MARSHAL PILSUDSKI

Hokitika Guardian, 31 March 1930, Page 8

MARSHAL PILSUDSKI

CROMWELLIAN TOUCH INTRODUCED.

Marshal Pilsudski, who is sixty-two yeans of age, Was born m Vilna. At the age of nineteen lie was sent to Siberia Ibr five years. On his return lie organ ised a secret army, but fled from Poland in 1007 to avoid arrest. In the Great War lie sided with the Central Powers, and led 18,000 Polish legionaries. He was captured by the Germans and was imprisoned in Magdeburg Fortress ,but was released and returned to Poland in 1918, becoming supreme in the Council of the Regency. In 1920 he led an invasion into Russia but was driven hack, and in the following year resigned liis post as Chief of the State and a Chief of Staff in the Army in 1923. But 1920 saw him back again when lie drove out M. Witos from the Premiership and appointed M. Ratay as Provisional President. Last year saw further trouble in Poland, and Pilsudski was partly fettered by the Diet. But Pilsudski is not a man long to remain in fetters What sort of a 111411 is Pilsudski?

He is of good Polish-Lithuanian stock; the foreigners, especially the Germans, say it takes a foreigner to rule the Poles, and Pilsudski is a Lithuanian. Against him people say that he is domineering, gruff, and coarse. He uses violent, blunt and even unprintable language without regard for the person he is talking to He is a bit of an actor, always posing as the born-and-bred soldier, whereas his soldiery began with the war. He is said only to have donned civilian clothes once since 1926-—to go to Geneva ; and the story gees that tailors had to sit up all night making his suits, while a characteristic legend attributes to Pilsudski the order to make the trousers specially baggy behind to give him the chance of sitting well on Vaklemaras. He likes .flattery and will have none but flatterens around him. He works by spurts, sometimes sitting up a whole night to plan out some scheme; but afterwards spends days ill apparent idleness and dreaming. There is, 'for instance a small political group-which wants to make him King of Poland. That group believes that the scheme lias his favour

and that he has given them a private indication to that effect. Other people laugh at such a suggestion as fantastic. Then he is fond of starting gestures; likes to ride up with a military escort to the President’s palace; seeks dramatic effect off Cromwellian rather than the Mussolinian type. He would never sniff a rose as he mounted the orator’s tribune, or be photographed stroking a pet lion. His drama is of a more “highbrow” nature than Mussolini’s. More than any other the reproach is levelled against him that, having once been a conspirator for the freedom of Poland, he cannot rid himself of conspiratorial methods. He still follows the role that the only reliable confidant for his plans is himself. The result is that those who dislike being

led blindfolded will not follow him, and those who follow him cannot check his whimsicality. Pilsudski’s chief moral asset is his shining personal probity.. In a State where Russian methods have for a century implanted the tradition of office as the path to riches this reputation confers a halo.