Facial Hair Badassery Part 1: Józef Piłsudski
On August 15, 1920, a battered and war-torn Poland defended their capital against the onslaught of Leninist Soviet Russia, preventing the progress of Communism across post-World War I Europe despite being outnumbered, outgunned, and almost completely surrounded by hardcore enemy soldiers who wanted nothing more than to stomp Polish faces into the mud.
The Poles, with their own capital city behind them, completely destroyed the entire strength of the Soviet army by bayonet charging the larger force in the hope of shattering their morale.
The Poles were led in their desperate offensive by this mustachioed badass:
Marshal Józef Piłsudski. Take a peek at him for a second. This guy was a revolutionary, bank robber, guerrilla, underground writer, General, and political activist who had survived hardcore incarcerations in everything from Siberian gulags to Polish castles and German mountain fortresses.
Despite everything you might have been told about Poland, they’re filled with military badasses and have had some awesome wins. Unfortunately for the badass Polish warrior, they are almost totally crippled by terrible geography; being sandwiched between two of the biggest military powers to ever exist — Germany and Russia. Historically speaking, not a very good sandwich to be in the middle of. Poland had to spend hundreds of years getting conquered by a litany of European powers: Prussians, Austrians, Russians, and especially the Germans, who invaded Poland more than 15 times.
Anyways, back to Piłsudski. This mustachioed man was born in 1867 in what is now Zalavas, Lithuania, but back then was Russia. Makes sense right? That city alone was part of Lithuania, the Russian Empire, the German Empire, Poland, and Lithuania, all at different times. When young Józef was born, it was a part of the Russian Empire.
Józef’s family was a noble one, descended from the old Princes of Lithuania. Must have been a cushy childhood, right? Wrong. A lot of shit had gone down, and his family had no money. Not to mention the family was kind of on Tsar Alexander’s shit- list because Jozef’s father had participated in the January 1863 uprising. Apparently, starting a revolution doesn’t make you friends with the tyrannical dictator. Needless to say, the family hated Russia, and Russia hated them back.
Józef went to medical school in Karkhov and got involved with some socialist groups. Now, he didn’t really like the idea of socialism, but he figured it would be a good opportunity to break free from Russia. Well, it didn’t turn out great for him, especially when a couple of buds hatched a plan to assassinate the Tsar. Guilty by association, he and the would-be assassins were thrown into a Siberian work camp, to serve 15 years. While he only served 5 years, he got the everliving shit beat out of him, because he kept trying to incite prison riots to kill the guards.
Jozef hated Russia before being forced to work in a labor camp for 5 years. imagine his pent-up hatred now. Immediately after being released he started a secret underground newspaper but was arrested again in 1900 and thrown into an inescapable castle prison in Warsaw. But guess what? He escaped. By faking mental illness, he was transferred to a mental hospital in St. Petersburg…which he also escaped, hopped a train back to Poland, and started recruiting a posse and robbing banks to fund his one-man war on the Tsar. He even traveled to Japan when the Russo-Japanese War broke out, hoping to get some assistance in starting a Polish revolt against Russia.
He spent two years leading Polish troops in World War I, but was imprisoned again, this time in an inescapable mountain fortress, after refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the German kaiser for “liberating” Poland from the Russians. He returned to Poland after the war as a national hero and was made de facto leader of the country.
After the “Miracle on the Vistula,” in which Marshal Piłsudski beat the hell out of the Russians and set the border that would last until the end of WW2, he retired. BUT, tired of watching politicians mess everything up for three years, he un-retired and made himself military dictator of Poland. He then tried to negotiate a treaty with France to attack the Nazis simultaneously in 1933–6 years before the Nazis started WW2 by invading Poland. France refused, so Piłsudski resigned himself to building up his forces for an inevitable war.
He died in 1935 and was buried alongside the medieval kings of Poland.
In case you weren't following: A medical student spends five years in a gulag, escapes, runs an underground revolutionary newspaper, gets literally thrown into the dungeon of a medieval castle, escapes by faking insanity, breaks out of a mental institution, then becomes a bank robber so he can pay soldiers in a private war against the Tsar of Russia. Goes on to lead Poland in beating the shit out of Russia, and tries to attack the Nazis before anyone even had the idea.
I wonder if it was the mustache?
Sources used: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica, Józef Piłsudski Institute of America.