| Józef Beck | |
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| Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland 17th Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Second Republic |
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| In office November 2, 1932 – September 20, 1939 |
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| President | Ignacy Mościcki |
| Prime Minister | Aleksander Prystor, Janusz Jędrzejewicz, Leon Kozłowski, Walery Sławek, Marian Zyndram-Kościałkowski, Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski |
| Deputy | Jan Szembek |
| Preceded by | August Zaleski |
| Succeeded by | August Zaleski |
| Personal details | |
| Born | October 4, 1894 Warsaw, then Russian Empire, now Poland |
| Died | June 5, 1944 (aged 49) Stăneşti, Romania |
| Profession | Politician, Diplomat, Military |
' (October 4, 1894, Warsaw – June 5, 1944, Stăneşti, Romania) was a Polish statesman, diplomat, military officer, and close associate of Józef Piłsudski. He is most famous for being Polish foreign minister in 1930s, when he was involved in territorial disputes with Nazi Germany that subsequently led to the Invasion of Poland and the Second World War.
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When World War I started, Beck was a student at a college of Engineering.[1] After the outbreak of World War I, Beck was a member of the clandestine Polish Military Organization (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa, or POW) founded in October 1914 by Piłsudski. Joining in 1914[2] Beck served until 1917 in the First Brigade of the Polish Legions and was an aide to Piłsudski. When the Brigade was interned, Beck escaped. After Poland regained independence, Beck was assigned as a commander of an artillery battery and assigned to the General Staff. Beck served as military attaché to France between 1922 and 1923.[2] The French disliked Beck to the point of spreading lies about him.[3] In 1926 he helped to carry out the May 1926 military coup d'état that brought Piłsudski to de facto governmental power.[3]
In 1926 to 1930m Beck served as chief of staff to Poland's Minister of Military Affairs, and in 1930-1932 as Vice Prime Minister[3] and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs.[3] Groomed by Piłsudski to implement Poland's foreign policy, in 1932 he took office as Minister of Foreign Affairs,[1][2][4] a post he was to hold until the outbreak of World War II.[5]
In his international diplomacy, Beck sought to maintain a fine balance in Poland's relations with its two powerful neighbours: Germany and the Soviet Union.[6] Pursuant to this, in July 1932 he concluded a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union,[7] and in January 1934 a German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact.[4][7] He sought guarantees of security for Poland from the western powers: from Great Britain[7] and France. His signal accomplishment in this realm was securing such guarantees from Britain in the spring of 1939, when it had become clear that Germany would not be swayed from embarking on war, and renewal of the Franco-Polish Alliance. Beck's policies could not avert war, but they did ultimately cause Germany's attack on Poland to embroil Germany in conflict with the western powers.
Beck detested the Minorities Treaty, guaranteeing the rights of Poland's Jewish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Lithuanian and German minorities, that the Allies had forced on Central European states under the 1919 Versailles Treaty, . Beck argued that, while Poland and Czechoslovakia were forced to respect the rights of their respective German minorities, the Polish minorities in Germany and the Soviet Union were not so protected.[8] In addition, Beck resented that countries, such as Germany, used the Minorities Treaty to exert pressure on neighbouring states and to become involved in the internal affairs of Poland.[9] In September 1934, Beck renounced the Minorities Treaty after the Soviet Union was admitted to the League of Nations.[10]
Largely because the League of Nations had been the principal guarantor of the Minorities Treaty, Beck had a strong dislike for the League and made little effort to hide his disdain for it. Beck would have pulled Poland out of the League except for the chance that if Poland were the victim of aggression, then the collective-security provisions of the League's Covenant might be activated in Poland's favor. Beck did not think that was a very likely possibility, but he was prepared to keep Poland in the League just in case the Covenant could be activated for Poland.
After Piłsudski's death in May 1935, a power sharing agreement was agreed to by the various Piłsudskite factions, led by General (later Marshal) Edward Rydz-Śmigły, President Ignacy Mościcki, and Beck himself. These three individuals effectively dominated the Sanacja (Sanation) and collectively ruled Poland until the outbreak of World War II. Beck more or less had a free hand in formulating Poland's foreign policy.[4] The stability of the ruling group was weakened, owing to personal conflicts within it, and none of the three men managed to completely assert their dominance during the late 1930s. The period from 1935 to 1939 is often described by historians as a "dictatorship without a dictator".
Beck also actively explored possibilities of realizing his mentor Piłsudski's concept of Międzymorze ("Tween-Seas"): of a federation of central and eastern European countries stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and — in later variants — from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. Such a polity, between Germany in the west and the Soviet Union in the east, might have been strong enough to deter both from military intervention. Beck realized that for the immediate future there was no realistic chance of building such a European superstate, but he was prepared to settle for a diplomatic bloc led by Poland, referred to as a "Third Europe",[11][12] that might become the nucleus of a Międzymorze federation.
