Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski

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General Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski

Tadeusz Jordan-Rozwadowski (1866-1928) was a Polish military commander and politician, an officer of the Austro-Hungarian Army and then the Polish Army.

Born May 19, 1866, in Babin near Kałusz. His family, traceable to a Polish Bishop and his brothers ca. 900 AD, was a member of the Polish gentry, and a part of Traby clan (see Trąby Coat of Arms). The Jordan commemorates a distant ancestor who fought in the crusades and as legend has it was the first Pole to explore the Jordan River valley. He was also descended from the Polish Patriot Kasimirz Jordan-Rozwadowksi, who fought against the last partition of Poland. The family obtained the title of count from the Habsburg Emperor Joseph II in 1783.

Prior to the outbreak of the Great War he joined the Austro-Hungarian Army as an officer of artillery. He (and subsequently his son) was taught to ride at the famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Rozwadowski also served for many years as the Austrian Military Attache in Bucharest, Romania; in 1921 he would use his contancts to help start the Polish-Romanian Alliance. In 1914 he became the commanding officer of the 12th Artillery Brigade attached to the Kraków-based 12th Infantry Division. A skilled commander, he then became the commanding officer of the 43rd Infantry Division, which he led during the victorious battle of Gorlice. For his merits in that battle he was awarded the Military Order of Maria Theresa. He is also credited with the discovery of an artillery barrage tactic called Feuerwaltze - Fire-roller. In the Austro-Hungarian Army he rose to the rank of Feldmarschalleutnant, a contemporary equivalent of the British rank of Major-General.

On October 26, 1918 he became the Regency Council-nominated chief of staff of the Polnische Wehrmacht. After Poland regained her independence, on November 15 of that year he resigned his post - and was assigned to the same duty within the newly-restored Polish Army a week later. Until March 19, 1919 he was also the commanding officer of the Wschód Army fighting on the fronts of the Polish-Ukrainian War in Galicia. He was then dispatched to Paris, where he took part in the Polish delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and was one of the people to sign the Versailles Peace Treaty. He also headed numerous Polish military missions to Paris, London and Rome. In June he became the official representative of Polish armed forces in Paris and was influential in obtaining international support for Poland (for example, the volunteers for the Polish-American Kościuszko Squadron).^[1]

At the height of the Russian offensive in the Polish-Soviet War, on July 22, 1920, he returned to Poland and assumed the post of the Chief of General Staff and a member of the State Defence Council. Opinions among historians vary as to the extent he was responsible for developing the extremely successful plan for the battle of Warsaw that turned the tide of that war, also known as 'Miracle at Vistula'.^[2] Certainly he was considering a similar plan^[3] ^[4]. Some, however argue, that his input was even more important then that of Marshal of Poland, Józef Piłsudski, most often credited with turning the tide of the war^[5]. For his part in the war, Rozwadowski was awarded the Virtuti Militari (Classes II and V) and the the Cross of the Valorous (four times). After the end of hostilities he became the inspector-general of Polish cavalry units and authored the 1924 reform of the cavalry tactics and organization. He was also one of the early proponents of Polish tanks and airpower.

Gen. Rozwadowski's tomb in Lwów

During the May Coup d'Etat of 1926 he was the commander of the forces loyal to the elected government and assumed the role of the military governor of Warsaw. After the victory of Józef Piłsudski he was imprisoned in Warsaw and Wilno (Vilnius) for half-a-year under false accusations of improper financial dealings.^[6] Soon after his release and retirement he died under mysterious ciscumstances on October 22, 1928 in Warsaw and was buried, amid rumors of poisoning,^[6] with military honours at the Łyczaków Cemetery in Lwów (Lviv), among his fallen soldiers of the 1918-1919 Polish-Ukrainian War.

General Rozwadowski left behind a wife, a daughter, and a son. The greater part of his fortune was lost in a business venture to benefit the soldiers who fought under his command. His daughter, Melania Josefina, seems to have died under mysterious circumstances in the 1970s and never married. The son, Jozef, was an artillery officer in the Polish Army and was also awarded the Virtuti Militari. In the 1930's he was forced to resign his commission and emigrate to the United States due to his continued support for the democratic forces in Poland. Jozef ("Joseph Jordan") worked as an engineer and designed the elevators in the Empire State Building as well as the Polish Pavilion in the 1964 World's Fair. He was survived by one daughter, Melanie Josephine, and one granddaughter, Calia Brencsons-Van Dyk (see List of Latvians), both also living in the United States.

[edit] References

^ Janusz Cisek, Kosciuszko, We Are Here: American Pilots of the Kosciuszko Squadron in Defense of Poland, 1919-1921, McFarland & Company, 2002, ISBN 0-7864-1240-2, Google Print, p.9-18 and further
^ (Polish)Janusz Szczepański, KONTROWERSJE WOKÓŁ BITWY WARSZAWSKIEJ 1920 ROKU (Controversies surrounding the Battle of Warsaw in 1920). Mówią Wieki, online version.
^ John Erickson, The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History, 1918-1941, Routledge, ISBN 0-7146-5178-8 Google Print, p.95
^ , Cisek, op cit, Google Print, p.140
^ Conceptions of National History: Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 78, Walter de Gruyter, 1994, ISBN 3-11-013504-3 Google Print, p.230
^ ^a ^b (Russian)(Ukrainian) Oleksa Pidlutskyi, Postati XX stolittia, (Figures of the 20th century), Kiev, 2004, ISBN 966-8290-01-1, LCCN 20-04440333. Chapter "Józef Piłsudski: The Chief who Created Himself a State" reprinted in Zerkalo Nedeli (the Mirror Weekly), Kiev, February 3 - 9, 2001, in Russian and in Ukrainian.

Tadeusz Kryska-Karski, Stanisław Żurakowski, Generałowie Polski niepodległej (Generals of independent Poland), Warszawa 1991
Andrzej Suchcitz, Generałowie wojny polsko-sowieckiej 1919-1920. Mały słownik biograficzny (Generals of Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920. Small biographical dictionary), Białystok 1993

[edit] Further reading

R. Ulrych, “General Tadeusz Rozwadowski and the Attempt to Establish a Volunteer American Legion within the Polish Army, 1919—1920,” The Polish Review, vol. XXXVII, no.1., 1992, p.102-104
Mariusz Patelski, Generał broni Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski: żołnierz i dyplomata (Generał broni Tadeusz Jordan Rozwadowski: soldier and diplomat), Warszawa 2002