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ABSTRACT
This article constitutes an attempt to demonstrate the complexity of factors affecting the legitimate acquisition and reasonable exercise by a political community of the right to war as specified in the just war criteria of jus ad bellum. To achieve this purpose, a brief analysis is presented of the intentional participation in World War I of thousands of Polish volunteers forming military units deployed by the Central Powers on the Austrian-Russian front. Considered in light of the standard principles of just war, the military enterprise of the Polish Legions, as they were called, turns out to be a paradoxical instance of warfare which, while being part of a state-to-state aggression, must be deemed compliant with all the principles in question. As a means of explaining this paradox, a modification of the concept of justified intervention is proposed, embracing military efforts aimed at the ultimate defeat of all the (unjustly) warring parties operating within a given territory. In consonance with the classic just war approach, it is also argued that the justification for such an intervention is essentially dependent on its being initiated by, or attributable to, an unquestionable state agent acting in defence of the state’s basic prerogatives.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributor
Adam Cebula, PhD, is a lecturer in philosophy at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. His research interests include meta-ethics, value theory, philosophy of law and political philosophy. In 2013 he published Uczucia moralne. Współczesny emotywizm a filozofia moralna szkockiego Oświecenia [Moral Sentiments. Contemporary Emotivism and the Moral Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment] (Warszawa 2013). He was also a co-editor of Ethics and Public Sphere: Axiological Foundations of Interpersonal Relations (Warszawa 2013) and of Ethics of Moral Absolutes (special issue of Studia Philosophiae Christanae (LI/2, Vol. 1-2, 2015)). He has recently co-edited special issues of Ethical Perspectives and Studia Philosophiae Christanae, both focused on just war theory.
Notes
1 A similar view is expressed in the editorial to the 2014 issue of the Journal of Military Ethics, noting the 100th anniversary of World War I: “In hindsight and using the language of military ethics, the First World War represents a tragic failure measured up against all three categories of just-war reasoning: jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum. Its outbreak was arguably a result of suspicions, misunderstandings, lack of diplomacy, and unrealistic ambitions of power. On the battlefield, it was protracted, painful, and costly in terms of human lives and suffering. And its ending turned out both vindictive and harsh, contributing, most historians agree, to laying the groundwork for a new world war” (Syse and Cook Citation2014, 1).
2 For a sample of the WWI centenary-inspired debates taking part within British newspapers’ opinion pages, see Biggar (Citation2013); Beevor (Citation2014); Milne (Citation2014); Hope and Copping (Citation2014).
3 The most express pronouncement on Germany’s role in triggering the war of 1914–1918 came with Franz Fischer’s notable work Griff nach der Weltmach. Der Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland, 1914–1918 (Fischer Citation1961, published in English six years later under the title Germany's Aims in the first World War). Though not fully shared by contemporary historians, Fischer’s main claim – putting the blame for the outbreak of the war on Germany – is generally viewed as a landmark development in historical research focused on WWI. As Ian F. W. Beckett succinctly puts it: “The balance of evidence suggests that, from the beginning, the German leadership was intent on war. It was not inevitable that a localised conflict should lead to a general European war, but the German leadership had no intention of keeping it localised and embarked on war with determination, confidence and belief in ultimate victory. Everyone else simply reacted to the German challenge” (Beckett Citation2007, 43). This view is reiterated in a number of studies, allowing the author of a recent work on WWI to strongly emphasize the legacy of Fischer: “the ideas at the heart of his argument—that Germany was responsible for the war, that Germany lusted after colonial-style annexations within Europe, and that the First World War is best understood as a kind of restrained rehearsal for the Second—have assumed the status of consensus” (Kauffman Citation2015, 5).
4 All the dramatic twists and turns of Poland’s military path to regaining independence are beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that what began with ca. 2,000 armed men entering the city of Kielce on August, 12, 1914 in an act of self-proclaimed liberation of the surrounding Austro-Russian frontier region, found its culmination almost exactly six years later in the Battle of Warsaw (August 12-25, 1920), marking the decisive moment in the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1921. In the course of the latter, the 800,000 Polish forces led by Pilsudski succeeded in repelling the attack of the similarly sized Red Army, and thus defended their country’s newly acquired freedom. The apparently insignificant contribution of the Polish volunteer troops to the general developments on the Eastern front of World War I was definitely outweighed by some of the Central Powers’ policy decisions, which, while being tactically aimed at raising numbers of Polish recruits enlisting in their armies, actually brought about a rapid expansion of Polish national awakening (Davies Citation2013, 287; Davies Citation2001, 96–99).
