The election for the Polish throne was imminent. Unwilling to lose power just like that, the Polish Republican faction began making its own moves.
In Warsaw, Dąbrowski convened a meeting of the Republican leadership at the Prime Minister's residence. Anyone paying close attention would have noticed that most of those attending were government officials, while military commanders were few and far between.
There was no helping it. The Polish Independence Movement had, after all, been brought to success by outside forces. Nearly all the military personnel who had led the uprising had been trained by the Great Powers, while the revolutionary party's own strength was limited.
That alone would not have been much of a problem. Now that the revolutionary party had established a legitimate government, winning these people over would not have been difficult.
Unfortunately, the Polish Government had been heavily influenced by French ideas. It took it for granted that the military should obey the government, and within the government's power structure, the army's status had been pressed very low.
That was naturally not a problem in peacetime. The military did not interfere in politics; that was how normal countries operated. The tragedy was that Poland was not a normal country. Though it had gained independence, the threat of war was ever-present.
Under such circumstances, the best choice was for the nation to revolve around the military and devote every effort to building it up. The neighboring Kingdom of Prussia, for instance, was an excellent model to learn from.
Clearly, the revolutionary party members, who aimed high but lacked the ability to match, had not thought that far ahead. The moment they seized great power, they became so pleased with themselves that they forgot all restraint.
In the eyes of the government's upper ranks, this army, filled with