title: Iris (plant)

text: An iris — species unspecified — is one of the state flowers of Tennessee. It is generally accepted that the species "Iris versicolor", the Purple Iris is the state flower alongside the wild-growing purple passionflower ("Passiflora incarnata"), the state's other floral emblem. Greeneville, Tennessee, is home to the annual Iris Festival celebrating the iris, local customs, and culture. The species "Iris versicolor" is also the provincial flower of Quebec, having replaced the Madonna lily which is not native to the province. and it is the official flower of Kappa Pi International Honorary Art Fraternity.


title: Iris (plant)

text: The American artist Joseph Mason – a friend of John James Audubon – painted a precise image of what was then known as the Louisiana flag or copper iris ("Iris fulva"), to which Audubon subsequently added two Northern paraula birds ("Parula americana") for inclusion as Plate 15 in his "Birds of America".


title: Iris (plant)

text: The artist Philip Hermogenes Calderon painted an iris in his 1856 work "Broken Vows"; he followed the principles of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. An ancient belief is that the iris serves as a warning to be heeded, as it was named for the messenger of Olympus. It also conveys images of lost love and silent grief, for young girls were led into the afterlife by Iris. "Broken Vows" was accompanied with poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow when it was first exhibited.


title: Iris (plant)

text: French King Clovis I (466–511), when he converted to Christianity, changed his symbol on his banner from three toads to irises (the Virgin's flower).


title: Iris (plant)

text: The fleur-de-lis, a stylized iris, first occurs in its modern use as the emblem of the House of Capet. The fleur-de-lis has been associated with France since Louis VII adopted it as a symbol in the 12th century. The yellow fleur-de-lis reflects the yellow iris ("I. pseudacorus"), common in Western Europe. Contemporary uses can be seen in the Quebec flag and the logo of the New Orleans Saints professional football team and on the flag of Saint Louis, Missouri.


title: Iris (plant)

text: The red fleur-de-lis in the coat-of-arms and flag of Florence, Italy, descends from the white iris which is native to Florence and which grew even in its city walls. This white iris displayed against a red background was the symbol of Florence until the Medici family reversed the colors to signal a change in political power, setting in motion a centuries-long and still on-going breeding program to hybridize a red iris.


title: Iris (plant)

text: The fleur-de-lis is the almost-universal symbol of Scouting and one of the symbols adopted by the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma.


title: Iris (plant)

text: A stylized yellow iris is the symbol of Brussels, since historically the important Saint Gaugericus Island was carpeted in them. The iris symbol is now the sole feature on the flag of the Brussels-Capital Region.


title: Iris (plant)

text: The provincial flower of Québec (Canada) is the harlequin blueflag ("I. versicolor"), called "iris versicolore" in French.


title: Iris (plant)

text: It is thought in China, that Iris anguifuga has the ability to keep snakes from entering the garden. It grows all winter, keeping snakes out, but then goes dormant in the spring, allowing the snakes back into the garden. In the autumn, the iris re-appears and can stop the snakes again.


title: Iris (plant)

text: In the "Homeric Hymn to Demeter", the goddess Persephone and her companion nymphs (the Oceanids along with Artemis and Athena) were gathering flowers such as rose, crocus, violet, iris (also called 'agallis' or ἀγαλλίς (in Greek script), lily, larkspur, and hyacinth in a springtime meadow before she was abducted by the god Hades.


title: Iris (plant)

text: It has been suggested that the 'agallis' mentioned was a dwarf iris, as described by leaf and root shape,) and identified as Iris attica.


title: Iris (plant)

text: "Narcissus mosaic virus" is most commonly known from "Narcissus". Wylie "et al.", 2014 make the first identification of "Narcissus mosaic virus" infecting this genus, and the first in Australia. "Japanese iris necrotic ring virus" commonly infects this genus. It was, however, unknown in Australia until Wylie "et al.", 2012 identified it here in "I. ensata".


