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Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (20 May 1881 - 4 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader. He fought in the First World War and the Polish-Soviet War. He fall out of favour during the time of Second Polish Republic after Józef Piłsudski May Coup. During the Second World War he was a Prime Minister of Polish Government in Exile, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army and a staunch advocate of Polish cause on a diplomatic scene. He was killed in an air crash over Gibraltar in July 1943. The exact cause of his death is still disputed and lead to many conspiracy theories.
Biography
Early life
Sikorski was born in Polish Galicia, then in the territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied engineering at the Technical Institute in Lwów. On the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Polish Legions in Cracow under Józef Piłsudski, who had built an army to liberate Poland from Russian rule. This army initially fought as an ally of the Austrians.
In 1918 both the Russian and Austrian empires collapsed, and Poland became independent, but its borders where not stable. Eastern borders where determined by the escalating clashes between Polish, Ukrainian and Soviet forces in what developed into the Polish-Soviet War in 1919. Sikorski commanded the Polesie Group during the Kiev offensive in early 1920. In April 1920 the Red Army of the new Soviet regime in Russia pushed back the Polish forces and invaded Poland. Later he commanded 3rd Army and 5th Army (Lower Vistula Front) during the Battle of Warsaw, where Soviet forces, expecting final victory were suprised and crippled by Polish counterattack. His command during that battle (also known as the Miracle of Vistula) stopped the Bolshevik advance on the northern front and gave Józef Piłsudski the time he needed for his counter-offensive. After the battle Sikorski advanced with his troops towards Latvia and deep into Belarus. The Poles defeated the Soviets and the Soviet-Polish Treaty of Riga in March 1921 gave Poland substantial areas of Belarus and Ukraine.
In 1921 Sikorski succeeded Piłsudski as Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army and in 1922 he became Prime Minister. During his year in office he obtained recognition of Poland's eastern frontiers from Britain, France and the United States.
In May 1926 Piłsudski established a semi-dictatorial regime, and Sikorski withdrew from politics and retired to Paris. Basing on his experiences in the Polish-Soviet War, Sikorski wrote Modern Warfare (1934 in French, 1943 in English), in which he advanced ideas similar to the German concept of blitzkrieg ("lightning war"). Together with Charles De Gaulle and Mikhail Tukhachevski he could be considered one of the pioneers of blitzkrieg.
Władysław Sikorski in 1925. As the international situation deteriorated, Sikorski returned to Poland in 1938, hoping to be of service.
The Prime Minister in Exile
Sikorski was refused a military post when Poland was invaded by Germany in September 1939. He escaped to Paris, where he joined with Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz and Stanislaw Mikolajczyk in the Polish government-in-exile, in which he became Prime Minister.
Sikorski's government was recognised by the western Allies, and commanded substantial armed forces: the Polish Navy had escaped to Britain, and many thousands of Polish troops had escaped via Romania or across the Baltic. These forces took part in the Battle of Britain and fought in France and the Middle East. In 1940 Sikorski and his government moved to London, and began training a new Polish Army.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Sikorski went to Moscow and established diplomatic relations at a meeting with Stalin. Stalin agreed to invalidate the Soviet-German partition of Poland, and to release tens of thousands of Polish prisoners-of-war held in Soviet camps.
In April 1943, however, relations between the Soviet Union and the Polish government in exile broke down when the Germans revealed the discovery of the bodies of 4,000 Polish officers who had been murdered by the Soviets, buried at Katyn. Stalin claimed that the atrocity had been carried out by the Germans. When Sikorski refused to accept this, Stalin broke off diplomatic relations and started a political campaign to get Western Allies to recognize Soviet puppet Polish government led by Wanda Wasilewska, and the General Zygmunt Berling, leader of the 1st Polish Army in Russia, as the Commander-in-Chief of the entire Polish figthing force.
Sikorski was killed in an air crash over Gibraltar on 4th July 1943 on a Middle East flight via Cairo, where he was visiting the Polish forces stationed in that region.
Controversy over Sikorski's death
Sikorski (right) visits airbase of the 300th Polish Bomber Squadron, in England, with (left) RAF Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal. As he was the most prestigious leader of the Polish exiles, his death was a severe setback to the Polish cause, and was certainly highly convenient for Stalin. It was in some ways also convenient for the western Allies, who were finding the Polish issue a stumbling-block in their efforts to preserve good relations with Stalin. After Soviets broke of diplomatic relations with Sikorski's governemtn in April 1943, in May and June of that year Stalin has recalled several Soviet Union ambasadors in the West for 'consulatations': Litwinow was recalled from Washington, Gusiew was recalled from Montreal and Iwan Majski was recalled from London. In June, Stalin has also initated secret negotiations with Germany, which led Western Allies to speculation about possibily of Soviet Union making peace with Germany. While Churchill was officialy very supportive of Sikorski's goverment, reminding Stalin of his alliance with Nazi Germany in 1939 and their joint attack on Poland, the Polish-Soviet crisis was begining to threaten the Allied-Soviet cooperation at a time when Polish importance as an ally, essential in the first years of the war, was begining to fade now as the conflict was joined by military and industrial giants of Soviet Union and the United States.
This coupled with many strange facts and events has given a rise to persistent suggestions that Sikorski's death was not accidental. Many historians speculate that his death might have been effect of Soviet, British or even Polish conspiracy. Among most often mentioned facts are:
- Sikorski's body was recovered from the plane without any injuries, and his face showed signs common in the case of strangulation
- it was uncrertain how many people boarded the plane and whose exactly bodies were recovered from the crash site. It it is speculated that Sikorski has not died on the plane, but was assasinated in his quaters prior to the fatal flight, as might have been others members of his mission;
- several of the members of Sikorski's mission, whose bodies were never fully identified, might have survived the assasination attempt and been kindapped to the Soviet Union. Among the supposed kindapped victims was Zofia Leśniowska, Sikorski's daughter, who in 1945 was reported to be spotted in a Soviet GuLag camp by a member of Polish elite commando grup (Cichociemni), Tadeusz Kobylinski;
- according to an article written by Jan Kozłowski, Kobyliński attempted to collect members of Armia Krajowa in 1945 or 1946 to mount a rescue mission to save Zofia, however he was captured by the Soviets agents at the border at never heard from again;
- approximately at the same time Sikorski's plane was at a Giblartar airfield, a Soviet Union plane was present next to Sikorski's plane. It ws carrying ambassador Majski, with a retuine of at least dozen unidentified officers and soldier and it flight destination was the Soviet Union, with a stop on a rarely used African airfield instead of the nearby commonly used airports at Castel Benito near Tripoli. Relations of witnesses at that time confirm that Sovets in Giblartar were stationed in the same place Polish Sikorski's mission was - the governor's palace, howeverr Majski in an interview fom 1966 states that he clearly remembers they were staying in the Giblartar Fotress and was not aware of Sikorski's presence in the same city;
None of those allegations have ever been proved, and the fact that the principal exponents of this theory have been the revisionist historians David Irving and Rolf Hochhuth has not encouraged many western historians to take it seriously. On the other hand by 2000 only a small part of the British Intelligence documents related to Sikorski's death had been unclassified and made available to Polish historians. The majority of the files will be classified for another "50 to 100 years."
See also
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wladyslaw Sikorski
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