Marshal Pilsudski Klippe 1934, Independence, REPLICA Start Price USD 29.90 Current Price USD 29.90 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price USD 34.90 Reserve Price - Start Time Saturday, October 04, 2008 End Time Saturday, October 11, 2008 Location European Union See more about 'Marshal Pilsudski Klippe 1934, Independence, REPLICA' Description Visit my page with the offers, please. You will find many interesting items related to this subject.     If you wish to see AUTHENTIC coins, click here; Coins; Originals     If you wish to see the REPLICAS, click here; Coins; Replicas          The ORIGINAL of this Klippe coin has been minted in 1934 in the State Mint to commemorate the independence of Poland.   This os an REPLICA.       Józef Piłsudski (['juzef piw'sutski] (help·info), December 5, 1867 – May 12, 1935) was a Polish revolutionary and statesman, Field Marshal, first Chief of State (1918–1922) and dictator (1926–1935), of the Second Polish Republic, as well as the leader of its armed forces. From the middle of the First World War, until his death, Piłsudski was the major influence in the foreign policy and government of Poland, and an important figure in European politics. He is considered to be largely responsible for Poland regaining its independence, one hundred and twenty three years after the partitions of Poland.         av. The portrait of Marshal Pilsudski, the Marshal’s batons in the each corner; the inscription; “The Seventeenth Anniversary of the Regaining of the Independence” rv. The military badge used by the Pilsudski’s legion – the crowned eagle.     size – ca 46 x 46 mm, (1⅝”) weight – 19.20 gr, (0.60 oz) metal –  alloy, resembles the silver         Piłsudski was a supporter of the cause of Polish independence from his youth, and in his early political life was an influential member—and later, leader—of the Polish Socialist Party. He considered the Russian Empire to be the most formidable obstacle to Polish independence, and thus worked with Austria-Hungary and Germany to ensure its defeat in the First World War. Later, he withdrew his support from the Central Powers as it became more beneficial for the Polish cause to work with the Triple Entente. During the ensuing Polish-Soviet War, he commanded the Kiev Operation and the Battle of Warsaw. From 1918 (the year Poland regained independence) until 1921, he was the Chief of State (Naczelnik Państwa). Later, as the Polish government became dominated by his political opponents from endecja he withdrew from politics, but returned to power after the May 1926 coup d'état, becoming the de facto dictator of Poland. From then on, he primarily concentrated on military and foreign affairs, until his death in 1935. To this day, he is held in high regard by most of the Polish public. At a meeting in Paris in 1914, Piłsudski presciently declared that in the imminent war, for Poland to regain her independence, Russia must be beaten by the Central Powers (the Austro-Hungarian and German Empires), and the latter powers must in their turn be beaten by France, Britain and the United States. At the same time, Roman Dmowski, leader of another faction of the Polish nationalist movement, believed the best way to achieve a unified and independent Poland, was to support the Triple Entente against the Triple Alliance. At the outbreak of the World War I he set out from Kraków at the head of a well-trained group of units, with which he entered the Russian partitioned Poland and took control of a border strip evacuated by the Russians near Kielce, but failed to encourage a national uprising. Next he made an alliance with Austria, and officially established the Polish Legion, taking personal command of its First Brigade, which he would lead successfully into several victorious battles. However, he secretly informed the British government in the fall of 1914, that his Legions would never fight against France and Britain--only against Russia. Within the Legions, Piłsudski decreed that personnel were to be addressed by the French-Revolution-inspired "Citizen," and he himself was referred to as "the Commandant" ("Komendant"). Piłsudski commanded extreme respect and loyalty of his men that would remain for years to come. The Polish Legion fought with distinction against Russia at the side of the Central Powers until 1917. Soon after the formation of the Legions, and also in 1914, Piłsudski also formed another secter organization, the Polish Military Organisation (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa), which served as a precursor to the Polish intelligence and was designed to carry out espionage and sabotage missions. On November 5, 1916, the Central Powers proclaimed the "independence" of Poland, hoping that as a result Polish troops would be sent to the eastern front against Russia, relieving German forces to bolster the Western front. Piłsudski agreed to serve in the "Kingdom of Poland" created by the Central Powers, but insisted that his men not be treated as "German colonial troops" and only be used to fight Russia.[19] Piłsudski, then serving as minister of war in the newly created Polish Regency government, also opposed the demand that the Polish units swear loyalty to Germany and Austria. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and worsening situation of the Central Powers, Piłsudski increasingly took an uncompromising stance. In the aftermath of the Oath crisis, in July 1917, where he forbade Polish soldiers to take an oath of loyalty to the Central Powers, he was arrested and imprisoned at Magdeburg; the Polish units were then disbanded and soldiers incorporated into the Austro-Hungarian army, and the Polish Military Organizations started attacking German targets.