The First World War resulted in the creation of a number of independent states in the eastern part of the European continent. Yet it is Poland that celebrates its national day precisely on 11 November., When the guns on the Western Front fell silent on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, nothing of note was happening in Warsaw. No major document was signed, no speech given, nor any building taken. The return of the long-awaited Polish war hero Józef Piłsudski from German custody took place a day earlier. It is for its symbolic power that this date was adopted as a national holiday in the 1920s; the armistice meant that Germany lost the war, while the other two oppressors of Poland - the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary – ceased to exist as effective administrations.