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Józef Klemens Piłsudski (; 5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State (1918–1922) and First Marshal of Poland (from 1920). He was considered the "de facto" leader (1926–35) of the Second Polish Republic as the Minister of Military Affairs. After World War I, he held increasing dominance in Polish politics and was an active player in international diplomacy. He is viewed as a father of the Second Polish Republic re-established in 1918, 123 years after the final Partition of Poland in 1795.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Seeing himself as a descendant of the culture and traditions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Piłsudski believed in a multi-ethnic Poland—"a home of nations" including indigenous ethnic and religious minorities. Early in his political career, Piłsudski became a leader of the Polish Socialist Party. Believing Poland's independence would be won militarily, he formed the Polish Legions. In 1914, he predicted a new major war would defeat the Russian Empire and the Central Powers. After World War I began in 1914, Piłsudski's Legions fought alongside Austria-Hungary against Russia. In 1917, with Russia faring poorly in the war, he withdrew his support for the Central Powers, and was imprisoned in Magdeburg by the Germans.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski was Poland's Chief of State from November 1918, when Poland regained its independence, until 1922. From 1919–21 he commanded Polish forces in six wars that re-defined the country's borders. On the verge of defeat in the Polish–Soviet War in August 1920, his forces repelled the invading Soviet Russians at the Battle of Warsaw. In 1923, with a government dominated by his opponents, in particular the National Democrats, Piłsudski retired from active politics. Three years later he returned to power in the May Coup and became the strongman of the Sanacja regime. He focused on military and foreign affairs until his death in 1935, developing a cult of personality that has survived into the 21st century.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Some aspects of Piłsudski's administration, such as imprisoning his political opponents at Bereza Kartuska, remain controversial. Yet, he is highly esteemed in Polish memory and is regarded as a founder of modern independent Poland.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski was born 5 December 1867 to the noble Piłsudski family at their manor near the village of Zułów (Zalavas, now in Lithuania). At his birth, the village was part of the Russian Empire and had been so since 1795. Before that, it was in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, an integral part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569 to 1795. After World War I, the village fell under Polish administration and was part of Poland when Piłsudski became Prime Minister. During World War II, the village became part of the USSR. The estate was part of the dowry brought by his mother, Maria, a member of the wealthy Billewicz family. The Piłsudski family, although pauperized, cherished Polish patriotic traditions, and are characterized either as Polish or as Polonized-Lithuanian. Józef was the second son born to the family.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Józef was not an especially diligent student when he attended the Russian Gymnasium in Vilnius. Along with his brothers Bronisław, Adam and Jan, Józef was introduced by his mother Maria to Polish history and literature, which were suppressed by the Imperial authorities. His father, also named Józef, fought in the January 1863 Uprising against Russian rule. The family resented the government's Russification policies. Young Józef profoundly disliked having to attend Russian Orthodox Church service and left school with an aversion for the Russian Tsar, its empire, and its culture.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In 1885 Piłsudski started medical studies at Kharkov University where he became involved with "Narodnaya Volya", part of the Russian "Narodniki" revolutionary movement. In 1886, he was suspended for participating in student demonstrations. He was rejected by the University of Dorpat, whose authorities had been informed of his political affiliation. On 22 March 1887, he was arrested by Tsarist authorities on a charge of plotting with Vilnius socialists to assassinate Tsar Alexander III; Piłsudski's main connection to the plot was the involvement of his brother Bronisław. Józef was sentenced to five years' exile in Siberia, first at Kirensk on the Lena River, then at Tunka.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: While being transported in a prisoners' convoy to Siberia, Piłsudski was held for several weeks at a prison in Irkutsk. During his stay, another inmate insulted a guard and refused to apologize; Piłsudski and other political prisoners were beaten by the guards for their defiance and Piłsudski lost two teeth. He took part in a subsequent hunger strike until the authorities reinstated political prisoners' privileges that had been suspended after the incident. For his involvement, he was sentenced in 1888 to six months' imprisonment. He had to spend the first night of his incarceration in 40-degree-below-zero Siberian cold; this led to an illness that nearly killed him and health problems that would plague him throughout life.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: During his exile, Piłsudski met many "Sybiraks", groups of people who have resettled to Siberia. He was allowed to work in an occupation of his choosing and tutored local children in mathematics and foreign languages (he knew French, German and Lithuanian in addition to Russian and his native Polish; he would later learn English). Local officials decided that, as a Polish noble, he was not entitled to the 10-ruble pension received by others.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In 1892, Piłsudski returned from exile and settled in Adomavas Manor near Teneniai. In 1893, he joined the Polish Socialist Party ("PPS"), and helped organize their Lithuanian branch. Initially, he sided with the Socialists' more radical wing, but despite the socialist movement's ostensible internationalism, he remained a Polish nationalist. In 1894, as its chief editor, he published an underground socialist newspaper called "Robotnik" (The Worker); he would also be one of its chief writers and a typesetter. In 1895, he became a PPS leader, promoting the position that doctrinal issues were of minor importance and socialist ideology should be merged with nationalist ideology because this combination offered the greatest chance of restoring Polish independence.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On 15 July 1899, while an underground organizer, Piłsudski married a fellow socialist organizer named Maria Juszkiewiczowa ( Koplewska). According to his biographer, Wacław Jędrzejewicz, the marriage was less romantic than pragmatic in nature. The printing press of "Robotnik" was in their apartment first in Vilnius, then in Łódź. A pretext of regular family life made them less subject to suspicion. Russian law also protected a wife from prosecution for the illegal activities of her husband. The marriage deteriorated when, several years later, Piłsudski began an affair with a younger socialist, Aleksandra Szczerbińska. Maria died in 1921, and in October, Piłsudski married Aleksandra. By then, the couple had two daughters, Wanda and Jadwiga.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In February 1900 Piłsudski was imprisoned at the Warsaw Citadel when Russian authorities found "Robotnik" underground printing press in Łódź. He feigned mental illness in May 1901 and escaped from a mental hospital at Saint Petersburg with the help of a Polish physician, Władysław Mazurkiewicz, and others. He fled to Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary, and thence to Leytonstone in London, staying with Leon Wasilewski and his family.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: At the beginning of the 1900s, almost all parties in Russian Poland and Lithuania took a conciliatory position toward the Russian Empire and aimed at negotiating within it a limited autonomy for Poland. Piłsudski's PPS was the only political force prepared to fight the Empire for Polish independence and to resort to violence to achieve that goal.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in the summer of 1904, Piłsudski traveled to Tokyo, Japan, where he tried unsuccessfully to obtain that country's assistance for an uprising in Poland. He offered to supply Japan with intelligence to support its war with Russia, and proposed the creation of a Polish Legion from Poles, conscripted into the Russian Army, who had been captured by Japan. He also suggested a "Promethean" project directed at breaking up the Russian Empire, a goal that he later continued to pursue. Meeting with Yamagata Aritomo, he suggested that starting a guerrilla war in Poland would distract Russia and asked for Japan to supply him with weapons. Although the Japanese diplomat Hayashi Tadasu supported the plan, the Japanese government, including Yamagata, was more skeptical. Piłsudski's arch-rival, Roman Dmowski, travelled to Japan and argued against Piłsudski's plan, discouraging the Japanese government from supporting a Polish revolution because he thought it was doomed to fail. The Japanese offered Piłsudski much less than he hoped; he received Japan's help in purchasing weapons and ammunition for the PPS and their combat organisation, and the Japanese declined the Legion proposal.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In the fall of 1904, Piłsudski formed a paramilitary unit (the Combat Organization of the Polish Socialist Party, or "bojówki") aiming to create an armed resistance movement against the Russian authorities. The PPS organized demonstrations, mainly in Warsaw; on 28 October 1904, Russian Cossack cavalry attacked a demonstration, and in reprisal, during a demonstration on 13 November, Piłsudski's paramilitary opened fire on Russian police and military. Initially concentrating their attention on spies and informers, in March 1905 the paramilitary began using bombs to assassinate selected Russian police officers.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: During the Russian Revolution of 1905, Piłsudski played a leading role in events in Congress Poland. In early 1905 he ordered the PPS to launch a general strike there; it involved some 400,000 workers and lasted two months until it was broken by the Russian authorities. In June 1905, Piłsudski sent paramilitary aid to an uprising in Łódź, later called June Days. In Łódź, armed clashes broke out between Piłsudski's paramilitaries and gunmen loyal to Dmowski and his National Democrats. On 22 December 1905, Piłsudski called for all Polish workers to rise up; the call went largely unheeded.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski instructed the PPS to boycott the elections to the First Duma. The decision, and his resolve to try to win Polish independence through revolution, caused tensions within the PPS, and in November 1906, the party fractured over Piłsudski's leadership. His faction came to be called the "Old Faction" or "Revolutionary Faction" (""Starzy"" or ""Frakcja Rewolucyjna""), while their opponents were known as the "Young Faction", "Moderate Faction" or "Left Wing" (""Młodzi"", ""Frakcja Umiarkowana"", ""Lewica""). The "Young" sympathized with the Social Democrats of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, and believed priority should be given to co-operation with Russian revolutionaries in toppling the tsarist regime and creating a socialist utopia to facilitate negotiations for independence. Piłsudski and his supporters in the Revolutionary Faction continued to plot a revolution against Tsarist Russia to secure Polish independence. By 1909, his faction was the majority in the PPS, and Piłsudski remained an important PPS leader until the outbreak of the First World War.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski anticipated a coming European war with the need to organize the leadership of a future Polish Army. He wanted to secure Poland's independence from the three empires that partitioned Poland out of political existence in the late 18th century. In 1906 Piłsudski, with the connivance of the Austrian authorities, founded a military school in Kraków for the training of paramilitary units. In 1906 alone, the 800-strong paramilitaries, operating in five-man teams in Congress Poland, killed 336 Russian officials; in subsequent years, the number of their casualties declined, and the paramilitaries' numbers increased to some 2,000 in 1908. The paramilitaries also held up Russian currency transports that were leaving Polish territories. On the night of 26/27 September 1908, they robbed a Russian mail train that was carrying tax revenues from Warsaw to Saint Petersburg. Piłsudski, who took part in this Bezdany raid near Vilnius, used the obtained funds to finance his secret military organization. The funds totaled 200,812 rubles was a fortune for the time and equaled the paramilitaries' entire takes of the two preceding years.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In 1908, Piłsudski transformed his paramilitary units into an "Association for Active Struggle" ("Związek Walki Czynnej", or "ZWC"), headed by three of his associates, Władysław Sikorski, Marian Kukiel and Kazimierz Sosnkowski. The "ZWC" main purpose was to train officers and noncommissioned officers for a future Polish Army. In 1910, two legal paramilitary organizations were created in the Austrian zone of Poland, one in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), and one in Kraków, to conduct training in military science. With the permission of the Austrian officials, Piłsudski founded a series of "sporting clubs", then the Riflemen's Association, for cover to train a Polish military force. In 1912, Piłsudski (using the pseudonym ""Mieczysław"") became commander-in-chief of a Riflemen's Association ("Związek Strzelecki"). By 1914, they increased to 12,000 men. In 1914, while giving a lecture in Paris, Piłsudski declared, "Only the sword now carries any weight in the balance for the destiny of a nation", arguing that Polish independence can only be achieved through military struggle against the partitioning powers.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: At a meeting in Paris in 1914, Piłsudski presciently declared that for Poland to regain independence in the impending war, Russia must be beaten by the Central Powers (the Austro-Hungarian and German Empires), and the latter powers must in their turn be beaten by France, Britain and the United States. At the outbreak of the war on 3 August in Kraków, Piłsudski formed a small cadre military unit called the First Cadre Company from members of the Riflemen's Association and Polish Rifle Squads. That same day, a cavalry unit under Władysław Belina-Prażmowski were sent to reconnoitre across the Russian border before the official declaration of war between Austria-Hungary and Russia on 6 August.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski's strategy was to send his forces north across the border into Russian Poland into an area the Russian Army evacuated in the hope of breaking through to Warsaw and sparking a nation-wide revolution. Using his limited forces in those early days, he backed his orders with the sanction of a fictitious "National Government in Warsaw", and he bent and stretched Austrian orders to the utmost, taking initiatives, moving forward, and establishing Polish institutions in liberated towns while the Austrians saw his forces as good only for scouting or for supporting main Austrian formations. On 12 August 1914, Piłsudski's forces took the town of Kielce, of Kielce Governorate, but Piłsudski found the residents less supportive than he had expected.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On 27 August Piłsudski established the Polish Legions, formed within the Austro-Hungarian Army, and took personal command of their First Brigade, which he would lead into several victorious battles. He also secretly informed the British government in the fall of 1914 that his Legions would never fight against France or Britain, only Russia. Piłsudski decreed that Legions' personnel were to be addressed by the French Revolution-inspired "Citizen" ("Obywatel"), and he was referred to as "the Commandant" (""Komendant""). Piłsudski enjoyed extreme respect and loyalty from his men, which would remain for years to come. The Polish Legions fought against Russia, at the side of the Central Powers, until 1917. In August 1914, Piłsudski set up the Polish Military Organisation ("Polska Organizacja Wojskowa"), which served as a precursor Polish intelligence agency and was designed to perform espionage and sabotage missions.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In mid-1916, after the Battle of Kostiuchnówka, in which the Polish Legions delayed a Russian offensive at a cost of over 2,000 casualties, Piłsudski demanded that the Central Powers issue a guarantee of independence for Poland. He supported that demand with his own proffered resignation and that of many of the Legions' officers. On 5 November 1916 the Central Powers proclaimed the independence of Poland, hoping to increase the number of Polish troops that could be sent to the Eastern Front against Russia, thereby relieving German forces to bolster the Western Front.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski agreed to serve in the Regency Kingdom of Poland, created by the Central Powers, and acted as minister of war in the newly formed Polish Regency government; as such, he was responsible for the Polnische Wehrmacht. After the Russian Revolution in early 1917, and in view of the worsening situation of the Central Powers, Piłsudski took an increasingly uncompromising stance by insisting that his men no longer be treated as "German colonial troops" and be only used to fight Russia. Anticipating the Central Powers' defeat in the war, he did not wish to be allied with the losing side. In the aftermath of a July 1917 "Oath Crisis" when Piłsudski forbade Polish soldiers to swear a loyalty oath to the Central Powers, he was arrested and imprisoned at Magdeburg. The Polish units were disbanded and the men were incorporated into the Austro-Hungarian Army while the Polish Military Organization began attacking German targets. Piłsudski's arrest greatly enhanced his reputation among Poles, many of whom began to see him as the leader who was willing to take on all the partitioning powers.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On 8 November 1918, three days before the Armistice, Piłsudski and his colleague, Colonel Kazimierz Sosnkowski, were released by the Germans from Magdeburg and soon placed on a train bound for Polish capital of Warsaw, as the collapsing Germans hoped that Piłsudski would create a force that was friendly to them.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On 11 November 1918, Piłsudski was appointed Commander in Chief of Polish forces by the Regency Council and was entrusted with creating a national government for the newly independent country. Later that day, which would become Poland's Independence Day, he proclaimed an independent Polish state. That week, Piłsudski negotiated the evacuation of the German garrison from Warsaw and of other German troops from Ober Ost. Over 55,000 Germans peacefully departed Poland, leaving their weapons to the Poles. In the coming months, over 400,000 in total departed over Polish territories.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On 14 November 1918, Piłsudski was asked to supervise provisionally the running of the country. On 22 November he officially received, from the new government of Jędrzej Moraczewski, the title of Provisional Chief of State ("Tymczasowy Naczelnik Państwa") of renascent Poland. Various Polish military organizations and provisional governments (the Regency Council in Warsaw; Ignacy Daszyński's government in Lublin; and the Polish Liquidation Committee in Kraków) supported Piłsudski. He established a coalition government that was predominantly socialist and introduced many reforms long proclaimed as necessary by the Polish Socialist Party, such as the eight-hour day, free school education and women's suffrage, to avoid major unrest. As head of state, Piłsudski believed he must remain separated from partisan politics.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: The day after his arrival in Warsaw, he met with old colleagues from his time working with the underground resistance, who addressed him socialist-style as "Comrade" ("Towarzysz") and asked for his support for their revolutionary policies. He refused it and answered: "Comrades, I took the red tram of socialism to the stop called Independence, and that's where I got off. You may keep on to the final stop if you wish, but from now on let's address each other as 'Mister' [rather than continue using the socialist term of address, 'Comrade']!" He declined to support any party and did not form any political organization of his own; instead, he advocated creating a coalition government.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski set about organizing a Polish army out of Polish veterans of the German, Russian, and Austrian armies. Much of former Russian Poland had been destroyed in the war, and systematic looting by the Germans had reduced the region's wealth by at least 10%. A British diplomat who visited Warsaw in January 1919 reported: "I have nowhere seen anything like the evidence of extreme poverty and wretchedness that meet one's eye at almost every turn." In addition, the country had to unify the disparate systems of law, economics, and administration in the former German, Austrian, and Russian sectors of Poland. There were nine legal systems, five currencies, and 66 types of rail systems (with 165 models of locomotives), each needing to be consolidated.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Biographer Wacław Jędrzejewicz described Piłsudski as very deliberate in his decision-making: Piłsudski collected all available pertinent information, then took his time weighing it before arriving at a final decision. He held long working hours, and maintained a simple lifestyle, eating plain meals alone at an inexpensive restaurant. Though he was popular with much of the Polish public, his reputation as a loner (the result of many years' underground work) and as a man who distrusted almost everyone led to strained relations with other Polish politicians.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski and the first Polish government were distrusted in the West because he had co-operated with the Central Powers from 1914 to 1917 and because the governments of Daszyński and Moraczewski were primarily socialist. It was not until January 1919, when pianist and composer Ignacy Jan Paderewski became Prime Minister of Poland and foreign minister of a new government, that Poland was recognized in the West. Two separate governments were claiming to be Poland's legitimate government: Piłsudski's in Warsaw and Dmowski's in Paris. To ensure that Poland had a single government and to avert civil war, Paderewski met with Dmowski and Piłsudski and persuaded them to join forces, with Piłsudski acting as Provisional Chief of State and Commander-in-Chief, while Dmowski and Paderewski represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference. Articles 87–93 of the Treaty of Versailles and the Little Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, formally established Poland as an independent and sovereign state in the international arena.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski often clashed with Dmowski for viewing the Poles as the dominant nationality in renascent Poland, and attempting to send the Blue Army to Poland through Danzig, Germany (now Gdańsk, Poland). On 5 January 1919, some of Dmowski's supporters (Marian Januszajtis-Żegota and Eustachy Sapieha) attempted a coup against Piłsudski but failed. On 20 February 1919 Polish parliament (the Sejm) confirmed his office when it passed the Little Constitution of 1919, although Piłsudski proclaimed his intention to eventually relinquish his powers to the parliament. "Provisional" was struck from his title, and Piłsudski held the office of the Chief of State until 9 December 1922, after Gabriel Narutowicz was elected as the first president of Poland.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski's major foreign policy initiative was a proposed federation (to be called ""Międzymorze"" (Polish for "Between-Seas"), and known from the Latin as "Intermarium", stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. In addition to Poland and Lithuania, it was to consist of Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Estonia, somewhat in emulation of the pre-partition Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Piłsudski's plan met with opposition from most of the prospective member states, which refused to relinquish their independence, as well as the Allied powers, who thought it to be too bold a change to the existing balance-of-power structure. According to historian George Sanford, it was around 1920 that Piłsudski came to realize the infeasibility of that version of his Intermarium project. Instead of a Central and Eastern European alliance, there soon appeared a series of border conflicts, including the Polish-Ukrainian War (1918–19), the Polish-Lithuanian War (1920, culminating in Żeligowski's Mutiny), Polish-Czechoslovak border conflicts (beginning in 1918), and most notably the Polish-Soviet War (1919–21). Winston Churchill commented, "The war of giants has ended, the wars of the pygmies begun."


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In the aftermath of World War I, there was unrest on all Polish borders. Regarding Poland's future frontiers, Piłsudski said: "All that we can gain in the west depends on the Entente—on the extent to which it may wish to squeeze Germany." The situation was different in the east, of which Piłsudski said that "there are doors that open and close, and it depends on who forces them open and how far." In the east, Polish forces clashed with Ukrainian forces in the Polish–Ukrainian War, and Piłsudski's first orders as Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army, on 12 November 1918, were to provide support for the Polish struggle in Lviv.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski was aware that the Bolsheviks would not ally with an independent Poland and predicted that war with them was inevitable. He viewed their advance west as a major problem, but he also considered the Bolsheviks less dangerous for Poland than their White opponents. The "White Russians", representatives of the old Russian Empire, were willing to accept limited independence for Poland, probably within borders similar to those of the former Congress Poland. They objected to Polish control of Ukraine, which was crucial for Piłsudski's Intermarium project. This contrasted with the Bolsheviks, who proclaimed the partitions of Poland null and void. Piłsudski speculated that Poland would be better off with the Bolsheviks, alienated from the Western powers, than with a restored Russian Empire. By ignoring the strong pressures from the Entente Cordiale to join the attack on Lenin's struggling Bolshevik government, Piłsudski probably saved it in the summer and the fall of 1919.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: After the Russian westward offensive of 1918–1919, and a series of escalating battles that resulted in the Poles advancing eastward, on 21 April 1920, Marshal Piłsudski (as his rank had been since March 1920) signed a military alliance called the Treaty of Warsaw with Ukrainian leader Symon Petliura. The treaty allowed both countries to conduct joint operations against Soviet Russia. The goal of the Polish-Ukrainian Treaty was to establish an independent Ukraine and independent Poland in alliance, resembling that once existing within Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish and Ukrainian Armies under Piłsudski's command launched a successful offensive against the Russian forces in Ukraine and on 7 May 1920, with remarkably little fighting, they captured Kiev.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: The Bolshevik leadership framed the Polish actions as an invasion, successfully generating popular support for their cause at home. The Soviets then launched a counter-offensive from Belarus, and counterattacked in Ukraine, advancing into Poland in a drive toward Germany to encourage the Communist Party of Germany in their struggles for power. The Soviets announced their plans to invade Western Europe; Soviet Communist theoretician Nikolai Bukharin, writing in "Pravda", hoped for the resources to carry the campaign beyond Warsaw "straight to London and Paris". Soviet commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky's order of the day for 2 July 1920 read: "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to worldwide conflagration. March upon Vilnius, Minsk, Warsaw!" and "onward to Berlin over the corpse of Poland!"


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On 1 July 1920, in view of the rapidly advancing Soviet offensive, Poland's parliament, the Sejm, formed a Council for Defense of the Nation, chaired by Piłsudski, to provide expeditious decision-making as a temporary supplanting of the fractious Sejm. The National Democrats contended that the string of Bolshevik victories had been Piłsudski's fault and demanded that he resign; some even accused him of treason. On 19 July they failed to carry a vote of no-confidence in the council and this led to Dmowski's withdrawal from the Council. On 12 August, Piłsudski tendered his resignation to Prime Minister Wincenty Witos, offering to be the scapegoat if the military solution failed, but Witos refused to accept his resignation. The Entente pressured Poland to surrender and enter into negotiations with the Bolsheviks. Piłsudski, however, was a staunch advocate of continuing the fight.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski's plan called for Polish forces to withdraw across the Vistula River and to defend the bridgeheads at Warsaw and on the Wieprz River while some 25% of the available divisions concentrated to the south for a counteroffensive. Afterwards, two armies under General Józef Haller, facing Soviet frontal attack on Warsaw from the east, were to hold their entrenched positions while an army under General Władysław Sikorski was to strike north from outside Warsaw, cutting off Soviet forces that sought to envelop the Polish capital from that direction. The most important role of the plan was assigned to a relatively small, approximately 20,000-man, newly assembled "Reserve Army" (also known as the "Strike Group", ""Grupa Uderzeniowa""), comprising the most determined, battle-hardened Polish units that were commanded by Piłsudski. Their task was to spearhead a lightning northward offensive, from the Vistula-Wieprz triangle south of Warsaw, through a weak spot that had been identified by Polish intelligence between the Soviet Western and Southwestern Fronts. That offensive would separate the Soviet Western Front from its reserves and disorganize its movements. Eventually, the gap between Sikorski's army and the "Strike Group" would close near the East Prussian border, bringing about the destruction of the encircled Soviet forces.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski's plan was criticized as "amateurish" by high-ranking army officers and military experts, quick to point out Piłsudski's lack of formal military education. However, the desperate situation of the Polish forces persuaded other commanders to support it. When a copy of the plan was acquired by the Soviets, Western Front commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky thought it was a ruse and disregarded it. Days later, the Soviets were defeated in the Battle of Warsaw, halting the Soviet advance in one of the worst defeats for the Red Army. Stanisław Stroński, a National Democrat Sejm deputy, coined the phrase "Miracle at the Vistula" ("Cud nad Wisłą") to express his disapproval of Piłsudski's "Ukrainian adventure". Stroński's phrase was adopted as praise for Piłsudski by some patriotically- or piously-minded Poles, who were unaware of Stroński's ironic intent.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: While Piłsudski had a major role in crafting the war strategy, he was aided by others, notably Tadeusz Rozwadowski. Later, some supporters of Piłsudski would seek to portray him as the sole author of the Polish strategy, while his opponents would try to minimize his role. On the other hand, in the West, the role of General Maxime Weygand of the French Military Mission to Poland was, for a time, exaggerated.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In February 1921, Piłsudski visited Paris, where, in negotiations with French President Alexandre Millerand, he laid the foundations for the Franco-Polish Military Alliance, which would be signed later that year. The Treaty of Riga, ending the Polish-Soviet War in March 1921, partitioned Belarus and Ukraine between Poland and Russia. Piłsudski called the treaty an "act of cowardice". The treaty and his secret approval of General Lucjan Żeligowski's capture of Vilnius from the Lithuanians marked an end to this incarnation of Piłsudski's federalist Intermarium plan. After Vilnius was occupied by the Central Lithuanian Army, Piłsudski said that he "could not help but regard them [Lithuanians] as brothers". In parliament, Piłsudski once said: "I cannot not reach out to Kaunas. .. I cannot disregard those brothers who consider the day of our triumph a day of shock and mourning." On 25 September 1921, when Piłsudski visited Lwów (now Lviv) for the opening of the first Eastern Trade Fair ("Targi Wschodnie"), he was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt by Stepan Fedak, acting on behalf of Ukrainian-independence organizations, including the Ukrainian Military Organization.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: The Polish Constitution of March 1921 severely limited the powers of the presidency intentionally, to prevent Piłsudski from waging war. This caused Piłsudski to decline to run for the office. On 9 December 1922, the Polish National Assembly elected Gabriel Narutowicz of Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie"; his election, opposed by the right-wing parties, caused public unrest. On 14 December at the Belweder Palace, Piłsudski officially transferred his powers as Chief of State to his friend Narutowicz; the "Naczelnik" was replaced by the President.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Two days later, on 16 December 1922, Narutowicz was shot dead by a right-wing painter and art critic, Eligiusz Niewiadomski, who had originally wanted to kill Piłsudski but had changed his target, influenced by National Democrat anti-Narutowicz propaganda. For Piłsudski, that was a major shock; he started to doubt that Poland could function as a democracy and supported a government led by a strong leader. He became Chief of the General Staff and, together with Minister of Military Affairs Władysław Sikorski, quelled the unrest by instituting a state of emergency.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Stanisław Wojciechowski of Polish People's Party "Piast" (PSL Piast), another of Piłsudski's old colleagues, was elected the new president, and Wincenty Witos, also of PSL Piast, became prime minister. The new government, an alliance among the centrist PSL Piast, the right-wing Popular National Union and Christian Democrat parties, contained right-wing enemies of Piłsudski. He held them responsible for Narutowicz's death and declared that it was impossible to work with them. On 30 May 1923, Piłsudski resigned as Chief of the General Staff.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski criticized General Stanisław Szeptycki's proposal that the military should be supervised by civilians as an attempt to politicize the army, and on 28 June, he resigned his last political appointment. The same day, the Sejm's left-wing deputies voted for a resolution, thanking him for his work. Piłsudski went into retirement in Sulejówek, outside Warsaw, at his country manor, ""Milusin"", presented to him by his former soldiers. There, he wrote a series of political and military memoirs, including "Rok 1920" (The Year 1920).


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Meanwhile, Poland's economy was a shambles. Hyperinflation fueled public unrest, and the government was unable to find a quick solution to the mounting unemployment and economic crisis. Piłsudski's allies and supporters repeatedly asked him to return to politics, and he began to create a new power base, centred on former members of the Polish Legions, the Polish Military Organization and some left-wing and intelligentsia parties. In 1925, after several governments had resigned in short order and the political scene was becoming increasingly chaotic, Piłsudski became more and more critical of the government and eventually issued statements demanding the resignation of the Witos cabinet. When the Chjeno-Piast coalition, which Piłsudski had strongly criticized, formed a new government, on 12–14 May 1926, Piłsudski returned to power in the May Coup, supported by the Polish Socialist Party, Liberation, the Peasant Party, and the Communist Party of Poland. Piłsudski had hoped for a bloodless coup but the government had refused to surrender; 215 soldiers and 164 civilians had been killed, and over 900 persons had been wounded.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On 31 May 1926, the Sejm elected Piłsudski president of the Republic, but Piłsudski refused the office due to the presidency's limited powers. Another of his old friends, Ignacy Mościcki, was elected in his stead. Mościcki then appointed Piłsudski as Minister of Military Affairs (defence minister), a post he held for the rest of his life through eleven successive governments, two of which he headed from 1926 to 1928 and for a brief period in 1930. He also served as General Inspector of the Armed Forces and Chairman of The War Council.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski had no plans for major reforms; he quickly distanced himself from the most radical of his left-wing supporters and declared that his coup was to be a "revolution without revolutionary consequences". His goals were to stabilize the country, reduce the influence of political parties (which he blamed for corruption and inefficiency) and strengthen the army. His role in the Polish government over the subsequent years has been called a dictatorship or a "quasi-dictatorship".


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski's coup entailed sweeping limitations on parliamentary government, as his Sanation regime (1926–1939), at times employing authoritarian methods, sought to curb perceived corruption and incompetence of the parliament rule, and in Piłsudski's words, restore "moral health" to public life (hence the name of his faction, "Sanation", which could be understood as "moral purification"). From 1928, the Sanation authorities were represented by the Non-partisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government ("BBWR"). Popular support and an effective propaganda apparatus allowed Piłsudski to maintain his authoritarian powers, which could not be overruled either by the president, who was appointed by Piłsudski, or by the Sejm. The powers of the Sejm were curtailed by constitutional amendments that were introduced soon after the coup, on 2 August 1926. From 1926 to 1930, Piłsudski relied chiefly on propaganda to weaken the influence of opposition leaders.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: The culmination of his dictatorial and supralegal policies came in the 1930s, with the imprisonment and trial of political opponents (the Brest trials) on the eve of the 1930 Polish legislative election and with the 1934 establishment of the Bereza Kartuska Detention Camp for political prisoners in present day Biaroza, where some prisoners were brutally mistreated. After the BBWR's 1930 victory, Piłsudski allowed most internal matters to be decided by his colonels while he concentrated on military and foreign affairs. His treatment of political opponents and their 1930 arrest and imprisonment was internationally condemned and the events damaged Poland's reputation.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski became increasingly disillusioned with democracy in Poland. His intemperate public utterances (he called the Sejm a "prostitute") and his sending of 90 armed officers into the Sejm building in response to an impending vote of no-confidence caused concern in contemporary and modern observers who have seen his actions as setting precedents for authoritarian responses to political challenges. He sought to transform the parliamentary system into a presidential system; however, he opposed the introduction of totalitarianism. The adoption of a new Polish constitution in April 1935 was tailored by Piłsudski's supporters to his specifications, providing for a strong presidency; but the April Constitution served Poland until World War II, and carried its Government in Exile until the end of the war and beyond. Piłsudski's government depended more on his charismatic authority than on rational-legal authority. None of his followers could claim to be his legitimate heir, and after his death, the Sanation structure would quickly fracture, returning Poland to the pre-Piłsudski era of parliamentary political contention.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski's regime began a period of national stabilization and of improvement in the situation of ethnic minorities, which formed about a third of the Second Republic's population. Piłsudski replaced the National Democrats' "ethnic-assimilation" with a "state-assimilation" policy: citizens were judged not by their ethnicity but by their loyalty to the state. Widely recognized for his opposition to the National Democrats' anti-Semitic policies, he extended his policy of "state-assimilation" to Polish Jews. The years 1926 to 1935 and Piłsudski himself were favorably viewed by many Polish Jews whose situation improved especially under Piłsudski-appointed Prime Minister Kazimierz Bartel. Many Jews saw Piłsudski as their only hope for restraining antisemitic currents in Poland and for maintaining public order; he was seen as a guarantor of stability and a friend of the Jewish people, who voted for him and actively participated in his political bloc. Piłsudski's death in 1935 brought a deterioration in the quality of life of Poland's Jews.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: During the 1930s, a combination of developments, from the Great Depression to the vicious spiral of "OUN" terrorist attacks and government pacifications, caused government relations with the national minorities to deteriorate. Unrest among national minorities was also related to foreign policy. Troubles followed repressions in the largely-Ukrainian eastern Galicia, where nearly 1,800 persons were arrested. Tension also arose between the government and Poland's German minority, particularly in Upper Silesia. The government did not yield to calls for antisemitic measures, but the Jews (8.6% of Poland's population) grew discontented for economic reasons that were connected with the Depression. By the end of Piłsudski's life, his government's relations with national minorities were increasingly problematic.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In the military sphere, Piłsudski was praised for his plan at the Battle of Warsaw in 1920, but was criticized for subsequently concentrating on personnel management and neglecting modernization of military strategy and equipment. According to his detractors, his experiences in World War I and the Polish-Soviet War led him to over-estimate the importance of cavalry, and to neglect the development of armor and air forces. His supporters, on the other hand, contend that, particularly from the late 1920s, he supported the development of these military branches. Modern historians concluded that the limitations on Poland's military modernization in this period was less doctrinal than financial.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski sought to maintain his country's independence in the international arena. Assisted by his protégé, Foreign Minister Józef Beck, he sought support for Poland in alliances with western powers, such as France and Britain, and with friendly neighbors such as Romania and Hungary. A supporter of the Franco-Polish Military Alliance and the Polish–Romanian alliance, part of the Little Entente, Piłsudski was disappointed by the policy of appeasement pursued by the French and British governments, evident in their signing of the Locarno Treaties. The Locarno treaties were intended by the British government to ensure a peaceful handover the territories claimed by Germany such as the Sudetenland, the Polish Corridor, and the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland) by improving Franco-German relations to such extent that France would dissolve its alliances in eastern Europe. Piłsudski aimed to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union and Germany, and relations with Germany and the Soviet Union during Piłsudski's tenure could, for the most part, be described as neutral. Under Piłsudski, Poland maintained good relations with neighboring Romania, Hungary and Latvia, but were strained with Czechoslovakia, and worse with Lithuania.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: A recurring fear of Piłsudski was that France would reach an agreement with Germany at the expense of Poland. In 1929, the French agreed to pull out of the Rhineland in 1930, five years earlier than what the Treaty of Versailles called. The same year, the French announced plans for the Maginot Line along the border with Germany, and construction of the Maginot line began in 1930. The Maginot line was a tacit French admission that Germany would be rearming beyond the limits set by the Treaty of Versailles in the near-future and that France intended to pursue a defensive strategy. At the time Poland signed the alliance with France in 1921, the French were occupying the Rhineland and Polish plans for a possible war with "Reich" were based on the assumption of a French offensive into the north German plain from their bases in the Rhineland. The French pullout from the Rhineland and a shift to a defensive strategy as epitomized by the Magniot line completely upset the entire basis of Polish foreign and defense policy.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: In June 1932, just before the Lausanne Conference opened, Piłsudski heard reports that the new German chancellor Franz von Papen was about to make an offer for a Franco-German alliance to the French Premier Édouard Herriot which would be at the expense of Poland. In response, Piłsudski sent the destroyer ORP "Wicher" into the harbour of Danzig. Though the issue was ostensibly about access rights for the Polish Navy in Danzig, the real purpose of sending "Wircher" was as a way to warn Herriot not to disadvantage Poland in a deal with Papen. The ensuring Danzig crisis sent the desired message to the French and improved the Polish Navy's access rights to Danzig.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Poland signed the Soviet-Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1932. Critics of the pact state that it allowed Stalin to eliminate his socialist opponents, primarily in Ukraine. The pacts were supported by advocates of Piłsudski's Promethean programme. After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in January 1933, Piłsudski is rumored to have proposed to France a preventive war against Germany. Lack of French enthusiasm may have been a reason for Poland signing the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact in 1934. Little evidence has, however, been found in French or Polish diplomatic archives that such a proposal for preventive war was ever actually advanced. Critics of Poland's pact with Germany accused Piłsudski of underestimating Hitler's aggressiveness, and giving Germany time to re-arm. Hitler repeatedly suggested a German-Polish alliance against the Soviet Union, but Piłsudski declined, instead seeking precious time to prepare for a potential war with either Germany or the Soviet Union. Just before his death, Piłsudski told Józef Beck that it must be Poland's policy to maintain neutral relations with Germany, keep up the Polish alliance with France and improve relations with the United Kingdom. The two non-aggression pacts were intended to strengthen Poland's position in the eyes of its allies and neighbors. Piłsudski was probably aware of the weakness of the pacts, stating: "Having these pacts, we are straddling two stools. This cannot last long. We have to know from which stool we will tumble first, and when that will be".


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski's religious views are a matter of debate. He was baptised Roman Catholic on 15 December 1867 in the church of Powiewiórka (then Sventsiany deanery). His godparents were Joseph and Constance Martsinkovsky Ragalskaya. On 15 July 1899, at the village of Paproć Duża, near Łomża, he married Maria Juskiewicz, a divorcée. As the Catholic Church did not recognise divorces, she and Piłsudski had converted to Protestantism. Pilsudski later returned to the Catholic Church to marry Aleksandra Szczerbińska. Piłsudski and Aleksandra could not get married as Piłsudski's wife Maria refused to divorce him. It was only after Maria's death in 1921 that they were married, on 25 October the same year.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: By 1935, unbeknown to the public, Piłsudski had for several years been in declining health. On 12 May 1935, he died of liver cancer at Warsaw's Belweder Palace. The celebration of his life began spontaneously within half an hour of the announcement of his death. It was led by military personnel – former Legionnaires, members of the Polish Military Organization, veterans of the wars of 1919–21 – and by his political collaborators from his service as Chief of State, and later, Prime Minister and Inspector-General.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: The Communist Party of Poland immediately attacked Piłsudski as a fascist and capitalist, though fascists themselves did not see him as one of them. Other opponents of the Sanation regime were more civil; socialists (such as Ignacy Daszyński and Tomasz Arciszewski) and Christian Democrats (represented by Ignacy Paderewski, Stanisław Wojciechowski and Władysław Grabski) expressed condolences. The peasant parties split in their reactions (Wincenty Witos voicing criticism of Piłsudski, but Maciej Rataj and Stanisław Thugutt being supportive), while Roman Dmowski's National Democrats expressed a toned-down criticism.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Condolences were officially expressed by the senior-ranking clergy, including by Pope Pius XI and by August Cardinal Hlond, Primate of Poland; indeed, the Pope called himself a "personal friend" of Piłsudski. Notable appreciation for Piłsudski was expressed by Poland's ethnic and religious minorities. Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish, and Islamic organizations expressed condolences, praising Piłsudski for his policies of religious tolerance. His death was a shock to members of the Jewish minority amongst which he was respected for his lack of prejudice and vocal opposition to the Endecja. Mainstream organizations of ethnic minorities similarly expressed their support for his policies of ethnic tolerance, though he was criticized by the Jewish Labour Bund and Ukrainian, German, and Lithuanian extremists.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On the international scene, Pope Pius XI held a special ceremony on 18 May in the Holy See, a commemoration was conducted at League of Nations Geneva headquarters, and dozens of messages of condolence arrived in Poland from heads of state across the world, including Germany's Adolf Hitler, the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin, Italy's Benito Mussolini and King Victor Emmanuel III, France's Albert Lebrun and Pierre-Étienne Flandin, Austria's Wilhelm Miklas, Japan's Emperor Hirohito, and Britain's King George V. In Berlin, a service for Piłsudski was ordered by Adolf Hitler. This was the only time that Hitler attended a holy mass as a leader of the Third Reich and probably one of the last times when he was in a church.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Ceremonies, masses and an enormous funeral were held; a funeral train toured Poland. A series of postcards, stamps and postmarks was also released. In 1937, after a two-year display at St. Leonard's Crypt in Kraków's Wawel Cathedral, Piłsudski's body was laid to rest in the Cathedral's Crypt under the Silver Bells, except for his brain, which he had willed for study to Stefan Batory University, and his heart, which was interred in his mother's grave at Vilnius's Rasos Cemetery. The 1937 relocation of his remains, made by his long-standing adversary Adam Sapieha, then Archbishop of Krakow, incited widespread protests that included calls for Sapieha's removal.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: On 13 May 1935, in accordance with Piłsudski's last wishes, Edward Rydz-Śmigły was named by Poland's president and government to be Inspector-General of the Polish Armed Forces, and on 10 November 1936, he was elevated to Marshal of Poland. As the Polish government became increasingly authoritarian and conservative, the Rydz-Śmigły faction was opposed by the more moderate Ignacy Mościcki, who remained President. Although Rydz-Śmigły reconciled with the President in 1938, the ruling group remained divided into the "President's Men", mostly civilians (the "Castle Group", after the President's official residence, Warsaw's Royal Castle), and the "Marshal's Men" ("Piłsudski's colonels"), professional military officers and old comrades-in-arms of Piłsudski's. Some of this political division would continue in the Polish government in exile after the German invasion of Poland in 1939.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: After World War II, little of Piłsudski's political ideology influenced the policies of the Polish People's Republic, a "de facto" satellite of the Soviet Union. For a decade after World War II, Piłsudski was either ignored or condemned by Poland's Communist government, along with the entire interwar Second Polish Republic. This began to change after de-Stalinization and the Polish October in 1956, and historiography in Poland gradually moved away from a purely negative view of Piłsudski toward a more balanced and neutral assessment. After the 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union, Piłsudski once again came to be publicly acknowledged as a Polish national hero. On the sixtieth anniversary of his death on 12 May 1995, Poland's Sejm adopted a resolution: "Józef Piłsudski will remain, in our nation's memory, the founder of its independence and the victorious leader who fended off a foreign assault that threatened the whole of Europe and its civilization. Józef Piłsudski served his country well and has entered our history forever." Piłsudski continues to be viewed by most Poles as a providential figure in the country's 20th-century history.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Several military units have been named for Piłsudski, including the 1st Legions Infantry Division and armored train No. 51 (""I Marszałek""—"the First Marshal"). Also named for Piłsudski have been Piłsudski's Mound, one of four-man-made mounds in Kraków; the Józef Piłsudski Institute of America, a New York City research center and museum on the modern history of Poland; the Józef Piłsudski University of Physical Education in Warsaw; a passenger ship, ; a gunboat, ; and a racehorse, "Pilsudski". Many Polish cities . There are statues of Piłsudski in many Polish cities; Warsaw, which has three in little more than a mile between the Belweder Palace, Piłsudski's residence, and Piłsudski Square. In 2020, Piłsudski's manor house in Sulejówek opened as a museum as part of the celebrations of the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Piłsudski has been a character in numerous works of fiction, a trend already visible during his lifetime, including the 1922 novel "Generał Barcz" (General Barcz) by Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski. Later works in which he is featured include the 2007 novel "Ice" ("Lód") by Jacek Dukaj. Poland's National Library lists over 500 publications related to Piłsudski; the U.S. Library of Congress, over 300. Piłsudski's life was the subject of a 2001 Polish television documentary, "Marszałek Piłsudski", directed by Andrzej Trzos-Rastawiecki. He was also the subject of paintings by artists such as Jacek Malczewski (1916) and Wojciech Kossak (leaning on his sword, 1928; and astride his horse, "Kasztanka", 1928), as well as photos and caricatures. He has been reported to be quite fond of the latter.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: Both daughters of Marshal Piłsudski returned to Poland in 1990, after the Revolutions of 1989 and the fall of the Communist system. Jadwiga Piłsudska's daughter Joanna Jaraczewska returned to Poland in 1979. She married a Polish Solidarity activist Janusz Onyszkiewicz in a political prison in 1983. Both were very involved in the Solidarity movement between 1979 and 1989.


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: a. Józef Klemens Piłsudski was commonly referred to without his middle name, as "Józef Piłsudski". A few English sources translate his first name as "Joseph", but this is not the common practice. As a young man, he belonged to underground organizations and used various pseudonyms, including ""Wiktor"", ""Mieczysław"" and ""Ziuk"" (the latter also being his family nickname). Later he was often affectionately called ""Dziadek"" ("Grandpa" or "the Old Man") and ""Marszałek"" ("the Marshal"). His ex-soldiers from the Legions also referred to him as ""Komendant"" ("the Commandant").


title: Józef Piłsudski

text: b. Piłsudski sometimes spoke of being a Lithuanian of Polish culture. For several centuries, declaring both Lithuanian and Polish identity was commonplace, but around the turn of the last century it became much rarer in the wake of arising modern nationalisms. Timothy Snyder, who calls him a "Polish-Lithuanian", notes that Piłsudski did not think in terms of 20th-century nationalisms and ethnicities; he considered himself "both" a Pole and a Lithuanian, and his homeland was the historic Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (January 3, 1916 – October 21, 1995), and mezzo-soprano Patricia "Patty" Marie Andrews (February 16, 1918 – January 30, 2013). The sisters have sold an estimated 80 million records. Their 1941 hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" can be considered an early example of jump blues. Other songs closely associated with the Andrews Sisters include their first major hit, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand)" (1937), "Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out the Barrel)" (1939), "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" (1940), "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)" (1942), and "Rum and Coca Cola" (1945), which helped introduce American audiences to calypso.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The Andrews Sisters' harmonies and songs are still influential today, and have been copied and recorded by entertainers such as Patti Page, Bette Midler, Christina Aguilera, Pentatonix, and others. The group was among the inaugural inductees to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame upon its opening in 1998. Writing for "Bloomberg", Mark Schoifet said the sisters became the most popular female vocal group of the first half of the 20th century. They are still widely acclaimed today for their famous close harmonies. They were inducted into the Minnesota Rock/Country Hall of Fame in May 2006.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The sisters were born to Olga "Ollie" (née Sollie) and Peter Andreas. Peter Andreas (later "Andrews") was Greek and his wife was of Norwegian ancestry raised in the Lutheran faith. The Sollie family disapproved of Olga's marriage, but the relationship was repaired once their first child, LaVerne, was born July 6, 1911. Their second daughter, Anglyn, died at eight months of age on March 16, 1914. Maxene arrived on January 3, 1916, and Patty was born February 16, 1918.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Patty, the lead singer of the group, was 7 when the trio was formed, and 12 when they won first prize at a talent contest at the local Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, where LaVerne played piano accompaniment for the silent film showings in exchange for dancing lessons for her and her sisters. Following the collapse of their father's Minneapolis restaurant, the sisters went on the road to support the family. All three attended Franklin Junior High School and North High School, both in Minneapolis.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: They started their career as imitators of an earlier successful singing group, the Boswell Sisters, who were popular in the 1930s. After singing with various dance bands and touring in vaudeville with Leon Belasco (and his orchestra) and comic bandleader Larry Rich, they first came to national attention with their recordings and radio broadcasts in 1937, most notably via their major Decca record hit, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön" (translation: "To Me, You Are Beautiful"), originally a Yiddish tune, the lyrics of which Sammy Cahn had translated to English and "which the girls harmonized to perfection." They followed this success with a string of best-selling records over the next two years and they became a household name by the 1940s.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Instrumental to the sisters' success over the years were their parents, Olga and Peter, their orchestra leader and musical arranger, Vic Schoen (1916–2000), and Jack and David Kapp, who founded Decca Records.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: In the years just before and during World War II, the Andrews Sisters were at the height of their popularity, and the group still tends to be associated in the public's mind with the war years. They had numerous hit records during these years, both on their own and in collaboration with Bing Crosby. Some of these hits had service or military related themes, including "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", "Three Little Sisters", "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)", "" and "Rum and Coca Cola". The sisters performed their hits in service comedy films like "Buck Privates" and "Private Buckaroo".


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: During the war, they entertained the Allied forces extensively in Africa, and Italy, as well as in the U.S., visiting Army, Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard bases, war zones, hospitals, and munitions factories. They encouraged U.S. citizens to purchase war bonds with their rendition of Irving Berlin's song "Any Bonds Today?". They also helped actress Bette Davis and actor John Garfield found California's famous Hollywood Canteen, a welcome retreat for servicemen where the trio often performed, volunteering their personal time to sing and dance for the soldiers, sailors, and Marines (they did the same at New York City's Stage Door Canteen during the war).


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: While touring, they often treated three random servicemen to dinner when they were dining out. They recorded a series of Victory Discs (V-Discs) for distribution to Allied fighting forces only, again volunteering their time for studio sessions for the Music Branch, Special Service Division, of the Army Service Forces, and they were dubbed the "Sweethearts of the Armed Forces Radio Service" for their many appearances on shows such as "Command Performance", "Mail Call", and "G.I. Journal."


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The sisters' 1945 hit "Rum and Coca Cola" became one of their most popular and best-known recordings, but also inspired some controversy. Some radio stations were reluctant to play the record because it mentioned a commercial product by name, and because the lyrics were subtly suggestive of local women prostituting themselves to U.S. servicemen serving at the then naval base on Trinidad. The song was based on a Trinidadian calypso, and a dispute over its provenance led to a well-publicized court case. The sisters later told biographers that they were asked to record the tune on short notice and were unaware either of the copyright issue or of the implications of the lyrics.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: An ad in the 1951 'Radio Annual' showed photos of the Andrews as children, as contemporary singers, and as old women in the then-future year of 1975, although the act would not make it that long. In the 1950s, Patty Andrews decided to break away from the act to be a soloist. She had married the trio's pianist, Walter Weschler, who became the group's manager and demanded more money for Patty. When Maxene and LaVerne learned of Patty's decision from newspaper gossip columns rather than from their own sister, it caused a bitter two-year separation, especially when Patty sued LaVerne for a larger share of their parents' estate. Patty attributed the breakup to the deaths of their parents: "We had been together nearly all our lives," Patty explained in 1971. "Then in one year our dream world ended. Our mother died (in 1948) and then our father (in 1949). All three of us were upset, and we were at each other's throats all the time." In 1951, they recorded "The Windmill Song" which is an adaptation of the French song "Maître Pierre" written in 1948 by Henri Betti (music) and Jacques Plante (lyrics). The English lyrics were written by Mitchell Parish. The Andrews Sisters formally broke up in 1953.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Maxene and LaVerne tried to continue the act as a duo and met with good press during a 10-day tour of Australia, but a reported suicide attempt by Maxene in December 1954 put a halt to any further tours (Maxene spent a short time in the hospital after swallowing 18 sleeping pills, an occurrence that LaVerne told reporters was an accident). Maxene and LaVerne did appear together on "The Red Skelton Show" on October 26, 1954, singing the humorous "Why Do They Give the Solos to Patty" as well as lip-synching "Beer Barrel Polka" with Skelton in drag filling in for Patty. This however did not sit well with Patty and a cease and desist order was sent to Skelton. The sisters' private relationship was often troubled and Patty blamed it on Maxene: "Ever since I was born, Maxene has been a problem, and that problem hasn't stopped," she said.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The trio reunited in 1956 and signed a new recording deal with Capitol Records, for whom Patty was already a featured soloist. By this point however, rock-and-roll and doo-wop were dominating the charts and older artists were left by the wayside. The sisters recorded a dozen singles through 1959, some of which attempted to keep up with the times by incorporating rock sounds. None of these achieved any major success. In addition, they produced three hi-fi albums, including a vibrant LP of songs from the dancing 1920s with Billy May's orchestra. In 1962, they signed with Dot Records and recorded a series of stereo albums until 1967, both re-recordings of earlier hits which incorporated up-to-date production techniques, as well as new material, including "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", "Still", "The End of the World", "Puff the Magic Dragon", "Sailor", "Satin Doll", "Mr. Bass Man", the theme from "Come September", and the theme from "A Man and a Woman". They toured extensively during the 1960s, favoring top nightclubs in Las Vegas, California, and London, England.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Eldest sister LaVerne died in 1967 at the age of 55 after a year-long bout with cancer during which she was replaced by singer Joyce DeYoung (May 24, 1926 – March 7, 2014). DeYoung fulfilled concert appearances, including an appearance on "The Dean Martin Show" on November 30, 1967, but she did not record with Patty and Maxene. LaVerne had founded the original group, and often acted as the peacemaker among the three during the sisters' lives, more often siding with her parents, to whom the girls were extremely devoted, than with either of her sisters. Their last appearance together as a trio was on "The Dean Martin Show" on September 29, 1966.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: After LaVerne died, Maxene and Patty continued to perform periodically until 1968, when Maxene became the Dean of Women at Tahoe Paradise College, teaching acting, drama, and speech at a Lake Tahoe college and working with troubled teens, and Patty was once again eager to be a soloist.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: In 1969, Patty appeared in Lucille Ball's third series "Here's Lucy", in the sixth episode of the second season, titled "Lucy and the Andrews Sisters". The episode has Patty enlisting the help of Lucy, her daughter Kim (played by Lucie Arnaz), and her son Craig (Desi Arnaz Jr.) to perform a medley of Andrews Sisters hits for the Andrews Sisters Fan Club reunion. Lucy played LaVerne, Kim (Lucie Arnaz) played Maxene, and Craig (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) played Bing Crosby. She also had a cameo as herself along with many other stars in the 1970 film "The Phynx".


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Patty and Maxene's careers experienced a resurgence when Bette Midler covered "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" in 1973. The next year, the pair debuted on Broadway in the Sherman Brothers' nostalgic World War II musical: "Over Here!", which premiered at the Shubert Theatre to rave reviews. This was a follow-up to Patty's success in "Victory Canteen", a 1971 California revue. "Over Here!" starred Maxene and Patty (with Janie Sell filling in for LaVerne and winning a Tony Award for her performance) and was written with both sisters in mind for the leads. It launched the careers of many now notable theater, film, and television stars, including John Travolta, Marilu Henner, Treat Williams, and Ann Reinking. It was the last major tour for the sisters and was cut short owing to a conflict with the show's producers over pay for the sisters, resulting in the cancellation of an extensively scheduled road tour. "Over" "Here!" lasted only a year, and its end marked the last time the sisters would ever sing together.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Patty continually distanced herself from Maxene, until her death, and would not explain her motives regarding the separation. Maxene appealed to Patty for a reunion, personally if not professionally, both in public and in private, but to no avail. Maxene suffered a serious heart attack while performing in Illinois in 1982 and underwent quadruple bypass surgery, from which she successfully recovered. Patty visited her sister while she was hospitalized. Now sometimes appearing as "Patti" (but still signing autographs as "Patty"), she re-emerged in the late 1970s as a regular panelist on "The Gong Show". Maxene had a successful comeback as a cabaret soloist in 1979 and toured worldwide for the next 15 years, recording a solo album in 1985 entitled "Maxene: An Andrews Sister" for Bainbridge Records. Patty started her own solo act in 1980, but did not receive the critical acclaim her sister had for her performances, even though Patty was considered to be the "star" of the group for years. The critics' major complaint was that Patty's show concentrated too much on Andrews Sisters material, which did not allow Patty's own talents as an expressive and bluesy vocalist to shine through.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The two sisters did reunite, albeit briefly, on October 1, 1987, when they received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, even singing a few bars of "Beer Barrel Polka" for the "Entertainment Tonight" cameras. An earthquake shook the area that very morning and the ceremony was nearly cancelled, which caused Patty to joke, "Some people said that earthquake this morning was LaVerne because she couldn't be here, but really it was just Maxene and me on the telephone." Besides this, and a few brief private encounters, they remained somewhat estranged for their remaining years, with Maxene dying in 1995.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Shortly after her Off-Broadway debut in New York City in a show called "Swingtime Canteen", Maxene suffered another heart attack and died at Cape Cod Hospital on October 21, 1995, making Patty the last surviving Andrews Sister. Not long before she died, Maxene told music historian William Ruhlmann,I have nothing to regret. We got on the carousel and we each got the ring and I was satisfied with that. There's nothing I would do to change things if I could...Yes, I would. I wish I had the ability and the power to bridge the gap between my relationship with my sister, Patty.Upon hearing the news of her sister's death, Patty became distraught. Several days later, Patty's husband Wally fell down a flight of stairs and broke both wrists. Patty did not attend her sister's memorial services in New York City, nor in California. Bob Hope said of Maxene's passing, "She was more than part of The Andrews Sisters, much more than a singer. She was a warm and wonderful lady who shared her talent and wisdom with others."


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: They found instant appeal with teenagers and young adults who were engrossed in the swing and jazz idioms, especially when they performed with nearly all of the major big bands, including those led by Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Buddy Rich, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Joe Venuti, Freddie Slack, Eddie Heywood, Bob Crosby (Bing's brother), Desi Arnaz, Guy Lombardo, Les Brown, Bunny Berigan, Xavier Cugat, Paul Whiteman, Ted Lewis, Nelson Riddle, and mood-master Gordon Jenkins, whose orchestra and chorus accompanied them on such successful soft and melancholy renditions as "I Can Dream, Can't I?" (which shot to number one on "Billboard" and remained in the Top 10 for 25 weeks), "I Wanna Be Loved", "There Will Never Be Another You", and "The Three Bells", which was an English version of the French 1946 rendition by Édith Piaf & Les Compagnons de la chanson; along with several solo recordings with Patty, including a cover version of Nat King Cole's "Too Young", "It Never Entered My Mind", "If You Go", and "That's How A Love Song Is Born".


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: While the sisters specialized in traditional pop, swing, boogie-woogie, and novelty hits with their trademark lightning-quick vocal syncopations, they also produced major hits in jazz, ballads, folk, country, seasonal, and religious titles, being the first Decca artists to record an album of gospel standards in 1950. Their versatility allowed them to pair with many different artists in the recording studios, producing Top 10 hits with the likes of Bing Crosby (the only recording artist of the 1940s to sell more records than The Andrews Sisters), Danny Kaye, Dick Haymes, Carmen Miranda, Al Jolson, Ray McKinley, Burl Ives, Ernest Tubb, Red Foley, Dan Dailey, Alfred Apaka, and Les Paul. In personal appearances, on radio and on television, they sang with everyone from Rudy Vallee, Judy Garland, and Nat "King" Cole, to Jimmie Rodgers, Andy Williams, and The Supremes. Some of the trio's late-1930s recordings have noticeable Boswell Sisters vocal influences.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: LaVerne Andrews married Lou Rogers, a trumpet player in Vic Schoen's band, in 1948. The two remained together until LaVerne's death from liver cancer on May 8, 1967, at the age of 55. Lou died in 1995.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Maxene Andrews married music publisher Lou Levy in 1941, separating in 1949. They adopted a girl and a boy, Aleda Ann and Peter. Levy was the sisters' manager from 1937 to 1951. Later in life, according to her adopted daughter, Maxene entered a thirteen-year relationship with her manager Lynda Wells and they later spent many years as life partners. "To me, being gay was not a central focus of Maxene's life at all," Wells told radio station The Current (KCMP) in a 2019 interview. "Her art was. Her singing was." But Wells says that their status as companions, and Maxene's health issues as she got older, led Maxene to adopt her as a daughter. "There was no such thing as being married at that time," she said. "During her lifetime, there was no such thing that existed for us." Maxene died October 21, 1995, at age 79. The ashes of LaVerne and Maxene Andrews are interred in the Columbarium of Memory of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, close to the ashes of their parents.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Patty Andrews married agent Marty Melcher in 1947 but left him in 1949, when he pursued a romantic relationship with Doris Day. She then married Walter Weschler, the trio's pianist, in 1951. Patty died of natural causes at her home in Northridge, California, on January 30, 2013, at the age of 94. Weschler, her husband of nearly 60 years, had died on August 28, 2010, at the age of 88.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Joyce DeYoung Murray, who replaced LaVerne from late 1966 to 1968, died in March 2014 at the age of 87.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The Andrews Sisters were the most imitated of all female singing groups and influenced many artists, including Mel Tormé, Les Paul and Mary Ford, the Four Freshmen, the Supremes, the Beach Boys, the McGuire Sisters, the Lennon Sisters, the Pointer Sisters, the Manhattan Transfer, Barry Manilow, and Bette Midler. Elvis Presley was a fan. The imitation occurred internationally; the Harmony Sisters, a popular group that performed from the 1930s to the 1950s in Finland was one such singing group.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Most of the Andrews Sisters' music has been restored and released in compact disc form. Over 300 of their original Decca recordings, a good portion of which was hit material, has yet to be released by MCA/Decca. Many of their Decca recordings have been used in such television shows and Hollywood movies as "Homefront", "ER", "Agent Carter", "The Brink's Job", "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", "Swing Shift", "Raggedy Man", "Summer of '42", "Slaughterhouse-Five", "Maria's Lovers", "Harlem Nights", "In Dreams", "Murder in the First", "L.A. Confidential",


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: "American Horror Story", "Just Shoot Me", "Gilmore Girls", "Mama's Family", "War and Remembrance", "Jakob the Liar", "Lolita", "The Polar Express", "The Chronicles of Narnia", "", "Memoirs of a Geisha", and "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!)". Comical references to the trio in television sitcoms can be found as early as "I Love Lucy" and as recently as "Everybody Loves Raymond". In 2007, their version of "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön" was included in the game "BioShock", a first-person shooter that takes place in an alternate history 1960, and later in 2008, their song "Civilization" (with Danny Kaye) was included in the Atomic Age-inspired video game "Fallout 3." The 2010 video game "Mafia II" features numerous Andrews Sisters songs, with "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", "Strip Polka" and "Rum And Coca-Cola". The 2011 video game "L.A. Noire" features the song "Pistol Packin' Mama", where the sisters perform a duet with Bing Crosby. The sisters were again featured in a "Fallout" game in 2015, when their songs "Pistol Packin' Mama" and "Civilization" were featured in the game "Fallout 4".


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Christina Aguilera used the Andrews Sisters' "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" to inspire her song "Candyman" (released as a single in 2007) from her hit album "Back to Basics". The song was co-written by Linda Perry. The London-based trio the Puppini Sisters uses their style harmonies on several Andrews Sisters and other hits of the 1940s and 1950s as well as later rock and disco hits. The trio has said their name is a tribute to The Andrews Sisters. The National WW2 Museum's Victory Belles are proud to pay tribute to the Andrews Sisters performing their music daily in the Stage Door Canteen in New Orleans. The Manhattan Dolls, a New York City-based touring group, performs both the popular tunes sung by the Andrews Sisters and some of the more obscure tunes such as "Well Alright" and "South American Way".


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: In 2008 and 2009, the BBC produced "The Andrews Sisters: Queens of the Music Machines", a one-hour documentary on the history of the Andrews Sisters from their upbringing to the present. The American premier of the show was June 21, 2009, in their summer vacation enclave of Mound, Minnesota. In 2008, Mound dedicated "The Andrews Sisters Trail". The sisters spent summers in Mound with their uncles Pete and Ed Solie, who had a grocery store there. Maxene Andrews always said that the summers in Mound created a major sense of "normalcy" and "a wonderful childhood" in a life that otherwise centered on the sisters' careers. The Westonka Historical Society has a large collection of Andrews Sisters memorabilia.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The Andrews Sisters were among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne appeared in 17 Hollywood films. Their first picture, "Argentine Nights", paired them with another enthusiastic trio, the Ritz Brothers. Universal Pictures, always budget-conscious, refused to hire a choreographer, so the Ritzes taught the sisters some eccentric steps. Thus, in "Argentine Nights" and the sisters' next film, "Buck Privates", the Andrews Sisters dance like the Ritz Brothers.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: "Buck Privates", with Abbott and Costello, featured the Andrews Sisters' best-known song, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." This Don Raye-Hughie Prince composition was nominated for Best Song at the 1941 Academy Awards ceremony.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Universal hired the sisters for two more Abbott and Costello comedies and then promoted them to full-fledged stardom in B musicals. "What's Cookin'?", "Private Buckaroo", "Give Out, Sisters" (in which they disguise themselves as old women as part of the zany plot) and "Moonlight and Cactus" were among the team's popular full-length films.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The Andrews Sisters sing the title song as the opening credits roll and also perform two specialty numbers in the all-star revue "Hollywood Canteen" (1944). They can be seen singing "You Don't Have to Know the Language" with Bing Crosby in Paramount's "Road to Rio" with Bob Hope, that year's highest-grossing movie. Their singing voices are heard in two full-length Walt Disney features: "Make Mine Music", in a segment which featured animated characters Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet; and "Melody Time", in the segment "Little Toot" (both of which are available on DVD today).


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The Andrews Sisters were the most sought-after singers in theater shows worldwide during the 1940s and early 1950s, always topping previous house averages. The trio headlined at the London Palladium in 1948 and 1951. They hosted their own radio shows for ABC and CBS from 1944 to 1951, singing specially written commercial jingles for such products as Wrigley's chewing gum, Dole pineapples, Nash motor cars, Kelvinator home appliances, Campbell's soups, and Franco-American food products. The western-themed "The Andrews Sisters' Show" (subtitled "Eight-to-the-Bar Ranch"), co-hosted by Gabby Hayes, began in 1944 and featured a special guest every week.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: They recorded 47 songs with crooner Bing Crosby, 23 of which charted on "Billboard", thus making the team one of the most successful pairings of acts in a recording studio in show business history. Their million-sellers with Crosby included "Pistol Packin' Mama", "Don't Fence Me In", "South America, Take It Away", and "Jingle Bells".


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The sisters' popularity was such that after the war they discovered that some of their records had actually been smuggled into Germany after the labels had been changed to read "Hitler's Marching Songs". Their recording of "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön" became a favorite of the Nazis, until it was discovered that the song's composers were of Jewish descent. Still, it did not stop concentration camp inmates from secretly singing it, this being most likely since the song was originally a Yiddish song "Bei Mir Bistu Shein", and had been popularized within the Jewish community before it was recorded as a more successful "cover" version by the Andrews sisters.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Edward Habib in the CD program notes for "Songs That Won the War Vol. 2 The Hollywood Canteen" states that the Andrews Sisters' radio transcription of Elmer's Tune was "so popular it even played on German radio," noting that "the opposition embraced the Andrews Sisters and their songs in the same way the Allied Forces adopted Lili Marlene."


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Along with Bing Crosby, separately and jointly, The Andrews Sisters were among the performers who incorporated ethnic music styles into America's Hit Parade, popularizing or enhancing the popularity of songs with melodies originating in Brazil, Czechoslovakia, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Trinidad, many of which their manager chose for them.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: The Andrews Sisters became the most popular female vocal group of the first half of the 20th century.


title: The Andrews Sisters

text: Early comparative female close harmony trios were the Boswell Sisters, the Pickens Sisters, and the Three X Sisters.


The 2021–22 UEFA Champions League knockout phase began on 15 February with the round of 16 and ended on 28 May 2022 with the final at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, France, to decide the champions of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League. A total of 16 teams competed in the knockout phase.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Champions League knockout phase

text: The knockout phase involved the 16 teams which qualified as winners and runners-up of each of the eight groups in the group stage.


text: Each tie in the knockout phase, apart from the final, was played over two legs, with each team playing one leg at home. The team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs advanced to the next round. If the aggregate score was level, then 30 minutes of extra time was played (the away goals rule was not applied). If the score was still level at the end of extra time, the winners were decided by a penalty shoot-out. In the final, which was played as a single match, if the score was level at the end of normal time, extra time was played, followed by a penalty shoot-out if the score was still level.


text: The draw for the round of 16 was held on 13 December 2021, originally at 12:00 CET. The draw featured multiple irregularities: Manchester United were mistakenly included in the draw for Villarreal's opponent (both were in Group F), and subsequently were selected; another ball was then drawn, with Manchester City chosen instead. In the following tie, Liverpool were mistakenly included in the draw for Atlético Madrid's opponent (both were in Group B), while Manchester United were incorrectly excluded. Later that day, UEFA voided the original draw due to a "technical problem" with the draw computer, and it was entirely redone at 15:00 CET.<section end=R16 />


text: The first legs were played on 15, 16, 22 and 23 February, and the second legs were played on 8, 9, 15 and 16 March 2022.


text: The first legs were played on 5 and 6 April, and the second legs were played on 12 and 13 April 2022.


text: The draw for the semi-finals was held on 18 March 2022, 12:00 CET, after the quarter-final draw.<section end=SF />


text: The final was played on 28 May 2022 at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. A draw was held on 18 March 2022, after the quarter-final and semi-final draws, to determine the "home" team for administrative purposes.


title: Sonya Deville

text: Daria Rae Berenato (born September 24, 1993) is an American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist. She is currently signed to WWE where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Sonya Deville. She is also a former on-screen authority figure alongside Adam Pearce.


title: Sonya Deville

text: Deville rose to prominence as a contestant in the 2015 season of "WWE Tough Enough", where she finished in eleventh place. Following her elimination, she signed a contract with WWE and was sent to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. She then performed in WWE's developmental territory at the time, NXT, before moving up to the main roster. She was assigned to the Raw brand in November 2017 in a team with Mandy Rose and Paige called Absolution. Deville and Rose were later drafted to SmackDown and became Fire and Desire before eventually splitting. After taking time off in mid-2020, she returned in January 2021 in a non-wrestling role as an on-screen authority figure.


title: Sonya Deville

text: Berenato was born in Shamong Township, New Jersey to Italian parents. She attended Seneca High School in Tabernacle, New Jersey. At the age of 16, Berenato began training and competing in mixed martial arts.


title: Sonya Deville

text: In June 2015, Berenato was one of the thirteen finalists for the sixth season of the WWE competition "Tough Enough". She was the third competitor eliminated from the competition.


title: Sonya Deville

text: In October 2015, Berenato signed a contract with WWE, and was assigned to their developmental brand NXT to begin her training. She made her in-ring debut on December 3 during a live event against Nia Jax, which she lost. Berenato made her first televised appearance and in-ring debut under her real name on the August 17 episode of "NXT", where she competed in a six-woman tag team match along with Mandy Rose, and Alexa Bliss, in which they were defeated by Carmella, Liv Morgan, and Nikki Cross.<ref name="NXT 17/08/16"></ref> Berenato returned to television on the November 23 episode of "NXT" in another six-woman tag team match with The Iconic Duo (Billie Kay and Peyton Royce), where they lost to Aliyah, Ember Moon and Liv Morgan. On the December 21 episode of "NXT", Berenato competed in her first televised singles match, where she was defeated by Billie Kay due to a distraction by Peyton Royce.<ref name="NXT21/12/16"></ref>


title: Sonya Deville

text: Berenato returned on the May 3, 2017, episode of "NXT" under the new ring name Sonya Deville, participating in a number one contender's battle royal for Asuka's NXT Women's Championship, where she was eliminated by Peyton Royce and Billie Kay. Following this, Deville began a winning streak, defeating Lacey Evans,<ref name="NXT17/05/17"></ref> Rachel Evers,<ref name="NXT21/06/17"></ref> Jenna Van Bemel,<ref name="NXT02/08/17"></ref> and Zeda.<ref name="NXT06/09/17"></ref> Following another short hiatus, Deville returned on the October 18 episode of "NXT", where she participated in a triple threat match against Ember Moon and Ruby Riott to gain an spot on the fatal four-way match for the vacant NXT Women's Championship at on November 18, which was won by Moon.<ref name="NXT18/10/17"></ref> On the November 22 episode of "NXT", Deville was defeated by Ruby Riott.<ref name="NXT22/11/17"></ref> A rematch took place on the December 6 episode of "NXT", where they faced off in a no holds barred match which Deville won. Deville then unsuccessfully challenged Ember Moon for the title on the December 27 episode of "NXT".<ref name="NXT06/12/17"></ref>


title: Sonya Deville

text: On the November 20, 2017, episode of "Raw", Deville joined Mandy Rose and Paige as they attacked Sasha Banks, Bayley, Mickie James, and Alexa Bliss. A week later, the trio's name was revealed as Absolution. Deville had her first televised match on the main roster at "Tribute to the Troops" on December 19, where Absolution defeated Bayley, Mickie James and Sasha Banks.


title: Sonya Deville

text: On January 28, 2018, at the Royal Rumble, Deville entered the first women's Royal Rumble match at number 10, and she eliminated Torrie Wilson, lasting 6:41 before being eliminated by Michelle McCool. She was also in the first women's Elimination Chamber match on February 25 at Elimination Chamber, where she was defeated by Bliss. In April, Paige retired from the ring due to neck injuries and became the SmackDown general manager. In her first WrestleMania appearance, at WrestleMania 34, Deville participated in the WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal, which would be won by Naomi.


title: Sonya Deville

text: During the 2018 Superstar Shake-up, both Deville and Rose were drafted to SmackDown, but Paige declared they would not receive special treatment and that Absolution is over. Throughout the summer, Deville would continue her alliance with Rose as the two remained a tag team and competed in various singles and tag team matches. On October 28, Deville also took part of the first ever all women's pay-per-view, Evolution, competing in a battle royal match where she was eliminated by Rose. In November, it was announced that Deville will take part of Team Smackdown for the upcoming traditional five-on-five elimination match at Survivor Series. In her first appearance at the event, Deville was one of the final two women of the team alongside Asuka, but she was eliminated via count out after a brawl with Bayley outside the ring. On January 27, 2019, at the Royal Rumble, Deville competed in her second Royal Rumble match, where she entered at number 25, lasting 04:26, before she was eliminated by Alexa Bliss. On February 17, Deville and Rose competed in a six-team Elimination Chamber match for the inaugural WWE Women's Tag Team Championship at the namesake pay-per-view, where they were the last team eliminated by the eventual winners Sasha Banks and Bayley.


title: Sonya Deville

text: Shortly after Fastlane, the dissolution angle between Deville and Rose was once again portrayed as both accidentally cost each other matches against SmackDown Women's Champion Asuka. Both Deville and Rose competed in the second WrestleMania Women's Battle Royal during the WrestleMania 35 pre-show, however, they were one of the last competitors eliminated from the match. In May, Deville and Rose were given the opportunity to choose between each other who would be the last competitor for the Money in the Bank ladder match at the namesake pay-per-view on May 19. Deville, who insisted on Rose getting the spot, tried to climb the ladder and help Rose win the match, however, Bayley was able to fight them off and retrieve the briefcase.