5 An affirmative answer to this question does not entail commitment to considering some forms of military engagement on the side of the Central Powers to be the only reasonable (morally justified) response of a Polish patriot to the outbreak of the Great War. The majority of Polish historians view the re-emergence of the Polish state in 1918 as an event triggered by both Pilsudski’s military and political activity in the East European theatre of World War I and the (mostly diplomatic) campaign of his more or less direct political adversaries, who advocated furthering the Polish cause by coalescing with the Allies from the very outset of the conflict.
6 One might wonder if the initial lack of enthusiasm for Pilsudski’s 1914 military endeavour among his compatriots living in Russia (as well as their generally loyalist attitudes towards the tsarist regime displayed in the face of the early stages of the Austro-German invasion) could be considered a partial fulfilment of a state’s relative legitimacy condition, proposed by Mark Vorobej as an alternative to Orend’s (allegedly) more absolutist stance, and presented recently in a critique of Orend in this journal (Vorobej Citation2019). As Vorobej argues: “A minimally just state may have a very uneven track record with respect to satisfying either the rights of its own citizens or the rights of other states. But it has some moral legitimacy insofar as it plays a substantive positive role in serving and protecting the interests of its citizens; and those citizens in turn generally acknowledge the authority that this state, with some legitimacy, wields over them” (Vorobej Citation2019, 10). It is, however, Vorobej’s inattention to the social dynamics behind the apparent stability of the imperial type of political dominance that essentially invalidates his argument if it is to be applied to the realities of the Eastern theatre of WWI. Examined in the moment of the immediate threat of military aggression (to be) undertaken by a state with a record of anti-Polish atrocities comparable to that of tsarist Russia, the popular sentiment of the Polish population inhabiting the latter’s frontier regions can by no means be taken to indicate a legitimacy-grounding support for the Russian state, as it is arguably conceived by Vorobej.
7 The debate on the legal aspects of Poland’s re-emergence as an independent state in 1918, begun by Polish legal scholars in the interwar period, has not as yet been conclusive. The first of the two alternative interpretations of the event was based on the assumption of continuity between the Noblemen’s Republic and the Republic of Poland recognized by the signatories to the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. According to the most eminent proponent of this view, the “regaining of independence by Poland in 1918 was a recovery by the country of the status of a full-fledged subject of international law – the status Poland had been entitled to for hundreds of years - and not the creation of a new state” (Ehrlich Citation1958, 150). The continuity of existence of the Polish statehood throughout the period of the partitions was proclaimed in a number of key decisions taken by Poland’s Supreme Court in the 1920s and 1930s (Dębski and Tarnogórski Citation2018, 144-145). The representatives of the opposite view accepted the fact of the definite disappearance of Poland between 1795 and 1918, pointing out that a possible violation of the Polish people’s right to self-governance could not have been real due to the lack of recognition of the corresponding concept in the legal discourse employed by the partitioning states (Berezowski Citation2008, 83). Regardless of the controversy concerning the legal construal of Poland’s coming (back) into existence in 1918, the reality of the moral harm inflicted on a political community by the annihilation of its autonomous power structures as well as the ultimate rectification of those harms – i.e. allowing the community to reconstruct the annihilated state – seem to be clear.
8 There is no doubt that the character of the violation of Poland’s rights, i.e., its complete erasure as an independent political entity, satisfies the criteria for a just cause for war (or a war, to be more precise) proposed recently by Uwe Steinhoff (Steinhoff Citation2014, 38–39). Steinhoff’s definition of just cause embraces the requirement of proportionality of a possible military response to a wrong suffered. With some form of military engagement directed against the aggressor(s) being definitely justified in this case, the actual undertaking of Pilsudski’s troops is subject to further examination, taking into account the other criteria for just war, including the criteria of last resort and prospects of success (in Steinhoff’s account both of them are sub-criteria of proportionality; Steinhoff Citation2014, 42). For the analysis in question, see below.
