Józef Beck (; 4 October 1894 – 5 June 1944) was a Polish statesman who served the Second Republic of Poland as a diplomat and military officer. A close associate of Józef Piłsudski, Beck is most famous for being Polish foreign minister in the 1930s and for largely setting Polish foreign policy.
He tried to fulfill Piłsudski's dream of making Poland the leader of a regional coalition, but he was widely disliked and distrusted by other governments. He was involved in territorial disputes with Lithuania and Czechoslovakia. With his nation caught between two large hostile powers (Germany and the Soviet Union), Beck sometimes pursued accommodation with them and sometimes defied them. He attempted to take advantage of their mutual antagonism but then formed an alliance with the United Kingdom and France. Both declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland in 1939. After the Soviet Union also invaded Poland, Beck and the rest of his government evacuated to Romania.
Early life
Beck was born into a Calvinist (Protestant) family whose forebears had emigrated from Flanders to Poland in the 16th century, during the rule of Polish King Stephen Báthory. When World War I started, Beck was a student at a college of engineering. After the outbreak of the war, Beck was a member of the clandestine Polish Military Organization (Polska Organizacja Wojskowa, or POW), founded in October 1914 by Piłsudski. Joining in 1914 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 had regained its 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. The French disliked Beck to the point of spreading lies about him, such that he was a Soviet agent. He helped to carry out the May 1926 military coup d'état, which brought Piłsudski to de facto governmental power.
In 1926–1930, Beck served as chief of staff to Poland's Minister of Military Affairs, and in 1930–1932, he served as Vice Prime Minister and Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. Groomed by Piłsudski to implement Poland's foreign policy, he in 1932 took office as Minister of Foreign Affairs, a post that he would hold until the outbreak of World War II.
Foreign minister
Beck had a weak hand. The historian David G. Williamson argues that Poland with 35 million people had a large population but a thin industrial base. Furthermore, its army of 283,000 men was ill-equipped, short of artillery and poorly trained and relied heavily on cavalry because it lacked enough mechanisation. Finally it faced long borders with two powerful dictatorships, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. Historian Richard Overy wrote that of all the new states in Europe:
In his international diplomacy, Beck sought to maintain a fine balance in Poland's relations with its two powerful neighbours. In July 1932, he concluded the Soviet–Polish Non-Aggression Pact and, in January 1934, the German–Polish declaration of non-aggression.
Beck complained that while Poland and Czechoslovakia were legally bound by treaty to respect the rights of their respective German minorities, the Polish minorities in Germany and the Soviet Union were not so protected. In addition, Beck resented that countries, such as Germany, used the Minorities Treaty to exert pressure and become involved in the internal affairs of Poland. In September 1934, Beck renounced the Minorities Treaty after the Soviet Union had been admitted to the League of Nations.
After Piłsudski's death in May 1935, a power-sharing agreement was entered into by the various Piłsudskiite factions, led by General (later Marshal) Edward Rydz-Śmigły, President Ignacy Mościcki and Beck himself. The three individuals effectively dominated the Sanacja (Sanation) and collectively ruled Poland until the outbreak of the Second World War. Beck had a more-or-less free hand in formulating Poland's foreign policy. The stability of the ruling group was weakened because of personal conflicts, and none of the three men managed to assert his dominance in the late 1930s completely. The oligarchy from 1935 to 1939 is often described by historians as a "dictatorship without a dictator".