On Sunday evening, May 12, 1935, Józef Piłsudski died at the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw at the age of 67. ‘Sounds unexpected. A blow to the heart of the nation. The death of the unmerciful took – how prematurely – the largest and most deserved of Poles" – she wrote the next day "Army Poland". The first Polish Marshal rested in the crypt of St. Leonard in Wawel.
A fewer months before his death, November 11, 1934, Józef Piłsudski He fainted during a parade on the Mokotowski Field. Doctors said the Marshal suffered severe kidney failure. Unfortunately, they had a misdiagnosis. It was not until April 1935 that Prof. Karel Frederik Wenckebach, an outstanding Viennese internist, and Dr. Antoni Stefanowski, announced the correct announcement. The prof. was brought from Vienna erstwhile Piłsudski suffered abrupt attacks of liver pain. After examining Marshal Wenckebach and Stefanowski, they recognized tummy and liver cancer. Permanent medical care of the patient, under the supervision of General Dr. Stanisław Rouppert, was taken by doctors: Colonel Stefan Mozołowski, Major Henryk Cianciara and Major Felicjan Tukanowicz. The fast deterioration of Marshal's wellness occurred on May 11 – a severe gastric haemorrhage caused a weakness of the heart and then death.
Józef Piłsudski died the following day at 8.45 p.m. The last anointing was given by Fr Władysław Korniłowicz from the Department for the Dark in Laski close Warsaw. The marshal left in the vicinity of his loved ones, in the presence of his wife Alexandra and daughters Jadwiga and Wanda. After embalming the body his body girded with a large ribbon of the Order of Virtuti Militari was laid in a metallic coffin, which was placed on a catafalcus in the alleged large surviving area of the Belveder Palace. Before Belvedere, the nobles of the 1st Józef Piłsudski Regiment were worthy of honor.
The most painful blow
On 13 May 1935, as almost all capital newspapers (apart from the Endek “Warsaw Gazette”) printed “The message of the president of the Republic to the Polish people”. Prof. Ignacy Mościcki wrote: “To the Citizens of the Republic. Marshal Joseph Piłsudski ended his life. With the large difficulty of his life, he built strength in a nation, a gentius of mind, a hard effort of will, the state resurrected. He led them to the revival of his own power, to the liberation of forces on which the future destiny of Poland would resist. For the vastness of his work it was given to him to see our state as a surviving creature, capable of living, prepared for life, and our army – the fame of victorious banners. The biggest 1 in all our history. From the depths of past past, the power of his spirit was drawn and the thought of the ways of the future was superhumanized. He did not see himself there due to the fact that he long ago felt that the forces of His physical last moves meant. He sought and trained to do his own work people on whom the burden of work of the railroad would rest. He passed to the nation the legacy of reasoning about the honor and power of a caring state. This will of his to us surviving handed over to us to accept and lift up our mother. Let mourning and pain deepen in us the knowing of our—the full nation—the work before His Spirit and before future generations” [in all quotations in the text the first spelling is preserved].
In addition to the message of president Mościcki, “Army Poland” on the front page, she included a large photograph of the Marshal, information about the origin of death and an editorial memoir about the deceased, entitled “The Painiest Cios”. The first paragraph reads: “Somewhat unexpected. A blow to the heart of the nation. The death of the unmerciful took – how prematurely – the largest and most deserved of Poles. The resurrecter of Poland, the creator of the army, the victorious Chief Chief and the unkilled Builder of Poland; the 1 who, having revived the nation from scratch, directed it with the power of his gentry to bright Jutra, ended his sacrificial life yesterday.”
On the day of the Marshall's death, at around 21.00 a.m., Polish Radio stopped broadcasting the program and gave a peculiar message about his death. The Czechoslovak radio did likewise: it conveyed the news of the death of Józef Piłsudski, then gave Chopin's mourning march and then interrupted the broadcast as a sign of mourning. In turn, information about the Marshal's death reached Berlin at around 11:00 p.m. The paper "Voelkischer Beobachter" on the first column included in the mourning border the news of Piłsudski's death and stressed: "The unreserved failure of the Polish nation has caused the most intense compassion in Germany."