9 It can be argued that Janzen’s general claim about the superfluous character of right intention regarded as a necessary condition for waging a just war fails to do justice to the whole category of justified wars of secession. Although he does admit that “discerning the cause of a resort to war will sometimes require appealing to (stated or unstated) intentions” (Janzen Citation2016, 50), the lack of reference in this context to the said type of conflicts makes his analysis much less comprehensive than the main contention put forward in his article would seem to require. The military undertaking analysed in the present paper – bringing a state back to life after its annihilation resulting from a foreign aggression – is yet another type of just war in which right intention turns out to be an indispensable element of the very identity of the warring party.
10 Pilsudski’s address to his soldiers (who were to go down in history as the First Cadre Company of the re-emerged Polish Army) read as follows: “Soldiers. You have the great honour of being the first to enter the Realm and to cross the frontier of the provinces annexed by Russia, as the head of a column of Polish troops marching to fight for the deliverance of the country. You are all equal in the face of the sacrifices which you will be called upon to make. You are all soldiers. I do not confer any ranks. I only appoint the most experienced among you to carry out the duties of leaders. You will win your own promotion on the battlefield. Each one of you can become an officer, and each officer can be reduced to the ranks, which may God forbid. I look to you as the frame for the future Polish Army and I salute in you the first company of that frame” (Piłsudska Citation1941, 214).
11 The two principal historical sources providing evidence of Pilsudski’s long-term predictions about possible developments of the global conflict – widely anticipated in the first two decades of the 20th century – are an interview conducted with him in 1913, published in a Polish-language periodical in the same year (Piłsudski Citation1937, 171–174), and a record of Pilsudski’s 1914 address, included in the memoirs of the Russian revolutionary and politician Viktor Chernov (the Chairman of the Russian Constituent Assembly of 1918). According to Chernov, the latter speech, delivered in Paris during a convention of socialist activists, contained a clear statement about the probable course of the future war: “Pilsudski confidently predicted an Austrian-Russian war over the Balkans [which was to break out] in the near future. He had no doubt that Austria would be joined – or rather that it was already covertly supported – by Germany. He further expressed his belief that France would not be able to remain a passive witness to the conflict: the day following Germany’s openly siding with Russia, the necessity would arise for France – by virtue of the binding treaty it had previously entered into – to intervene on the side of Russia. Finally, he claimed, it would not be possible for England to leave France to the mercy of Fortune. And if the combined forces of England and France turned out to be insufficient, sooner or later America would be drawn into the conflict on their side. Then, analyzing the military potential of all those powers, Pilsudski posed a direct question: what would be the course of the war and whose victory would terminate it? His answer was: Russia would be defeated by Austria and Germany, which, in turn, would be defeated by the Anglo-French (or the Anglo-American-French) forces. Eastern Europe would be defeated by Central Europe, and Central Europe, in turn, by Western Europe. This indicated to Poles in which direction their activity should go” (Chernov Citation1953, 296–7; translation mine). Most Polish historians regard Chernov’s account of Pilsudski’s Paris address as essentially credible (see, e.g., Wolsza Citation1985, 159–166).
12 While raising the issue of Polish independence, the Act of November 5, 1916, proclaimed by Emperors Wilhelm II of Germany and Franz Joseph of Austria, did not contain any concrete proposals in that regard that could satisfy Poles living in any part of the occupied Polish territories. The future Kingdom of Poland, whose borders were not specified in the Act, was to remain under German control. See Suleja (Citation2010, 98–99) and Chwalba (Citation2014, 191–192).
13 The agreement between the Central Powers and the Ukrainian leaders from February 1918 is not to be confused with the Brest-Litovsk Treaty of March 3, 1918, signed between the Central Powers and Bolshevik Russia. For more on the role of Ukraine in the war see, e. g. Tucker and Roberts (Citation2014, 1194–1195).
14 See note 11 above.
15 See the history of the Polish National Committee (1914-1917) under Roman Dmowski and the Puławy Legion (1914-1915), and the history of Polish I Corps and Polish II Corps in Russia (e.g., Davies Citation2013, 39, 281, 285-286; Muszyński Citation2018).