Beck's "Third Europe" diplomatic concept comprised a bloc of Italy,[13][14] Poland,[13][14] Yugoslavia, Hungary,[13][14] and Romania.[15] It was toward this goal that Beck devoted most of his energy during his time as Foreign Minister. His efforts failed for several reasons:
In 1936, the Camp of National Unity (OZON) was formed[16] but Beck refused to join.[17]
The Czechoslovak government was not interested in an alliance with Poland.[18] Beneš claimed when Beck became Foreign Minister, he proposed an alliance against Germany, but Beneš refused.[18] Beck tried again in 1934 to settle differences with Czechoslovakia. Beneš saw the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact as a 'stab in the back'.[19] Beck disliked Czechoslovakia and its Foreign Minister (later President) Edvard Beneš,[20][21] who in his turn reciprocated these feelings in full.[19] By contrast, Beck's relations with the Hungarian Regent, Admiral Miklós Horthy, were good. Beck often toyed with the idea that Slovakia should be returned to Hungary (apart from a small part going to Poland),[22] but never attempted to actually do this (except that Poland in 1938-1939 successfully worked with Hungary for a restored common Polish-Hungarian border at Czechoslovakia's expense: see article on the First Vienna Award). The chances of a Polish-Czechoslovak alliance in the 1930s were never good, but the mutual hatred between Beck and Beneš ended what slight chances there were. Still, it has also been argued that it was not the personal acrimony but a realisation that only France could help against Germany hence Polish/Czechoslovak relations were not critical.[23]
In the early 1950s, there was a major historical debate on the pages of the Times Literary Supplement between the British historian Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier and the former French foreign minister Georges Bonnet. Namier alleged that Bonnet had snubbed an offer by Beck in May 1938 to have Poland come to the aid of Czechoslovakia in the event of a German attack.[24] Bonnet denied that such an offer had been made, which led Namier to accuse Bonnet of seeking to falsify the record.[24] Namier concluded the debate in 1953 with these words: "The Polish offer, for what it was worth, was first torpedoed by Bonnet the statesmen, and next obliterated by Bonnet the historian".[25]
Beck played a decisive role in during the months preceding the start of the Second World War, staunchly refusing Nazi German demands to subordinate Poland to Nazi policies and goals in Europe by joining Anti-Comintern Pact directed against the Soviet Union, giving away vital Polish territory connecting it to the port of Gdynia in the form of extraterritorial highway that was to run across Polish Pomorze (Pomerania) to East Prussia and Nazi demands regarding Free City of Danzig in exchange for vogue promises by Hitler to respect Polish borders and extension of non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany.
Even in 1937, Hitler continued to assure Beck that Germany had no claims on Danzig.[26] But at the start of 1939, Hitler changed his earlier position and now laid claim to Danzig, adding that military force would not be used.[26] In April 1939, Beck was in London to agree to the terms of the British-Polish aid treaty.[27] Beck famously voiced his refusal of German demands in a speech on May 5, 1939, less than four months before Adolf Hitler's military attack on Poland:
| “ | "Peace is a precious and a desirable thing. Our generation, bloodied in wars, certainly deserves peace. But peace, like almost all things of this world, has its price, a high but a measurable one. We in Poland do not know the concept of peace at any price. There is only one thing in the lives of men, nations and countries that is without price. That thing is honor." | ” |
To Hitler, though, whether Poland accepted Germany's demands or not, was of little concern, given Hitler's intent to achieve a common boundary with the Soviet Union. Whether this was accomplished through alliances with the Baltic countries or through their annexation by Germany or the Soviet Union was in principle irrelevant.[28]
Similarly, Beck refused an agreement proposed by Great Britain that involved the country's cooperation with France and the Soviet Union. In doing so, Poland maintained a relatively neutral stance towards both of its powerful neighbours.
A third proposal soon followed, once again elaborated by Great Britain, which promised support to the Polish Government ifthe country's borders were endangered. This time around, Beck accepted it.
His hopes for an alliance with Britain thwarted, Hitler shifted his focus to the Soviet Union, with whom Germany would celebrate a non-aggression pact, in an attempt to settle the situation with Russia following the resolution of the impending opening of a Western front.
At the same time, Great Britain and France also sought an alliance with Soviet Union. evertheless, while Germany could offer the Soviets considerable benefits, including vast territories in Eastern Europe and Finland, the Allies could only allow Soviet Union to make use of Polish territory, under vague circumstances and limited conditions (in fact, even this small concession on Beck's part was only agreed when the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was very much inevitable).[29]
In August 2009, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service claimed that Beck was a German agent.[30] Polish media reacted angrily to the allegation.[31]
Following the invasion of Poland by Germany at the start of World War II, it was Beck who called on Poland's allies (France and Britain) to find out when they would enter the war to support Poland.[32] After Poland had been overrun by its neighbours in September 1939 in a historic "fourth partition" of the country, on the night of September 17–18, 1939, Beck withdrew together with the rest of the Polish government into Romania,[1] where he was interned by the authorities. It was then that he wrote a volume of memoirs, Ostatni raport (Final Report).
He died in Stanesti, Romania,[33][34] June 5, 1944 after developing tuberculosis.[35] Beck was survived by his son Andrzej who is active in the Polish community.[36]
Criticism of Beck has been challenged by historians. Norman Davies describes them as "exaggerated".[5] Peter Stachura felt it "misplaced".[37] His policies were also supported by Prof. Anna Cienciala.[38]
In May 1991, Beck's remains were repatriated to Poland and interred at Warsaw's Powązki Military Cemetery, one of Poland's pantheons of the great and valiant.
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