Kazimierz Sosnkowski (1885-1969)
He was among the most distinguished Polish military leaders and political figures of the twentieth century, and a champion of Polish independence. He passed away on 11 October 1969 in Arundel, Canada, at the age of eighty-four. The urn containing his ashes was initially interred at Montmorency Cemetery near Paris and later transported to Poland on 12 October 1992.

Born on 19 November 1885 in Warsaw, he was descended from a noble family with roots in the Podlasie region. His father, a chemical engineer by profession, was also an avid musician and composer; his mother, also of noble descent, was daughter of the landowner of the Gintowce estate in Samogitia (Gintaučiai in modern-day Lithuania). Following his father’s death, he was raised solely by his mother. Sosnkowski joined a clandestine self-education circle already as a student of a Warsaw gymnasium. However, the suspicions of Tsarist authorities led him to relocate to Saint Petersburg, where he completed his secondary education. He initially pursued studies at the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw Polytechnic Institute. However, amid political turbulence and due to his involvement in independence efforts, he moved between institutions, studying architecture in Milan, Italy, and Lwów (present-day Lviv, Ukraine). The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 and his political commitments prevented him from completing his final exams. From 1905, he was a member of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). After its split, he joined the Revolutionary Faction. In the PPS Combat Organisation, he served as district commander, chief of staff, and deputy commander of the Union of Active Struggle.

During the First World War, he worked closely with Józef Piłsudski and served as Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff of Piłsudski’s First Brigade of the Polish Legions. In 1917, he was appointed Piłsudski’s deputy as Head of the Military Commission in the Provisional Council of State in the Kingdom of Poland. Following the so-called „oath crisis,” Kazimierz Sosnkowski was imprisoned first in the fortress of Wesel and later in Magdeburg. Orchestrated by Piłsudski in light of Germany’s reluctance to grant Poland complete independence, this crisis unfolded when soldiers of the Polish Auxiliary Corps, including members of the Polish Legions, refused to pledge allegiance to the German and Austro-Hungarian emperors. While in captivity, Sosnkowski experienced a personal tragedy: his ten-year-old daughter, Zofia, succumbed to the Spanish flu pandemic. This loss deeply affected his first wife, Stefania, who experienced a severe mental health crisis. The marriage was ultimately annulled. After the war, he married Jadwiga Żukowska, who was sixteen years his junior; they had five sons, four of whom followed their father into military service.

After Poland’s rise to independence, Kazimierz Sosnkowski was promoted to general and shortly thereafter appointed Deputy Minister of Military Affairs (1919-1920). During the Polish-Soviet War, he served on the Council of National Defence and commanded the Reserve Army in 1920; he played a pivotal role in organising the armed forces and defending Poland at the most critical moment of the conflict. In August 1920, when appointed Minister of Military Affairs, he effectively led the defence of Warsaw. In 1925, he became Commander of the Corps District in Poznań. During the May Coup of 1926, Sosnkowski attempted suicide. After his recovery, he was appointed Army Inspector (1927). From 1928, he chaired the Committee for Armament and Equipment at the General Inspectorate of the Armed Forces, and twice assumed the duties of General Inspector of the Armed Forces. Despite his considerable service to the country, Sosnkowski was increasingly marginalised in military and political spheres after the death of Józef Piłsudski. On 11 November 1936, he was promoted to three-star general. During the Second World War, following the defeat in the September Campaign of 1939, Sosnkowski evacuated to the West, where he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces in the West. However, his adamant stance against the Soviet Union and disputes with Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski led to his removal from command. In July 1943, after General Sikorski’s death, Sosnkowski resumed the role of Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Armed Forces, though he was dismissed from this position on 30 September 1944.

After the war, Sosnkowski settled in Canada with his family, where he led a quiet life in exile and was removed from politics and public activity. Although no longer holding military or political office, he remained a prominent figure for the Polish diaspora and a symbol of steadfast commitment to Poland’s independence. In his last will, General Kazimierz Sosnkowski expressed a desire for his ashes to be interred as close to his homeland as possible, hoping to rest in Poland once Communist rule had ended. His ashes were first laid to rest in 1969 at the Church of St Stanislaus in Paris and later moved to the grave of the Polish Historical and Literary Society at Montmorency Cemetery near Paris. In 1992, they were brought to Warsaw and interred in the vault of the Archcathedral Basilica of Saint John the Baptist, side by side with King Stanisław II August, Presidents Gabriel Narutowicz and Ignacy Mościcki, and the composer and Prime Minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski.