Polish memory of World War one

The War of 1914-1918 is considered by Poles as "their" war only because it led to the recreation of the Polish state. This point of view ignores almost entirely two other aspects of the war : the horror and extreme misery of the soldier's life in the trenches, as well as the everyday life of the civilian population. Chapters dedicated to this period in various monographic studies on Polish history are sometimes entitled : "The struggle for the Polish cause." A book on historical and statistical data, published in 2000, lists the Poles who served in various Polish military units, but not those who served in the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and German armies. The Polish Legions were and remain preponderant in the memory, mainly because of the position held by Jozef Pilsudski, and the fact that their military engagement far surpassed that of other military units. The pro-German and pro-Austrian position of Pilsudski, based on his opposition to Russia, stood in contrast to that of Roman Dmowski, who supported the Entente. Controversy, symbolized by these two names, remained vivid in political life and in historical works of the interwar period and in unofficial discourse in the People's Republic of Poland, even after the collapse of communism. The final part of the article deals with a small but significant aspect of remembrance of the First World War: a small guidebook to the war cemeteries in Galicia (Austrian Poland), elaborated and published by an amateur local historian.