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Lieutenant General Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski belonged to a generation that has been called the rebellious generation. Born just after the January Uprising, he was raised in the cult of national insurrections, in which his ancestors took part. The military traditions of his family meant that in his search for paths to an independent Poland, he chose the seemingly most controversial one – service in a foreign (Austro-Hungarian) army. He spent most of his extremely colorful life in the Austro-Hungarian army. He joined the Polish Army as a mature man and an experienced commander with the rank of general lieutenant.

During the wars for Poland's independence, and then the peaceful expansion of the Polish armed forces until the May Coup, he held many very important positions, influencing the fate of the country. He was the first organizer of the General Staff of the Polish Army, commander of the "East" Army in the Polish-Ukrainian War, head of the Polish Military Mission in Paris and head of the General Staff in the breakthrough period of the Polish-Bolshevik War. After the end of the war, he took the position of General Inspector of Cavalry, organizing and modernizing this weapon. In May 1926, he became the head of the government troops. After Józef Piłsudski came to power, he was innocently imprisoned. He was accused of committing financial abuses, which the new authorities never proved. Two years later, after being released, the general died in circumstances that are not fully explained. Among the Polish generals, few commanders of his generation made such a great contribution to the reconstruction of independent Poland. These include: Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki, Józef Haller and Stanisław Szeptycki. These generals already have their biographies.

Despite such great merits, it is difficult to say that Tadeusz Rozwadowski is more widely known today. The general is perceived mainly through the prism of his great and dramatic conflict with Marshal Piłsudski over the authorship of the plans for the Battle of Warsaw and as a defender of the legal government and the President of the Republic of Poland during the three-day civil war in May 1926. This is how Rozwadowski was perceived by both his supporters and opponents. "Rozwadowski and Piłsudski," wrote Władysław Studnicki, "two great men of our era. As a military man, Rozwadowski stood above Piłsudski. In terms of understanding the situation of external politics, he was not inferior to him, and even surpassed him; however, it was not he, but Piłsudski who came to power; it was not he, but Piłsudski who won the souls of a considerable number of young people who remained loyal to him, and throughout his life he was a legend to the masses of soldiers. […] Piłsudski's egotism, his failure to separate Poland from his own person, pushed him to the May Coup. He knew that things were bad, he did not want the party shenanigans of the time, but he did not have a plan for the necessary reforms. Piłsudski's coming to power became a personal tragedy for him. Rozwadowski could also consider Rozwadowski's failure to come to power as his own tragedy; he did not systematically come to power, but was aware of his merits, but he was mistaken when he believed that merit led to power."

The dispute between Rozwadowski and Piłsudski was initially the main reason for the failure to create a scholarly biography of the first chief of staff and the most outstanding Polish staff officer of the 4th century. Censorship in force during the Polish People's Republic and the lack of access to archival collections meant that no such work was developed after World War II either. For the same reasons, the general's name was erased from school textbooks, both during the Sanation and after the war,XNUMX so the memory of him slowly began to fade. The lack of a full biography of the first chief of staff, his extraordinary life full of unexpected twists and turns and direct participation in breakthrough moments in Poland's history, and finally his tragic death after an undeserved prison sentence, are the main reasons why the author undertook to write this book.

The extremely active life of Tadeusz Rozwadowski, resulting from the specific nature of his military service, frequent changes of residence and travels related to diplomatic activities make it extremely difficult to collect material documenting the general's biography today. A full reconstruction of his social and political views, as well as establishing data on his personal life, is impossible due to the destruction of the Rozwadowski family documents (including the general's school reports and his extensive correspondence with relatives from the time of his service in the Austro-Hungarian army) during the fire at the manor house in Glinna in 1915. The personal documents that remained in the hands of the family after Rozwadowski's death were destroyed during World War II in Lviv.