16 One might consider in this case the appropriate extension of Davis Brown’s proposal for granting immunity to states acting upon “a genuine mistake of fact” – as opposed to “good faith ignorance in the law” – and, thus, being “excused for launching an unjust war if that fact were subsequently proven false” (Brown Citation2011, 141). The immunity in question would be accorded to all the military formations displaying genuine loyalty to the re-emerging Polish state, whatever position they might have taken in the most convoluted conflict between the state’s occupiers. The complexity of the Polish case in the period of 1914–1918 would arguably invalidate Andrew Sola’s formula for combatants’ overcoming their epistemic limitations in the moral assessment of mutually opposite military undertakings (amounting, in the case in question, to alternative strategies for winning Poland’s independence): “the public revelation of a leader’s rationale for waging war”, purportedly providing “a useful framework for soldiers to compare the stated justifications of the leader against subsequent political and military developments that might contradict the original claim” (Sola Citation2009, 59), was definitely neither so unequivocal nor so revelatory for all the Polish soldiers taking part in World War I. As demonstrated by the above-mentioned vicissitudes of fate of the Second Brigade of the Polish Legions, not until the last months of the war did it become fully apparent which military alliance would ultimately prove most beneficial for the Polish cause. The inherent ambiguity of either type of engagement in the war was reflected in the persistent duality of potential for Polish political leadership in the moment of Poland’s re-emergence as an autonomous political entity. With the undeniable predominance of Pilsudski’s claim to that leadership, confirmed by his assuming the role of the Head of State on November 11th, 1918, the role of Roman Dmowski – the chief patron of the project of Polish anti-German alliance with pre-revolutionary Russia – remained absolutely essential in negotiating on behalf of Poland the critical terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The passionate rivalry between Pilsudski and Dmowski (and, after their death, between their political descendants) continued throughout the two-decade long life of the Second Republic of Poland – as it is called in Polish historiography – extending far beyond matters related to Polish troops’ military alliances during the Great War. It is often claimed that the rivalry in question underlies major political disputes even in present-day Poland. For the role of Dmowski in the re-birth of Poland see, e.g., (Davies Citation2013, 275–276, 285-291).
17 The fragment of the memoir continues in a dramatic tone: “Fratricidal war is terrible. They say that one of our young boys took his father captive; he had earlier been conscripted to the Russian army” (Składkowski Citation1990).
18 Both acts – especially the second one, performed by the elected representatives of the citizens of the re-emerged Republic of Poland – led to the fulfilment of the first and, as it seems, primary moral requirement put forward by Henrik Syse and Helene Ingierd as regards the legitimate authority initiating a just war, namely, its being the highest political authority within the state (Syse and Ingierd Citation2005, 11).
19 The international turmoil caused by the outbreak of World War I triggered at least one course of events roughly analogous to the history of the Polish Legions. Another country whose emergence in 1918 was preceded by the formation of troops that would evolve into its armed forces was Czechoslovakia. The formation of voluntary units comprising Czech and Slovak residents of the Russian Empire eager to fight on the side of the Entente with the aim of supporting the establishment of their future homeland began in August 1914. With much less dramatic political dilemmas related to its straightforward allegiance to the Allies, the military potential of the Czechoslovak Legion exceeded by far that of Pilsudski’s Legions. The Czechoslovak Legionaries had their moment of glory at the end of World War I, managing to take control of the strategically important Trans-Siberian Railway while carrying out their withdrawal from the civil war-torn Russia. The troops won international renown, with European and American newspapers reporting how “Czecho-Slovak emigres and prisoners of war fought with their brothers and sons against the Central Powers in France, Italy and Russia, forming ‘the army without a country’” (Mueggenberg Citation2014, 1). Mueggenberg’s book also contains more on the history of the Czechoslovak Legion.
20 One may wonder whether what Vorobej calls “the injustices that many perceived to be woven into the fabric of the Treaty of Versailles” is to be understood as exemplified, inter alia, by “the perceived artificiality of the Czech and Polish borders”, leading to “the related concern to bring ethnic German minorities back within the fold of a single Rechtsstaat” (Vorobej Citation2019, 8). If this interpretation of Vorobej’s argument on Nazi Germany’s allegedly plausible (though, as he openly admits, insufficient) reasons to invade Poland in 1939 is correct, serious concerns arise as to whether the argument takes adequate account of all the relevant circumstances behind the peace settlements of 1919, especially those relating to the political history of Central Europe. Adopting such a limited perspective on the evaluation of the international agreement ending World War I may seem somewhat surprising, as the author otherwise demonstrates a high level of commitment to historically informed analyses of reasons underlying military conflicts (e.g., when he challenges Orend on his arguably inadequate account of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990; Vorobej Citation2019, 8–9, 14).