Grief and sorrow
A gathering of the Cabinet Council chaired by president Ignacy Mościcki and Prime Minister Walery Sławek was held that night. The main issue of the gathering was to fill crucial positions that Piłsudski held until the last moments of his life. president Mościcki has entrusted the first Deputy Minister of Military Affairs to Brig. Gen. Tadeusz Kasprzycki, and General Inspector of Armed Forces has appointed General Edward Rydz-Śmigł. At the night meeting, the Council of Ministers passed an announcement of national mourning. On 13 May the Minister of Military Affairs ordered: in front of all troops read the message of the president of the Republic, on banners and regimental banners solemnly put on mourning bows, state banners with mourning leave to half the mast and to generals, officers and professional officers to put mourning bands on. At midnight, after the Cabinet Council, the full government, with Prime Minister Walery Sławek at the head, went to Belveder to pay tribute to the late Marshal. A 4th after midnight president Mościcki went to Belvedere Palace to pay tribute to Józef Piłsudski. And on 13 May at 10 a.m. in the alleged large surviving area of the Belvedere Palace close the corpse of the Marshal, Fr. Aleksander Kakowski and prayed for his soul, and then offered his condolences to Marshal Alexandra Piłsudska.
On 12 May, as reported by the Polish Telegraph Agency, free extraordinary editions of the journals were released in Krakow, which informed about the death of the Marshal. “Despite the late hr in downtown, there was a lively movement of passersby who shared sad news. The state and private buildings began to display mourning banners, a symbol of this large sadness and mourning which covered the full Polish land in the news of the death of the Grand Marshal of Poland”, wrote the PAT from Krakow.
On the day of mourning from early morning, at all public and state buildings, at all embassy headquarters, abroad states' messengers and consulates floated flags abandoned to half the mast and covered with kirem. In Warsaw, portraits of the Marshal taking on green and kirem were placed at the exhibitions of many shops, which besides included all lanterns. In front of Belveder, there were crowds of people all day, who, in focus and silence, with tears in their eyes, discovered their heads to worship their leader.
Funeral celebrations
The coffin with the body of Marshal Piłsudski was moved from Belvederski Palace to the Warsaw Cathedral of St. John. The ceremony celebrations lasted from 13 to 18 May. On 17 May, a ceremony mass was celebrated in the cathedral – it was celebrated by Fr. Prior to the beginning of the service guarded in front of the coffin of the Marshal – on which lay the marshal's bush, the saber and the matrice with the legion eagle – enlisted generals. From the ceiling of the cathedral, they left for the coffin of the banner. The delegation from all parts of Poland and the Polish emigration and representatives of governments from many countries of the planet said goodbye. After the Romanian delegation laid a wreath, the officers of the Romanian 16th Infantry Regiment enlisted honorary officers, whose Marshal Pilsudski was an honorary commander.
On May 18, ceremony ceremonies were held in Kraków. First of all, the Polish Army provided a solemn setting for the ceremony of the Marshal. erstwhile a peculiar train entered the Kraków railway station, the coffins of the Chief Leader on the wagon-lavet were assisted by 2 seamstress and six generals with pulled sabers. 1 of them was the adjutant and friend of Piłsudski – General Bolesław Wieniawa-Długoszowski. erstwhile the coffin platform was other the podium, where they stood, among others, president Mościcki and the Marshal's family, 8 generals, with Julius Rómmle at the head, moved the coffin to a cannon tow truck drawn by six black horses. ceremony conduct opened a squad of drummers, then went the military orchestra and banner post of all Polish Army regiments and the Romanian 16th Infantry Regiment.
Right in front of the tow truck with the coffin, they walked so valued by the Marshal veterans January and 34 veterans And the Personnel Company.. The coffin tow was surrounded by 12 adjutants with bare sabers. She was followed by Piłsudski's wife led by Gen. Rydz-Smigler. In addition, nearly 80 generals walked in the conduct. The conductor walking down the Krakow streets continued for respective kilometres. After Archbishop Adam Sapieha celebrated the ceremony Mass at the Mariatsky Church, the conduct passed to Wawel, where the generals laid the coffin with the Marshal's body in the crypt of St. Leonard. The last time Sigismund's bell rang at the ceremony, and guns set on the Wawel hill gave 101 cannon shots. There was a three-minute silence all over the country. National mourning has been declared.
In farewell to Marshal Piłsudski, the president of the Republic of Ignacy Mościcki said: “A companion of eternal sleep came to the royal shadows. He is not surrounded by a crown, and his hand is not held by a scepter. And king was the heart and ruler of our will. He took his heart, soul to soul, and soul to soul, into the purple of the kingdom of his spirit, with half a century of difficulty.’
