Moscicki — the Succession from Bicaz

Ignacy Moscicki, seventy-two, a chemist by training, has been President of Poland since 1926 — elected by the National Assembly under the Sanacja regime installed by Jozef Pilsudski after the May 1926 coup. On 17 September 1939, following the Soviet invasion, he crosses into Romania with the Slawoj-Skladkowski government. Under the Polish-Romanian treaty of 1921, Romania was bound to grant free transit to the Polish government on its way to France. But on 18 September, under French pressure (the Daladier government fears that Moscicki, identified with Sanacja, would damage Poland's image with the Allies) and German pressure, the Romanian Foreign Minister Grigore Gafencu announces that all members of the Polish government will be interned on Romanian soil.

Moscicki is placed under house arrest at Bicaz, in the Carpathians. The Polish constitution of April 1935 gives him a crucial power: in the event of presidential incapacity he may designate his successor by decree. The clause is meant to secure the continuity of the state.

On 25 September he signs a first decree naming as successor Boleslaw Wieniawa-Dlugoszowski — cavalry general, intimate friend of Pilsudski, ambassador of Poland to Italy since 1938. Wieniawa is immediately contested in Paris: Daladier considers him "too Sanationist," and Sikorski (preparing the government-in-exile) refuses to serve under him. Very firm French pressure is conveyed by ambassador Leon Noel.