Among domestic institutions, the query in the Central Military Archive proved fruitful, allowing to trace Rozwadowski's military activity. Particularly valuable documents were found in the following collections: Personal files (personal files of Lieutenant General Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski), Office of the Close War Council, General Inspectorate of Cavalry, Cabinet of the Minister of Military Affairs, Collections of manuscripts, Military Commission of the Provisional Council of State, Department I of the NDWP, Department of Justice of the Ministry of Military Affairs and Military Historical Office. Among the numerous studies preserved in the CAW, the typescript of Włodzimierz Gierowski's work "Organizacja Sił zbrojch z poboczjnej w przeddeniu ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością" (preserved in the WBH collection) and the unpublished manuscript of Marian Kukiel "Osobistościkierow w bitwie warszawskiej" (in the collection of Personal documents and historical materials of Marian Kukiel) were particularly helpful.

Important information, especially on Rozwadowski's diplomatic activity, was provided by a query in the Archive of New Records. Relevant documents were found, among others, in the following collections: Records of the Polish military attachés, Records of Józef and Aleksandra Piłsudski, Polish Embassy in Washington, Ignacy Paderewski Archive. Documents and materials included in the Records of Gen. Lucjan Żeligowski, revealing the background of the case conducted against Rozwadowski in the years 1926-1928, also proved extremely useful.

Documents deposited in the Library of the Ossoliński National Institute in Wrocław, especially the large group concerning the Rozwadowski family, allowed the author to reconstruct the past of the family from which the first chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army came. In the Wrocław library, most likely the only preserved, larger series of the general's correspondence addressed mainly to his cousin Adam Rozwadowski was found. Numerous manuscripts of diaries and memoirs, located in the Wrocław Ossolineum (a detailed list in the bibliography), also proved invaluable. These include, above all, the biography's own memories of World War I and the diary of his father, Tomisław Rozwadowski. Fragmentary information about Rozwadowski was also provided by research at the Military Historical Institute in Warsaw, the State Archive in Kraków (NKN collection), the Polish Academy of Sciences Archive in Warsaw (Leopold Jaworski's Diary⁷ *), the Krakow Archives of the Capuchin Fathers and the Archives at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa.

An extremely important supplement to the documents found in the country was the query conducted abroad. Of particular note are the documents found in the Józef Piłsudski Institute in New York, especially from the Rozwadowski File and the Adjutant General of the Supreme Command, which illustrate the general's diplomatic activity and his contribution to the victory of 1920.

Rozwadowski's memoranda and orders, when he commanded the "East" Army, were found in the Polish Library in Paris in the collection: Kawałkowski's Legacy. An important supplement was also the Protocols of the Chapter of the Virtuti Militari Order deposited in the Polish Institute and the General Sikorski Museum in London. The general's military records from the time of his military service in the Austrian army were used from the Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv-Kriegsarchiv in Vienna, while Rozwadowski's correspondence with Michał Łempicki was found in the W. Stefanyk Scientific Library in Lviv.

A valuable addition to the source base for the biography of General Rozwadowski were private collections and accounts submitted by the doyen of the family, engineer Stanisław Rozwadowski from Katowice.

The literature devoted to Rozwadowski to date, although it is impressive in terms of quantity, is rather poor in terms of content. One of the most important works is the commemorative book entitled Generał Rozwadowski published in 1929 by Col. Adam Rozwadowski. Not being a scholarly work, this work contains many errors and hagiographic simplifications. On the other hand, censorship considerations prevented the author from discussing many issues from the general's biography that were sensitive for the authorities at the time. Despite this, for over 60 years the book was the main source of information about Rozwadowski's life and work, which was eagerly used by both historians and publicists.

In the interwar period, alongside this work, a biography of the general was also published in the Military Encyclopedia edited by Otto Laskowski, and the aforementioned Władysław Studnicki devoted a separate chapter to Rozwadowski in his journalistic work. Recently, biographies of Rozwadowski have also been published by: Tadeusz Kryska-Karski and Stanisław Żurakowski, Stanisław S. Nicieja, Piotr Stawecki, Andrzej Suchcitz and Jan Rydel. Of these texts, the extensive and factual biographical article by Piotr Stawecki published in the "Polish Biographical Dictionary" is particularly noteworthy. Rozwadowski, as a general from the Austrian army, was also of interest to Austrian historians. His biographies were included in the "Osterreichisches Biographisches Lexikon" and in the work of Oskar Hoffman and Gustav Hubka devoted to the knights of the Military Order of Maria Theresa. An interesting memoir essay was also published by the émigré military historian Kornel Krzeczunowicz.

Censorship restrictions lifted in the 1990s resulted in further attempts at biography of General Rozwadowski. Thanks to the efforts of family and friends, the book Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski. General of Lieutenant General was published, edited by Stanisław Rozwadowski and with an introduction by Stanisław S. Nicieja. The work consisted of source texts, including the general's operational orders and memoirs and studies published in the hard-to-find emigration and pre-war press representing a less critical, pro-General, national point of view. This selection was also preceded by the published version of Janusz Berdzik's master's thesis, which had many of the weaknesses of this type of study, but organized the basic facts from the general's biography. Despite these objections, the book Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski. General of Lieutenant General played a significant role in popularizing the almost forgotten figure of the general at the threshold of the Third Republic. Similar features are shown in the emigration works of Jędrzej Giertych, a passionate antagonist of Piłsudski and a great and rather uncritical admirer of the person and work of General Rozwadowski. The requirements of a full biography are also not met by the recently published work on Rozwadowski by Tadeusz Kmieciak, which is in fact an extended biographical sketch. This book repeats many substantive errors from the general's life. The importance of this work is further diminished by the fact that in this modest brochure the historian decided to include a lot of data from the history of the Polish General Staff, not always related to Rozwadowski's biography. Similar accusations should be made against the unpublished work by Jerzy Szymański, whose significant advantage, however, is the wider use of the general's personal files from the period of his service in the Austrian army.

The letters, memoranda and operational orders of General Rozwadowski published at different times by Bolesław Woszczyński, Edward Czapiewski and Maciej Jagóra are of great cognitive value. Due to Piłsudski's mutual relations with Rozwadowski, the Marshal's writings, with 1920 at the forefront, are also an important source. For the same reasons, the minutes of the State Defence Council and Piłsudski's assessment of the Polish generalship are worthy of attention. His own works and interviews published in the military press: "Bellona", "Polska Zbrojna", "Wiadomości Polskie", "Szaniec" and in the dailies close to him: "Czas", "Głos Narodu", "Kurier Lwowski" and "Warszawianka" are invaluable because they illustrate the general's views on certain political, military and economic issues. An important source in this respect are also the diaries and memoirs of politicians of the Second Polish Republic, with whom the general had many contacts. These include, above all, Wincenty Witos, Maciej Rataj, Władysław and Stanisław Grabski, Zygmunt Lasocki, Leon Biliński and Herman Lieberman. Much less frequently, which should be noted with surprise, Rozwadowski's name appears in the pages of diaries published by former soldiers and commanders of the Polish Army. Of these, the memoirs of Marian Romeyko, Merian Cooper, Stanisław Haller, Bolesław Roja, Franciszek Arciszewski, and especially Notes... of the adjutant general, Marceli Kyci, are worthy of attention.

Rozwadowski's name can also be found in many studies on World War I, the wars for Poland's independence and borders, and the interwar period. Unfortunately, in too many cases the general is treated marginally. His activities and views on the development of the Polish question in World War I are presented in only a few monographs and contributions, among which it is worth mentioning the works of: Janusz Gruchała, Christoph Fiihr, Tomasz Wawrzyński, and Włodzimierz Sulei.45 Some aspects of Rozwadowski's diplomatic activities are discussed in their contributions and books by: Richard Ulryc, Henryk Bułhak, Marian Leczyk, and Józef Kukułka. The general's military activities were particularly reflected in the works of: Ernst Wisshaupt, Marian Kukiel, Władysław Sikorski, and in more recent studies by: Michał Klimecki, Lech Wyszczelski, and Mieczysław Pruszyński. Of course, the first Chief of the General Staff also appears in broader syntheses devoted to the political history of Poland and the history of the Polish Army written by such well-known historians as: Władysław Pobóg-Malinowski, Janusz Pajewski, Andrzej Garlicki, Mieczysław Wrzosek, Marian Zgómiak and Piotr Stawecki.

Source: "Lieutenant General Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski" (2002) - Mariusz Patelski