwill . The Archduke was ready to accept the crown, but, as a member of the Austrian Imperial House, he needed permission from the head of the family of Emperor Charles I , who himself wanted to receive the Polish crown.

The use of the Polish language in educational and political institutions (banned by Russia after the Polish uprisings of 1830 and 1863 ) was restored throughout the Kingdom of Poland. The central powers supported the creation of the Polish army ( German: Polnische Wehrmacht ), which was created to help Germany in the war, but the mobilization carried out by Colonel Vladislav Sikorsky did not find support among the Poles and yielded insignificant results: by the end of the existence of the Regency, the army had only about 5,000 people. The kingdom had its own currency, the Polish brand , and the Constitution, adopted on September 12, 1917 (monarchy, bicameral parliament, non-political ministers).

The aim of German policy was to exploit the wealth of Poland with its subsequent Germanization. It was supposed to reduce the Polish population through hunger and hard labor, with the subsequent creation of a German province from Poland. During the German occupation, the Poles were subject to forced labor and the confiscation of food and property.

Although Poland was supposed to enter into a union with Austria when the kingdom was formed, the growing dependence of Austria-Hungary on Germany crossed out these plans. Control over the Polish economy and raw materials was in the hands of Germany. The Germans also had full control of the Polish army. The borders of Poland should have been changed in favor of Germany. At the end of 1916, Germany was going to annex the western part of Poland, almost 30 thousand square meters. km of Polish territory, the so-called "Polish border strip" . These lands were subject to settlement by ethnic Germans, and the Poles had to be moved. Such plans were proposed by representatives of the German minority in Poland, who lived in the Lodz region. They protested the Act on November 5 and demanded that the German government annex the western part of Poland to Germany.

Formally, before the election of the monarch by the Polish Kingdom, the regency council, consisting of three members, ruled:

• Alexander Kakowski , Warsaw Archbishop , Primate of Poland
• Zdzislaw Lubomierski , landowner, mayor of Warsaw since 1915
• Jozef Ostrovsky , landowner, former member of the State Council of the Russian Empire from the Kingdom of Poland.

Formally, the Regency Council did not manage anything and did not have the opportunity to choose a monarch. The administrative power in Poland belonged to the German Governor-General Hans Hartwig von Bezeler , who, however, withdrew from the administration, preferring to engage in purely military tasks. In this regard, he sabotaged the Germanization plan of Ludendorff , preferring not to come into conflict with the local Polish administration ^[2] .

On November 11, 1918, on the day of the surrender of Germany, the Regency Council transferred all powers to Jozef Pilsudski and was dissolved after three days.