Wincenty Witos

Early life

Wincenty was born in a peasant family in Wierzchosławice in Lesser Poland/Galicia. His parents were Wojciech and Katarzyna née Sroka. The family was poor, owning little land and no livestock and they lived in a single room hut which had been converted from a barn. Wincenty had two brothers, Jan and Andrzej. Andrzej would also become a leader in the Polish agrarian movement.

He began his education in the village school at the age of ten and finished four grades. Subsequently, he worked, helping his father, as a lumberjack for Prince Eustachy Stanisław Sanguszko.

Between 1895 and 1897 Wincenty served in the Austrian Army (Galicia was part of the Austrian partition of Poland), first in infantry then in the artillery. He was stationed in Tarnów, Kraków and Krzesławice.

He married Katarzyna Trach on 9 February 1898. His daughter Julia was born on 22 March 1899.

Early political activity

At the age of nineteen he published his first newspaper article in the Przyjaciel Ludu ("Friend of the People") based in Lwów (Lviv, Lemberg), under the name "Maciej Rydz". In 1895 Witos joined the Galician Stronnictwo Ludowe ("People's Party") and in February 1903 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the party. In 1908 he was elected as a delegate to the Diet of Galicia in Lwow and served until 1914.

In April 1909 Witos was elected the wójt (mayor) of his native Wierzchosławice. During his tenure he focused on the economic development of the village, oversaw the construction of a mill and a social center, improved local roads, expanded the school and organized a farmer's cooperative and credit union. He gradually rose in the ranks of the agrarian movement.

Road to Independence

In December 1913 the People's Party split. As a result, in February 1914 Witos was elected as vice president of the newly created political party Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe "Piast" (Polish People's Party "Piast"). In 1911 he served as a deputy of the party to Austria's Imperial Council's House of Representatives. Technically he remained the member of the Austrian government until 1918.

After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Witos became even more involved in party activities. The group joined the Supreme National Committee a quasi-government for the Poles in Galicia, for which Witos served as vice president. As the political events associated with the war unfolded and the Committee became more and more irrelevant, Witos resigned.

During the war Witos kept in touch with Polish independence movement activists, including Ignacy Paderewski and Jędrzej Moraczewski. He also supported Józef Piłsudski, whom he saw as the future leader of a reconstituted Polish army. "Piast"'s backing for Piłsudski increased after the Oath Crisis and the internment of Piłsudski by the Germans. Gradually, the agrarians of the Polish People's Party came to believe that the cause of Polish independence was best served by an alliance with the alliance, and as a result began supporting the pro-Entente, anti-German, National Democrats. In 1917 Witos joined Roman Dmowski's National League although he left the organization in 1918.

In 1916 he became the president of "Piast". He coauthored a manifesto which declared the aims of a reconstituted, independent Poland, which was published in May 1917. On 28 September 1918 he was one of the two directors of the Polish Liquidation Committee, a temporary government whose purpose was to preserve law and order in the former Austrian partition, during the transition to an elected Polish government. The Committee declared Western Galicia independent of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Witos was invited to join the government of Ignacy Daszyński but turned the offer down due to political differences. Witos was also unsatisfied with the fact that the new government did not have representatives from the Prussian Partition.