[6] The arrest vastly increased Piłsudski's reputation among Poles, and many in the Polish society began to see him as the most consequent and determined of the Polish leaders, willing to fight against all partitioners. On November 8, 1918, Piłsudski and his comrade, Colonel Kazimierz Sosnkowski, were released from Magdeburg and soon — like Vladimir Lenin before them — placed on a private train, bound for their national capital, as increasingly desperate Germans were hoping Piłsudski would gather forces friendly to them. On November 11, in Warsaw, Piłsudski was appointed Commander in Chief of the Polish forces by the Regency Council and was entrusted with the mission of creating a national government in the newly independent country; on that day, he proclaimed an independent Polish state (that day would become the Polish independence day). He negotiated the retreat of the German garrison from Warsaw and other German troops from the Ober-Ost (Eastern front) and on 14 November 1918, he was asked to provisionally supervise the running of the country, and, on 22 November, he officially received the title of Provisional Chief of State (Naczelnik Państwa), of renascent Poland from the new government of Jędrzej Moraczewski. The Provisional People's Government of the Republic of Poland, formed in Lublin, bowed to Piłsudski, who set about forming a new coalition government. It was predominantly Socialist and immediately introduced many reforms long proclaimed as necessary by the Polish Socialist Party (e.g. the 8-hour day, free school education, vote for women). This was absolutely necessary to avoid major unrest. However, Piłsudski believed that as head of state he must be above political parties, and the day after his arrival in Warsaw, he met with old colleagues from underground days, who addressed him socialist-style as "Comrade" ("Towarzysz") and asked for support of their revolutionary policies; Piłsudski rebuked them with his famous remark that "I took the red tram of socialism to the stop named Independence, but that's where I got off". He declined to support any one party and did not form any political organization of his own. He also set about organizing a Polish army out of Polish veterans of the German, Russian and Austrian armies. In the days immediately after the World War I, Piłsudski attempted to build a government in a shattered country. Much of former Russian Poland had been destroyed in the war, and systematic looting by the Germans had reduced the region's wealth by at least 10%. A British diplomat who visited Warsaw in January 1919 reported: "I have nowhere seen anything like the evidences of extreme poverty and wretchedness that meet one's eye at almost every turn". In addition, Piłsudski had to transform the different systems of law, economics, and administration in the former German, Austrian and Russian partitions of Poland into one; there were nine different legal systems, five currencies, 66 types of rail systems (with 165 models of locomotives), and other similar problems, which all had to be urgently consolidated.[ Piłsudski drove himself hard, working all day and, on a regimen of tea and chain-smoked cigarettes, all night. He maintained a Spartan lifestyle, eating plain meals alone at an inexpensive restaurant, and became increasingly pale and thin. Though Piłsudski was very popular with much of the Polish public, his reputation as a loner (the result of many years' underground work), of a man who distrusted almost everyone, led to strained relations with other Polish politicians. The first Polish government and Piłsudski were also distrusted in the West because Piłsudski had cooperated with the Central Powers in 1914-17 and because he had supported the formation of a Socialist government. It was not until January 1919, when the world-famed pianist and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski became Prime Minister (also Foreign Minister) of a new government, that it was recognized in the West. That still left two separate governments claiming to be the legitimate government of Poland: Piłsudski's in Warsaw, and Roman Dmowski's in Paris. To ensure that Poland had a single government and to avert civil war, Paderewski met with Dmowski and Piłsudski and persuaded them to join forces, with Piłsudski acting as provisional president and supreme commander-in-chief while Dmowski and Paderewski represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Piłsudski often clashed with Dmowski, at variance with the latter's vision of the Poles as the dominant nationality in reborn Poland, and irked by Dmowski's attempt to send the Blue Army back to Poland through Danzig, Germany (modern Gdańsk, Poland). On 20 February 1919, Piłsudski's declared that he would return his powers to the newly elected Polish parliament (Sejm). However, the Sejm reinstated his office in the Small Constitution. The word Provisional was removed from the title; and Piłsudski would hold that office until 9 December 1922, when Gabriel Narutowicz was elected the first President of Poland. By 1935, unbeknownst to the public, Piłsudski had for several years been in declining health. He died of liver cancer on May 12, 1935, at the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw. His funeral turned into a national tribute to the man who had probably done most in the military sense to restore Poland's independence. His body was placed in the Leonard's Crypt of the Royal Crypts at Wawel Cathedral, in Kraków, but his heart was interred in his mother's grave at Rossa Cemetery, in Vilnius, where it remains today.     Place a Bid!