Wincenty Witos grew up in the countryside of Southern Poland in the late 19th century under Austrian rule. He got politically involved already as a teenager. At the age of nineteen, he published his first newspaper article in the Przyjaciel Ludu („Friend of the People”). He then joined the Polish People’s party in 1895. 

In 1903, he was elected to the Executive Committee of the party. Ten years later, In late 1913, the People’s Party split in two factions and Witos was elected as vice president of the newly created Polish People’s Party „Piast”. 

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After the outbreak of WWI, he joined the Supreme National Committee (NKN). As vice-president of the NKN, he initially supported the organisation of the Polish Legions, seeing the Habsburg monarchy as an ally for the Polish cause. 

Throughout the war, he kept in touch with Polish independence movement activists, including Ignacy Paderewski, Jędrzej Moraczewski and Józef Piłsudski, whom he saw as the future leader of a reconstituted Polish army.

From 1915, together with the PSL „Piast”, he was more and more inclined to link the Polish issue with the Western powers and to cooperate in this matter with Roman Dmowski’s National Democracy. In mid-1916, he became the president of the PSL „Piast” Parliamentary Club. The following year, he joined the National League, remaining its member until 1918.

On the 16th of June 1917, he delivered his only speech to members of the State Council, in which he criticised the authorities in Vienna for pursuing an anti-Polish policy. More importantly, he announced the creation of an independent state of Poland. 

It is worth noting that his involvement in the Polish cause got him awarded with the prestigious Order of the White Eagle in 1922.

In the aftermath of WWI, Wincenty Witos served three times as Poland’s Prime Minister: in 1920-1921, 1923 and eventually in 1926. In 1926, Witos’ government was overthrown by Piłsudski’s coup d’état. He was imprisoned shortly thereafter, then lived in exile in Czechoslovakia from 1933 to 1939.

During this period, he participated in several meetings (with Władysław Sikorski, Józef Haller, and Ignacy Daszyński among others) devoted to uniting forces opposed to the Sanation rule established by Piłsudski. 

After the outbreak of WWII, he was put on supervised release by the Germans. In July 1944 the German authorities requested him to declare an anti-Soviet appeal, but he refused to comply. In 1945, he was nominated one of the vice-chairmen of the State National Council and died shortly after. 

Author: Sebastien Meuwissen

Cover photo: Twitter @DziejeSejmu